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By Pastor Glenn Pease
CONTENTS
1. INTIMATE COMMUNICATION
MARK 1:35‑39
2. PERSISTENCE IN PRAYER Based on Luke 18:1‑8
3. HELP! I CAN'T PRAY based on
Rom. 8:26‑7
4. EMPOWERING OUR ACTIVITIES
WITH PRAYER Based on Eph. 6:10‑1
5. THE PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
Based on Phil. 1:3‑6
6. THREE KEYS TO A BETTER
PRAYER LIFE. Based on Col. 1:3
7. SPONTANEOUS PRAYER Based on I Thess. 5:12‑28
8. PATRIOTIC IN PRAYER Based on I Tim. 2:1‑
9. ASKING GOD based on James 1:5‑8
10. CHRISTIAN CONFESSION Based on I John 1:8‑9
11. SEEKING GOD'S FACE Based on II Chron. 7:11‑22
12. THE PERPETUAL PREPARATION
OF PRAYER Based on II Chron. 7:11‑22
13. UNANSWERED PRAYER Based on Matt. 6:1‑14
14. THE PLEASURE OF PRAYER
Based on Psalm 84:8
1. INTIMATE
COMMUNICATION MARK 1:35‑39
If we had
as many answers to prayer as we have books on prayer the battle would be
won. Unfortunately it is easier to
write a book on prayer than to pray effectively. It is easier to preach a
sermon on prayer than to pray. It is
easier to give a lecture on prayer than to pray. It is easier to do just about anything concerning prayer than to
actually pray well and wisely.
The reason
this is so is because we have not taken
Christ as our guide to prayer, and have tried to follow men who claim to be
experts, but who have made the matter of such complexity that it is too
discouraging, and we lose our motivation.
If we went into a library and found a dozen volumes on how to order a
hamburger, we would probably figure it is too complicated, and never brother to
order one. So it is with prayer. There are books galore, and seminars, and
special retreats, and so many people trying to teach us how to pray, that we
automatically assume that it is in the same category with learning brain
surgery and international law. So we
lose hope, and just accept the role of being poor at prayer.
People
who are good at saying prayers only confirm our despair. We say, come Lord Jesus be our guest, let
this daily food be blest. They can give
a lesson on Bible history, and give guidance to government leaders, and a
challenge for world missions, all in a prayer of thanks for a hamburger. It makes
the rest of us feel like we are not even really thankful for our hamburger, and
also feeling like we just don't know how to pray.
The vast
majority of Christians would list as one of the weaknesses of their Christian
life, their prayer life. We do not
spend enough time in prayer. We don't
pray for enough people. We don't pray
as fervently as we ought, or as persistently as we ought. There is hardly any aspect of prayer that we
do as adequately as we ought. Christian
guilt feelings about this make them easy targets of manipulation. They can be
made to feel they need to go along with some prayer gimmicks to get back into
God's favor. Maybe it's an all night
prayer meeting, or some kind of prayer chain, or large group prayer service, as
if the length of your prayers or the quantity of them is the key to God's
reluctant heart.
All of
this Jesus put into the category of paganism in Matt. 6, where He said the
pagans think they will be heard because of their many words. Jesus taught that God already knows what we
need, and so a short and simple prayer is all that is necessary. He never told His disciples to get a big
crowd together, but said get alone in your own room and close the door. He didn't give them a manuscript of hundreds
of prayers when they asked Him to teach them to pray. He gave them a single prayer of about 50 words as an
example.
My point
is, the reason that prayer is so hard for Christians is because they have made
it hard. The Bible doesn't. Jesus didn't. Christians have so complicated the simplicity of the Bible with
pagan ideas, they have put a satisfying life of prayer beyond the reach of the
average Christian. One Christian writer
said she could visualize the millions of prayers hurtling toward God at
mealtime, and so she decided to do her praying between meals when the prayer
traffic was not so thick. She also got up early to get her prayer in before the heavy breakfast crowd. Of course, this is silly, but so is every
aspect of prayer that implies God is not omniscient. Jesus said in Matt. 6:8,
"Your father knows what you need before you ask Him."
