Transcription
You comfort those in me. You lift us up on me. Might [Music] [Applause] be. Why don't you remain standing?
We're going to go to the word. As you're turning there, I want to say we're grateful to every guest that's here. Thank you for the guest that's with us. If you're a guest in this house, we want you to know we appreciate you being with us and um I'm also thankful for the faithful people of God. I appreciate your faithfulness so much. Uh you I've said it over and over, you can't build a church on people who are not faithful. You can only build a church on faithful people. Um and um so uh we're very grateful and thankful for the faithfulness of the people of this congregation. I feel like I pastor the greatest church in the world. I don't think there's a greater church anywhere in the world uh than this group of people right here that I pastor.
I want to go to 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 6. 2 Corinthians the third chapter and the sixth verse. Tonight I'm going to continue um with why pray. I've had two installments. This will be installment number three. Why pray part three? What is the reason for prayer? Um I'm I'm convinced that prayer is the most talked about but least applied principle in Christendom. And uh much of it is because people really don't know what prayer is. They really don't understand what prayer is. And so 2 Corinthians 3 and 6 says, "We also hath made us who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." Why pray? Part three. God bless you.
You can be seated. Right where you're seated, would you just lift your hands and ask the Holy Ghost to talk to your heart for a few minutes tonight? Would you do that? Jesus. Dear Lord, I'm asking you to speak to our hearts. Speak to our minds and our spirits tonight. Lord, we need you desperately. We need your power, your strength, your anointing. Talk to us in the name of Jesus. God, let me say everything you want me to say. And don't don't let me put a guard before my tongue that I don't say anything that you don't want me to say. Let everything I do here tonight be anointed. In Jesus name we pray. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Why pray? Why pray?
And if you do not believe that that is a big question, then you explain to me why that consistent prayer is one of the toughest things to do in living for God. Man, I'm good to see the Fedrics here tonight. I didn't see them till just then. We're glad you're with us, Brother Kobe and Sister Haley Fedric, full-time ministry, and I'm glad they're in the house of the Lord with us tonight. Um it is it is the thing that we struggle with the most. The people who are avid in prayer will go through seasons where prayer will be a struggle. People who pray consistently will go through what they call dry spells to where you feel like you're going through the motions of prayer but the saying is among people that pray is I feel like my prayers aren't reaching the ceiling and so prayer is a is a challenging thing because it's multifaceted. There is a there is a discipline of prayer. Uh there's the exercise of prayer. There's the joy of prayer. There's the beauty of prayer. And all of these things are almost um they're almost involuntary except for the discipline of prayer. You must discipline yourself to consistently pray. But you never know what dimension of prayer you're going to meet when you get on your knees. You you may meet with strictly the discipline of prayer. Your prayer time may be strictly the discipline and you've just got to stay there and work through it. And uh times uh don't feel like you made any headway. But I promise you, you did. Yeah. You can't measure the successfulness of prayer on emotion. You can't measure the successfulness of prayer on feeling. Sometimes when I felt the least is when I've had the most productivity. Right? There are times that I've got on my knees and I'm telling you the it seemed like the minute I opened my mouth to start praying, the Holy Ghost was all over me. I was immediately praying in the Holy Ghost, praying in the spirit. And I thought to myself, boy, I'm telling you, the things I prayed about today, man, it wouldn't shock me if things change before I get off my knees. And those are the times that I can't find one ounce that that prayer has changed a thing. And there are times that I pray and it is so dry and it is so dead and it is so empty. And those are the times that it seems like that prayer changed things before I got off my knees. And had I been the one measuring according to what I know, the prayers I pray that I feel like are so effective don't do anything. And the prayers that I feel like are so dead seem to have the greatest results.
