PRAYER

Ephesians 3:14—21
"For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."

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Philippians 1:3-11
"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace.
For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ.
And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ."

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John 14:12-14
"Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also, and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.
And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it."

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Jeremiah 33:3
"Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know."

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Romans 8:26-27
"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.

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And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will."

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Matthew 7:7
"Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."

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John 16:24
"Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete."

We have laid the foundation for our lesson today on the subject of prayer by quoting two of the prayers of the Apostle Paul and other verses scattered throughout our Bible.
God's Word is a record of prayer—of praying men and women and their achievements, of the divine warrant of prayer and of the encouragement given to those who pray.
No one can read the instances, commands, examples, multiform statements which concern themselves with prayer without realizing that the cause of God, and the success of His work in this world, is committed to prayer; that praying men and woman have been God's vicegerents on earth; that prayerless men and women have never been used by Him.
That "men ought always to pray and not to faint," is as fundamental to God's cause today as when Jesus Christ enshrined that great truth in the immortal settings of the Parable of the Importunate Widow.
As God's House is called "the house of prayer" because prayer is the most important of its holy offices, so by the same token the Bible may be called the Book of Prayer. Prayer is the great theme and content of its message to mankind!
God's Word is the basis, as it is the directory of the prayer of faith. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom" says Paul, "teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord" (Colossians 3:16).
As this Word of Christ dwelling in us richly is transmuted and assimilated, it issues in praying. Faith is constructed of the Word and the Spirit, and faith is the body and substance of prayer.
"If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you" (John 15:7). The Word of God is the food by which prayer is nourished and made strong. Prayer, like man, cannot live by bread alone, "but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord."
The absence of vital force in praying can be traced to the absence of a constant supply of God's Word...for He who would learn to pray well must first study God's Word and store it in his memory and thought.
When we consult God's Word, we find that no duty is more binding, than that of prayer.

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What is prayer? Prayer is our need crying out for help...it is the voice of faith to the Father. Prayer is the Living Word in lips of faith. Prayer is the channel through which all good flows from God to man, and all good from men to men. Prayer is a privilege, a sacred, princely privilege. It is a duty, an obligation most binding, and most imperative, which should hold us to it. But prayer is more than a privilege, more than a duty. It is a means, an instrument, a condition of getting God's aid. It is the avenue through which God supplies man's wants.
The essence of true prayer is heartfelt supplication, bringing before God one's innermost needs and requests in the confident expectation that God will hear and answer.
In the Old Testament this kind of prayer is described as the outpouring of the soul and crying to God out of the depths. In the words of the psalmist: "I pour out my complaint before Him, I tell my trouble before Him" (Psalm 142:2). And again: "O Lord, my God, I call for help by day, I cry out in the night before Thee. Let my prayer come before Thee, incline Thy ear to my cry" (Psalm 88:1, 2). Another spiritual writer advises, "Arise, cry out in the night...Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord!" (Lamentations 2:19). This same note is discernable in the book of Jonah: "In my distress, O Lord, I called to You, and You answered me. From deep in the world of the dead I cried for help, and You heard me" (Jonah 2:2 GNB) The association, of prayer and the experience of despair is also noticeable in Isaiah: "O Lord, in my distress they sought Thee, they poured out a prayer when Thy chastening was upon them" (Isaiah 26:16).
Turning to the New Testament, we again see the emphasis on heartfelt supplication. Jesus told His disciples: "Ask and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened" (Matthew 7:7, 8).
In His own prayer life Jesus "offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears" (Hebrews 5:7). Paul urged the Philippians: "Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God" (Philippians 4:6).
E. M. Bounds wrote much concerning the subject of prayer. He says: "God shapes the world by prayer. Prayers are deathless. The lips that uttered them may be closed in death, the heart that felt them may have ceased to beat, but the prayers live before God, and God's heart is set on them and prayers outlive the lives of those who uttered them; outlive a generation, outlive an age, outlive a world!"
The Westminster Shorter Confession gives this definition for prayer: "Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of His mercies."
And John writes: "And this is the confidence (the assurance, the privilege of boldness) which we have

