sunk so well. First John 5. First John 5. Before we read, I'm going to
start reading at verse 13 and go down through verse 20. I ain't
going to deal with all of them by no stretch of the imagination,
just going to read them. These things have I written unto
you that believe on the name of the Son of God. that you may
know that you have eternal life, and you may believe on the name
of the Son of God. And 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. If any man see his brother sin
a sin, which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give
him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto
death, I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness
is sin, and there is a sin not unto death. We know that whosoever
is born of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth
himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. And we know
that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. And
we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding,
that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that
is true, even in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God
and eternal life. Now back here in 1 John 5, I
want us to look at verses 14 and 15. verses 14 and 15. This is the confidence that we
have in Him that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth
us. If we know that He hear us, whatsoever
we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desire
of Him. And I love a verse, there's two
things here, it says in the last part of verse 14, He heareth
us. And then there down in the second line of chapter 15, verse
15, He said, hear us. He hear us. He hears us. What an astounding statement.
He hears us, us. Now we pray, and this is John's
talking about praying, coming before the Lord in prayer now.
And we pray because we know we should. But sometimes we come
with doubt, sometimes we come with uncertainty. And sometimes
our prayers seem so lifeless that we just say, we quit. We
just quit. But here in this text, we find
one of the most amazing phrases found anywhere in the Scriptures.
He hears us. Who does? God does. He hears
us. The God of heaven and earth.
The God that the heaven of heavens can't contain Him. That measures
the waters in the hall of His hand. He said He hears us. Hears. He's attentive to us. He's thoughtful of us. Us. Hears us. His beloved children. He hears us. Now it wouldn't
surprise me if I read this and it says this. He hates us. It wouldn't surprise me. Because
we have such hateful natures at times. And we have such a
native sinful nature that it's amazing that God would hear us,
much less love us. I wouldn't surprise me if it
said that. Our sins render us worthy of hate. It wouldn't surprise
me if it says here, He tolerates us. He tolerates us. Just puts
up with us. It wouldn't surprise me if it
said that. We're prone to wonder. Our minds wonder, our thoughts
wonder. And when you start to do something
spiritual, you just mark it down, you pick up a Bible, or you go
to the Lord in prayer, and the next thing you know, your mind's
here yonder and every word's out. Something'll break in on
you to keep you from doing what you're doing. But, but it don't say any of those
things. It says, He hears us. He hears us. The apostle has
finished his purpose, and he finished it with this last verse
there in verse 13, or this is what he said, this is what I
wrote to you about. It's my purpose in writing. That you might believe
that you believe on the name of the Son of God, and that you
may, you know, have eternal life, and that you believe on the name
of the Son of God. That's he finished. Now he comes
to his closing statements. And all of these are statements
that he makes. But he's finishing up his letter
here, and he finishes up with the first thing after knowing
that we have eternal life and this business of assurance. He
talks about having confidence in prayer. And this is the confidence
that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to
His will, He heareth us. He heareth us. And I tell you
what, then he goes down here in verse 16 and he deals with
a brother's sin. If a man sees a brother's sin,
which is a sin not unto death, he can pray for that man. He
can pray for that person. And there is a sin unto death. And I don't know what that is.
I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to try
to find out. But I do not say that he don't pray for that sin
that's unto death. If God's got it in his mind that
he's going to destroy a man, And then he says, and all unrighteousness
is sin. And then he follows with statements
all with the word, no. Look what he says in verse 18.
We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not. Verse 19,
and we know that we are of God and the whole world lies in wickedness.
In verse 20, And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath
given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true,
even His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God. He dealt
with assurance of having eternal life and the evidences of having
eternal life. And we should not only have confidence
that we have eternal life, and this life is in God's Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, but we should also have confidence before God
in prayer. And that's what he says here.
So let's look together at several things about having confidence
in prayer. And this is the first thing he
says in verse 14. And this is the confidence that
we have. Now watch these two words in
him. That's the key right there. Confidence
in Him. You have confidence in your prayers?
Or in Him? And that's what He's talking
about. It's our confidence in Him. It's why we come in prayer. That's why we seek the Lord.
