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["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] In number 277, we have heard the joyful sound. ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] ["Joyful Sound"] Jesus saves, and after sin there's more in white. Jesus saves, Jesus saves. Sleep in the highlands of the sea, and provide the ocean place. Earth shall keep her dune with thee. Jesus saves, Jesus saves. The sin of love, the wrath of strife. Jesus saves, Jesus saves. At his death and at his life. Jesus saves, Jesus saves. Sleep softly through the gloom, and the heart will lastly praise. Sing in joy our holy tune. Jesus saves, Jesus saves. With the winds and mighty voice, Jesus saves, Jesus saves. Let the nations now rejoice. Jesus saves, Jesus saves. Shouts our passion for free. By his chills and deepest gates, this last storm of victory. Jesus saves, Jesus saves. Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing us together this morning, and pray, Lord, you will bless all aspects of the service. Bless the preaching, bless the hymns, and keep us safe as we go outside this afternoon. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Please turn your hymnals to hymn number 165, Amazing Grace, 165. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. My voice was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see. Trust grace that told my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed. Through many dangers towards the sea, I have already come. His grace hath boldly saved us all, and grace will lead me home. The Lord has promised good to me, which would my hope secure. Beware thy shield and portion be, as long as birth endures. When we've been there ten thousand years, Christ shining us the sun. We've no less days to sing God's praise, than when we first begun. Good morning everyone, welcome to the Strong Tower Baptist Church and our Sunday morning service. If you don't have a bulletin, please raise your hand. If you don't have one of these, please put your hand up. One of the ushers will have to bring your bulletin. While we're doing that, I'd just like to give a warm welcome to our first time visitors with us today. Nice to have you with us. If you haven't had a chance to say hi, then please do so after the service. We welcome everyone here to stay for teas and coffees. We've got maybe some biscuits if you're lucky as well. Just get a chance to get to know people after the service. Have a look on the front of your bulletin, where we have our verse a week. It's James 5.16 today. James 5.16 is our verse a week, which is, Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. We're going to look at that verse in a bit more detail in our morning sermon shortly. We have the photo on the front there in case any of you are wondering. Some of you are probably looking at it and shuddering. It's the famous Dartford Crossing, the Dartford Bridge there. We were over in Dartford yesterday with a soul winning event. I don't think the traffic was actually alright, was it? I don't think anyone got caught. But sometimes when you're going over that bridge, or especially through that tunnel, it's going to feel like it's the end of your life. Have a look on the inside of your bulletins. We have our service times there. Of course, you're in our 10.30am service. Sunday evening service at 4pm is going to be an immense preaching night. We'll be back in our Proverbs Bible study series from next week. Wednesday evening service is usually in the Book of Isaiah. We're up to Isaiah chapter 34 on Wednesday evening. That's a prayer night as well. Please remember to send in your prayer requests for our Wednesday evening service. We have our soul winning times down there. As usual, soul winning today is at 1.30pm. If you haven't, please give your name to Andre at the back there. He's in the red jumper, the usher at the back there. If you're planning to come soul winning, let him know whether you're a talker, a silent partner, whether you have transport as well, whether your preference would be High Street or Dawes. We also have our other soul winning times down there. Monday evening soul winning is at 4pm and that's over in Mitcham. Tuesday evening soul winning is in Basildon at 6.30pm. Wednesday evening soul winning is over here in Southend at 4.30pm. Thursday evening soul winning is in Tilbury at 6.30pm. We had quite a lot of salvation last week. With all those soul winning times, there's also been some down in Exeter. There's soul winning up in Sheffield today as well. I think that's around 2 o'clock, I think, from 2 o'clock onwards up in Sheffield. We do marathons at the end of each month. We had our event yesterday over in Dartford. It does take us up to 76 salvations for February. Praise God and great work. Everyone has got involved with the soul winning over this month. We've still got the best part of a week left, so hopefully we can get close to that January total of 95, which was a great January. There are other totals down there. The salvations for the year, total salvations. Over in South Africa, they've had a bit of bad weather up there. Up in Pretoria, they haven't got out at least in the last week. They're on 32 over there. The guys over in Switzerland have had a really great start to the year, with 25 salvations over there. It takes up to 800 for the international groups since they became our international soul winning groups there. Baptisms are down there. Not got any to start the year yet, so it would be great to get some baptisms in. Everything else, as you see, they're attendance totals for last week. We had a soul winning event, if you have a look on the other side of your bulletin, yesterday. It was 15 salvations. It was great. It was an interesting kind of spot. There is a bit of a stronghold there with a place called Winner's Chapel. It is a huge, false megachurch, basically, and their headquarters are in Dartford. It seems they do have a bit of a stronghold there, don't they? A few people run into them. Khayyam got out of there in one piece, didn't you, Khayyam? It was looking hairy at one point. I think there might be a sermon there on Winner's Chapel, actually. They're a pretty bad bunch. We still got there. We got many people saved still. It was a good day out. We ended up with 15 salvations, so praise God for that. Please pray for all those people who put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, yesterday. Tonight is our men's preaching night. I've got five, six for that. We'll fill up for that. That's going to be tonight. That's instead of the Proverbs series. On Friday, the 14th of March, it's the next homeschool outing. If you're not, and you do homeschool, please get onto the Homeschool WhatsApp group. There'll be details about that outing on there. That's on Friday, the 14th. On Saturday, the 22nd of March is our Mother's Day outing. Please just confer with my wife if you're planning to come to that. That's for all ladies at the church. We don't have to be a mum, but it's a ladies' outing. I think it's chocolate making, so it sounds pretty fun. That's going to be Saturday, the 22nd of March. Please let my wife know if you plan to come to that. Sunday, the 13th of April is our once-a-year Lord's Supper service. That's a big event in our calendar. That's Sunday, the 13th. I will be preaching what we believe about that. A bit close to the time. However, there's many past sermons on the Lord's Supper on our YouTube channel and our website, if you'd like to know about that. Or come and ask me if you'd like to know what we believe about that. May the 30th to the 31st is our Manchester Preached Soul Winning event. It's the Friday, the 30th will be a fellowship time, a meal and a preaching service up there. We're going to be doing a Soul Winning marathon on the Saturday over in Manchester. Manchester's really receptive for Soul Winning. Like we said, there's a couple of pairs out Soul Winning today up in Sheffield, which is just a rather large stone's throw from there. We'd love to get some more momentum going up in that part of the country. It'd be great if you could make that event. It'd be great to get a good amount of people up there, Soul Winning and the preaching service as well. That's going to be May 31st. You might notice there's a new entry there. It is official, we're doing a missions trip to Pretoria, South Africa. It's July 31st to August 5th. July 31st is the last Thursday there, the last day of the month in July is a Thursday. It's July, Thursday the 31st when we'll be getting out there. There's going to be preaching in schools and then there's going to be a big Soul Winning marathon on the Saturday. We're going to try and get some local people involved as well, people over there, get them involved as well. We're going to have a couple of preaching services on the Sunday, Soul Winning in between, and schools on the Monday and possibly the Tuesday morning as well there. They'll be the official days and if you'd like to get involved with it, I will start to put some details up. I'll do some promotion for it, but if you would then let us know that you're planning to come. But also with that as well, you are welcome to go longer, shorter, you're welcome to go earlier out there if you want. You're welcome to stay later if you want to kind of do some sightseeing, things like that. It's up to you what you want to do, but they're the official days of the missions trip out there. Some of the reasons for the dates is the school term time there and school holiday stuff. We really want to get into school, something that was so effective in Malawi as well. So with that, and just the way it is, the flights are a little bit more expensive than I would have liked, but there are options if you don't want