If that
is the case, then being eloquent is no big deal, for we do not have to persuade
God. It is not as if we have to be
intellects, and be able to speak with great logic to get through to God. Neither the quantity nor the quality of our
prayers are the issue, for God already knows what we seek to communicate. This puts all God's children on the same
level. So what if we can go on for a half
hour with flowery words of oratory, and another can only say thank you Lord for
today, give me guidance for tomorrow?
The
Pharisee in the temple was no doubt better at prayer than the publican. If we took a vote among men after hearing
them both pray, the Pharisee would win on both length and eloquence, but Jesus
said the publican went away justified, not the Pharisee. "God be merciful to me a sinner,"
was his prayer, and on the cross the thief said, "Remember me when you
come into your kingdom." And the
father of the demonized boy prayed, "Lord I believe, help thou my
unbelief." When you look at the
prayers that Jesus answered in his life, you can't help but be impressed with
their brevity and simplicity. They are
little more than cries for help.
When the
disciples were caught in the storm, and feared the ship was going down, they
woke Jesus and their prayer was, "Lord, save us! We are going to drown."
When Peter was going under his prayer was, "Lord, save
me!" All these prayers were
answered. Of course, they were emergency situations where
eloquence and length are not only irrelevant, but potentially deadly. But what we want to see as we examine the
prayer life of Jesus is that even the normal prayer life of the believer is to
be simple and not complex. Our text
reveals three simple truths about prayer that can make effective praying
possible for all of us. First‑
I. THE
PRIORITY OF PRAYER.
Notice
Mark 1:35 says Jesus got up to pray very early in the morning while it was
still dark. Prayer was a priority in
His day. It was the first thing on His
list. Prayer was not reserved for some
crisis, or great need out of the ordinary.
Almost everybody prays when they
come to their Gethsemane. When there is
a terrible time ahead, or one faces problems that are overwhelming, then prayer
becomes a priority. But for Jesus
prayer was a priority when all was going well, and there was no great
opposition, or huge obstacles to hurdle.
This
text comes early in His ministry when people were delighted, and even His
future enemies were not yet sniping at Him.
Yet, Jesus made prayer a priority in His life‑style. From this we need to see that prayer is not
primary a tool for crisis. A hammer can be used to fight off an attacker, or to
break through a wall to rescue someone from a fire. But this is not its usual function. It is usually used just to pound nails, to fix things, and
to hang pictures. Prayer has its crisis value, but like all
tools, prayer has its usual commonplace function as a tool of
communication. We need to make prayer
habitual and not situational.
Look at
your relationships to people, and what you will see is that some of them are
based on habitual communication, and some on situational communication. I have people I relate to once a year
because we communicate through Christmas cards. There may be a crisis that leads to more communication during the
year, but basically this is it‑crisis or Christmas. Some of these people were at one time very
close friends or relatives. There was a
lot of communication, but times change.
They moved, or we moved, and new relationships developed, and the old ones
got pushed to the back burner. They no longer have a place of priority.
The ones
that have priority are those where there is habitual communication. You talk to these people on a regular
basis. There does not have to be any
crisis or occasion, you just open the lines of communication, and you relate to
these people. Now the point is, the degree of intimacy you experience in any
relationship is determined by the priority you give to communicating with
them. What happens in life is that we
lose intimacy with those we love because we let communication slip from a place
of priority. Husbands and wives do this
all the time. It does not make them
cease to love each other. But it does
mean they have lost their intimacy, and it can only be restored by renewed
communication.
I had a
friend many years ago who was a book fanatic just like me. Every time we got together we could go on
endlessly about books, authors, and ideas.
Talk, talk, talk. We were the
best of friends. But he moved away, and
then I moved, and we just lost touch with each other for many years. I still have fond memories, and would
consider him a friend, but he has no priority in my life at all, for lack of
communication has ended all the intimacy we had.
This
happens with people, but it also happens with our relationship to God. We drift away from God. We do not necessarily love Him less or trust
Him less, but we cease to put communication with Him on the front burner. It is no longer a top priority, and the
result is we lose intimacy with God.
There's no longer that closeness that we call fellowship.
Every
relationship of life faces this same struggle of keeping intimacy alive. In every case the only way to do this is by
means of communication. That is why
prayer was a priority in the life of Jesus, and why it has to be in the life of
every Christian. A growing relationship
to God can only take place in a life where intimacy is developed. And intimacy can only be developed by
communication. You cannot get close to
people who will not talk to you, and God has the same problem. If we do not spend time with God our
relationship with Him will cool.