So why pray? I pray because prayer is much more about God than it is about me. He's the one that's lonely. He gets more out of the relationship than I do. And I don't pray because I want God to do things and that's where most people mess up in prayer. For them, prayer is a laundry list. Let me just tell you right now that if you're praying to get God to do things for you, then you're the God and not him. The whole purpose of prayer is to get my spirit in alignment with his. I don't pray to get God to do what I want him to do. I pray so that I'll do what God wants me to do. And most people have such a shallow religious experience that their prayer is a laundry list. They view God as a Santa Claus. All right. Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot I was in Mississippi. They view God as a Santa Claus, for them. God is a genie in a bottle and he's there for prayer to let him know what you want him to do. And that is such an abuse of prayer. It's so much a it's such a misunderstanding of what prayer is. And I'm going to move on from from this, but I've got to lay this foundation. This is something I've covered in all three installments now. But but it's the basis to launch from to talk to you about what I want to talk to you about. But we've got to get it in our minds that most people what they call prayer is not prayer at all. Because prayer is a submitting of my flesh to his will. Prayer is a seeking to find myself in his desire and his will and his kingdom. [Applause] That's true prayer. That's what prayer really is. But for most people, prayer is getting on their knees and ordering God around. And their prayer is, "God, I need you to do this and God, I need you to do that." Now, God, I really want you to do this now. Why haven't you done this, God? And we don't want that that kind of prayer is not built on needing a relationship with God. It's just needing God to do what I want him to do. And now you got it, don't you? Because I got to go on and do some things I'm I'm That's very important to me. So I ain't got but just a few minutes to tell you what I need you to do. And this is a complete misunderstanding of what prayer is. The reason the disciples said teach us to pray is because there is an art to prayer. And everything that we call prayer it in prayer. It's not just prayer because I'm on my knees. It's not just prayer because I'm talking. You see, there's many things in life that listen, I've been on the golf course. I've bought the golf shoes. I've paid way too much for the clubs. I've paid my green fees. I've been on the golf cart because I was older and had a little more money. I had enough money to buy the actual golf clothes. And I've been out there with guys that didn't have the right golf club and didn't have golf clubs as nice as the ones I had. But you've never been able to call what I was doing out there golfing. I got a 2-year-old grandson that's got golf clubs. They're plastic, but he's got better form than I ever had. It's like he was born with a golf club in his hands. And the guys that was out there in tennis shoes and a pullover shirt and some khaki pants, they were really golfing. And what I'm telling you is is form. And just because you're there don't mean you do anything. Because the same way that it takes years to learn how to golf, it takes years to learn how to pray. [Applause] Prayer is an acquired skill over time. Yes, sir. Yes, it is. And the reason that I I'm not a golfer today is because I'm not willing to put the time in it. I've been out there and by the third hole, I'm wanting to do something else. All right. I'm asking myself, what what am I doing out here? What what why am I wasting my time chasing a little white ball around a field? There's a world going to hell. There's a gospel that needs to be preached. There's a churches that need to be built. And I'm out here wasting my time chasing a little white ball. What am I doing? I I I by the third hole, I'd rather be doing anything in the world than that. The reason I'm telling you that is because there's some of you that in 10 minutes of prayer, that's the way you feel. I'd re I'd rather be doing anything in the world but this. It reveals a lack of interest. It reveals a lack of desire. There is an art. Listen, I'm I'm I'm going I'm going to keep this positive. We're gonna go not going to go negative with this. But there is an art to prayer. And I promise you that if you will study it, you can learn to pray. But but for many of us, too many of us, prayer is over when we're at the end of our list of wants. And I want to reframe your thinking tonight. And I want to tell you that prayer is not for you. Prayer is for the Lord. Prayer isn't about you. Prayer is about him. Now, I'm just telling you, I'm just telling you, you listen to me from from a from from a a pastor that's given his life to prayer and the word and preaching, I can stand up here right now and declare to you that prayer was not designed to benefit you. Even though it does, even though you get great benefits for it, that was not the purpose. That is the product. That's what's come. What comes out of prayer is I get benefited. What comes out of prayer is I get prayers answered. What comes the benefit the product of prayer is that I receive renewing and I receive anointing. But the purpose of prayer was not for me. The purpose of prayer was because God is lonely and God wants relationship. And the reason that there's benefits that come out of prayer is he's because be he's got a lot more to offer me than I have to offer him. And so while prayer is for him, I wind up much more benefited as a product of prayer, but the purpose of prayer is so that God won't be lonely. [Applause] And so there's many things about prayer that we fail to understand. It's like many relationships. As I as I've gotten older, I've said it more and more times, but when I went went full-time in the ministry, I developed a lot of friendships of men who are now gone. Uh uh for years I said that Jess Parker and I were very close friends and it was true that we were. The problem is is he was several years older than me, 15 years older than me. He was a decade and a half older than me and had been preaching much longer than I had. And so we had this friendship that was really one-sided. I was getting way more benefits out of the relationship than he was. [Music] Everything I could tell him, he already knew and had forgotten. But he was consistently telling me of apostolic history and Bible history and about great preachers and sermons that had been preached and revealing scripture to me. And we had a friendship, but he had way more to offer me than I had to offer him. And I could go on and on with that. I could tell of numerous friends that I've had in the ministry that I didn't have anything to offer them. I was the one being benefited by the relationship. And that's the way it is with God. God has so many benefits that he gives me through the relationship. But for him, he gets so much out of just the fact that someone's willing to have relationship with him. What do I give him? I give him time. That's why prayer becomes about time. That's why we make a big deal about time in prayer. Because the benefit that God's getting is the time that you spend with him. because that's the only thing he really gets out of relationship is the time that you spend. Are y'all getting this? I get healing. I get renewal. I get deliverance. I get prayers answered. I get all these benefits. But