The Danger and Damage of Prayerlessness - Apostle Peterson O. Abu

The main idea of the transcription is the danger and damage of prayerlessness. The speaker emphasizes that prayer is essential for Christians, as it is a way to communicate with God and receive strength to face challenges. Prayerlessness is compared to not breathing, leading to spiritual death. The speaker encourages parents to teach their children how to pray and emphasizes the importance of prayer in relationships and decision-making. Prayer is also seen as a way to overcome anger and temptation. The speaker also mentions the significance of prayer in business success. The transcription ends with the encouragement to pray without ceasing. in jesus name we have a very short time to spend i'll be discussing with you on the danger and the damage of prayerlessness the danger and the damage of what the and the damage of what of prayerlessness is that danger when a christian decide not to be prayerful is that danger when a christian has stopped praying are there dangers attached to it we want to know about the danger and the damage of prayerlessness a prayerless man a prayerless woman a prayerless a prayerless brother the danger and the damage to a prayerless person in luke chapter 18 verse 1 i'll be very fast luke chapter 18 verse 1 luke 18 let us open our bibles chapter 18 verse 1 and he spake a parable unto them to this end that man ought always to pray and not to watch and not to watch now the bible here put it this way that the life of a prayer is a life that should be always how many of you didn't breathe yesterday how many of you yesterday if you didn't breathe yesterday you are here there's an emergency response to that either we run away or we chase away because something is wrong somewhere that means we survive on breathing the way we survive by breathing in and breathing out so also the bible put it this way that man ought always to what pray and not to faint the moment somebody stopped breathing that person will start fainting and that person will eventually what die the moment someone stopped breathing it will start fainting and eventually that person will what will die it means that a prayerless christian is a dying christian he's still in the place of coma and very soon that christian will no longer be a christian before anybody rejects jesus before anybody rejects god before anybody say i'm not going to serve god again before any christian we eventually say i'm not going to love god again check that for your life you cannot be prayerful and you deny god you cannot be prayerful and then you reject god so a prayerless christian is a dying christian so jesus put it this way man ought always to what pray and not to watch and not to faint and let me say this to us here for those i have children it is not too much for your children of five six seven eight nine ten eleven and above to pray one of the things you should teach your children most times we teach them how to cook how to wash clothes how to wash pots how to do many things but one thing we fail to teach our children is how to pray you at least see parents engaging their children in the place of prayer you at least see parents training their children to pray they may teach their children so many things but without prayer and if you are a teacher here you are teaching in school and you are dealing with children or possibly the uh the secondary school or primary school one thing you must teach them intentionally teach them beside the curriculum is prayer take them the heart to pray because a christian that doesn't pray is a dying christian a man that is not praying is a dying man it's a matter of time that man does not have the capacity to withstood pressure it is only in the place of prayer that we can resist strength to define our destiny every one of us are great in this world in case somebody admits you and they say ah sister i'm saying that you are going to be a great woman because you are going to be a great woman the very reason why you should pray more hallelujah so jesus said i speak a parable to them that men ought others to watch and not to watch and not to fend efficient chapter 6 verse 18 efficiency chapter 6 verse 18 the danger and the damage of prayerlessness efficiency 6 verse 18 verse 18 the bible says in verse 18 efficiency chapter 6 verse 18 if you are there say amen okay verse 18 let us read it together praying always with all prayer and what supplication in the spirit and washing unto with all perseverance and complications for all so why should you pray sometime when you are happy when there is food when there is water when they just pay you salary when everything is good why should you pray only in the night only only in the day only at month end you know we have month-end deployer so that they can pay fast so that your boss can pay fast so every month there's monthly prayer and fasting for the sake of my boss who always love delaying my salary those are not serious question the man pray always your prayer life should be always you are on the bike praying you are walking on the street you are praying in your heart you are praying you are when they are celebrating you are praying you know we have a kind of which i call uh uh night and day kind of christian each and one kind of christian that the only prayer when things are okay the holy prayer when things are good the holy prayer when things are nice to them but the moment things are not okay there is no food to eat there is no clothes to put on there is no water to drink there is no job for them they don't pray they stop praying so they become prayerless they say must i pray it is dangerous to marry a prayerless man sisters listen to me it is dangerous to marry a prayerless woman brothers listen to