to go direct and you want to spend longer getting out there, you can save a lot of money as well. But for the direct flights, there are a bit more, but that seems to be the case all throughout spring, summer anyway. So that is the way it is, but at least with that, the direct flight is nice and quick really, as it goes to get out to that part of the world and get sold winning. It's a direct flight out there, it's about 10 hours or so, just over coming up to 11 hours. We're going to have schools, we're going to do some outside preaching, we're going to have a nice mixture out there, we'll have preaching services out there, so it should be a great missions trip. I know some people worry and think South Africa is it safe or not, Pretoria is really safe. I've been there already, I've also been down at Cape Town, sold winning. I haven't felt in danger at all, I haven't felt like I'm about to get robbed or something like some people worry. Pretoria especially has got some good, really safe statistics there as well. We have a local, our sold winning captain out there, Nick's organising a lot of it and he's got that in mind as well. But if you've got any questions, anything you want to know about it, please just let me know, but I will start to publish details a bit sooner, I just wanted to get the dates out there. They are the official dates, July 31st to August 5th. Right, Bible Memory Challenge, we do a 6th verse in 6 weeks, if you can memorise all 6 verses you get a prize. We're on week 4, it's 1 Kings 8.59, 1 Kings 8.59 which is, And let these my words, wherewith I have made supplication before the Lord, be nigh unto the Lord our God day and night, that he maintain the cause of his servant, and the cause of his people Israel at all times, as the matter shall require. That's week 4, we've got 2 more weeks of that. Please turn your mobile phones off, place them on silent if you haven't already for the service, airplane mode or whatever you need to do please so they don't disturb the service. We have right birthdays and anniversaries and we had, my son Charlie's birthday was yesterday, so happy birthday Charlie, who is watching for yesterday, he's at home right now with his mum, but happy birthday Charlie for yesterday and then we also have on the 26th, we've got Tobias and we've got Ada, and if we're the 23rd today, and I reckon Tobias and Ada, are you guys up for a sing-song today? Yeah? Where's Tobias? There he is nodding away at the back. Okay, so when you're ready guys, we'd like to sing happy birthday. Happy birthday to Tobias, we hope you have, is it 26th? Is that Wednesday 3rd? Wednesday isn't it? Happy birthday for Wednesday, hope you have a great day on Wednesday guys, and happy birthday Charlie again for yesterday, and please let my wife know your birthday's anniversaries if you haven't already, wedding anniversaries we'd like to celebrate as well, let me know if you want details for online donations, and we're a family integrated church so just to remind you what that means, although the kids are welcome in the services, if they are causing disturbance, if you need to make use of the mother and father baby rooms please do so, we have a mother baby room here which has a door on this side and a door on this side, we have a father baby room behind it, we have another mother baby room upstairs, and in fact we have then a third room upstairs if you want a more private quiet room as well, on the other side of the landing up the top there, but please make use of them as and when you need them, but we do have a couple of rules and that's no men allowed in the mother baby rooms, or upstairs during the service, please no women allowed in the father baby room, and no children unattended please in the building at all times, please keep an eye on where the kids are, and on that we're going to pass back over to you brother. He's sending your emails to him number 164, Grace greater than our sin, 164. Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt, Younger on Calvary's lands are poor, Where the blood of the Lamb was spilled, Grace, grace, God's grace, Grace that will pardon and quilt within, Grace, grace, God's grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin, One first thing that we cannot hide, What man avails to wash it away, Look where it's flowing at Christmas time, Quiter and so you may be today, Grace, grace, God's grace, Grace that will pardon and quilt within, Grace, grace, God's grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin, One first thing that we cannot hide, We need this Lord all our ability, All our longing to see his grace, May this moment his grace receive, Grace, grace, God's grace, Grace that will pardon and quilt within, Grace, grace, God's grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin. Thank you for the service. We ask you to please bless those who are here today. We thank you for the offering. We thank you for everything. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Please turn your Bibles to the book of James chapter 5. That's the book of James chapter 5. So the Bible reads James chapter 5 starting in verse 1, Go to now ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten, Your gold and silver is cankered and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, Which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth, And the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and have been wanton, Ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter, Ye have condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, And hath long patience for it until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient, stabless your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned. Behold, the judge standeth before the door. Take, my brethren, the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord, For an example of suffering affliction and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, That the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. But above all things, my brethren, swear not, Neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath, But let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay, lest ye fall into condemnation. Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church, And let them pray over him, anointing him with the oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, As if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, That ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, And he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, And it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, And the earth brought forth her fruit. Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him, Let him know that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way, Shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, so much for this great chapter. We pray, Lord, please fill Pastor Taverner with your spirit. Please, Lord, help us to be attentive to the message today, And help us, Lord, to apply what we learn. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Okay, we're in James chapter 5, and we're just going to look at this passage from verse 13 again. So James 5 and verse 13 said this, Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, Anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, And if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. And if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your thoughts one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, And he prayed earnestly that it might not rain. And it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. Verse 16 said this, which is where we get our title today. It said, Confess your thoughts one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. And the title of our sermon this morning is, The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. I'd like to pray before we get going. Father, thank you for your word. Lord, thank you for the gift of prayer, Lord. Thank you that we're able to come to you, to come boldly onto the throne of grace, Lord. Help me to preach this message that I've been thinking about now for the last couple of weeks at least now. In a bold way, Lord, in a way that's full of your spirit, Lord. In a way that people will go away and really apply this to their lives, Lord. Really make a difference to their prayer lives, Lord. Help me to preach it just clearly, accurately, Lord. In Jesus' name, pray. Amen. Okay, so the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. This is one of those verses that I think many people know well. You probably would have heard it a lot. You might have even heard me quote it a bit. At least the second half of the verse, right? And I and many other preachers will quote it when encouraging people to pray. We'll say, you know, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Come on, you need to pray, right? Get praying. We'll maybe quote it when trying to encourage people to trust in prayer. You know, trust in prayer. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. But I believe it's one of those verses where many sort of summarize it in their mind as something along the lines of, well, praying avails. Or praying prophets, it advantages, it helps much. We just kind of think of it like that. Yeah, look, you need to pray because praying avails much. And of course, look, prayer is an amazing gift of God, okay? Pray prayer is something that we need to make use of, right? And it should be a big part of your Christian life. Once you're praying, Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5.17, you'd have to turn there, to pray without ceasing. That's an easy memory verse, okay? Pray without ceasing. It should be regular, okay? It should be regular. Our prayer life should be a continuous part of our Christian lives, okay? However, this verse isn't just a simple case of praying helps a lot. That's not just what it's saying here. Pray to avail much, right? There were some other requirements, weren't there? Pray to avail much. So today I want to break down this verse, but before I do, we're going to back up and get an understanding of the context of this passage. So here in James 5, James, he's finishing this epistle with some practical instruction. He said in verse 13, James 5.13 said, Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church. Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. So before anyone goes next door, right after the service, maybe to buy some sunflower oil to cure their sore throat, I want to point out a few things about this passage here. Firstly, when we see the term sick in the Bible, it's usually referring to something serious. Something serious, usually some sort of disease or other. Sick of the palsy, for example, which is some sort of paralysis. Sick of diverse diseases. It's talking about disease. Serious sort of stuff. Mark 6.56, you don't have to turn there, says, And whithersoever he entered into villages or cities or country, they laid the sick in the streets, they laid them in the streets, and besought him that they might touch if it were, but the border of his garment and as many as touched him were made whole. And look, I know some of the men here especially might feel like that when you have a cold, that you need someone to lay you in the streets and just get some sort of miraculous healing because it's so bad, but the reality of it is, this isn't talking about colds. I know a lot of people like to, they've got a little sniffle and it turns into suddenly I've got the flu and I'm dying of the flu or something, but we're not talking about man flu here. We're talking about serious sickness. It's clearly something more serious here. And it's not to say that we shouldn't be praying when we're unwell. We shouldn't be praying when we're unwell. I would say that verse 13 covers that. Is any among you afflicted? You could be afflicted with a cold. You could be afflicted with the sniffles. You could be afflicted in many ways. Let him pray. It does cover that in verse 13, but here in verse 14, I think it's serious enough to be, notice, calling for the elders or the pastor or pastors plural with a bigger church, maybe multiple pastors we might say, to come to them. It's calling for them. So when you're calling for someone to come to you, you're clearly not in a good way. It's not that, again, please don't ring me up in the middle of the night and say, Pastor Taverner, I've got a runny nose. I need you to come and pour some oil over me. That's not what it's talking about. It's needing to call for the pastor. This is some genuine serious sickness. And again, it's not to say that, well, unless they need calling for, this doesn't apply. But you can see that it's talking about something serious, isn't it? Something serious here. The anointing with oil being, you know, it's a physical action. I do believe that here. There's a spiritual application there, but it is a physical action. But it symbolizes anointing with the Holy Spirit, I believe, to heal that person. But it is a physical thing to do. Now, again, people go way out to lunch with this. You get the Pentecostals just running around pouring all over people and, you know, doing all this crazy stuff. And you get the Catholics with sort of their weird stuff. But this is still, I believe you could take this literally. And I have done this and I have anointed with oil people with serious illness and I have seen some miraculous things happen with that. And again, not in a weird Pentecostal way. And it's not that, you know, we just pour all over, run around splashing people with oil and everyone's just going to be well and if you're not, you must be wicked. That's not what it's talking about here. But there is an application, there is a time to apply this. He said, and the prayer of faith shall save the sick. So it's not just the oil, is it? It's not the magical oil. There's something here that's going on. It's the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up. And if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. So notice how that prayer of faith can even physically save someone. That's what it's talking about. It's not talking about spiritual salvation. Physically save someone who is seriously ill. A prayer of faith can physically save someone who is seriously ill. Even if it's chastisement. Which is what it's saying, if it's chastisement. Now that's not to say that sickness always is. So don't get the wrong idea now and go, right, anyone sick, they must be bad. They must be getting worked by God. Because look, we have to live life as well. And you can get sick and it's not chastisement, but sometimes it can be. And wouldn't you be smart to think about things. When you go through things in life, assess your life. And think, is there something where I'm out of line here? Is there something here that God wants me to change? Anything in life, you always want to just check that. Be honest with yourself. So it could be chastisement. But it's not for us to work out with other people. You don't need to be going up to people and trying to work out. Well, I'm a bit ill, okay, what's going on? That's between them and God. Now Hebrews 12.6 does say, For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourges every son whom he receiveth. So if you think you've never been chastised, you're never getting chastened in life, well, it sounds like you don't think God loves you. Because he scourges every son whom he receiveth, and it's who the Lord loveth he chastens. But even if it was, that faith in calling the elders, that faith from the elders, can result in those things being forgiven. And in the context of healing prayer, we then get to verse 16. So the context here was healing prayer, and verse 16 says this, Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Now is he talking about the confession box? No, he's not, but confessing faults or weaknesses to each other can help us to get victory over them, can't it? So when you do, you say, look, I've got a bit of a weakness with this, I've got a bit of a problem with this. To your brothers, to your sisters in Christ sometimes, it can help you, because it gives you more of an accountability, doesn't it? For starters. So when you say, look, I know I've got a bit of a problem with this, you are at least getting some accountability going with that, maybe an extra incentive to resist those temptations sometimes to help yourself with your faults, especially if you're asking for prayer as well. If I'm asking for prayer for something, or someone else is here, then hopefully you're not going to ask for prayer for something, but then just don't even attempt to try and deal with that issue, deal with that problem that you might be asking for help with. But it seems to be continuing the theme here of chastisement and praying for physical healing. For me, the theme is continuing, confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed. But that is a context of the second sentence in this verse, but it's not necessarily, I believe, the only application of it. So the statement is a statement of truth. The statement is, full stop, then the statement in verse 16 in the second half is, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Did he say only in this situation? No. The first application would be in a situation of physical healing, but I think it's a statement of truth there. It would be fair to say with that in mind that the ineffectual, non-fervent prayer of the unrighteous man would avail little, wouldn't it? So if it's an ineffectual prayer, if it's not fervent, and it's by someone who's unrighteous, is it going to avail much? I would say definitely not, right? And look, don't you want your prayer to avail much? Don't you? When you're praying, you want it to avail. You want it to help. You want it to greatly help. Avail much to hugely benefit, maybe, to advantage much. We want our prayers to be effective, don't we? Well, then you'd better make sure that it's the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. That's what that tells me. You'd better make sure that when you're praying, it's the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. You want it to avail much? Don't we want it to avail much? We want it to avail much, right? We just saw that it can cure those of serious diseases. Yeah, it really can. That was back then. That was a couple of thousand years ago. No, don't worry. We'll just go to the doctor god instead. Because a lot of the time, the doctor god doesn't seem to solve much. Sometimes they can. They don't go too far with this. Never go to the doctor. That's all wickedness. They've got some sort of weird Western medicine symbol with a snake on it. Never go, you know. Okay, you can go too far with these things, can't you? But sometimes people do go a bit too soon to the doctor, don't they? It's like, I've got to sniffle off to the doctor. This will solve it. Okay, there is a balance to make in life. But definitely prayer. Prayer can and does heal physical illness, right? It can save the sick. You can be healed of all sorts, it seems. So let's make sure that when we pray, it's the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. Because, why? It availeth much. Unless you don't believe what we're being told here through James by God. The title is the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. And point number one is it's effectual. So it's effectual. So let's understand how to make this effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. Number