Praying With Authority – Radio Classic – Dr. Charles Stanley – How To Talk To God Vol 1 Pt 2

When Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal, he put on a show. One slaughtered bull and several gallons of water later, God answered his boldness with fire.

While we’re not all called to make such dramatic displays of faith like Elijah, we have all been given authority in prayer through the Lord Jesus. In this empowering message, Dr. Stanley explains how to confidently, yet humbly, approach the throne of grace with our petitions and requests (Heb. 4:16).

Learn to pray with authority, and give God the opportunity to glorify Himself in your circumstances.

With a message from God’s word, here’s Charles Stanley.
1st kings chapter 18, I want us to begin in verse 37.
The title of this message, praying with authority.
And while you’re turning there, let me remind you of what is happening.
Ahab and Elijah have had conflict for quite some time.
And so Elijah challenges Ahab and the prophets have failed to a contest.
He says, let’s find out whose god is god. If the god of baal is god, fine.
We all should follow him. If the god jehovah, the god of Israel is fine, then we ought to all follow him.
So their greed, having, uh, been asked by him, how long will you halt between 2 opinions?
So he said, here’s what we’ll do. You build your all I’m gonna repair the altar of god.
We’ll put our sacrifices on it, and then we’ll pray for god to consume the sacrifices and the god who answers by fire is the god whom we’ll serve.
So if you’ll recall the story in this uh, the prophets of Vale got there, um, all together, put the sacrifice on and they began to pray.
And they prayed and prayed and shouted and and cried out to their god until finally Elijah walked around.
He said, what’s the matter? Is your god’s sleep? Is he gone on vacation? So he began to mock them.
And of course, that stirred them up a little bit more until finally.
They began to mutilate their own is because their god was not answering.
And finally, when the evening was calm, Elijah said it’s my turn. He rebuilt the altar of god.
He played the sacrifice on it.
He said now, so there’ll be no question in about his mind about any trickery.
He said, I want you to put a barrel of water on it, so they soaked it in water.
He said, do it a second time. They did the second time.
He said, do it a third time until the sacrifice, the wood, and everything there was soaking, something wet.
And and when he finished that, here’s what happened beginning in verse 36.
And it came to pass at the time of the all of the evening sacrifice that Elijah, the prophet came there and said, lord god of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel.
Let it be known this day that thou art god in Israel and that I am thy servant and that I have done all these things at thy word.
Hear me, oh lord, hear me that this people may know that thou are the lord god and that thou has turned their heart back again.
Then the fire of the lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench.
And when all the people saw it, They fell on their faces and they said, the lord, he is the god.
The lord He is the god.
Now, I think here is a beautiful demonstration of praying with authority.
For Elijah certainly did not hide out in some quiet place and said, I’m gonna have myself a private prayer meeting, and I’ll tell y’all when I finished what I prayed for.
If he had done that, he could have failed or succeeded.
But when he said in public I want to build an altar for all the prophets of bail.
I want to soak it down with water so there’s absolutely no question.
And right in front of everybody in a sense of humility and dependence upon god, I want to cry out to god and the god who answers by 5 is the god whom Israel will serve.
There was anything private, nothing sneaky, nothing tricky.
God had the privilege of demonstrating his supernatural power publicly before the nation of Israel.
And the thing that motivated it came to pass when the people said, the lord, he is the god.
The lord, he is the god. And he had accomplished his purpose.
Now when you think of all the promises that god has given in the scripture about answered prayer and how few of those we claim on a day to day basis and how often we complain more than claim what god has promised to do.
And if somebody said the other day, we were praying in a prayer meeting, he said, you know, he said when I come to god, he said to be real honest, he said, I feel like I’m just sort of tiptoeing around through the throne room of god.
I’m afraid of what’s going to happen.
Instead of coming to god on the basis of what he said we could do, we sort of come weekly and fearfully instead of boldly and fearlessly before god to make a petition and to walk out of prayer place, wherever it may be, expecting god to demonstrate and to hear and to answer our prayer.
God doesn’t want his people walking around in a I don’t mean a meek’s spirit by humility, but I mean by a meekly attitude of weakness, wondering what or if god is going to do anything.
And if you’ll turn to, uh, Hebrews for just a moment, And think about what the writer of Hebrews says in this 4th chapter and the 16th verse.
Beginning in verse 15, he says but we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but the truth is that our high priest can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.
And he says he was tempted in all points as we are and yet without sin verse 16.
Let us therefore, that is on the basis who Jesus Christ is on the basis of what he’s done, on the basis of where he is seated at the father’s right hand, on the basis of who he is, our intercessor, our mediated before god, on the basis of that, let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
We have the privilege in the right to come before the throne god with a sense of authority before him because we have been given that authority because of our position in Jesus Christ.
