God wants us to persist in prayer. Anything in life that is
worth something cost some effort to obtain. We don’t just find the diamonds as we’re walking along the beach or in the woods. They are usually some place
deeper that requires some digging. We don’t find gold just laying along side
the road. No, we've got do some mining. We’ve got to get to work to find it. So it is
with answers to our prayers. We need to work for those answers. We need to be
persistent with God like Jesus showed in the story of the unjust judge.
Where the woman had to persist and the judge said, “This woman is going to wear
me out if I don’t give her what she requests.”
In the parable the Lord is trying to teach us the importance
of persistence. It is not that God does not want to give us those things they
we desire. He even says that He will give us those things that we desire. But
in the process He wants to teach us some important lessons. He wants to get us
in shape spiritually. Just like with an athelete who has to do his training and
training and training. And then, after much travail he gets what he desires and
wins the race. So it is with us and our answers to prayer. Apostle James tells
us “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”
Elijah prayed for rain and told King Ahab that rain was
coming.
Then Elijah sent his servent to look out toward the sea and see if he could see
the storm in the sky. Each time the servant came back he said, “There’s nothing
there, nothing, not a cloud in the sky.” So Elijah sent him back, one time, two
times, three times, four times, five times, six times, seven times. The seventh
time the servant came back and said, ”Well, I’ve just seen a little bit of a
cloud out there. It’s not hardly anything.” Elijah got up and said, “Go, let’s
get out of here. There’s going to be a storm soon. Let’s go.” And he went
running and he met Ahab on the way back to Jezreel. So we need to be
persistent, persistent in prayer.
Abraham was persistent. He had his nephew Lot down there in Sodom
with his family. God told Abraham that He was going to go down to Sodom
to see if it was really as bad as the reports He was getting. And if it was, He
was going to destroy it. And Abraham pleads with the Lord and says, “Lord, will
you destroy the just with the unjust? What is there are fifty righteous men in
the city, will you destroy it for fifty?” And the Lord responds, “If there are
fifty, I will not destroy it.” And so Abraham persists, “But Lord, what if
there were only five missing, would you destroy if there were forty-five
righteous found in the city?” And the Lord responds, “I will not destroy it for
forty-five righteous men.”
Abraham persists again, and again with God until he finally
gets down to ten. And Abraham says, “Lord, what if it’s just ten, would you
destroy it for ten?” And the Lord says, “If there are ten righteous men there
in Sodom, I will not destroy it for the ten’s sake.” But we know the end of the story.
God did destroy Sodom because there weren’t ten righteous men found. But Lot,
Abraham’s nephew, escaped the city with his wife and his two younger daughters
through the help of two angels. Lot escapes though his descendents don’t turn
out to be very righteous and usually a problem to the descendents of Abraham.
Nevertheless, they were family and Abraham felt compelled
to intercede for them and ask God to be
merciful and save them. Even if they had fallen away from really following the
Lord. So we see that Abraham was persistent.
The Bible is full of examples of perservering in prayer.
Daniel prayed for three weeks with only eating basic food.
[5] But there were spiritual forces fighting against him receiving the answers for
prayer he was desiring. There was a spirital battle taking place. He needed to
be persistent or we may not have gotten some of those prophecies for the
“latter days.” King
David wrote many beautiful Psalms where he pleaded for God to save him from his
enemies. In the question of his sin in the death of Uriah and the adultery with
Bathsheba, David’s child fell sick unto death. David fasted and prayed for
seven days pleading for the life of the child. On the seventh day the child
died. David accepted God’s will and went and worshipped before the Lord. David
was persistent in prayer, even when it seemed like God didn’t incline His ear unto his prayer.
Hannah, the mother of Samuel was persistent in prayer when
she had no child. God answered her persistence and as a result Samuel the
prophet was born and went on to serve the Lord and lead Israel and annoint the
first two kings. The whole book of Ruth is a story of persistence. When Naomi
gives leave of Ruth and tells her she can return unto her family now that
Ruth’s husband, Naomi’s son, has died. Ruth persists with Naomi and God and
says, “Entreat me not to leave you, or to return from following after you: for
whither you go, I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge: your people shall
be my people, and your God my God.”
In the end God greatly rewards Ruth for her perserverence.
We need to perservere in prayer for our sons and daughters.
We need to perservere in prayer for our friends and families and for loved ones
and neighbours, and for our government officials. We need to perservere in
prayer.
Another example is the parable of the man who receives a travelling
friend into his home at midnight.
[9]He doesn’t have any food to give his unexpected friend who arrives so late. So
he goes to another friend who lives near him and says, “Hey, wake up! I need
some food. A friend of mine has come and I have nothing to give him. Do you
have something that you can lend me?” And his friend reponds, “Hey, I’m already
in bed. It’s too late. Come back tomorrow.” But the other fellow cries out,
“No, no, I need it now. My friend is leaving early in the morning. He’s just here
tonight and I need to give him some food, but I wasn’t expecting him. Get up,
please.” His friend, even though he was a friend, doesn't want to get up, but
because he persists, his friend gets up and gives him all that he needs.
