Seeking again the help of God
and your prayers, the words to which I would direct your attention
this evening are found in the 18th Psalm, in Psalm 18 and the last part
of verse 6. Psalm 18, the last part of verse
6, The whole verse reads, In my distress I called upon the
Lord and cried unto my God. He heard my voice out of his
temple and my cry came before him even into his ears. In my distress I called upon
the Lord and cried unto my God. He heard my voice out of his
temple and my cry came before him even into his ears. This morning we looked at the
first part of this sixth verse and as we noticed it is really
a verse that has within it a miracle. We have a tendency, don't we,
to think very lightly of prayer and to think of it as something
that we in our natural state are well capable of. Certainly
that is the view of the the world and even the religious world
and even within the Christian church. There is sometimes this
view that prayer is just something that the Christian is just able
to take up whenever he wishes. But as I said this morning, there
is something supernatural about real prayer, something that is
miraculous. If we have ever prayed, if we
have ever really prayed, then the Holy Spirit has been very
active within us. Our prayers, our real prayers,
do not come from our natural minds, our natural hearts, but
they come from the work of the Spirit within us. We have that
set before us very often in the hymns, don't we? The hymn writer,
William Gadsby, there in the 725th hymn, he speaks of prayer.
He speaks of the sinner born of God. pouring out his prayer
to God in sighs or groans or words expressed or in a falling
tear. But when he comes to the last
verse he says this, the Holy Ghost indicts all real vital
prayer. What does he mean? Well, he means
that the Holy Ghost really is responsible for it. The Holy
Ghost prompts it. The Holy Ghost puts it within
a man. All real vital prayer, vital living prayer. There is much prayer and we have
to acknowledge it within ourselves. I'm sure all of us have to confess
that many of our prayers are not real, they're not vital,
they're not living in the sense that the hymn writer speaks of
them. It's very easy to speak words, isn't it? It's very easy
to go on our knees and to close our eyes and to bow our heads
and to think that we're praying. But if we really pray, there's
something supernatural, something spiritual, something of the work
of the Spirit in what is going on, and that was certainly true
of the psalmist here. In my distress, he says, I called upon the Lord
and cried unto my God. And we tried to look at those
three things that we mentioned this morning. The psalmist was
in distress. He was a spiritual man. He was
a born-again man, but he was still very often found in times
of distress, times when he felt incapable of proceeding, when
he didn't know what to do, when he didn't know where to turn. And as I said, we all know in
theory that Christians sometimes come into those kinds of circumstances,
but very often when we find ourselves in those circumstances, we start
to question all our entire Christian experience, and we start to think,
well, surely if I was a real Christian, I wouldn't feel like
this. Surely if I was a real Christian, these things wouldn't
trouble me in the way that they do. have to learn from the example
of David, the example of Job, the example of the Apostle Paul,
and as I said this morning, the greatest of all examples, the
example of Jesus Christ himself, who we see there in the opening
verse of the 22nd Psalm, in a situation where very evidently he was perplexed.
And as I said this morning, there's something of a mystery in it.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, he says. Why hast
thou forsaken me? He didn't know. He didn't know. Why hast thou
forsaken me? He was distressed. He was perplexed. Well, if he
was, it's no wonder if we are sometimes. In my distress, well,
what does the psalmist do in his distress? Well, in one sense
he doesn't know what to do, but in another sense he knows just
what to do. He cries unto the Lord. He calls upon the Lord.
He cries unto his God. He's calling these cryings, they're
not words that bring to mind long and elaborate prayers, are
they? Real prayer is very often short
prayer. I'm not saying we should be satisfied if we don't pray
very much. I'm sure all of us have to confess that we don't
pray enough. Who was it that said he didn't think much of
a man who didn't spend three or four hours in prayer every
day? The Bible exhorts us, doesn't
it, to be constantly praying. Pray without ceasing. But we're
not to think that that means we have to compose long and elaborate
and eloquent prayers. Real prayer is spoken of here
as a calling, as a crying, maybe just a few words. The best prayers are often the
shortest prayers. And look what the psalmist, look who the psalmist
is calling upon and crying unto, the Lord, Jehovah the Eternal
One. but not just a far-off distant
and infinite God. He says, I cried unto my God,
my God, a personal God, a God that the psalmist knew, a God
that the psalmist had a relationship with. In my distress I called
upon the Lord and cried unto my God, and as we saw, these
words were not just true of David, they're true of the Lord Jesus
himself. He's there in the closing verse of this psalm, isn't he? where David speaks of his anointed,
God's anointed. Well, who is that other than
the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the Messiah, the Chosen One?
