Rev 6:10 and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, wilt Thou refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" 
	We are in the process of considering the relationship of the Church to God in prayer. We are seeking what is needed in order to have an effective prayer life within the Church on this earth. We have seen that God values the prayers of the Church because they were purchased with the precious blood of His Son. They are so valuable to Him because they are seen in relation to our union with Christ Jesus through His death and resurrection. We have touched somewhat upon that relationship as evidenced in the earthly marriage of a husband and wife. This is our spiritual position in Christ as will be demonstrated in our eternal placement in the plan and purpose of God.  
	One key aspect that we saw, last week, is that we need to learn to listen in order to have an ever increasing communication established in our hearts with God. In order to know His will in all things, we need to settle ourselves before Him and hear that which is on His heart. In this truth will our prayers reflect that which He desires on this earth. It is in this manner that the Church will become the ever truer testimony of God’s will. We will become more and more vibrant in our prayer lives because they will reflect that which pleases the very heart of our beloved husband, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a vital part of our becoming the pure and spotless bride that He desires and has consecrated unto Himself by His blood and His Word. 
As we consider the content of this morning’s passage, we should be struck by the fact that was declared by those who were before the throne of God. …and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true… They recognized the Lord as Holy and True. They were before Him and calling forth their lament in the absolute understanding that He is the Holy One and that He does that which He chooses to do in perfection and in Truth and in Righteousness. Their focus was upon Him and upon His choosing to wait, despite the fact that they were expecting God to act in expediency. When we pray to the Lord, it must be with the knowledge that He is Holy. It must be with the certainty that He is doing what He chooses to do in the time frame that He has created and only He understands. Our hearts need to come into complete alignment with His heart. We must set aside our intimations of what God should do. We must be settled in the certainty that God will do what God will do when God deems it time to do it. We need to rest in His sovereignty of Holiness, and become fully partakers of Him as our life. 
As a vital component of our understanding, we must emphasize over and over again, that God does not answer our prayers based upon our worthiness to be heard. It is not based on our personal holiness and our meager efforts to be good in any manner whatsoever. We can not earn the right to be heard by God. He hears our prayers as they come through His Holy Spirit in the heart of His Beloved Son. Consider that even our sinner’s prayer, as we call it, comes forth through the urging and the prompting of the Holy Spirit as He reveals our utter need for Jesus Christ. When we are in sin, it is the Holy Spirit Who convicts and causes us to seek after God’s forgiveness and cleansing work. This is put forth unto the Father through the intercessory working of Our Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf. Effective prayer is not based, in any measure, on our holiness and our worthiness in order to garner a response from God. 
There are so many Christians who get caught up in the idea that they need to earn the right to be heard by God. They struggle with a battle in their lives and they feel that God will not listen to them until they have conquered that sin or have spent a certain prescribed time in fasting or some other self-abasement.
As an aside, they use the fullness of fasting in their own terms of trying to make themselves more worthy to be heard. This is of absolutely no value before the throne of God. Fasting, when put upon us by the Holy Spirit, is an offering and a sacrifice of setting aside our earthly interests in the uninterrupted concentration of our hearts upon God for His sake, not for our sake. It is the complete setting aside of our interests for His interests. It is not in order to make our prayers more worthy in His sight. We spend time in prayer and fasting because it will bring honor to Him, not in order to make Him more apt to listen to us. We cannot earn more face time with God through our works and our hollow efforts of righteousness.
	Now then, please bear with me at this point, because this is an utterly imperative truth of effective prayer that needs our full concentration and comprehension. This is an area that might seem contradictory and it must not be misunderstood. Effective prayer is not based on our holiness, but it is set in the Holiness of Jesus Christ as He manifests Himself in our lives. God does very clearly and efficiently and perfectly answer the prayer of those saints in whom Jesus Christ is more and more evidenced as their very life. This is because of the fact that we are married to Him. As we respond in our love for Him, the Father is pleased and honored to work His will in response to our expression of His love in Christ.
Because we love Him, we desire to be holy in order to be the true witnesses of God’s Grace and Mercy and Lovingkindness. When our lives reflect His holiness, not our own, a full response proceeds forth from His heart. Our holiness is not the basis of our prayers, but the heart of Christ’s Holiness brings into the world the perfect response from the throne of heaven. Our actions and behavior become centered in the fact of Him and His life at work in us, rather than in our efforts to make ourselves somehow better. We are holy because He is Holy and the actions of our lives reflect the condition of our new heart in Jesus Christ. 