me among many things that qualifies a man or a woman for you check their prayer pause because every marriage must go through storm and if such a person is not prayerful in the days of storm they will backslide in the days of storm it will do many bad things so prayer is inevitable as a christian let me say this to you a prayerful christian for you to be committed to church coming to church every time attending service you can never do that with it is prayer that keeps you burning for the lord it is when you are burning for the lord that you can be at home and your spirit will be tasting for fellowship your spirit man cannot taste for fellowship if you are not prayerful watch the people who are not prayerful at the period you make foolish decisions the people who are not prayerful at the figure you do so many abominations and let me say this to you one of the way you can overcome anger is prayer a prayerless man a prayerless woman have anger problem they easily get angry at everything even the thing that doesn't matter they get angry because what prayer does is that prayer helps you for you to walk by the spirit it helps to tame your flesh you cannot overcome sin without prayer so that is what we are talking about the power the danger and the of what prayerlessness that if you are not a praying christian you will do a lot of damage to your life if you are not a prayer prayerful christian you will destroy great prophecies about your life because somebody called you and said ah and they gave you a prophecy any prophecy that i've given to you you can only make that prophecy to come to pass when you engage in what prayer when you engage in what prayer because prophecy is only telling you about what you will become prophecy will not tell you what you will go through to become it so when there is progress i said oh i see you that you are going to be a great child somebody came to me to shut i said this child is going to be a great child it's going to go all over the nations what that prophet saw is only the future he didn't see the process you will go through for that child to become a great child i tell you there will be temptation for women maybe it's a male child there will be temptation for that child to have not to impregnate young ladies before beside marriage there will be different temptation to fight against that prophecy upon that child so if you are not prayerless your life is at risk if you're not sorry if you are not prayerful your life is at what risk and let me say this to you also your business cannot survive in this modern world if you're not a man or a woman of prayer your business cannot survive in this world modern world if you're not a what a prayerful person listen carefully there is no difference between church business and learning of schools listen carefully there is no difference between church business and learning of school the only difference is that the area of the church deals with more of the spiritual school deals with more of the intellectual business deals with more of the capital more of the finance are you getting but the same principle is what governed there if you are not a man or a woman of prayer your business will collapse because in the marketplace we have people who are bowed down to satan they are doing the same business there and if you don't have spiritual backup backing you up in that business you are doing then we use our scapegoats so prayer should be in the lifestyle of every man i pray for you this morning the spirit of prayer is coming upon you i said the spirit of prayer is coming upon you in first thessalonians chapter 5 and 7 the bible says pray without season shout it say pray without season that is the bible encouraging you pray without season there was a man called john wesley the founder of the methodist church he gave his life to christ in a very tender age while he was with the murubia brethren at this time john was 80 years old 80 years old and then want any money either the grandchildren or the children that met him he was crying how could a 80 years old man crying hallelujah so the children they were disturbed what's making our father to cry and they met him at baba why are you crying this morning john wesley said that he's not praying like before that before he used to pray for four hours but now he's not praying for two hours every day 80 years old man that don't they think that it's not backsliding if a man of 80 years could be praying for two hours the two hours are many cannot even pray in it means that there is something we are missing about god i know the church we are going to they have been telling us how to become belonious the churches today have been telling you how to become millennials but i don't want to tell you the truth that becoming a billionaire without the spirit of god in your life you will destroy your soul the bible said that the life of a man does not consist of the abundance of things that he has gotten it means that you are not a rich man who is the poorest people or who are the poorest people on earth the poorest people are the people that everything that money can give except god repeat after me a poor man is a man that has money but without jesus it's a poor person a poor woman has money he pursue money he shares after money he does not pursue god because jesus said the life of a man does not consist of the abundance of things he has gotten as a matter of fact your millions in your bank account does not shake jesus as long you don't have him as long you are not submitted to him it is vanity jesus counted at vanity it is what you count as happiness but jesus counted as vanity prayerlessness so the spirituality of life is that many things that are physical are controlled from the realm of the spirit many things