In my distress I called upon the Lord and cried unto my God. Well, if there's a miracle in
the first half of the verse, surely it's no exaggeration to
say that there's an even greater miracle in the second. Because
what does the psalmist go on to say? He heard my voice. He heard my voice. In my distress I called upon
the Lord and cried unto my God. He heard my voice. He heard my
voice out of his temple and my cry came before him, even into
his ears." The psalmist evidently thought that this was something
remarkable. The psalmist didn't take for
granted that his prayers would be heard. He wasn't like that Pharisee
that we see in the parable. who comes up into the temple
and prays, and you can see from his prayer and his attitude that
really he almost gives the impression that he's doing God a favor by
praying. He's come into the temple and
he says these words. It's not really prayer, is it?
But very evidently he thinks that he deserves to be heard. And if we were to go to him and
say to him, did you know that God heard your prayer? Well,
perhaps he would have said, well, of course. Well, of course God
hears my prayers. I'm a Pharisee, I'm a Hebrew
of the Hebrews. If God hears anyone's prayer,
surely he would hear mine. Well, if we find ourselves with
the same frame of mind, then we're not so very different to
the Pharisee, are we? If we come to the Lord in prayer and we
just throw out our prayers before him and then go on our way just
assuming, well, of course God will hear my prayers, then I say we're not so very
different to the Pharisee. But the psalmist wasn't like
that. The Pharisee's prayers really
were a mockery of God, weren't they? What does the Lord Jesus
say about that Pharisee? He says he came into the temple
and he prayed thus with himself. He was praying with himself.
He was praying really for his own benefit. He was praying for
his own glory. He was almost exalting himself
over the God that he was professing to pray to. And his prayers were
a mockery. Here is a man who thinks it's
remarkable that God hears his prayers. Why do we see that he
thought it was remarkable? Well, he remarks upon it, doesn't
he? And you can almost hear the surprise in what he says. He heard my voice. He heard my
voice. He heard my voice out of his
temple. And my cry came before him, even
into his ears. Well, are you conscious as you
come before God? And if you have known any answered
prayer, is it to you a remarkable thing?
Or is it something that you just take for granted? The psalmist
didn't take it for granted. He heard my voice out of his
temple and my cry came before him, even into his ears. Well, in a sense, of course,
it's obviously true that God hears all prayer. He hears all
our words. He sees all our thoughts. There's
nothing that passes through our mind that he doesn't observe
and mark. There's no one anywhere in the
world that has spoken anything ever that God has not marked,
that God has not seen, that God has not heard. But the psalmist is talking about
something more than this, isn't he? He heard my voice, he paid attention
to my prayer. It wasn't just that the prayer
passed through the mind of God, No, he heard it, he attended
to it, he did something about it. He heard my voice out of
his temple. If we were conscious that God
hears all our prayers, we would often pray in a very different
way to the way that we do pray, wouldn't we? How often in our prayers we just
repeat the same familiar phrases and it's inevitable in a way,
I suppose, that we ask for the same things. And it's not wrong
that we ask for the same things day by day. The Lord Jesus instructed
his disciples to pray for their daily bread. Give us this day
our daily bread. The implication is that they're
to pray every day for it. Not just at the beginning of
the week, not just at the beginning of the month or the year, but
day by day. We are to come before him and to acknowledge our dependence
upon him. And it's very natural, as I say,
that we use the same words. But how often our prayers can
just become automatic, can't they? And we hardly even think about
what we're saying. If we were conscious that God
was hearing, that God was listening, our prayers would be very different. Our private prayers, those prayers
that nobody else hears, God hears them. If we go on our knees at
the end of the day so often, We might go on our knees, but
we don't really pray. And if someone else was beside
us and able to read our thoughts, we would be ashamed of the things
that were passing through our minds, wouldn't we, when we were
there on our knees, professing to pray to this Almighty God? Well, if we would be ashamed
of a fellow creature hearing those words and seeing those
thoughts, doesn't it show that we fail to grasp the fact that
God sees and that God hears? He heard my voice out of his
temple. Oh, if we were conscious of this, we would pray very differently,
I fear, to the way that we do pray. In my distress, I called
upon the Lord and cried unto my God. Here is the first thing.
