Thank you, Sherry. John, do you hear this? Luke 18, go back
there. Prayer is our subject. And prayer
is so needful and so vital. I hope the Lord will bless this.
So needful. The Lord spoke this parable unto
this end for this reason, that men ought always pray and not
think, not quit. Do not quit. One time he said,
my house shall be called the house of prayer. Now, this message
is not a message on how to, but rather just an encouragement
to, to encourage us to pray. It's hard enough. I have a hard
enough time praying, let alone telling others how to do it.
But I know this, prayer is the life's breath of a believer. A believer, prayer is like our
breath. Prayer is the lifeline, like
an umbilical cord of the child of God. An umbilical cord connects
us with our Heavenly Father. If there's no prayer, there's
no life. You don't have life if you're
not calling on the Lord. talking to the Lord. If there's
no prayer, there's no strength. There's no peace. There's no
comfort. There's no consolation. There's no assurance. There's
no stability. There's no faith. Listen to this. Be careful. Don't be full of
care for anything but in everything by prayer, whatever it may be.
In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your requests
be made known unto God. And in doing that, he says, and
the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep
your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. So prayer is talking
to our Lord and speaking to Him, pouring out our hearts to Him
as a way to find peace. Alright, this is an encouragement,
an exhortation to prayer. Our Lord said that this was to
Men that we would always pray and not to faint to this end.
To all men and women to pray and not quit. Paul wrote, pray
without ceasing. And the reason being, and we're
going to look at prayer in a little bit, what it is. The reason we
need to pray without ceasing and just continue in prayer,
he said, is because we're so helpless. Because we're so weak. Because we're so sinful. Because
we're so poor and needy. We're completely dependent on
Him. And we need everything from Him. So He says, ask. And He
says, one time you had not, because you asked not. And we're so prone
to wonder, aren't we? That's one of our favorite hymns,
Prone to Wonder. We're so ready to halt, ready
to quit. It doesn't take much to discourage
us and have us ready to quit. So he says, pray always. We need to pray without ceasing
always because the dangers and the temptations are many. They're
all around us. They're strong. Many dangers,
many temptations. And the adversary, we need to
pray without ceasing, always pray, because our adversary desires to sift us like wheat. You say, oh, Satan doesn't desire
man. Hold on now. He knows. He can use one little
person to, my, my. Satan desires us, and he's stronger
than we are. So we pray to one stronger than
him. It's our only hope against our
adversary. That's what we're going to look
at with this widow who said, avenge me of my adversary. The way to pray without ceasing,
our Lord said this, without me, you could do nothing, nothing.
Prayer in a word is calling on the Lord, call. Whosoever shall
call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's not a
one-time thing, is it? That means always call. We ought
always to pray. Always keep calling. Whosoever
shall call and call and call. This woman kept calling, didn't
she? She never quit calling until he answered her. Never quit calling. Whosoever shall never quit calling
will be saved. We ought always to pray day in
and day out until we have no more breath left in our body.
Then we don't need to pray. We'll be with Him. It'll be over.
We don't need to pray. We'll be with Him in person. Now, here's the lesson in importunity.
The Lord gave this parable of a woman in a city and an unjust
judge. And she kept coming to this unjust
man who, he said, was so bothered by her that he said, I'm going
to answer her. I'm going to get rid of her. Her continual coming. And I didn't
write it down, but I think it's chapter 20. No, chapter, let's
see, where is it? Let's see if this is it. Chapter 11. Go back there. Chapter 11. Let's see if this
is it, where the Lord gave this story. Yeah, here it is. Chapter
11. And this is right after the Lord
told, you know, the disciples said, teach us to pray, Lord.
