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To dwell with a man, and he gave Moses to Zipporah, his daughter. And she gave him a son, and called his name, Versha, for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land. And it came to pass in the process of time that the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed by reason the bondage, and they cried, and their crying came unto God by reason the bondage. God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God put upon the children of Israel that God had respect unto them. That's great. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for your Word, thank you for your Bible. Please let's let us talk of your truth and wisdom as he reached your message for us dear God. For praise and Jesus' name, Amen. Alright, we're here in Exodus chapter 2, and as I said, we're going to be talking about prayer here this morning. And so the name of the sermon is Prayer for Freedom from Bondage. Prayer for Freedom from Bondage. We're in Exodus chapter 2, and notice verse number 11 in the Bible reads, And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens. And he spied an Egyptian smiting in Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. Now turn to Acts 7, Acts 7. And so obviously we know this about Moses, that he killed a man when he was younger. This is at the age of 40. Acts chapter 7 gives us a better idea of why he did this and what his plan was. And so it says in Acts chapter 7, we're going to be going back and forth between Exodus 2 and Acts 7 for the first 10 or 15 minutes. So just keep your place in both places. And so it says in Acts 7 verse 22, And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. And when he was full 40 years old, he came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian. For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them, but they understood not. So in Acts chapter 7 verse 25, what it tells us is this. When he chose to kill this Egyptian, what he believed was that he would deliver the people. This is at the age of 40. Moses, before God used him to actually deliver the people, he had the faith to believe that he was going to be used to deliver the people. This is at the age of 40. Because notice what it says in Acts 7 verse 25, He supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them, but they understood not. So at the age of 40, Moses believed he was going to deliver the people. And he thought that the Israelites would get behind him and support him. Now go back to Exodus chapter 2. Now what you need to realize about Moses was that he was born an Israelite, but he was raised in Egypt. So he was born a Hebrew, and he had the faith to realize that. It kind of makes you wonder, how in the world did he realize that he was a Hebrew? One thing I've heard people say, which could make sense, is that probably at a young age, even from before he was born, his parents probably sung hymns to him and sung the songs of God. And that's something that he remembered. And he heard that sound and remembered it. Because remember, he's leaving his family at a very, very young age. This is not when he's five or six years old. This is when he's a newborn baby. But obviously there was something that made him realize that, and I think that's probably a good reason why that could be the reason. And so he thought that the people would understand he was going to deliver them. Now, Moses was a man who was very powerful in Egypt. He was someone who did have money. He was someone who did have a good position. He was willing to forsake it all to lead the people into the promised land. Exodus 2, verses 13 through 15. And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together, and he said to him that did the wrong, wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? And so before, he kills the Egyptian. But here he's trying to break up a fight between the Hebrews, between brethren. Verse 14, and he said, who may be a prince and a judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me as thou killest the Egyptian? And Moses feared and said, surely this thing is known. See, Moses did not realize that he got caught killing the Egyptian. He thought he got away with it. He thought nobody knew about it. That's the way we are in our lives. We do something wrong, and we think we're going to get away with it. You never get away with anything. Obviously, you know, God sees everything. But even if it's something small, somehow people find out. Or you tell that one best friend of yours and say, hey, just keep this a secret. Don't tell anybody. And what do they do? They tell their one best friend. And that person tells their one best friend. And then you show up to church, and everybody knows about them. That's the way it works. Somehow people find out about stuff. And so Moses did not realize that he got caught killing the Egyptian. Because Moses did not realize that he got caught in this. And so he is afraid. Okay? Verse 15. Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well. So once Pharaoh finds out about this, about Moses, Moses has to fear for his life. Because Pharaoh wants to kill Moses. He realizes Moses is his enemy. He realizes Moses is against Egypt. Even though he grew up in Egypt, he wants to lead the people into the promised land. Now go back to Acts chapter 7. Acts 7. Now this is a great example how when you read the Bible, the Bible says compare spiritual things with spiritual. If you were to just read Exodus 2, you would not get a full picture of what's going on. But it's very clear in Acts 7 that he believed that he would deliver the people when he was 40 years old. If you just read Exodus 2, you would not know that. You would not realize that. Acts chapter 7, verse 29. And so this is 40 years go by. So it goes from the age of 40 to the age of 80. A good way to remember Moses' life is just remember it in stages of 40. At 40, he killed the Egyptian and was planning to deliver the Israelites. And then all of a sudden he flees for 40 years at 80. And then he dies at 120. His life is in stages of 40. That's a good way to remember him. And so it's when he's 80 years old that God actually appears to him and says that he is going to deliver them. Now you say, why is it that God waited so long to deliver them? Because there's 40 more years that go by, but there's also a long time period before that where the Hebrews were in bondage in Egypt. Why is it that God waited so long? Now there's basically two reasons why God waited or why God was not ready. One you see is that Moses was not ready. When he was 40 years old, he planned to deliver them. But notice that all of a sudden once he kills the Egyptian, he's immediately really afraid and he just tucks tail and runs. Now obviously Moses took on the biggest responsibility of the Old Testament. I don't think I would ever be ready for that responsibility. I'm not saying anything negative against Moses because I don't think any of us would be ready to deliver the people. You look at what he went through in the Bible. But what he went through was so difficult that at the age of 40 he just was not ready for it. Sometimes in life we feel like we're ready for something, but we're not ready yet. And that's why we wait on God to promote us to leadership. That's the way it works. You do not promote yourself because you're going to fail. If you're not ready for it, then you're going to fail. That's why you wait on God to promote you. So it's the age of 80 where God comes to him. Moses was not ready yet. We see that. There's actually a bigger problem. The problem is the Israelites, they were not ready. Now go back to Acts chapter 7. Notice what it says in verse 34. I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt. And I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt. We're going to look at other verses later on that are going to make this even more clear. But what God says in Acts 7 verse 34, he heard their groaning. You see, yes they were in bondage for a long time period. But the reason why God did not deliver them is because they did not cry out to God and ask for deliverance. Now look, obviously there's a lot of people and I'm sure some of them did ask for deliverance. But the way he's going to deliver a multitude of people is if the people together in unison are crying out to God for deliverance. Look, when you read the book of Judges, how does that book go? The people are in bondage, they cry out for deliverance. God sends a judge, a deliverer, then all of a sudden that judge or deliverer dies. Then all of a sudden they turn from God, they go back into bondage. Once it gets really bad, they cry out to God for deliverance. And the cycle goes on over and over again for 21 chapters in the book of Judges. That is what the book of Judges is about. Where