And it came to pass that as he
was praying, in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples
said unto him, Lord teach us to pray. As John also taught
his disciples. Now it was on the occasion of
our Lord praying, that this disciple asked, Lord, teach us. So let's think about this first.
What is it about his praying that would cause us to say, teach
us? I don't know if this disciple
heard the words that the Lord prayed, if he prayed out loud.
I don't know. Or if he just knew what the Lord
had been doing and had heard him pray. We know that they had
heard him pray out loud. He probably did hear. But we
do have the words of some of our Lord's prayers. And the disciples
heard them too. I'm sure he prayed at other times
that aren't recorded in the word that they heard. And so it was,
it's not an accident that he prayed. And then when he was
done, the disciples said, Lord, teach, teach me to do that. In Luke 10, 21, we just saw this
recently. It says in that hour, Jesus rejoiced
in spirit. And said, I thank thee, O Father,
Lord of heaven and earth. This is similar to the prayer
that our Lord is about to teach these disciples, isn't it? In
that it begins with addressing God as our Father. O Father,
and extolling Him, Lord of heaven and earth. I thank thee that thou hast hid
these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. I thank thee for your sovereign,
distinguishing grace. Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in thy sight. We could learn something from
that prayer, couldn't we? To see what the Lord has done.
To look even at what He's done in our lives and say, thank you,
Lord. You did what seemed good to you
and it is good. It is good. Well, we could learn
from that one, couldn't we? John 17, we won't read that whole
prayer. That's our Lord's high priestly
prayer before He went to Calvary. This is the high priest of God.
sending up the incense in the most holy place before the blood
is brought and splashed upon the mercy seat. In the beginning
of it, it says, these words spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes
to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy son
that thy son also may glorify thee as thou hast given him power
over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many
as thou hast given him. Now we can't pray in every aspect
the way that our Lord did. It says here that he lifted up
his eyes to heaven and prayed. I don't recommend that we do
that. The Son of God can do that. But when we pray, we bow. When
our Lord bore our sins in the garden, He bowed. He knelt. But here is our High
Priest as the Son of God, as our Savior, our mighty champion. He lifted up his eyes to heaven
and he prays things here obviously that don't pertain to us, but
the manner of his prayer we can still learn from. This is life
eternal that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus
Christ whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the
earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And
now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self. with the
Gloria, which I had with thee before the world was. The words
of our Lord's prayer inspire us here to ask, Lord, teach us
to pray. The frequency and the fervency
of our Lord's prayers inspire us to ask this question, make
this request, Lord, teach us to pray. It says in Luke 6, 12,
it came to pass in those days that he went out into a mountain
to pray and continued all night in prayer to God. In Luke 22, 39, he came out and
went as he was wont, as he was wont, that means as was his custom,
his habit, as he often did, to the Mount of Olives. and his
disciples also followed him and when he was at the place he said
unto them pray that you enter not into temptation and he was
withdrawn from them about a stone's cast and kneeled down and prayed
saying father if thou be willing remove this cup from me nevertheless
not my will but thine be done and there appeared an angel unto
him from heaven strengthening him and being in an agony he
prayed more earnestly and his sweat was as it were great drops
of blood falling down to the ground this is not only Lord teach us
how to pray but Lord teach us to pray teach us how vital teach
us what a blessing it is what an honor it is to be able to
come to the throne of God and make our requests known unto
the God of heaven and earth. Teach us to pray. How necessary
it is and how wonderful a privilege. Our Lord taught us by example,
by his own example, but he also taught us by bad example. He
taught us, he pointed out what the Pharisees did with regard
to prayer. What false religion of his day
and ours said and how they did it. And he said, don't be like
them. Isn't that good? That's good
teaching, isn't it? Don't do that. Matthew 6, 5, when thou
prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are. For they
love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners
of the streets. Why are they doing that? That
they may be seen of men. That they may be seen of men.
Verily I say unto you, they have their reward, and it ain't much.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet. And when
thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret.
And thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when you pray, use not vain
repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall
be heard for their much speaking. Religion is famous for this,
isn't it? Let's say our Hail Mary's. They repeat the same
things over and over and over again. The Lord said, don't do
that. Is that not a red flag to somebody
in that religion? When our Lord strictly forbids
it? And don't don't allow your prayers.
