James chapter five. Most of you know we've been speaking this week on the subject of prayer. Here's a little passage that deals with a variety of aspects of prayer. James chapter five and verse thirteen. Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merry, let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick. And the Lord shall raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your thoughts one to another. and pray one for another that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, that rain not on the earth by the space of three years and six months, and he prayed again. And the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him, let him know that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins. I am sure the Lord will bless to us the reading of these verses. Now the epistle of James is a little epistle that has been greatly neglected. I don't know why, but I somehow have come to the conclusion the reason why it has been neglected may be because it's too practical. You see, in chapter one, he deals... with practical Christianity. And he shows that Christianity is not simply something that we repeat with the lips. That it's something that's carried out in action in the life. You can take time to study it in chapter one and you'll find that. So he deals with the practical man in chapter one. He deals with the partial man in chapter two and he shows that there should be no partiality in Christian communities. When it comes to chapter three, he deals with the perfect man. You've never met him, have you? The perfect Christian. That's the person who has learned how to bridle the little member called the town. When you come to chapter four, it's most interesting that he opens up chapter four dealing with a passionate man. He moves from there into a little area where he deals with the proud man and shows that God resisted the proud. He glides from there into a little section where he deals with the pure man. And again mentions what we mentioned the other evening, the necessity for purity of life. Then he moves still further and he deals with the presumptuous man and he shows how wrong that is for us to say we're going to do this today and do the next thing tomorrow and we'll do so much business this year and when we've accumulated so much we'll increase our business and we'll spread out further afield and so on. And he says, that's a presumptuous man because you don't even know what's going to be on the model. And you should always say, is the Lord will. That being so, we come further into chapter five. And in chapter five, the first section of this chapter, he deals with the patient man. And he seems to show in the opening verses that it's not our business. to try to make the world a better place for we never will. But he shows us how we should act in the midst of things that may be wrong, things that we think are wrong. Our business is to exercise patience unto the coming of the Lord. He uses two illustrations. He uses an illustration from nature. And he shows you that the farmer has got to exercise patience. Taking the figure from the Middle East, he's got to wait for the early and the latter rain. He's got to wait for the early rains in order to soften the ground so that he can plow and then sow. He's got to wait for the latter rains so that the harvest will really ripen and the ears of corn will become full with the moisture. Then there comes the harvest. But while that man may plow and sow and harvest, he's got to have patience waiting God's time. And he's got to bring his work into line with God's work. And if the farmer plows at the wrong time and sows at the wrong time, he will not have the harvest. So the work of the husbandman or the father must be brought into line with God's movement. And he must exercise patience and wait for God. Then he brings another illustration and he introduces a man. And he says, now you heard of the patience of Job. You remember how he endured. And how he had to wait for God's time. And when it came God's time, there was a turning point. And the end of that man was better than the first. Now it's right from that link that he moves into this section dealing with prayer. And the closing part of his epistle, the latter part of chapter five, is that which deals with prayer. Now, I might go off at a tangent here for a moment if it interests you. If you are interested in studying the Epistle of James, I made two tapes for Emmaus Bible School a number of years ago. They run for, let me see, three hours, I think, two of them, three quarters of an hour on each side of the two tapes. Twelve lectures that cover the whole... of these five chapters. You don't need to write to Emmaus Bible School for them. I have them with me. If any of you are willing to take them and copy them, you're at liberty to copy them and put them on your own dates. That might save you a dollar or two so that you can help to buy one of the books that you've been told about tonight. There's nothing like saving a dollar here and spending it there if you're interested. However, we come tonight to the section dealing with prayer. Now watch the link between what we've said about the patient man and the prayerful man. He starts off this section dealing with prayer by saying, Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. There is private prayer. Let him pray. Then he says in verse fourteen, regarding those elders that are called in, Let them pray. There you'll agree with me. We have united prayer. In verse fifteen it says the prayer of faith. There is believing prayer. In verse sixteen it says pray one for another. There is mutual prayer. Then he says the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. There is effectual prayer. That's verse sixteen as well. Verse seventeen speaking of Elias it says he prayed earnestly. There is earnest prayer. Verse eighteen, speaking of the same man, he prayed again. With three and a half years between those two verses, I suggest there we have continued prayer. Now let us try and look into those various aspects of prayer for a little while. Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Private prayer. Now we saw the other evening from one of our studies that the Lord Jesus Christ taught them. The men had always to pray in that faint, and also he said, when you pray, enter into the private room, into the closet, shut the door, and pray to your Father in secret. He never raised the question as to whether we should or whether we should not pray. It's taken for granted that we would pray, and he tells us how to pray and where to pray. Now if you move out from the four Gospels and you come into the Acts of the Apostles, we pointed out the other night where we find records of the church gathering together for prayer, united prayer. But also in the Acts of the Apostles we have records of individuals praying. Do you know that the first thing that said about Saul of Tarsus when he was converted It was said about him, Behold, he prayeth. That's the first thing that said about him, Behold, he prayeth. Now prior to that he was a Pharisee. No doubt he was able to go to the temple or into a synagogue and recite the normal prayers. Being the son of a Pharisee, he would be trained and taught these Phariseeical prayers. And being a studious man, an intelligent man, an intellectual man, he would learn how to recite his prayers. If you were going to the wailing wall today, you would have no difficulty in reciting a prayer. For the simple reason, these Jews come along there, and they rock their bones backwards and forwards in front of the wailing wall, and they recite their prayers. If you don't know what to say, just look in the crevices of those massive rocks. And you'll see there are all those little papers with the prayers on them. You can take one out and read it if you like. That is if you can read their language. And there you are. And they'll take out a prayer and they'll read that prayer. No doubt Saul of Tarsus knew how to recite his prayers. Have it something has taken place? He's been converted. He's no longer saying a prayer. He's no longer reciting a prayer. It says, Behold, he... Now that's different from reciting a prayer. He is a man who's been converted. Now he knows how to speak to God. He's on speaking terms with God as a child would speak to a father. So in the Acts of the Apostles you have the records of people who prayed. Then of course you know that throughout the epistles as he writes to other people, particularly That literal epistle written to Philemon. He says to Philemon, his friend, he said, I'm praying for you in all my prayers, you know. I never pray without mentioning you. But now he said, I want to remind you that you're praying for me. And I am hoping that your prayers, I expect your prayers to be answered. So here's a case where people were praying. You and I have learned there's a need for individual prayer. You know, I sometimes think that this is the first stage in backsliding. It's not when people stop coming to meetings that they've started to backslide. That is only one of the evidences. When people stop praying... they've already started to slide and sliding away from the path of righteousness. It's a strange thing that wherever there was slight revivals and souls were being saved, those young converts were always anxious to come to prayer meetings. In fact, sometimes they started special prayer meetings for the young converts. But if they weren't praying at home, no doubt they'd have no desire to come to those prayer readings. Can you think back in your own life? Can you remember the first time that you were driven to your knees? The first time that you were faced with a difficulty? and you'll realize that the only answer to your difficulty was to get into the room and pray and ask God for help. That's really when you begin to pray. Not when you do it as a kind of formality before you jump into dead, but when something comes into your life and you're driven to your knees and you want to pray. And your prayer is answered and the thing grows on you. And you feel this is something that's like drawing your native air. You want to pray. Is any among you afflicted, let him pray. Where could we get a better example of a man being afflicted than the man who has just been mentioned a few verses before this? You've heard of the patience of Job. Was he afflicted? Of course he was. You remember he was a not-right man, a very pious man. A man with a big family, no doubt he had family responsibilities with seven sons and three daughters. He had a large farm. He would have laborers on his farm, his servants. He was a man who had a great responsibility, a rich man. But he wasn't without his problems. Is it strange how some people think that... It would be the answer to all the problems if only they could become rich. Like some of these rich people have greater problems than those of us who are poor. Some rich people don't know what they do. They're almost demented. They have problems that poor people know nothing about. Now don't misunderstand me, the poor people have their own problems of their particular nature. But there's not a man on the earth today without problems. I'll guarantee that the man occupying the White House has far greater problems than I have. That's why we should pray for him, as we saw the other evening. Job was a man who had his problems in life, but something else happened. Affliction