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     1. The Lord’s Prayer   (28:51)
     2. Longing for Jesus; Matthew 11:28-30   (3:53)

Luke 11:2.  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.

Matthew 6:6.  But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Ephesians 3:12.  In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.

“Teach us to pray.”  All the world, all the people in all the religions sort of look upon prayer as an absolute necessity for getting to heaven.  I think it was Jelinek who pointed out the fact that wherever bones have been dug up of prehistoric man, no matter how primitive he may have been, no matter how big or little his skull has been, you always find religious articles buried together with man.  You never find that with the monkeys or the elephants that have been buried.  But man, everywhere somehow, feels akin to some deity, to God.

And Jesus said, “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”  And now the disciples came and said, “Lord, teach us to pray.”  They recognized the absolute necessity of knowing how to pray.   But it isn’t only on our side that the necessity is great, but God commands… That’s it.  That’s what makes prayer absolutely imperative: God commands you to pray.  God demands from you that you pray.  God commands all men everywhere to turn away from idolatry and turn to Him, because He has raised Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead, and He has opened the doors into the heavenlies.  God commands us to pray, and He tells us how to pray, and tells us when to pray, and what to pray for:  “The Father seeketh worshippers…”

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“The hour is now when the true worshippers...”  Oh, God.  God seeketh sons.  God begets sons.  “Beloved, now are we sons of God.”  “Be ye therefore sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life.”

I tell you, there’s a revival coming upon this earth that’s going to knock the bottom out of the kingdom of the devil.  And it will mean the “manifestation of the sons of God.”  It’ll mean that the church will be made ready to enter into the marriage of the Lamb, and there will be that marriage when Jesus Christ comes down from heaven to dwell in His own, and to live out His own life within them.  And that victory has already begun.

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Our very first sentence, we discussed yesterday, is to say, “Our Father which art in heaven…”  Oh, praise God!  He’s no stranger to me anymore.  I’m no stranger to Him.  He’s my Father.

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“And so when ye pray, come on!”  Jesus Christ introduces me to His Father, and He says, “Now, He’s your Father too.”  And oh, what a different relationship I have now to my God: He is my Father!  Tell me, how different this world would be if all the churches lived like that, if God was their Father, and in the power of the Holy Ghost, everybody recognized His Fatherhood, and bowed before His law, and submitted to His law?  How different everything would be!  The Sermon on the Mount shows us the nature of our Father and the nature of the kingdom of God.  “And why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not the things which I say?” 

But that’s the revival that’s coming.  God’s going to have a church in which Jesus Christ is absolute Head, and God is absolute Father, and everyone is a child of God, and we dwell together in unity because we have “fellowship with God the Father, and with God the Son,” and “we have fellowship one with another.”

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“He that believeth in Me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water.”  Father claims your heart, He possesses your heart, He takes your heart.  And prayer means being united to that great Fountain of living water all the time.

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And here he was surrounded by darkness, and all the time, God communicated with Moses.  What a life!  And now Paul says, “Not like Moses.  He had to cover his face, but we with uncovered face behold in a glass the glory of the Lord and are changed into the same image.”

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Beloved, that’s the teaching of Jesus: “Your Father is in secret.”  And that’s where you worship Him.  “And when you pray to your Father in secret, He rewards you openly.”  That means He takes care of your natural life: your body, your thoughts, your words, your feelings, your actions.  Everything is controlled from headquarters.

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He says, “Go into your closet, and shut the door.”  We need an inward life.  We need a life that is “hid with Christ in God.”  And the Lord has told me how few people there are in the world that live that kind of a life.

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None of the Old Testament saints there call Him Father.  But when Moses came in touch with God, he fell on his face for forty days and forty nights.  That was a long prayer, wasn’t it?  And he didn’t eat nor drink.  And then when he came out of that prayer, he had the Ten Commandments engraven upon stone.  And now, Paul says, “Not like Moses.”  He writes His law in your heart.  Oh, my Father!  I used to envy Moses.  I used to say, “My goodness!  If You’d let me get into that mountain and see that burning bush or hear that voice like trumpet, my God, what wouldn’t I do!”  And Paul says, “Not like Moses.”  You can always see His face.

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But why does my Father come to me, and why does my Father ask me to come into the closet and meet Him and shut the door?  What does He want with me?  Does He want me to dictate to Him what to do?  Does He want me to tell Him what my needs are?  Jesus says, “He knows much more about that than you do.  Come on!  Get still, get still!  Believe God!  Come in faith and you’ll be surprised.  He’ll do exceeding abundantly above all that you can ask or think.  My God shall supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

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A church tower that pierced the fog and received the sunlight.  “Do you have your window open to Jerusalem—have your eye on Jesus Christ all the time?”    (from 11:53)

A young sister who paused to return into prayer.  “‘I stopped right where I was and closed my eyes, and returned silently in my heart, and presently, He came and covered me with the mantle of His presence.’”    (from 13:50)

Early experiences in prayer and the faith life.  “Somebody said to me, ‘You ought to write a book.’  I can’t!  When I tell people things that God has done, they think I’m a liar.”    (from 23:24)

Papa — Daddy.

Vatter — Swiss German for Vater — Father.

D’r Vatter hät’s gsait — Swiss German for Der Vater hat es gesagt — Father has said so.

A modified quote from the second stanza of O hochbeglückte Seele, a hymn by Philip Spitta, 1833.  The English version of the hymn is How Blessèd, from the Bonds of Sin.

„Maria, Mutter Gottes bitt’ für uns arme Sünder, jetzt und in der Stunde unseres Absterbens. Amen.”  Oder „Heiliger Alfonsus, finde für mich die Schlüssel, die ich verloren habe.”  No!  „Unser Vater, der du bist in dem Himmel…”

“Mary, Mother of God, pray for us poor sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.” Or, “Holy Alphonsus, find the keys for me which I have lost.”  No!  “Our Father which art in heaven…”

Constantly Abiding, a hymn by Anne S. Murphy, 1908.

Constellation — the Lockheed Constellation.

The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence (1610 – 1691).

Blessed Quietness, a hymn by Manie P. Ferguson, ca. 1897:

What a wonderful salvation,
Where we always see His face!
What a perfect habitation,
What a quiet resting place!

Audio Quality: Good

We ran light hiss reduction, slowed the recording to 104.0% of its original duration, skipped the DeHummer as there was not much hum in the recording, and applied compression.  The start sample for these operations was 81600000.  Some dropouts were noticed on the right channel, so the left channel was chosen.  Some throat clearing and dog barking was removed.  Car horns, traffic, construction, shouting, music, dog barking, and other background noises remain.

The original media and project files are available upon request.