The Samis thought that this was remarkable, that this was something
amazing. He realized that his prayer didn't deserve to be heard. He realized that there was something
of grace in the fact that God heard his voice and that his
cry came before him even into his ears. He heard my voice. But then he says this concerning
the temple. He heard my voice out of his
temple. Why does he speak of the temple
of God? Well, we might be surprised that
he uses the word temple because, of course, it being a psalm of
David, there wasn't a temple. We're all familiar, I expect,
with the account that we have of David. There, towards the close of the
second book of Samuel, David, he becomes conscious that he's
living in a house of cedar, in a very magnificent and elaborate
house, no doubt. And yet the Ark of God is still
dwelling in those curtains, that tabernacle that Moses constructed
there in the wilderness. And he calls the Prophet Gad,
doesn't he? And he says, you know, it doesn't seem right to
me. Here I am living in this magnificent palace, and yet the
Ark of God dwells within curtains. And Gad initially says to him,
well, it would be a good thing to build a more permanent house.
But then God reveals this message to Gad and sends him back to
David, saying, well, you're not to build me a house. Because
you've been a man of war and you've shed much blood upon the
earth, you're not to build me a house. And we know that it
was Solomon, his son, who eventually constructed the temple. He heard
my voice out of his temple. He says, well, clearly he's not
referring to the temple that Solomon built. What's he referring to? Well,
perhaps he is referring to that tabernacle that was there in
his day. But there's surely something
much deeper in what David says. He heard my voice out of his
temple. In what way is this word temple connected with the hearing
of his voice? Are we not to imagine that David
supposed that just because he prayed in a certain place his
prayer would be heard? Sometimes people fall into that
way of thinking as if they They think, well, if I pray in a church
or in a chapel, then surely God is more likely to hear me. Well,
David would not have thought like that, surely. What's he
talking about when he talks about the temple? Well, surely, just
as he speaks about the Lord Jesus Christ there at the end of the
psalm, and just as much of the psalm is a prophecy of the Lord
Jesus Christ, surely here, as David refers to the temple, he
was given some insight. And I'm not saying he understood
it entirely. that he was given some insight into the fact that
the temple represented something greater, that the tabernacle
represented something greater. It wasn't just a building. And
all those detailed instructions that God gave to Moses that we
have recorded for us there in the book of Exodus. And sometimes
we read those things and we find ourselves wondering, what is the purpose of all this
detail? God tells Moses how big things are to be and what they're
to be made of, even down to the individual pins that were to
hold the tabernacle together and all the materials of the
curtains that were to cover it. Why does God give such a prescriptive
description of these things to Moses? He doesn't just say to
Moses, well, build me a tabernacle and it doesn't really matter
what it looks like as long as you build me something. No, he
says it's to look like this, it's to have this furniture in,
that piece is to be there, that piece is to be there, it's to
be this big, made of this material. Why is he so prescriptive? Well,
it's because all of those things in the tabernacle, they teach
us something concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. Every individual description
that God gave to Moses, there's something in all of them that
speaks to us of Christ. The Mercy Seek speaks to us of
Christ. The Veil speaks to us of Christ.
And surely this is what David had in mind in some small measure. He was given an insight into
the fact that the tabernacle that he knew and the temple that
his son Solomon was to build It represented something greater,
something eternal, where we have the temple spoken
of in the Old Testament. how we need that spiritual insight
to understand that it speaks to us something of the Lord Jesus
Christ in the New Testament. Surely it's very significant
that that temple was destroyed not many years after the Lord
Jesus Christ came into this world. The temple isn't there anymore.
The mercy seat's not there anymore. There's no longer a high priest
going in day by day and offering sacrifices in the way that God
appointed for Moses. Surely that's very significant.