We have
had neighbors we only see out in their yards a few times a year as we go
walking, but we get into a good conversation and share who we are, and what we
are about, and when we go away from these talks, we feel we are closer to these
relative strangers than we are to relatives that we never talk too. Communication is the key to every degree of
intimacy. If God is going to be a
priority relationship in our lives, we need to talk with Him. Forget the idea that prayer is bringing to
God a shopping list. You can ask God
for all you need in a few minutes, and you can intercede for all the needs you
know in a few more minutes.
The
reason we often get bored with prayer is because we have such a narrow view of
it. Frank Laubach said, "If your
prayers are boring to you, quite likely they are boring God too." Get out of your rut where you just list your
needs. I can't imagine that Jesus got
up before sunrise just to say, "God bless Peter and Andrew, and James and
John, and John the Baptist," and on and on through all His disciples. Jesus had a relationship to the Father. It was His most intimate relationship, for
their was no one else that could understand Him and His mission. I imagine Jesus sharing with the Father, and
telling of His problems, and seeking insights for solutions. I think we often forget that Jesus had to
live a human life. He did not use
miracle power to make all the bad things go away. He had to endure the limitations of His flesh, and cope with
crowds, criticism, quarreling
disciples, and a host of the same problems that plague us all. Jesus needed someone to talk to, and to
think through strategy with, in order to sense the direction to go.
Thomas a
Kempis says of prayer that it is, "Pondering a matter with reference to
God." To think, to plan, to
question, and wrestle with issues in God's presence, is all part of
prayer. You are most intimate with
those with whom you talk most. If
prayer is not a priority than we have put God in a category like those to whom
we write just once in awhile. He may be
very important to us, and we acknowledge His love and influence, like we do
good old uncle so and so, but we only communicate situationally and not
habitually. The result is loss of
intimacy.
We need
to see this truth. You can love someone
greatly, and yet lose intimacy with them.
I have relatives and old friends I love dearly, but I have no intimacy
with them, because I have little to no communication with them. This can happen with God as well. God never moves away, but we do. We let life change our priorities and let
God be pushed to the side lines. We do
not change our theology, and we love Him as much as ever, but we lose
intimacy. This is a simple but vital
issue in prayer. We need to make prayer a priority to maintain intimacy with
God, as Jesus did. Secondly, look at‑
II. THE
PRIVACY OF PRAYER.
Notice,
Jesus left the house and went out to a solitary place to pray. I am not aware of a single occasion when
Jesus called for a public prayer meeting.
He condemned the Pharisees who prayed in public to be seen, and He told
His disciples to pray in secret in their closet. By both precept and practice, Jesus made it clear, prayer is
primarily a private matter.
Again,
we go back to intimacy. You can talk to
someone you love in public, but you can never be as intimate as you can in
private. When you are alone you can
develop a deeper intimacy. This is even
true with people you just meet. I
counsel every once in awhile with people who are strangers. If we are in the presence of others, the
conversation stays general, but when we come apart and are alone, we get to the
real issues that are bothering them.
Privacy and intimacy go hand in hand.
So it is
with our relationship to God. It has to
be private to be effective in developing intimacy. Jesus could not pray in public, "Father help me to figure
out how to cool off these sons of thunder, James and John, and help me to teach
Peter not to be so quick to judge and take foolish actions before he thinks
things through." There were all
kinds of issues that Jesus had to talk to the Father about in private. It is
not that public prayer is not legitimate.
It is, but it is not intimate.
It is not that aspect of prayer that enables us to get closer to God.
Too
often I think Christians worry about their ability to pray in public. I don't think the Bible gives any support to
this kind of anxiety about public prayer.
In 28 chapters of the book of Acts we do not have a single prayer of any
apostle recorded. It is the public record of their deeds and not of their
private devotions. We know they were
men of prayer, but we do not have great examples of their prayers. Why not?
Because prayer is a private matter between them and God. Like their master, they did not do a lot of
praying in public, but developed a private prayer life where they talked with,
and shared intimately with their heavenly Father. We are told that they prayed, but not what they prayed. So it is with our Lord, and for most of the
prayers of His life. They are private,
and known only to God.