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in Him: [we are sure] that if we ask anything (make any request) according to His will (in agreement with His own plan), He listens to and hears us.
And if (since) we [positively] know that He listens to us in whatever we ask, we also know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that we have [granted to us as our present possessions] the requests made of Him" (1 John 5:14-15).
Besides petition there are other elements in true prayer such as adoration, thanksgiving and confession.
"Let all the joys of the godly well up in praise to the Lord, for it right to praise Him" (Psalm 33:1). We should be reminded that prayer is not just a means of getting things from God, but is the means whereby we may come to know God. Prayer, in its primary essence, is worship. Worship is the recognition of worth, the fitting of God into the overall picture of our lives in His proper perspective. The very act of prayer, whether we kneel, sit, lie on our faces, or stand, is an affirmation of the worthiness of God. By prayer, we enter into God's holy temple, and penetrate at once to the throne of grace. Prayer is not only the shortest distance to God's mighty throne, it is the only way in. "Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful" (Hebrews 10:19-24).
To think that this supreme wonder could take place so suddenly with one bold, blood-bought step! Glorious discovery: He is only a prayer away. The veil of sense and space that hides Him within His temple-universe is suddenly removed as we pray. We enter silently into His temple, and lo, suddenly we are before His throne.
There too, we are suddenly in the presence of angels and archangels, and with all the company of Heaven we worship and adore Him. Only there do we discover the wonder of worship, that worship is before work, and that all His works are done in the spirit of worship.
There are many churchgoers, but few worshipers, because there are few "pray-ers."
Prayer, praise and thanksgiving all go in company. A close relationship exists between them. Praise and thanksgiving are so near alike that it is not easy to distinguish between them or define them separately. Many are the causes for thanksgiving and praise. The Psalms are filled with many songs of praise and hymns of thanksgiving, all pointing back to the results of prayer. Thanksgiving includes gratitude. In fact thanksgiving is but the expression of an inward conscious gratitude to God for mercies received. Gratitude is an inward emotion of the soul, involuntarily arising therein, while thanksgiving is the voluntary expression of gratitude.

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Love is the child of gratitude. Love grows as gratitude is felt, and then breaks out into praise and thanksgiving to God: "I Love the Lord because He hath heard my voice and my supplication." "Because He hath inclined His ear unto me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live."
Gratitude and thanksgiving always looks back at the past though it may also take in the present. But prayer always looks to the future. Thanksgiving deals with things already received. Prayer deals with things desired, asked for, and expected. Prayer turns to gratitude and praise when the things asked for have been granted by God.
At the height of prayer and also at the beginning our attention should be focused on the great and glorious thing God has done for us in Jesus Christ. We should also gratefully acknowledge the goodness of God in creation and His loving, providential care. Adoration is inseparable from thanksgiving and indeed immediately erupts into thanksgiving.
The prayer of confession is even more indissolubly tied to petition than are praise and adoration. When we confess our sins, we ask the Lord to hear our confession and to grant us His forgiveness. In Isaiah 6, prayer begins with an invocation followed by a confession of sins and culminates in an act of dedication. In true prayer we go out of ourselves in praise to God. But we also go into ourselves in revealing our deepest needs and desires to God. Our deepest need is always for His grace and forgiveness.
Just as the soul of confession is heartfelt petition, so the whole life of prayer gains power and direction when anchored in confession. Until known sin is judged and renounced, we pray and plead in vain.
In all Christian prayer the overriding motivation is to glorify God and to discover His will for our lives.
We glorify God by seeking to know His will, by beseeching Him to disclose His will to us. We also glorify God when we seek His aid in order to accomplish His will.
Prayer is not simply petition, but strenuous petition. It is not just passive surrender but active pleading with God. It consists not merely in reflection on the promises of God but in taking hold of these promises. Prayer is reciprocal: it has a definite impact on both the parties involved. That God permits prayer to exert an influence on Him is attested throughout the Scripture. God sent Jonah to warn the city of Nineveh of His impending judgment, but when the people of Nineveh repented of their sins and hoped for God's mercy, the hand of God's wrath was stayed. When God threatened to destroy the people of Israel because of their gross idolatry, Moses interceded on their behalf and thereby turned away God's fierce anger. The people of Israel provoked the Lord again because of their idolatry, and a plague was sent upon them. But Phinehas "stood up and interposed, and the plague was stayed" (Psalm 106:30). Later, when God prepared a judgment of fire for the people of Israel, Amos