That’s how we need to be with God. we need to persist and
pray and pray again, and pray again. And pray seven times if need be. Maybe we
even need to pray 49 times like when Peter asked the Lord how many times we
should forgive our brother, “Seven times?”
and Jesus responded, “No, seven times seventy.” Seven times seventy is
four-hundred and ninety. Jesus didn’t really mean literally four-hundred and
ninety times, but He meant we need to forgive over and over and over again.
It’s the same thing with prayer. We need to pray over and over and over again.
We need to be persistent in prayer with the expectation that God is going to
answer, that God is going to hear, and answer.
Some people say, “Oh, you just need to pray once. If you
pray too many times it shows lack of faith.” I’m not sure that is always the
case. Maybe in some situations it is. But I don’t think it’s always the case. I
think God has given us these examples of perserverence and we need to
perservere in prayer with God to get the answers. Often it’s not because God
doesn’t hear us, or because God doesn’t want to answer our prayers. It’s
because God wants to work in our life. He’s waiting for the conditions to be
right in our heart, or in the heart of our loved one to be right. He’s waiting
on answering our prayer so that when He does answer the answer will bring forth
His desired results.
Just like with the athelete, God wants to get us in shape
spiritually. Maybe we have some sin in our life, or some problem, or rebellion,
or bad habit or vice, and He’s working on us. Because we know, “I can’t really
be asking God for what I’m asking, if I have all this garbadge in my life. I’ve got to get myself in shape and then I know that God’s going to hear." And
that may be why a lot of times we have to perservere. Not because God doesn’t
hear us. He hears us right away, even before we call, He hears us. But for our
own sake, or for the sake of the one we are praying for, or to help us to do
some introspection and evaluation of our own spiritual life and then clean up
our own spiritual act. Maybe that’s why He doesn’t answer right away.
God gives the Holy Spirit to them that obey Him. So we need
that obedience so that when we pray we have the confidence that God will hear
and answer our prayers. Jesus said, “If a man love me, he will keep My words:
and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with
him.”
And Apostle John wrote, “And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that,
if we ask any thing according to His will, He hears us: and if we know that He
hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired
of Him.”
He also
wrote, “For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knows
all things.”
We
shouldn’t have any condemnation, but we might because of sin, So we can ask God
for forgiveness and we can pray because God is bigger than our sin and bigger
than our problems. As we draw nigh to God, He will draw nigh to us. Apostle
John continues, “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence
toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His
commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.”
Prayer is a very interesting process. The need for us to
pray is largely for our own benefit and for the benefit of others. God wants to
use us to benefit others. Our whole prayer life should be more intercessory
prayer than anything else. We should be praying for others. We should be
praying for the needs of others. Praying that we can fulfill and meet the needs
of others, that God will meet the needs of those we are in contact with. That
He will bend down and touch and heal and speak to them and help our friends and
loved ones. The work of a Christian is intercessory prayer. We are to be ministers
of prayer, a minister of intercessory prayer. Praying without ceasing.
Seeing a need and praying that God will reach down and fill that need. Even if
we can do nothing else. Praying without ceasing for every situation we come
across. Remembering that pray is not the least we can do, but the most. It’s
the most important because it gives God a chance to work.
Jesus, we thank you for all our blessings. Thank you for
this crisis which is taking place in the world, so that we can relearn these
important lessons. When everything is just going along honky-dory, when it
doesn’t seem that anything major is happening, then our faith kind of slumbers
down and we get lazy and fat and we need something to stir us up. We certainly
have something now that has stirred us up, and awakened us from our spiritual
slumber. Now we can pray.
We call upon your power, Lord, and we rebuke the spiritual
forces of the enemy. In Ephesians we read that “we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of
the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in hign places.”
We rebuke those spiritual forces, those demonic forces in high places, in the
high places of government, Lord. We ask that You raise up disciples. Raise up men of God. Raise up women of God. Raise up leaders with convictions who will stand for the truth, who will
not speak lies, who will not compromisse their convictions. Raise them up,
Lord. That’s what we need. Men and women of God on the family level, on
local level, on the state level, on the national level, and on the
international level.
Lord, raise them up. Jesus, raise them up. Raise up
people in entertainment, in business, in politics, in religion that really are
willing to speak the truth without reservations, without fear of their job, or
fear for their family, or any other fear, because they have a greater fear. They
have a fear of disobeying you, Jesus. This is our prayer, Lord. Help each of
us. Give us the strong confidence that comes from the fear of the Lord.
“The fear of the Lord is a strong confidence, and his children shall have a
place of refuge.”
Give us that fear of You, Lord, so that we will want to just obey You and want
to just be Your instruments, want to speak Your words, want to lift You up and
be submitted
in all that You ask us to
do. This is what we ask, Lord. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.
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