Of course, we want to say some of the same things But don't
memorize your prayers and have your prayer be exactly the same
every time it's got to come from the heart He said in the next thing he
said after that they shall be heard they think they'll be heard
for their much being Be not ye therefore like unto them So he
showed us what to be like and what not to be like with regard
to prayer And listen, he said this, keep
this in mind when you pray. Your father knoweth what things
you have need of before you ask him. You know, some are discouraged
by that. They say, well, I had somebody
actually tell me one time at work. You're going to think I'm
making this up. If I made it up, I wouldn't say
it from the pulpit. I'd say it, you know, when we
were out to dinner or something. He actually came up and said
to me, you know, I'm going to quit praying. Because the Bible
says that God already knows what you're going to pray before you
ever pray it. So I'm just going to quit praying. I said, did
you notice the Bible also says pray always? Did you catch that
part too while you were reading? I think I said it nicer than
that. I hope I did. But the idiocy. We need to understand
who God is if we're going to pray to him, don't we? He knows
what you're going to say before you say it. so what's the point of the repetition
you know that's what he's saying and so-called Christians you
know they get up in arms and they have you know they get together and
they have these marches and stuff they say we need to put prayer
back in the schools let's think about that for a second we need
to put prayer we need to put prayer back in the schools That just don't even sound right,
does it? You know why? Because it ain't right. There's
a whole lot wrong with that. First of all, let me ask a couple
of questions about that. How does that sit with what we
just read? Do you think that a true believer
might be able to pray in school if they wanted to, based on what
we just read? You reckon? Somebody that believes
in God, who's a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and knows that
God is sovereign and that everything we need, we're going to have
to get it from Him. If you wanted to pray in the
school, you reckon you could do that tomorrow? If you're in a
college or you're young people in school, you think you could
do that? Kind of sounds like it based on what we're learning
about prayer, doesn't it? You could pray if you wanted
to. Nobody would ever know you were doing it. Except God. That'd be enough, wouldn't it?
That'd be just fine. He said don't let anybody know
it but him anyway. Isn't that what he said? Nobody
needs to know it but your Father which is in heaven. Can you do
that in school? Tomorrow you could if you wanted
to. Nobody needs to put prayer back
in the school. Is that ridiculous? Remember
the beginning of our study in 1 Samuel when Hannah prayed?
Her heart was burdened before the Lord and it says that she
prayed. She poured out her heart to God. It says that she spake
in her heart, but her words couldn't be heard. And Eli misunderstood. He thought
she was drunk because she was standing there and her mouth
was moving. She said, I'm not drunk. I'm begging God. I'm begging God. But her voice was not heard.
Could you do that? Anywhere, anytime, anything. You can pray anything, anywhere,
anytime that your heart desires it. The only thing you probably couldn't
do in school without getting kicked out is praying out loud.
And our Lord said don't do that anyway. Don't do it to be seen
of men. So I don't see a whole lot of
a problem. But let me ask you another thing. If there was prayer
in schools, in the sense that they mean it, having some kind
of a daily prayer where somebody leads the prayer, who would lead
that prayer, you reckon? What God would they be praying
to, you think? Do you want your children being
led in prayer by somebody who doesn't know the God of the Bible?
These are self-evident questions, aren't they? So they just haven't
thought it through. Listen to what our Lord said
in Matthew 23, 14. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites,
for you devour widows' houses and for a pretense. For a pretense. That's what religion is all about.
For a pretense, you make long prayer. You know what the word
pretense means? Look it up. It means to put on
a show. That's what they want to do in
school. That's what they do in their churches. That's what they
do everywhere they go. They go to a restaurant and they
put on a show. It's an attempt to act religious
or holy or spiritual. And God forbids it. He forbids
it. In James 4.3 James said this
about prayer. He said you ask and you don't,
you're not going to get what you ask for. You receive not
because you ask amiss. That you may consume it upon
your own lusts. Think about what you're asking
for when you pray. What's the point of it? If it's
just because you want it? If it's just to make you, you
know, more comfortable or something? And there's nothing wrong with
praying certain things that are really not necessary. Don't think
that you have to just pray for necessary things, but if it's
vanity, you may consume it upon your
own lusts, if it has nothing to do with the glory of God.
God has a universe for his glory. Think about that when you pray.