basically they find that once it gets really bad, they cry out to God. And the reason why they spent so many years in bondage is because they did not roam, they did not cry out to God for deliverance. Look, God will deliver his people. Look, if God's people are in bondage and they're crying out and they turn to God and want to live a godly life, look, God will step in and help them out. But there's two problems. One was Moses was not ready and he really was the only man who could do this job. But the people, they were not ready. And we see they weren't ready because when Moses is there, they immediately reject his leadership. That's what we see right at the beginning. Now turn back to Exodus chapter 1 actually. Exodus 1. And we see this in more detail as the sermon goes on about how they prayed and asked for deliverance. But I want to show you just three things here this morning that they were in bondage about and what they need to cry out for deliverance for. Notice what it says in Exodus 1 starting at verse 11. So the first point we have is that the Hebrews were under burdens and sorrow. They were burdened being under the reign of the Egyptians. In Exodus 1 what we see is they intentionally afflict them. And they think it's going to destroy them, but what does it say? The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. Now the enemies of God should be ready for this because throughout the book of Acts it's the same way. They afflict God's people and what happens, it causes them to grow. You say, why is it that it works that way? Because people are only willing to be pushed so far in life. This liberal agenda that's out there, they unbox the things of God, they make fun of us. People are willing to take it, but only for so long. And then they get fed up with it. They get fed up with that agenda and they say, you know what, I'm going to go and just serve the Lord. That's the way it works. So that's what we see in Exodus 1, that's what we see in the book of Acts. But we see that God's people were under burdens. They're under sorrow. Go to Exodus 2. Exodus 2 will see the same thing. And in Exodus 2, verse 11. And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out onto his brethren and looked on their burdens. And he spied an Egyptian smiting in Hebrew one of his brethren. Now Moses could have just said, I don't really care about them because my life's pretty good. Moses had a pretty nice life. He didn't have to worry about being under bondage and basically being a slave. He could have just ignored it. But Moses saw it and said, you know what, I'm going to step in and help. So we see that God's people are under burdens in Exodus chapter 1 and in Exodus chapter 2. Now turn to Exodus 3. Now here's the thing about this in Exodus 2 when Moses kills this man. Egypt owns the government. They run everything. The government doesn't care if you're torturing an Israelite this time. You can do whatever you want. You won't get in trouble. They could have just killed whatever Hebrew they wanted to and nothing would happen to them. Why? Because they own the government. And so this time Moses sees this and he says, you know what, I need to step in. Now we can debate about whether or not what he did was right. Obviously he killed this guy. I don't really know if there was another option at the time. But no matter what Egypt did, they were going to be fine because they owned the government. And it's not hard to find people to lie about what happened. It wouldn't have been difficult. Exodus chapter 3 verse 7. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of My people. So once again they're under affliction, they're under burdens, they're under sorrow. I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt. And I have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So the Bible says that God heard their cry. Look, sometimes we're under bondage and all God wants us to do is just ask for help. See, what is prayer? The word pray means to ask. The Bible says I pray thee or I ask thee. It's when you're asking for something. Look, if I were to talk about how great the Lord is and just say our God is such a great God, He's powerful, He's amazing, He's a true God, that's not praying. That's called praising in the Bible. There's a difference there. Now obviously we should praise the Lord. But praying is when you actually ask for something. And see, when it comes to us praying, yes, there are things we need to ask for. And in this situation they need to ask for deliverance from their situation. Obviously God loves His people. He cares about His people. And you know what? God steps in when they actually cry out to God. And just in unison, just the people said, look, we've been under bondage too long. Lord, help us. Now turn to Genesis 27. And we're going to look at one other story today. We're going to look at the story of Jacob and Esau. And we'll go back to Genesis 27 to set the scene for the story of Jacob and Esau. But if you remember, Jacob was known as a deceiver. Obviously he was a great man of God, but he deceived to get the blessing from his father. He lied and it was his mom's advice, and he took his mom's advice. You know, sometimes saved people give you bad advice. You shouldn't just necessarily take their advice because they're saved. And so she gives them bad advice and she says, hey, the curse is going to be upon me. Well, you look at Jacob's life, he's the one who ends up on the run, okay? The curse is not just on her. It's on him as well. And so Jacob basically lies to Esau. And notice the reaction in Genesis 27, verse 41. And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him. And Esau said in his heart, the days of mourning for my father are at hand. Then will I slay my brother Jacob. So what is Esau saying? He's saying my dad is coming towards his end, so the days of mourning for my father are at hand. He believes his father is about to die. Then he says afterwards, I'm going to kill my brother Jacob, okay? Now, look, when you grow up and you have brothers and sisters, all brothers and sisters fight. You know, I don't think there's any exception in the world to that. But, you know, I have an older sister, and even though I got mad at her, I never thought about killing her, okay? That's pretty extreme to actually want to kill your brother or sister. And he actually wants to kill him. It's not even just something he says just without thinking or to be angry. He says this in his heart. Inside his heart, he wants to kill his brother, okay? He's pretty angry at this time. Now, in verse number 42, in these words of Esau, her elder son were told to Rebekah, and she sinned and called Jacob her younger son and said unto him, Behold, thy brother Esau is touching me, doth comfort himself, purposing to kill me. Now, it's interesting in verse number 41 that it says Esau said this in his heart, yet in verse 42, Jacob and Esau's mom actually heard about this audibly. So you say, why is that? Because if you think something within your heart, it eventually comes out of your mouth, okay? Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. So Esau did not intend to let everybody know. It's not like you want to go around saying, I'm going to kill my brother. He hated his brother so much that what was inside his heart ended up coming out. See, there's a reason why, when you preach, you preach to people clean up on the inside. Because we know that if your heart is messed up, it's going to come out on the outside. And so whenever there's anything in our lives, we've got to fix it on the inside. Even if nobody knows about it, because eventually everybody will know about it. That's the way it works. And so he thinks this in his heart, he says this in his heart, And eventually his mom hears about it, and she tells her son Jacob. Verse 43, So now she's telling her son once again, obey my voice. It's like, well, the last time I obeyed your voice, now my brother wants to kill me. So it's not like your last advice was that good, but he takes your advice, and he does flee to Laban. And so let's look at Genesis 32. Let's go forward in the story to Genesis 32. And so I don't have time to go into this for sake of time, but if you remember the story in between there, Jacob works for Laban, and just from day one he starts working without getting paid, and then Laban hires him. And Laban hires him, and then he marries, you know, multiple daughters of Laban. But then eventually Laban basically rips him off. And so he's staying there for a long time, and he eventually decides, I'm going to leave. I'm going to do things on my own, I no longer want to live here because I am being cheated, I'm being ripped off. And so what's the moral of the story there? Well, if you're a deceiver and rip other people off, you're going to be ripped off as