Derek Prince: The Conditions For Receiving The Answer To Your Prayer (Transcript)

Full text of Derek Prince’s sermon titled ‘The Conditions For Receiving The Answer To Your Prayer’ which was delivered on Monday evening, November the 17th, 1969.

TRANSCRIPT:

Derek Prince – Bible Teacher

Thank you, brother Claude, I appreciate that. And I hope you’ll still be relaxed tomorrow night, that’s all I say. I sincerely mean that.

Okay, that’s wonderful.

I really appreciate being with brother Claude. I feel a real unity in the spirit with him and also with his precious wife. And I really appreciate what God has manifestly done in this assembly here.

Just to encourage you about the question of water baptism and children. Let me suggest to you that you do not in any way pressure or influence your children to seek water baptism. But if the initiative comes from them, then it’s probably a very real thing. And you should treat it as something sacred.

I’m afraid the majority of parents underestimate the spiritual capacity of their children. People often come to me with problem children. And they say, oh, my little boy, he’s rebellious or something like that. Or I think he’s under some kind of pressure.

I say, how old is he?

They say ten or eleven.

I say, is he saved?

They say, oh, I don’t think so.

Well, what are you doing with a problem child that hasn’t even been led to salvation?

Any child that’s old enough to be naughty is old enough to repent. And any child that can repent can be saved.

Now, I’ll just tell you a true story about the first little Jewish baby that my wife ever took in when she had this faith home for children in Jerusalem.

Many years back now, the first little baby she took in was a little dying Jewish baby named Tikvah. Tikvah is a Jewish name and it means hope. The father brought the baby because he was sure she was going to die. And so many of his other children had died, he didn’t want another death in the family. Jewish people are very superstitious about death.

My wife took the little baby. She didn’t have any provision. She didn’t have more than six dollars in her hand. She didn’t have a crib or baby clothes. But she emptied her suitcase, wrapped the child in her underwear, and that was how she started the children’s home. And the child was put in the suitcase. She anointed that little child with oil in the name of the Lord every day, and the Lord healed the child.

Today she’s a married woman with two children living in Australia. But when she was six years old, the announcement was made that there was to be a water baptism service in the Assemblies of God mission building called Shemariah in the center of Jewish Jerusalem. And while they were walking through the streets together, this little girl turned to my wife (her mother) and said, ‘Can I be baptized?’

And my wife said, ‘Well, aren’t you a little too young?’

And she said, ‘Well, it says believe and be baptized, and I believe.’ So that was Scriptural.

But you see, she had been brought to the home by her father, who was a Jew, and for the Jews, of course, baptism is a very, very controversial subject.

So they were walking through the streets, and the little girl said to my wife, ‘Well, Mama, why are you so sad? What are you thinking about?’

And my wife said, ‘Well, I’m thinking about your father. You know, what will he say if you’re baptized?’

And this little girl of six came out with this answer. Well, she said, ‘Isn’t my father baptized? What can he say?’ And he had been baptized, although he’d backslidden.