after affliction came upon him. One day he lost his whole family in one fell sweet. And what he didn't know was this, that behind the scenes there was a battle going on in the heavenly. God, as it were, had thrown down the gauntlet to the devil himself and said, have you considered my servant Job? There's nobody like him. The best man in the face of the earth. Says the devil, yes, you've hedged them around, etc., etc. But take that hedge away and let me get at him. And you'll see where he is. He'll curse you to your face. But he didn't. He lost his family. He lost all his goods. He lost all that he had in one day. But many a person has lost their all and has started off again from the bottom and has built up. But do you remember he lost something more? He lost his health. And here's a man smitten with a great affliction. And in the midst of his affliction, he lost his friends. His friends turned against him. They misjudged him. Said all kinds of nasty things about him. He looks to his wife. She says, curse God and die. It's not what you're while living. He is a man left alone. Dressed with sackcloth and head covered with ashes and scraping himself with old pot shards. What have he in life? You've heard of the patience of Job. Do you know where the turning point came? The day that he prayed for those who had maliciously spoken against him. Now that is not an easy thing to do, is it? It's an easy thing to pray for our good friend. Oh, it's an easy thing to ask God's blessing upon those who have blessed us. I must admit it is not an easy thing to pray for those who have maligned you. It's not easy. But do you know he did? Job prayed for these very men that spoke against him. He interceded with God on their behalf, and that was the turning point in his life. You have heard of the patience of Job. Is any among you afflicted? Well, he was one. And the turning point came when he prayed. And prayed for these very people. Now, personally, I must admit it must have been a hard thing for him to do this. But he did it. God answered the prayer. And God turned, shall we say, the captivity of Job. brought him right out of his affliction, blessed him with double what he had had. The latter end of that man was better than the beginning because he prayed. If you don't believe, we don't search it now, wait till you get home and read the last chapter of the book of Job. The last chapter. That's where you find the turning point. And it brings the whole story to an end. Is any among you afflicted then? Let him pray. Let him pray. I don't want to become personal tonight. I could tell you personal incidents where this works. Where it works. And men's hearts are turned when you pray. He goes a little further, is any Mary, let him sing psalms, and then, is any sick among you, let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray. You know, here's a strange thing. This question of elders and their work seems to create an awful difficulty with some people. I have no difficulties with it whatsoever. For I spent weeks and months studying through the whole subject in the Bible, as far as I could find, and come to conclusions on the matter. But here is one of the hardest things I can get elders to do. That is pray. I mean, men who claim to be elders. They'll come together for a business meeting. They'll sit for hours and discuss all sorts of things. But they'll not pray. I must say that where I meet the little assembly, this is one thing I've tried to teach these men from the day that assembly was started, because they had strange backgrounds when we got together, just a handful of us, started an assembly. I've taught them this to the best of my ability, that those who are going to carry responsibility in an assembly must get together and pray. And before ever they discuss anything, they'll spend half an hour in prayer, and every one of them will pray. before ever they'll discuss anything. And we have never had one moment of disagreement when it comes to make decisions. They pray for a half an hour. Here we have a group of men that are called elders. They are acknowledged as such. not because they've been appointed to a particular position, but because they are displaying in their lives that the Holy Spirit has made them this. They are recognized as being this. And he said, this man who is sick, he calls for them, and these elders pray. Here is united prayer. A group of men together praying. What is better? that you have a group of men praying about something in particular, knowing what they're praying about and knowing why they're praying. Let them pray. When Job's friends came along to see him, there's no record of them praying at all. They stood in discourse and argued backwards and forwards as to why he was sick and so on. No record of them praying till the day came. Joe prayed for them. The sick man praying for the doctors who came to visit him. Strange, isn't it? Here is the doctors coming in. Oh yes, as you'll see in a moment, these are the doctors. And they're coming in and they're going to pray for this man. May I suggest this is one of the finest things we can do for some who may be sick. Nothing finer than being in the sick room than praying with them. That's better than preaching with them. I sometimes go to hospital rooms. Just pray with them. That's all. Just pray and leave them. The next time you go back, they'll be quite willing for you to read to them. Pray with them, even if they're not Christians. But if they're Christians, you can at least pray with them. I'll tell you why. And some of you have experienced this. When you're sick, it's not easy for you to pray. If you're in pain or in sickness, you can't get your thoughts to go right. You can't read the