well. That's the reason why it happened, Jacob. You're a deceiver, you're going to get deceived. That's the way it works. You deceived to steal a blessing, and then you were deceived into marrying the wrong woman. Look, when you reap what you sow, it's never worth it to commit a sin or do wrong. Because you end up reaping something a lot worse than what you sow. Now, in Genesis 32, notice verse 3. And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother on the land of Seir, the country of Eden. And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall you speak unto my Lord Esau. Thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have sojourned with Laban and stay there until now. And I have oxen and asses, flocks, and men servants and women servants. And I have sinned to tell my Lord that I may find grace in thy sight. Now, I want you to put yourself in this position in Genesis 32. This is the days before cell phones. This is the day before the internet. Jacob, though, knew who Esau was. He actually heard about him. You say, why is it that Jacob had heard about what was going on in Esau's life? Because Esau became a pretty powerful person in this time period that had gone by. Now, Jacob was blessed. He had a family. He was blessed financially. But not like Esau. Esau was very powerful. And so Jacob had heard about Esau. And so in order to flee from Laban, he has to go through the land of Esau. Esau basically runs this land. He's a powerful person now. He has so many servants. He's a lot more powerful than Jacob. And so we see here in verse number 6, And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and also he cometh to meet thee. And four hundred men with him. Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed, and he divided the people that was with him in the flocks and the herds, and the camels into two bands. And so a long time period has gone by. And during this time period, he's hoping that, hey, you know what? Esau's really powerful now. Surely he'll get over this, right? He's more powerful than me. And then all of a sudden Esau comes with four hundred men. And Jacob's like, oh man, he wants to kill me. He's like, maybe I should go back to Laban. But he basically burned your bridges at both sides. And so you're in trouble here. And so he decides, you know, he's going to go through with this. But he basically makes a plan, and so he divides the people. What his basic plan is is this, that if some of the people get killed, then they will not get killed. He's trying to come up with a strategy. And you can even see in the story, and we won't go there for the sake of time, that at the very back he came with Rachel. You know, the reason why is because he loved Rachel more than his other wives, which is, you know, obviously he shouldn't be married to multiple women, but, you know, that's the situation he was in, and he was afraid that he would get killed. And so he is afraid for his life. Now, when you come to situations like this, and you're under this much burden and sorrow and you're this afraid, what's the reaction as Christians? You get down on your knees and you pray to God. That's what you do. That's what we all do, okay? Look, it doesn't matter how much in this room that you pray. If you're afraid for your life, if you're afraid you're drowning, I promise you, you are going to be crying out to God for deliverance. Whether it's audibly or in your heart, you're going to ask Him to help you. Sometimes in life you've got to hit just rock bottom, and all of us, when we hit rock bottom and we know there's no way out of this, what do we do? We pray to God. That's what we do. And so Jacob is in this situation where he believes that his brother wants to kill. Now, notice what it says in verse number 22. And he rose up that night and took his two wives and his two women servants and his eleven sons and passed over the four of Japheth. And he took them and sent them over the brook and sent over that he had. And Jacob was left alone and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. So he sends them all and then he's left alone. You say, why? Because he's trying to get a hold of God. He's trying to pray to God. He's trying to get deliverance. He's trying to get close to God. See, the way we get close to God is when we're alone with God. The way we get close to God, I mean, in church you can grow, you can learn, we have fellowship, we go soul winning, it's a great time. But you know, the way you get close to God is early in the morning for an hour when you're spending time praying and reading God's Word. That's how you get close to God. Now this story took place and there's actually a man wrestling with him which we believe is the Lord Jesus Christ wrestling with him, which I think almost everybody's in agreement with. But this is also a picture of prayer. Because Jacob is left alone and he's trying to get a hold of God because of the fact he's afraid he's going to be killed. He needs God's help in this situation. Because as far as he knows, there's no way he's going to make it out of here. Verse 25. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh. And the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him. And he said, let me go for the day breaketh. And notice the response of Jacob. And he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. So Jacob refuses to let the Lord go. He says, no, I'm not going to let you go unless you bless me first. Now it makes sense why he's doing this because he's like, if I don't get your blessing, I'm going to be killed. He's like, I'm not giving up in this battle. But this is a good picture of how we need to be in prayer. Sometimes we pray about things and sometimes God answers immediately. Sometimes he doesn't. You say, well, how do we get a hold of God? You keep praying for that blessing. You keep praying that God's going to answer your request. You don't just give up on the first try. You don't give up on the second try. You stick in there, you pray, you pray, you pray about it. Now look, we don't believe in just praying about stuff and not doing anything about it. When we talk about praying for a family to get saved, we put action to that. We go out there and actually preach to them and try to get them saved. But you also need to keep praying for it. And that is what Jacob's doing here. He is praying and he says, I will not unless you bless me first. He's like, I am going to win this battle. Now obviously, the Lord could have made him lose that battle at any time that he wanted. But because of the fact that Jacob actually stayed in that battle and prayed for it, God actually grants his request. Notice what it says in verse number 27. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob than Israel, for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. So he prevails in this wrestling match. Think about a wrestling match. Has anyone in here ever wrestled before? Anybody? If you've ever wrestled, even for fun. When I played soccer growing up, I used to run for over an hour every single day. I used to be in soccer shape, which meant I ran and ran and ran. But then you go and wrestle for like three minutes, and then your hands are on your hips and you're like, fighting is tiring. Wrestling is tiring. It's a different sort of energy that you're exerting. But in fast sports, you burn up so much energy when you're wrestling. It's not easy. And Jacob, though, says, You know what? I'm not going to give up after a minute. I'm not going to give up after two minutes. I'm going to fight and fight and fight and fight, and I'm going to win this battle. Amen. And when it comes to prayer, prayer is not an easy thing either. Look, it's not easy to go down on your knees in the morning and pray to God and ask for something. We usually get lazy after just a couple minutes and just want to give up. I'm not saying this is easy. This April challenge of praying every single morning, you're going to have to put in some real work if you want to accomplish it. It does take effort. That's what we're seeing here in Genesis chapter 32. That's the symbolism God is showing us that Jacob needed to get a hold of God, he needed to pray to God, and God actually did bless him. Now, turn back to Exodus 2. Now, you can debate about, we saw people have different opinions of what was his mindset, because the next day Esau just greets him. And so maybe Esau had forgiven and forgotten every single thing. That's kind of my opinion. I know other people think maybe God used that, and before that he would have been destroyed by his brothers. The Bible doesn't necessarily specifically say, but what we do know is that Jacob did give God's blessing. Now, you might be in this room and you say, Brother Stuckey, I feel like I'm under burden and sorrow. You say, I don't like my life. I