That's why we call on Him. Because we have confidence in
Him. He's got the power. He's got
the right. He's got the will. He's got the
ear. He's got the purpose. He's got
the right. And He's got the love, He's got
the compassion, He's got the pity, so you know in Him. And this word confidence means
that we have boldness, boldness, freedom of speech before Him.
Look what He said over here in 1 John 3.21, talking about confidence,
having confidence. Beloved, if our heart condemn
us not, then have we confidence towards God. If our hearts doesn't
condemn us, if there's no sin there and Christ just took away
that sin, and He's purified our hearts by faith, then we have
confidence towards God. We can come before God with some
boldness, with some liberty, and with some access. And that's
what He's talking about here. We come before God with boldness.
We come for Him with freedom of speech. We have confidence
toward Him. Now let me show you just the opposite of that. Now
you keep 1 John, look in John's Gospel chapter 7. Chapter 7 and
verse 12. This is some people that was
just opposite of this. They didn't have any confidence.
They didn't have any boldness. They didn't have any freedom
of speech. And they certainly didn't have confidence towards
Christ to proclaim Him. It says in verse 12, John 7,
And there was much murmuring among the people concerning Him.
For some said, He is a good man, others said, Nay, but He deceiveth
the people. Howbeit no man spake openly of
Him for fear of the Jews." Now they didn't have this confidence
in Christ. They didn't have this freedom
of speech concerning Christ and proclaiming Christ and acknowledging
Christ. But we have this confidence before
Him. We're not afraid to speak of
Him. We're not afraid to come into His Holy Presence. And our
Lord Jesus Christ, when He stood before the high priest when they
was taking Him to His crucifixion, the high priest asked Him of
His doctrine. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, While
I was with you, While I was with you, I spake unto the world,
I spake in the world, I spake openly in the synagogues, I spake
in the temple, wherever the Jews gathered together, I spoke before
them. And he said in secret, said I
nothing. So our Lord had confidence in
His message, confidence in His person, and that's what He's
talking about here, us having that confidence before God, that
confidence in God. And confidence is the absence
of fear. Those folks had fear. Confidence
in the presence of God. Confidence to come before God
is the absence of fear. Anything that would distance
us from Him. Keep us and distance us from
God. And when He says we have this
confidence, one of the writers says this, Open your mouth wide
before God. Open it wide before God. Loose
your tongues before God. in prayer confidence in him now
hebrews 4 look at his here's another thing about confidence
and you know having confidence him hebrews 4 in verse 16 boldness
confidence access freedom of speech ain't you thankful that
we we we don't have to go to uh anybody to present our prayers
before God. God Himself says that we could
come into the holiest of holies. We come by a new and living way
by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. We get to go to God ourselves. We get to speak to Him ourselves.
We have confidence that when we go to Him, He hears us. And
He's got His ear towards us. But here in Hebrews 4.16, look
what it says here. let us therefore come boldly
with confidence that's what it means let us therefore come boldly
freely confidently under the throne of grace that we may obtain
mercy and find grace to help in time of need well who are
we coming to we'll go back up in verse 14 this is why we come
boldly and confidently before the throne of grace seeing then
that we have a great high priest that's passed into the heavens.
We got a great high priest, he's in heaven right now. Who is he? Jesus, the son of God. That's
who we believe, that's where we get our life from. Let us
hold fast our profession. Hold all, we profess our faith
in Christ, we confess Christ to be everything, and we're gonna
hold fast to that, right there. Nothing else is gonna satisfy
us, nothing else satisfies God. Christ is our profession. And
he says this, for we have not a high priest which cannot be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was at all points
tempted like we are, yet without sin. So since he's in heaven,
since he's the son of God, since he's our profession, Since He's
touched with the feelings of our infirmities, let us come
boldly, confidently into the throne of grace. And that's the
same thing He's talking about here. Come with that confidence
because of Him. But now let me show you something
else over here in this text that I was using tonight. Verses 14
and 15. And this is the confidence that
we have in Him. Now there's some limits for our
confidence. God Himself limits it here. It
says that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth
us. So see, there's a qualification
here. There's a qualification here. Oh, you know, if we ask
anything according to His will, He hears us. David said it like
this. He said, if I regard iniquity,
if I approve of iniquity in my heart, if I regard iniquity,
if I approve of iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear
me. The Lord's arm is not short that it cannot save, neither
is heavy that it cannot hear, but your sins and iniquities
have separated between you and your God. Now that's what he
says in the scriptures, but John turns around and says, and that's
the thing about sin, but he turns around and you say, this is the
confidence that God hears us favorably, favorably, and that
if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. Now,
what does it mean according to his will? It means in harmony
with His will. Now, there's two wills of God.
