Your Preacher Called

The Destructive Power of Prayerlessness
by Dr. Lonnie Mattingly

Dr. Lonnie Mattingly has been a well loved pastor in Louisville, Kentucky and southern Indiana and is once again traveling in evangelism.

“And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” (Luke 11:1)

      In order for a church to have power, it must be prayer charged. Most of us have much trouble praying when we’re in little trouble, but we have little trouble praying when we’re in much trouble. Philip Brooks said, “If a man is man and God is God, to live without prayer is not merely an awful thing; it is an infinitely foolish thing.” Jesus was there praying. His disciples were observing. I want you to notice two or three things about this introductory part of the message.
      Notice, first of all, the practice of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus, the Creator of the ends of the earth, the Creator of the universe, the Co-eternal, Co-equal, omnipotent God in flesh, God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ felt it necessary to pray. It’s an amazing thing to me that God, the holy Son of God, the Lord Jesus, as you search the Scripture, you find Him time and time again in prayer. You find Him on the mountain praying. You find Him in the garden praying. You find Him praying and sweating as it were great drops of blood. You find Him praying while the disciples sleep. You find Him praying and fasting all night, in seasons of prayer, and 40 days of prayer. Every major step and decision of His life He bathed it in prayer before He made it, even though it was already settled in the counsel halls of eternity. Jesus went on His face and He prayed and poured out His heart and talked to His heavenly Father. Jesus prayed.
      You would think that if the Lord Jesus Christ felt the urgency and the need to spend time with God in prayer, that you and I might feel a little bit of that need. Jesus prayed. His practice was to pray. He assumed that we also would pray. Have you read the Sermon on the Mount. I have a little sermon outline that I preach there sometimes -- Three Whens to Make You a Winner. He said, “When ye give alms.” Jesus assumed that we would be benevolent. Jesus said, “When ye pray.” Then He said a little later on, “When ye fast.” Then He gave instructions about them, but He never did say, “If you get around to it.” He didn’t say, “If you ever give anybody anything.” He didn’t say, “If you ever fast.” He didn’t say, “If you pray.” Jesus said, “When” you do it. Jesus assumed that we would pray. He prayed. He just assumed, He was sure that we would pray.
      I was thinking about Robert Murray McCheyne’s quote when I read about he was praying and his disciples then came to him and said, “Teach us to pray.” They were there listening to Jesus pray. Can you imagine being in the room with Jesus while He’s praying? I remember being in the room with Hyman Appleman when he prayed. If there was ever a prayer warrior, Dr. Hyman Appleman was a prayer warrior. That guy just knew how to get ahold of Heaven. He agonized in prayer. I mean continually, daily, a prayer warrior. No wonder the hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of people came to Christ under his ministry, a powerful man of prayer. Jesus was praying and the disciples were right there. I can’t imagine what that must have been like.
      Robert Murray McCheyne said, “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies.” Then he said, “Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.” My friend, what a joy, what a blessing to practice.
      I want you to see a second thing. I want you to see the petition of His disciples. The disciples said, “...Lord, teach us to pray,...” There is something very important here. I know you preachers have seen it. You’ve preached it. I’m sure. One of the embarrassing things about preaching in this conference this morning and in my own church is I don’t have anything to say that you don’t already know. I don’t have any new revelation from God. All I have is the Word of God and you’ve preached this passage many times. The disciples didn’t say, “Jesus, teach us how to pray.” They already knew how to pray. They didn’t say, “Teach us how to pray.” They said, “...Lord, teach us to pray,...” They had the same problem you and I have. We don’t need another prayer seminar. We need a prayer closet and a prayer practice.
      From the time I was a little child, I knew how to pray. I knew how to work my parents. I knew how to butter up to them and tell them how much I loved them when I was trying to work them to get something from them. I knew how to thank them. I knew how to make a petition to them. As a little child, I learned how to go to my father and my mother and petition, or even make intercession and say, “Could my friend come over?” All those kind of things and we just transfer that over.