wish I was in a different position. Well, ask yourself this question honestly. How much have you prayed to God to deliver you from your burdens? How much have you prayed to God to deliver you from your sorrows? Now, yes, you've whined about it. Yes, you've complained about it. Yes, people are aware you're not happy. But have you ever actually prayed to God and told him, God, please help me. I can't get through this situation. Please help me have a better attitude. Please help me get through this situation. Please bless me in this way. How much have you actually prayed about this? Because people can hear your complaints and everything, but it doesn't mean that you have to actually spend time with God praying. Now, this thing about prayer is something that we don't know how much you pray. You don't know how much I pray. I don't know how much you pray. What's great about this is that you don't always need to get rewarded by men for the works you do. You can do things silently and not let everybody know about it. And this is something that prayer is about. You do this silently. You don't tell everybody how much you pray. You don't say, hey, guess what, I just prayed for an hour. Text somebody on your phone. Well, I guess you can go ahead and do that if you want. You're going to lose your rewards in heaven. You're supposed to do things to be seen by God, not to be seen by men. But this is something where you're not going to get praise from man about it. But God's going to look down on your life, and he's going to bless you if you spend that time in prayer. Another thing that the people of Israel were in bondage to, they were very poor. Exodus 2, verses 23 through 25. And it says in Exodus 2, verses 23 through 25, And it came to pass in the process of time that the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage. And their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect on them. And so notice how they're under affliction. Now God said in verse number 24, He heard their groaning, and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. Now go back to Genesis 15. Let's look at this covenant. Now I want you to understand something that God doesn't necessarily want you to be rich. In most cases, it's not a good thing for you to be rich. Because most of us, if we're rich, we can't handle money. It will destroy our lives. But at the same time, it doesn't mean that God wants his people to be dirt poor either. You can go to various extremes on this. You have the health and wealth gospel, the prosperity gospel that the Pentecostals often preach. And that's wrong, because of the fact that God's people sometimes don't have everything perfect in life. Sometimes they do have health problems, sometimes they do have problems where they're not rich. But that doesn't mean that God wants you to be dirt poor. God doesn't necessarily want us to be dirt poor. Because if you're dirt poor, it can cause you to curse the Lord, the Bible says. Now notice Genesis 15, starting in verse 18. So, talking about the covenant with Abraham, and notice the names of these people that it mentions. Now turn to Exodus chapter 3. And in Exodus 3, we're going to see a lot of these same names mentioned as well. Exodus 3, verses 7 and 8. And I've heard their cry by reason of their task massacres, for I know their sorrows. And I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land onto a good land in a large. Onto a land flowing with milk and honey. Onto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. So you're noticing a lot of the same names there. But I want you to notice in verse number 8, he said onto a land flowing with milk and honey. Now let me ask you something. When you go shopping and you decide to get honey, is honey cheap? No. It's not a cheap food, is it? I mean, it's one of the most expensive foods. Now, it's one of the healthiest foods, I believe that. We'll talk about that as we're going to be doing a five part series on biblical health starting in about a month from now. It's one of the healthiest foods, but it's also one of the most mahal. It's very expensive, isn't it? It's not cheap. Now, I understand you can get milk at a cheap price at the store, but look, if you've lived in the United States before, and you want actual real milk where the government just hasn't pumped all kinds of chemicals in it to make it last for like five months, or it doesn't get spoiled, look, it costs a lot of money. It would probably cost, I don't know, 350 pesos per one gallon? Probably more than that for organic, for real natural ones. Because in the U.S., yes, they have tons of money, and so the government just takes it upon themselves to just destroy all of the food. Honestly, you're going to eat healthier food here because the government hasn't touched it as much as they have in America. But milk is not a cheap food in the U.S. In fact, it's very, very difficult to even get access to real healthy food. So you have to understand with milk and honey, I think there's a few things being mentioned here. One is that you have healthy foods, which both of those are, but you also have foods that are not exactly the cheapest foods either. And so I'm not saying that God is promising them, hey, you're going to land there, and there's just going to be a million dollars to fall from the sky, and you're going to be rich. No, you're going to have to work hard to provide your needs. But what he is showing them is, hey, you know what, you were in bondage, you were as poor as can be with no hope, but I'm giving you a hope. You make it into the promised land, yes, you'll have to work hard, just like we all have to work hard, but you will actually be able to provide your needs. He's not promising them that they're going to be rich, but he's also not telling them, hey, you're going to land, and you're just going to eat garbage food and have nothing, and your life's going to be miserable. No, he's promising them a good land. That's what he's telling them. Now turn to Numbers 13, and we're going to confirm this. The Bible says in Proverbs 30, as you're turning to Numbers 13, in Proverbs 30, verse 8, Remove far from me vanity and lies. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny me and say, Who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal and take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. See, the best prayer when it comes to our finances is just that we won't be rich and we won't be poor. Basically, God just provided my needs. Provide my needs so I could be dedicated to church, but provide so I'm not really poor and I get angry, actually. But I'm not really rich and I forget you, because most of us are going to fall into both of those hands. Most of us, if we get really poor, will develop bitterness toward God. Most of us, when we get really rich, we're going to basically forget about God. That's the way it works. I believe it works that way with me, because I've had times in my life where I had more money and times when I had less money. And when you have less money, you start to develop this attitude, God, I've done so many and so much. I've read the Bible and look at me. I have nothing. And you kind of get mad at God. Now, one thing we do need to realize is God does often allow us to live on less than we want. We all would just rather have a little bit more money. There's nobody in this room that's naturally going to say, I wish I had less money. Because if you wished you had less money, you would just donate it to whatever. Nobody wishes they had less money. But the truth is that if we had more money, it would usually get to our head. It wouldn't necessarily be a good thing. That's why there are exceptions, because in the Bible, Job was the best man in the world, and he was basically the richest man. And he was blessed with everything, but yet he stayed faithful to God. But those are exceptions to the rule. All of us think we're exceptions. The odds are you're not an exception. Most of us, we're not exceptions. Being rich is going to get to our head. Look at the kings in the Bible. When they have money and power, good men end up committing adultery on their wife. Good men end up becoming bad people. Look, if you have that sort of power and that sort of money, it's not really healthy for you. It's not necessarily a good thing for you, usually. It says in Numbers chapter 13, verse 23, So we see that this land, as they're sending in spies to check out the land, and they're going to come back and bring a report. And so they send in 12 people that they trust. 