October Surprise 2023 Episodes

Donation link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=G9JGGR5W97D64 Or go to www.frponprayer.com and use the Donations tab. Throughout the ages, the Holy Spirit has been consistent in the critical nature of prayer. As it turns out, J.C. Ryle, in his last paragraph of "A Call to Prayer," reflects the purpose of "The Free Range Preacher on Prayer," podcast so we will listen to the last witness in this book. "I want the times we live in to be praying times. I want the Christians of ou...

Donation link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=G9JGGR5W97D64 Or go to www.frponprayer.com and use the Donations tab. Today, we will let the Bishop sum up the thrust of his advice. "I offer these points for your private consideration. I do it in all humility. I know no one who needs to be reminded of them more than I do myself. But I believe them to be God's own truth, and I desire myself and all I love to feel them more." J.C. Ryle Of special note, his longing is for all he...

What is the sweetest place on earth? The difference between King Saul and King David made all the difference in their lives and effectiveness in what God had called them to do. While Saul justified himself in the presence of Samual and in the eye of God, David humbled himself in honest, brutally honest repentance. “If you will take care of your prayers, nothing shall go very wrong with your soul.” J.C. Ryle When we have an intimate friendship with our Savior, we will say things like: 4 "Ag...

Donation link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=G9JGGR5W97D64 Or go to www.frponprayer.com and use the Donations tab. What do you think when you know the ultimate commandment, the commandment Jesus came to give us access to, is to love him with all your heart, mind, and soul or with all your strength. Today is a key in our watchfulness in prayer. We might say the guarding or jealousy of our time with God. J.C. Ryle will give us advice as to guarding the company we keep and w...

Donation link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=G9JGGR5W97D64 Or go to www.frponprayer.com and use the Donations tab. Christianity, Church, Community, Fellowship, whatever label we might put on our faith, true faith is not a club. So when J.C. Ryle says: “Here is the pith and marrow of our practical Christianity. Sermons and books and tracts, and committee meetings and the company of good men, are all good in their way, but they will never make up for the neglect of private pr...

Donation link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=G9JGGR5W97D64 Or go to www.frponprayer.com and use the Donations tab. JC Ryle has written in his book, "A Call to Prayer," and we are following his writing to Christians God's people who pray. His thoughts are crucial to our Christian lives. As you've heard many times in this and over the last year when it comes to Ryle Nevertheless. He says: "Oh, let us keep an eye continually upon our private devotions. Here is the pith and ma...

Donation link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=G9JGGR5W97D64 Or go to www.frponprayer.com and use the Donations tab. A couple points of business: The donation links for the podcast are at the top of the descriptions if you would like. After our November Thanksgiving break, we will move the link to the bottom, but we will still have the link. Thank you to those who have already used the button. It is much appreciated. At the end of October, we will take the next off and resum...

Donation link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=G9JGGR5W97D64 Or go to www.frponprayer.com and use the Donations tab. Another day in the paddock, and what a joy to continue with J.C. Ryle in his book, "A Call to Prayer." Part two of the Bishop's commendation to be grateful children of God. He continues with his reminder that our lives are "of His mercies." "It is of mercy that we still live and have opportunities of glorifying God actively or passively. Surely these thoughts...

Donation link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=G9JGGR5W97D64 Or go to www.frponprayer.com and use the Donations tab. Day 23 of our focus on the practical side of his, J.C. Ryle's advice to Christians who do pray, of course, from His book "A Call to Prayer. Today, he calls us to thankfulness in our prayers, and the context precisely, in private prayers with our Savior. The Words of Ryle: "I commend to you the importance of thankfulness in prayer. I know well that asking God ...

Donation link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=G9JGGR5W97D64 Or go to www.frponprayer.com and use the Donations tab. This description by J.C. Ryle is so comprehensive and beautiful that no words of mine can add to them. Soak in the imitable words of our mentor. "I commend to you the importance of intercession in our prayers. We are all selfish by nature, and our selfishness is very apt to stick to us, even when we are converted. There is a tendency in us to think only of our...

Today, our intercession is directed at our actual enemy, sin, death, and the devil. To my tribe first, with the events we have seen magnified dramatically since 2019, there can be no doubt, "The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?" Jeremiah 17:9 "how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" Hebrews 2:3a Convicted by the word yesterday, Jesus wept in the face of the sin that causes death ("for all have sinned and fall short of the...

Donation link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=G9JGGR5W97D64 Or go to www.frponprayer.com and use the Donations tab. Once again, the faithful Bishop of Liverpool urges us not only to talk to God and to talk to God specifically about what is on our hearts, but he also invites us to thoughtful and honest time with our Savior. Day 20 of our October Surprise, looking at "A Call to Prayer," written in 1836. Believe it or not, it applies to this present age. Today, Pastor Ryle wil...