saved. You can't concentrate. You feel you can't even pray. You can just call out some little statement to the Lord out of your pain. But someone comes in and just takes your hand and prays with you. You can say, Amen. Well, what someone has done for you, you can do for someone else. But here it's a group of men getting together in the room with the sick person who has called for them. And these men get together, and here is united prayer, praying over him. Now, I know the verse says, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and this has created an awful difficulty with some people. Some folks think that this was a kind of ceremonial thing pouring on the oil. I'm just as well telling you where I stand with it. I don't think this was a ceremonial act at all. This was a medicinal thing. See, put yourself in the position of these Christians in that day. He is a man who's sick. He can't call for the Jewish doctor. He won't come to see him. For that Jewish rabbi, that Jewish doctor would treat that man as a heretic, Christian, a Jesus man, spit on the ground. He wouldn't come to see him. And he can't send for that witch doctor, that idolater, to come in with his incantations. The Christian is not going to send for a will. Who else can he get? The only Christian doctor we know of reading through the Bible was Dr. Luke, and he was away preaching, traveling with Paul. There was no Christian doctors to get. You couldn't go for the witch doctor, and you can't get the Jewish doctor. So you call for the elders. And of course, they brought the oil, which was the great medicinal application of that day. And naturally you'd rub the oil where the pain was. My mother believed in anointing with oil. She always kept four or five bottles of them in the house. The pain was under the belt and you got castor oil. That lubricated the inside. It was good. Still is. Very effective. If the pain was up in your chest, you'd got a cold. She rubbed you with hot camphorated oil. Put a piece of old blanket over you and put you to bed. It worked, still does. It's a lot cheaper than some of the modern medicines. You've got a pain in the ear. We've got ear oil. We've called it almond oil. You call it sweet oil, I think, over again. There's a little piece of cotton in this hot oil in the ear to ease the pain in the ear. If you were taking a cold with a cough, you've got cod liver oil. Two spoonfuls a day. Take it. It worked. It needs oil. Olive oil is a very effective thing. I think it was olive oil they used here. It was all they knew. I was speaking to an Arab just this year and he was telling me, I don't grew at this, he was telling me that every morning when his children get up, he had a big family, he says each of them drinks a cup of olive oil. I don't grew at this. That's why they love it. He acquired a taste for it. And they'd drink that olive oil the same as you would drink orange juice. He said, that's the first thing they get in the morning. Olive oil. You don't quite help you with it. Oil. Anointing him with oil. This was not a ceremonial thing. This was a medicinal thing. They used the oil and they prayed over him in the name of the Lord. Well you come to verse fifteen, and I'm going to suggest that verse thirteen, fourteen and fifteen are all connected more or less with the same thing. Here's the man who's afflicted, he's praying, and verse fourteen the man is sick and others are praying for him, and verse fifteen here's the kind of prayer. Look at verse fifteen, and I'm going to suggest that verse thirteen, fourteen and fifteen are all connected more or less with the same thing. He is the man who's afflicted, he's praying. In verse fourteen, the man is sick and others are praying for him. In verse fifteen, he is the kind of prayer, it's a prayer of faith. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick. See, you're still dealing with the sick. Man, the prayer of faith is believing prayer. What's the good of praying if you don't believe God will answer your prayer? The other evening I mentioned the name of a man called George Mueller. I don't know if any of you have ever read the records of George Mueller. I think there's a new one being written, but the old authentic one was the one written by Dr. A.T. Pearson. And I read that book when I was quite a young Christian that left an influence in my life. Stories told about George Mueller that he was coming over to this country, coming over the Atlantic. You know the old ships used to take a long time to come over. First time we come over, it took us Eleven days. I've never forgot it. You go over now in seven hours. Just flip over. Took eleven days in the ship. We struck one of those storms in the North Atlantic. I've never forgot that. You don't know whether you were going up to hit the roof up there. It was coming down to hit you and you didn't care. George Mueller was coming over. He used to speak at a conference, I think, in that great city of Boston. He says he was coming over the North Atlantic. One of those thick fogs came down and the ship was almost at a standstill just grinding away and just moving very slowly. And he went up onto the bridge and he saw the captain. He said, Captain, when do you think this ship will be in? He said, we're going to be late. He said, we'll stop this fog. And he said, when we get them like this, they usually lie on us for three or four days. He said, we just got to take it very slowly and edge along. We're going to be late in getting in. He said, look. I'm due to speak at a conference in Boston and such and such a day. He said, we'll never make it. Well, he said, Captain, he said, will you care to go down to your cabin with me and we'll pray about it? For the captain, I