12 men are sent in. This is the reason why we know who Joshua and Caleb are, because those were the two out of the 12 that actually came back and brought a good report. The other 10, though, bring a bad report. But look, the other 10, when they go in, their bad report is the fact that they don't think they'll win the battle. They agree that it's a good land. They're coming back and it says there's grapes, there's pomegranates, there's figs. Look, if you were just a slave in Egypt, that sounds pretty good. It's like, wow, there's fruit in this land. That's awesome. Verse 24, The place was called the brook Eshkol because of the cluster of grapes within which the children of Israel cut down from this. And so the brook gets its name because of the cluster of grapes. It sounds like this is an area that God has blessed where you can actually farm this land and produce fruits and vegetables. Look, there is a lot of land that you could not produce fruits and vegetables very well. There's areas where fruits and vegetables don't grow up. Go to the desert and just plant a bunch of trees and see how successful you are. There are certain lands that are good and certain that are bad. And they get to this land and they find out it's a good land. Yes, we'll have to work hard to farm the land and produce these fruits and this vegetable and our sustenance, but it is a land we can do that. That's what they see when they get there. Verse 25, So the question is, what's the problem? I mean, God has promised He's going to deliver you. He's already delivered you so much and rescued you. You get to the land and it's great. It's like, just go in there. Just take it. But they choose to rebel because they're afraid they're not going to win the battle. So they get there and it's a nice land. Now turn to Exodus chapter 3, Exodus 3. And so if you're familiar with the story, they basically get there and they choose not to go in. They choose not to take the land because they do not trust that God is going to deliver them. Now, you know, there are some religions that are very strange out there and they believe that God wants you to be dirt poor. And they believe living a life where you have nothing is actually a good thing and it makes you more holy or more spiritual. A great example of this would be Buddhism. Right. Buddhism teaches that, you know what, it's great if you have absolutely nothing in life. Look at the story of Buddha. Have you ever seen a documentary on Buddha, where the religion comes from? This guy is about to have a child. Okay. His wife is pregnant. What does he do? He runs away from home and leaves her to raise that child on her arm. What a great guy. What a spiritual leader to just leave your newborn child without father. What a great guy you are. I mean, people worship the Buddha. They worship Buddhism. He left and forsook his family. He was a bad husband. He was a bad father. He just left them. Left them to just search and spiritualize. Look, when God has blessed you with a wife, when he's blessed you with kids, you're expected to raise those kids. Right. Okay. If God has blessed you with a wife, you know what the Bible says the godly thing to do is? To lay down your life for your spouse as a husband. That's what the Bible says. You're supposed to care about your spouse, which means oftentimes you set aside things that you want for the sake of your spouse. That's what the Bible teaches. Look, you know what? If you're blessed with a child, you're expected to raise that child and do a good job. You're not expected to just run away right when your wife's about to give birth, like the Buddha did. But what he did is he just went and searched and he would just basically torture his body. He would eat no food for a long period of time. See, I think people are confused about Buddhism because you see that famous statue of the big belly? That's not the original Buddha. See, the original Buddha did not have a big belly. You know why? Because he never ate any food. And he believed finding God was basically just never eat any food. And you'll just reach this level of enlightenment. And that's why what you see is with most countries that are very Buddhist, they're extremely poor countries. And for some reason, they think that that religion is going to help them in some way or they think that that makes them more godly. Look, God did not want his people to be dirt poor like that. He doesn't want you to starve to death or be on your death bed every single day. He wants you to be able to eat. He doesn't want you to be rich. But this idea that being rich is ungodly is not what the Bible teaches. People go to those streams with this. Just because you have money, that does not make you ungodly. It doesn't make it wrong. He doesn't want you to be super rich usually. He doesn't want you to be super poor either. He wants you to be kind of in the middle. And so, look, they were in bondage and they were dirt poor. And God is choosing to deliver them. And instead of being afraid to fight the battle, what should they have done? They should have just gone down on their knees and prayed to God and asked for strength to win the battle. Now, notice Exodus chapter 3. And the last thing we're going to look at in terms of points is this. That the children of Israel, the Hebrews, they could not serve God when they were under the Egyptian rule. Exodus 3 verses 17 through 19. And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt onto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hibites, and the Jebusites, onto a land cloned with milk and honey. And they shall bark into thy voice, and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, onto the king of Egypt. And he shall say unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us, and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. So they want to sacrifice to the Lord. That's what they want to do. Obviously, as God's people, you want to sacrifice to God. You want to serve God. Verse 19, And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand. So what does God say to Moses? You're going to ask to sacrifice to your God, and then he's going to say, no, you are not allowed to sacrifice to your God. Turn to Exodus 5. And in Exodus 5, we're going to see this again as we go on with the story. In Exodus 5, starting in verse 1, And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast on me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. Now, this is a pretty bold statement, considering that you're losing this battle, Pharaoh. We don't have time to go into every single chapter and every single verse, but Pharaoh clearly loses the battle. And this is towards the beginning, but he's already losing the battle. And his statement is, who is the Lord? I mean, what an arrogant statement to make. I mean, I know you're the king of Egypt. I know you were the most powerful man in the world. But it looks like the Lord's a little bit more powerful than you, buddy. Notice what it says in verse 3. And they said, The God of the Hebrews hath met with us. Let us go, we pray thee. So there we see that praying means to ask. He says, Let us go, we pray thee, or we ask thee. Three days journey into the desert and sacrifice unto the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with a sword. And the king of Egypt said unto them, Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works get you onto your births. So they're asking to sacrifice to the Lord, and then Pharaoh says, No, I will not let you sacrifice to the Lord. Now, turn to Exodus 8. Now, look, at Verity Baptist Church Manila, we do take a very strong stand in what we believe. Obviously, everybody at this church is aware of that. But I want you to understand that the average person out there, even though they believe in their religion, they don't take such a strong stand with their religion that they would refuse to let other people go to church or refuse to let other people read their scriptures, whatever their religion is, or refuse to let them pray to God, okay? Pharaoh, though, is a pretty bad guy because he's basically saying you can't worship the Lord in any way whatsoever. He was that rare exception that says, I don't want you to pray, I don't want you to read Bible, I don't want you to sacrifice. You're not allowed to do anything. Now, think about it. In our country, we have a lot of freedom with our religion. There's no one preventing us from having church here, okay? There are countries we could go to. There are Muslim countries or in North Korea or other places where, you know what, they could prevent us from having church. They wouldn't allow us to have it. The government would prevent us. We could get arrested. We could go to jail. Maybe people get put to death. We don't have that problem in this country. There is really very little persecution here in the Philippines. I mean, if you think this is a lot of persecution, then you need to read the Bible more because there's no real persecution. But can you imagine if, and this would never happen, but imagine if President Duterte said one day, I will not let anybody pray to God. I will not let anybody read the Bible. We're going to steal all the Bibles and burn them, and they can never go to church. Man, there'd be nothing worse than living in a country where you can't even pray to God. There'd be nothing worse than living in a country where you can't read the Bible. Now, there are countries where they've done that before. I mean, back in Communist Russia, they would not let you have Bibles. Other countries now, they will remove your Bibles. They'll throw you in jail. They'll burn your Bibles. We don't have that problem here. But imagine living in a country like that. Now, look, it's not good to be under burdens and sorrow. It's not good to be really poor. But you know what would be worse for any of us is to live somewhere where we couldn't even pray to God. We couldn't even read the Bible. But we would be willing to be poor as long as we got to pray to God. Because in our lives now, we don't necessarily rely on God as much as we should. But if we were in that situation when our life got really bad, we'd want to at least be able to pray to God, at least be able to have church and fellowship and read the Bible. But Pharaoh is such a bad guy that he says, No, I will not let you sacrifice to the Lord. Exodus chapter 8, starting in verse 8. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, And treat the Lord that he may take away the frogs from me and from my people. And I will let the people go that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord. And Moses said unto Pharaoh, Glory over me. When shall I entreat for thee and for thy servants and for thy people to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses that they may remain in the river only? And he said, Be it according to thy word, that thou mayest know that there is none light on the Lord our God. So basically this is one of the plagues and the whole land is filled up with frogs. Now look, I don't mind seeing a frog from time to time, but if there was like a thousand frogs in this room right now, it would kind of get on my nerves if I'm preaching and I'm having to kick away the frogs and they're coming on my face and everything. Look, this is a pretty bad situation. And Moses is saying, When do you want me to entreat the Lord? I'd be like, Now. Right now can you just get rid of the frogs? And Pharaoh's like, Tomorrow. And he's saying, Why would he say tomorrow? Because Pharaoh was such an arrogant man that he still wouldn't try to figure it out on his own. He's still trying to fight against God. Now we do the same thing with our sin. People are involved in sins that destroy their lives. People are drug addicts at the point of death. And then it's just like, Well, just help me out tomorrow, Lord. I mean, people know that they can come to church and pray and read the Bible and help fix their lives, but people like to wait until the last possible second. That's what Pharaoh's doing. Now turn to Exodus chapter 10. Now, I believe that Pharaoh was probably an intelligent person. I believe to be in the position he was, he was probably a very well-educated person. He probably spoke a lot of languages. He was probably very educated, probably very intelligent. But look, just because you're a really intelligent person, that doesn't mean that you're not a fool as well. He was a very intelligent fool. He was a moron. You say, Well, how do you know that? Look, his own people said that in Exodus chapter 10, verse 7. And Pharaoh's servant said unto him, How long shall this man be a snare unto us? Let the men go that they may serve the Lord their God. Knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed? So he's telling them, Hey, Egypt is destroyed. He's like, How long are you going to fight this foolish battle? Just let them go and sacrifice to the Lord. Why doesn't he let them do it? Because he's a bad guy. He hates the God of the Bible. Now, he's losing this battle. I mean, the smart thing would be to say, Well, you know what? I'll just throw in the towel. He doesn't do that, though. He keeps pretending like he'll throw in the towel and he changes his mind. Exodus 10, verse number 8. And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh, and he said unto them, Go serve the Lord your God, but who are they that shall go? And so he finally is agreeing with them. He says, Go serve, but who is going to actually go? And Moses said, We will go with our young and with our old and with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds, while we go. For we must hold the peace unto the Lord. And he said unto them, Let the Lord be so with you as I will let you go. And the little ones, look to it, for evil is before you. Not so. Go now ye that are men and serve the Lord, for that ye did desire, and they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence. So basically, Pharaoh says, You know what? I'll let you go, but just the men. You say, Why doesn't Moses agree to this? Because you know what? Everybody, men, women, and children, deserve to get to serve the Lord. Look, at our church, I think it's great when anybody comes home. Men and women, they're all welcome. There's a lot of Baptist churches, they don't let women go home. I don't understand that, because in my years of experience sowing, usually my wife has an easier time of getting people to talk to her than I do. Whether it's here or whether it's in the U.S., you know, oftentimes people feel more comfortable talking to a woman. But they can go out sowing and get people to say, Children, hey, if they learn the scriptures, let them go out and go sowing. Whether it's six, seven, eight, nine years old, if they know how to present the gospel, hey, let them come out. Let them learn. I think it's great. Moses says everybody gets to serve the Lord. Look, you know, if there was some ruling that said, You know what, we'll let you serve God, but only men can come to church. No, we're not accepting that. You can serve God, but only men are allowed to pray. No, we're not accepting that. You can serve God, but only men are allowed to read the Bible. No, we need men, women, and children serving the Lord. And so Moses refuses to agree with this. And see, the world will always try to get you to meet them halfway. You should never accept the world's offer and meet them halfway. You should never do that. And so Moses says no to that. Go down to verse number 24. And Pharaoh called on to Moses and said, Go ye, serve the Lord. Only let your flocks and your herds be stayed. So basically Pharaoh's like, Okay, I'll let more of you serve, but not the flocks, not the herds. Let your little ones also go with you. And Moses said, Thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings that we may sacrifice unto the Lord our God. Obviously, in the Old Testament, they did sacrifice animals. And he's saying, We can't go unless we have a sacrifice because of the fact God requires that from us. And then it says in verse 26, Our cattle also shall go with us. There shall not an hoof be left behind. He's saying, Every single one is coming. Every single animal, every single person. For thereof must we take to serve the Lord our God, and we know not with what we must serve the Lord until we come dinner. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them go. And Pharaoh said unto him, Get thee from me, take heed of thyself, see my face no more. For in that day thou seest my face, thou shalt die. And Moses said, Thou hast spoken well, I will see thy face again no more. This is pretty much the final battle before the death of the firstborn child. Basically, Pharaoh gets chance after chance. And look, there was other passages we could have added there. But basically, where he tries to get them to meet them halfway, they just want to serve God, and Pharaoh says, I will not let you serve God. What was it like to live in Egypt? They were burdened and sad every single day. They worked a ridiculous amount of hours every single day, no days off often, and you know what? They were dirt poor. Now look, I understand in this room we have people with different jobs. Some people do work a lot of hours. But look, they work more hours for less money and no hope of ever making it happen. See, when we work, we work for the Lord. He's our boss. He sees everything we do. So he can look down at us, and when we work hard, God can bless us. But in their situation, Egypt ruled everything, and no matter what they did, they said, we have nothing. They needed to cry out to God. And you know what? They could not serve God at all. And so the question is, well, how long did these people want to live this sort of lifestyle? Apparently, they wanted to live like this for a while because they never actually got on their knees and actually prayed to God. You might be in this room, and you might say, Brother