the only thing he's getting is that someone stopped and put their day on pause. You know, it it can it can really be tight to the relationships with our parents. It can really be tight to to relationship with our parents. Our our parents don't want gifts from us. I mean, they appreciate them. The thought means much more than the gift. But the average parent don't don't want you to bring anything when they come up when you come over. They're not interested in the items that you bring to their house. They sir, you know, all that really matters to your parents is that you put your day on hold. And you could have been doing other things. And there's a lot of things you'd really be enjoying doing, but what means so much to the parents is that you spent time with them. And every moment and every hour means so much because they know that you've got other friendships and you have kids and you have hobbies and you have things you need to be doing. But you stopped all that to spend time with them. And it's the time that you spend and the value of that time that ministers to those parents. And can I tell you something? It's as simple as that with prayer with God. That's good. Just the fact that you'll steal away. Just the fact that you'll put life on hold. Just the fact that you find communing him with him more important than the things that you're doing. And you can and and he really gets from you that you understand that if you'll spend an hour with him out of your day that that entire day will go better and that hour will be made up in productivity because you took time to spend with the Lord. You'll think better. You'll be more productive. You'll have more joy. You'll be happier. [Applause] Let me tell you about the Lord. He's never going to let you go in the hole because you've given to him. That's whether it's offering time or whatever. You say, "I don't have time to go by the church and pray." Let me tell you something. If you ever understand the benefits of prayer, you won't ever say that. You'll say, "I don't have time to not go by the church at because God is such a God that I'll never go in the hole on my time. If I spend an hour with him, he'll give me three back in productivity. The things that would have went wrong would won't go wrong. the traffic I would have got caught in. I won't get caught in my Lord. He's never going to let you give time to him in prayer and then not make it up to you. He understands the value of time. You're never going to lose. Yeah. You know, all all God wanted from Adam and Eve, he said, "I'm going to give you this garden. I'm going to give you the productivity of this garden. I'm going to give you control and rulership over this garden. All I want for you from you is just walk and talk with me. Ju just just visit with me. I'm going to move on." But folks, prayer is way more about God than it is about you. That's right. God longs for you to talk with him. He longs for you to commune with him. He's not interested in your laundry list of dues. That's an insult to him. That's an insult to God to run in and say, "I need you to do this. I need you to do that. I need you to do this. I need you to do the other." you you you got that God now I got to go. I'm busy is is absolutely an insult. Let me can I can I really be honest with you? It would probably be better if you just didn't pray if that's what you know of prayer. That that's that's not prayer. That's a genie in a bottle. All right. That's viewing God as as as as a Santa Claus or some kind of a miracle worker that you're in control of. That's turning God into your bell boy. You ding the bell and he comes running. And so you got to reframe your thinking about what prayer is. Prayer is a father and child relationship. Yes, sir. He typed it to the mo. Listen, I'm I'm going to move on. But he typed his relationship with his church to the most intimate relationships that exist. He said, "Let me tell you how it is. It's like a father and a child." Jesus is the one that said, "I'm the heavenly father, but would an earthly father do this, or would an earthly father do this? I want you to think of me as a father. And then he also typed it to a husband and wife relationship. The two two of the closest most intimate relationships that we have to do with a husband and wife and a father and child. And you think of what kind of relationship that you would have with your father if you ran in every once in a while and said, "Dad, I need you to do this. I need you to do this. I need you to do this." Got it. All right. I got to go. And the next time you come back, you say, "Well, I told you last week. Why haven't you done these things? I've been begging you to do these things. Why haven't you done them?" Well, son, I hadn't talked to you in a week and a half. I I've been busy. I I know I ought to talk to you more. I know I ought to visit with you more, but I just I got so much going. I Man, I'm just overloaded. I just I if you just knew how much I had I'll see you in a week or two, but but don't forget and I need you to handle this stuff. What kind of relationship would you have with a father if that's how you treated him? Prayer is a relationship between a child and his father. Why pray? Because God wants to talk to you. Why pray? Because God wants to hear from you. Why pray? Because that's the reason. Listen, that's the reason you were created. If you had to distill the reason for your creation down to the most common denominator, it would be because God was lonely and wanted someone to commune with. Prayer is the very reason for your creation. [Applause] And so our approach to prayer needs to shift around. And you need to understand that just like going to visit your parents, God wants you to visit him. Yes, sir. He wants you to walk in and sit down and clear your schedule and say, "I'm just going to talk with you a while.
One of the greatest prayer warriors that ever existed was a man by the name of Joe Duke. And I have wept listening to people talk about Joe Duke. Joe Duke was a blind preacher. My family got in the church because of Joe Duke. My grandfather received the Holy Ghost under Joe Duke. I don't remember if my dad was born yet or not, but I know Sister McMullen was already born. She kept wanting to go to the tent revival. Can you imagine? My grandmother was a backslider, and I don't know that she had ever mentioned Pentecost to my grandfather. She had left home and and moved to Bulmont, Texas, and was not going to church. And wouldn't you know that they set up a tent revival almost in her yard and Joe Duke was preaching. She knew exactly what was going on. My grandpa didn't have a clue what they were doing over there in that tent. And Aunt Geraldine, Sister McMullen was about two years old and she would say, "I want to go over there. I want to go over there. I want to go over there." Well, all that was the Lord. My
Grandmother, they did go over there. My grandmother knew what was going to happen. She got there and immediately prayed back through the beautiful gift of the Holy Ghost. She had she had traveled with She had traveled with uh, HB Morgan going around preaching and singing, and many of you know the name Kenneth Morgan. She was Kenneth Morgan's babysitter when he was just a baby. Went to school with with Vesta Mangan and uh, Sister De's. But she got away from God and was working for the telephone company in Beaumont, married to my grandfather who'd been raised Church of Christ and didn't know know a thing about Pentecost.