one, it needs to be an effectual prayer. What does it mean to be effectual? Effectual is producing an effect or the effect desired or intended. Or having adequate power or force to produce the effect. So it has what's necessary to be effective, basically. It's suitable. What is an effectual prayer then? Is it a prayer maybe with perfect wording? Is that what it's talking about? Is it a prayer where you just say this exact right word? Is that or get that prayer answered? That's not what it's talking about. Is it a prayer where you just quote that just right amount of scripture? Yeah? Maybe some really long verses, especially when people are listening. Again, there's something wrong with quoting scripture sometimes, right? And sometimes when we pray we're quite soon. There are some people you know that are praying to be seen of men. That's not what it's talking about. Is it a prayer that's long enough? Well, the effectual fervent prayer, that effectual prayer has to be of a certain length. It has to be at least half an hour. Is that? That's not what it's talking about. Is it the place that it's prayed? The holiest place you can find. Well, as long as you pray it in church. Some people are, I don't know, I get asked sometimes, is your church open for prayer? And you say, no, you can come to a church service on the set times, but you don't need to be in church to pray. Go in your closet and pray. You can pray on your own, you can pray at home. It's not where you pray. Is it maybe holding something holy when you pray? Is that the effectual prayer? Again, we know that's not true, do we? As long as I hold my Bible when I pray. That's not what it's talking about. That stuff isn't what makes prayer effectual or not. For a prayer to have adequate power or force, remember, that's what effectual is. Above all else, okay, above all else for me. Number one, most important, would be it has to be a prayer of faith. That prayer has to be in faith, in full faith. That what you're praying for can be answered by God, yeah? Verse 14 says, Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. What is it about the elders? It's not that a pastor's prayer is by default better than anyone else's. That's not, oh well, because they're the pastor, now suddenly they've kind of got like higher level prayer. It's not that, however, do you know what a pastor should be? A pastor should be men full of faith. They should be full of faith. You don't have to turn to Hebrews 13 says, Remember them that have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation, or we might say their behavior. So the faith of a pastor is there to be followed, because ultimately it should be an example to others, shouldn't it? They should be full of faith, otherwise they're in the wrong job. They should have strong faith. Hence verse 15 said this, when it said after calling for the elders of the church, let them pray over him, in verse 14, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins, there shall be forgiven him. So that for me above all else is what makes a prayer effectual, above all else. This is for me number one on the list. It's the prayer of faith. Now keep something in James 5 and turn to Hebrews 4. It's a lack of faith which does stop so many prayers being answered. That's probably the biggest problem for so many prayers out there, is that they're not really being prayed in faith. Now in Matthew 1720, you'll turn to Hebrews 4, but in Matthew 1720 Jesus explains to the disciples that they couldn't heal the lunatic boy. He said, it says, And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief, for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a ground, for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you. So you've got to believe that God will answer your prayer. You've got to believe it. Believe it. Believe that God will answer that prayer. You've got to have faith that he will answer it. You've got to believe it. You've got to believe it. If you're praying, you need to believe it. It's not, oh, I'll pray anyway. Probably won't answer it. Knew he wouldn't answer it when it doesn't happen, right? Well, you've already got it wrong, yeah. The prayer should be in faith. And with that strong faith should come a boldness when you pray. So if you've got the faith that God wants to hear and answer your prayers, then there should be a boldness when you pray. Hebrews 4.14 says this, Hebrews 4.14 says, Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. So we have such a great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, that we can really hold fast or strongly, steadily hold what we believe. Yeah, you can have full faith in what you believe in your profession. Verse 15 says, For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore, notice the therefore, let us therefore come boldly, boldly. So we have this high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So because our high priest has been through all the temptations that we go through, he understands and is willing and able to help us. It's not that he just cannot understand. No, he knows. He understands and he's there and he wants to help us. He's merciful despite our failings. His grace is shed abundantly upon us. So you can be bold when you come to him in prayer. In fact, you need to be bold when you come to him in prayer. You want that prayer answered? Come to him boldly, confidently, with full assurance that God can and will answer that prayer. Now turn to Matthew 7. Let me tell you what makes you bold. Turn to Matthew chapter 7. What helps you with faith? It's knowing the promises in the word of God. That's what helps you to be bold when you're praying is knowing what those promises are, knowing what God does and doesn't want, knowing what God has told you he will do for you, knowing what he's promised you. It's being able to maybe quote or at least read or know no verses at least to strengthen your faith, to be able to say, for example, Lord, you said to ask. Lord, you said to ask. You're praying. You need something happening. Maybe you need something happening quick. You need an answer. You need God to help you. It's to be able to say, Lord, you said, though, you promised. You said you'd answer that prayer. You said in Psalm 91 15, he shall call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him. That helps, doesn't it? It helps to know that he said that. It helps to be able to say, Lord, you said in Isaiah 41 10, fear thou not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed for I am thy God. I will strengthen you. Yea, I will help thee. Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. Be able to say, God, you said you'd help me. You said you'd help me. You promised to help me. You said you'd strengthen me. You told me not to be dismayed. And here in Matthew 7, you turn to Matthew 7, you could say to God, but you said, ask, verse 7, Matthew 7 7, ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye them being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him? But do you believe that? Do you really believe that? But when you come to, you can come to God boldly saying, but you said that, and I know you're going to answer that because I know that you're true. Do you believe it, though? Do you have faith? Are you coming boldly to the throne of grace? You say, well, I've been asking for a new Ferrari for ten years now, and it hasn't arrived. Where's the Ferrari? It's not coming. And I've been telling myself it's definitely going to happen. He is going to answer. Why has he not answered that prayer, then? Answer that, Pastor Taberna. I think you know it all. Well, it has to be according to his will, though. That's another point. So you've got to ask him full faith, but here's the thing. It's hard to have full faith in something when you don't really know it's will. If you know that, well, it has to be according to his will, but what is his will? What is your will for my life, God? Well, there are some simple things, you know, the will for your life, right? Being in church is a will for your life, right? Trying to live right is a will in your life of God's. Getting people saved is a will of God in your life. When you're asking for things, it has to be according to his will. 1 John 5.14 says this, and this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. So this is one of the things that is important when you're praying. You're praying for things that aren't God's will. Do you really want those things? And it's not just something to put at the end, well, thy will be done, though. You know what? Thy will be done is important. Thy will be done is essential, really. I don't want something that God doesn't want me to have because he knows better than I do, right? He knows what job is and isn't good for me. He knows what situation is and isn't good for me. He knows what door should and shouldn't be open for me. He knows those things, and you need to pray that and mean that when you ask that. I want your will, though, Lord. But he still wants you to pray specifically, because you could go too far with this and just be praying, oh, thy will be done, thy will be done, thy will be done. But he still wants you to pray for things. But you want to pray for things that then are according to his will. So you need to know it's according to his will, or at least you want it to be according to his will. But it also has to be not for show. So if you go back a chapter to Matthew 6, when you're praying to God, make sure you're not praying for show. Back a chapter in Matthew 6, it says this in verse 5. Matthew 6, 5 says, And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corner of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. Kind of makes me think a lot of Islam whenever I see that. Look at the streets, the public prayer, public prayer calls, you know, kneeling down in the middle of a busy airplane or in the middle of a busy place for everyone to watch you pray. That's to be seen of men. Yeah, that's to be seen of men. But they have their reward. What's their reward? People think, oh, how holy they are. You know, how great is that, right? 