Our every thought and consideration and effort becomes centered on that which is pleasing to Him. We desire Christ’s devoutness and consecration to be our lives. Lev 11:44+45, 'For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am holy. And you shall not make yourselves unclean with any of the swarming things that swarm on the earth. 'For I am the Lord, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, to be your God; thus you shall be holy for I am holy.'" 
We pray in the Holiness of Jesus Christ and our lives are affected by that prayer. There needs to be a change from the focus on our wants to the focal point being that which conforms to His heart’s desire. 1 Chron 16:23-29, Sing to the Lord, all the earth; Proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day. Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples. For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; He also is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, But the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before Him, Strength and joy are in His place. Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name; Bring an offering, and come before Him; Worship the Lord in holy array. 
As our relationship with Jesus develops, our expression of Him does change. So often we try to focus on what we want to be different in our lives. But, a true yearning after an intimate and effective communication with God, based on the Holiness of Jesus Christ, brings forth the evidence of His heart of Holiness in our lives. It is not our efforts to change, but a complete expression of His life now being our life. We become more holy because we are vitally connected to Him as our everything. 
This is expressed in our earthly relationships, as proclaimed in 2 Cor 6:14-7:1, Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, "I will dwell in them and walk among them; And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. "Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate," says the Lord. "And do not touch what is unclean; And I will welcome you. "And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me," Says the Lord Almighty. Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. 
We are removed from the manner of our former life apart from Jesus and we find that we can no longer participate in those elements that once were so easy for us. Even when we disobey and return to those vial things, there is a registration within us that it is wrong and evil and of no good purpose. 
That should be the prayer that we share concerning our children in their daily walk on this earth. We should earnestly seek that God would not allow them, or us, to enjoy the entrapments of this earth any longer. That they, and we, would not find any satisfaction or fulfillment in those indulgences. That we would learn to see the emptiness of this world’s promises in the accurate light of their worthlessness and as continual disappointments and spiritual turmoil. We must daily, moment-by-moment, focus our attention upon Jesus, Who is our life. 
Eph 4:17-24, This I say therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. 
It is an absolute certainty that God answers the prayers of His Son. As His church, united together in Christ, God does hear and answer our prayers, when they are based on the Holiness that is at the very heart of the church, the Holiness of Jesus Christ. This is not something that we can take for granted. As God is serious about the glory due to His Son, He is absolutely serious about His response to us based fully upon our relationship to His Son. 
The Apostle Peter urges us as follows in 1 Peter 1:13-19. Therefore, gird your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." And if you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each man's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay upon earth; knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. 
	Please note the terms that he uses in his admonition. …gird your minds…keep sober…fix your hope…do not be conformed…be holy…conduct yourselves… These are the very course of the life that we now have in Christ Jesus. This is not a passive or idle lifestyle, waiting for God to do something that will knock our socks off. It is a daily life of denying ourselves and following the path of Christ’s death and resurrection. This is a life of Holiness that you and I cannot even hope to accomplish of our own efforts. But, it is the life in place right now in those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the evidence that He lives in you and in me. 
We talked earlier about the sinner’s prayer. The truth is that God answers the prayer of the sinner for His Name’s sake. The Holy Spirit works in the heart of the sinner to cause him or her to need to know Jesus Christ. The answer to that prayer brings us into the proper relationship for the prayers that affect His glory on this earth. Those are the prayers of the Church. God answers those prayers for the sake of His glory. 
2 Peter 3:10-15a, But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, on account of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord to be salvation…
	Notice that we are to regard the patience of the Lord to be salvation. That is why those before the throne call out to the Holiness of God, and yet He tarries in His response. He knows the time to act. It will be in His time, when there will be no more sinners seeking Him for salvation. It will be the time in which His Church, in the Holiness of Jesus Christ, prays for Him to respond for the sake of His glory on this earth. There will be no more consideration of our place and our wants and our desires. There will be only one united heart of all His people yearning for His swift and immediate return. It will be our cry for Him to establish His reign of glory and honor on this earth as He now reigns, in all glory and honor, in the united heart of His Beloved Church. His Glory above all else! So be it!
and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, wilt Thou refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"  Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Rev 3:20+21. 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with Me. 'He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. Amen.