But they said that Joe Duke would go into that tent. Brother Sterling Busby, who was here working with us for a while, said when he was just a 10 or 11 year old boy, Joe Duke was preaching a revival in Silsbee, a tent revival in Silsbee. And he he said he'd go watch Brother Duke pray. And everywhere Brother Duke went, he said, "Bring me a rocking chair." And they'd bring a rocking chair into the auditorium, and he'd sit in that rocking chair up in the altar area, and they said his first words when he sat down in that chair to rock and talk to the Lord. He said he just sat there and just talked to the Lord. Just he was blind. And they said if you listen to him talk, it was if another individual was in the room, but you were only hearing one side of the conversation. And he'd say, "Uh, I I'm here, Lord. Here I am. Come talk to me."
And he said he would just tell the Lord, "Lord, I I I I I don't know what happened last night, but it just didn't feel like I got deliverance. I I just I preached and people came and they prayed and they got the Holy Ghost, but I just didn't didn't feel like I got deliverance. Could you Could you help me with what's going on? I I I need your help." And he said he would talk like that and then all of a sudden he would go off into tongues. And he said he may talk in tongues for 15 or 20 minutes. And he said he would stop and pause just like a conversation. And he said, "I just couldn't hear the other side of the conversation." But he would hear. He said, "And then many, many times he would answer the Lord just like the Lord." Yeah, I understand what you're saying, God. I I I hear you. I I get what you're saying. He was literally having a conversation with the Lord.
I think one of the reasons that we lack in prayer is because we do all the talking. We do all the talking. We don't give him a chance and an opportunity to talk back to us. Prayer is a conversation. God wants to talk to you. He wants to He wants a chance to respond. Brother Busby said, "Listening to him pray was one of the most amazing things that I've ever experienced in my life." He said, "I I think about it so many times when I go to prayer. I said, God, I want a relationship with you like Joe Duke had." And he said, "I'm afraid that I'm limited because I have too much sight. I can see too many things." He said, "Maybe I could focus more on the Lord if I couldn't see so much. I have too many distractions. I have too many things to look at."
Why pray? Because prayer is a relationship. Why pray? Because God needs you. Why pray? Because God wants you. Why pray? Because God wants to talk with you. He wants to commune with you. He wants to hear what you think. He wants to He wants you to verbalize how much you love him. Let me tell you something. I know my wife loves me. I have no doubt that my wife loves me. But I cannot tell you the times when she says, "I love you," that I say, "Huh?" I don't say that because I didn't hear her. I say that because I got so much out of hearing it. I want to hear it again. God's the same way. He knows you love him, but he wants to hear you say it. He knows you need him, but he wants to hear you say it. He knows you're completely dependent on him, but he wants to hear you verbalize it. He wants you to talk to him.
Now, I got to get I got to shift gears and get where I'm going. The word, that Bible, that word of God that you hold in your hands. And I I know we love it and we cherish it and we hold it close. But can I tell you something? This is why people listen to me. Anybody that tells you you do not have to have the Holy Ghost speaking in tongues in order to be saved could not be more wrong. And I've had people that that and I understand. I know that that's a struggle for them because they have people that they love that never received the Holy Ghost speaking in tongues. And I understand that there's a struggle and I get it. I understand every bit of it. And and it's a struggle for them because they had a a good grandma or a good grandpa or a good uncle or a good aunt or what whatever the thing was that was the greatest Christian they say they ever knew. And they never had the Holy Ghost speaking in tongues. And and if I claim that you got to have the Holy Ghost speaking in tongues, then I put them in hell. Listen, God's going to deal with them how God's going to deal with them. No matter what you believe, you've got to leave them in the hands of God.
Let me just tell you, somewhere back in my family, I'm sure back in the 1600s, I had a good uncle or aunt that believed in bloodletting. But I'm just not going to go let a doctor cut on me and bleed me out because I thought I have a great uncle somewhere that thought bloodletting worked. I I I'm sure back somewhere in my history, I I got a I got a well-meaning ancestor that let them put leeches all over them because it was going to suck the poison and the disease out of them. I'm sure they were great, wonderful people, but they're not putting leeches on me today to suck my blood because I had some good uncle somewhere that was a great man, that believed in leech sucking to get rid of disease because I'm enlightened and I'm going to walk in that enlightenment. That's it. I'm not going to remain in darkness because I had a relative that was in darkness, and we're just going to have to let God work all that out.