And he gave them this pray after this manner. And right after
that, he said in verse 5, which of you shall have a friend and
go unto him at midnight? That's an inconvenient hour,
isn't it? You're putting him out. You're imposing upon men. You can't impose upon the Lord. And which of you have a friend
and go unto him at midnight and say unto him, friend, lend me
three loaves. A friend of mine in his journey has come to me
and noticed he needs help to do something for him. You reckon
he's going to answer him for that? You can be sure the Lord
will answer you if it's for someone else. Read on. And I don't have
anything. You see, verse 6, this friend
is coming. I don't have anything. And he from within shall answer
and say, trouble me not. The door is now shut. My children
are with me and I cannot rise and give them that. I say unto
you, though he will not rise and give him because he's his
friend. Well, he ought to. Even if he
doesn't do that, if the man won't go away, because of his importunity,
he will rise and give him as many as he needed. I say unto
you, ask, and it shall be given. And that means keep asking. Seek,
and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened
unto you. Everyone that asketh, let's continue
receiving. He was seeking, and he went on
to give these blessed promises that the son asked bread. Are
you going to give him a stone? No. How much more will your heavenly
father give the Holy Spirit? That's a key. All right. So this widow, you know, we need
to continue earnest in prayer like this, this widow. And I want you to notice something
with me in chapter 17, right before he gave this parable.
Chapter 17 is when he is warning them of his certain coming, as
in the days of Noah, as in the days of Lot. He said, remember
Lot's wife. And right after that, he said,
you ought always to pray because the Son of Man cometh at a time
when you think not. He's even at the door. So that's
the The warning, that's the motivation. All right. So he tells us this
several times. Look at Luke 21. Luke 21. Pray without ceasing. Luke 21. Look at this. Verses 34 through
36. And oh, how we need this, because
this world threatens us to overcome us. Take heed to yourselves. lest at any time your hearts
be overcharged with surfeiting, that means just doing everything
there is to do in this world, and drunkenness overcome with
anything, and cares of this life. And that day come upon you unaware.
It's going to be a snare come upon all them that dwell on the
face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore and pray always
that ye may be counted worthy to escape all those things. These
things that shall come to pass and stand before the Son of Man.
To watch and pray. Prayer opens our eyes, doesn't
it? To watch. Paul wrote this. Continue instant
in prayer. Listen to this. Well, Ephesians
6. Go there. Ephesians 6. We'll
settle down in Luke 18 in just a minute. But in Ephesians 6,
listen to this. Ephesians 6, verse Right after
the armor, remember, put on the whole armor. Verse 18, he closes
this by saying, put on this armor, but it's no good if you don't
pray. Praying always, all the time, with all prayer, supplication
in the Spirit, power of the Spirit, that is, we sang about. Watching
thereunto with prayer, with all perseverance and supplication
for the saints. Pray for your brethren. God will
hear you. As for me too, me, the utterance
may be given me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known
the mystery of the gospel. Because this gospel is the power
of God unto salvation. And we have unsaved loved ones,
and we ourselves need to hear it. So pray for the preacher.
If we want a blessing, pray for the preacher. And he says this
many times, Colossians 4 and 1 Thessalonians 5, pray without
ceasing. Pray always. Men ought always
to pray and not All right, now go to Luke 18 and look at this
parable. This widow is every one of us.
A widow indeed is someone who has no one. In the Scriptures,
a widow is one who has no husband and has no children to take care
of her. That's a widow in the Scripture. No one. She is poor. A widow back then who didn't
have a husband, didn't have sons or daughters to care for her,
She didn't have any rights, anything. She was helpless like Naomi,
like Ruth. And all they could hope was they
had a kinsman or a keeper. Poor, widowed, helpless, poor. We're all poor and needy. Everyone
is a lot poorer than we know. A lot more needy than we know. And she came to the judge and
said, avenge me, verse 3, avenge me of my adversary. We have an
adversary. Satan, strong man armed, keepeth
his goods until someone stronger than they come. And the goods
that Satan had, our Lord was tempted. Remember by Satan? He
was tempted by Satan and Satan tempted him with the things,
all these things. He said, I'll give you He said,
for some of that power is given unto man. I don't understand
that, Philip. But he did that, didn't he? He
had some power or ability to confer material things. And that's what he uses. And
we're real weak when it comes to those things. Real weak. We
have an adversary. And that's his goods. And he's
like a roaring lion, Scripture says. He uses temptations, material
things, lies, deceptions. We have an adversary that's within
us, and he's like a roaring lion in this sinful self. The world
is our adversary. It's not friend to us, it's our
enemy. And none of these things are
going to let up. None of these things, these people,
are going to let up until the day we die. And that's why he
says, always pray, not quit. The flesh lusts against the spirit.