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interceded, and we read that "the Lord repented" of His decision to punish His chosen people (Amos 7:1-6). In this light we can understand Spurgeon's contention that "prayer is able to prevail with Heaven and bend omnipotence to its desires."
Real prayer presupposes a living God who hears and acts: "He is not deaf, He listens, more than that, He acts. He does not act in the same way whether we pray or not. Prayer exerts an influence upon God's actions, even upon His existence. This is what the word "answer" means. Christian faith, to be sure, affirms the essential trustworthiness of God's declared will and purpose for the world: God cannot deny or contradict Himself. Yet Scripture makes clear that God has chosen to work out His purposes in cooperation with His children. His ultimate will is inflexible, but the ways by which He seeks to implement this will are flexible. He does not change His final purpose, but He does alter His methods for realizing this purpose. He is unchangeable in His holiness and righteousness but changeable in the giving of His grace. Prayer cannot change God's purpose, but prayer can release it. Prayer is a mighty instrument, not for getting man's will done in heaven, but for getting God's will done on earth.
The most authentic type of prayer is humble supplication, the pouring out of the heart before God. Such prayer reveals our absolute dependence on God, our total helplessness apart from God. It also attests the incontrovertible fact that only those who actively seek help from the living God, only those who cast themselves on His mercy, can be used by God as instruments of His redemptive will and purpose.
Christian prayer is characterized not only by striving but by persistent striving. In Jeremiah we read, "You will seek Me, and you will find Me because you will seek Me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13). Paul urged his hearers to "persevere in prayer, with mind awake and thankful heart" (Colossians 4:2). He described one of the disciples as "labouring fervently" in prayer (Colossians 4:12). The literal rendering of this is "struggling on behalf of you in prayers" (Colossians 2:1). The prayer of faith is importunate, agonizing prayer. Importunity is the hallmark of realistic communication between God and man: "Lose the importunity of prayer, reduce it to soliloquy, or even colloquy, with God, lose the real conflict of will and will, lose the habit of wrestling and the hope of prevailing with God, make it mere walking with God in friendly talk; and, precious as that is, yet you tend to lose the reality of prayer at last." (Forsyth).
Sometimes the prayer of faith involves defiance of God bordering on presumption. Moses complained, 'O Lord, why hast Thou done evil to this people? Why didst Thou even send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Thy name, he has done evil to this people, and Thou hast not delivered Thy people at all" (Exodus 5:22, 23). Even more presumptuous is this plea of the psalmist: "O God, don't sit idly by, silent and inactive when we pray. Answer us! Deliver us! (Psalm 83:1).