Stuck, you know, my life right now is not the best. I'm burdened. I'm sad. I've got a lot of problems. Get down on your knees and pray to God each day. That's what you need to do. Look, the children of Israel could have been delivered a long time ago, but God did not hear their cry. He didn't hear their groan. You say, Brother Stuck, you know, my job is not good. I don't make much money. You need to get down on your knees every day and pray to God. And you work and you work and you pray to God, and God can deliver you. We must make sure we're praying about it every single day. You say, Brother Stuck, you know, I can't always serve God because of my schedule. You know, I understand that a lot of people are in that situation in our church, and I do pray for everyone in that situation. I want people to be able to serve God to the best of their ability, okay? We all need to pray about this. And, look, whatever it is in your life that you're struggling with, look, you need to pray to God about it. God can deliver you, and He will deliver you if you cry out to Him. Now, the last thing I want to do in this sermon, turn to Luke chapter 11. And can I actually have somebody bring me a prayer list? I forgot to bring one up here. And so I wanted you to pull out your bulletin and take out the prayer list that you were given here this morning. Everyone should have one of these, and I'll go through a few things because what I've done in this sermon so far, well, let's read Luke chapter 11, verse 1, and then I'll explain it here. Luke 11, verse 1, and I know this is a bit of a longer sermon. The second sermon I'll make sure is a little bit shorter. But in Luke 11, verse 1, the Bible reads, 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. Now, so far in this sermon, I've tried to motivate you to pray. I haven't taught you how to pray, though, okay? What the disciples of Jesus were saying is, hey, can you just teach us to pray so we know how to do it? Because in this room, every single one of us, before we came to church today, would agree, we should pray. But that doesn't mean that everybody in this room actually spends a lot of time praying this day, okay? And I think one reason why is because of the fact people don't really know how to pray. And when it comes to anything in the Christian life, look, we need to be taught how to be saved, we need to be taught how to go so, we need to be taught how to read the Bible, we need to be taught how to pray, we need to be taught how to live a godly life, we need to be taught things. That's the way it works. All of us learn, okay? And so what I want to do this last 10 minutes is just kind of try to help teach you to pray and give you a few thoughts here, okay? One thing we need to do is this. We need to prepare to pray, okay? Now, when it comes to preparing to pray, there's a few things that go into this. One, I would highly recommend that you pray first thing in the morning, okay? If you don't pray first thing in the morning, you're probably not going to pray at all, other than 35 seconds, okay? You're probably not going to pray very much at all if you don't do it first thing in the morning. That's just the way it works. And I think all of us are familiar with that, that when you serve God, it's best to do it first thing. You say, I'm not a morning person. That may be the case, or maybe you work really early in the morning. I recommend maybe not praying as long, but just at least for a little while, and then if there's a time later in the day where you feel like you do better and you're more awake, then make it a point to pray at that time as well. But it's very important to start your day off at the very beginning, okay? And when it comes to preparing to pray, you say, well, how do I start that off in the morning? You don't start it off in the morning. You start it off the night before, okay? You don't just wake up and say, now I need to pray. You need to prepare the night before. You say, well, how do you do that? First, you don't go to bed really late at night, okay? If you go to bed really late at night, if you stay up and you're on YouTube and Facebook till 1130 at night, look, you're not going to wake up early and pray. That's the way it works. That's the way it works. Because for one, when you look at electronic things late at night, it makes it hard to sleep. That's been scientifically proven. That's a whole other sermon or whatever. But look, if you stay up late on your computer and your cell phone and then go to bed, don't think that you're going to wake up on five hours of sleep and get up and spend time with God and prayer. That's not logical. It's not going to work. You need to start the night before. Make sure you don't go to bed really late. Another thing you need to do, and you're welcome to take notes if you want, if you want to write these things down. We do open the bulletin. You can take notes now. These are probably the best part of sermon to take notes. One is don't go to bed really late. Another thing is don't eat a lot of junk food the night before you go to bed. If you eat a lot of junk food, you will have to sleep longer and compensate for an unhealthy diet. That's the way it works. If you've ever paid attention to what you eat, the healthier you eat, the less you have to sleep. But if you eat a lot of junk food, what ends up happening is you have to end up sleeping longer. That is the way it works. So don't eat a lot of junk food. Try to eat a relatively healthy meal, especially don't eat a lot of junk food late at night. And look, when you do pray, make sure you take the computer, cell phone, and distractions away from where you plan to pray. I would recommend, if you plan to pray in a living room by your couch to go down on your knees and pray, I would say the night before make sure your computer's in a different room. Make sure the cell phone's in a different location. Because if you're buying these electronic gadgets and social media, curiosity's gonna get the best of you. And you're gonna wake up and say, hey, I'm gonna pray in just two minutes. I just wanna see what happened on Facebook. And then 25 minutes later, oh, I'm late for work. That is what will happen. That is what happens. So to be successful at praying, you have to prepare the night before. Now, our goal here is that everybody in this room would spend time every single day praying to God. That is our goal, that you would spend at least 10, 15-plus minutes praying to God. My wife and I are both taking this challenge. My son, I'm gonna do my best to get him to take up this challenge. But look, I hope we can all do this. It starts with preparing. Another thing, turn to Daniel 6. Another thing that's important, if you're gonna pray, is this, that you have purity in your life, okay? Look, when you're living an ungodly life, you generally don't wanna pray to God. You generally don't wanna read the Bible and pray to God. Daniel was a man we know was very successful in prayer, and he also lived a very pure life. It says in Daniel 6, verses four and five, then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom, but they could find none occasion nor fault for as much as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him. Then said these men, we shall not find any occasion against this Daniel except we find it against him concerning the law of his God. And so they tried to get Daniel in trouble, and there's absolutely nothing that they can do to get Daniel in trouble. Why? Because he's just a good guy. He's living a pure life. He's obeying God's rules. He's obeying the rules of the kingdom and not breaking them, except for this matter where he's told not to pray. Obviously, he disobeys that to serve the Lord. But they realized the only way we're gonna get this guy in trouble is if we can get him to serve God where it's against the law, and that's what they do. So Daniel was living a pure life. Look, if you want to be successful in prayer, you need to prepare yourself, but you also need to be pure in your life. You need to be living a godly life, okay? Now let's look at Daniel 6, verses 10 and 11, and let's look at the pattern of prayer. Now when Daniel knew, verse 10, that the writing was signed, he went into his house and his windows being opened in his chamber toward Jerusalem. He kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he did a four-time. Then these men assembled and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God. So the Bible says about Daniel that he prayed three times a day, okay? It says as he did a four-time. Daniel had a pattern of how he prayed. He had a set location. He had a set time period. It says in verse number 10, his windows being opened. He wasn't doing this to make a show like a lot of people would do. This is the manner he prayed. Look, at our condo