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     1. Stand Beside Me, O My Savior   (3:53)
     2. Talk on Prayer   (31:34)
     3. Day by Day   (3:18)
     4. Here from the World We Turn   (2:10)
     5. Thy Gracious Image, Savior   (2:14)
     6. German excerpt   (0:45)

Luke 11:1.  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.

Romans 12:1.  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

I think we have a song, “Prayer changes things.”  Well, it don’t!  It’s God that changes things.  And unless prayer brings me to God—unless prayer is coupled with devotion and sacrifice, it isn’t prayer.  Lots of people “pray.”

We had a fellow come to us from Japan, and he told us how that he learned how to pray to Buddha because his grandmother promised him a yen for every thousand times he pronounced the name Buddha.  And he was able to pronounce that name like I couldn’t: he learned how to say, “Buddha-buddha-buddha-buddha-buddha…”, then go to Grandma and get another yen.  Well, that’s the way people pray, “Our father,” that wonderful, wonderful prayer.  Well, they’re told to.  Somebody presented me with a rosary a few weeks ago.  And so they learn to pray by the rosary: “Heilige-Maria-Mutter-Gottes-bitte-für-uns-arme-Sünder-jetzt-und-in-der-Stunde…” And it’s just…  You might just as well hire a parrot, or turn on a phonograph. 

But how very, very, very, very different when you find yourself submitting your will—your self—to Jesus.  Only Jesus Christ can teach us to pray.  “Lord, teach us to pray”!

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Prayer means devotion, and it means sacrifice.  Old Testament prayers always were coupled with sacrifices: whole burnt offerings.  And the whole Old Testament is saturated with blood of sacrificial animals—typifying that that’s what it takes to worship God “in spirit and in truth”.  It requires death.

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And that’s what prayer means: it means a submission—actual, practical submission to the Holy Ghost, that wonderful Fire of Jehovah.  “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.”  And we don’t know anything about prayer until we’re willing to be consumed by that fire of Holy Ghost.  Then, we’re brought into the Holiest of All.  Then we become “a living sacrifice,” and then we first discover “what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” that allows none of my own will to operate anymore.

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Oh, I thought prayer was talking to God, or making speeches, or giving God a dictation, and then running away after you’ve said, “Amen.”  No, no, no.  Prayer means to be consumed by the fire of His love, means to ascend like the angel ascended in the fire—in the flames of that sacrifice which Manoah had brought.

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“My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my salvation cometh from Him.”  That’s what prayer brings to me.  “Draw nigh to God,” “ye adulterers and adulteresses; know ye not that the friendship of this world”—meaning the friendship of yourself, your own will, your own intentions—“is enmity with God.”  “Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.”  He says… “Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded.”  Oh, beloved, when I recognize that I’m not saved until Jesus Christ gets hold, until Jesus Christ takes over my will and my affections, until my very body becomes a habitation of God and every atom of this body of my humiliation becomes filled with the resurrection power of Jesus Christ!  When I recognize what salvation means, I’ll stop trying to save myself, or I’ll stop calling myself “saved.”  I will say, “The Lord is my salvation”

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Don’t we pray without ceasing?  Isn’t your first thought in the morning prayer?  Your last thought at night?  And when you wake at night, isn’t it the thought of God?  Isn’t your heart open like a vessel?  Isn’t your soul a channel through which the power of God flows to others?  Oh, prayer!  “He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said…”  Beloved, He came that we “might have life, and have it more abundantly”.  And here we go around like beggars—begging a little sympathy, begging a little help here and a little help there.  And when we get into trouble, we beg help from God.  But we haven’t made room for Him to come and dwell within us.  We have not presented our “bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God.”

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Oh, Jesus, lead me to Calvary.  “That ye present your bodies a living sacrifice…”  Beloved, there is no medicine on earth that can do for you what that living life of Jesus will do for your body—your mortal body.  It’ll prepare you for the rapture.  It’ll prepare you for that moment when you shall be clothed upon with immortality.  “Present your body a living sacrifice.”  What does that mean?  Why, God wants not only your heart and your soul and your spirit, but God has purchased your body.  It does not belong to you, it belongs to God. 

And when you submit this body to God, He’ll do something.  All the dark forces of death and of sin will go out of your body, and the life of Jesus will take over.  It will still be a body of humiliation.  It’ll still be dust and ashes, but within this body, which is only a mold, there will be shaped, there will come forth, a new body—something we don’t see, but you can feel it.  It’s “the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead”.  He’s on the job, thank God!

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The story of a Pentecostal evangelist, who after hearing that “He that loveth Me not keepeth not My sayings” feared for his soul.  “He said, ‘Brother Waldvogel, I fear I’ve never been saved.’”    (from 11:58)

Heilige Maria, Mutter Gottes, bitte für uns Sünder jetzt und in der Stunde unseres Todes.  Amen.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.  Amen.

Und vor 30 Jahren hat der Heilige Geist zu ihm gesprochen.  Er war damals im Glaubensheim.  Er hat gesagt: “Du wirst nie werden, was du werden möchtest, bis du zurückgehst und deine Lektion lernst, die du nicht lernen wolltest.”

Ja, was war das für eine Lektion?  Er hat nicht geliebt, Geschirr zu waschen.  Das kommt den deutschen Frauen sonderbar vor, wenn amerikanische Männer Geschirr waschen. Aber dem lieben Gott war es nicht zu tun ums Geschirr; sondern es war ihm zu tun um sein Herz.  Sein hochmütiges, selbstsüchtiges Herz, das wollte predigen.

And thirty years ago, the Holy Spirit spoke to him. He was then in the Faith Home.  He said: “You will never become what you would like to be, until you go back and learn your lesson which you didn’t want to learn.”

What kind of a lesson was this?  He did not like to do the dishes.  For German women it is strange when American men do the dishes.*  But to God,** the dishes did not matter but it was his heart that mattered—his haughty, selfish heart that wanted to preach.

*This is not so anymore, but I can well remember the time when it was so.  **He said, “dear God.”  When we use “dear God” in a connection like this… we want to say that the “dear God” is not so “dear” as the one spoken to might think.  —G. Reichle

Date: “When God gave us that New Year’s text, it came right down from heaven.”  The year in which Romans 13:11 was the text would likely be the year of this recording.

Audio Quality: Good