Tony Evans- Getting Through The Enemys Line With Prayer

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
A bodybuilder one day went to Africa. He was doing
a tour of Africa. He was one of these hugely
buffed guys, and he was during a tour and they
went to a little village and they thought they would
entertain the villagers by letting him do a lot of
his profiles of physique. And so he did all of

(00:23):
these different turns and twists, and muscles were bulging, and
it was quite an impressive performance that this tribe had
never seen before, this kind of bodybuilding exposition. After he
was completed, the tribal chief said to him, He said,

(00:46):
that really looked good. That was extremely impressive. I don't
know that I've seen that many muscles on a man before.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
He said, what else do you use.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
All of that for, to which the bodybuilder this was
his profession, He said, well, nothing else, to which the
tribal chief said, what a waste to have all that
muscle and not use it? What a way is to

(01:22):
have all this armor and.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Not use it.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
The apostle Paul had said to the church at Ephesus
and to us that your struggle is not against the
physical world Verse twelve of Chapter six Flesh and Blood.
That's where it is expressed. That's not where it's rooted.
That's merely where the fruit manifests itself. It's not against

(01:50):
the physical world, flesh and blood, but against principalities and
powers and world forces of this darkness, spiritual wickedness in
heavenly places. Whatever is plaguing you today emanates from the
spiritual realm. So if you and I do not address
the cause, you can't get to the cure. The enemy

(02:14):
doesn't want you to know or take seriously that it
emanates from the spiritual realm, because then you might address
it spiritually.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
As long as he can keep you dealing.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
With the fruit and bypass the route, he can keep
you hostage. Paul says, your wrestle is in another realm.
It's in heavenly places, and because your battle is in
the spiritual realm, that's where your fight must be. But

(02:46):
the good news is he tells you to stand firm
because in that realm, Jesus has already gotten victory. In
the spiritual realm, regardless of what you're going through in
the physical realm, in the spiritual unseen realm, Jesus Christ
has already gotten victory. You are victorious in the invisible,

(03:10):
even though you may be thoroughly defeated in the visible.
So if you want to be victorious in the physical
like you are in the spiritual, you must address the
physical spiritual lee. If you don't address the visible physical spiritually,
then you have a victory that you're not experiencing because

(03:34):
of how the physical is dominating. One of the toughest
things for God to get his people to do is
to look at life and live life from the spiritual
frame of reference and not from the reference point of
the five senses. He has given us equipment with which

(03:55):
to do that. He comes to verse eighteen in Ephesians said,
and he says, with all prayer and petition, pray at
all times in the spirit with this in view, be
on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all
the saints, and pray on my path. I want you

(04:16):
to notice how many times the word or a synonym
for prayer is used in that short segment all prayer
and petition. Pray comes to the end of it, petition
for all the Saints beginning of verse nineteen, and pray.

(04:45):
He closes out this segment with a call to prayer
or what I call putting on the armor. How do
you put on the armor? How do you wear what
God is given us for victory? How do we grab it?
Get it, hold on to it? And he tells you

(05:08):
in verse eighteen and following he says, the answer is prayer. Now,
the question is what is it? We talk about prayer,
we speak about it, we do it. But I want
to take us a little deeper to make sure we
understand it. Because when you understand prayer, it changes that

(05:33):
you pray, how you pray, whether you pray, and your expectations.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Having prayed.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
For far too many people, even Christians, prayer is like
the national anthem before a football game or baseball game.
It gets the game started, but has absolutely no relevance
to what's happening on the field. It is an exercise in.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Habit.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Most of us, for example, when we pray before we eat,
really don't need our minds to do that, cause it's
gonna be the same thing we say every day. Lord,
bless this food and nursure to our bodies than Jesus name, Amen.
Most of us really don't need our minds when we
go to bed if we're tired, you know, bless me,

(06:29):
bless my family, Give me a good night's sleep, you know,
protect me during the night, wake me up tomorrow in
Jesus name, Amen. It is carrying forth and expectation and
a routine without meaning. For many of us, prayers like
it's fair tire. We want it there in case we

(06:52):
really need it. But if we don't need it, as
long as it's back there somewhere and we can whip
it out, particularly in an emergency, then we need it.
But I want to explain what Paul wants to explain,
which is why he uses it so many times in
this verse coming at the end of this section, because

(07:16):
if you understand prayer in the context of this section,
it will change whether you pray and in fact how
you pray, and it will change what you get when
you pray. Simply defined, I would like to define prayer
as earthly permission for heavenly interference. Earthly permission for heavenly interference.