And we’re to come to pray and to pray with authority and to believe and to expect god to do what he won’t to do and what he’s willing to do in the life of his children.
Now, when we come to talk about authority, we must clarify what we mean by.
But before we do, I want you to turn to, uh, 2nd Chronicles for a moment in chapter 20.
And I wanna read just the brief section of another prayer that I think is a good example of praying with authority.
For here, Jahashif had just heard the news.
That a great multitude has come against them from Chronicles chapter 20 says, and jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the lord and proclaimed a fast threat all Judah.
And I believe the Davis nation does this.
The Davis nation is willing to do that from the leadership of the president on down.
God is going to work a miracle.
The ultimate objective, which will be to glorify god and to demonstrate who he is throughout all the world.
So this is what he did. The Bible says they all came together.
And what I want you to see is the prayer that Jahashif had prayed before his people. Verse 5.
And Jahashifetz stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the lord before a new court, and he said, listen to how he pray.
Oh, lord, god of our fathers.
And he puts it in this term because these are affirmative statements from his point of Art not bow God in heaven, rulers not bow over all the kingdoms of the heathen, In thy hand, is there not power and might so that none is able to withstand thee?
Art not their out god uh, who did dive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel and gave it to the seat of Abraham by friend forever?
And they dwell therein and have built the sanctuary therein for thy name saying, if when evil come upon us, as the sword, judgment, all pestilence, all famine.
We stand before this house and in thy presence, for thy name is in this house and cry under thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help.
And now behold the children of Aman and Moab and Mount Cyr, whom thou wits not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, But they turned from them and destroyed them not.
Behold, I say, how they reward us to come to cast us out of thy possession, which thou hast given to us to inherit.
Oh, our god. Wilt thou not judge them.
For we have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do, but our eyes are fixed upon thee.
Now, Rutherford’s praying with authority. Elijah and jehoshaphat elijah the prophet of god in a great time of crises, Jahashifat, one of god’s leaders of a people of Israel in a time of great crises when the enemy were coming like swarms and hoards of grasshoppers.
And the only thing he knew to do because knew their defenses could never withstand that kind of assault.
The Bible says he called for a day of fasting and praying.
And before the people, he said all our god. You are the god of the heavens.
You are the god who knows how to silently control enemies. We have no might.
We have no strength. The only thing we can do is to focus our attention upon you and trust in you.
These two men came to god fearlessly, boldly, courageously, making a petition that would give god the opportunity of glorifying himself and saving their people out of bondage.
How many times do we come to the lord sort of groveling in our own sense of inability and our own sense of sinfulness?
And we say, oh, lord, you know my need And I’m bringing this to you.
I hope you’ll do something about it.
That is not a prayer with authority, but a prayer of defeat He wants us to come to him in a sense of authority.
Now I want to define what I mean by authority.
Unless you on stand or misunderstand that I mean by that, coming to him proudly, coming to him ecotistically, are coming to him demanding something of him in spite of what his will is.
So I want you to quickly move through some scriptures with me, if you will.
And, uh, you’ll recall in Matthew 28, uh, the last few verses which you and I find the great commission.
But there’s a word here I want us to notice.
He says, beginning in verse 18, Jesus came and spake unto them saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and earth.
And then having made that statement, he says, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.
Then If you’ll recall, uh, Ma’ acts chapter 1 verse 8, and I think all of us know these verses by heart, he says, but she shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses under me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samara, the other most parts of the earth.
Here’s what I want you to see.
In verse 18 of Matthew 28, the word power is the Greek word, which means the ability to fulfill or the ability to bring about the ability to execute the divine ability to do something with all the hindrances having been moved aside, separated, thrown down.
That is he’s speaking of a divine capacity when he speaks of power.
On the one hand, on the other hand, He’s speaking of right, freedom, and liberty. Alright.
When he says in acts chapter 1 verse 8, you should receive power He’s speaking here of dunamis.
That is he says you’re gonna receive the divine capacity. The divine ability.
The supernatural capacity of god to execute to bring forth to accomplish something in the name of Jesus Christ.
Back over in Matthew 28, he’s speaking of another counter power.
He speaks here of authority, and the Greek word is Exusia, which means the divine right and freedom and liberty.
So he says, by the right that I have is the son of god, I send you forth.
In acts chapter 1, he say, now that you’ve been sent forth, you shall receive divine supernatural ability to fulfill the obligation which I’ve given you as servants and witnesses for me.
And what I want you to see here is this.