Now, you listen to me now. There's two wills of God. There's
the secret will of God. His sovereign will that we don't
know what it is until it already goes to pass. There are secret
things that belong unto the Lord and His secret sovereign will. We don't know what He's got in
store for us. We don't know what He's got in
store for our loved ones. We don't know what He's going
to... We won't know what His will for us tomorrow is and His
sovereign will and secret will until we get to tomorrow night.
But the other part of it is His revealed will. And this is the
will we're concerned with. God's sovereign will. God's will
that He does by Himself in this world doing what He will. It's
always done. Nothing can ever stop that. But
when He said if we do anything according to His will, He's talking
about His revealed will. Now what's His revealed will?
Bible, the Word of God. That's why you're here tonight,
to find out what God says, what's God's will, and that's what He's
talking about here. We prayed, our Lord, they asked
Him, said, Lord, teach us to pray. He says, Say, Our Father,
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come
now listen to it thy will be done on earth even as it is in
heaven so you see beloved there's a revealed will of god that's
the old testament and the new testament and his revealed will
isn't always done people don't always do his revealed will Look
what he said over here in John 2.17. But now I tell you what,
there's two or three places where it talks about, he who doeth
the will of God will abide forever. And this is his revealed will,
it isn't always done. But he said here in verse, you
know all about love the world and love, lust of the flesh,
lust of the eyes, pride of life. It's not of the Father, but it's
of the world. And look what he said in verse 17. And the world
passes away in the lust thereof. But now listen to this. He that
doeth the will of God abideth forever. Doeth the will of God. He abides forever. So do in His
revealed will. And there are so many things
that God talks about His will. There are so many things He talks
about His will. Our Lord Jesus Christ, He talks
about He come to do the Father's will. And this is the will of
Him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and
believeth on him, hath everlasting life. And oh, our Father's will,
and that's what He talks about, I will be done. And He told over
in 1 Thessalonians 5, this is the will of God concerning you
and your sanctification, that you abstain from fleshy loves. This is the will of God that
in everything you give thanks. Now that's three will of God's
that we know of, that we want to do and we do. We want His
will done on this earth. just like it's done in heaven
whatever he says in heaven that's what we want to do here and he
says i'll tell you what said this is the will that in everything
you give thanks that's one of the will of god and i'll tell
you ever this is and i've said this oh my so i don't know how
many times i've said this but as after we address the lord
after we address the lord after we come into his presence and
acknowledge him to be who he is We're not coming to, we're
coming to God. We're speaking to God. And God
says that He hears us. And so we're coming to Him. And
after we acknowledge His power and His glory and His might and
His mercy and His grace, then, then, We ought to start thanking
Him. What have you got that you not
be thankful for? What have we got that we do not... Lord, thank you that... Listen,
I spent 18 months, 18 months, and six of it locked away. When
I came back from Vietnam, I was in a mess. I was a miserable
creature. And so when I get up of a morning,
And I can remember those days vividly. And there's always a
fear that it'd ever happen again. But I remember vividly those
days. They was terrible days, wasn't
they, Herman? They was awful days. And I'll tell you, but
anyway, I said that to say this. When I wake up of a morning,
one of the first things I'm thankful for is that I was woke up still
in my right mind. I still got my right mind, and
that I'm able to get out and do some things. I can still do
a few things, and that's what a blessing it is to be able to
get out of bed. You're not in a wheelchair. You
can tie your own shoes. You can dress yourself. These
are things that people take for granted, but those are the things
that God gives us. The tiniest things in this world
is the most precious things. Oh, they're the most precious
things. And oh, let me show you something over here in John's
Gospel, chapter 9. Here's some folks who didn't
love Christ, and they was mad at Christ, and they despised
Christ. And they talking about doing
the will of God. And look what he says here. You
all know the story. This is the man that was born
blind. And these Pharisees were really upset with this man. And
they said in verse 26, then said they to him again, What did he
to thee? How opened he thine eyes? He
answered them, I've told you already, and you did not hear.