(07:46):
It is Earth giving Heaven permission to interfear or to
intervene in what is happening in my world of reality.
From the spiritual point of view, prayer is giving Heaven
permission to intervene. Now that raise is a question, why

(08:10):
does Heaven need permission? Why why must I give Heaven permission?
Now the whole theology behind this, But to sum it up,
you have to understand how God organized the world to work.
He organized the world to work through people. Therefore, when
He created Adam and Eve, he said, let them rule.

(08:33):
So God has given us rulership over the earth, and
he joins us when invited to do so. In other words,
there's certain things God gonna do because you know he's
God and he can do it. But there are many things,
and maybe even most things, that God does not intervene

(08:55):
on unless requested, because he wants to know you want him,
you need him, desire him, and have expectations of him,
and so he does not intervene or participate unless requested

(09:17):
to do so. Because God has given you and me
the right to leave him out, you can leave him out,
you can put him on the shelf. You can act
independently of him. Let me explain something. Prayer doesn't make
God do anything. Okay, Prayer doesn't force him cajole him.

(09:44):
If God doesn't plan to do it, I don't care
how much you pray about it. Prayer does not force
God's hand. But what prayer does is it calls on
God to intervene in ways He will wants to intervene anyway,
but won't do it until requested to do so. Let

(10:07):
me show you what I mean. For example, if you
look at well, let me show you two passages right
quick on this first of all, James, the end of
the Book of James.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
He says in James.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
Chapter five, verse sixteen, therefore confession sends to one another,
and pray for one another so that you may be healed.
He says, pray for one another so that you may
be healed. In other words, he makes a condition of
the healing the prayer. Then he makes a general statement.

(10:44):
The effectual prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much. The
effectual prayer will tell you how to make your prayer
effectual in a moment. But the effectual prayer of a
righteous man, a man who's living to please God, accomplishes much,
not a little, a whole lot. Elijah verse seventeen was

(11:08):
a man with a nature like ours. In other words,
don't say I wish I was back in the Old Testament,
because God did all that stuff back there for them.
He says, Elijah was just like you. He had a nature.
He was a man, he was human, and he prayed earnestly,
effectually that it would not rain, and it did not

(11:30):
rain on the earth for three years and six months.
Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and
the earth produced fruit. It says, he's an ordinary man,
just like you and me. Elijah had nothing on you.
He had a like nature, just a regular man. But

(11:54):
he was a righteous man. And he prayed earnestly that
it would not rain, and it stopped raining for three years.
He prayed again that it would rain, and it rained
and then produced fruit or produce results on earth, because
of course that's what rain does. It allows vegetation and
fruit to grow. So he says that this ordinary man

(12:18):
got Heaven to move because rain comes from up there.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
There was a.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Problem on earth. He called on heaven, and heaven moved.
But I want to take you back to when he prayed.
So turn back to First King's Chapter eighteen, First Kings,
Chapter eighteen, First Kings eighteen, verse one. Now it happened

(12:46):
after many days that the word of the Lord came
to Elijah in the third year, saying, go show yourself
to a hab and I will send rain on the
face of the earth. Okay, Now, all we read in
James in the New Testament was that he prayed it

(13:06):
would not rain and stopped. Then he prayed that he
would rain, and it started. That's all James tells us.
But the Bible tells us that we are to compel
scripture with scripture. So now I'm taking you back to
when he prayed that it would rain. God said in
chapter eighteen, verse one, go show yourself to a half,

