And it came to pass at the time
of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet
came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel,
let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that
I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy
word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that
this people may know that Thou art the Lord God, and that Thou
hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord
fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and
the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was
in the trench. And when all the people saw it,
they fell on their faces, and they said, The Lord, He is the
God, the Lord, He is the God. And Elijah said unto them, take
the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape. And they
took them, and Elijah brought them down to the Brook Kishon
and slew them there. And Elijah said unto Ahab, get
thee up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of an abundance of
rain. So Ahab went up to eat and to
drink, and Elijah went up to the top of Carmel, and he cast
himself down upon the earth. and put his face between his
knees and said to his servant go up now look toward the sea
and he went up and looked and said there is nothing and he
said go again seven times and it came to pass at the seventh
time that he said behold there arises a little cloud out of
the sea like a man's hand and he said go up, say unto Ahab
prepare thy chariot and get thee down that the rain stop thee
not and it came to pass in the meanwhile that the heaven was
black with cloud and wind and there was a great rain and Ahab
rode and went to Jezreel and the hand of the Lord was on Elijah
and he girded up his loins and ran before Ahab to the entrance
of Jezreel and Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and
with all how he had slain all the prophets with the sword Then
Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah saying so let the gods
do to me and more also if I make not thy life as the life of one
of them by tomorrow about this time. And when he saw that he arose
and went for his life and came to Beersheba which belonged to
Judah and left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey
into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper
tree and he requested for himself that he might die and said it
is enough now O Lord take away my life for I am not better than
my father's and he lay down and slept under a juniper tree and
behold there then an angel touched him and said unto him arise and
eat and he looked and behold there was a cake bacon on the
coals and a cruise of water at his head and he did eat and drink
and laid him down again and the angel of the Lord came again
the second time and touched him and said arise and eat because
the journey is too great for thee and he arose and did eat
and drink And went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty
nights unto Horeb, the mount of God. And he came thither unto
a cave and lodged there. And behold, the word of the Lord
came to him. And he said unto him, What doest
thou hear, Elijah? And he said, I have been very
jealous for the Lord God of hosts, for the children of Israel have
forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine orators, slain thy
prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and
they seek my life to take it away. I'll leave the reading
there, but I want to turn now to the epistle of James in the
New Testament. James chapter 5. James chapter 5 and commencing
to read at verse 16. James 5 verse 16, confess your
faults one to another and pray one for another that ye may be
healed. The effectual fervent prayer
of a righteous man availeth not. Elias, or Elijah, was a man subject
to like passions as we are. And he prayed earnestly that
it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth by the space
of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the
heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. Leave
the reading there of God's word. So I want to really look together
at this phrase in verse 16 of James 5. The second clause in verse 16. The effectual fervent prayer
of a righteous man availeth much. So we have before us the subject
of prayer. The privilege that we have, that
we can come and pray, and yet the propensity that we each have
to neglect that privilege, to not truly have faith in our prayers,
and to not truly pray in faith I mean, but to neglect this precious
way of communion with the Church's living head. So we have this word, the effectual
fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. So the person we have before
us is a righteous man. It says of a righteous man. The
prayer is an effectual fervent prayer and the profit that comes
from that prayer is it availeth much. Let's start with the person who
is praying here. A righteous man. Well, you might think surely
that does not help me much. We are all together sinful. We
come short in so many ways. Being told that the prayer of
a righteous man availeth much. How does that help? You see,
the righteousness of the one spoken of in our text is one
who is not self-righteous, but who has their righteousness in
Christ. You see, the Lord's people have
their righteousness not in what they have done, what they have
achieved, but what Christ has done for them, and what they
are by the grace of God. And this is proved by the explanation
that is given later in this chapter. Elias, we have, James gives us
an example of somebody who performed this text. Elias or Elijah, who
we read a short account of earlier. Elias was a man subject to like
passions as we are. In other words, Elijah was not
perfect. Elijah knew what it was to struggle
against sin. He knew what it was to be unbelieving
at times. And yet he was a great man of
God. And that tremendous victory that
he had at Mount Carmel that we read about, the great blessing
it was. And yet how quickly that dear
man of God fell to such a low place under the juniper tree. A man of like passions as we
are. You see this is the one described
here as a righteous man. Not in themselves, not in their
own estimation, but one who truly has obtained that righteousness
from God. A righteous man availeth much.
So we have here that Elias, it says, was a man subject to like
passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain.