Why does God have a universe? And we desire to be in on that,
don't we? Whatever glorifies Him. That
has to have something to do with our prayers. What will glorify
Him? And then in verse 2, we're just
going to look at the first four verses this morning. And He said
unto them, when you pray, say, Our Father. You see how often
He said that? Father. Oh, Father. My Father. And this sets the tone for the
whole prayer. And there are a couple of different aspects to that.
We know what a father is and what that authority that God
has established in the home represents. We know what that represents.
A father deserves respect. The father is the provider, is
he not? Ought to be. If you don't provide for your
family, are you a father or are you just calling yourself that?
He's the provider for the family. He's the protector. He deserves
the respect of the family. Children depend upon their fathers.
You see why we're to say, oh father, he is our father. He's our father in every way,
in the most true way. But also, don't forget this,
we say our father for another reason. We're to pray knowing
that we're praying to somebody who loves us more than we can
ever understand. Look at verses 11 through 13
in our text. We won't get there today, but
the Lord will in the next couple of weeks. Look at verse 11. If a son, and this is right here,
now this is right after he's told him how to pray. He said,
if a son asks bread of any of you that is a father, will he
give him a stone? Or if he asks a fish, Will he
for a fish give him a serpent or if he asks an egg will he
offer him a scorpion? If he asks for something that
he needs would you give him something harmful or something worthless? If you then being evil know how
to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall
your heavenly father That's what we have in mind, too. Now, respect,
certainly. Reverence. And an understanding
of our dependence upon Him. An understanding of the respect
and glory that He deserves for being all that He is to us. But
also, don't forget, He's our Father. How much more shall your Heavenly
Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? That ask Him. our father which
art in heaven which are in heaven here's the verse that I thought
of when I read that that one phrase art in heaven Ecclesiastes
5 to be not rash with thy mouth and let not thine heart be hasty
to utter anything before God for God is in heaven you see
how that applies that goes with our verse pretty well doesn't
it God is in heaven therefore Let thy words be select. Let
thy words be few, it says there. That doesn't mean necessarily.
Our Lord prayed all night. If you need to pray all night,
I don't see how there'd be anything wrong with that. But most of
the prayers in the scripture you'll find are quite brief.
Hannah's prayer wouldn't take more than just a minute maybe
to read it, to say it. Mary's prayer, It wouldn't take
long. Our father's high priestly prayer
in John 17, it wasn't long. Most of the prayers that we have
for examples are very brief. But he's saying, be careful what
you say before God. He is God. He is in the heavens.
And you're not. That's what it said. God is in
the heavens and you're on the earth. That's pretty clear I
think. And then he says this, hallowed
be thy name. hallowed. This is not only the
attitude of our prayer that we're to pray to one whose name is
hallowed, but it's our desire. It's something that we're praying
for too, isn't it? We want his name to be hallowed, hallowed
in this earth, revered. We want him to be counted as
holy. The word means separate from
profane things, separate from profane things. revered and respected. We desire
that. And by his grace we want to do
that. We want to regard him as holy and separate and high and
lifted up. And then he said that thy kingdom
come. Now this includes the return of the Lord Jesus Christ himself
to receive his own unto himself You could definitely say on that
occasion when the Lord comes back and sweeps us all out of
here, we could say his kingdom has come. You'd be right. But
there's included way more than that. It's everything that leads
up to that. It's everything that's taking place now that's leading
up to that. We're praying for the success
of the gospel ministry that he's sent us on and entrusted unto
us. It includes the accomplishment
of everything that will usher in the establishment of his kingdom
and its final form of glory and the making of every enemy his
footstool. We want that to be true. And we want everything
that happens to contribute to that. Thy kingdom come. Everything
that doesn't have something to do with that can go on the back
burner. That's what you say. Thy kingdom come. Make us zealous
for your kingdom and less so for the things of this earth.
We pray for the success and the bringing to pass of all of God's
good purposes, the fulfillment of all of his promises, all of
which are yes and so be it in Christ. Thy will be done, the next phrase,
thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth. Boy, you know what? We don't have any illusions about
this. We know that everything is not going to happen on earth
the way it does in heaven. Everything, nobody does anything,
nobody moves in heaven that's not strictly according to the
perfect will of God. That's not happening down here
in the sense of his revealed will. In the sense of everybody
doing his commandments and obeying his gospel. That's not happening. But boy, we sure would want it
to. And the more it does, the better it is. Thy will be done. Thy will be done in my life.