What does it teach us? Well, it teaches us that those
things were no longer necessary. It speaks of them as a shadow,
doesn't it? But now that the reality has
come, the shadow is no longer required. Surely this is the
message of the epistle to the Hebrews. What's the key word
that we find as we go through that epistle? He speaks of things
being better, doesn't he? A better covenant, better promises.
Time and time again he compares the old with the new and he says
the new is better. The old revealed something of
Christ. The tabernacle, the temple, the mercy seat, the veil. These things are no longer needed. He speaks of the first tabernacle.
In the epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 9, he speaks of it as
a figure for the time then present. in which were offered both gifts
and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service
perfect, as pertaining to the conscience. All those sacrifices
and those gifts that God appointed, they couldn't make the sacrificer
perfect. They couldn't forgive one sin. It is not possible, he goes on
to say, that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away
sins, and surely David, the man after God's own heart, he would
have realized something of this. The temple in the Old Testament
is a picture of Christ in the New. We see that very often in the
Psalms. What does the psalmist say there in the 5th Psalm? Again,
it's the Psalm of David and he says, As for me, I will come
into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy, and in thy fear
will I worship toward thy holy temple. The temple really was
at the very centre, wasn't it, of the Jewish religion. It was
a building of great importance. That was the place where God
had set his name. That was the place that he had
promised to meet Moses and the Israelites. In that place, not
in any other place, but in that place. That was the place where
the sacrifices were to be offered. He said expressly, didn't he,
that when the children of Israel wanted to offer a sacrifice,
that they weren't just to do it where they wanted. They weren't
just to look around and say, well, here, here's a good spot.
I'll sacrifice in this place. No, God says, you're to come
to the temple. You're to come to the temple. In thy fear, says
David, will I worship toward thy holy temple? We see something
similar, don't we, in that well-known account that we have of Jonah.
You remember the story of Jonah? how he is fleeing there from
God, having been told to go to that wicked city Nineveh and
preach against them, and he doesn't want to go. He thinks, well,
surely I'm not called upon to go and preach to those Gentiles
down in Nineveh. And so he turns to flee from
the presence of the Lord, and ultimately there he is in the
sea, thrown in by the sailors of that ship. who have realised
that it's because of him that the great storm has come, and
there he is sinking in the waters. And he gives us a description
of his experience, doesn't he, in the second chapter of his
prophecy. As he prays unto the Lord his
God out of the fish's belly, he looks back to that time when
he was sinking in the deep. Thou hadst cast me into the deep,
in the midst of the seas, and the floods compassed me about,
all thy billows and thy waves passed over me, then I said I
am cast out of thy sight." And we can understand him coming
to that conclusion, can't we? As you picture him there, sinking
in the depths of the sea, and not only in that situation, but
realizing that it was through his own sin that he had come
there. It wasn't just that he'd been thrown there by wicked men
and it was someone else's fault. He knew that it was because of
his sin. He says that to the sailors,
doesn't he? He tells them that he has fled from the presence
of the Lord. For my sake, this great tempest is upon you. I
am cast out of thy sight. He almost comes to the point
of concluding, well, this is the end. There's no hope. God has cast me out and it's
just and it's right that he's done so. It's what I deserve.
He says, then I said, I am cast out of thy sight. And then we
see this God-given faith in very real evidence in Jonah. He says,
yet, yet I will look again. Where's he looking? Toward thy
holy temple. Why is he looking toward the
temple? Well, it wasn't just a building of brick and stone,
was it? It was what the temple represented. It was all the promises
of God that related to the temple. As for me, says David, I will
come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy, and in thy fear
will I worship toward thy holy temple. He looks at the temple. The temple was at the very centre
of his worship. Well, what's the equivalent in
the New Testament? And it's a verse that's often
quoted, and sadly it's often misquoted. What does the Lord
Jesus Christ say in the 18th chapter of Matthew, where two
or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the
midst of them? People misquote it, they just
say, where two or three are gathered together, there am I in the midst.
As if all we need is just two or three people to come into
the building and then we're somehow guaranteed the presence of the
Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't say that, does it?