(13:27):
and I will send rain on the face of the earth.
What did God say he was gonna do. He said
he was gonna send rain. The sovereign God said, this
is what I'm gonna do. Now in chapter eighteen, if
you go over to verse forty one. Now Elijah said
to Ah half, he was told to go show himself

(13:48):
to Ab, go up, eat and drink, for there is
the sounder of the roar of a heavy shower. And
Ab went up to eat and drink.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
But Eli, you went up to the.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
Top of Carmel, and he crouched down on the earth
and put his face between his knees, and he said
to his servant, go up, now look toward the sea.
So he went up and looked. He said, there is nothing.
And he said go back.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Seven times.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
He came about it the seventh times that he said, behold,
a cloud as small as a man's hand is coming
up from the sea. And he said, go up, and
say to a half, prepare your chariot, go down, so
that the.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Heavy shower does not stop you.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
In a little while, the sky grew black with clouds
and wind, and there was a heavy shower, and a
half rode and went to Jezreel. Then the hand of
the Lord was on Elijah, and he girded up his
loins and out ran a half to Jezreel. There's a
whole bunch here. Let me just give you the cliff notes.

(14:57):
God said it's gonna rain, so watch this. When Elijah prayed,
he only prayed about what God said. In other words,
he wasn't just making up stuff on the spot. God
said it was gonna rain. But wait a minute. What

(15:17):
God said didn't come true until he prayed, even though
God declared it in the heavenly realm, in the spiritual realm,
no rain hit earth until he got called down for
from Elijah. In other words, prayer called down what God

(15:42):
already had intended to do. Pray didn't make God do
something he hadn't planned to do. God had already told
him I plan for it to rene. All prad did
was calling down, and it was an interesting way he prayed.
It says he crouched down on his knees and put

(16:02):
his head down. Now that may not be much to you,
but it means the whole lot back in the Old Testament,
because when a pregnant woman was getting ready to give birth,
they didn't have stirrups like we had at today. It
would be travailed.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
It would be pushing.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Out what had grown in. When Elijah got down on
his knees, he was getting in a travail position because
he was pulling out of Heaven that which Heaven intended
to do, until he got pushed down to earth. And
he pushed seven times m seven times until that baby

(16:49):
got birthed, called rain. In other words, all Elijah's prayer
did was grab what God had already intended to do
and bring it down to earth. Prayer is not making
God do something he never planned to do. Prayer is

(17:10):
grabbing what God intended to do and driving it down
to earth. But it doesn't happen on earth just because
it's already intended in Heaven. It happens on earth because
it was grabbed by Earth when Heaven has already declared
it to be and brought it down to Earth by our.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
Participation with it.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
What I'm trying to say is when Paul says to pray,
he is not just saying, have these general, meaningless, repetitious,
empty conversations and think that because you threw God's name
out it was something significant. He says, what makes it
significant is you understand what prayer is. It is earthly

(17:57):
permission for heavenly interference. Prayer dedicated on the fact that
this is what Heaven intended to do. Prayer. Let me
put it another way. Your problem is in heavenly places.
Prayer takes you there. Prayer is the human means of
entering in to the supernatural realm in.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Order to utilize the Alma.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
When you look back at Ephesians chapter six, and you
look at the last piece of armor before he even
talks about prayer, notice what it is. He says that
we are to use the sword of the spirit, which
is the word of God. In other words, the best

(18:43):
way to pray is when you throw God's word back
at him because See, he knew he could pray for
rain because he had heard the word of God about rain.
So he knew what to expect because he knew what
God had said. Having known what God has said and

(19:04):
praying in light of what he says gives you athority
in the spiritual realm. They put it another way, if
you don't know what God has said, or you don't
know what to expect from God, then you will pray
they prayers. You will pray empty prayers, and the armor
won't seem the work because you're not connecting it with

(19:25):
the spiritual realm in which it operates. He says, I
want you to make contact with God, flesh and blood. See,
we spend all of our time talking to men about God,
and very little time talking to God about men. We
spend a lot of time talking to and about our circumstances.

