Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 806 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

-- Brother Phil Enlow: Well, Praise God! Just gonna move by faith this morning and...'course, I hope that's the case every time--should go without saying, shouldn't it? But I appreciate the Lord's mercy, his presence this morning. I know that there's something He wants to say and I pray that if this isn't it, it will be quickly known.

I did something this morning that was very unusual--I flipped on the television. And I just happened to catch a little bit of the ministry of a brother that I greatly respect, and what he was saying, I certainly don't want to try to re-preach that. But what he was saying had to do with prayer and it was a tremendous...I mean it just struck a chord with me, what he was saying. It was real.

And I just...I don't know, I just had a sense that where we're at in the Lord, I don't know that we really understand the necessity and the power that God has given us in prayer and how critical it is. We think that we can just sort of, you know, utter a few "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep" prayers and go through our lives and come in and the Word is somehow gonna do it all.

But I believe with all my heart that there is something that has got to be behind all that we do and I believe that it is this secret of prayer...and it's praise, because praise is the way we get into a place where we can pray. There's both that work together and you can see it in scriptures where the Lord exhorts us to pray. There's also with it a spirit of thanksgiving, a spirit of praise that just absolutely has to accompany it, because otherwise prayer can just be kind of an anxious bellyaching, if you will. I mean, it can be. And God wants us to actually express a confidence and a praise toward Him.

But I was thinking a little differently than I heard it being expressed, because one of the things I believe the Lord has established--one of the truths that I believe He's established in our midst in times past especially, is the truth of the Body of Christ--that we're not simply a collection of individuals. Now, we all understand the human body and we understand that it has many parts. We have hands and fingers and toes and feet and eyes and ears and all of those things.

And yet we know that though they are individual parts and we may have an injury that affects one part, yet we understand that those parts are very vitally connected. And, by themselves none of them is any good, is it? You just have a hand laying there, it's just a dead piece of meat with some bone in it. But together--functioning together with a living connection between them, now our body can do something. Now we might like it to do more than it does, but nonetheless there's a functioning there that we understand in the physical realm.

But I wonder if we understand many times, just how vitally we are connected in the Spirit. But now I understand that my hand is connected here...I can't just take it off and put it on the shelf somewhere. I can't disconnect this. But there is absolutely a connection in the Spirit. Now there is one sense in which I could cut off my hand, isn't there? I could take a tourniquet and I could rub it...I mean I could stretch it around my wrist in such a way and tighten it in such a way that the circulation to my hand would be cut off. And what would be the result? It wouldn't be good, would it? There's vital nutrients that need to flow through the body, if the body is to be healthy.

And I think many times, this is the missing ingredient. This is why there are so many needs that seem to be so persistent. You know, Don was talking about--do you have a need? Do you want greater power to overcome? And, I do. I see needs in me. But you know that God has given us a prescription. It's not just simply trying to believe a promise in the Word. It's not just...without there being prayer connected to it.

You know James said, is any of you afflicted? I'm gonna go ahead and read it in this translation. I had it open a minute ago and then I closed it. It's James, chapter 5. This is just one example, of the Lord's exhortation. And here it says, "Is any one of you in trouble?..." (NIV). Well, is any of you in trouble? What should you do? Should you run and just say, oh what should I do and ask everybody for advice? I mean, there's times when there can be wise counsel in our lives, but the one thing that James, inspired of God as he was to instruct the people, was able to say was, we need to pray. God's House is a House of Prayer.

Well what is this thing called prayer, if it is not the very circulation of the Body? What would our body be without the nervous system? What would it be without the blood? Now if you're...if you stub your finger, and you hurt it real good, what does that finger do? Think about physiologically what happens. What happens? There's pain. And what happens? There is a signal sent to the brain instantly. I'm in trouble. I hurt. I did something that...you know is injured--this particular part of my body.

There's an instant signal that goes out and as a result of that signal there are signals that flow back and forth within our body and there are nutrients that immediately begin to flow. The whole body begins to work. Your finger swells up. Well, what is that? It's blood flowing to that affected part because there's a need there. And I'll tell you, if we understood more the lesson of our natural body in the spiritual sense, I believe we'd be a lot healthier.

God has made us members one of another. And he says...Paul says there in 1st Corinthians 14 or 13...somewhere in that passage...12, I think it is...he says, when one member suffers, what? They all suffer. It doesn't say they ought to suffer, does it? It says, they do. Whatever affects you, affects me. What affects me, affects you.