      We go to our heavenly Father. It’s not a difficult thing to pray. Our problem is not that we don’t know how. Our problem is that we’re not doing it. They said, “Jesus, teach us to pray.” Don’t you imagine their hearts yearning within them. Here’s the Saviour. He’s over here pouring out His heart while they’re falling asleep. They’re saying, “Lord, something must be wrong with us. We believe in God. We’re religious people. We’re zealous for the cause of Christ and Judaism and Israel and all these things. We try to pray.” We get over here and our mind wanders off somewhere or we fall asleep or we start thinking about what we’ve got to do for the family this afternoon. Before long we’re praying like the Pharisee that went to the temple and stood there and prayed thus with himself. We’re just in there having a little psychological exercise. We’re trying to pray and at the same time we’re working on our ‘to do’ list for the day. They said, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
      #1. The Model Prayer. “And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.” (Luke 11:2-4) I want you to notice the pattern in prayer. So many times we ask God for what we think is good and we ought not to ask God for what we think is good. We should ask God for what He knows is good for us.
      You know what’s in this model prayer. First of all He starts off magnifying the Lord. Thank God, we have a Father that’s in Heaven. By the way, one of the things that’s been a practice in my life now for many months and years is that when I wake up in the morning the first thing I ask the Lord to help me to do and I think I do it 99% of the time, I’ve asked the Lord to help me. The first thing when I wake up in the morning I’ll have thoughts of God and thoughts of prayer and before my feet ever hit the floor that I’ll just take this model prayer that Jesus gave us. Although I use the model prayer, I use the Baptist version out of Matthew chapter six.
      I take that model prayer and just quote it to the Lord and stop at each little phrase and make an application. “Our Father, I thank you, God, that You’re not some distant God up there. You’re my heavenly Father. We have a relationship. I’ve been born into Your family. Thank you, Lord. Our Father which art in Heaven, our heavenly Father, Hallowed be thy name. Oh God, Your holy name, help me not to profane it today. Help me not to take it in vain today. Help me to live for Your glory today. Help me to lift up Jesus Christ today. May others see Jesus in me. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. Help me to work today, not for my goals and my purposes, but for Your kingdom’s purposes” and on and on. I’ll just take that prayer and break it down and think it through and different days God works on my heart different ways. Jesus just gave us a little outline there that we can hang our prayers on as we begin a new day with Him.
      Now notice the pattern in prayer. “...Thy will be done,...” Meet my need, not my greed. “ He prayed for strength that he might achieve; he was made weak that He might obey. He prayed for health that he might do greater things; he was given infirmity that he might do better things. He prayed for riches that he might be happy and he was given poverty that he might be wise. He prayed for power that he might have the praise of men; he was given weakness that he might fill the need of God. He prayed for all things that he might enjoy life. He was given life that he might enjoy all things. He received nothing that he asked for, but all that he had hoped for.”
      Oh how we need to pray. The destructive power of prayerlessness. I’m telling you, folks, we’re going through the motions. We’re going through the emotions. We’re playing church, but we’re not walking with God. We’re not spending time with our heavenly Father. We are forfeiting so much of what God wants to give us simply because we do not pray. We have powerless churches. We have pumped up programs but little power. God, help us. That’s the model prayer.
      #2. The Importunity Prayer. Even the world understands the value of persistence. The world knows that the salesman that’s going to close the majority of the sales is the salesman who is willing to return again and again and again and be persistent and just show up at the door and be there and want to talk to the manager and want to talk to the owner. They are just there all the time, just doing their business. That’s why 10% of the salesmen in the world sell 90% of the goods, and 90% of the salesmen are barely getting by and they’re changing the turnover rate of sales people in almost any organization. It’s unbelievable. But there are those handful of salesmen who understand this thing of importunity and hard work and having an urgency and staying at it. They go at it and they live and die by it. It’s amazing how God uses a person because they use a principle that God has given.
      It’s amazing to me how the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons can go into some of these areas where we Baptists say, “It can’t be done,” and build works and get converts to their lie. Because they’re taking a principle that God built into the very fiber of the universe and they’re working that principle and they have a lie that they’re working with and God honors His principle even though they are propagating a lie. They’re building and growing.
      I remember a couple different times on a couple of different mission fields. I’d ask the missionary, “How is it going here?”
      “Well, it’s tough here.” There might be one church in the whole area. When they’re talking about an area, they’re talking about a nation. They’re not populated with churches like we are. There are 300 Baptist churches in Louisville. That’s competition. People have 300 choices or they can drive down to the inner city. You go over there to other countries. It’s not like that. There is not much Gospel preaching in most of these nations. You go in there and say, “How are you doing?”