It's where two or three are gathered together in my name. And that's
more than just saying, oh, we come together in the name of
Jesus. To gather together in His name is something much more
than just saying that we do it. Where two or three are gathered
together in my name, there am I in the midst of them, the Israelites
under the Old Testament. They came together looking at
that temple, looking at what the temple represented. In the New Testament, the church
comes together in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is
the temple. As for me, I will come into thy
house in the multitude of thy mercy, and in thy fear will I
worship toward thy holy temple. Then again, see what the psalmist
says there in the 65th Psalm, as he again mentions the temple. There in Psalm 65 at verse 4,
he says, Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and calls us to
approach unto thee that he may dwell in thy courts, we shall
be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy
temple. We shall be satisfied with it.
Well, again, clearly, the psalmist is not just talking about the
bricks and the stones and the furniture that was there within
the building. David would never have been satisfied with those
outward things. as something more than just the
architecture of the building that David is referring to. Just
as the hymn writer says, what is the master's house? To me,
unless the master there I see, surely that's what David wanted
to see as he went up to the temple. We shall be satisfied with the
goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. Well, what do
we find the apostle Paul speaking of? What is it that he will be
satisfied with? Well, not just a building. It's
not just that he comes into a religious building and says, well, here
I am, now I've done everything that's required of me, and I've
been to a service. What does he want? He says, this one thing I do,
this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind,
and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press
toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in
Christ Jesus." What is he satisfied with? He's satisfied with nothing less
than the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He wants
to see Him. He wants to know Him. He wants to know more of
Him. He wants to learn more of Him. We shall be satisfied with
the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. It's the
Lord Jesus Christ and only the Lord Jesus Christ that will satisfy
the people of God as they come together. If we're satisfied
with anything less, we're in a bad place, we're in an unhealthy
place. If we're satisfied with even the presence of each other, it's a wonderful thing and a
great mercy to have a congregation to meet with. And we're not to forsake the
assembling of ourselves together. There is a social element in
worship. It's corporate worship. We don't come and worship separately,
each of us in our different seats. No, we worship together. But we are not to be satisfied
with each other's company. No, says the psalmist, we shall
be satisfied with the goodness of thy house. The goodness of
thy house is the Lord Jesus Christ. Thy holy temple is the Lord Jesus
Christ. Then again, the Old Testament
believer, they looked at the temple because of the promises
of God that were connected to it. What did God say to Moses
as he begins to give those directions concerning the building of the
temple? there in the 25th chapter of
Exodus. He speaks of the collection that
was to be made. Moses is to go back to the children
of Israel and he's to collect certain materials, gold and silver
and brass and so on. What's it for? Well, God says,
let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. He speaks of the ark. the cherubims that stretched
out their wings above the ark, the testimony that was put within
the ark. And then he says, there I will meet with thee. There
I will meet with thee. There's a promise. There's a
promise connected to the temple. There I will meet with thee and
I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between
the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony. There
I will meet with thee and I will commune with thee. There are
promises connected to the temple. Promises of the presence of God. Well, what's the New Testament
equivalent? Where do we see the presence of God? In the New Testament
church. Again, you think of the words
of the angel to Joseph. And those words of the prophet
that Matthew quotes there in the first chapter of his gospel.
All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken
of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with
child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his
name Immanuel. What does it mean? God with us. God with us. The presence of
God. The very image of God. The light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. There are promises connected
to the Old Testament temple. And all the promises of God,
as we're told in the New Testament, are yea and amen in Jesus Christ. The temple represents Christ.
And we see that ultimately, don't we, in that closing book of the
New Testament, right there towards the end of the book of Revelation,
as John has this wonderful vision of the glorified church. Descending
out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, her light like
unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone clear as
crystal. And as he looks out across that
city, what's the thing that he notices? There's no temple in
it. John would have been familiar
with the temple that Solomon built, or rather the temple that
was built on the return from the captivity. He would have
walked in it, he would have worshipped in it. Perhaps as he saw that
vision of the glorified church, he looked across the city to
find the temple and he says, I saw no temple therein. Why
is there no temple therein? He tells us, for the Lord God
Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. That's where the
presence of God is, in the Lamb. That's where the promises of
God are, in the Lamb, in the Lord Jesus Christ. In my distress I called upon
the Lord and cried unto my God. He heard my voice out of his
temple. The Jewish believer could have no confidence of acceptance
except as he came in the way that God had appointed and to
the place that God had appointed. No matter how many sacrifices
he offered, unless he offered them in the temple, there could
be no hope of acceptance with God. They had to come in the
appointed way. They had to worship in the way
that was appointed. And we can have no confidence
that God will hear us, except as we approach through Christ.