You cannot do the things that you would. Without him, we can
do nothing. But what's the rest of that,
John? He says, I can do all things
through Christ with strength, but not without asking. This
widow kept coming. What does the scripture tell
us to do? To whom coming? coming to me. And come, and come,
and come. To whom coming? Don't quit coming.
You can believe that he's faithful and willing and able. You keep coming. No matter how
long you've been away, come back. No matter how many times you've
gone astray, keep coming. He's faithful. He will no wise
cast you out. That widow kept coming and said,
ìAvenge me. I need help. Avenge me of my
adversaries.î And our Lord promised this in verse 7. He said, ìShall
not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto
him, though he bear long with them?î Our Lord said, ìVengeance
is mine. I will repay.î He said, ìSin
shall not have dominion over you.î He said, he shall bruise Satan
shortly under our feet. And prayer is calling. Prayer
is crying. I just read Psalm 107 again. They got down. They kept getting
down because of their sin, because of their foolishness, because
they're out in the world and these things enticed them and
tempted them and they fell to these temptations. And they got
down and said, then they cried. Well, what happened? The Lord
heard them and delivered them out of all their trouble. But
they got right back into trouble. And so then they cried. What
happened? The Lord heard them and delivered
them out of all their trouble. Four times. Every time. Every time they got in trouble
and every time they cried, the Lord heard them. Now, I'm giving
you faithful. Prayer is calling, crying of
the Lord. And this is why prayer is mostly
private. It's a private thing. We pray
publicly. We pray together as a church.
But other than that, we're not to be seen praying, not to be
heard. He said, get in your closet and
cry. But it doesn't have to be with
your lips, always from the heart. Prayer is crying. Prayer is calling. Prayer is communion, talking
with our Lord, communing with our Lord, conversing with our
Lord. If there's no communion, there's
no relationship in it. If you don't talk to someone,
you don't know that person. And you don't have any trust
in them. You don't have any confidence
in them. Talk with your Lord. Enoch walked with God. Noah walked
with God. What does that mean? It means
they talked with God and talked with Him. Does our Lord talk
back? Yes, not out loud, but he certainly
does through his scriptures. How many times has the Word of
God come to your mind after you were talking to the Lord or something
happened, the Word of God come to your mind? Huh? That's him
talking to you, speaking to you. Through the preaching of the
Word, he bears witness with you, he speaks to you. Reading of
the Word, through experience. Experiences we go through, don't
we? Experiences we go through, He proves His Word to us. He
said this would happen. People. The Lord uses people
to speak to us. A word in season. A brother or
sister. The Lord speaks through our brethren.
I needed to hear that. I needed that. The Lord does
speak. In Luke 24, I love that story.
Two disciples were walking along, talking together. Who are they
talking about? The Lord. And they were sad. This is a good lesson. They were
sad. They shouldn't have been sad. Talk about the Lord, you
ought to rejoice. There's nothing to be sad about
if you're talking about the Lord. You ought to be rejoicing. But
they were walking along talking together about the Lord. What
does he say about two that are met together in my name? I'll
be there. Well, he did. He showed up. They
didn't know it was him. They thought it was just a preacher.
Just a preacher. And it says they talked to him. He talked to them. Why are you
so sad? And they poured out their hearts to him. We trusted. We
trusted. Then he began to preach to them.
And you know what they said after it was over? Well, first they constrained
him. Stay with us. Talk to us some more. Preach
to us some more. Don't go away. We need you to
converse with us. We like what you're saying. And
they constrained him to abide with them. What does the Lord
say about abiding with them? My words abide in you. My Father
and I will come in and make our abode with you. But after that
it says, afterward they said, did not our hearts burn within
us while he talks with us by the way? So prayer is communion. You commune with the Lord, He'll
commune with you. Calling communion prayer is confession. Confession. Pouring out our heart. Confessing
our sin. Confessing our guilt. Confessing
our sins at once. Confessing sins we don't know
about. I just read that from David. He said, Keep me back
from presumptuous sin. Secret sin. Confessing, Lord,
I'm just a sinner. I sin in ways I don't know about.