      “Well, this guy over there he’s been there five years and he’s running 32. This guy had 45 last Sunday. They had a big day. We’re working at it.” God bless them. Despise not the day of small beginnings. I’m not preaching against that. I’m not just about numbers for the sake of numbers. I’m numbers for the sake of souls. I want to reach souls for Christ.
      I’ll say, “What’s the biggest thing going on in town religiously?”
      They say, “Well, the Jehovah’s Witness just put up a new building over there. They’re putting up one every year. The charismatics have a church over there running 1,500.”
      I think, “God, help us. What’s wrong with us, fundamentalists, that we’ve just given up?” One of the problems is we’ve tried to go on the foreign field and use the methods that we have here in America, the promotions and all that kind of thing. My friend, that stuff is empty without the power of God.
      The Bible says, “And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.” (Luke 11:5-8) Can you see the picture? We’re talking importunity here. The fella is asleep in bed. All of a sudden he hears somebody down there under his bedroom window beating on the side of the house. “Hey, Ralph, hey, Ralph, come here, Ralph.”
      Ralph goes over and he says, “Norton, what do you want?”
      He said, “Ralph, I’ve had some unexpected company drive in and I don’t have any bread. The Convenient Mart is closed. Could you just loan me a couple of loaves of bread? I’ll pay you back tomorrow.”
      Ralph says, “Norton, you’re an idiot. Get out of here. My kids are in bed. They’re asleep. You’re going to wake them up and I’ve got a big day tomorrow. Get out of here. Who do you think you are?” He slams the window and he goes back across the room.
      All of a sudden there is a knock. “Ralph, you’ve got to help me, man. You’re the only hope I have.” On and on this thing goes.
      Finally Ralph comes over there, throws the window open. He throws out the bread. He throws out the bread box. He throws out the easy bake oven. He says, “Get out of here. I don’t want to see you back anymore.” Importunity. “Man, if I don’t give this guy something, I’m never going to get any sleep. That guy is never going to give me any peace if I don’t just give him what he’s asking for.” That’s the attitude of Ralph.
      God is not simply a friend like Ralph was to Norton. God is our heavenly Father. I’ve got good news. It’s never night in Heaven and God never sleeps. He is there anxiously waiting for His children to come. He gave us the illustration because He wants us to practice importunity, but God is not the least bit reluctant to give us what we ask for. God wants to give it to us. He has storehouses full of it. He wants to open the windows of Heaven and pour out for us a blessing that we have not room enough to receive it, but our problem is we’re not asking for it. We’re not expecting it. You have not because you ask not.
      God does want us to ask. He wants us to be sincere enough that we ask with sincerity and with an urgency. He does want us to spend time with Him. It should be our heart’s desire. It ought not to be, “Boy, I’ve got to find time to pray. What am I going to do? I ought to pray. God, bless us now today. Thank you in Jesus name. I’ll do better next time.” There ought to be an urgency and a heart’s desire. Hey, I get to pray. It’s my opportunity to get to spend time with my Father in Heaven. It’s my time to spend time with the Son and the Holy Spirit. I get to go rest in the presence of the heavenly sunlight for a little while. God said, “Why don’t you have some importunity? Why don’t you just keep coming and keep coming? I want to give it to you.”
      Do you know what we do? We go knock on Heaven’s door and God says, “Hey, Pete, it’s one of My children. They want to see Me. Isn’t that a blessing? I told you they’d come.” God goes over to the door, opens it, and we’re gone. There is no sincerity. There is no real desire to make a vital connection with Heaven. We’re just going through the motions. When is the last time you really connected up with Heaven, preachers, teenagers. We know Heaven came down and glory filled your soul and you knew the presence of the Lord. All of a sudden those things that you were going to ask Him for you even forgot to mention. You got up and went away and said, “Man, that was good. I’m going to do that every day.” You haven’t been back for a month except that little tip your hat to God and go on your way. Why do we not pray? It’s an amazing thing to me. Why do we not pray? Why do fundamentalists quit praying? Have you read Brother Corle’s book? Yet reading the book is not a substitute for praying. I’m afraid we’ve got all the principles of prayer and none of the practice of prayer.
