Go On Your Knees

Dr. Tom M

God’s Word Sharpens Our Prayer Life
God’s Word sharpens our prayer life. Many a person was led to deepen his prayer life listening toJohn R. Rice. The Bible teaches us that the Word of God sharpens our prayer life.
You may have all the education in the world; you may be what some folks call “capable” and “talented”; you may have tremendous ability; but you will never go any further for God than you go upon your knees.
The prayer life of God’s people cannot possibly be overemphasized. Jesus said, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15:7).
I am preaching to you who have an unsolved problem, a desire in heart and life, some complex situation for which mankind has no answer; but God has that answer.
I was preaching one morning in our chapel program on II Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” But the verse before that says if you don’t obey God, the heavens shall be “shut up.”
A young man came weeping after the chapel service and said,
“Preacher, this morning you described my prayer life. When I pray, I feel like the heavens over me are brass, and God will not answer.”
Oh, may you be led to believe that prayer opens the windows of Heaven and moves the mighty arm of God to do the impossible!
We need to get back to the old fashioned Christian practice of what the early believers called “the morning watch,” when the child of God dared not face the world nor his business nor the whirling wheels of the city until he first had been alone with the Bible and with God.
Somebody asked me, “Preacher, how much of the Bible should one read every day?” Read it until God says something to you; then you will want to say something to God. The two go together
I had a glorious experience in my church some years ago. I began to think: What would happen if some people had asked some of my people certain questions? People who have spent years in Emmanuel Baptist Church have never heard anything preached but the Bible. I have told the Lord with all the earnestness of my soul that I would rather my lips be closed in death than ever to preach anything that is not according to the Book of God.
I began to think about my people who had all this time been listening only to the Bible. In over fifty years I have seen a whole generation of Christians in our church go to Heaven. What would those people say if somebody asked them, “Do you know that you have the Holy Spirit in your life?” If someone should ask them, “Do you know that you have been baptized with the Holy Ghost?” what would they say?
I know what I would say. “Yes sir! I was baptized by the Holy Ghost into the glorious body of Christ; and this historical thing has happened to every single child of God.” If someone were to ask these people, “Will the Holy Spirit, under any circumstances, ever leave a Christian?” what would they say?
This drove me to my knees; and for fourteen weeks I preached every Wednesday night on the blessed Holy Spirit of God. Many of my folks said, “Preacher, this has been the greatest three and a half months in the history of our church. God has spoken to our hearts about the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.”
During that time, God put upon my heart two verses I have read hundreds of times; but they had never meant so much to me as they did during that time and since. They were:
“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit. because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” - Rom. 8:26, 27.
When I get down to pray and know not exactly how I ought to pray, the blessed Holy Spirit who dwells in this temple of mine takes my prayer and words it correctly to the Father above. The Holy Spirit is interested in helping us pray.
Oh, how God answers prayer!
        I was called to preach in 1935. Some twenty years ago I had two operations on my throat. I was told by a Christian doctor, an expert in his field, “You will never preach again. Tom, I know this is hard, but go home and make other plans.” If he had hit me between my eyes with a chopping ax, it would not have startled me more.
I got into my car in downtown Detroit and drove out to Pontiac. I walked into my house weeping. I made my wife understand, as best I could, what the doctor had said. My sweet wife put her arms around me and said, “Tom, you and I know a Doctor who can heal anything.” So as we have done many times, we lay prostrate on the floor on our faces and poured out our hearts to God.
A few days later I began to preach, and I have been going up and down the country ever since preaching eight, ten and twelve times a week!
        God can hear our prayers if we get where the windows are open!
        The Word of God sharpens our prayer life.
The Holy Spirit Sharpens Our Soul Winning
It is just about a forgotten thing, but the Holy Spirit sharpens our soul winning.
Acts 1:8 says, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me.”
Acts 4:31 reads, “And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they SPAKE THE WORD OF GOD WITH BOLDNESS’
The reason many a Christian is not a soul winner is that he doesn’t let the Spirit of God control his life. The Holy Spirit of God sharpens your soul winning;
I guess most of you know Carl Hatch, an unusual soul winner. He does things sometimes that scare me to death!
One night I was preaching in Richmond, Indiana. I had to get back home that same night. The only way was to go from Richmond to the Cincinnati airport, about a two-hour drive. The fellow who was taking me to the airport said, “Did you ever meet
Carl Hatch?” Of course I had met Carl. (The reason he is such a success is that he went to Midwestern Baptist College!)
This man said, “He was in our church not long ago, and I went with him to win people to the Lord. We would knock on doors, and nobody was letting us in. We were getting nowhere. I was to that place where Christians get a lot of times, and I thought: Now, Lord, I have done all can do, so I’m going to quit. I had done the best I could and hadn’t gotten anywhere.
“But Carl got out in the middle of the street, with cars coming and going, and flagged a total stranger to a stop. He pulled over to the curb. Carl went up to the window and talked to him. Then
Carl opened the car door, got in and sat down.
“When I walked up, the total stranger was’ sitting behind the steering wheel with big tears rolling down his cheeks. Carl had his New Testament out and was leading him to the Lord!
“After the fellow got saved he said, ‘This is the most unbelievable thing I have ever had happen to me! You know, Preacher, my wife’s sister died down in Kentucky. Tomorrow I take my wife and family and drive down there. I have been driving for years, but I have been frightened to death of making the trip, getting out on the highways. I was afraid some of us would get killed, maybe me. Thank the Lord, now if something happens to me I will go to Heaven!’”
When that fellow told me that story, I said, “O God, give us more men like Carl Hatch!”
We need a revival of getting back to this old fashioned, one-on-one soul winning. Jesus Christ never fished with a big net. Nineteen times in this New Testament He dropped one line in, and. one on one nineteen times He won somebody to Himself.
Years ago some folks went out and won a fellow to the Lord-Wilfred Robinson. He went to our school, and he has now been preaching the Gospel in the St. Louis area for years. Before he was saved, he was an alcoholic. Our folks came upon his home one night, went in and led him to the Lord.
Years and years went by. One day I got a message to go see a man in his home on Michigan Avenue. “Now, Preacher, this man is a drunk, uses bad language, and no telling what he will say to you.”
(You know, a lot of folks want to see what will happen when the immovable. is hit by the unstoppable; so they send preachers everywhere!)
I went to his home, and he told me the pitiful story. His wife had left him and had been gone for two weeks. He drank his whole family down the drain. There he sat that night, a broken human being.
I got him down on his knees and was trying to get him to pray what we call the sinner’s prayer: “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Though he was weeping, trembling and under conviction, he wouldn’t pray. I was about ready to give up. Then the thought occurred to me that that was the same home where Wilfred Robinson had lived for years, and a couple from our’ church had gone to his home and led him to the Lord.
I took courage and prayed, “Lord, right in this room, may be where Jim Reed is kneeling right now, You saved another drunk. If You did it once, You can do it again.”
I heard that man cry, “God be merciful to me a sinner!”
The next Sunday morning Jim Reed walked the aisle of our church to make public his profession. About two weeks later he came down again leading his family.
        The Holy Spirit wants to sharpen our soul winning tools