We live in a world where we are, as we've said many times in the past, opposed by Satan. Everything we do, we can expect to be challenged. We can expect that he is going to attack our spiritual welfare and the spiritual welfare of our brothers and our sisters. Now, we have the analogy in our human body. We have diseases that attack us. We have wicked organisms, you might call them--viruses, all sorts of things that would love to just get into our body and wreak all kinds of havoc and damage.

But you know, God has so tempered our physical body that there is a defense mechanism that works to fend off those kind of things. And a healthy body is able to repel the attacks that would otherwise take it down. But God wants His Spiritual Body, the Body of Jesus Christ in a practical, local sense as we've come to understand it, to function the same way. There needs to be a defense mechanism that is just automatic.

And what is that? It's people that are so in tuned with the Lord and so willing to constantly go to Him as the Source of our help, that we just do it. We do it as a matter of course. We don't have to stop and think what to do, anymore than our finger has to stop and think what to do when it hurts. It just sends a signal. And the brain responds, and other parts of the body go--and your muscles in your arm know immediately to pull back. You see there are different parts of the body that automatically come into play and function together to accomplish what's needed.

My God, I believe with all my heart, that's the greatest need of this church. It's the greatest need in my own life. I was convicted listening to this brother. Now he was dealing with it in a different sense. But how critically important it is that we pray when we have a need--that we immediately take it to the Lord. And we not just take it to the Lord, but we take it to the Lord in the sense of expectation. My God, I am looking to You and I'm gonna look to You until You help me--until You give me the victory that I need. Because I need victory--I need help in my life.

Do you believe God wants to help you, or do you believe He wants you to just muddle along? Think about it. I think we act like failing and stumbling along is the norm for Christian living and I don't believe it is. I believe God wants to bring us to a higher level of faith and understanding where we know we can go to God in prayer. We know!

Now the song that Kenny sang this morning is critical to that. We'd better know that we're forgiven. Do you believe in the blood of Jesus Christ? Do you believe we have the right to come into the presence of God because of the blood of Christ?

( congregational amens ).

That's my only hope! What's yours? You think I'm somebody special? You better know that I'm not.

( laughter ).

I think you know. I think know me well enough to know that there's nothing special about this flesh--this human being. Left to myself, I'd do nothing but fail. But I have a God and I have a Christ who lives in me. He's my Hope of Glory. He's all of my hope.

( congregational amens ).

It's the virtue and the life that I receive from Him that enables me to be anything other than just a normal human being. If there's any virtue, it's Him. If there's any virtue in you, it's Him.

( congregational amens ).

But, oh, how sluggish we are--how sluggish, how stagnant. We're like stagnant pools many times, sitting here feeling sorry for ourselves. Oh, I'm so...things are just so bad and I'm so defeated and I'm in such a low place. And there's fountains of Living Water that Christ would have flowing to us, and flowing one to another.

God wants to send forth so much help and so much blessing. You look in the Scriptures and you see what happened when God's people were in trouble. You look from one end of the Scripture...what did they do? What did they do when Jehoshaphat faced the great army?

-- Congregation: Prayed.

-- Brother Phil Enlow: Yeah, that's the first order of business. They got down and they prayed. They called on God, and they cast themselves completely on God. I mean, there was no war conference...what are we gonna do about this? This is a need, my God, that's for you, and we're gonna call upon you with one heart and one mind, because we're expecting you to act. We're expecting you to do something here.

What did the disciples do when they were...the apostles, I should say, were threatened by the Sanhedrin. They sent 'em home and they said, don't you dare preach in this name anymore. They beat 'em and sent 'em away. They went back to their company and they reported it, and in Acts chapter 4 you read what they did. They immediately went to God.

They lifted up the need and they prayed, oh, God, pour out Your Spirit. God, don't just protect us from these awful people. My God, give us courage. Give us the strength, Lord, to go on the offensive, to do what You've given us to do. My God, fill us with Your Spirit because that's the only Life we have.

If we come in here in our own energy and in our own ability and in our own strength, then we're nothing. I mean we really are nothing. But, if we come in here as the Body of Christ, looking to Him, trusting in Him to fill us and to flow one to another, there's Living Waters gonna flow in this place.

( congregational amens ).

That's what God desires. That's what He hungers to pour forth. When your brother's in trouble--in need, how do you feel? How does God want us to feel? Do we care as much about the needs of one another as we care about ourselves? You know one of the...the greatest commandment that God has given to His Church with respect to church life is what?

-- Congregation: Love one another.

-- Brother Phil Enlow: Love one another. And love is not simply a warm, gooey feeling. It's meant to be practical. And, of course, that can involve natural things. If he's hungry, feed him, and so forth...all of those things. If he's cold, you warm him. There's practical things that we do to express that love.