But the reason the reason that I pray is because for for so many practical purposes, this might as well be a Reader's Digest if I don't have the Holy Ghost. This letter killth. It is the spirit that brings it to life. And you know when I get revelation out of this word? When I'm praying in the Holy Ghost. You know when I get revelation out of this word? When I'm talking in tongues. When I'm praying in the Holy Ghost. Jesus is the very one that told us how the word worked. He said, "A sower goes out to sow his seed, not oak trees." A sower goes out to sow his seed, not plant trees. You see, there's several ways you can get trees in your yard. It just depends on how much money you have. You can get trees in your yard by going down to the co-op and buying seeds for a few pennies a piece. You can go to a nursery and you can buy saplings for a few dollars. If you get real money, you can do a send a few hundred and you get young trees delivered to your house. If you got a lot of money, you can spend thousands and they'll bring a tree and set it up in your yard with a cherry picker. It just depends on how much money you have. And God didn't say the preacher was bringing saplings. All right. He didn't say that the the the preacher was was planting young plants. He said the sower was sowing seed. The listen to me. The word of God comes as a seed.
Now, now hear what I'm saying because it's all a work of the spirit. But at some level, that seed is either going to die in you or that seed is going to become a 60-year-old oak tree. But it's going to happen when you pray. Why pray? Because this word is dead until you [Applause] do. Why pray? Because this word is dead until you pray. Now listen, I know what I'm talking about. And I want everybody in this house to hear me. You who don't come to the prayer room are missing 90% of what goes on in this auditorium. You that just walk in and and don't pray and you don't think you need the prayer room and you're wondering what we do over there. It it's no wonder that you're wondering. And because you don't come to the prayer room, so much of what's preached is going to be lost on you. That's what that's what Luke the 8th chapter is about. The sower went out to sow his seed. It fell by the wayside. It was trampled underfoot by people who are too busy to pray. It was choked out with the weeds of false doctrine and false concepts and worldly friends and their ideas. You know, it's amazing to me. I can watch some of you when you start backsliding because you're the the view and the and the opinion of your worldly friends gets too important to you. You get to worrying about what people think that don't even have the Holy Ghost. Why would it matter what they think? They are of this world. They are of a complete different economy. They're working in a complete different ecosystem. And that's exactly what Jesus was saying. He said that word tried to spring up, but it was choked out by thorns. What are thorns? Opinions of people who don't have the Holy Ghost. Opinions of people who don't even love God. Opinions of people who this world is more important to them. What? What? What are thorns? False doctrine, false ideas, false opinions that are at war and intimate enmity with the things of God. [Applause]
And so what does the prayer room do? The prayer room is where you get on your knees. And again, it matters what you do in that prayer room. Teach us to pray, master. That's what they said. Lord, teach. There's a way you're supposed to. You're not supposed to get in the prayer room and pray now lay me down to sleep. Pray the Lord my soul to keep bless me, bless Ken. Pin back years and dive in. We got, you know, we got all these prayers we supposed to be praying. Most of it is hogwash. It's nonsense. It's traditions of men. There's one purpose in the prayer room, and that's to get out the rototiller and the double buster and sink you a plow as deep in the soil of your heart as you possibly can and till up that old stony ground. And that plow gets to go and it just it just tears those briars and brambles and rocks and all that and just tills it up and reveals the good hearty nutrient soil that can receive the word of God. Because if you don't go to the prayer room, that seed's going to fall by the wayside and your busyness is going to be trampled. Why pray because your soil is hard? Why pray because your soil is rocky? Why pray? Because your soil is full of briars and brambles. You're not ready to receive the word just walking in off the street. [Music] Go ahead. We go to the prayer room. We get that rototiller out and we we get to tilling that ground up. Revealing the heart of that soil where the nutrients are that can actually lend to the growing of that seed. God, break my heart up. Break up. Break up the fallow ground. Make my soil soft. And when you go to you go to weeping and crying in that prayer room, you know what you're doing? You're watering that soil. You're making that soil moist. You're making it a a a good environment for the seed of the word of God to find root in. Why pray? Because your heart is stony. Why pray? Because you got rocks. Why pray? Because there's briars and brambles of thoughts and opinions of people who are enemies of God. And all that's got to be dealt with and tilled under and hoed out. And then when the word's preached, when the word's preached, you you get much while the man's preaching. But I want everybody to hear me. At that point, it's still just a transfer of knowledge. It It's still at that point, it's got a process it's got to go through. I would like to say that seed goes straight to your heart, but it don't it goes in your mind. When I'm preaching to you right now, I'm preaching to your head. It's going in your ears. It's going into your mind. Your brain's processing it. And if you're a Holy Ghost filled person and if you've been praying there there it's received differently than if you're not.
I'm going to tell you to a person that does not pray. And and and you you got to get a hold of what I'm about to say. To a person that does not pray, real preaching is an offense to you. And so that is why in 2025 most preachers preach totally different than they did in 1985 because we're in the day of megachurches where preachers are totally adjusting their preaching to become religious entertainment and messages are designed not to offend carnal people. And so we're preaching Dale Carnegie and we're preaching Stephen Covey and we're preaching the power of positive living. And it was starting when I started evangelizing or I mean I'm sorry when I was evangelizing just as I was coming off the field and started pastoring I started going to places to preach and pastors would say now keep it positive Brother Copeland now keep it upbeat Brother Copeland. And it's because we we we stopped going to prayer rooms and we stopped having prayer lives. And so now preaching in many places has become spiritual entertainment that is designed to make sure it does not offend the flesh of carnal people. But that's not what I grew up on, brother. I grew up on preaching that you just about need to wear an asbestos suit to go to church. That's right. Cuz you are going to get scorched. All right. I grew up under preaching where men were men enough to mount the pulpit and preach the truth. Yeah, they were man enough to call sin sin and call ungodliness ungodliness. And now there's been a total new design because people aren't praying.