Don't
worry about public prayer, for it is a minor issue compared to the importance
of private prayer. This is where you
develop intimacy with God. It is in
private sharing with God we can unload our burdens, and tell God of the
struggles we have with temptation, resentment, hostility, envy, or any other
evil that plagues us. We can be one
hundred per cent of who we really are, and still be loved in spite of it. A friend is one who knows you, and still
loves you. God can be our greatest
friend if we enter into the closet, and open ourselves to Him. Total exposure to God leads to the ultimate
in intimacy. You can share with God
things you can't share with anyone else.
In the privacy of prayer we reach the level of infinite intimacy where
we are totally known and totally loved.
Thirdly, look at‑
III. THE
PURPOSE OF PRAYER.
Look
closely at this text. Peter and the
others found Jesus, and told Him, "everyone is looking for you!" The implication is, what are you doing off
here praying in secret when the needs of the world are clamoring to be
met? People need the Lord, was there
song to the Lord. So come on they are
saying, let's go meet the needs. But
Jesus replies in verse 38, "Let's go somewhere else‑to the nearby
villages
so I can preach there also. That is why I have come."
This
response reveals a profound purpose that Jesus had in prayer. There was no end to the needs to be
met. There was always more to do than
anyone could do. He needed to get away
from the crowds, and the constant needs they had, for the purpose of sensing
God's guidance.
In a
world where nobody can do everything, we need to get alone with God in prayer
to sense which things to let go, and which things to go for. Jesus needed this same guidance. Without prayer you just keep responding to
the needs that present themselves.
Jesus did not do that. He knew
when to move on to give new people a chance to respond to His preaching, and
feel the power of His healing ministry.
The purpose of prayer was to stay in touch with God, and develop an
intimacy that enabled Him to know the will of God for His life. Prayer is private, but it has a great public
impact, for it enables you to know where God wants you to go to accomplish His purpose. People in villages all over Galilee experienced a public impact
because of the private prayer of Jesus.
This
clearly implies that Jesus did not just ask God for things. He listened and thought though the point of
His being in history, and what was the wisest strategy to follow to fulfill
that purpose. The purpose of prayer is
to help us get the guidance of God that we need to fulfill His purpose.
We often
think prayer is to get God to do our will.
Do this for me, and after that do this and this and this. The whole idea of power in prayer which is
so prevalent revolves around the idea of getting your will accomplished by the
power of God. Prayer power can make you
rich, popular, and healthy. All things
can be wrought by prayer, and we are urged to get our hands in the grab bag of
things available to us if we only pray right.
It is
not that there is no truth in this, it is just that it is so perverted that it
seems like a primary purpose of prayer is to figure out how to make God your
servant. Whereas the prayer life of
Jesus teaches us the purpose is to help us become more effective servants of
God. There is considerable difference
in these two approaches.
In the one we follow the Savior, and in the other we
follow the self.
Jesus
could have done anything and gone anywhere, and He would have touched people,
but He did not come just to do His own thing.
He came to do the will of the Father, and the Father wanted Him to cover
the villages of Galilee. Jesus prayed
in order to be sensitive to the leading of His Father. He had to get away from the voices calling
Him for help to hear the Father's voice.
The bottom line is, prayer is to help us know the will of God. In a world of clamoring voices, how can we
do what is right and best? The only way
we can even be close is to listen to God.
We need to make listening to Him a priority so that we can get our other
priorities of life in order.
If Jesus
would have gone by the pressure of the events of life as they unfolded, He would
have followed Peter and the other disciples to the people who were looking for
Him. But Jesus had a more intimate
awareness of God's will, and He thus, led Peter and the others to minister to
people who were not looking for Him because they did not know He even
existed. Because of prayer Jesus heard,
not the voices, but the Voice of God that gave Him directions as to the purpose
He was to pursue. Prayer helped Jesus
stay on the track God laid out for Him, and not get sidetracked by pursuing the
good at the expense of the best.
Jesus
could have done all sorts of good without prayer, and so can we. We do not need God's guidance to do
good. We are moral agents in the world,
and can chose to do good in many ways.
So the non‑praying Christian can still do much good in this world
for the kingdom of God, and to meet human need. Prayerlessness does not mean nothing gets done. It means there is a loss of intimacy, and
what does not get done is the best. The
good gets done, but not the best, because we are not in touch with God's
will. We do not know His will
intimately enough to choose it. Jesus
had an intimacy with the Father that enabled Him to do God's perfect will. He had that intimacy because He was a man of
prayer. That is the purpose of prayer,
and that is why it is to be a priority, and that is why it is to be private,
for it all comes down to intimacy.