And in a sense it is. In the sense that nothing does
happen without His authority, without His causing it, without
His allowing it or bringing it to pass. Some don't like the word, to
use the word allow when you're talking about God's will, that
He allows certain things to happen. But I think it's appropriate
because sin happens. Does it happen according to his
will? Absolutely. He allows it to happen though.
I don't believe God is the author of sin, do you? So he allows
it. And of course, the outcome of
it is not in question. The extent of it is not in question.
He utterly controls it. Completely controls it. I don't
mean the word allow. It implies when it's regarding
us, it means that we just kind of let things happen. No, he
don't just kind of let things happen. But he don't force us to sin.
We do that quite willingly on our own. So I use the word allow.
You can think whatever you want about the word itself. But thy
will be done. There is a sense in which his
will is done in earth as it is in heaven in the sense that nothing
happens. He's the first cause of everything.
Nothing happens without God. We want to always pray according
to the will of God. As it has been revealed to us.
We want to pray according to His will. We can't pray according
to His will unless we know what His will is. And He's revealed
much of it to us. And we pray according to that.
Listen to 1 John 5.14. This is the confidence that we
have in Him. That if we ask anything according
to His will, He heareth us. And if we know that He heareth
us, whatsoever we ask, We know that we have the petitions that
we desired of him. You don't want to pray anything.
I've had people also tell me to my face that if prayer doesn't
change God's mind, then what's the point of praying? Anybody that knows God, if you
thought for a second that prayer would change his mind, you'd
never dare pray. I don't want the perfect God
who never does anything but exactly what's right and good and perfect
to change anything that he was going to do. For me, who are
you to dictate anything to God? Prayer doesn't do that. This also though expresses a
desire for all of his will that we don't know about. We can't
pray according to his will except in that will that is revealed
to us. How are you going to pray otherwise?
You don't know what his will is if he hasn't revealed it to
you. He has revealed as much concerning his will and we pray
according to that. But also we pray in a way that
expresses a desire for all of his will that we don't know about
to be done too. Because even though we don't
know about it, we know it's right. Because it's his will. I know it's better than mine,
because it's His. I won't think, we're to make our
petitions known, that's our will, what we want, what we would desire,
our desires must know. But we pray it with this attitude,
Lord, if my desires don't line up with yours, then forget about
mine. That just makes sense, doesn't
it, when the Lord reveals Himself. And this is a blanket over our
whole prayer that says, I don't want anything that I ask for
that's not according to your will. Think about that. If God don't want it, we don't
want it, right? And this acknowledges also that
God doeth all things well, that his will is always good. We tend to say, you know, God
is good when something that we think is good happens. What about
when something bad happens to you? Is God good then? That was
his will too. Is it good? I'll never forget something my
pastor in Texas, Jack Shinks, said one time. He said, God was
good the day that I walked down the aisle with my beautiful wife
and we expressed our love for one another. before God and we're
united as one before Him. God was good that day. He said
this, God will be good also the day that I look into the casket
and look into the face of her dead body. God will be good that
day too. He didn't say exactly like that
but it was something like that wasn't it? God's always, this
is what we're praying, thou will be done. Why? Because it's always
good. It's always good. It's always
right. Mine is only good and right if
it's according to His. It's only desirable if it's according
to His. This is a submission to His will.
Our Lord Himself prayed, Father not my will but Thine be done. For the simple reason we submit
to His will because of who He is. He should, because of who He
is, He should and He must and He shall have His way in all
things and we like it that way. If my way or my desire conflicts
with that, then I'm wrong. I may not know it when I pray
it now. I may not know it, I may pray for something specific,
and I may be wrong to pray it, and I may not know it at the
time, but if I pray, Lord, your will be done, that covers it
then. Don't grant me my petition if
it's not according to your will. And then verse three, give us
day by day our daily bread. You know, I was thinking about
as I prayed this morning a couple of times already, and our brother
just prayed, We don't often pray unless we're fixing to eat. A lot of times we'll say, Lord,
thank you for these good things that you've bestowed upon us. We don't usually say when we're
praying from the pulpit or praying in worship, we don't usually
say, Lord, give me something to eat today. But you know something? We pray
with that attitude, don't we? that if the Lord, if our very
basic needs are not met by Him, then they'll not be met. I believe
we pray with that attitude all the time, don't you? Don't take
anything, anything for granted. Can we do that by God's grace?