Well, let let me let me just tell you, it's not going to last. In fact, I think it's I think it's about run out of tracks because we have a generation now of preachers that are asking we are asking why are we doing this if it doesn't matter? Why are we doing this if it don't bring change? Why are we doing this if it's just pet carnality? Why are we doing this if people are going to be lost on the pew anyway? Why are we doing this if they're just going to go to hell from a from a from a church pew instead of a bar stool? Why? Why are we doing this if all we're doing is changing where they're going to hell from? We're just we're just making them go to hell from a pew instead of a a drug. Then why pray? Because you can't take real preaching unless you're praying. You can't receive the word unless you preach it. It dies on stony ground. It dies in weed and and and brier infested ground. But the Bible says that when you when you're praying, it bears fruit a hundredfold. [Applause] Can I ask you a question? How does a seed bear fruit a hundredfold? A seed bears fruit a hundredfold because wisdom is different than knowledge. And while knowledge takes a lifetime to grow up through the soil, turn into a sapling, and then turn into a tree and then bear fruit, and it's a 30-year process. Wisdom does the whole thing immediately. And if you've been living for God for any length of time at all, you know what it feels like to be sitting on a pew and hear a great message preached and you think, "Man, that was powerful. That was awesome." And then the next day you call your friend and say, "My God, I missed it last night. I thought I got the message last night, but man, I was praying this morning and that message got to explode in my spirit." You know what happened? That seed got from your head and it got into your heart. And wisdom grows a full-grown tree in just a few minutes. [Applause] We don't get most of preaching while we're preaching. That's why you used to see hear the old-timers, you know, and it's amazing thing. You talk about you talk about seed falling in the ground and dying. It it happens to us. We we we say poor old people that don't get this truth. It fell in the ground and died. It's not just talking about that. It is talking about that, but it's also talking about the day-to-day word. How many of you can't remember on Monday what you heard on Sunday? It died. How many of you can't? It fell into your heart and died. It didn't take root. You can't remember the next week what the preacher preached on Sunday. You know why? Because you didn't receive a message till you've prayed over it. I I'm I'm going to get two things and I and I and I'm just sorry for you and if it embarrasses you and hurts you, you're just going to have to get a hold of yourself. But you who don't come to the prayer room and leave and don't come to the altar, you're missing 99% of what's going on because that's the two places The prayer room prepares the ground and the altar covers it up and waters it and gets it ready to grow. Your your ground didn't get plowed up to receive the so the the seed if you didn't go to the prayer room and it didn't get covered up and watered if you didn't come to the altar. There's no wonder it died. There's no wonder you're not growing. The word don't work until it's wept over. The word don't work until Why pray? Because you're not getting the word if you're not praying. [Applause] It's dying. It's remaining alone. Why pray? Because we're denominational. We're empty. We're not growing Christians unless we're praying. The explosion happens. The revelation happens when you pray over it.
How many of you had the Holy Ghost for over 30 years? Raise your hand. You've had the Holy Ghost for over 30 years. If you've had the Holy Ghost for over 30 years, you've heard an old-timer stand up and say, "Pastor, I'm still chewing. I'm still receiving. I'm I'm I'm still chewing on what you preached Sunday. It's still in my spirit working me over." You know what we hear now, man? I can't remember what he preached Sunday, but it sure was good. You know what the difference is? People who pray and people who don't. Prayer isn't about a laundry list. Prayer is about God, that word my pastor preached Sunday, reveal it to me, God, I know I didn't get it all. I know there's stuff in there that I might my spirit needs to receive it. [Music] You see, I've lived for God long enough. I've lived for God long enough that most of what I've received in preaching, I didn't receive the night the message went forth. Brother Colby Fedrick. Sometimes it was weeks later. I was on my knees with my Bible open and and while I was praying, a message that I'd heard came back to me. And when it did, complete different angle. I saw it from a complete different direction. And when I did, it started blooming. And I must say, it grew. It it gave fruit a hundredfold in my spirit. All of a sudden, that message meant something completely different to me than it did tonight. I heard it because the things that we receive from the word do not blossom while the preacher's preaching. That's just the seed. The reason we get excited is because the preacher's preaching, and he says, "Man, I'm going to I'm I'm I'm going to plant some some revelation in your heart tonight." And he he tells us about the seed he's planting, and we get excited about it because we want that seed to grow in our lives. But I'm telling you, it's prayer later on. It's seeking God later on that makes that seed bear fruit. The wisdom comes out of prayer. You can be seated. I'm not going to preach much longer. I'm almost done. You see, this was the case with the Ethiopian eunuch. When when I evangelized, I used to I used to give advice to churches, and this is the advice I would give. I'd say, "If you're not going to pray, don't read your Bible." Don't read your Bible if you're not going to pray because all false doctrine comes from putting the seed of the word of God into a carnal mind.