understand, was a professing Christian. The captain says, well, Mr. Mueller, if you think it'll do any good, yes, we'll go down and we'll pray. So they went down to the captain's cabin. They shut the door. I went down on the knees and he said, Mr. Mueller began to pray and he says, Father, says, you know that you ordered your servant to come over here to address these people at this conference. This was the only ship that was available and I'm due to be there and thy children are waiting there at that conference for that date. And he said, If I'm not there, what are they going to do? What am I going to do? You sent me here and I'm due to be there. Will you kindly lift the fog and let the ship move on at its usual pace? Amen. The captain said he was just about to start praying and Mr. Mueller laid his hand on his shoulder. He says, don't bother, brother. Don't bother. He says, why not? He says, for two reasons. He says, first of all, you didn't think it would be any good. So what's the good of praying? The second reason, he said, God has already answered the prayer and the fog is lifted. Let's go out and see. Sure enough, said the captain came up on deck and the fog was gone. That captain said he never forgot that. Mr. Mueller taught him a lesson that day. There was the prayer of faith. He had reasons for praying it. He believed that God could answer prayer. He was the God of the weather. He came up and the fog was gone. The prayer of faith, that believing prayer. If we don't believe that the thing we're asking will be granted, then don't ask it. It's an insult to God. If any of your children came along and asked you for something, they wouldn't ask you unless they believed you were going to give it. If you and I are going to the presence of God to ask him for something, we should believe that he's ready to give us the thing we're asking, or else don't insult him by asking him. The prayer of faith, that believing prayer, our God is a great God, and we should ask great things from a great God. When you come to verse sixty, he says, Confess your thoughts one to another, and pray one for another. Here is mutual prayer. Some people, you know, want everybody else to be praying for them. For they never think it worth their while to get down on their knees and pray for the other person. Now if you expect your friend to pray for you, you should be ready to pray for your friend. It's mutual prayer. praying one for another. You can't always be on the receiving end. If you expect people to take time to go into the closet and mention your name before God, you should be taking time to pray for them. They need your prayers just as much as you need their prayers. Here we have something in common, where we can meet at the mercy seat and be found praying one for another. Then he said, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. I remember puzzling over that, struggling over it. The effectual fervent prayer. You know, effectual fervent prayer took me in my studies to the Garden of Gethsemane. For the Lord Jesus that night, being in an agony, prayed the more earnestly. Sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground. Effectual servant prayer. You know, perspiration is not inspiration. A person may get very excited. You may think they're very fervent. It could all be of the flesh. The effectual fervent prayer is something that's coming from the heart. And you can tell the heartbeat of a man who's speaking to God. And you can tell when you're through. When you're through with speaking to God. Sometimes you felt like Daniel felt that the prayer was being hindered and wasn't getting through. You seem to be able to tell when you're getting through to God with your prayers. Factual, avid prayer availeth much. Now he said to prove it. I'll give you another example. I want you to think of Elijah, he said. Elijah. Oh, but says someone I could never rise to the height of a man like Elijah. Why, he was the great prophet of God. Well, that's perfectly true, but turned over the picture. He was a man subject to like passions such as you are. Elijah was just the same as you and me. Elijah was a man who could be on the mountaintop of triumph one day. down in the valley of depression the next day. There was a time when Elijah got so depressed, he said, oh, God is not what my well-living, take me away, let me die. You know, God never let him die. He took him to heaven without dying. God did something better for him. Okay, Elijah was a man subject to the same ups and downs, ins and outs as we are. So don't push this off and say, I can never be like Elijah. You're just the same as Elijah. Elijah understood your problems, and you and I should understand his problems. But Elijah was a man subject to light passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly. That it might not rain, and it rained on in the early space of three years and six months. Now watch this very carefully. Don't start doing it now, because you'll not find it, but try it at home. Could you tell me where in the Old Testament he prayed this prayer? I've never been able to find it. Don't look for it now. You won't find it. It's not there. Nowhere in the Old Testament will you find that Elijah prayed that it wouldn't rain for three and a half years. Here is something that's in the Word of God and must be understood according to the Lord's subsequent mention. The Holy Spirit mentions it here through James. What we do find in the Old Testament is this, that Elijah, that rugged man from the hills of Gilead, comes in and he goes in before wicked Ahab, and he says, now I've got a message for you. There will not be rain for a given time according to my word, and he walked out. And they didn't have rain