He is the temple. That's where God is. That's where
God meets with us. God with us, Emmanuel. This is what the, again we have
impressed upon us there in the epistle to the Hebrews. where the writer speaks of, again,
the high priest. Not a high priest under the Old
Testament, not the high priest that was appointed there by Moses,
not Aaron, not his descendants. No, he says we have a great high
priest, a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus
the Son of God. We have not an high priest which
cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in
all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us
therefore come boldly. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace. When we come in the way that
God has appointed, then we can come boldly. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in every time of need. That's what the psalmist
found. mercy and grace to help. He heard my voice out of his
temple. He looked to the temple. That's
where God heard his voice from. And we read that chapter in the
Gospel of John. And what is the teaching that
the Lord Jesus encourages his disciples How does He teach them
to pray? Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father
in my name, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He
will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing
in my name. Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be
full. Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father
in my name, He will give it you. He is the ultimate fulfillment
of that Old Testament temple, of that Old Testament tabernacle.
And it's only in His name that we can come and that we can ask.
What is it to ask in His name for His sake? Well, obviously,
it's very much more than just to say at the end of our prayers,
for Jesus' sake, Amen. It's very much more than just
to say that we ask in His name. What is it to ask in the name
of Christ? Well, it's to come with a reliance upon Him, isn't
it? For our acceptance. If we come before God like the
Pharisee, thinking that God will hear our prayers because of who
we are, what we believe, or what we have done or not done, then
we come like the Pharisees, and no matter how many times we say,
for Jesus' sake or in Jesus' name, we don't truly come in
His name, we come in our own. It's to come with a wholehearted
reliance upon Him, and we have to be brought there. is to come with the hymn writer
and say, nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. And then secondly it's to ask,
surely with a submission to his will, so that we don't come and
lay our demands before God and say, well I want this and that
and the other. What did the Lord Jesus again teach his disciples
in his great pattern prayer? He told them to say, Thy kingdom
come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Do you see how we need the Spirit's
help to ask things in His name? It's not something that we can
just take upon ourselves and say, well, I think I'll ask this
in the name of Jesus. We don't get to choose what we
ask for in His name. There's no way that a man can
ask for something sinful in the name of Jesus. It's impossible.
It's a contradiction. Though is to ask for those things
that are consistent with his will, to be submissive to his
will and to come on the grounds of his righteousness and his
sacrifice. He heard my voice out of his temple. Again, see the amazement of the
psalmist as he goes on. He heard my voice out of his
temple and my cry, my cry came before him, even into his ears. My cry, my poor insignificant, almost incoherent and confused
cry. He says it wasn't anything acceptable
in itself. It wasn't that I found out right-sounding
words and put them together in the right order and made a prayer
that was so beautiful that God had to accept it. My cry came before Him. My cry came before Him, before
this Lord that He speaks of there at the beginning of the verse,
this Almighty and Eternal and Unchanging One. My cry came before
Him. even into his ears. He says,
isn't it an amazing thing that God heard my crying? We would think it a great privilege,
wouldn't we, if we were to have opportunity to give a message
directly to our Queen. If we were given a chance to
meet with her and to tell her just what we thought and how
we were feeling and to ask her to do certain things for us.
Well, says the psalmist, I have something much greater than that.
My cry came before him, not before an earthly king, but before the
king of kings, before the Lord of Lords. It came into his ears.
I had his attention. He was listening to me. What a privilege is prayer. What
a wonderful privilege is prayer. What a wonderful thing that we
have so many encouragements to pray. not just in that chapter
that we read, where the Lord Jesus time and time again encourages
His disciples to ask. Ask and ye shall receive, He
says. He spoke that parable, didn't He, to this end, that
men ought always to pray. When sinners came to Him below,
He didn't turn them away, did He? He listened to them. He heard
them. Even when their prayers were
so short and so poor. My cry came before Him, even
into His ears. Oh, if we come in the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ, if we truly come in His name, if we
come relying upon Him and with that submission to His will,
we have the ear of God. I heard a sermon once by a preacher
and he was talking about this matter of prayer. And he gave
an illustration. He said sometimes when his wife
wanted to get his attention, she would tell him something
and he would forget. So she would put it on his desk. She'd write
it down and she'd put it on his desk and he couldn't forget it.