May we not ever take any, well, we just always have something
to eat, we always have something to drink, we'll pray about things,
you know, other things. Don't ever take anything for
granted. Your next breath is in his hand. We might tend to pray for grand
things, you know. There's nothing wrong. You know,
he's able to do anything we ask. He's able to do abundantly above
all that we can ask or even think. No question about that. But don't
leave out the little stuff, too. It's good, isn't it? It's good
for the soul to bow before God and say, Lord, give me something
to eat today. Because we need him for that,
too. I love this passage, this verse
of scripture. This is one of my favorite. Psalm
145, 15, the eyes of all. The eyes of all. wait upon thee. And thou givest
them their meat in due season. Thou openest thine hand and satisfiest
the desire of every living thing. God opens his hand and he feeds
the little bird out here on the parking lot. He's feeding multiply billions
of animals and insects and creatures that we will never lay eyes on.
And he's going to feed me today if I'm going to eat. He's going to have to feed me.
It's going to come right out of his hand. The fact that we pray for daily
bread is instructive too. There's so much in this. We don't
pray, Lord feed us this week. Feed us today. And then tomorrow,
again, we'll have to say, Lord, feed us today. We don't take
tomorrow for granted. This day in Matthew 6 11, you
know, this the version of the of the disciples prayer there.
He says this to give us this day, our daily bread. We need him every hour, don't
we? Day by day. Oh, in verse four, forgive us
our sins. The needs of the body are represented
by the daily bread. All of it. That's not just bread. That's
not just bunny bread. That's every, all of our food,
our water, our necessities, the air that we breathe. Give us
our necessity, our daily necessities for this body. Physical, earthly,
temporal necessities. But here we're talking about
the needs of the soul. What does my soul need before
God? Forgiveness. Forgiveness. For we also forgive everyone
that is indebted to us. Now listen, our Lord forgiving
us does not depend upon us forgiving everybody that has offended us.
We know that and thank God it's not. But what he's saying here
is simple. If our prayers are not to be
utterly hypocritical and completely foolish and vain, if our prayers
are not to be outright sin, then we've got to be mindful of this.
How can we ask God to be merciful to us when we ourselves are cruel
and unforgiving? That's just utterly hypocritical.
And this is poured out all through the scripture. Mark 11 25 when
you stand praying forgive That's pretty blinded to the point when
you stand praying forgive You didn't think that had anything
to do with praying did you? We don't think about that when
we're praying He says are you praying to me? Hold on a second
forgive If you have ought against any
now think about that I It doesn't say if you have something big
or small or if you have anything against anybody. Forgive. So that your father also which
is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. You let that sink in for a second.
Let me read you the next verse. But if you do not forgive, neither
will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses. Wow. If that doesn't fit in with our
doctrine, you know what we need to do? We need to find new doctrine.
We need to find out the doctrine of the Bible. We know from the scripture now
that God must forgive first. No question about that. You're
not ever going to forgive anybody of anything unless God forgives
you first. You don't even know what it is
nor how to do it, much less have a desire to do it. But is he
really saying here that if you don't forgive that he won't forgive
you? It kind of sounded like it, didn't it? Do I need to read
it again? It almost kind of sounded like
that's what he said, didn't it? Maybe read it again later, we'll
make sure. Pretty sure that's what he said. If you don't forgive,
I will not forgive you. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. We
know from the word of God that some trials, that's what the
word is, Lead us not into temptation, which includes temptation, but
it's any trial. It's a testing of our faith. And God, if He gives faith, He's
going to try it. He's going to test it, not because
He doesn't know, not because the outcome is in question, but
He exercises that faith. Religion loves to talk about
exercise your faith. You can't do that, but God can.
That's what God does. God exercises your faith. He's
going to get you into situations and circumstances where that
faith That fruit of the Spirit must be born. That faith is what's
going to carry you through it. The faith that He gave you. The
gift of His grace. And He exercises that faith.
There are temptations and trials that are these testings that
are necessary. That are used by God for our good. But we see
when the whole phrase is taken together here. We see what the
context of it is here. What the meaning of lead us not
into temptation is here. Because of how the word is being
used. Don't let us be taken by temptation. He's saying deliver
us from rather than leading us into. You see the context there?