It's interesting really, we have this insight from the New Testament
that is not declared in the Old. We have that Elijah said that
there would not be rain, but we don't specifically read of
him praying for that in the Old Testament. But here clearly James
is telling us that it was by the prayer of Elijah that this
drought for three and a half years came to pass as a judgement
on Israel and their wickedness at that time. Elias was a man
subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly
that it might not rain on the earth by the space of three years
and six months. And he prayed again, well we
read about where he prayed on Mount Carmel, telling his servant
to go up and see whether there was a cloud. He knelt down and
put his head between his knees, we read, and prayed earnestly
that the Lord would appear. and bring again that water, that
vital water to water the land so that there could once again
be harvests and crops. So we have here then the effectual
fervent prayer of the righteous man. So a righteous one is not
self-righteous, he is one who realises that his righteousness
is of God. and he comes short of the glory
of God and therefore it is one who is not proud. One who realises,
you see, if we have our own righteousness and if we're self-righteousness
we can perhaps boast to others of how well we've done in this
and that. But the righteousness of the
Lord's people is in Him and their boast is in Christ. And they all declare, I nothing
am, my all is bound up in the Lamb. But then the prayer, the
effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. This effectual fervent,
there are two words in the English, but there is one word in the
Greek, it comes from a single word, and it's a word like energetic,
a fervency, an activity in prayer, not just praying as it were,
speaking some words, and unconcerned as to whether they are heard
or whether they are not heard. You see, when we are urgent in
a matter, when we must be heard, like Jacob, I will not let thee
go, except thou bless me. When there is that wrestling
in prayer, a realisation by faith that God is able to bless us,
that God has those things that we stand in need of. And as we
come in prayer at this night, do we have a realization that
God is able to bless us. He has the words of eternal life. To whom else can we go? Well,
you see, we need to realize our great need of what God has in
store, what God is able to give. And you see, we read, if ye then
be an evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children.
How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the gift of the Holy
Spirit to them that ask? What an encouragement there is
to ask and to truly seek. for those blessings that God
alone can give. So we have the way we are to
pray with a real concern, a real sincerity, a real desire. Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done. But there may be an enlargement
of the kingdom of God, there may be a blessing in our souls,
that we may know what it is to have a nearness and a closer
walk with God. So as we pray, We are to be fervent,
we are to be sincere, we are to be, as it were, tenacious.
We will not, or impertunate, as it's referred to as another
place, when that woman with the unjust judge who kept on coming
back because she would not take, she would not be pushed to one
side, she wanted, she must get a hearing. You see, it's referred
to in places as taking the kingdom of God by violence. We are, as it were, unable to
hold back. Like blind Bartimaeus, he was
told to be quiet, but what he did was shout and cry out all
the stronger, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy upon me. He had a need, and he cried for
that need, and he was graciously supplied. Do we see that we have
a need? Do we see that it is only the
Lord Jesus Christ that can supply our every need? That He only
can bless us eternally? That He only can do us real and
lasting good? Well, this effectual, fervent
prayer, and we read then that it availeth much. It is answered. Elijah's prayer was answered.
There was no rain for three and a half years and then there was
a return of rain. There was an answer. It brought the answer
that God heard him to bring down the fire at Mount Carmel when
that sacrifice was being offered. We think of Moses who was such
an interceder. for the children of Israel. They
were so undeserving. God had said to him coming down
the mount, let me alone and I will destroy this people. Moses interceded,
interceded for them. You see we need intercessory
prayer. We need to intercede for one another. When we see
one another perhaps fallen, one another in difficulty, one another
in sadnesses, that we may truly seek the good of Zion, that we
may seek the good of the Church of God, to see it prospering,
to see the Lord's people growing in grace and in the knowledge
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Well, as we come then
to this prayer meeting, may we know what it is to have, by God's
grace, the effectual, fervent, energetic prayer, not in tremendous
eloquence of man's wisdom, a sigh, a groan, or something that is
known to God and is a blessing, and that God will answer those
prayers because of his riches in glory. He is rich. But one
might say here tonight, you said that the effectual prayer of
a righteous man availeth much, What is it? How is it then if
I'm a sinner? How is it if I'm not in union
with Christ yet? Does this shut me out? Can there
be nothing for me? I would turn to Isaiah's Gospel. It's called the Gospel of Isaiah
sometimes. The Prophecy of Isaiah, chapter
55. Let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord. That's prayer. Coming, seeking
mercy. You see, it's unconfessed sin
that brings a barrier between us and God. If we confess our
sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin. It is
unconfessed sin that is the barrier, not sin itself as it were on
its own. It is unconfessed if there is
no repentance. And let him return unto the Lord
and we will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly
pardon. For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. So there is to be a coming to
the Saviour. And those that find Christ to
be precious are to come and pray again, and to be encouraged to
pray. We have Elijah as an example of one who had his mountaintop
experiences, but he had some prayers. I'm not better than
my father, let me die. That was not what God had intended
for him. And so those that have gone before
us have been imperfect and yet they've been people who have
done exploits by God's grace. May we each know the Lord's help
then as we draw nigh to Him in prayer after our next hymn.