that are physical are controlled from the rest of the spirit it means that this earth is controlled from the spiritual world this earth this world is controlled from the spiritual world so there is nothing you will do on earth that matters if you don't have spiritual backup becoming born again gives you the right to operate in the spirit but becoming a prayerful christian gives you more advantage to reign and to dominate in the spirit hallelujah so born again is good what one again does is that it's like yeah this platform is the realm of the spirit when you get born again you are taking from there to here as a born again christian but when you are prayerful you're able to remain here forever so you can be born again and still be a failure if you are not prayerful you can be born again and still suffer in the hands of darkness if you are not prayerful you can be born again and you will still you know uh suffer under the hands of occultic people if you are not prayerful so we have many born again christian that are still suffering many born again christian that the devil is sitting on their head many born again christian that are under the bondage of darkness they are living under the message of satan they are born again but are not prayerful i pray god will give us the spirit of prayer the scripture encourages christian to pray always and to pray without ceasing and if we must be victorious in life we must then be active in prayer it will be victorious you must be active in what you must be active in what in prayer if you must be spiritual in life you must be active in prayer so what are the causes of prayerlessness why is it that many christians don't pray why is it that many christians don't pray like before number one is they are not born again many people in the church are not born again yes they are committed they are religious but are not born again so a born again a man or a woman that is not born again will not have the grace to pray will not have what will not have the grace to pray prayer to pray is not a thing you can just do you must born again first without born again you can never pray you'll be tired to pray it will be disturbing to you number two many people are prayerless today because they lack understanding about the power of prayer they lack understanding about the power of prayer if you don't have understanding of what prayer can do you will not pray you can only do something based on understanding based on what based on what understanding i've been receiving calls from different people and they will come to me and say pastor this is what i'm going through the moment i say okay let us fast and pray together they will run people some of them i will say let me join them to fast and pray they will run so what they want to do they want to carry the responsibility to a place on my shoulder and they will go and sleep and expect god to do something it doesn't work like god give us the power to pray because he's a yelling god they say what god hears so he expects you to come to him for prayer he expects you so families are going to through demonic attacks and when you when the parents calls for prayer all the children are not there they are not there they want to fight battle they want to be successful in life but i don't want to pray they don't want to pray prayer should take central place in our family you observe that things are not going where the way is supposed to go pray about it if i'm one of the powerful weapon you have over satan is prayer satan may not stop you from singing yeah you can sing satan may not stop you from even crying you know sometimes we go to the lord and cry so that god will pity us and say god everything see prayer does not move god if you don't engage it in what i mean uh crying does not what move but if you don't engage it with what prayer people cry in hell am i right are they smiling in hell why did he remove them from there so if you think that just mere crying can make god to be pitiful no the only thing god can do for you is to make you to listen to a man of god who will tell you to go and pray that's your crime go and do it in the place of what prayer lock yourself up and cry in prayer then we answer because this world you are living in is a world of battle battles are going on night dying every day the devil the devil is taking advantage and destroying many lives number three reasons why people are not prayerful is laziness laziness to pray many people are lazy to pray the moment they fall on the bed they sleep off they sleep off the moment they come back from work like this they sleep off when it is time for for the family to pray they sleep off even husbands even wives you cannot succeed in life without what prayer i tell you the truth and i'm telling you as a pastor that in this world you cannot succeed without prayer any other way of succeeding you know about is the other side way if you want to succeed in god you must pray you must pray number four causes of prayerlessness is sin sin will make you not to be prayerful if you are living in sin you cannot pray because every time you need them to pray they will be cute every time you want to pray something will be telling you that i remember you just committed the sin so you cannot be prayerful in sin number five reason why people are not prayerful is not making time for prayer not what for prayer not making time for prayer i was working in a particular school some years ago and the proprietress the hm called me into his office into our office and she said she want to discuss personal things with me and i said okay so she asked for two other staffs those two other staffs are they were foundational people when this this school had been existing for years but those two other staffs have been with her