He's not saying don't ever test us. Don't ever test us. The trial
of your faith is precious. He's saying, but deliver us from
evil. Instead of leading us into evil,
deliver us from evil. You see the meaning there? It's
not the same. And here's the truth of it, we're
helpless to defend ourselves against the forces of evil in
us and around us. We're helpless. So we pray to
God, Lord you deliver us. Keep us. Keep my mouth, keep
my feet, keep my hands, keep my heart. Deliver me from the
evil that's in me as well as the evil that's around me. Deliver
me. Don't let me fall into it. Don't
let me be taken by it. I'll tell you this, we're helpless
otherwise. We need him to keep us, to deliver us, to save us
from our evil. When he does test us, the only way we're going to come
through is tried gold, if he brings us through. If this last petition in this
prayer here, in this context, if this is not granted to us,
If he doesn't do this for us, lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. If he doesn't do that for us,
this church cannot stand. I'm telling you, we're done for. We'll stand and we'll be what
we are. We'll have unity and peace and
love for one another and the gospel will go forth just exactly
as long as God delivers us from our evil. We need Him to meet all of our
physical needs, our daily bread, and we need Him to forgive us.
And to keep us from the sin that would destroy us before we walk
out that door today. If He doesn't hold us up. If God doesn't grant us this
mercy, we'll fall into ruin and we'll fall quickly. We'll fall
completely. And we will fall forever. So,
just in closing, we see some themes in this example of prayer,
don't we? People call this the Lord's Prayer,
but we know it's not the Lord's Prayer. The Lord could never
pray, forgive me my sin. You don't have any. Forgive us
our debts. You don't have any. He said when
you pray, pray like this. We read how he prays. He prays
a little different than we do. But some things are the same.
He taught us to pray the same as him in this regard. Our Father,
O which art in heaven hallowed, be thy name, thy kingdom come,
thy will be done, not my will, but thy will be done, on earth
as it is in heaven. And Lord give us everything we
need, physical and spiritual. See these themes. This is not meant to be repeated.
He's not saying pray this prayer. People do that, like it's some
kind of a talisman or something against evil. They like to pray different prayers in the scripture
that are supposed to bring prosperity and things like that. He strictly
forbade us to vainly repeat just words. That's not prayer. It's an example. The way he said
it in Matthew 6 and 9, the way it's recorded there is he said
this, after this manner, therefore, pray ye, our Father which art
in heaven, hallowed be thy name. He's not saying pray this, he's
saying pray like this. After this manner. with humility,
with reverence for God, with an understanding that if God
spared not his own son, oh, he knows how to give good
gifts a whole lot better than we do, don't we? And we wouldn't
ever withhold anything good from our children, would you? He's
a much better father than I am, though. That's what he said. And with a sense of the continual
need that we have. It's continual, it's every day,
give us this day. Give me an hour from now, something
to eat. And Lord, forgive my sin. Because
even while I've been here today, I've committed enough sin to deserve a thousand hells. We're in continual and vital,
urgent and complete need of his grace and his mercy. May he teach
us how to pray. And may he teach us to pray.
I used to harp on y'all a lot about this, and I'm not, not
because I'm an example in it, but because our Lord is, and
because the word is clear on this. The effectual fervent prayer
of a righteous man availeth much. You know why it does? Because
God said it did, and because he sees to it. Not because we
have any power, But if God said He avails much, then He avails
much. May He teach us how to pray.
May He teach us to pray. And listen to James. You know
I'm going to quote this before we go through. You have not because
you ask not. Let me quote that whole verse.
James 4 to you lust and have not. You kill and desire to have
and cannot obtain. And when he says kill there,
you have to look at the context. The context is that you have
conflict and anger against your brother. It's murder in the heart,
isn't it? God said, when you call somebody
a fool, you've murdered them in your heart. You hate them
in your heart, you've murdered them. And that's the context
here. You lust, you kill, you desire
to have, you fight, and you war. All an angry, selfish, self-righteous effort to get
what you want. All those words describe that.
And he said, here's what you ought to be doing. Ask. Ask. Just ask God. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? You have not because you ask
not. May God teach us to pray. Let's
bow before him even now and ask him to bless us.