That when god has given us a commission to do something, he always equips us to do it.
Now when he says that you and I are to pray, what did the disciples do?
They said, lord, teach us to pray, and he did teach them to God teaches how to pray, and he taught them how to pray.
And you and I know that our relationship with him and communication with him is through prayer.
We read the word of god. He speaks to us. We talk to him.
He speaks to us and we listen to him. Now think about it on.
There is not anything that you can mention.
There is no place in all the globe outside the atmosphere of this earth.
There is no purse no thing anywhere in existence, anywhere under any condition that is not in the presence of prayer.
Not any single thing. There is not anything anywhere that is not in reach of prayer.
Let me ask you a question.
Can you name anything else in existence about which you can say that?
By means of prayer, we supernatural power of god in on anything going on anywhere in the world.
What are the means can you and I use to do that?
And the answer is absolutely unquestionably 0. There is no other means.
God has placed in the hands at the disposal of every single believer, the most miraculous, absolutely infinite indescribable supernatural accessibility into supernatural power this world will ever be able to imagine.
But we grow along in life weekly. And the church is weak.
And the church is weak because it’s praying is weak. And the nation is weak because the church is weak.
And we’ll never be able to accomplish in this life.
What god wants us to accomplish as a body are as individuals until we learn to come before god independent upon him, but to come with the authority delegated to us given to us that we may exercise in the presence of god.
Now what I want you to see here this.
The authority here that he’s speaking of is the right, the privilege, the accessibility, the freedom we have.
Jesus says, I have the right to say to you, and I’m gonna say it, go ye that one to all the world and preach the gospel.
He said to him, on the other occasion, I I delegate to you the divine capacity and ability through the power of the holy spirit to cure of their sickness, to drive out demons.
As you go about carrying out the great commission, I have given you the the supernatural and ability through the power of the Holy Spirit to do what I have authorized you to do.
Now when you and I come to god in prayer and praying with authority does not mean that we come to overwhelm him and demand anything of him.
Now watch this. When you read these two prayers that we read a few moments ago, both of these men Elijah and jehoshaphat even though they’re praying with super boldness before jehovah god, lord, god of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.
You are the sovereign of the universe. You control the enemy. You have kept us.
You take care of these enemies. They’re coming. Listen.
It did based on something that I wanna share with you, but they’re coming in a sense of deep humiliation before god.
Coming to with authority and coming to him ecotistically and prayerly are not synonymous.
It listen, it is authority based on our humiliation and humility and absolute and total dependence upon god.
That is absolutely and must be an essential part of real authority in brain, which eliminates the idea I’m coming to tell god what to do.
When you and I come to him in prayer, we are coming to him crying out to him for our needs relating to him the things that we feel in our heart and bequesting of him supernatural intervention in our life.
Now, in order for that to happen, there are several things that must be true.
Want you to think about it for a moment.
If you don’t understand you have authority with god, what’s going to happen is Satan is going to wipe you out and you rare life.
He’s going to defeat you. He’s gonna say, you don’t have any authority with god. You don’t have any power.
And let me just remind you of a passage of you hear if I might.
In ephesians chapter 6, you’ll remember what Paul says about putting on the whole arm of god.
But before he says that, he says, we wrestle not flesh in blood, but with principalities and powers.
Now how many of you in your time of prayer have ever started doubting what you were praying about?
Come on. Stick them up. I know that’s true. Alright.
How many of you have ever begun to think about things you think?
What in the world am I doing thinking about that? Right?
How many of you thought praying in a whole few minutes.
You you know, you just hope you’re thinking about something else you say. You know, I’m talking to god.
What am I doing thinking about that?
And so with all the sincerity of your heart the next thing you know, you don’t hear things about something a hundred miles away, and you have to bring it back and say, lord, forgive me.
I don’t know why I keep my mind keeps drifting. I’m gonna why.
The 6th chapter of Ephesian says, we wrestle not.
He didn’t say if we did, he said we do.
You and I are in mortal conflict with the with the devil.
Now the the most listen, the most powerful tool in the hands of the believer is prayer.
If that be true, when do you think?
Where do you think he’s going to make his most his most vicious assaults?
Not when you walk rang in your business, but when you’re on your face before God, you’ll think things you think, oh, god, how wicked could my heart be?
How can I be thinking about things like that all beyond a hundred miles away thinking about something else?
Here’s what I want you to see about that passage.
He says, put on the whole armor of god because we’re wrestling against not flesh and blood, but principalities and powers.
And he says, after he’s finished all of that, speaking of the armor, he says, and having them all to stand, not fight stand, he says, praying always with all supplication and prayer in the spirit.