      #3. The Mandate to Prayer. The Bible says, “And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” (Luke 11:9-10) Our problem is we’re saying our prayers, but we’re not really praying. Let me just give you an example. I could hear it already when I began to say that I quote the Lord’s prayer in the morning. I can hear it already in the mind of some critic saying, “That’s vain repetition. That’s like the papal system. That’s Catholicism.”
      Have you ever recorded your prayer at mealtime? If you want to deal with some vain repetitions you know, “Up my lips, down my gums, look out stomach here it comes.” “God is great. God is good, and we thank Him for this food.” Do you want vain repetitions?
      You say, “Not me, brother, I’m educated beyond that.” You just go ahead and record your prayer sometime for about five times in a row at mealtime and don’t mentally change it on purpose. Then go back and play it. It will be so common and so sound alike that from that point forward all you have to do is play the recorder. Then you can go ahead and start eating.
      We go through our little rituals and our routines. Some people are bold and open. They like to pray and use it as an evangelistic opportunity to let folks around them know where they stand. I think that’s okay. They’ll get up on the table in a restaurant and say, “Every head bowed, every eye closed. We’re going to pray and ask God to bless this food, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who sent His Son to die on the cross for your sins.” I like to have guys like that come to my church so I can send them out soulwinning with somebody else.
      Then you have the opposite extreme. They want to be religious. They want to pray, but they’re a little bit shy about it and so they do the sinus headache prayer, or I’m sleepy prayer. “Nobody saw me. I’m okay. Lord, you know I did it. You know I meant it. I didn’t try to force myself on anybody.” You’ve got those extremes.
      The problem is we’re saying our prayers and not praying. We pray by emergency and not by urgency. The Bible says, “...The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” (James 5:16) We don’t have much fervency in our prayers anymore. The prayers that are fervent, those are the prayers that are effective. Fervency and effectiveness go together. Do you know when we really pray? If we don’t admit it, if we don’t get it right with God on this thing, we’re done. We can play church all we want to.
      Do you know when we truly pray? When somebody calls and says, “The baby’s temperature is 105 and I’m taking them to the hospital. Please pray.” Or we get the call, “There’s been an accident. We don’t know if they’re going to make it. Mom is pretty bad off.” All of a sudden we’re finding that prayer closet. We say, “Oh, God,” and we begin to clean house. “God, if there is anything in my life that would keep me from getting in touch with Heaven, God, reveal it to my heart right now. I’ll confess it. I’ll forsake it. God, I’ll never do it again.” Most of the time we don’t have to ask that. Most of the time we already know what it is standing in the way of our prayers.
      That’s like the apologies that Christians make to each other. “Somebody told me that maybe I’ve hurt your feelings so I just want to say, ‘If I’ve ever done anything wrong, then I’m sorry.’” Now we are back in fellowship. Fellowship sure is sweet in our fundamental circles, isn’t it? “If I’ve offended you, I’m sorry. The Bible says, ‘Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.’ I don’t know about the baby Christian sucking his thumb over there, but I apologized. I did the right thing.” You didn’t mean it. You are a fake and a fraud.
      That’s what we do in prayer. We even try to manipulate God. Brother Corle said, “It’s easy to pray for my burden.” You know, us four and no more. It’s easy to pray for my burden, but what about your burden. What about an urgency for the needs of others? I go down through my prayer list and sometimes I get so guilty. A lot of you preachers are on my prayer list and I go down through that prayer list and sometimes I’ll go down through that list and I’ll find myself having to run down through that thing real quick and now I get to my next prayer list. Then I say, “Wait a minute. Did I pray for so and so? Are they on the list?” I’ve got to go back and look. I can’t even remember praying because I was in a hurry. I was doing my duty, but did I really care? We pray by emergency instead of by urgency.
      Don’t expect thousand dollar answers to ten cent prayers. The Bible says, “Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” (James 4:2-3) Every preacher in this room has been praying that God would really bless the millionaires and that they would notice them. That’s the way it is, isn’t it? We pray that we can consume it upon our lusts.
      Notice what He said, three very simple things. Notice He said, “Ask.” Secondly He said, “Seek.” That’s a spirit of expectancy. That’s what seeking is. Number one, I ask for something. Then number two, I begin to look for it and expect it to happen. “...seek, and ye shall find...” If I’m going to ask God to do something and if I’m praying in faith and I’m praying according to the Word of God and the will of God, according to what I really believe and I have an urgency about it and I’ve believed it and I’ve asked God for it, then I’m going to begin to anticipate it. I’m going to begin to look for it.