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. So make sure when you're praying, you're not praying for people to see. You're not praying to impress other people. And you go, well, of course I'm not doing that. But maybe you do. Maybe that's sadly something you might be doing at home. Maybe, and this is a problem sometimes, when it comes to praying in front of people, whether it's your family, whether it's in a church, whether it's maybe just with a wife or a wife with a husband or whatever else, sometimes that can start to go through your mind how you're going to sound to that other person. But you need to squash that. You need to cut that out. That's not what God wants us to do. We're not praying for what other people think. We're not praying for them to think, oh, how wise, oh, what great words. Oh, we're really using some good words that he really sounds holy when he prays. Is that how God wants you praying? Is that an effectual prayer? That's not an effectual prayer. An effectual prayer is between you and God. You're talking to God. Now, nothing wrong with group prayer. Yeah, we pray on a Wednesday night, yeah, because we believe that, look, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man does it very much. And hopefully there's someone righteous in here, so we might get one of those prayers answered, right? But hopefully there's more than one person righteous, yeah? And regardless of that, you know, I do believe there is a time to pray together. There is a time to pray for things. But if going through my mind while I'm praying is, oh, I hope everyone thinks I sound really good here, sound really holy, or I get really stressed, if I could just make this a bit more speech-like. Maybe I'll make some notes into how to sound really good. My prayer at least ain't getting over with that, is it? That's not an effectual prayer. That's not how God wants us praying. We're not praying for show and in all areas of life. And just even if it's like, oh, well, you know, in a restaurant here, everyone will think I'm really holy here. I'm going to really lift up my voice when I pray for my food. Is that what God wants you to do? Oh, I'll just make a point. We're all here, all on different tables. Might not do a group prayer, but I'll just make sure everyone can see. People do that stuff, right? You don't have to do that, because that's for show. That's to show everyone else. Oh, just to make, yeah, you didn't say it out loud, but at least he was praying for you. Just pray for your food in your head. If you want to pray for your food. Yeah, if you want to pray out loud, pray out loud, but it's not about other people, right? It's between you and God. Here's another thing it has to not be. It has to not be vain repetition as well. Don't do tick box prayers where it's just vain repetition, just the same thing, the same prayer that you just repeated. He said in verse 7, But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Again, it makes me think of Islam, but it does make me think as well of just growing up and chanting the Lord's prayer. In the primary school I was at, in churches that I went through, just chanting the Lord's prayer. Vain repetition. No one even paid attention to any of the words. You just chanted it and chanted it and chanted it. That's not what he wanted us to do. It was in this manner. He was praying like this. It wasn't just repeat these words verbatim. But, again, we can do that in different ways, can't we? We can just pray the same prayer all the time for something. You know, I grew up in the school I was at. We all had to say together, I'll get this right, I'm going to get this right. It was a long time ago. I'm a bit tired right now. But, okay, so, It was a long time ago. I'm a bit tired right now. Okay, but it was basically a very simple, just quick prayer for your food. And it was the same words every single time. Is that what God wants? Can you stop even thinking about it? It's vain repetition. God doesn't want us praying with vain repetition. And then also, another point for it to be effectual is it has to be from a forgiving heart. From a forgiving heart. Verse 14. Matthew 7 says, For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. So, it has to be with forgiveness in your heart, forgiving others. Because, look, a lot of prayer, we are asking for forgiveness. If you think that you're going through day after day after day, without sinning, well, you're deceiving yourself. And let's hope that you don't think you have no sin. Because you're deceiving yourself, and the truth not in you, if that's really the case. But we need to come to God regularly for forgiveness, aren't we? Okay, we mess up. We sin regularly. We shouldn't. We shouldn't take it lightly, but we should be coming to God for forgiveness when we do. And with that, therefore, we need to be forgiving others as well. You want to be forgiven? Forgive others in your life as well. And that, those things for me are some key things that make it an effectual prayer. And back in James 5, 16, he said in verse 16, Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. The title is The Effectual Fervent Prayer of a Righteous Man. Point number one, it's effectual. It's effectual. It's of faith. It's his will. It's not for show. It's not vain repetition. It's from a forgiving heart. And point number two, it's fervent. It's fervent. Now, what does fervent mean? The word literally means to be hot, to boil, to glow. Other words we might use here, though, in this context especially, may be excited, animated, zealous. For example, in Romans 12 and 11, it's used as the opposite to slothful or lazy. Romans 12 and 11 says it's a command to be not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. So it's basically being busy, putting effort in, not being lazy. So first off, it's not just some passing thought that you quickly prayed for. We can all be guilty for that, can't we? Maybe you see a prayer request on our group chat. You know it's a group prayer, it's a group prayer, it's a prayer chat. And the main point of it, and obviously we put info of things on there, but a big point of it is for people to be able to ask for prayers. But we can all probably be guilty of just kind of quickly saying that quick prayer and that's it. But that's not really a fervent prayer, is it? That's not the sort of prayer that maybe he wants us doing now. Again, don't get me wrong, there are times that sometimes, I believe pray without ceasing isn't just about never stopping your prayer life. I believe that we should be trying to be regularly in prayer to the Lord, and regularly praying, and sometimes a quick prayer in your head here, sometimes in a conversation, a prayer in your head, sometimes in awkward situations, a quick prayer. There is a time and a place for that. But especially for serious things, for things like this, God wants us to take the time to pray to him. Not being slothful, not being lazy about it, just like, oh yeah, please help this person, oh yeah, can you just sort this out like back to whatever was more important in my life, back to staring at YouTube or something. So it's fervent. It requires time, thought, effort. In Colossians 4, Colossians chapter 4, did I tell you to turn to Colossians 4? Turn to Colossians 4. Colossians 4, Paul is signing off the epistle with some honourable mentions, some greetings from the brethren to the Colossians, and he says this in verse 12. So Colossians chapter 4, verse 12 says this, Epaphras, Epaphras who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, this is Colossians 4, 12, always labouring fervently for you in prayers. So Epaphras who's saluting them is always labouring fervently for them in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. So verse 12 said that he was labouring fervently for the Colossian church prayers. It's work. It's labouring. It's graft. It's done fervently. You can say with a sense of urgency. A real zeal. He's putting some time, he's putting some effort, some excitement into this. He said in verse 13, For I bear him record that he hath a great zeal for you. So notice how we see that word zeal, and I think most people know what you're talking about when you talk about being zealous, having a drive. He has a great zeal for you. Some that are in Laodicea and then in Hierapolis. Well, for me they're going to go hand in hand. There's a zeal there. There's fervent prayer. It's labour. It's graft. It's not being slothful. And back in James 5, it wasn't just that the effectual prayer of a righteous man availeth much. It was the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. So he's saying to put in some effort, some passion, some emotion into it. And it's a work, right? It's a graft. It's something that we should put time and effort into to pray for each other, and of course to pray for yourself as well, to pray for things, to pray for life, to pray for things that are important in life. Here's another word we might use for fervent, earnest. Earnest is another word we might use. Well, look at verse 17. Back in James 5, James 5, 17 says, Elias, which is a Greek form of Elijah, was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly. He prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth the fruit. So on the back of verse 16, we're given this example of earnest or fervent prayer and what it achieved. So he's talked about