The
person you talk to most, and the person you talk to most privately, and the
person you talk to in order to know their will most completely, is the person
with whom you have the greatest intimacy, and that person for Jesus was
God. To live the best Christian life
that we can we need to be like Jesus in practicing prayer as intimate
communication.
2. PERSISTENCE IN
PRAYER Based on Luke 18:1‑8
A
fisherman's experiment is described in a tract. It tells of how he caught a large black bass and instead of
putting it in the frying pan he put it in a glass tank. Each morning he would bring a minnow to the
tank and drop it in. The bass would
make a dash for the minnow and soon finish him off for breakfast. After a number of days of this he placed a
glass partition in the tank, and then dropped the minnow in the side opposite
from the bass. The big fish made his
usual lunge but bumped his nose against the glass. He did not give up easily, however, but kept ramming the glass
over and over again. Finally the blows
were too much and he ceased to try.
After a few days of this separation the partition was removed. The minnow and the bass swam freely
together. The minnow was now available
for food but the bass made no attempt to get it. Frustration had conditioned it to accept failure, and it just
gave up.
The
same thing happens with people. When
Lord Chamberlain was asked why so many people failed he responded,
"Because they come to the point where they stop." Like the bass they get their nose bumped
against obstacles so often that they just quit. They give up, lose heart, and do not have the courage to go on
trying. This is a primary cause for the
high casualty rate in the battle of light against darkness. Prayer is a basic weapon in this battle, and
believers are often disappointed in prayer at sometime. You've prayed and prayed and it seems to do
no good, and so you begin to wonder what is the use of it. Some even conclude that it is no use, and
so, like the bass, they let their disappointments bring them to a state where
they no longer try. Jalouddin Rumi, and
Eastern poet describes the process:
He prayed, but to his prayer no answer came,
And choked within him sank his ardor's flame.
No more he prayed, no more the knee he bent,
While round him darkened doubt and discontent.
I prayed he said but no one heard my prayer,
Long disappointment has induced despair.
Jesus
knew that this could happen even to his own disciples, and that is why He
sought to prepare them for what was coming.
He had just been telling them about the trials ahead for Himself, and
the judgment to come. He told of the
indifference of the people on the day of Noah, and again in Sodom before its
destruction. He said that history will
repeat itself and God's judgment will again fall on man. Meanwhile life for His followers will not be
a bed of roses. That is why He tells
them this parable. The unique thing
about this parable is that its purpose of clearly stated so that none can miss
it. There is no mystery at all, for as
one has said, "The key hangs at the door." It was told to the end that his own should keep on praying an
never lose heart. It is told to prevent
Christians from becoming discouraged and giving up on prayer.
Jesus
would not bother to tell such a parable and have it recorded for all
generations if it did not deal with a very real and serious danger. You do not tell your children about the
danger of playing with radium because you know they are not going to be playing
with any, but you do warn them of the danger of fire because you know it is
likely they will have the opportunity at some point. So also Jesus does not waste inspiration on the impossible or
improbable, but deals only with the probable, likely and certain.
He knows
that prayer will often seem like a fruitless weapon on the battlefield of life,
and that His disciples may often feel like relegating it to the museum of
religious relics, and seek more effective methods of combating the enemy. He knew this and that is why He told this
parable. He wanted to stir them up to
press on and not lose heart, and to stick to their guns and persist in prayer
at all times, and under all circumstances.
This is the stated purpose of the parable. How then does Jesus accomplish this end? He does so by following a simple but
effective method of teaching involving three steps.
I. A CONTEMPORARY ILLUSTRATION.
In
verse 2 Jesus draws a verbal picture of a typical situation in His day, which
is not really much different than what we have today. Here was a public servant who had to be pressured into doing any
serving of the public. He was self‑sufficient
intellectual who neither feared God nor regarded man. Practical atheism is nothing new. Jesus saw plenty of it in His day. He had no superficial view of man's nature. He recognized the reality of depravity and
the existence of godless men in high places.