He said, well, prayer is a bit like that. My cry came into his ears. He
paid attention to it. He heard it. He listened to it. In my distress I called upon
the Lord and cried unto my God. He heard my voice out of his
temple. Ask in my name, said the Lord Jesus, and ye shall
receive. Ask and ye shall receive. Not ye might receive, but ye
shall receive. Well, you might say, what about
unanswered prayer? What about prayers that aren't
answered? Many things I'm sure we can look back in our own lives
and we pray for something and we don't get it. We don't always
get what we ask for. Well, there can be many reasons
for that, can't there? And we mustn't ignore the possibility
that James speaks to us of in his epistle. He speaks of asking More than once in his epistle
he speaks of those who ask and do not receive. If any of you
lack wisdom, he says, let him ask of God, that giveth to all
men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. What does he mean,
nothing wavering? Well, he's not so much talking
about a weak faith. He's talking about a man who's coming, but
he doesn't really want what he's asking for. And especially if we're brought
up under the sound of the truth, very often we can come in our
prayers and we ask for things because we think we ought to.
And we pray for this or that because we think we ought to
pray for these things, but we don't really want them. Well
says James, he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven
with the wind and tossed. Let not that man think that he
shall receive anything of the Lord. And again, in the fourth
chapter of his epistle, he speaks of those who ask and receive
not because they ask amiss. They ask with a wrong intent,
with a wrong purpose. He ask and receive not because
he ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lusts. Now we have to beware of insincerity
in our prayers. of asking for the wrong things,
of asking for a wrong purpose, of asking from a wrong motive. He heard my voice out of his
temple and my cry came before him even into his ears. And we
have to remember what prayer is for. We have to remember what
prayer is for. It's a question that's often
asked, isn't it? Well, if God is sovereign and if God knows
everything, and if God has planned everything, what's the point
of prayer? We don't pray to change God's mind, do we? We don't pray to try to convince
God to do something that he otherwise wasn't going to do. It's not
like when you order something online and you say, well, I want
this and that, and it comes. Prayer is not something that
we do in order to inform God of matters that he was otherwise
unaware of. It's for our benefit, isn't it? We pray because prayer
is good for us. It reminds us of our dependence
upon him. It brings us to understand how much we rely upon him. Give
us this day our daily bread, said the disciples, That's what
the Lord Jesus taught them to pray. Give us this day our daily
bread because it comes from Thee. And it can only come from Thee. Prayer is an act of worship.
True prayer is an act of worship. In my distress I called upon
the Lord and cried unto my God. It's where we see true worship
really isn't it when a man comes like that. When a man comes and
says there's so many things that I can't manage. And he calls
upon God and cries unto God. It's an act of worship. And sometimes the answer to our
prayer is no, isn't it? Sometimes we ask for something
and the answer is no. We ask for this door to be opened,
for that door to be opened, for that pathway to be made clear
to us. And the door is closed. The answer
is no. It's not that the prayer is unanswered. It's just not
the answer that we wanted. In my distress I called upon
the Lord and cried unto my God, well may God grant us that we
know this same spirit of prayer that the psalmist knew. And may we know the same confidence
that he knew as he looked toward the temple in his day. May we be given that faith to
look outside of ourselves Though we have it so often put before
us in the hymns, pour not on thyself too long, the hymn writer
says, lest it sink you lower. Look to Jesus, kind and strong,
mercy joined with power. He heard my voice out of his
temple and my cry came before him, even into his ears. The hymn writer said, when all
things seem against me, to drive me to despair, and that's where
the psalmist was, in distress. All things seem against me to
drive me to despair. I know one gate is open. One
ear will hear my prayer. He called. He cried. He was heard. May God grant us that same experience. Amen. It's in 1024. 1024 to the tune
is Jackson's 163. So for a heart to praise the
Lord, a heart from sin set free, a heart that's sprinkled with
the blood so freely shed for me, a heart resigned, submissive,
me, the great Redeemer's throne, where only Christ is heard to
speak. where Jesus reigns alone in 1024.