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We'll talk on the phone, We'll talk to people who
usually can't solve our problem. We're looking for sympathy, and
so we talk to folks who can sympathize with us.
What you need an answers, not sympathy. What you need
is Heaven to invade Earth. When you throw God's stuff
back at him in a thing called prayer, you're not

(20:12):
making God do something. You are simply receiving by faith
what he's already planned to do. That changes the power
of prayer. You know, we've got radio and TV signals
all around us.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
All around us.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
They're signals. There's signals in the in the air right
here in this building. They're radio waves and they're TV signals,
and they're all around us. But we're not hearing any
music and we're not seeing anything on the TV screen.
Why because we don't have anything right now to pull
it down. In other words, if you turn on the

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radio right now, what's invisible will become visible. You'll be
able to hear it. If you had a TV set
plugged in, you would be able to see it because
you have something to receive it. In other words, you
need something in the physical to receive the waves in
the invisible. Even if you don't have a radio and

(21:13):
don't have a television, the waves are still operating, they're
still all over the place, they're still surrounding us. But
the lack of something to grab it and receive it
and bring it to the physical keeps you from knowing
it's there. God is moving, God is all over the place.
The spiritual realm is totally surrounding you right now. There

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are angels in this room, there are demons in this room.
The invisible realm is all over you right now. You
just can't see it and you can't feel it until
you draw it down. Okay, until you draw it down.
And so what he is saying is prayer is the
means of contacting the invisible spiritual realm and bring it

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down to the more physical realm. And that is the
way you engage the alma and put the armor to work. Now,
let's look at what he says here in chapter six.
He says, with all prayer and partition, pray at all
times in the spirit. Now watch this, he says, pray

(22:25):
at all times. There are two Greek words for time,
Cronos and cairos. Cronos is simply time in general. It's
seconds to minutes, minutes to hours, hours, today's days to weeks,
weeks to months, months to years. That's cronos. That's just
time general time. We exist in time, and we exist

(22:49):
linearly in time. Time moves forward. That's cronos. It's just
the general concept of time. But cronas is not the
word for time here. The Greek word for time here
is chios. That has to do with a specific, specified time.

(23:14):
If I say cairos, if I say I'm gonna meet
you at twelve o'clock, that's not time in general. That's
time specific. That's a certain time, a specific time. And
if I tell you I'm gonna meet you at twelve o'clock,
you know what that means. There's the reason why we're meeting.

(23:35):
Because if I make an appointment, that means I'm meeting.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
You for a purpose. So it is a specific time, an.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Opportune time, or an appointed time. Cairos is the word
used here in that chronos. When he says I want
you to pray at all times, He's not talking about
twenty four hours a day, you having this a verbal
conversation with God. He's talking about all opportune times, all

(24:06):
specific times, all appointed times. That's what the word means.
Why would he be using chiros instead of chronius. There's
a chronous concept pray without ceasing, that is always staying in.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Communication with God. But that's not what he says here.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
He says, I want you to pray at all cairos times,
appointed times, scheduled times, opportune times, specific times. Why is
he being so specific when he talks about your communication
with God here because of the context in which this
discussion about prayer occurs. It occurs in a context of

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spiritual warfare. It occurs in the context of putting on
spiritual armor. And notice the real context that it occurs
in in verse thirteen, Take on the full armor of
God so that you may be able to resist in
the evil day. He's talking about the the evil day.
That's the day when all hell breaks loose. That's the

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day when you feel like you're gonna lose your mind.
That's the day when nothing's going right. That's the day
when you're just not gonna make it. That's the day
when you wonder, how am I gonna get through another
day because you're under attack.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
Some days you don't go through that.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Some days the day is fine, and you may have
a little thing go wrong here, a little thing go
wrong there, But overall life is good, and life is
life is going okay. But you and I know some
days are nothing like that. Some days it looks like
the devil's riding your back. Looks like everywhere you turn
something is going wrong. It looks like every direction you
look in God is invisible and is nowhere to be found.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
That's the evil day.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
That's the day when evil has descended upon you, trying
to own you, dominate you, and dictate to you. He says,
on that day, at that time, when you're under that
kind of attack, you need this kind of prayer because
that day demands the armor of God be worn by
you in all of God's power brought to bear on