All the false religions, all the false doctrines, all the things that lead people astray is people reading the Bible without prayer. And there's people sitting here that you can ask, "Well, how was I Baptist or Methodist or Church of Christ or whatever I was for 30 or 40 years and then I came to this church and all of a sudden I've grown so much?"
The one of the most common testimonies that you're going to hear in this church is, "I thought I was a Christian and I thought I knew a lot till I got here, but I have learned so much since I've been here that I've learned more in just a year or two of being here than years of being in religion other places." What's the difference? The difference is praying in the Holy Ghost. The difference is praying in the Holy Ghost. All right. And a lot of times it's contributed, "Well, well, Brother Copelan, you're just such a great teacher." No, all I'm doing is transferring information. If you're not praying, the transfer is not going to take place. Or if it does, it's going to die. It's going to abide alone. The reason you're receiving so much more now is because the Holy Ghost is what makes the difference. Praying in, listen to me, not just praying, praying in the Holy Ghost.
When you are talking in tongues, when you transfer into that praying in the Holy Ghost, it opens up a vein, a window of wisdom into your spirit. And when that window of wisdom opens, all the seeds that's been planted from you reading the Bible and hearing preaching just starts blooming in that window of wisdom that comes into your spirit. Are y'all understanding what I'm saying tonight? And so, if you're not praying, you're not getting 95% of what's happening. It's not taking root. It's dying. It's abiding alone. And you say, "Well, I don't believe that. I believe the word's alive." Brother Copeland, you've preached that the word is alive. It is, but it's only alive through the spirit.
Here's the example. The Ethiopian eunuch is riding alone with the book of Isaiah in his hands. And he says he's reading, and Philip runs up beside his chariot and says, "Do you understand what you're reading?" And he says, "No, I don't understand what I'm reading. How can I except some man in the indication here that knows more than I do?" explains it to me. And so, Philip, a man filled with the Holy Ghost, read it in your Bible, all Philip starts doing is reading the same word to him that he was reading prior. Y'all are missing it. The Holy Ghost-filled man is reading to the eunuch the exact same passage that he was reading without the Holy Ghost. And without the Holy Ghost, he saw no need of change. And when it was read from the Holy Ghost, he said, "Baptize me. There's water here." The only difference is it was read in the Holy Ghost and it was read without the Holy Ghost. The text does not live until it's ignited by the power of the Holy Ghost. [Applause] The letter brings death if it's not backed up by the Holy Ghost. There it is.
That's why you got two different kinds of people. You got people that say, "Y'all are legalistic. Y'all are legalistic, man. Man, you're up in that Old Testament. You're up in that law." And you can hear an actual bitterness, a hatred for the laws of God because the letter kills. And people without the Holy Ghost and without renewing despise it. It makes them angry. They hate it. But when you get full of the Holy Ghost, you now have a platform for relationship with God. And that relationship with God makes you fall in love with the one thing that used to not talk to you and used to not speak to you. [Applause] And now all of a sudden, the same letter that made you angry and made you flesh angry now through the power of the Holy Ghost with the flesh out of the way. That same word brings life to you.
Why pray? Because I can't receive the word without it. I thought about Jamie and Amber Moore the other day. Brother Moore, I'll never forget the night that your wife came running out of that pew, ran right up here to this step right here. Brother Howard was preaching and she said, "Baptize me now." Brother Greg and Sister Lori, I'd ask them from time to time, "How's Jamie and Amber doing?" "Well, we're in another Bible study with them. We'll teach them." Well, we have. We're on our seventh. Same word, same letters, same pages out of the Bible, same concepts. But on that particular night, Sam Howard got so anointed preaching about baptism that I thought he was going to be raptured. I mean, I literally told him that. I said, "Brother Howard, there was a glow on you. You were so anointed." When you were preaching the same Bible study but taught through Holy Ghost anointing. And that time it didn't just go to Amber's head. It went straight to her heart. He was preaching. You see, here's the deal. Anointed preaching speaks to the heart. Other teaching and preaching just speaks to the head. But when you get anointed and the wisdom's coming forth through the anointing of the Holy Ghost, it bypasses the brain, it bypasses the thought process and it finds room right in the heart. That's why we've got to have anointed preaching. Not just preaching, but anointed preaching. Preaching from a preacher that's been on his knees. Preaching from a preacher that's been in his prayer closet. I'm just telling you, preaching changes when the man that's preaching has been talking in tongues. [Applause] Why pray? Because we can't receive the word without it. It's dead. It's lifeless. As great as the word is, it's the Holy Ghost that activates it.
