You have asked for it, and today we are honoring your requests for a program of Helps for Praying People. So call Mom and Dad and all the children and let us see what we can learn about praying together.
My heartfelt greetings to you, friend. Welcome to our Bible study In Search of the Lord's Way of salvation and the best life mankind has ever known. I am glad you have joined us and I pray we will both be blessed by our study of God's word together. Your mail is appreciated, too. It is encouraging to all who work in this ministry to know that you are receiving the messages and are blessed in some way with what we are saying and doing. And it is from your mail that we determine some of our future lessons. We are not a question and answer kind of program, but when we have a number of people asking for help on the same problem or question, it is obvious that a study of that topic would be timely and helpful, isn’t it? And we do it. Today's message about "praying" is for that very reason.
Many of you ask for our prayers. And we seek your prayerful interest in this ministry. Christians interceding in prayer for other people is one of the greatest of all spiritual blessings that we enjoy in Christ. The apostle Paul wrote Timothy, his "son in the gospel," saying, "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, giving of thanks, be made for all men" (1 Timothy 2:1). He also asked other people to pray for him. In both his letters to the Christians in Thessalonica he wrote, "Brethren, pray for us." That is in his first letter, chapter 5, verse 25. And in his second letter, chapter 3, verse 1 he wrote, "Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you." Well, we are giving today's program the title, Helps for Praying People.
If you think you would like a free printed copy, or a free CD or audio cassette tape of it, simply mail your request to In Search of the Lord's Way P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Or, our e-mail address is searchtv@aol.com. Or, if you prefer, you may use our toll-free telephone number (1-800-321-8633). You may even prefer to visit our website which is searchtv.org and read, or hear, or even see the program again at your convenience. Now, after Ken Helterbrand leads us in a hymn, I will be back for Bible reading and prayer.
As we said we are reading from Matthew chapter 7, verses 7 through 11. And beginning at verse 7, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” Now let us go to Him in prayer. Holy Father, we want to first thank You for the promise that you have made us in this passage through your Son, Jesus Christ. Many people read the Bible and see only the commandments and the restrictions and the rules for living, and they are turned off by them. But here is a promise that is so great that it makes all the obedience to your commands worthwhile. Help us to discern the good in it as we study our lesson today. In Jesus’ lovely name we pray, Amen.
The passage we read a moment ago is one of my personal favorites in all the Bible. What a precious promise it is, and it is directly from the Savior, too. "Ask," He said, "and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you." Oh, He made other promises very similar to that, too. In Matthew 21:22 for example, after He had demonstrated His divine power by withering the fig tree, He said, "And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing; you will receive."
The Holy Spirit also made similar promises in other Scriptures, too. For example, He said in James 5:16, "Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed. The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." And in 1 Peter 3:12 He said, "The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil." One more; it is in 1 John 3:22: "And whatever we ask we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight."
In spite of all these and other precious promises of God to hear and answer our prayers, there are people who find praying a disappointment. I would probably be safe in saying that most people do that at times. They are heard to say their prayers seem to be to no avail. God seems so very far away and He doesn't seem to hear them. So, like the apostle Paul, they ask for others to intercede for them. And that is all right, but we also want to learn to pray an effective prayer ourselves, don't we? I know I do. We want to know the joy of having God hear us. Let us see if we can learn that together.
In the first place, we must believe that God is never very far away and He is especially attentive when one of us is praying. Now, that is the reason we address our prayers to Him and not to Mary-- and not to some "saint." Secondly: Before we pray anything, it is "Our Father who art in heaven" (Matthew 6 and 9) or something to its equivalent-- not to get His attention, but to focus our attention strictly and exclusively on Him.
In his powerful sermon about God, who was unknown among the Athenians, the apostle Paul said, "...He is not far from every one of us: For in Him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17, verses 27-28). And in his farewell, the apostle said of himself, "At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me..." (2 Timothy 4:16-17). God has promised, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5). So, my friend, God is present when you pray; He is near; and He is listening.
The Psalmist prayed in the 139th Psalm: "Oh Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me: it is high, I cannot attain to it." And that is through verse 6; notice now what he says beginning in verse 7: "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend up into heaven (oh, could he be talking about our modern aircraft or space ships?) You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, or the grave, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea (maybe some modern submarine?), even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall fall on me. Even the night shall be light about me; indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You. But the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You." What a prayer that David prayed! (Psalm 139, verses 1 to 12). Does that sound like God is a God far away and not a God at hand?
In all those promises that God hears and answers prayers that we read awhile ago, you may have noticed that with the commitment to hear, there were also conditions for hearing. They are not to be taken as unconditional guarantees of getting what you ask for in prayers.
Let us go back to our text today: Matthew 7:7, where Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." What He is actually saying, friend is this: "Keep on asking, and it will be given to you; keep on seeking, and you will find; keep on knocking, and it will be opened to you." In other words, persistence pays. Don't quit asking. Don't quit knocking. In the shadows of Gethsemane the night before our Lord was crucified He prayed three times, "saying the same words," Matthew tells us in chapter 26, verse 44. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 17 says, "Pray without ceasing". Pray persistently-- don't stop praying!