You're not listening. Wherefore would you hear it again?
Will you also be his disciples? They reviled him. Oh, they reviled
him so. Oh, you're an idiot. You're a
fool. You're a stupid man. And thou
art his disciples. We are Moses' disciples. We know
that God spake unto Moses, as for this fella, we don't even
know where he's from. The man answered, now listen
to this now. The man answered and said unto them, Why, herein
is a marvelous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and
yet he hath opened mine eyes. Now here's what I wanted to say.
Now we know that God heareth not sinners, but if any man be
a worshiper of God, and listen to it, doeth his will him, God
hears. So, you know, there's two things
here. When he talks about hearing not
sinners, he's talking about men like these Pharisees, hard-hearted.
cruel men, wicked, terribly wicked men. And then, but he said, and
this man equates with being a worshiper of God as doing the will of God.
And how does man worship God? In spirit and in truth. And he
says, those that worship God, worship, and it can be said that
they're doing the will of God. He that worships God, he's doing
the will of God. And we know, what did he say?
He hears us. He hears us. Our Lord Jesus Christ, he was
in a house teaching, had a big crowd in the house and they was
gathered all around the house and listening to him. And his
mother and brother was, brother, it says mother and his brother
were standing outside and they said go in there and tell him
that we want him. Somebody went in there and interrupted
the Lord Jesus says your mother and brother stand without desire
to speak to you Our Lord Jesus just stopped right there, and
he said who is my mother who is my brother? But he who doeth
the will of my father which is in heaven. That's my mother.
That's my brother That's the people that I love that's the
people that I have relationship with those that do the will of
God And so, bless His holy name. I tell you, oh, we got confidence
in Him. Oh, we got confidence. All the
confidence in the world is in Him. And the confidence that
He hears us. But now, let me go on here, back
over in John 5. The results of this confidence
in Him. He's going to hear us. He's going to hear us. And it
was limited by doing the will of God. You know, He hears us
if we pray according to His will. And I say this without any hesitation. There's not a one of us in this
building, there's not a believer anywhere that does not pray,
Lord, Your will be done in my life, in my family's life, in
my home. That's what we say, no matter
what we ask for, what we say to Him, what we desire of Him,
we always say, If it be Thy will. If it be Thy will. And that's
what John is saying here. We have this confidence if we
ask according to His will. And then here's the results of
the effects of this confidence. But look what he says here in
verse 15. And if we know that He hear us,
we know that He hear us. Whatsoever we ask, we know that
we have the petitions that we desired of Him. If we ask Him, if we got confidence
enough to ask Him, and confidence enough in Him to hear us, we
ought to have confidence to believe that He's going to answer us. But here's our problem, you know,
we've seen where God's answered prayer, and that's what He's
saying here. If we have confidence that He
hears us, we should also have confidence that He's going to
answer, that He's going to answer. You know how many times You know,
just Scott Richardson is a perfect illustration. He prayed for his
boys, and prayed for his boys, and prayed for his boys. Now
he's gone. And one of his boys, long after
he's gone, made a confession of faith, stand in, and got baptized. His dad don't know nothing about
that. But his dad prayed, and prayed, and prayed. And you know,
so it was God's will to save that boy. and we see we may not
see fruit from our prayers immediately god don't answer just he don't
jump to just like that he's not like these these preachers that
say on tv you just you know you got a blank check all you got
to do is is believe just believe that god's gonna give you what
you asked you want a new car tell him about it ask him for
it you need a vacation just ask him for it but that's not what
this talk about here We don't ask for things like that. Oh
my, oh listen, God hears us concerning His will, and we wouldn't pray
any other way. And here's confidence that we
have, and this is the result. We know that if we, whatsoever
we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desire
to have. We know that He's gonna hear us. We have confidence that
God is our Father. And what did our Lord Jesus Christ
say? What man of you would ask His, if His Son asked Him For
an egg, would he give him a serpent? No. And if a mother and a father
in this world does good things for their children, how much
more would our heavenly father do for us? And oh, beloved, I
tell you what, not only is he our father, but I'll tell you
something, he's the best father. He's the best father. He will
not withhold any good thing from them. The scripture says that
desiring. Oh, listen. He wouldn't refuse
His children. He won't refuse His children.