(26:11):
your circumstances. What he is calling for is specific prayer,
concentrated prayer, Elijah kind of prayer where you have to
throw God's stuff back up at him so that He
can reintervene.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Into your circumstances.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
One of the reasons we don't see God show up
is that we don't earnestly talk to God when we
need him. We got these vague prayers that we've been
saying for twenty five years. Okay, but let me tell
you something about when all hell breaks loose, when all
health breaks lose, you have a unique ability to gainst
specific See when everything's going well, it's easy to be general,

(26:54):
you know.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
Thank you all for blessing me, you know, but.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
When our hell breaks loose, you got specific stuff you up.
You've got specific things that are causing you headaches and
heartaches and life aches. And He's calling you in those
specific times that is the time to call on God.
And he says how you are to do it. He says,
you are to call on Him in the spirit. In

(27:22):
the spirit. Let me say it another way. You are
to call on him spiritually. You are to call on
him spiritually. Now, the opposite of spirit is flesh. So
maybe if I say pray in the flesh and do
the negative, you'll understand what he means by praying the spirit.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
To pray in the flesh is simply to.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Mouth the words coming out of your humanity with no
spiritual attachment to them.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
It is simply my humanity.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
It's generally how we say grace, most prayer or many
prayers when we say great are prayers in the flesh.
They're just routine things that we say because we know
we supposed to say grace before we eat, with no
spiritual attachment. There is no spiritual connection to it. To
pray in the spirit means that you're making a spiritual

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connection to the communication that you want to take place
with God. Now you can do that in a number
of ways. You can quote scriptures in your prayer, or
you can take a principle of scripture and place it
in front of God. See when you tell God, God,
remember you said you would supply all my needs according

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to your riches in glory in Christ Jesus, and I
got this emergency situation going.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
On right now.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
But the reason I'm talking to you is because you
said that when I was in this and you said,
I've never seen the righteous north of seed begging brand
You said, you see, see when you pray spiritually, because
the Bible says God's words are spirit and you bring
spiritual truth into your conversation with God. You are now

(29:09):
praying in the spirit. You are praying spiritually. You're not
just playing fleshly or randomly or routinely or rotely. You
are now calling on God bringing the spirit to bear
in the conversation. Now, let me tell you what happens
when you pray spiritually.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Turn the Romans chapter eight.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Romans chapter eight, When you pray spiritually, when you pray
bringing the spiritual to bear in the situation. He says,
this whole chapter is about the Spirit of God Romans,
chapter eight, and he wants us to know that the

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Spirit is at work. He says, let me look at
a couple of verse verse twenty two, before we know
that the whole creation groans and offer the pain of childbirth.
Until now, so again this childbirth thing, this groaning, this aching,
this labor pain, he says. And not only this, but
also we ourselves having the first fruits of the spirit,

(30:12):
even we ourselves grown within ourselves anybody he have grown.
In other words, because circumstances in.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
Life, God, you're going m oh ah.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
Life is hurting you, and you're groaning, waiting eagerly for
our adoptionist sons and redemption of the body verse twenty six.
In the same way, the spirit also helps our weaknesses,
for we do not know how to pray as we should.
But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too

(30:45):
deep for words. Now this is where you growning and
don't know what to say. Isn't got that bad? And
he who searches the heart knows what the mind of
the spirit is because he intercedes for the saints. Watch
this according to the will of God.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
So what he says is when you bring what you
know to be.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
The will of God into the presence of God, and
you are growning.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
The Holy Ghost grows with you.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
And because he knows how deep the problem is, how
deep the need is, how bad the attack is, he
comes alongside and helps a brother out, helps a sister out.
In your weak moment when you can't make it another day,
but you bring spiritually into the presence of God, the