So, the fourth thing we learn about asking is we need to be seeking and knocking, too. Our failure to seek and to knock could be the reason we are not receiving a response to our prayers. Number five: Another of those verses that we mentioned earlier in Matthew 21:22 in which Jesus said, "Whatever things you ask, believing, you will receive." Nothing is accomplished in praying with a doubtful or skeptical heart, my friend. I am reminded of the woman that attended a class I was teaching on this subject many years ago who said, "I'm praying that my husband will be saved, but I don't suppose he ever will." And as far as I know he never was. It is no wonder, is it? The Holy Spirit says in James 1:5 through 8, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. Let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." So, my friend, keep on asking-- keep on believing that it will come to pass-- and it will if it meets the other conditions, too, and it is the will of God for you.
Then there is that group of Bible passages that emphasize that prayers nowadays must be addressed to God in the name of Jesus. John 15:16 says: "...whatever you ask the Father in my name, (Jesus speaking) He may give it you." You see, it is only in Jesus Christ and through Him that humanity, even though redeemed, has access to the Heavenly Father. First Timothy 2, verses 5 and 6 says, "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, (who is that?) the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." Well, that shouldn't be "just a good way to end our prayer." It shouldn't be one of those "vain repetitions" of which Jesus spoke in Matthew chapter 6, verse 7. Colossians 3:17 also says, "Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." When we pray in the name of Christ, we plead not our own excellence or worth or merits but His.
Then, in 1 John chapter 3, verse 22 the apostle of love gives us the seventh help that we have for praying: "And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight." Many people in our day simply rebel at the idea of commandment keeping. They are totally "turned off" just by the mention of it. They are just not "into" that, they tell us. Their faith and religion is a selfish one. It is a "gimme," do-nothing faith that is focused on themselves and what they like and what they want. And, "Lord, You just shovel it out! Give us what we want. That is your part, Lord!" And they need not think they will receive what they ask in prayer.
But, John says, "Whatever we ask, we receive of him, because, first of all, we keep his commandments," and a bit more-- we "do those things that are pleasing in his sight." God knows the person who is trying to do the things that please Him, and not themselves. And for them He is disposed to grant their prayers and petitions. Maybe that is the reason some of our prayers are unanswered-- we are turned off by the thought of keeping God's teachings. Prayer is never offered in the Bible as a substitute for commandments of God and keeping them.
And, you remember the passage from Peter (1 Peter chapter 3, verse 12); it says, "The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, his ears are open to their prayers..." That is a precious promise. People who perceive of God in His faraway heaven disinterested in the lives of His creatures here below need to consider this passage. His eyes are open to the righteous. His ears are open to their prayers. And James says, "The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man, avails much." Then Peter continues, "But the face of the Lord is against them that do evil." King David said, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me" (Psalm 66:18). I don't know about your individual case, but many people's prayers are not answered because they harbor some sin in their lives. So, "Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." Let me speak first to the idea that "the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” Oh, it does, my friend. And we are not talking about merely "saying our prayers;" it is the fervent prayer, we are talking about and when it is offered by a person living by the will of God, it avails "much." Now, it doesn't always avail what the petitioner hopes it will or thinks it should. And a good example of that is in the verse itself.
Well, many people pray in expectation of a miraculous healing. And that verse isn't talking about that at all. The word "healed" in this verse is not a reference to physical healing at all. The context demands another interpretation of it altogether. Notice: "Confess your trespasses one to another." We are talking about what is amiss in our lives-- our sins. Confess or admit those to one another. “Admit,” He said, “and pray for one another, that you may be healed" meaning forgiven or saved from those faults or sins. Healing can be and is often used that way in the scriptures. Isaiah 53 is a good example. So, what I am saying is simply this: some people have expectations of their prayers which God never promised. And another thing, I have experienced in my own life, that sometimes later when I had given up on an answer to my prayer, I looked again, only to find it was answered all right, but in a way I wasn't expecting it. Therefore, I missed seeing and knowing that God had heard me and granted my prayer! Well, I hope these thoughts will help you to pray more effectively. Let us pray together now. Holy Father, we want to know how to communicate better with You. We are thankful for your teaching. Help us to apply these principles to our lives. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.
My friend, if you are not a child of God, how can you call upon Him as your "Father" who is in heaven? Why not become a child of God at once-- today if you are not already-- while you have the opportunity. Confess the name of Jesus in keeping with Romans 10:9 and 10. Repent of your sins. Acts 17:30-31 says that God commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world-- by Jesus Christ. God is going to judge the world? Yes, He is! He loves the world (John 3:16), but His holiness and His justice demand of Him that He Judge the world in righteousness, too. Then arise and be baptized and wash away your sins in the blood of the Lamb slain at Calvary, just as was told the chief of sinners in Acts chapter 22, verse 16. In Mark 16:16 Jesus said, "He who believes, and is baptized will be saved." Oh, I hope I hear from you this week that you have been baptized into Jesus and become a child of God.
And God, your Father, is never very far away. Remember His promise, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." You are invited and encouraged and exhorted to pray to Him always. The Bible doesn't teach us to pray to an angel or to a saint, not even to the Holy Spirit, but to God in the name of His Son Jesus Christ. Jeremiah 23:23 and 24 says, "Am I a God at hand, says the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him? says the Lord; Do I not fill heaven and earth, says the Lord?" Proverbs 15:3 says, "The eyes of the Lord are in every place."
For a free printed copy or audio cassette tape of today's program titled Helps for Praying People, address your request to In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Our e-mail address is searchtv@aol.com. And if you prefer to call, the call is free, too. The telephone number is 1-800-321-8633. We are seen on this station without any appeals for money because of some of your friends, all members of the church of Christ they are, here in this area; they want to share these messages with you. They would like you to worship with them, too. Oh, I hope you will-- today-- if you still have time. We plan to be back next week, join us then. God bless you. We love you. |