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Dr. Joseph O'Femi Adeosun

"And He [Jesus] spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint" (Lk. 18:1). In all my years of studying the Scriptures, the Bible, to be precise, and from the Old Testament to the New Testament, I have found many activities changing formats, like marriage, preaching, farming and others, but PRAYER remains constant. The only difference in the mode of prayer between the Old and New Testament is that in the Old Testament days people had only the priest or prophet, but the New Testament makes us to understand why and how human beings have been relieved through the agonizing death of Jesus Christ. Hallelujah!!!

Jesus bore our grief... Is. 53:1-10

Jesus is our mediator... I Tim. 2:5

Jesus is our Advocator... I Jn. 2:1

Jesus' name is the ONLY KEY... Phil. 2:8 -11 & Jn. 14:6-14

While modern life had through laws and equipment influenced the mode of marriage, preaching, worship and farming (to mention a few), the only law which had been guiding prayer since the Old Testament time is faithfulness to God. Whether you pray silently or loudly, with or without the sound system, as long as it is done faithfully, in line with the aforestated, the prayer will certainly hit the throne of God. Amen! Luke 18:1-30 gives the stories establishing the mode of the effective prayer. Verses 1 to 8 stress the need for persistent prayer, "That men ought always to pray, and not to faint." Verses 9 to 14 show the danger of self-righteousness and pride, which will certainly hinder people's prayers to God. Then verses 15 to 17 give the necessity of a tender heart like a little child's, trusting God concerning our needs just like a child will trust his or her parent.

One day, I deceived my child, which our heavenly Father will never do. She was infected with malaria due to exposure to mosquito bites. She got a doctor's appointment and neither my wife nor I was available to take her to the doctor. So then, we asked my mom to take charge. When my daughter noticed that, she refused to go with my mom. We asked her, "Why?" "Oh, Daddy, they will give me injections there," she lamented. I told her nobody would give her any injection. "The doctor will," she re-affirmed. Then I said to my mom, "Nobody should give my child any injection." "I will deliver your message," responded my mom. But it was a deception. Moreover, my daughter just believed my word simply like that.

When she got to the hospital with my mom, the nurse called them in for an injection. There was a big drama because, my daughter bluntly refused to take any injection. "My dad said nobody should give me any injection." She stood her ground; her cries disturbed the whole place so that the doctor had to call in about four more nurses to hold my daughter down before she could take the injection.

When my mom got home and reported to me, I wept inside myself because I knew I had actually deceived her. Even though the story made the other people around laugh, I felt guilty outright so that it even affected my dinner. "Oh, I have deceived my daughter." I imagined the pain that would go through her spirit and body at that time. Though the earthly father like me will lie to his child, God the Heavenly Father will not. "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee" (Is. 43:2).

If it is too hard for you to believe that prayer is the unchangeable changer, begin to read the books of Daniel. Firstly, it was prayer that got him and his brethren the promotion and the same prayer landed them in trouble. But God is faithful, and due to their persistent prayer, "...that men ought always to pray and not to faint," they got out of the trouble and had a greater promotion. That is God.

I was on a flight to the United States from Nigeria some time ago, we had a stopover at Heathrow Airport in England, where we had to change aircrafts, and it took some hours.

When I sat down with some other in-transit passengers, I brought out some Christian literature and Our Daily Bread to occupy myself. A brother spotted me and got closer. "Are you a Christian?" he asked. "Yes, by His grace I am, and a minister," I responded. We began to exchange ideas on the literature, and then I realized that he was to catch a different flight, to Kingston, Jamaica, for a conference. Before we knew what was happening, we had both got into a serious intercessory prayer for our country and the countries that we were visiting. We got lost into this exercise, so that we did not know when they were making the boarding announcements to our aircrafts.

Suddenly, the Holy Ghost stopped us; we bid each other goodbye and headed for our different boarding gates. I was scouting for my own gate when I saw one of the flight ladies and asked her the way to my gate. She asked me of my particulars, and screamed when she saw my name. "Your name has been shouted several times, and where have you been?" she hastily asked me, and then said, "Just follow me; you have delayed the flight for 20 minutes." "Yeh, I am sorry," I said repeatedly as I was running behind her.

As we approached the gate, she just said to a crowd of the other flight officials standing there, "Here comes Mr. Adeosun." They said the duty officer had insisted that the aircraft must not take off without me. Who was this duty officer? I did not know her. Oh! The same prayer that landed us into trouble got us out. Hallelujah!!!

No president of any country (not even America) will ever delay a flight. But, the King of kings and the Lord of lords did it for his children. "...but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits" (Dan. 11:32b).

"Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions: That they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven" (Dan. 2:17-19).

Daniel had earlier gotten permission from the king to seek the face of God so he, his brethren and others would not die. "Then the king, Nebuchadnezzar, fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odors unto him. The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth it is that your God is a God of gods, and the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret. Then the king made Daniel a great man, gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon. Then Daniel requested of the king, and he set Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon: but Daniel sat in the gate of the king" (Dan. 2:46-49).

When my wife and I were praying for another son, we knew from the onset the roles that he (Daniel) would play in the family and ministry. To be candid, we are always resolute whenever we get into the prayer mood of such. We took a similar action in praying for our first son. We refused to make provision for a female baby. "Lord, we want a male-child," we persistently asked God, and HE granted our request. My wife was in labour for almost 24 hours before Daniel could come out. I was away for a business meeting in another town, at a distance of about 45 minutes" drive, when the phone rang, and it was one of my ministers who told me of what my wife had been going through.

I quickly made my way to the hospital; when I got there and saw my wife, I wished the 'thing' could be transferred to make me help her out immediately. I went into prayer action outright, and in less that 30 minutes of my "pressing the remote control" Daniel began to come out with his head first. When I saw his hair, face, and the shape of the head, the spirit inside me began to bear me a witness that, "He is the son whom you and your wife have been asking for; he is "Femi Junior." But because it was prayer that took him inside and brought him out of the womb, hence, we added Daniel to his name. His mother travailed for more than 20 hours until he came out of the womb.

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