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Spirit takes over and he lifts you up in a
way you cannot lift yourself up, and neither can anybody
you know lift you up.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
So why do you want to pray in the spirit.
You want to pray in the spirit because he knows
the territory.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
You want to pray in the spirit because he knows
what's happening up there in the invisible realm. He knows
what the evil one is doing to you. He's calling
you to pray in the spirit. Let me show you
how this thing works, because I think this will help
us in our prayer and make me a prayer more
dynamic and more real.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Instead of more wrote and more boring.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
For many of us, a prayer is a boring thing
because we don't understand what's happening in the invisible, and
if you understood what's happening in the visible, it wouldn't
be boring anymore.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
So let me show you Daniel chapter nine.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
I know we turned into a number of versus today,
but I want you to understand this principle so that
you and I can experience the.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Power of prayer. Daniel Chapter nine.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
In the Book of Daniel, Daniel is a man after
God's heart. And in Daniel chapter nine, look at verse two.
In the first year of his reign, I Daniel observed
in the Book of number of Years which was revealed
as the word of the Lord to Jeremiah, the prophet

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for the completion of the day of Jerusalem.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
Namely seventy years.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Okay, so he's reading the Bible, says he read the
Book of Jeremiah. He was reading the Bible, and he
observed something. He observed what the scripture says verse three.
So I gave my attention to the Lord God to
seek him by prayer and supplication, with fasting sackcloth and ashes,

(33:24):
I prayed to the Lord my God.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
He read what God said, then he talked to God
about it. Okay, So he found out the mind of God.
The thoughts of God from the Word of God. And
then he talked to God about what God's at. Okay,
now you're praying in the spirit. Whenever you bring God's
stuff back at him, you're praying in the spirit.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
So why do you want to study the Bible. Well,
one is to.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Know more about God, but the other is to throw
God's stuff back up at him. He prays in the spirit. Okay,
Now go down to verse twenty. Now, while I was speaking,
praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my
people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord, my
God in behalf of the Holy Mountain to my God.

(34:09):
While I was still speaking in prayer, then the man Gabriel,
that's the angel whom I had seen in the vision previously,
came to me in my extreme weariness because he was
tired and the time of the evening offering. He gave
me instruction and talked with me and said, oh, Daniel,
I have now come forth.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
To give you insight and understanding.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
Way met. Now he read the Word. Then he talked
to God about the word he read. Then God sends
an angel to say, let me help you understand some stuff,
because a lot of us could get through what we're
going through if we just understood what was going on.
But because like Marvin Gay, we just want to know
what's going on and we don't know what's really going on,

(34:53):
we don't make the connection what God says and our
communication with God. Noticed, he didn't send me angel to
give him understanding about his situation until he prayed. But
he didn't pray until he found out what God had
to say. He found out what God had to say,
he prayed, God said the messenger to give him understanding.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
Look at verse twenty three.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
This is gonna get good here in a minute, he said,
in verse twenty three, at the beginning of your supplication,
the command was issued, and I have come to tell
you for you a highly.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Esteemed a righteous man.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
So give heed to the message and gain understanding of
the vision. All right, now, watch this, he says. Don't
miss this. He says, when you prayed, the command was
given for me to come. All right, Rochester, Now, when
you prayed, the command was given for me to come.

(35:48):
Now turn in chapter ten, verse ten. Then behold a
hand touched me, set me trembling on my hands and knees.
He said to me, oh, Daniel, man of high esteem,
understand the words which I am about to tell you,
and stand upright, for I have now been sent to you.

(36:11):
And when he had spoken this word to me, I
stood up trembling. Then he said to me, do not
be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you
set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself
before your God, your words were heard, and I have
come in response to your words. Notice I came because

(36:34):
of your words. But your words were tied to God's words.
So when you brought your words hooked about the God's words,
God sent me to talk to you about what you
talk to God about. But watch this, But the Prince
of the Kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty
one days. Then behold Michael, one of the chief princes,