He says the conflict we’re talking about is the conflict we’re gonna have in prayer.
He says, we’re to get dressed up. Listen. He didn’t say get dressed up in the helmet of Salvation.
Breastplate of righteousness, loins, uh, geared a man with truth, feet, shot with the preparation of gospel of peace, the sword of the spirit.
And then what did he say? He said, run like man, attack the devil. He didn’t say that at all.
What did he say? What did he say? Stand still. What is he talking about?
He’s talking about god’s people being ready to pray.
Because Satan’s most vicious assaults are gonna be when you begin to pray. You know why?
Because Satan knows that when god’s people drop to their knees and begin to pray, He’s defeating.
So what does he say to us? He says to us? You can’t ask god that.
Who do you think you are? You’re just a sinner saved by grace.
You have no right to come to the presence of a holy god. And what does he do?
He tricks us with spiritual doctrine. He brings up all these is about how sinful we are.
And the devil knows more scripture than all of us together.
Listen, he ain’t quote any verse in that Bible because he’s been around long enough to memorize it many times, right, and have used many of those verses on us.
So what does he do? He attacks us vicious at the point in which he knows we are the most deadly against his kingdom.
So there is no way, listen, there is no way you to rebuke the devil if you have no authority with god.
There is no way for you to pray for Satan to be bound in a given such situation.
If you cannot come to him, heavenly father, in the name of the lord Jesus Christ, I want to declare Satan in this person’s life.
I’m gonna pray that you put a hedge around that person’s life and begin to you can’t do that by saying, lord.
And that’s the way we do. We come hoping Listen. Satan doesn’t come in like that.
Satan comes boldly in to destroy your life. And he says, what?
When Jesus Christ died on the cross, he says the power of Satan was broken and crushed.
And the only reason Satan has any power in your life.
And my life is when we consent to believing what he says and get into him.
He doesn’t have it right is so. He says he that is within you is greater than what?
He that is in the world. We are possessed by the supernatural power of god.
Satan’s got you blinded.
He’s got your ears dipped in your mouth and your mouth closed because he doesn’t want you praying.
If he can keep you off your knees. He’ll keep you week, week, week, week, week.
He wants the church. He wants us running around doing this in a second.
He doesn’t care how many sermons preach song, song, how much work we do program organization.
The devil is saying, give it to him, brother, grease up the machinery, make him eloquent. Help her to sing.
Great. Just keep them off their knees.
Because when the people of god fall upon their face in humiliation and desperation before god, you know what, brother?
It everything in heaven begins to move in response to prayer.
They’re filed prerequisites if you’re not gonna be able to come to god and pray with a sense of a thought and confidence and assurance and expectation that the Holy God in heaven is gonna answer our prayer.
First of all, you’ve gotta have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that begins with salvation, but it’s growing in your relationship to him.
Because you cannot grow in your relationship to him until you’re growing in your knowledge and understanding of him.
And you’re not growing your knowledge and understanding of him until you’re saved and then the cloaks off your mind, your eyes, your hearts, you begin to know who he is.
1st of all, a personal relationship to him. Secondly, listen.
The only way to have authority with god, listen, the only way to have authority with god, friend, is to know what god thinks.
How do you know what god thinks?
When you begin to read what god says and you get the mind of god, the heart of god, the spirit of god, the word of god, And when you and I look into the scriptures and he gives us a promise about something, when we come to him, our authority primarily is based on what we know he’s promised in this book.
And these 2 men Elijah and Jahashifat and all the men of the old testament, the new testament, when you and I come to god and we say, lord, god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
If we say, lord, god of the lord, Jesus Christ, lord, god heavenly father, however you want to address him, you said in your word, being the omnipotent, holy righteous god that you are, that if I had a need, I had the right to come to you and expect you to meet my need.
God here’s my financial need. Here’s the need of my family. Here’s the need of knowing my vocation.
Here’s the problem I have. Here’s the circumstance. Here’s the death o my god.
Here is my need, but you said in your word.
My god shall supply all your need according to this riches inquiry by Christ Jesus, father, I’m coming in Jesus name to claim what you promised that you would meet all my need.
Let me tell you something, friend, if you don’t know the book, wanna tell you, you cannot pray with authority unless you know what God said.
I challenge anybody anywhere in the world.
To name me one single problem of any type that there is not something exactly like it or very similar in the scriptures, which leads me to say, one of the ways to strengthen your confidence in god and to be able to come to him with authority is find a prayer in the Bible that relates to something that you are praying about and just bring it to god and say, Lord, Moses brought this to you David brought this to you, Daniel brought this to you, and here’s what you did.
