Hallelujah!  The Lord is good; amen?  And His mercies endure forever.  I was just looking, again, at the front of my Bible, something I jotted down.  I can’t remember the first time I heard it, but I had just gotten saved, 20 years old.  And one of the great, old preachers back then making this comment, quoting, I’m sure, one of the great authors from the nineteenth century.  But he made this statement that, “No man is greater than his prayer life”.  And as a 20-year-old that struck me.  And I’ve been able to see some great prayer warriors over the years.  Many of us have read about great men of prayer.  How many of you have heard of or read about Praying Hyde?   Just great men of God riding on prayer.  Brainerd, the great intercessor of the colonial days and ministering throughout the east, here, as he would, hour upon hour while riding his horse, be in intercession and prayer for the church in this new nation.  And we could go on and talk about many different great prayer warriors.  I happened to know one myself, personally, and I’ve shared with you that Ethel Hooke was known as a true prayer.  And she would refuse to be disturbed.  When she was in prayer, nothing else mattered.  When she went into her prayer closet, nothing was to disturb her.  She would pray six to eight hours every day. Interceding, believing for souls.  And we’ve all read of these great men.

There’s probably no topic that’s been written on more in the church than prayer.  More than the sovereignty of God, more than the love of God, more than the power of God.  But probably more volumes written on prayer than any other subject.  Some of our greatest commentators that we could go back and name, that as we look deeper into their lives and read some of their testimonies, they said if they had it over to do again—I’m talking about these men with multiple doctorates, the DD’s the ThD’s.  And you read, and with their great scholarship and their eloquence, and they said if they had it over to do again, they would pray more than they studied and wrote.  With all of thy getting, get the spirit of prayer; amen?

And many of us have had times in our lives when we’ve prayed more than others, and most of us in the midst of adversity and trials and trouble.  And that’s a natural thing.  But I’d like us be able to grasp as we continue on this study of God’s sovereignty being manifested through our prayer lives.  Our prayers are the vehicles on which God’s sovereignty, many times, is expressed, conveyed, implemented.  Because people take His Word or His will in our mouths and pray them; amen?  Declare them.  When we pray the Word of God, we are speaking truth into being.  And God watches over His Word and does what?  He performs it, praise God!  His Word out of your mouth does not return void.  Can you say, “Praise God” for that?  Your prayers, whether manifest or not, are still effectual, they are still working, and God’s will, will be done, praise God!  Hallelujah!

Our war is in the heavenlies.  We don’t war against flesh and blood but principalities and powers.  Spiritual weapons.  Take the Word of God, the Sword of the Spirit, what?  Praying.  We don’t memorize the Scripture to pass a test or to show our intellect or our knowledge.  We pray to effect the will of God.  We pray for the very purpose of God confirming His Word, as we pray, with signs following, and men seeing the good works and glorifying our Father which is in heaven, hallelujah!  Prayer is all about God being glorified.  Sometimes, we’ll catch ourselves praying for our will to be done.  The more we spend time in the Word of God, the less we try to pray our will.   Effectual praying is the reiteration of the will of God or the heart and the mind of God, as it relates to the circumstances that we find ourselves in.