      Sometimes I drive our office staff crazy. I’ll be praying about something, some need in the church, some financial emergency. The Bible says there are several things we can pray for that God directly tells us to pray for: wisdom, laborers, financial needs. There are many things God tells us to pray for. You know you’re praying according to the Word. You know you’re praying according to the will of God when you pray for those things. When I pray for those things, I immediately begin to look for the answer. I believe the answer is on the way.
      I remember when my children were all little at home. Where the girls dorm is now, that was our house. We lived there. We had the downstairs. For a while the Sniders lived upstairs and we lived down stairs. For a little while we had the whole house. It was called Holy Family Hall. This was an old Catholic convent. We lived at Holy Family Hall. The nuns hadn’t moved out yet. They lived across the parking lot. We had gotten in such unbelievable trouble that humanly speaking it was impossible to get out of it. We had given everything. I decided way back before I ever became pastor that I wanted to be a giver and not a taker. We’ve tried to live up to that. I mean we had given and given and given and we had given beyond ourselves. We even had one of our deacons go to the bank and sign a $3,000 note because I couldn’t sign anything. I didn’t have anything. This was back years ago. He signed the note for me, co-signed it for me so I could get a loan, so I could supply a need for the church, trying to keep the church afloat. Then over time we were able to pay that thing off.
      We went deeper and deeper. There was no visible means of support or help. I knew that God had to do something. Our kids didn’t know anything about that. They were little. I didn’t want them to know. I didn’t want our kids to grow up resenting being in the ministry, but this time it had gotten pretty deep, pretty dark and I knew God hears the prayers of little children. I thought maybe they had more faith than I did. I had gotten to the point where I said, “I need somebody in this house that has faith and that can believe God.” We got around there as a family and sat on the floor. I said, “Now children, we need to pray. This is what it would take for us to just get to the break even point.” At that time in our lives, this was an unbelievable, astronomical figure. I said, “We have got to have,” not the church. The church needed a lot more than this. Just us, “We’ve got to have $10,000. Children, I want you all to pray for that. Daddy wants you to pray for $10,000.” You know in less than one month a little lady in our church had passed away and two weeks before she passed away the very week after we prayed she had gone to her lawyer and changed her will. I got a call after that lady died and said, “Brother Mattingly, I’m the attorney for such and such estate. I just wanted to notify you that Mrs. Walker has passed away.” I was aware of that.
      I said, “Yes, I know.” I knew she had thought about the church. She did.
      He said, “She has remembered you and your family in the will for $10,000.” Exactly what we needed. Man, I was excited. I went home. I said, “Kids, come here. You’re not going to believe this. Mrs. Walker put us in her will. Remember Mrs. Walker died. We had her funeral.”
      “Yes, we remember, Daddy.”
      “She put us in her will for $10,000.” My oldest daughter began to cry.
      She said, “Daddy, did Mrs. Walker die because we prayed?”
      I said, “No, sweet-heart, Mrs. Walker changed her will because we prayed.” I never dreamed it. I had no idea. All I knew is there is a God in Heaven. We’ve got to get something from God and I didn’t even have the faith to pray, so I got my kids to pray. That’s not a bad idea. Get your kids to pray.
      He said, “Seek” then He said, “Knock.” You know Satan trembles when he sees the weakest Christian on his knees. Do we really want revival in America? Do you want revival in your church and in your life? There are more people alive on the planet today without Christ than there were people on earth when Christ was alive when He walked on earth.
      Our three favorite revival verses in the Bible are three of my favorites. Psalm 85:6, it’s a prayer. “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?” Habakkuk 3:2, “O Lord, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.” Second 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.”
      Ladies and gentlemen, we say we want revival in America. We had a great spiritual something after 911. It didn’t last long, did it? We are pretty self-sufficient. We don’t need God. If we do need God, it’s for an ecumenical purpose of trying to purchase world peace by manipulation of people and saying, “We all believe the same thing. We’re all going to the same place. We just worship in a different way the same God,” which is a lie out of Hell. You know it and I know it. We played that little game for a week or two and then it’s back to business as usual.