where we live, I can look outside and see like hundreds and hundreds of windows of people's rooms, okay? Sometimes, depending on where you live, a lot of people can see what you're doing. It doesn't mean that we always have the curtains closed. Sometimes we let fresh air come in, okay? So Daniel wasn't making it a point that everyone could see him. It's just kind of like how he was living. The houses were probably pretty close to each other or similar situation. But Daniel had a set time and place that he prayed, okay? We should have the same thing in our lives. You should have a set time. It shouldn't be, well, I'll pray in the morning. No, it should be, I'll set my alarm at six in the morning and pray, okay? Or I'll set my alarm at five in the morning or seven in the morning, whatever time. You should have a set place and location where you're gonna pray. And if you don't do that, you're probably not gonna be that successful because most people don't pray for 15 minutes on the spur of the moment. Usually, you have to prepare yourself. This is the way that Christian life is. If you wanna be successful, you have to prepare to live for God. Nobody goes to the end of their life and say, man, I wasn't even trying to live for God. Man, I lived thousands to the Lord. I read the Bible 10 times every, I never even tried to do that. No, somebody accomplishes that because they make it a plan to do that. And they set their life in a pattern to actually succeed. So you need to have a pattern with your prayer, okay? And the last thing you need is you need to have a plan, okay? So take out your prayer list real quickly. And as I said, the second sermon will be shorter. And so every single Wednesday night here at Verity Baptist Church Manila, we pray after the service for about 15, 20 minutes. We started that once we moved into this building. And we break off between women and men. And we take one of these columns and pray through them, okay? I changed this a little bit for this month to try to help give you a better visual. Usually, we don't have dates here, okay? We don't have days of the week. But I want you to notice here, and this top part right here, this is our church prayer list. The bottom part is basically my prayer list. It's a small template that I'll explain. But basically, if you were to use the church prayer list as an example, on Tuesday, what you would be praying for is like-minded churches and believers in Asia, okay? Now, you don't have to have the same prayer list as me or as the church. I'm just trying to give you an example that you can use. And you can go to Microsoft Word or Excel and make your own if you want. But basically, on Tuesday, we pray for like-minded churches and believers in Asia. And you say, why is it that you don't just pray for everything in one day? Because the Bible says to pray without ceasing, and it's better to realize that you have a certain category that you're praying for that day. Like, for example, on Sundays, what my main prayer is is for the very Baptist church Manila members. And so as I go about my day or I'm in a car or a jiffy or whatever, I can continue to pray without ceasing about the members from the church, okay? It's better to have a specific thing that you know that you're praying about. Plus, every once in a while, you lose your prayer list, and if you know what you're praying for that day, you can still pray for it even without the list, okay? But so we have on Tuesday, we have Wednesday, we have Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then on Monday, I just wrote down pray for two things from each list if you want to use this, okay? Now let me just quickly explain my list below, and we'll be down here in a few minutes. This is my list here where it says my personal categories at the bottom middle. I have, you know, a big prayer list like this, but I'm only giving you basically the title of each. So on Mondays, tomorrow morning, the main thing I pray for is for my personal growth, which means my Bible reading, my memorization, my prayer, my leading a godly life, my attitude, and I also pray for my relatives, which would be my parents, my sister, her family, and things like that. And so what happens on Monday is I can pray first thing in the morning, but as they go about the day, I can remember what I'm praying for that day. So I can still pray for myself and my personal growth. I can still pray for my family. Now obviously, if somebody from this church ends up getting in a big accident and they're on their deathbed, obviously you can pray for that, right? Things come up. I'm not saying this list is perfect. I'm just saying general categories that will help us out. So on Monday, I pray for myself. On Tuesday, I pray for my wife, and basically the same things I pray for myself. I pray for her to read the Bible and to pray and to be a godly wife and a godly mother, and I pray for my wife's relatives, her sisters and her parents. On Wednesday, I primarily pray for my son. Now, my son's got a lot of problems, so this is like a two-hour prayer session. But I pray for my son mainly on Wednesdays. And then on Thursdays, I pray for a very Baptist church in Sacramento, California, because a lot of my closest friends are there. And obviously, I pray for Pastor Mendez and the church that sent us to start this church. On Friday, I pray for like-minded churches in the U.S. On Saturdays, like-minded churches in Asia, and then on Sunday, the very Baptist church in the other members. Now, there are other things that I mix in there on Monday through Saturday. That's just the general categories. And so I can go about my day and know what I'm supposed to pray about. But also down below, I have my everyday category, okay? There are certain things that are very important. So instead of just praying for them once a week, I pray for it every day. Obviously, on Tuesdays, I devote that time to pray for my wife. But obviously, my wife's a big part of my life. When you're married, you need to be praying for yourself and for your spouse every single day. I mean, I pray for my son every day during the week. It's just on Wednesdays, I most specifically pray for specific things about how he'll learn to love the preaching and love church and how he'll drill and things like that. So this is just a general template. And I'm not saying it's a perfect list or anything like that. It's just a list that I found effective. And one mistake I think people make is they try to pray for everything in one day. That's not really the best strategy, though. Because honestly, there's a lot to pray for. And if you pray for everything in one day, then every single prayer you have is gonna be like half a second. You move on to the next thing. There's no real thought in that, what you're actually saying, where you're actually talking to God and praying to him, okay? I don't claim to be the best person at prayer. But I would say the things that I'm showing you that I just taught you, these are things I've learned from other people. I've learned from other people that I've found effective. So I'm just trying to help you out with what the Bible says. Because the bottom line is that we do need to pray to God each and every single day. And I'm not gonna ask for a raise of hands, but in our bulletin, we count how many soul owners we have each week. I would imagine if we counted how many people actually spend time 10 plus minutes each day in prayer each week, the number would probably be a lot lower. Because honestly, prayer is difficult. And I find it difficult as well. So this is something, it's our April challenge, that just every single day, and I would recommend first thing every single morning, that you just say, you know what, I'm gonna set aside distractions. And I'd recommend that either tonight or tomorrow, you could maybe make your prayer list. And before that, maybe you could just use one of these, either a church prayer list or the personal categories as your template of what you wanna pray about. And if you have any questions about that, you're welcome to talk to me after service, and I'll do my best to try to help answer your questions. Anyway, let's close the morning with prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today in your house and getting to preach your word and seeing the story of Egypt and the Hebrews and the bondage they were under, God, and help us all to get better at praying. I ask you to help teach us all to pray, including myself. I mean, there's still more to be learned, God. Help us to take on this challenge, help everyone in this church to just be able to set aside distractions. And I know we all live busy lives, God, but help us just to set aside time to get close to you like Jacob did in the Bible, God. We just pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.