Here was a man whose duty it was to administer justice, but he had not
absolutes, for he feared not the God of all justice, and had no deep concern
for the rights of men. He was motivated
by neither conviction nor compassion, but only by his own pleasure. He is the last person to go to for mercy,
and the last person who would go out of his way to help a poor widow.
Jesus
is purposely portraying a pessimistic picture to try and match the feelings
that overwhelm a person in a very unfavorable situation when they desperately
need help. If the man was a good judge
there would be no problem, but Jesus wants a problem. He wants to portray a setting in life with a great obstacle to
overcome to compare with what His disciples will often face. Some are bothered by the fact that Jesus
would use such a godless man to illustrate a godly truth, and make him stand in
parallel with God the Father. This is
no problem, however, when we see that the contrast of this judge and God is the
main emphasis. Pure yellow corn can
come up from the dung heap uncontaminated by its source of growth, and so also
can a precious truth grow out of an examination of a foul life, and be no less
precious because of the corruption of its source.
In
verse 3 Jesus introduces the persistent heroin who kept coming to this villain
of a judge and asking him to protect her rights and do her justice against her
adversary. She is not looking for
revenge, but only justice. This had
been a serious problem for centuries. A
widow was at the mercy of those who would take advantage of her weakness and
try to get possession of her property. Even
the Pharisees had a hand in the legal plunder of getting widow's houses away
from them. A widow needed professional
help or she was sunk, and here is one who is not going to tolerate injustice,
but demands that her rights be protected.
In
verse 4 the judge is not impressed with her enthusiasm, and he refused to help
her. She is equally unimpressed with
his refusal, and she persistently pleads with him to help her. Her persistence compels him to reconsider,
and verses 4 and 5 tell us how he reasoned within himself. He first of all protects himself from the
charge of getting soft, or turning religious.
He reaffirms his indifference to God or man. He is consciously and deliberately godless, and he glories in
it. He doesn't want anyone to get the
impression that if he does good that it is because he has any principles of
human rights or equally before God. A
self‑centered man needs no reason for his actions outside of himself, and
that is what we see in verse 5.
He is getting tired of hearing her, so he
decides the best way of getting rid of her pestering is to help her out. Nagging is not virtue, but one thing you can
say for it is, it often gets the job done, as it did in this case. She gave this judge a clear impression that
she would not cease until she got some results. He didn't care about her rights at all, but he did care about his
own nervous system, and so he took her case.
The illustration comes to a happy ending with the assumption that the
widow was vindicated. Next we see‑
II. A CLEAR APPLICATION.
In
verse 6 Jesus says to listen to what that unjust judge said. Here is an evil man who cares not for God's
plan or man's rights, and yet he helps out this widow and does her justice
because she was persistent in her pleading.
He was a godless man compelled to do God's will because of a persistent
request. This is a truth you do not
often consider. We would do well to do
less complaining about public servants and follow the wisdom of this widow, and
begin to put pressure on them to do what is right and just. Even a corrupt public servant will work for
what is just if the public persistently demands it. If they do not, it is because people are indifferent, and this
leaves them free to do as they please.
This
unjust judge was not going to be going around looking for needy people to help,
and we ought not to expect that such a man would. We ought not to expect any godless servant to be concerned about
justice. Such persons only do justice
when it is to their advantage, and it is the Christians duty to make it
advantageous for all public servants to do what is right. This is not what Jesus was getting at,
however, but it is just a truth that grows out of this parable. Jesus is not dealing with politics but with
prayer. But the fact is, a bad man will
do good if good people demand it.
Jesus
makes the application of the parable to the subject of persistence in prayer,
and says, in effect, if even a godless judge will finally yield out of selfish
motives to a persistent request for justice, can you question for a moment that
God, the author of all justice and Father of all mercies, will not do justice
for all of His elect who persist in crying to Him day and night? If a character like that will even do
justice, it is an absolute certainty that God will. Life shows us that persistent persistence works in many realms.
Jesus
says that the elect cry day and night, and, like the widow, they are not
answered immediately. God delays as did
the judge, but for different reasons.
God lets injustice and oppression of His own continue even after they
plead for justice. It is because of His
long suffering, and not because of His indifference and lack of concern. He is not slack concerning His promise, but
is long suffering and not willing that any shall perish. He will vindicate His elect, and all
injustice will be judged. No evil will
go unpunished, but the delay is due to the fact that God's plan includes mercy,
even for the oppressor.