And His children, that's another thing we need to understand is
that we're going before Him as His children. We're His children. Herman, you know, when you go
to the Lord, you're not very old, I know, but when you go
to the Lord, you know you come as His child. As a child. And we're His children. And if
we would come more as a child, and that's like a child would
ask his father, And I tell you what He's going to do for us.
He's going to give us just exactly what's the best for us and what's
going to bring Him the most glory. I'm sure of that. Now let's talk
about the heart of God and prayer. And oh, this is the confidence
we have in Him if we ask anything. And we know that He hears us.
He hears us. We have the petitions that we
desired of Him. God hears the humble prayers
of His believing the humble prayers of his believing people. And
we can't come any other way. Davis says this poor man cried
unto the Lord and he heard my cry. You go through the Psalms,
I lifted up my voice and I cried unto the Lord. Lord, hear my
voice. Oh Lord, please hear my voice. Oh, I cry unto thee. And that's
what he says over and over. And I tell you, we come before
the Lord, we come, always have to come humble because we ain't
got no other reason, no other way to come. And all if we know
that he hears us, God's ear is not heavy that he can't hear.
And so cry unto the Lord. He hears our cry. And oh, he
listens to the cries of his people. Oh, he hears them. And you go
through the scriptures. You go through our Lord's, all
the people that came to him to pray. The woman who brought,
the Syrophoenician woman, she brought her daughter, and brought
her daughter, and the Lord just ignored her, ignored her, ignored
her. She just kept coming. And finally, she said, ìMy daughter,
have mercy, my daughter is grievously vexed with the devil.î Finally,
the Lord Jesus said unto her, ìIt is not right that I should
give the childrenís bread to dogs.î She said, ìYes, Lord,
youíre exactly right.î But even the dogs get the crumbs from
the Masterís table. And He said, ìIíve never heard
such faith.î He said, ìGo thy way, thy daughters.î But they
come. Humbly, they come crying. All
those lepers that came down off the mountain said, Lord, if thou
wilt, thou canst make us clean. You can make us clean. And oh,
I tell you, and in the heart of God, he believes, he hears
the cries of his people. And lastly, the scriptures qualifies
what kind of prayer the Lord answers. What kind of prayer
the Lord answers. We have confidence before God
if we ask anything according to His will, according to His
will. And we pray according to His will, according to what He's
taught us from His Word. And see, when He says here, you
know, have confidence before Him, our Lord, He wants us to
know how to pray, know how to pray. We don't want to change
God's will. We wouldn't want to change God's
mind. We wouldn't want to change anything at all about God. He
wants us to know how to pray. And then He says, you know, when
we come to pray, we come believing. We come believing. If any man
ask anything of God, let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.
And then we come, this is wishes as qualified. We come for Christ's
sake, in Christ's blessed name. We come in Christ's name. You
know why we come in His name? Because He's the one that's got
all the merit. He's the one that's got all the words. He's the one.
We don't come in our own name. We come in His name. We come
in His name. We come in His merit. We don't ask for anything because
we deserve it. We ask because Christ, blood
and righteousness, God, He gets everything. And if we ask anything
according to His will, believing, confessing Christ, coming for
Christ's sake, pleading His merit, pleading His worth, pleading
His righteousness. God hears us. We have this confidence that
He hears us. Huh? He hears us. I think God
heard us tonight when we prayed. I wouldn't pray if I didn't think
He'd hear me. I wouldn't, you know. Would you? No. But we have this confidence
in Him. In Him. If we ask anything according
to His will, He hears us. He hears us. Oh, our Savior. Oh, our blessed,
blessed Savior. Our great and glorious God. Oh,
how blessed we are. How blessed we are. How thankful
we are. Lord, You never leave us to ourselves. And we're so thankful, so blessed
of God, so blessed of you, so blessed of the Holy Spirit, so
blessed to have the desire to be here, the will to be here,
and so blessed to understand why we're here, why we're here,
and to believe it and rejoice in it. Lord, it's your work.
And so, Lord, we acknowledge that you're God, and beside you,
there is none other. Hear us. Hear us for Christ's
sake. And Lord, we have prayers that
you know, and you know what they are, and you know who they're
for. So Lord, we pray that your will be done there for Christ's
sake. Amen. Amen.