      We, Americans, are tough. We’re strong. Somehow we think that God owes us, that God has to redeem America. My friend, God owes America nothing. America owes God everything. We are so arrogant and so full of pride. We’ve equated patriotism with spirituality. My friend, I am a patriot. I love America. I love our nation and our people. Thank God for our military and all the above and I pray for the President and all those things, but my friend, being a good patriot is not being a good Christian. The only hope we have in America is to get back to God. Part of that getting back to God is prayer. We’ve seen the model prayer, the importunity prayer, the mandate to prayer.
      #4. I want you to see the Miracle of Prayer. We continue reading in the passage. “If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:11-13) The miracle of prayer. By the way, take that back to Ralph and Norton, where he was asking a friend. Jesus said, “Let me just remind you that God is your Father and He wants to bless you.” You’re not being an inconvenience to God. God wants you to ask. God wants you to bother Him in the midnight hours. Here is the miracle. It’s very simple, as plain as the nose on your face. The miracle of prayer is this. God answers prayer. That’s the miracle of prayer. I’ve often made this statement on Wednesday night. Prayer is not an exercise in psychology. John R. Rice said, “Prayer is asking and receiving.” Let me caution you on something. Prayer is not a labor saving device. God will not do for me what He’s given me the ability to do for myself. I must do the natural, if God is to do the supernatural. When I do for God what I can, then God does through me what I cannot. If I’m available to God, God will use me.
      It’s like this cup of water. I’m thirsty. It’s tough up here. When you’re already nervous, your mouth is dry anyway. I’m standing here. I’m saying, “God, you know I’m Your servant. I’m a preacher. There is some water right there and here I am. My tongue is parched. I’ve been preaching. I’m having a tough time here. Would You please give me a drink of that water, God? God, send it over here. Lord, give me a drink.”
      God says, “You ignoramus. I’ve already preformed the miracle of giving you a mind to think and limbs to move. I’ve created the water and I created you. I’ve given you the dexterity to reach out and take hold of that cup.” God is not going to do for me, what He’s given me the full capability of doing for myself. God expects me to use what He’s given me before He’ll go beyond and do for me what I cannot do for myself.
      I’ve got so many stories. I’ll just tell you in a summary fashion how we sold the property over there. I was sitting in the office. I realized I bought this property and still had that one. I couldn’t pay for either one of them. I said, “Dear God, what am I going to do. God, I’m an idiot. The people are going to think I’m nuts. They followed me in this thing.” Brother Brown said, “They don’t know you don’t know where you’re going. You just go ahead.” I’ve been there, brother.
      I bought this property and we had that property and the deacons all got behind me and the church voted to do it and we did it. Here we are. I mean, if they would have looked at it they’d have said, “Look, Preacher. Our income is $1200 a week. How are we going to do it? We’re barely getting by here. How are we going to pay for that thing?” Suddenly sitting in my office I don’t know why I never thought of this, young, dumb as a concrete block.
      All of a sudden I said, “Do you know what? I’m in trouble. I got these two places. I can’t even pay for the one I have. I’ve got that place which is twice as big. The utility bills are going to be one whole week’s income.” It ended up being one whole month’s income. I said, “It was like a light came on. I’m going to have to sell this place I’m in.” I had made a deal and the time was coming due that I had to have the money and there wasn’t enough time to sell this place. I was less than two months from the time I had to have $20,000 and I had nothing. I had given them a $2,000 rubber check to hold, to put in their safe as earnest money. It was about as un-earnest as you can get. He said, “We’ll put it in escrow.”
      I said, “Where’s escrow?”
      He said, “We can put it in our account or keep it in our safe.”
      I said, “Would you mind keeping it in your safe?” I thought, “It could bounce around in there and nobody would know.” Here’s all I knew. I knew we had been praying about it and I knew that God wanted us to have this place. Brother Grant Rice used to tell me, “Brother Mattingly, you make the major decisions. With God as Your helper, you make the decision and then God will work out the details.” That’s easy to say.
      I was sitting in the office and I said, “Oh, God, what am I going to do? Lord, I’m going to have to sell this place. I don’t have time to sell this place. We’ll never even get it on the market in time and get it appraised. What in the world are we going to do?” I had to have the money and there wasn’t enough time to sell this place. I was less than two months from the time I had to have $20,000 and I had nothing.
      About that time there was a knock on the door. I got up to see who it was. It was Arthur Smith, the pastor of Portland Memorial Baptist Church, a black church.