But I don't think there's any greater love that we have, than to bear the needs of one another before the Throne of God. And say, oh God, my brother is hurting. I'm connected to him. Lord, he's right now in a weak place...my sister's in a weak place. She's so beat down. There's this need...and, oh God, I call upon you to send help, to send life!

Do you think God is looking for that? I believe that's the very thing He's looking for--that we understand how the Body of Christ works. It functions on prayer. Now, prayer is the circulation system. It's the very life-blood of the Church of Jesus Christ. If the blood is not flowing one to another then we're just sitting around like a bunch of stagnant pools. And we're gonna be defeated over and over again until we learn where our help comes from.

There is help. There is hope. God has never changed! Everything He's ever done, He can do in our midst. He can do for me. He can do it for you. If God has ever delivered anybody from sin and from its power, if He's ever healed anybody, God can do those things. But I believe that He's longing for a people that just don't take Him for granted and figure He's sovereign and He's gonna do whatever He's gonna do. He's looking for a people who will call upon Him from their hearts. Don quoted the scripture--referred to it, "...My house shall be called the house of..." what?

-- Congregation: "Prayer."

-- Brother Phil Enlow: "Prayer." Not preaching...not all these other things. It's prayer. If we'll learn to call on our God, there's Life that will flow. He's the brain. He's the Head. He's the ultimate source of all that we need! But, oh the channel between us and Him is so clogged and so under-used. We live like we're disconnected so much of the time--little islands unto ourselves...oh me and my little problems, when God wants us to see how connected and how 'one' we are and what a source of help He is.

And oh, in those times when you are weak, God help us...that there's somebody else that recognizes, that's so in tune with the Lord and so sensitive that we can see someone's in trouble. I'd better pray. I'm gonna take time out of my own schedule and pray, because I love them. I'm concerned. How does love get expressed? Is it something that's just in theory, or does it have a practical expression. And I believe with all my heart this is the practical expression we need most in this place.

And I say this to my own shame, because I don't pray like I ought. God needs to teach every one of us what it means to bear one another's burdens "...and so fulfil the law of Christ." That's not just carrying 'em groceries. It could be that. But I believe the greatest burden--the greatest way that we can give our lives one to another is to cry out to God--to say, oh God, help Brother So-and-so. Lord, there's a battle going on and I want to stand with him.

Does our body not stand together when we're fighting off a disease? Yes, it does. God has given us a wonderful picture of how He works. We can see it. We don't have to sort of figure out some great mysterious thing. We see how the body works. But it works the same way in the Spirit. And God has given us great promises.

I'm gonna go ahead and just read this passage because I know it's something that we're familiar with in James chapter 5, verse 13, "Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy?..." Let him just go about his business and take life for granted. No, it doesn't say that. You see, there is always a communion with God. It takes different forms based upon the circumstances, but there is always a communion with God. There's life flowing.

If our hand is doing great, does it simply shut off the connection with the rest of the body? And say, well, I'm doing fine, the heck with the rest of you. No. There is always communication going on. If there weren't, I wouldn't be able to do anything. And, if we don't have that communion with the Lord, we can't do anything either. We might look like we're doing something, but we're not accomplishing anything. We need Jesus Christ in us. He needs to be our life, and our help, and our strength.

So, "...Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise." There's always that expression of something going back and forth between us and the throne. "Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.

"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed...." You notice that this isn't just pray for yourself. Certainly, it's that. But God said, each of us is to pray for the other. That's how God connects us. That's how God builds the love that we need. There's a circulation...I mean we can just sort of say the body ought to work just as a matter of theory, because we're connected. But there is a literal, physical process that happens in our bodies that has everything to do with it being functioning--with it functioning in a healthy way.

But it's the same way. These things are not just sort of theories we can acknowledge with our minds. They are realities. And the exercise of prayer has everything to do with establishing, with building the character that God wants to build in us...with taking love one for another out of the realm of theory and bringing it into the realm of real practical application. Because if we express love, that's a whole lot different than saying, oh, I love you, and it's just theory.

Love that does not act for the welfare of the one that is loved, is not really love, is it? And we're guilty, all of us, of living in a realm of self-love far too much. Oh, God, help us not to...to realize that we're not islands unto ourselves. We are so connected, and God longs to pour blessings upon some. We have weak ones in this assembly. Are we crying out to God on their behalf? Do we love them enough to bear their needs before the throne, and say, oh, God, help that person? Lord, pour forth your life.

Are we investing in each other, or are we just living for ourselves? That's why He says, "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."