praying fervently, then he gives this example of Elijah, or Elias here, was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly. And again, for me, could be used interchangeably with the word fervently, he prayed earnestly that it might not rain. And as mentioned earlier, it's a truth that doesn't just apply to prayers of healing. This isn't talking about healing. This is, like I said, this is a statement of truth, that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Here, it's not just healing. This was a different, amazing miracle, wasn't it? He prayed for it to not rain, and it rained not for three and a half years. And aside from pictures of the tribulation and things like that, just that miracle alone, he didn't rain for three and a half years. Thanks to what? His earnest prayer, right? And it wasn't because Elijah was some demigod. It wasn't that he was some borderline, supernatural, near-sinless, unobtainable type of prophet. Well, yeah, that was one of them Old Testament prophets with all those powers and stuff like that. He was a man subject to like passions as we are. What is it that stands out about this prayer? He prayed earnestly. That's what stands out to me. He prayed earnestly, or we might say fervently. The most standout, clear answers to prayer that I've seen in my life have been when I've prayed boldly and earnestly or fervently. And I can think of times, and scary times, times where I've been really, really worried, really big times, big dramatic times in my life where I've basically just called to God, you said you'd help. You said you'd do this. Pray boldly. I'm quoting scripture. I'm earnest. I'm just praying. I'm praying hard. I'm really getting worked up as I'm praying. And those are the times where I've really seen the dramatic answers to prayer. And again, it's not because I say it. It's not because I'm saying it in experience. It's because that experience lines up with what we're seeing in the Bible. We're seeing scripture here saying that the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man is said here, availeth much. Back in verse 16, it said, Confess your thoughts one for another and pray one for another. If you haven't ever before, you're going to memorize at least the second part of this verse after the sermon, that you may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. The title is, The Effectual, Fervent Prayer of a Righteous Man. Number one, it's effectual. And like we saw, that's of faith. It's in his will. It's not for show. It's not vain repetition. It's from a forgiving heart. Number two, it's fervent. We saw that that's with effort, urgency, zeal. It's earnestly. And number three, it's of a righteous man. It's of a righteous man. And just a reminder here, without faith in Christ, no one is righteous in God's eyes. You ain't righteous in God's eyes without that faith in Christ. Romans 3.22, you don't have to turn there, says, which is by faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe. That believe. For there is no difference. It's not believe and be good. It's not be good then believe. It's not repent of all your sins and believe. No, it's believe. It's put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way. It's faith in Christ alone. Trust in Christ, not your own past. Present or future works. It's faith alone in Christ alone. No works. No works at all. No works at all. Just call them a different word. Oh yeah, grace through faith. We just don't call it work. Of course you can lose your salvation. That's work. That means you're working to keep it. Oh yeah, grace through faith. You've just got to repent of all your sins. What do you actually mean by that? Because you know what? Nine times out of ten, almost everyone I ever speak to that claims that when you actually press them, they start saying, oh, well, you've got to at least try not to sin. You've got to at least give up those sins. You've got to at least turn away from those sins. No, no, no. You've got to repent. You've got to change your mind. You've got to turn from your dead works and put your faith in Christ. Romans 4-5 says, But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. It's faith alone in Christ alone. However, once Christ's righteousness is imputed unto you, God does want you to live righteously. We don't run around and go, oh, we're under grace, man. It's all fair game. Yeah, you're still saved. Yeah, if you put your faith in Christ, you're going to heaven no matter what. However, God wants you to live a righteous life. God calls you to live a righteous life. Half the New Testament is encouraging you to live a righteous life. So, no, it's not automatic. Oh, well, you're saved. You're just going to automatically live right. Well, then why is literally half the New Testament constantly telling you to get right, to live right, encourage you, exhorting you to do good things, to walk in the Spirit, not in the flesh, to deny the flesh? Why are we constantly being told to? Why are we constantly being exhausted? Because it's not automatic. But God wants you to live like that, right? If we continue in his Word, well, then are we his disciples indeed, right? And it comes from the Word of God continuing the Word, trying to live for God, but we have that choice to do that. Believers are told in Ephesians 6, 14, to stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness. These are believers. Being encouraged, being exhorted to have on the breastplate of righteousness. Basically to live righteously. And it's like a breastplate. It's a defense. It's something that helps us through life. Job said in Job 27, 6, My righteousness I hold fast and will not let it go. My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live. That's someone that wants, and that was a righteous guy, wasn't it? That was a guy that along with salvation having faith in the coming Christ, that was someone that also wanted to live right, that was trying to live right, that was even saying, I will live right. And that's how we should all try and live right. We should all be saying, I am going to try and live right. I'm going to do my best for you, God. God wants us, he commands us to be righteous. 1 Peter 1, 15 says, But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. He commands you to be holy. He commands you to live right. And here in James 5, I don't believe that James is just talking about a saved man. I don't think he's just saying, well, the effectual fervent prayer of someone is saved. Said in verse 16, Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Now, confessing your faults makes you more able to be righteous, doesn't it? Like we saw, it gives you that extra ability to live right, to get rid of those things out of your life. And when you're living right, your prayer has more chance to avail much. And isn't that another great incentive to get right with God, isn't it? You want your prayers answered, get right with God. Oh, I'm praying for these things, nothing's happening. How about you try to get right with God? And there are some obvious ways to get right with God, aren't there? And it's not talking about being sinless. But there are some clear things that we have a choice to do in life and people choose not to do, yet their prayers aren't going to avail much. But don't you want your prayers to avail much? And here we're talking about for healing people. It could be sick people in your life, your family, friends, whatever else. And it could be many other things. Important stuff, big life things, big life events. One of the things that's going to make that prayer avail much is you being righteous. And again, separate to salvation, I think after salvation to try and live right. To get the obvious sin out of your life. And look, there's the obvious stuff. There's stuff that church disqualifying sin, for example, in 1 Corinthians 5. And those things, you have a choice, don't you? Oh, well, he's just not answering my prayers, but I get drunk a lot. How about you stop being a drunkard? Oh, he's not answering my prayers. I've got some really important stuff to pray for, amongst my family, my friends. But is fornication that bad? I mean, everyone does it nowadays, don't they? How about you get right? Get right, get that out of your life. Oh, well, I want my prayers answered. I've got a couple of idols in my life, a few people I've made into idols that I worship above the word of God. Get that out of your life. Get out of your life, and try and get your prayers actually answered, and make them avail much. And there's some obvious things I've said. Just being in church is an obvious one. Oh, well, I just really want these prayers answered, but I go to church like once every six months. You know, well, I turn up on a marathon sometimes, or whatever else, right? It's like, God wants you in church. God wants you in the house of God. God wants you in his word. I want my prayers answered, but I never pick up my Bible. My Bible's kind of gathering dust. I open it up, and the moths fly out. And you're wondering why your prayers aren't availing much? It's either meditate day or night. And that's something you have a choice to do. Yeah, it might take a bit of discipline. Yeah, it might mean that, yeah, you might have to, you know, God forbid, cut down on some screen time, or something else. But you know what? Reading 15 minutes' Bible in the morning and evening, I mean, half our day, that's beyond most Christians, it seems, to get through the Bible a couple of times a year. But don't you want your prayers to avail much? I don't know. I want my prayers to avail much. You want your prayers to avail much? What a great resource we have. God says that we come boldly to the throne of grace, but the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. How about to be obeying the Great Commission? How about that? You know, there are billions of people in this world who are headed straight for hell. If every saved person actually seriously tried to get onto the path of learning and going on to win souls for Christ, that would be massively changed. How many people are so... Do you know how frustrating it is when you go places that are really receptive? For example, and I'm not just talking about mission trips. In this nation, for example, the last couple of times you've gone to Irith, you're standing in the high street in Irith, and you're preaching the gospel to one or two people, and you're seeing people go past that are kind of looky, and you're thinking, like, if only there was someone to talk to them. Because you could just know, you're like, they're receptive, they want to hear the gospel. These youths just want to hear the... And then someone else goes past you and says, I kind of got to carry on here, but I wish I had those four now, because I'm kind of halfway through, and there's only one here, but I want to get this all saved. It can feel like that, can't it, right? When you're in a place like that, you're just thinking, wow, like, we just need more labourers. The harvest truly is contentious, but the labourers are few. And you know what, that's a good thing to pray for as well, isn't it? Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvests, right? Send forth labourers. That's what we need. But those things, they're clear things that are the will of God, but they're clear things that I think, if you just go, yeah, but nah, are you really righteous? Are you really righteous in God's eyes? It's a great commission. I mean, it's the thing he said before, in all four gospels, really, we see the great commission in one way or another. At the end of all four gospels, the last thing pretty much he's saying, right? And in the book of Acts, chapter one. And we're seeing the great commission, and that is a clear thing that God wants us doing. He says he's not answering my prayers. But are you trying to be righteous? Do you even care what he wants from you? Do you? And if you do, do you care about those other people that he's there to answer? He wants to answer your prayers. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much? Yeah, but that sounds too much like hard work. Trying to live right. Forget it. They can all be damned and go to hell. And that, sadly, is pretty much the attitude of Christians across this nation and the rest of the world. Turn to 1 Peter, chapter three. 1 Peter 3, in 1 Timothy 2.8, Paul said, I will therefore, that's his will, that men pray everywhere lifting up what? Sinners' hands covered in blood. No, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. That's a righteous man, isn't it? That's someone lifting up holy hands. Not wrathful. So he's not in the flesh. And it's in faith. Without wrath and doubting. That, to me, sounds like the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. And God's will is that men pray everywhere lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. And here in 1 Peter 3 makes it clear what kind of believer God will open his ears to the prayer of. 1 Peter 3.10 says this, 1 Peter 3.10 says, For he that will love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile. Let him eschew evil, and we might say instead of that, maybe flee from or avoid evil, and do good, let him seek peace and ensure it. This sounds like a righteous man, doesn't it? Well, look at verse 12. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. And if you go over to 2 Kings 20 with that in mind, that was the prayer of a righteous man. The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. Over to 2 Kings 20, where we see a great example of this when it comes to healing from sickness. And this is someone's own sickness. In 2 Kings 20, and we've been looking at this in our Isaiah Bible study quite a bit recently. In 2 Kings 20, it's on the back of Hezekiah and the southern kingdom's defeat of the Assyrians. And if you haven't been with us with that, basically you've got 185,000 Assyrians that get wiped out briefly in one night by an angel of the Lord, and it's looking like certain death. Like we've been looking at recently, it wasn't just certain death. It was looking like horrendous death. It was looking like, for the leaders, for men like Hezekiah and others, I mean, some pretty grim stuff. I mean, the Assyrians were known for flaying people alive. They were known for some pretty horrendous torture to dissuade people from going against them, to dissuade kingdoms from rebelling against them. So this was scary. They come to the walls of Jerusalem. It seemed like a stupid place to be. It seemed like it would be better to flee, to escape, to maybe go down into Egypt, to go somewhere to get away from them. But God said, stay, and I will defend you. And they stayed, and God defended them. God helped them. God was there for them. Well, after this, Hezekiah then gets sick. It says in verse 1, In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. So again, did he have the sniffles? No, he was sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amos, came to him and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, set thine house in order, for thou shalt die and not live. Then he turned his face, by the way, that's where that saying, set your house in order, comes from, when people sadly are close to death. Like many things, it comes from the word of God. But he said, set thine house in order, for thou shalt die and not live. Then he turned his face to the wall and prayed unto the Lord, saying, I beseech thee, O Lord, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore. So Hezekiah was a righteous man. And that sounds like a fervent prayer too, doesn't it? He's weeping. Was it effectual, do you think? Because it was of a righteous man, it sounded like it was probably fervent. Was it effectual? Was it effectual? Look at verse four. It says, And it came to pass before Isaiah was gone out into the middle core, that the word of the Lord came to him, saying, Turn again and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people. Thus saith the Lord, The God of David, thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears. Behold, I will heal thee. On the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the Lord. And I will add unto thy days fifteen years, and I will deliver thee and the city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend the city for mine own sake and for my servant David's sake. And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs, and they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered. So the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much, doesn't it? That was some effectual prayer. It was fervent, it was of a righteous man. There was none like Hezekiah as a king. He was a righteous king. Yeah, he made some mistakes in life. Yeah, he made some errors, but he was a righteous man. He wasn't a perfect man in terms of how we would use a word. He was a complete man, he was a complete Christian, as a Bible would use that word, perfect. He wasn't sinless. But he was a righteous man. He was saved and he was trying to live right, he was a righteous king, and that effectual fervent prayer availeth much. And isn't that what we also want to do? Yeah? I'll remind you again, I'll keep reminding you, right? We want to avail much in our lives, don't we? We want to avail much in others' lives, in our loved ones' lives, in the lives of the lost. Don't we? Well then we need the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. And don't just try and find whoever you think is righteous in here and get them to pray for you, and then carry on. Carry on doing what you like, right? You know what? Like so many times, I say it from this pulpit, we have a responsibility in life. You're saved. You know the Gospel. You know the Word of God. To whom much is given, much shall be required. And you can be that righteous person, and you can make effectual prayer, and you can make fervent prayer, and you can therefore avail much. Or you can listen to a sermon like this, have this verse hammered into you, and go, yeah, whatever. Not for me. Go down to Nom de Nom Church. We don't really encourage you to do much down there. We just sing kumbaya and slap each other on the back and go home, and then tell each other how great we are the next week. Or you can respond, right? My prayers everyone responds to this, right? We need the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. Number one, it's effectual. Remember, that's of faith. It's in his will. It's not for show. It's not vain repetition. It's from a forgiving heart. It's fervent, so it's with effort, urgency, zeal. It's earnestly. All threats of a righteous man, so that's someone saved who's trying to live right. And what does it do? It avails much. And on that, we're going to finish in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you, Lord, for this church, Lord. Thank you for everyone that's part of this church, Lord. Thank you that you give us all here the ability to avail much through our prayer, Lord. Help us to make use of that opportunity, Lord. Help us to pray in faith, Lord. Make it an effectual prayer, Lord. Help us to pray fervently, to really put time and effort into our prayer life, Lord. To take out the time, to put it in. Not just when our backs are really up against the wall, but for all the different prayers, for prayers in other people's lives, Lord, who need some effectual, fervent prayer. And Lord, help us to use that as an incentive to get more righteous. Lord, help us to want to live right, to want to be in your will in all areas of our life, so that, you know, for many reasons, but for one, that we're just able to avail so much more in our prayer life. Lord, help us to all, you know, take this seriously. Help us to get out this afternoon and to get many people safe, Lord, knowing that it's your will, you know, that you're not willing that any should perish, that all should come to repentance. Lord, to preach the gospel loud and clear this afternoon to return for the evening service. In Jesus' name, pray with us. Amen. Our final hymn is hymn number 208, Like River Glorious, 208. River Glorious is God's perfect peace, Over all the glorious, in his might and grace. Perfect yet it floweth, fuller every day. Perfect yet it groweth, deeper all the way. Stained and conjured over, hearts are fully blessed, Highness we promise, perfect peace and rest. Even in the follow, all is blessed with health. Ever true can follow, ever treat us well. Not a set of worry, not a shade of care, Not a blast of worry, trust the Spirit there. Stained and conjured over, hearts are fully blessed, Highness we promise, perfect peace and rest. Every joy or triumph, falleth from above, Traced upon a dilum by the Son of man. We may just be holy, all for us to do, Maybe just be holy, find him holy true. Stained and conjured over, hearts are fully blessed, Finding us he promised, perfect peace and rest. Thanks, brother John Pereira, to close in the will of baptism. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this wonderful church. We thank you for your preserved Word of God. We thank you for our pastor, for the message that we shared this morning. Please help us to come into our own households with prayer, Having that fervent desire to be answered. And help us to pray according to your will, Father. We want to strive to do our best and to have that trust fully in you, Always coming to you and understanding that what you promise, You're able to perform too, Lord. So we pray that you keep us safe as we go out there preaching the gospel this afternoon, And help us to come back here to your house for the evening service. In your name, Lord Jesus, we pray all of this. Amen. Amen. Hi there, my name is Pastor Ian Tabin of Strong Tail Baptist Church. I'd just like to take a few minutes today to show you how you could be 100% sure that if you died, You'd be going straight to heaven. So a lot of people teach all these strange things about how you can be good enough to go to heaven, How you've got to follow a list of commandments to get to heaven, See, they're really the other religion. There's only really two religions in the world. There's good you go to heaven, bad you go to hell, and all the varying versions of that. Some of them are very subtle. Oh, you've got to at least give up a certain amount of sin. You've got to at least try not to sin. And then there's a Bible which says, no, no, no, go to heaven is a free gift. And I want to show you how you receive that free gift today. A few things you've got to understand first, though, before you receive that gift. And that's, number one is that you are a sinner. I'm a sinner. We're all sinners. The Bible says in Romans three twenty three, for all have sinned to come short of the glory of God. See, we're all sinners. We've all broken God's commandments in one way or another. And the Bible says because of that, we come short of the glory of God. We cannot be good enough to go to heaven, which means that we're on our way somewhere else. There's only two places you go. You either go to heaven or you go to hell. And the Bible says for the wages of sin is death. We're all sinners and what we get in return is death. And in the end, that's in a place called the second death, which is a lake of fire. The Bible says in Revelation twenty fourteen and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is a second death. If the wages of sin is death and the second death is a lake of fire. That's not a very good picture being painted there. In fact, in Revelation twenty one eight, we see just a quick list of common sins to show that we're all on our way to the lake of fire. The Bible reads, but the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars. And that's you, me and everyone else in the world shall have their part in the lake, which burneth the fine brimstone, which is the second death. However, God doesn't want you to go to hell. Hell is eternal. Hell is a very real place. But God wants you in heaven. And in fact, he made a way for you to go to heaven. In Romans five eight, the Bible says, but God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So Jesus Christ, the son of God, God in the flesh, came to this world and he didn't commit any sin. He lived a perfect life. And then at the end of his life, he he was hung up on a cross. He died to pay for our sins. The Bible says in second Corinthians five twenty one, for he had made him. That's Jesus Christ to be sin for us who knew no sin. Jesus Christ was sinless. However, he became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He swapped with us. He took that punishment for you. He died on that cross and he he then tasted death for every man. The Bible says in Acts two thirty one, he's seen this before, spoke of the resurrection of Christ. His soul was not left in hell. Neither this flesh should see corruption because on the third day rose again. He showed the holes in his hands, the holes in his side. It was a bodily, physical resurrection. He wasn't a ghost. They ate with him. They handled him. And then forty days later, he went to heaven. Now, what does that mean? Does that mean everyone's going to heaven? Well, of course not. See, there's one thing we have to do to receive that gift. And in Acts sixteen thirty, someone asked the question, sirs, what must I do to be saved? The apostle Paul and Silas answered and they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house. So what does that mean, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved? Are they saying to just believe that he exists? Are they saying to believe that there's a person called Jesus? No, they're saying to believe on or put your faith, your trust in that death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ to have paid for all your past, present and future sins and you can go to heaven. That's what it means is to put your trust in Jesus. Like it says in the most famous verse of the world, John three sixteen, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. See, the Bible teaches us time and time again that the only way you're going to heaven is by putting your faith and trust in what Jesus Christ did, not what you do. See, many people claim to be Christians and say, oh yeah, I'm going to heaven because I believe in Jesus and I'm a good person and I got baptized and I read my Bible and I do this and I do that. Well, they're not trusting Jesus Christ, they're trusting themselves. And the Bible says if they're not trusting Jesus Christ, they're going to hell. Ephesians three and nine says, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works as any man should boast. The Bible said it's not of yourself. It's not of your own works. It's just faith alone in Christ alone that gets you to heaven. And a lot of people find that really hard to understand. Now they look at the Bible and think, yeah, but you've got to follow the commands. You've got to do this. You've got to do that. Yeah, look, as a child of God, when you get saved, when you become one of God's children by faith in Christ Jesus, which is what Galatians three twenty six says for you, all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, once you become that child, God's going to punish you in life. He's going to reward you in life. However, the only way you become that child, the only way that you could ever get to heaven is by what Jesus Christ did, not what you do. Once you receive that gift, that's it. It's a gift. You're saved. The Bible says, in fact, in John ten twenty eight, and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My father, which gave them me, is greater than all and no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand. See, once you're saved, you've received that gift. You've become a child of God. You could never go to hell. Otherwise, Jesus Christ lied when he said all you had to do was believe. He lied when he said that you shall never perish. And that's the gospel. Gospel means good news. The good news is that your sins have been paid for. All you've got to do is receive that gift. And in fact, in Romans ten nine, the Bible reads that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised you from the dead, thou shalt be saved. It says in verse thirteen of Romans ten, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. If you believe, if you want to put your faith, your trust in Jesus Christ, just ask him. And I'd like to lead you in a short prayer. Now, if you believe everything I've just said, if you believe that you are a sinner, you believe that the wages of sin is death, that you deserve hell, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that you died, was buried and rose again to pay for your sins, and that all you've got to do is put your faith and trust in him. And once you've done that, there is no way you could lose that salvation. Then please, please just repeat after me. Dear Jesus, I know I'm a sinner. I know I deserve hell. I believe that you died, was buried and rose again to pay for my sins. I trust in you now and I need you. Please take me to heaven when I die. Amen. If you believe that and you've called the name of the Lord for salvation, congratulations, you're saved. And I'll be seeing you in heaven one day. God bless you. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.