Oh, Lord, help me. Confessing our weakness. Confessing
our need. Prayer is repentance. Repentance. There are many great prayers
in Scripture. The greatest prayer in Scripture, you know what that
is, don't you? John said that. Our Lord's high
priestly prayer. Because of that prayer, we're
going to heaven. Because He makes intercessions
for us. He said, Peter, Satan hath desired you, but I prayed
for you. That's why. We're not going to
get into heaven because of our prayer. We're going to get into
heaven because of His prayer. That's the greatest prayer in
all of Scripture. But in the Old Testament, there are many
great prayers, aren't there? Hannah's prayer. Read that. She doesn't mention one material
thing. She asked the Lord for a child.
He gave her a child. She didn't even mention Him.
Didn't He mention Him? Because that was not what she
was so overcome by, but the Lord's mercy. Ezra 9. Nehemiah 9. Daniel's prayer in Daniel 9. to me is perhaps the greatest
prayer in all of the Old Testament by man. Psalm 51. Psalm 51. That's the prayer that
every believer can enter into at all times. Have mercy upon
me, O God. Have mercy. That's the prayer
that nearly every one of the martyrs went to their death praying. Why? You're about to face God. That's why. Have mercy on me. According to your loving kindness.
Your tender mercy. Blot out my transgressions. Purge
me with thyself. Oh my, wash me. Clean me. Cast me not away. Can you enter
into that prayer? It's repentance. Repentance against
thee and thee only have I sinned. I've done this evil in thy sight.
You're going to be clear when you judge me. Will God hear that
prayer? Every time. Did God hear David? He sure did. Prayer, how can
we pray always? We can't always be on our knees,
can we? We can't always be praying out
loud. We go to work, we're out in the world. How then? Well, that tells us that prayer
is not a certain posture, is it? Prayer doesn't have anything
to do with, well, doesn't have mostly to do with posture. Solomon
stood with his hands and prayed. He stood and prayed. David went
in and sat before the Lord. You remember that? He sat down.
He said, Oh, who am I and what does my have? He just sat there. Can you see David sitting there? Daniel fell on his face. Elijah
had his head between his knees. But we're not heard for our posture. We're not heard for our posture.
We're not heard for our words either. We're not heard because
of what we say. The Pharisees say they love to
pray long prayers. The Lord didn't hear them. It
didn't matter how long they were. He didn't hear them. Look at this. Now, our Lord gives
us these two examples of prayer day. In Luke 18, two men, verse
10, went up into the temple to pray. One a Pharisee, the other
a publican. The Pharisee prayed, it says,
stood and prayed thus with himself. That is, he loved to hear himself. God, I thank Thee. And he began
to say what all he was not. And what all he did not, and
what all he did. And God didn't hear that prayer.
And God condemned him. By your words, you'll be condemned.
Or justified. Or justified. I forget, I counted
his twenty-some words. All right? But then there was
a publican. This publican standing afar off. He didn't feel worthy
to come up close to him. praying, looking up to heaven,
I think he was prostrate. He wouldn't even lift up his
eyes, meaning that his whole body was prostrate before the
Lord. And he smote upon his breast as if to say, I wish I could
get this sin out of me. And his heart was hurting him.
He had a broken heart. Seven words. Seven has always been the number
of perfection in Scripture. Completion. Complete. Seven. Seven. The seventh day, the Lord
rested. Complete. This man prayed seven
words. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Is that long enough? Is that
good enough? The Lord said, Look what the
Lord said. I tell you, this man went down
to his house justified from all things. Completely justified
from all things. His sin wiped out, blotted out. Every transgression blotted out
against him. We can pray without words. In
fact, it's better to have a heart without words than words without
heart. There was a woman caught in the
act of adultery. And she was brought in before all those people.