Jesus
did not teach us to pray for our enemies, and then reveal God the Father to be
one who seeks vengeance at the drop of a hat.
If God did not show patience and bear with those who oppress His people,
the Apostle Paul would have been struck dead on the Damascus Road rather than
awakened to newness of life. Those Auca
Indians who killed the 5 missionaries in Equador would have been cut down also
instead of having the chance and hearing the Gospel and becoming children of
God in Christ as they now are. Many of
the elect through the ages would be writhing in the flames of hell if God
judged sinners immediately. Better to
never be born than to be born into a sinful world where God stands impatient
and ready to send judgment on every occasion of sin.
Jesus
said that God will avenge them speedily‑that is as fast as His infinite
wisdom and mercy will allow. For that
day God delayed until 70 A. D. before His wrath fell on the nation of Israel
for its unbelief. Rome martyred and
persecuted the saints even longer before it fell, and many nations since have
persecuted believers, and God has not
answered the prayers for help immediately.
He delays because He operates also with eternities values in view. His elect are already saved, and if they are
killed they lose only a few years of temporal life, but if their oppressors are
killed they lose eternity. The judge
delayed because he did not care, but God delays because He does care.
Persistence in prayer means that when God does not answer as we think He
should, we seek to find a way of praying more consistent with His will. George Washington Carver told of how he
prayed for God to show him the meaning of the universe, and God gave him the
feeling that he was asking for things too great for his mind. So he changed his prayer and asked God to
show him the meaning of the peanut so he could use it for good. God heard that prayer and enabled him to
discover many useful products for the peanut.
Persistence means that you never give up, but keep approaching God from
a new angle when a certain prayer is not answered.
Praying
is like any other area of life. If we
do not persist in it, we will fail. If
you only played tennis, or any sport, when you were great at it, and gave up
when you did poorly, you would soon give up all sports. If you quit playing any instrument because
you made mistakes, you would soon be through with all music. If you quit communicating with you children
because they did not hear, or misunderstood you, you would soon be reduced to
permanent silence. We fail in prayer as
we do in every other area of life, and we are often frustrated, but Jesus says
that we are to never give up, but keep trying and keep learning. Persistence will make you a winner in the
long run.
It was
a cold February morning when a snail started up the trunk of a cherry
tree. As he inched his way painfully
upward a wise guy beetle stuck his head out of a crack and said, "Hey buddy,
your wasting your strength. There ain't
no cherries up there." The snail
replied in confidence, "There will be when I get there." Persistence is a necessary ingredient in our
relationship to God, both because of our slowness to get where we need to be,
and because God has a respect for the freedom he has given to man. He will knock at the door, but He won't
break it down. Our prayers are often a
request that He break it down, and that is why they are not answered.
Jesus
is saying to His disciples that they should never stop praying for God to
act. They should persist in prayer and
never give up, for He will certainly answer in His good time, and according to
His will, and judgment will come, but they ought not to let the delay lead to
discouragement. If a widow persists
with a man who has no concern and eventually gets her answer, how much more can
we persist with God who cares more than we can measure? Prayer will yet be the victorious
weapon. Next we see that He asks‑
III. A
CHALLENGING QUESTION v. 8.
Jesus
is saying that the question is really not, will God triumph; will He finally do
justice and answer the prayer of His people, but will His people persist in
prayer believing this? When that day
comes for His return to judge and be glorified in the saints, will there be any
who have endured to the end faithful and confident in God's plan? Or will men be defeated by the delays of
God, and give up in despair concluding that prayer is useless? Jesus implies here that it will be sometimes
before He returns, and the test will be great for many. It will be likely that many will lose faith
in prayer and cease to pray.
Ungodliness will thrive, and injustice will fill the earth, and only
those with unshakable faith will persist in prayer believing that God will yet
answer.
Jesus
does not answer the question because it is a question that only each disciple
can answer for themselves. What about
you? Can you answer and say, yes Lord,
there will be faith on earth when you come, for I believe? Injustice may be all around me, and the evils of life overwhelm me, but
with Job I will say, "Though He slay me yet will I trust Him." Can you say, "I am not so foolish Lord
that I think the only hope in a sinking ship is to throw my life preserver
away. I will persist in prayer and
labor in patience knowing that however long the delay your justice will
triumph."