What does the Bible do without Holy Ghost infilling? It exposes sin, but it can't remove it. Wow. It brings condemnation but no transformation. It leads to spiritual deadness when it's disconnected from the spirit. But the Holy Ghost brings in life. It brings revelation, understanding. It empowers [Applause] obedience. I want to look at one passage right before we close. It's 8:53. I'm going to close momentarily, but I'd like to look at one passage of scripture before we close. I want to look at John 6 and 60. Man, I didn't hardly get to the first page of these notes. John chapter 6 and verse 60. Why don't you stand together? Musicians come. Many therefore of his disciples when they had heard this saying said, "This is just what I'm preaching." Without anointing, they couldn't receive it. They said, "This is a hard saying." Who can listen to preaching like this? Verse 61. When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, "Does this offend you? What if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickenth the flesh. The flesh profitth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. [Music] 64 But there are some of you that believe not, for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not and who should betray him. [Music]
I'm going to say something right now. But if you're not renewed and the Holy Ghost preaching is only going to make you harder. You see, here's the deal. The same sun that melts butter hardens clay. The difference is the ingredients in the product. And if you're full of flesh and you're full of carnality, sitting under the preached word is going to continue and continue and continue to harden you until finally you one of these days you're going to drift out the back door and you're going to be gone and you're going to wind up one of these old bitter Christians that just hates a preacher that takes any kind of stand whatsoever or gets up in them. There are backslid apostolics everywhere that their big problem is they don't want a preacher telling them anything to do. They want a preacher to preach easy sayings. Jesus said, "Oh, does what I'm saying offend you? It's because your flesh can't take it. You can't receive this in the flesh.
Why pray? Because prayer keeps my heart soft. And the same preaching that hardens the ones that's not praying brings me to my knees and it makes me weep and it makes me want to find an altar. The same message but affects two different people two completely different ways. God, help me to understand. I got to have the prayer room. I got to have the altar and I got to have a place of prayer. Every day I got to get somewhere and say, "God, I just need relationship with you. Would you just talk to me a few minutes? Here I am, Lord. Will you come visit with me? Will you come talk to me?" Let's lift our hands all over this congregation. Would you do that right now? Would you reach out to the Lord after this teaching? Would you just ask God to open your spirit and open your heart to it? Come on. Come on. Everybody in this house, reach out to him. Come on. Let the Holy Ghost speak to you for a few moments before we go home. Come on. For a few minutes before we go home, would you let the Holy Ghost talk to you? Come on. Come on. Come on. Just for a few minutes. Let's just let's just open ourselves up. Just just become vulnerable. I'm about to let you go home. It's almost 9:00. I'm going to let you go home, but for two minutes, would you just become vulnerable in the presence of the Lord? Come on. Would you just become vulnerable in his presence? Come on. God, in the name of Jesus, open my mind, open my heart, open my spirit to your word, God. Oh my God, let me in prayer keep stay soft. Let me till up the fallow ground. Let my heart be available to your word to speak [Music] Lord. God in the precious name of Jesus. God in the name of Jesus. Oh, in the name of Jesus, by the power of your blood and your anointing in Jesus precious, precious name. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus.
I'm going to close with this, but I want a well-balanced church. Some churches are known for shoutouts. Some churches are known for teaching. Some churches are known because they got a great preacher in the pulpit. I'm going to tell you what I want at Pine Grove. I want all three of those things. I don't want to lean one way or the other. I pray that the teaching of this word has done something to you tonight. I pray that it's going to send you home to chew and to learn and to grow. I'm praying that it sends you home to understand the need of a prayer life more than you ever have before and that you can build a relationship with God to where you can be just like Joe Duke and you can feel that exhilaration when you get somewhere and say, "Hey, God, it's me. I'm back. Come talk to me. Come visit with me."
I want to, this is the last thing I'm going to say, but God's really put it on my heart of late to pray for Sister Jennifer Branding. We are, as I travel, I realize that we're living in a very protected place here. You can say all that you want to about the state of Mississippi, but I'm traveling to just about every state in this nation every year. And I want to tell you something. We have a very special place in the state of Mississippi. We have a place that is still very protected in comparison to some of these other states. And Sister Jennifer Branding in a few weeks, I don't know exactly when she's on schedule, but she's going to take one of our Wednesday nights and talk to us about what it means to be a justice, what her job is as a justice in this state. But you need to be praying for her. We're talking about prayer. Let me give you a prayer to pray. You need to be praying for her that God strengthens her and gives her wisdom. Because I'm going to tell you, God gave us a little slice of heaven in the state of Mississippi. You can complain about it. You can gripe about it. You can do whatever you want to, but when I go to these other states and I hear their policies and I see what they're dealing with, I realize that for all practical purposes, Mississippi is still a very Christian state, still very much based on the laws of our word of God. And it's people like Sister Branding that's going to help protect that. So, we love you and we appreciate you, Sister Branding. And since I'm preaching on prayer, let me just encourage you. You need that on your prayer list. You need to be praying for her every day that you get on your knees and pray. I love you so much. Thank you so much for hearing this teaching tonight. Don't forget prayer meeting tomorrow night. You're dismissed in Jesus' name. God bless you.