And, of course he gives you the example of Elijah. "Elijah was a man just like us..." Just like us. It's hard to imagine that, but that's what the Word says. He was a man just like us! What made him different, was the God who was with him and in him, and the fact that he lived and cooperated with that God. That's all that made him what he was. He was just like us.

"...He prayed earnestly..." Now he didn't just say he didn't pray casually, does it? There was some spiritual effort that went into what he did. He cared about it enough to stick with it. He didn't give up after five minutes and say, well, the heck with this--or, I've done my bit. There was a sense of, I'm gonna stick with this need, this thing until something happens, until God moves. There's a spirit of perseverance in what happens.

He said, "...He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops." I pray this...I mean, I speak this, this morning with a sense that I have as much need as anybody here. But I know--I believe it's the burden of God for His people.

There are things that God desires earnestly to do. Do we think that He's unmindful of our needs? Does He not know what's going in your life? Does He not care what's going on in your life? I believe He cares. But I believe He's wanting to lift us out of the realm of this kind of self-centered, 'live-careless' living, where we just think somehow, magically everything that's supposed to happen is gonna happen, and we get beyond that and we say, oh God--oh God, I cry out to you on behalf of somebody.

I'll tell you, that moves heaven. That moves heaven. God feels that thing and it absolutely sends spiritual energy. I don't understand it all, but I know that this is real. I tell you, the kingdom of darkness feels it.

( congregational amens ).

Why do you think they fight so hard...the devils that harass us...why do you think they fight so hard to distract us and hinder us from calling on God? They attack your mind about guilt. They attack your mind with other things you've got to do. And, oh God, help us to be willing to cry out on behalf of one another and not just to go through a form...well, I went down my prayer list. I said 'em all. I listed 'em all. Instead of saying, oh God...there's some kind of an...and I pray God will teach me and teach all of us what it means to be engaged in prayer about a need and to stick with that need until God answers that thing!

That's what God wants to teach us, and we can certainly start by saying, God, teach us that. Do we really want Him to teach us how to pray and how to be effective? This is critical! I don't care what kind of teaching, I don't care what kind of preaching, I don't care what kind of singing we have in this church, if we don't have this, we don't have anything.

( congregational amens ).

All we have is the outer form and God wants us to have the inner life. He wants rivers of living water to flow one to another. He wants the dry places to be watered.

( congregational praise ).

He wants them to bring forth life. He wants to see devils driven from lives. There's people in this place that need help. There's people that God would bring to us that need help and my God has the help that we need.

( congregational amens ).

Let's cry out to Him and ask Him to give us a Spirit of prayer and of love and of prevailing prayer, where we're going to stand our ground. We're gonna show the devil that we love one another. We're gonna show God that we love one another, because this is the kind of love that happens in secret. Your brother, your sister may not even know--they may never know this side of heaven what you've done for them.

Something wonderful may happen in their lives and God moves in and helps them, but somebody was praying. Somebody was in the closet crying out to God. God knows about it. He made a record of it. You don't have to come out and announce it--hey, I did this. God just moved.

The things that happen in our bodies, they happen seemingly mysteriously to us. I'm sure the scientists think they know, but they don't know everything. But there's all kinds of processes that God absolutely brings to pass and makes effective to meet the physical needs that we have. But it's the same way in the Spirit.

May God just pour out upon us that Spirit of supplication one for another and get us connected in the Spirit to where we hold one another up and we care one for another. Do you care what happens to your brother? Do you care when they're in pain, when they're in sickness and in trouble? God wants...God's looking on. He's wondering. Sure you mention their name in prayer, but do you really care? That's the question. Do we care? Well, I'll tell you, we can care as we yield ourselves to the Lord, because He cares.

( congregational amens ).

We don't ever have to worry about Him caring. The question is, can He be that in and through us? That's the question that we need to answer this morning. And I just pray that God will teach us and teach me the things that we need to know, because there are things He desires to...He longs to do! It's not that He's unwilling, but there are processes--there are things that He longs to accomplish in the process that can happen no other way!

I mean, the brain could somehow--you know theoretically, the brain could somehow magically do something for the finger that's hurt. But that's not the way it works, is it? The whole body gets involved in the process of that hurt finger, that stubbed toe...whatever it is. And that's the way God has ordained it in His people. That's the way He builds a church that loves one another and that mirrors the love of God in the earth.

I'll tell you that's the mark of the Church of Jesus Christ, that we love one another. "By this shall all men know..."--What?--"...That ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." Well, I'll tell you the love of Christ manifests itself in secret many times as we pray one for another. And I'll tell you the God who has given us this truth, He will back up His Word. I praise Him this morning.

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