If you’ll do it for Daniel, you’ll do it for me.
If you’ll do for Joseph, you’ll do it for me. How do I know that?
Because the same Christ who lived within the lives of those men is living within your in my life, the same god who called them, the same god who revealed himself, the same god who spoke to them, the same god who demonstrated his power, is the same god who’s doing it today.
What is the verse? Jesus Christ? What? The same yesterday today and forever?
That means if he’s the same, he released his or through his servants then. He does it today.
He’ll do it tomorrow. But you see, the truth is we’ve gotta get in the word and get god’s basic promise.
And then what do we do? I’ve told you so many times. What do we do?
We stand on the word. I don’t mean to just stand on it physically, but we are saying, god, here’s what you said.
And god, if you said it, you are committed to fulfill your word.
The third thing that is essential I think at this point is purity of heart.
I don’t believe that you and I can come to the lord.
With any kind of authority or whatsoever, any kind of confidence because I can tell you what happens because I’ve been there just like you have.
If you come to him and your heart’s not pure, what is Aidan do. He lets you have it immediately.
He says, you don’t think god’s gonna you you don’t believe god’s gonna answer that.
And listen, it doesn’t make give us what we do. He’s right.
Because if you and I come to god and we’ve got sin in our hearts, what’s first thing we do, we think, lord, I don’t deserve to have my prayers.
And the truth is you didn’t deserve it when your heart was pure. You see, that’s the real truth.
But what Satan does is he takes that thing and he says, see, you don’t think god’s gonna answer that.
He’s the one who tempt you to deviate the violate your conscience, then he takes you a very violation and throws it back up at you.
Sin in the human heart does what?
Weekends faith weakens our confidence, causes us to bow ahead before god, and in shame because of our disobedience, you cannot come to god with a authority, my friend, if there is sin in your heart.
The 4th thing I want you to notice is this, and that is there must be purity of motive.
That is what is my motive. You remember what Elijah said here?
He said, lord, you know why I did this. He says, lord, god, in Israel.
And that I am thy servant and that I have done all these things at thy word.
When you and I come to the heavenly father and we know in our heart that our motive is pure, you say, well, but can I pray for something selfish?
You know what? I wanna ask people who tell me that how do you define selfishness?
Many things that we think of selfish as an selfishness at all.
Many of those things, the things that god wants to personally do for us, and he’s waiting for us to get in the position so we can do it.
My heart must be pure. My motive must be pure. And the 5th thing is this.
I must have a persistent confidence in the faithfulness of god. Now listen.
That doesn’t mean I come in and say, well, I’m gonna bleed him today and tomorrow I’m up and the next day I’m down.
Listen. If I’m gonna come to him with authority, I’ve gotta come to him based on what he says in the word.
Always able to look back and say, God did this. God did that. God did the other.
That’s why I say you ought to keep a diary.
What you’re doing is you’re keeping a record of god’s intervention in your life.
And when you look back to see the things that he’s done in the past that bolsters up your faith and you come to him and say, lord, on the basis of what you’ve done before, on the basis of what you promised in the word, on the basis.
Listen. This is the key. You listening?
Above everything else, the thing that gives us the confidence to go to humble authority is this, that our heavenly father, our righteous god, is faith to keep his word.
He’s gonna be faithful to his nature, faithful to his character.
And when we come to him, god is going to do what we asked when we ask according to his will on the basis of his word.
I think there’s several problems we have to deal with. Number 1 is a false sense of humility.
Oh, lord, I don’t wanna asked too much.
Secondly, we have a problem of coming to him and asking and then looking at the circumstances and we look at the circumstances, what happens.
Our faith knelt and doubt rises up to take over.
So we have to deal with looking at the circumstances. We have to deal with a false sense of humility.
We have to come to him based on what he said, not on what we think.
And my friend, if you and I are willing to abide by those five simple prerequisites.
Your prayer life will change. Your life will change.
And the people around you whom god wants to affect through you will begin to feel the unbelievable, indescribable supernatural power of an omnipotent god working through your life.
Our father we thank in Jesus name for loving us for being patient with us when we come like little children, not because of humility, but because of our ignorance.
Father, surely that’s one of our basic problems, not only a false sense of humility, but just ignorance of the word of god.
I pray in Jesus’ name you’ll speak to many people’s hearts and help them to see, oh my god, help them to see the tremendous potential that is within if they would simply utilize what is it their fingertips.
Drop on their knees in desperation humility but in confidence and boldness and with authority beseech you on the basis of the promises of the scripture.
We thank you this morning for loving us and pray that the spirit of god will speak to many people’s hearts say, and this we ask in Jesus’ name.
Amen.