from the onset of the school we had many staffs but we're just three me that uh lady and the other lady plus the proprietress and the reason they called me is because i just got the job to work there but it's a funny that i'm a speaking shaman i said what is the problem she said this and this and this is the problem i said the only way we can do go about it is prayer she said okay i said yes i said her staff must pray fix you are the you are the owner of the school you are the administrator tell every teacher that we are fasting from this particular we are going to be praying before assembly and after school and that was how she called everyone and so we're going to fast and pray on this day and we pray while we pray the spiritual climate of the school change people started coming you there's no other way to deal with satanic attack without prayer fasting you must engage in prayer fasting so if you are not ready you are not ready to fast you are not ready to talk to god in prayer you are joking i didn't tell her to buy or to do anything i just say let us pray i'm part of the school i'm a i'm a staff now let us pray that when we start praying things will start happening and when prayer began first thing we saw we saw some set of people resign a particular lady who was also a foundation but the woman was not free to be to bring that close to herself someone about two people resigned immediately and it started growing because when you don't pray you begin to fight battles that doesn't merit it the battle you are fighting against this person may be actually with this person but because you are prayerless you begin to fight against this particular person prayer is very important so many do not pray because they don't make time for prayer make time for prayer make time for prayer i'm praying by two o'clock let it be true if you know that you are going to be discouraged to pray because of sleep make it prayer time with somebody so that if you don't wake up yourself somebody will wake you up i'm praying at this time i'm praying at this time hallelujah hallelujah the number six cause of prayerlessness is being too busy with the chaos of this world being too what busy you are too busy busy busy busy somebody say busy which is b-u-x-y it's a busy means being under satan's yoke there are people that are too busy busy busy busy busy busy and their lives are they go through this world and enter eternity when god when they go to eternity god will shake their schedule 90 percent of their life was money and god will tell them that they cannot enter this heaven because they didn't prepare for heaven they prepare for money busy so people are too busy that they don't have time to pray they don't have what time to pray they are too busy that they don't have time to pray the fact if you have a busy schedule you should be able to put it put your your your prayer time inside the busy schedule hallelujah put it inside the busy schedule there are times that in life we have busy schedules you put your prayer time inside the busy schedules hallelujah if you see that prayer is important if you know that prayer is important then put prayer inside your busy schedules there is nothing bad for you that at this particular time you close shop you are here inside the shop but you close it and you back the shop and you pray protective means that you open your shop and keep selling again if you are selling maybe you are in the boutique shop at that point you are praying close your door of the boutique when they come to me to pray no matter the kind of customer coming tell them to wait that you're observing your time with god the owner of your shop when you engage prayer in your place of work things will change things will change hallelujah things will change i remember when i was working some years ago the work became so hard so so so much that i will be closing from work by eight ninety ninth eight nine i'll be going by six closing by eight ninety ninth of course i needed to sleep it started affecting my prayer time i couldn't pray in the night because when i fall down to sleep that eighth night is just to reach home to find what to eat i'll be sleeping by 11 and i needed to wake up before six again go to work so what i did i came with a strategy when i come by eight nine i don't eat much i will just eat less than 10 spoon of rice and i sleep then wake up by five pray and wake up by 4 30 pray before 35 30 because i needed to go to work by six when i pray for that one hour i will go to work the work i'm going to resume duty by seven so that six i go to work i'll be reaching there by 6 30 hallelujah so that's how we when i reach i will pray for another 30 minutes but there's a break they do give to us by 12 there's a break time from 12 to 1 that 12 to 1 i will look for a room that was empty i will enter the room and pray again just to make sure i keep myself going because you can't be pursuing some peace and lose your spiritual life what excuse will you give to god they are enemies that are after you night and day the moment you withdraw back they will shoot an arrow so we must put prayer as part of our daily work routine i pray the spirit of prayer will come upon you i say to come upon you number seven reason why people are not prayerful is that they don't know how to pray people don't know how to pray and that's why you'll be coming to church the opening prayer in church will teach you the step by step on how to pray i was like you everyone you see that is praying today was not prayerful before there were times we don't know how to pray so people don't know how to pray they say what we didn't say god so i talked to god i said how do i start it it's not a it's not a shameful something if you cannot pray just keep listening and we are