(37:00):
says Michael. The Archangel came to help me, for I
had been left there with the kings of Persia. Now
I have come to give you understanding of what will
happen to your people in the latter days, for the
vision pertains today's yet future.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
All right, let me break this down.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
He's reading the Word and God says something that grabs him.
He's reading the prophet Jeremiah, and the words jump off
the page, and he says, well, wait a minute, this
applies to me. He then gets on his knees and
talks to God about what he just read. So he's
now in the spirit because he's bringing God to bear

(37:41):
on the situation.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
Twice. It says, on the day you prayed, God said
the answer.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
All right, watch this now, seeking that a lot of
people here wondering why God's taking so long. He told Daniel,
your prayer was answered the very day you prayed it. Now,
why was your prayer answered the day you prayed it?
Because you're highly esteemed, you're a righteous man, and you're

(38:14):
praying according to the Word. When you're a righteous person
praying according to the Word, it doesn't take long for
God to answer your prayer. In fact, he says, God
answered it on the same day that you asking, but
there was a three week delay.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
You ain't God.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
Answered it the same day, but it says it took
me twenty one.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
Days to deliver it to you.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Now, let me tell you about God's post office. God's
got a post office. He got some mailmen. These mailmen
called angels. Their job is to deliver the answer to you.
Everybody's been assigned an angel who's a Christian. If you're
a christ you got an angel assigned to you, and

(39:02):
that's your personal mailman, and that job, the job of
that angel is to deliver God's answers to you. When you,
based on the word, communicate with God in prayer as
a righteous person.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
You're just like Elijah.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
You're calling down from Heaven on earth a need that
Heaven needs to address. But there was a three week
delay of the angel. Okay, Gabriel, why was there a
three week delay? There was a three week delay because
a demon showed up, He says, the prince of Persia.

(39:41):
That's a demon, because he calls himself as an angel,
a prince. He says, the demon over Persia, which is
where you're living. The demon that's hovering around where you're living,
was there, and he blocked me as I was trying
to deliver to you on the same day that you
ask it. The demon, you see, unless you know what's

(40:02):
happening in the invisible world, all you see is God's
not answering my prayer in the visible world, he say,
But Damiel, I want you to understand what's going on there.
Was a demon, and the demon lived where you're living.
The demon lived in your neighborhood. The demon lived in Persia,
which is where you're living. Just like God has a

(40:25):
post office to deliver your answer, Hell has a post
office to block the delivery. How was the keeping the
delivery away? So now you got a battle between angels
that's stopping you from getting the answer to your prayer.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
It's not that God.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Hasn't answered your prayer. He answered it the day you
prayed your prayer. But because there is a battle in
the heavenlys, there is warfare in the spiritual way. That's
why that.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
Is the delay. So the question is not God.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
Why haven't you answered my prayer? It's how do we
work out this virtual warfare so the answer that you've
given gets to me. He says, I was coming down,
and the demon or the prince of Persia that is
set up to block the answer that I was to
deliver to you, he blocked me.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
And we were rumbling for three weeks.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
But then God said Michael, he big angel in charge.
He sent Michael down to give a brother some help.
And when he sent Michael down, now if God had
to call Michael, that means the demons were rough, so
he has to call Michael. Michael and Gabriel double team

(41:48):
the dude, get him out of the way so that
he could deliver the plussing. Now here's why you gotta
keep praying. Don't praying to get God to answer. If
it's based on his word and Grace has already provided
everything you're supposed again, you don't keep praying to get

(42:12):
God the answer.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
You are now.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Praying for God to intervene to keep Satan from blocking
the answer He's already given. So now you're praying in faith.
When you pray according to God's word and you're calling
on God according to his word, you don't have to
ask him over and over and over and over again

(42:36):
for the same thing if it's according to his word.
Once you ask him sincerely, the rest of your prayers
are thank you for answering. Thank you for answering. Thank
you for answering, because you already answered the day I
delivered it. And the reason I got a delay is
that stuff going on in the spiritual world that's giving
me my delay. It's not that God has an answer.

