Faith is the substance out of which God takes a promise and turns the promise into an answer. This is the kind of faith that made the New Testament Church of Acts invincible. They could not be stopped because they would not doubt. This faith has to be delivered to the saints. It cannot arise from flesh regardless of how much we extend ourselves. As in all matters of the Spirit, “the flesh profiteth nothing:” (John 6:63). We are instructed to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3). The Father commands nothing and promises nothing that He is not ready to finish.

The bedrock of Christian living is faith. “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). People that do not trust Him are not His. If we are not willing to take Him at His “Word,” we are Christian in name but not in reality. Someone that says I believe on Him but never comes to rest in His commands and promises are religious but unconverted. “The just shall live by faith” (Galatians 3:11b), while the unjust live by feelings, fears, and doubts.

Your life will become abundant living when you diligently and faithfully seek the “faith once delivered.” A measure of faith has been created into the soul of every living person. That measure is the starter of the whole loaf that will rise as the leaven of the Word is mixed in the soul. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).

Faith in God is the righteousness of Christ as we are sanctified by the Word. The absence of sanctification in the house of God is the sad spectacle of todayÂ’s church. Faith in GodÂ’s Word is the result of ChristÂ’s nature being poured into our souls by the Word and the Holy Spirit. The growth process is described as sanctification or the nature of Christ recreated in the hungry souls that wait at an altar.

Miracles are natural occurrences when we live in the “Faith once delivered.” The book of Acts is God’s perfect picture. It cannot get better than what was revealed in that grand book. Superstition, occultist foolishness, and psychological fantasy are flooding the church as a substitution of the genuine. Because the life in the Spirit, Biblical surrender, and humble cross-bearing has been rejected; rock music and titillation of fleshly emotions have replaced the real. It’s giddy, silly, and cheap and leaves the soul empty and hooked on more and more of the same.

More and more good saints are sick of the religion of flesh. Swinging hips can only satisfy for short periods. The spirit in man can find life everlasting in the shape of Jesus Christ and Holy Scripture. The sacred of biblical faith is the highest culture the spirit of man can obtain. Spiritual living is lofty and transcending where the world and the religions of our modern church is just as cheap as heathenism. The Bible is the greatest piece of literature ever printed. It is infallible truth.

“The Faith once delivered” is supernatural to our spirit and soul and floods us with “joy unspeakable and full of glory” (I Peter 1:8b). It is, the “peace of God, which passeth all understanding” (Philippians 4:7a). The power of this faith touches the countenance with “oil to make his face to shine” (Psalm 104:15b).The giddiness of today’s church looks like a mask when compared to the spiritual revival of the past. But the past does not have to be the past.

We have been commanded to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3b). The Spirit of God is going, “to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him” (II Chronicles 16:9a). An awakening of truth is coming upon those that pay the price of consecration and surrender. Do not be satisfied with the mask of flesh when the Spirit waits to flood your soul with abundant life. This faith is dynamic. The Word of God says, “Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens” (Hebrews 11:33-34).

The oil barons are determined to choke our world into financial chaos. The Holy Bible calls them, “rulers of the darkness of this world,” (Ephesians 6:12b). Two of these barons are Hugo Chávez of Venezuala and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. They hate America and Israel with perfect hatred and will never give up their war against us. We must learn that this “earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof” (I Corinthians 10:26). He owns the oil in the ground as well as the cattle on the hill. We must also learn that our struggles are not against flesh and blood but against the rulers of darkness. This is just as true in our financial world as in our spiritual world.

God’s Word identifies the effects of evil activities as being responsible for turning our world into a wilderness. Many nations and cultures have been destroyed by Satan throughout history. Isaiah was a statesman prophet that accused Satan for his destruction of our world. He stated, “They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?” (Isaiah 14:16-17).

We know that judgment is coming but there is a Restrainer that will restrain evil until the rapture of the saints. We must understand this and direct our prayers in this vein of hope and confidence. We do not have to lie down and play dead because of what will happen when “The Seven Years of Great Tribulation” begin. We are living in hope and on the bright side of His promises.