And everybody in there was saying something, weren't they? Everybody
was talking. All those pharisees. You could
hear them buzzing, murmuring, talking to one another. The Lord
said, and they were all talking, and you know what the Scripture
said, the Lord stooped down and rode in the ground as if He heard
them not. They were all talking and he
wasn't hearing anybody. The only person in there who
was not talking was her. He could hear the beat of her
heart. She's in the depths of her heart. She doesn't have anything. She can't think of a thing to
say. She's guilty. If she was saying anything, I
know what she was saying in her heart. Oh, Lord, have mercy. Have mercy. I'll tell you the
truth. Most of the time, that's about
all I can find to pray. God be merciful. He'll hear that
every time. He heard her. Woman, where are
thine accusers? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's will? Is God to justify? Who is He
to condemn? Christ died. No condemnation
then that are in Christ, that come to Him and ask for mercy.
We are heard for two reasons. Number one, we are heard for
Christ's sake. We are heard for Christ's sake.
He said, pray in my name. If you pray in my name, that
means with faith in Him, by faith in Him, looking to Him, pleading
to the Father, Christ, pleading His blood, pleading His righteousness,
pleading His promises, pleading the Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
for Christ's sake, will you receive me for Your Son's sake? Do you
reckon He will? It's a true story. And you've
heard it before, but you may have forgotten it. You know my
brother was killed in Vietnam. Well, a few years after that,
and I was there. I was at the house. knock on
the door. I answered the door. And this
pretty rough-looking fellow was standing there. He looked pretty
dirty and rough. And he said, Can I speak to Reverend
Mayhem? I said, Okay, I'll go get him.
And I went and got Dad. And he came to the door and said,
What can I do for you? And the fellow said, I knew Robbie. He was a buddy
of mine. And I did help. You remember
that? I reckon what they did? Open
that door. Oh, you know our son that died? Come on in. You're welcome in
this house, to anything we have. How much more shall the Father
hear us through His Son? Oh, my. He hears us for Christ's
sake. He hears every sincere. He hears
us not because of our theology, not because of our doctrine.
We want to pray correctly, don't we? That's not why he hears us. In fact, he hears groanings that
cannot be uttered. Better to just groan. My, my. Theology, our doctrine, sounds
like the infinite Lord, His wisdom. Babbling, babbling babies. We were heard, for Christ's sake,
we were heard because of need. Blessed are the poor and needy.
Needy. There was a man named Bartimaeus,
sitting by the highway side, begging. dirty, in rags, poor,
and needy. The Lord doesn't need him. The
Lord can't use him. There's nothing the Lord needs
about him. The Lord's not asking him to
accept him or anything like that. This man is needy, though. And
the Lord will not turn away someone that's needy. And Bartimaeus
cried, Jesus, thou Son of David, Have mercy on me. And the Lord
of glory, who has so many important things to do, people to see,
people to save, people to heal, people to tend to, stops for one needy, worthless,
blind man and told him, go call him and bring him here. I'm not
leaving until I deal with it. Isn't that encouragement? Keep
praying? Well, very quickly, let me close
with this. Prayer is, and our Lord gave the manner of prayer. When He said, after this manner
of prayer, He didn't mean pray these exact words every time.
How many times do you hear people repeat that prayer? They do it
at ball games and things like that. You don't hear that. Just a repetition
prayer. The Catholics do that, don't
they? They pray to the wrong person, number one. But we're
not heard for our much speaking. We're not heard for repetitions.
He didn't tell us to do that in those exact words. But it's
that manner of prayer. After this manner of prayer.
So here's the manner of that prayer. Our Father. Like a child. If Christ is your Hope. Christ
is your Redeemer. Christ is your hope of heaven.