(42:58):
God is good on his word, He's good on his promises.
He can be dependent upon. So you'll keep praying because
you're trying to break through the delivery that was already granted.
And that's why you can spend time giving thanks, because
God answers when you ask based on his word. This

(43:23):
good stuff, this good stuff, this will make you want
to pray, he says back in Ephesians. Let me wind
this up, he says, back in Ephesians, all prayer, all time,
all perseverance. And look at what he says. He says
in verse eighteen, he says, he don't wants you to

(43:46):
do with this in view.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
Be on alert. Be on alert.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
Translation, pray with your eyes open, okay, keep your eyes open.
That's what it means. Do you know most prayers in
the Bible are not with eyes closed. I mean we
know that, we know we do that to kind of
concentrate or to show reference. But most of the times
that people a praying, the Bible says, and they lifted

(44:17):
their eyes.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Okay, eyes were open. Okay, he says, keep your eyes open.
What are you keeping your eyes open? Four? Look at
first Peter chapter five, verse eight.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
He wants us to pray with the eyes open, and
he says in one Peter these words, be of sober spirit,
and be on the alert. Keep your eyes open your adversary.
The devil prows around like a roaring lion seeking someone
to devour. He says. The devil is trying to eat

(44:58):
you up like a roaring lion. But a lot of
people don't know when lions roar. Lions don't row when
they're coming up on their prey. They don't rough it in.
Lions roar after they get their prey. It's when they
get you. They already they roar. In other words, it's

(45:21):
their declaration of victory. They roar after the fact, not
before the fact. You have to be on alert because
they creeping up on you until they pounce on you.
After they pounce on you and devour you, they raw
because of the victory.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
He says.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
Keep your eyes open when you pray, because when you're
calling down heaven, Hell wants to block that. So keep
your eyes open, that is spiritually open, to see what's
going on around you. Because when you are talking to heaven,
hell wants to block that. That is why so many

(45:59):
times when you're trying to pray, distractions show up. So
many times when you're trying to pray.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
You're sleepy. So many times.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
When you're trying to pray, something pops up because the
lion does not want you to interfere with his trying
to block the answer from getting to you. And that's
why you gotta pray with your eyes open. That's why
you gotta do it. You know, if you go to Jerusalem,
you'll see the Jews up at the whaling wall, and
they got the Bible in front of the hand, and

(46:27):
you see them doing this. You see them doing that
at the whaling wall. Okay, the reason that they're doing
that is so they don't go to sleep. They keep
moving so that they stay alert and stay awake as
they communicate with gods at the whaling wall.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
That's the reason they do that.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
He say pray with your eyes open, because when you
talk to Heaven, your prayer giving Heaven permission, it's so
powerful that the enemy does not want that prayer to
go through, and so he's gonna try to distract you
from praying. He's gonna try to delude you from praying.
He's gonna cause something to come up interfere with your prayer.

(47:03):
You thought that was just chance or luck or distraction. No,
It wasn't It was a lion trying to keep you
from being able to get a breakthrough that you've been
looking for for so long that was already approved in heaven.
A long time ago, two men heard that they were

(47:23):
giving five thousand dollars bounties for capturing or killing wolves,
five thousand dollars per wolf. Boy, let's become bounty hunters
for these wolves. So he and his friend decide to
become bounty hunters and the capture woods five thousand dollars
a wood. One day, they woke up in the middle
of the night and they were surrounded about fifty pairs

(47:48):
of wolves, all with teeth during ravenous wolves. Hungry, he
woke up with the other guy. He said, John, we're rich. See,
you got to have the right perspective. You gotta have

(48:12):
the right perspective. If the enemy is trying to distract
your prayer, that's good news.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
That's good news. That's good news.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
He's trying to distract your prayer because that means that
it's already been approved, it's already on the way, and
Hell doesn't want you to get it because he wants
to keep you from making contact with God. Somebody ought
to be ready to talk to God. Somebody ought to
be ready to find out what God has to say
and throw it back up in his face. Because a

(48:44):
lot of the stuff you were asking for has already
been preapproved. It's just that in the spiritual realm there
is the attempt to block it. But if you will
persevere after Cairo's time and specifically throw it back in
God's face, He'll send the help needed to break it
through so that you see it revealed in the physical realm.