IÂ’m calling on the Salty Saints to join me in prayer for the defeat of evil and for the mighty hand of GodÂ’s Restrainer. This Restrainer is the third member of the eternal Godhead and His powers are perfectly equal to the Father and the Son. These evil oil barons are representatives of a very small area of the One World Order, but they can put the whole economy on its head. The billions of dollars that goes from Americans to missions, missionaries, and human aid of incredible proportion could be utterly destroyed. I do not believe my Father wants that to happen before the Rapture. These billions show the world the difference between Christianity and the endless list of terrorist seeking only to destroy and kill.

A harvest of souls could also occur by our binding of these rulers of darkness. Look at this passage in scripture, “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:11-12).

These “rulers of darkness” are joined by “spiritual wickedness” because it is a struggle by evil against the gospel of Christ and the salvation of man. I believe my Father wants to give a harvest of souls before His Son returns for the saints. It will be prayer in the Spirit that breaks this hold that darkness has on the church.

The kind of praying that can effect the pulling down of the evil of these “oil tycoons” and the defeat of “spiritual wickedness” will be heartrending prayer. Little petty prayers without the passion of tears will not change one thing. The need is Godly saints that weep because of the abomination of sin and the disregard for Holy things. Fasting and prayer is God’s combination for Satan’s defeat.

I bid you to join me in putting on the whole armor of God and going after the pulling down of strongholds. The reason we are told to put on His armor is because Satan fights back. Without the armor, you are a sitting duck. The Holy Book says it powerfully, “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;” (Ephesians 6:14-18)

I believe we are going to see victory. LetÂ’s give our whole selves to the spiritual life and believe for triumph. My greater burden is a harvest of souls for the Lord and His church.

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Our Heavenly Father does nothing in the church or His Kingdom that is not first wrought in travailing prayer. Prayer – interceding, travailing prayer — is GodÂ’s first line of spiritual operation. When God is ready to do some marvelous work of eternal consequence, He first prepares human channels of travailing prayer to lay the foundation. Powerful prayer can no more be the work of flesh alone than can preaching, miracles of healing, or the breaking of demon powers. Effective prayer is a work of the Holy Ghost in willing and released human lives.

Prayer that has no divine element and anointing is like the dead letter of the law without the unction of the Holy Ghost. It kills instead of resurrects. Fleshly prayer creates false assurance, deadens those exercised therein and causes the individuals to substitute activity for Spirit. The more a church or an individual is involved in fleshly praying, the more they become centered on soulical and fleshly support for their religious programs. Gimmicks, entertainment, emotionally titillating methods, and all kinds of fleshly operations become master. The church becomes nothing better than the fleshpots of Egypt. Any religion in the world can accomplish everything that this kind of prayer and action can affect in a “Christian” church.

Everything changes when men/women begin to pray in a Spirit-directed fashion. Prayer becomes fellowship and communion with God in the deepest sense. Our entire mindset becomes one of total dependency on God. We learn to hate religious activity and empty speech. Religious sight, sound, and sensation become as annoying to the praying believer as it already is to the Lord Jesus Christ. The soul that becomes inclined to God because of Holy Ghost anointed travail takes on His nature and glory but in a totally dependent fashion. Worldly religion becomes even more obnoxious than worldliness itself. In fact, what most people label as worldliness is less annoying (though certainly to be rejected) than religious self-righteousness, carnal speech and the self-empowered praying that has only human form.

Biblical Promises are Dependent on Prayer
Every promise that God has made to His Saints are yea and amen. Those promises — and there are thousands of them — are always available to every Saint of God but will not be experienced until believing prayer is present. There is not one of those promises that our God will not honor. But, He cannot do it until His Saints take hold of the promise in Spirit-filled prayer. The church world lives like paupers on the outskirts of His kingdom. In our souls we carry the divinely authorized sonship of the Kingdom, but we live like children of poverty. We have royal blood from the kingly line of the eternal God, but we go about life as though our relationship is meaningless. How pathetic this cold world appears to our hurting generation.

As a whole, the church world offers the sick and suffering the same antidote as the secular world. Churches have twelve-step programs, psychologist couches, and a quick prayer. Can you imagine how the devil howls when the modern preacher walks in the hospital room, gives his compassionate gestures, “sometimes” says a prayer, and leaves the patient to the care of a mostly skeptical medical profession? Certainly, many of these men of the cloth and doctors are kind and well-meaning, but helpless to do anything more than console the suffering and prescribe a few pills. Is this the only way a “man of God” can bring the mighty power of the Creator into His world? Absolutely not!