for three and a half years, and no dew. And they went searching for this fellow, and they couldn't find him. That man called Elijah, strangely dressed, coming right into the palace of Ahab and giving him his message, walking out. According to my word, he said. You see, he was a man who made God's word his word. So why did Elijah pray that there wouldn't be rain? Wasn't that an awful thing to pray for? That there wouldn't be rain for three and a half years? Well, you see, Elijah was a man of faith. He was a man of God. He was a righteous man. And Elijah looked around and he saw the nation had gone into sin. You and I don't need to look very far till we say the same thing. And Elijah got in his face no doubt before God for this as he prayed. He prayed earnestly that it wouldn't rain. He rose from his knees and he said, well, God's going to answer that prayer. How did he know God would answer that prayer? Because the word of God said so. See, this was the prayer of faith. Faith covered by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And he was a man who knew that the word of God said, if these people refused and rebelled, then God would shut up the heavens like brass. He said, they've rebelled and have gone to idolatry. God will have to keep his word. He'll have to shut up the heavens like brass in order to cause the people to repent. So he prays that God would carry out his word. Keep the rain and the dew away from them so that they'll be brought under conviction. Remember this, beloved. That man called Elijah had to suffer with the people. For whom he prayed. Oh yes. He went away up to the brook Kyrus. And he saw that brook drying up. Have you ever seen the brook drying up? I've often pictured that man taking a few little rocks, setting up a little dam for himself. Just to collect a little water. One day there was none to collect. And that's the place God sent him. God sent him there and the brook dried up. And he had to wait until God said, it's time now, Elijah. I want you to leave here. And I want you to travel right across the country. Go way up to Zion. Right away up there. And he had to go right through the country and see everything dried up. And he saw the results of his own prayers. But God looked after him. He sent the ravens over every day. As regular as could be. They dropped the beef. drops the bread. You know, ravens usually devour everything they can get. God turned the whole course of nature and sent them over there to look after Elijah. And then when they were finished, he sent them to a widow. Well, and a widow is usually one that needs all she's got and more if she can get it. God said, I've got a widow out there. And all she's got is a handful of meal and little cruise of oil. It'll be sufficient. He used the raisins down here and the widow up there. Then the time came when Elijah prayed again. You see, the reason I'm mentioning this, for those three and a half years, Elijah was proving his God in private. And the man who knew his God in private was a man who came out in public and stood under the Mount Carmel and challenged them and said, if God be God, follow him. If fail, follow him. But don't halt between two opinions. Don't be fisted on this side and then on that side. Make your stand. That was the day that God who answered by fire, let him be God. And God answered by fire. And Elijah prayed again. And he was praying there, kept sending them up. And he said, all we can see is a little cloud the size of a man's hand. He says, that's enough. It's a sign of an abundance of rain. Hurry up. Now you'll be drenched. It was like a cloudburst and the rain came down. You see, here was a man who continued in prayer. The man called Elijah. Have you ever noticed how this chapter finishes? If any of you do err from the truth and one convert him, did Elijah pray and was the means in God's hands of converting the nation? The nation that had turned away from God turned back and said, The Lord, He is God. He said, You can do the same. Let Him know that He which confesses the sinner from the error of His way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins. When we see one of our fellows turning into the paths of sin, our duty is to pray for them. No, you're turning around and said, I could have told you that three years ago. I saw it coming. Anyone can say that. The thing is this. Our job is to pray for them. If your prayer is answered, remember this. You saved that man from the error of his ways. Brothers and sisters, this is the most powerful weapon ever placed into the hands of any people. You and I have got a powerful weapon in prayer. Let him pray, it's to be private prayer. Let them pray, there's united prayer. The prayer of faith, it's to be believing prayer. Pray ye one for another, there's to be mutual prayer. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Let it be effectual prayer. This man prayed ardently. Let it be ardent prayer. He prayed again. In the interval he was continuing in prayer. Never give up. Pray. Shall we pray? Our Father, we thank thee tonight for thy kindness to each of us. And we look back with joy and we thank you tonight for the very memory of those that prayed for us. Those that are now with thee in the glory. We thank thee for them. And now we ask thee, our God, that thou wilt enable us to struggle and to be prayer warriors at the throne of grace. Praying for others. Help us to wrestle in prayer. Take our thanks now. Go with each of us to our different places. Bless us tonight. Make everyone's bed soft. Their pillow easy tonight. That in the park here... Each one may sleep restful. For those who are sick in other places, we commit and commend them to thee now for the Lord Jesus' sake. Amen.