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A similar note is discernable in Psalm 44:23-26: "Rouse thyself! Why sleepest Thou, O Lord? Awake! Do not cast us off for ever! Why dost Thou hide Thy face? Why doest Thou forget our affliction and oppression? For our soul is bowed down to the dust; our body cleaves to the ground. Rise up, come to our help!"
Boldness and presumption are especially noticeable in the prayer life of Martin Luther. In 1540 Luther received word that his good friend, Frederick Myconius, had become fatally ill and had not much time left to live. Luther wrote to him: "I command thee in the name of God to live because I still have need of thee in the work of reforming the church...The Lord will never let me hear that thou art dead, but will permit thee to survive me. For this I am praying, this is my will, and may my will be done, because I seek only to glorify the name of the Lord." This story tells us that it is permissible to become bold and presumptuous in prayer when one has the proper motivation to advance the kingdom of God to His greater glory.
Besides simple petition and the prayer of preservation, supplication can take the form of intercession. The prophets and kings of Israel frequently pleaded for their people before God. Paul urged the Ephesians to pray for the whole household of God. In 1 Timothy Christians were enjoined to make intercession for all people, including kings and emperors. Polycarp declared, "We pray for all saints; for kings and rulers, for our persecutors and for enemies of the Cross."
The power of prayer is nowhere more clearly manifest than in the intercession of the faithful. Through the prayers of the church, people are healed, lives are transformed, nations are changed!
For Calvin, supplication is opening up the treasures that God has stored for us in heaven. These include not only personal blessings but blessings for others as well. Indeed, no treasure is greater than souls for the kingdom of God. Calvin firmly believed that through the intercession of the faithful the kingdom of God could be advanced in the world and the powers of darkness overthrown.
Our prayers are effectual if we really want what we ask for and believe that God can and will give it to us. Our Lord assured us, "Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will" (Mark 11:24).
True prayer is offered in the certainty that it will be heard. Once we have asked, we should then live as if we had received. Only prayers made in the assurance of faith and hope will carry the power of the Holy Spirit. Calvin declared: "If we would pray fruitfully we ought...to grasp with both hands this assurance of obtaining what we ask, which the Lord enjoins with His own voice, and all the saints teach by their example. For only that prayer is acceptable to God which is born...out of such presumption of faith, and is grounded in unshaken assurance of hope."
Once we have prayed the prayer of faith, we must be willing to do what the prayer would require of us if answered. We must count the cost before urging God

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to bring about changes in our lives or in the lives of others. Not only must we be willing to act if our prayer is answered, we must seek to bring about the answer even as we pray. We should not only make known to God the desires of our heart, but we should put legs under our prayers. We must pray as if everything depended on God, but we must work as if everything depended on ourselves! In prayer, we tempt God, if we ask that which we labor not for. Our endeavor must second our devotion.
The efficacy of our prayers is tied to the discretion of God. He will answer the prayers of the faithful, but He will answer in His own way and in His own time. God may also answer with a refusal. He will not reject our prayer, but He may well reject the way we wish our prayer to be answered. We must not insist on our solution after it becomes clear that God chooses to impose another solution. There is a time to resist and there is a time to submit. God may delay His answer in order to secure our humble dependence on Him. We need to wait for the right time, which is known only to Him.
It is well to recognize that there will always be a tension and sometimes a contradiction between our desires and God's will. The reason is that sin still darkens the minds even of believers, so that we do not always know or desire what is best for us. God is infinite, whereas we are finite; He is the Creator, we are only creatures. This immeasurable gulf between God and man is vividly portrayed by the prophet Isaiah: "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9).
The paradox of prayer that is not answered according to human expectation but that is fulfilled in the perspective of eternity is admirably set forth in the following poem:
He asked for strength that he might achieve; he was made weak that he might obey.
He asked for health that he might do greater things; he was given infirmity that he might do better things.
He asked for riches that he might be happy; he was given poverty that he might be wise.
He asked for power that he might have the praise of men; he was given weakness that he might feel the need of God.
He asked for all things that he might enjoy life; he was given life that he might enjoy all things.
He has received nothing that he asked for, all that he hoped for. His prayer was answered!
Those who pray from the heart often go through much agony in their prayer, but they are never left in agony. The reward for praying in the Spirit is the peace that passes all understanding, the interior calm that external circumstances cannot effect. By prayer we cast our cares upon God, that we may have peaceful and tranquil minds. Interior peace should not be the ultimate goal of our prayers, but it is the inevitable fruit!