Travailing prayer will bring all of us into a realm where supernatural powers are as natural as God is supernatural. The promises of God cannot be viewed honestly in any different fashion. They are either His promises, absolutely and infallibly available, or God is a big lie. You and I both know better. Isaiah did not mince words when he spoke by the Holy Ghost of why Jesus Christ would come into our world. Listen carefully!

“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:3-5) Argue all day with the truth of God’s Word, but you will only cheat yourself and those who listen to you. The Word of God stands sure and God has not changed.

Healing powers in the church are absent in exactly the same degree that travailing prayer is absent. Jesus has paid the redemptive price for both spiritual and bodily healing and the virtues of His redemptive act is locked away awaiting the unfailing key of importunate prayer. Somebody that knows God and can pray must be the link between the power to heal and the person awaiting the miracle. Many of the present day sicknesses and strange diseases are nothing less than the work of Satan. Satan is the destroyer and comes to mankind “to steal, kill and destroy.” (John 10:10a) Jesus gave us this warning, but clearly concluded by promise, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10b) Only travailing prayer can bring us out of our morass of helplessness.
 

The greatest challenge in Christendom is that of winning souls to Christ. The lack of births in the House of God is even more of a curse than the barren home. The very first command that came from the mouth of God to man was, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth…” (Genesis 1:28a). There was no pain in the births that occurred before sin and disobedience. The pain of birthing both in the natural and in the spiritual is directly related to fallen man.

A dear wife that becomes pregnant is a beautiful picture of multiplying life. My Juanita was so darling to me when she carried our three children in her womb. I will never forget the thrill of seeing the body tumbling in her womb and laying my hand on the bulge. We talked to them and prayed for them while they grew and were getting ready to emerge. Until this day when I walk into a delivery room where a new life has slipped out of its hiding place, I cannot help but rejoice with tears. ItÂ’s a miracle. Only God the Creator could create such an awesome design.

Winning souls to Christ is the toughest work of a saint’s life. In fact, it is so tough that most Christians spend their entire Christian life barren and unfruitful. It is our deepest shame, and our Father has no secondary plan. We either win the lost or they are lost forever. The Apostle Paul made it plain that reconciliation is the business of the church. He said, “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (II Corinthians 5:19).

We have the entire business of reconciling sinners to God. Jesus Christ is the Redeemer and we are His channels of grace. He is the only name that saves, but He sits at the FatherÂ’s right hand. His Holy Spirit never floats around in mid-air but abides in the skin tent of the willing. Our lips are His sound system and He waits for the yielded vessel that is prepared by grace to carry the message of forgiveness. The coming judgment demands that the saints pursue the harvest with vigor and passion.

The first step in soul winning is a God breathed passion for the lost. The Holy Spirit is searching for Godly saints in whom He can pour the Spirit of weeping for the unredeemed. It must begin with travailing in prayer. “For as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children” (Isaiah 66:8b). “…weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psalm 30:5b). Idle weeping is not the idea but a passion for souls that allows the Spirit to pour travail out of us to Him. Our Father will give us the burden and then pour out conviction on those for whom we weep.

Lips of those that weep will soon speak words of the gospel message with power to save. No one can be born again except by the power of truth. There must be a preacher who delivers the message of hope. (Every saint is a preacher in this Biblical sense.) This is a public or private crier that proclaims the truth. “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:14-15).

If you are truly born again and transformed into a child of God, then you are called to this task. There are only two steps: weeping in prayer and then witnessing to those for whom you have been weeping. The rest is the work of the Holy Spirit. Give yourself a few weeks of weeping and then proceed with tears to carry the wonderful message of His death on a cross and His readiness to save. They may well seek you out to pray with them as they weep their way to new life.

Do not be afraid. In fact, after weeping for a soul, you will probably lose all fear to go the second step. The Lord of the Harvest is calling you to become fruitful in His harvest. Remember what Jesus said, “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit” (John 15:2).