praying here you will learn it but as a christian you ought to pray so we are long substitute for prayer when we are going through our time i put it here as long substitution for prayer during our time long substitution for prayer during our time when you are going through challenges how do you handle your situation when you are going through challenges how do you attend to your situation praise the lord somebody says that being a christian is tested when you are going through what challenges that the best of christians are known in the period of what challenges the best of christians i tell you the truth the best of christians are known in the time of our time that is the best of you can't know the best of christian when everything's all right no go and read the book of acts it was when there were persecutions that the church grew i was wondering why didn't the church grew when everybody was happy no god does not grow such like that it is human going short like that everywhere now that's why i got good good church so when you come to church we'll tell you that everything will be all right all right christianity no not everything will be all right the testing time that god allows to come your way is to prove you whether you truly love him that is the testing time it's like marriage it's like marriage the testing time in marriage is one of the challenges so even marriage even if it is the greatest man of god that wedded the both of you together inside marriage you will still go through challenges are you not surprised that celebrities are divorcing and breaking their marriage and they have money they have influence they have followers yet they still divorce because the test of time is what break marriage it's not the marriage it's not whether a pastor no it is a test inside marriage that solve many marriages so when many of us are going through challenges there are some things we started doing to substitute prayer that instead of praying we start doing this thing number one more money and complaining more money and what complaining when things are hard we start complaining when you're supposed to be praying we substitute prayer with complaining and more money when you see that things are not going the way you like talk about it to god when things are not going the way you like to your children your children are calling you to give you a report that their things are not going well with them or maybe your parents are calling you to tell you that things are not going well with them what should you do pray about it so instead of us to pray we start more money and start what complain it's not good there is nothing you can receive from god by prayer by memory and complaining solely by prayer number two is seeking the opinions of men seeking the opinions of men things you're supposed to handle in the place of prayer you'll be calling everybody to check to tell the people what you are going through so that you can hear what they can say most times god expects you to be quiet and attend that situation by prayer so we seek the opinions of men instead of praying we seek for the openness of men may god help us in jesus name number three things that people do number three things that people do to substitute prayer is missing church service and programs missing what when things are not right when they are going to our time they won't come to church and i'm still wondering that how does church become the reason why things are hard when they're supposed to be prayed they will miss church when things are difficult they miss church it's a wrong approach it's a wrong approach hallelujah yes people miss church when things are not going fine it is because there is no security in nigeria i was born in the catholic i was raised up in the aglika later george joyce always open you are depressed go and pray in church they don't lock church door it's because of security that everybody they're locking their church door because it is called the house of what we are they don't lock church door it's because of security that everybody they're locking their church door because it is called the house of what we are that when things are difficult you go there to pray not things are difficult and running away from church devil has finished you the devil want to make sure that that here continue if the devil want to finish a man it will make you to live opposite the bible according to the bible you should run to the house of god the house of prayer the devil will tell you run away from it so that you'll be far from me so that i can touch you i can torment you i can torture you more prayerlessness prayerlessness number four reason for substitute for prayer doing at time is falling into depression and overthinking when you're supposed to be praying about you you'll be thinking much about it you you will be thinking much about it you'll be overthinking no pray pray our hymn song we sang today we say what a friend we have what in jesus if it's your friend talk to him about it i know some of us would just call jesus my friend but we have not seen that in the reality you still feel is far from you no talk to god about it talk to god about it so let us close with this one advantages of becoming a prayerful person advantages number one when you start praying it gives you power to dominate when you start praying it gives you what power to dominate number two it brings freedom from bondages when you decide to start praying anywhere the enemy have shot you up anywhere they have imprisoned you you begin to come out you begin to see yourself and experiencing breakthrough deliverance freedom number three it brings speed and favor to your life prayer brings speed and brings what it brings speed and bring what favor hallelujah let me close with this