      He said, “Are you Brother Mattingly?”
      I said, “Yes, I am.”
      He said, “I’m Arthur Smith. I was just riding by your church and the Lord impressed my heart to stop and ask you, ‘Have you ever thought of selling this property to a black congregation?’”
      I said, “Come in, Brother Smith. We’ll talk right now.” Before he left there that day, we had cut a deal. I had my down payment. God used that in such a wonderful way. I can’t even go into all the details.
      We took our senior adults to Gatlinburg on our first tour type bus. It was an old Greyhound bus. We got our first big diesel with a bathroom in it and went to Gatlinburg. We were on our way back from a wonderful trip, coming over those mountains, Kentucky, Tennessee area. We were coming up those mountains and all of a sudden right out there in the middle of nowhere, I’ve got all these senior adults on the bus, and the bus just died. We barely made it over to the edge of the road, got off the interstate, sitting there, no place to go. We’re sitting on a hill. I got these old people on the bus. I get out and walk around the bus. I tried to look like I was thinking of something to do. Brother Ken was driving. He didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do. We had just gotten the bus. We didn’t know anything about Greyhound buses and the diesel engines and the overheating and the pressure and shifting gears.
      I said, “What I ought to do is I ought to get these people together and we ought to just pray. We’re stuck out here. I am desperate. I don’t have any idea what to do. I’ve got to get these people home. They’re old. We’ve been on this bus already for a couple of hours. We need potty breaks. This is bad. Lord, You’ve got to help here. I ought to go back in there and pray.”
      Then I said, “I can’t. I can’t go on that bus and pray because if I pray and nothing happens...” I said, “Lord, I’m just going to pray and talk to You out here. If I go on that bus and pray and nothing happens,” folks, this is honesty. I know you preachers are far more spiritual. You’ve never been in any kind of situation like this. I was being a little bit intimidated by the devil about my standing, coming across as looking pastoral. I didn’t have any idea what to do. So I got on the bus and Dr. Tom Golden was on the bus. He stood up and said, “We know that our pastor is a man of prayer. Why don’t we all just pray and Pastor, you lead us in prayer. We know that God will send somebody to help us.”
      There I was. Thank you, Dr. Golden. You’re a blessing. I’m glad somebody on that bus had faith. I bowed my head and prayed. I said, “God, here we are. We’re stuck out here. We don’t know what to do. We know You have a purpose in this. Have your way, in Jesus name amen.” When I finished that prayer, there was a long-haired, hippie looking guy standing at the door of the bus. I didn’t see him come up. Nobody saw him come up. I think he was on a motor cycle. He was the hippie type, earrings, long hair, tattoos, rough looking guy.
      He said, “Are you guys having some trouble?”
      I said, “Yes, sir, we are.”
      He said, “I worked for Greyhound bus company for 17 years. Let me take a look at it.” In five minutes that guy had that thing going. He told the driver what to do. He said, “If it happens again before you get home, here’s what you’ve got to do. You’re on these hills and these buses” whatever. He was telling us about stuff. I was just sitting there, stunned. I didn’t hear anything he said.
      I just said, “Thank you that there is a God in Heaven. Thank you that Dr. Golden had faith.” Of course, I spent the rest of the trip telling everybody what a prayer warrior I was. No, but I want to tell you, folks, there is a God that answers prayer.
      “I know not by what methods rare, but this I know God answers prayer. I know not if the blessing sought will come in just the guise I thought. I leave my prayer to Him alone, Who’s will is wiser than my own.”
      Thomas Chalmer said, “Prayer does not enable us to do a greater work for God. Prayer is a greater work for God. Men may spurn our appeal, reject our message, oppose our arguments, and despise our person, but they are helpless against our prayers.”
      Do you know what we need? We need some fundamentalists who will get a prayer life. We need some prayer warriors. We need some pulpiteers, some preachers. Yes, God knows we do. I wish I could preach better sermons, but my friend, I need that prayer closet. We need to spend time with God in prayer. We need to have prayer partners and a prayer time and practice family prayer.
      Develop a prayer list and use it. God, forgive us. The destructive power of prayerlessness. Our nation is going to Hell in a hand basket and we’re trying to put on a bigger program, thinking that’s going to stop it. We’ve got to get ahold of God in prayer.