Donation link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=G9JGGR5W97D64 Or go to www.frponprayer.com and use the Donations tab. Today's episode is a call to contemplate our prayer lives and ask God if the words of J.C. Ryle have any message for us. J.C. Ryle "I commend to you the importance of fullness in prayer. I do not forget that our Lord warns us against the example of the Pharisees, who, for pretense, made long prayers; and commands us when we pray not to use vain repetitions. Bu...

Donation link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=G9JGGR5W97D64 Or go to www.frponprayer.com and use the Donations tab. Today's episode is a call to contemplate our prayer lives and ask God if the words of J.C. Ryle have any message for us. J.C. Ryle "I commend to you the importance of fullness in prayer. I do not forget that our Lord warns us against the example of the Pharisees, who, for pretense, made long prayers; and commands us when we pray not to use vain repetitions. Bu...

Donation link:https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=G9JGGR5W97D64Or go to www.frponprayer.com and use the Donations tab. J.C. Ryle is calling us today to a call to boldness. The type of boldness, I think, which believes in what we are calling for, and that God is listening, and that He will answer. More than those things, or on top of those things, is the boldness that calls us to know the word and pray as we have seen what God Himself has revealed to us. Ryle wisely says: "I commen...

Pastor Ryle told us on October fourteenth: The 119th Psalm is full of things asked, 'according to thy word.' Today, we are riffing off Psalm 119 and the verses which call out "according to Thy word." Let our souls be excited by all the promises we have in His word to: Calm our weariness Psalm 119:25 Be strengthened in our sorrows. Psalm 119:28 Be energized by His lovingkindnesses, remembering our salvation. Psalm 119:41 Pleading for grace for ourselves and our loved ones. Psalm 119:58 Re...

Praying by faith means praying expecting answers from the God who revealed to us, the fervent prayers of a righteous man accomplishes much. J.C. Ryle urges us to pray and expect to see the answers. “Above all, we should cultivate the habit of expecting answers to our prayers. We should do like the merchant who sends his ships to sea. We should not be satisfied, unless we see some return. Alas, there are few points on which Christians come short so much as this. The church at Jerusalem made pra...

J.C. Ryle breaches two central concepts in praying with faith. Believing God hears and answers and: We are moved to pray His promises. "I commend to you the importance of praying with faith. We should endeavor to believe that our prayers are heard, and that if we ask things according to God's will, we shall be answered. This is the plain command of our Lord Jesus Christ: "Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them" (Mark 11:24). Faith is t...

We are on the lucky October thirteenth and looking at praying with fiery passion. Realistic conversation with Almighty. J.C. Ryle tells us: "I commend to you the importance of earnestness in prayer. It is not necessary that a man should shout, or scream, or be very loud, in order to prove that he is in earnest." "It is the "effectual fervent" prayer that "availeth much." "This is the lesson that is taught us by the expressions used in Scripture about prayer. It is called, "crying, knocking, ...

We ended in the eleventh, looking at our perseverance in prayer, noting here, so far, that Ryle is campaigning for our daily conversation with the Holy God. We begin today continuing on that theme, listening to Ryle as he says: “I do not maintain that prayers should always be of the same length; but I do say, let no excuse make you give up prayer.” And of course, once we get through the fits and starts and enter into the true deep converse with Our Savior, we have, because of circumstance (ho...

Today, we will hear just one sentence from Ryle, and then shortly why only one sentence, but first a word from our Savior: "Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart," Luke 18:1 Ryle urges us to do the same. "I commend to you the importance of perseverance in prayer. Once having begun the habit, never give it up." And Our avoidances say we "Neglect your soul." (That's two, but I could have improved at Maths.) Two Truths and no Li...

"I commend to you the importance of making prayer a regular business of life. I might say something of the value of regular times in the day for prayer. God is a God of order. The hours for morning and evening sacrifice in the Jewish temple were not fixed as they were without a meaning. Disorder is eminently one of the fruits of sin. But I would not bring any under bondage. This only I say, that it is essential to your soul's health to make praying a part of the business of every twenty four hou...

I have been meditation on the advice from Pastor Ryle for the last couple of days on using as he said: "As to praying out of a book in our private devotions, it is a habit I cannot praise." And I am glad he prefaced the comments with this: "I desire to touch this point with caution and delicacy." Jesus told us, actually in the context of prayer, "Keep watching and praying, that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Matthew 27:41 My call to the we...

The leading of the Holy Spirit is our goal, and J.C. Ryle schools us greatly in that imperative. To that end, he says: "We may insensibly get into the habit of using the fittest possible words, and offering the most scriptural petitions, and yet do it all by rote without feeling it, and walk daily round an old beaten path. I desire to touch this point with caution and delicacy. I know that there are certain great things we daily want, and that there is nothing necessarily formal in asking for t...