God's your Father. And you can cry, Abba. Romans
8. Abba, Father. Our Father. The
Father always hears His children. Through Christ the Son. Hallowed
be thy name. That's praise. Prayer is praise. Hallowed be thy name. Before
you ask anything, praise Him. Praise Him. Hallel, our Father. Hallel be thy name. Thy kingdom
come. This is the great need. This
is our great need. We need food and raiment. Your
Father knows you have need of those things, but seek ye first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things that He
hath given to you. This is the one great need. Lord, I need
to be in your kingdom. I need for your gospel to come
in power. The gospel of the kingdom come in power to me and those
around me. Thy kingdom come. Send your kingdom
tonight in power. Overcome me. Let me bow. Thy will be done. The will of the Father. You say
that every time in your prayer. Every time you pray, you say
that. Not our will, but Thy will. And that's good. Brother Barnard, I was riding in a car one time
with a young preacher. And the young man said to Brother
Barnard, he said, Brother Barnard, he said, what do you think about
prayer? Tell me what you think about
prayer. And the young man told this later. So they drove for miles and Barnard
didn't answer a word. That's why I said he didn't say
anything. The young man, Brother Barnard,
didn't you hear me? He said, I asked you, what do
you think about prayer? And Barnard wisely said this,
he said, it has something to do with the will of God. And that's all he said. He didn't
say anything else. Thy will be done. If we're really
seeking His will, we won't want our will. If we're really seeking
His will, you'll know it, and you'll walk in it, and you'll
have peace. You will. His will. If you see
His will, you'll have peace. It's being done. Petitions. Requests. Give us. Us. Us. Not just me. Give me. Give
me. Give me. Religion is all about
give me. Give me. Give me. Give me. where it is gimme, gimme,
gimme. God's people is mostly thank
you, thank you, thank you, thank you. God's people, I hear you
pray, and just every other sentence is thank you, thank you, thank
you. But it is petition, request. Let your request be known to
God. Prayer and supplication supply us. Requests, everything. And I've said this before, and
you know why, that we ask for everything, even daily bread.
That way, when He gives it, you'll give Him the credit for it. The Lord gives bread to everyone.
Even if they don't ask for it, He gives it. And so they don't
give Him credit for it. But we ask for it, and He gives
it, and we give Him credit for it. He said, if your brother has
ought against you, you go to him first. David said, if I regard
iniquity in my heart, the Lord's not going to hear me. The Lord
said, if you don't forgive your brother, the Father's not going
to forgive you. The thing I need more than anything from my God
is forgiveness. How am I going to get it? I'm not going to give it if I
don't forgive. So maybe that's where we should have started.
Forgive us. Forgive us. And I remind you
again, probably some of the dearest words I've ever heard, maybe
the first words I ever heard the Lord speak to my heart were,
Father, forgive him. He doesn't know what he's doing. He knows not what he's doing.
Forgive us. Start with forgiveness and then
pray. Forgive us. Intercessory prayer. You know
why the father always heard his son? Number one, he prayed, Father,
glorify thy name. Glorify thy name. Oh, he said,
I have and I will again. When it thundered. And then our
Lord in his priestly prayer in John 17, you know he's not praying. He starts out by praying, glorify
thou me with the glory I had with you in the beginning. And
then from then on, he's praying for everybody else. The whole
prayer is for everybody else, his disciple. And the Lord heard him. He'll
hear us too. Intercessory prayer. Thanksgiving. And everything by prayer and
supplication with Thanksgiving. Prayer is Thanksgiving. And so,
our Lord spake this parable, and the other one with it, that
men ought always to pray and not think. And it doesn't have
to be long. It doesn't even have to be out
loud, but from the heart and in Christ's name. Whatsoever we ask, we know that
we have the petitions that we desire to be. Okay, stand with
me. Our Lord, thank you for your
word. Thank you for teaching us. Thank
you for all the reproof and rebuke and
correction and instruction in righteousness, Lord. In our homes,
not to be seen, but rather privately to You, Lord, in a world full
of religious people that are so ignorant and so self-righteous.
Lord, we still are. Forgive us. But thank You for
what You've taught us. Thank You for Your Word. Thank
You for the privilege of prayer. Oh, what a privilege. And oh,
what peace we often forfeit. Needless pain we bear because
we don't use this blessed privilege. Lord, by this, Your Word, through
this message on Your Word, teach us to pray and exhort us and
encourage us to pray and not quit. It causes us to pray. We're so weak. We're so sinful.
It causes us to always look to Thee in prayer and watch in the
same. And for our brethren, Lord, let
us not think of ourselves, but think on things of others. Pray
for our brethren. So many are so in such greater
needs than we are. Let us never forget our sin against
Thee and ceasing to pray for our brethren. Make us like the
Lord Jesus Christ. Make us like Him, O Lord. Hear
us for Christ's sake, and we give thanks in His name. Amen.