I invite you to turn, if you
will, back with me this morning to the book of Luke, the book
of Luke chapter 18. And I'd like to read the first
eight verses, if you please, the first eight verses of Luke
chapter 18. And he, that is the Lord Jesus
Christ, spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought
always to pray and not to faint, saying, There was in a city a
judge which feared not God, neither regarded man. And there was a
widow in that city, and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of
mine adversary. And he would not for a while,
but afterward he said within himself, though I fear not God
nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge
her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said,
hear what the unjust judge saith, and shall not God avenge his
own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear
long with them. I tell you that he will avenge
them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of
Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth." Now the selection
of this text this morning, I suppose that there is a degree of selfishness
in it from my part. Because I desperately need the
message this morning myself. Because I feel a deep need of
the truth that is set forth here by our Lord in my own life. I want this morning if I can
to be of some help to somebody. I want to help the Lord's people. I want to be a comfort to you,
I want to encourage you if I can. I recognize that we're empty
wells apart from the filling of the Divine Spirit and that
we'll have a very dry message if the Lord does not come and
send the dew of heaven upon us to water us today. I do hope
that your soul is prepared for this time of fellowship around
the Word of God and that the Lord will be pleased to use what
is said here today to help you in your spiritual struggle in
this life. God's people are not at home.
They're not at home. One time there was a preacher
brother that was riding on a train with one of our presidents years
ago, I believe it was Theodore Roosevelt. And they arrived at
a certain destination back in Washington, D.C., I believe,
as the story goes, and both this preacher and the president got
off of the train, and there was a lot of people there to meet
the president. And they all was, of course,
clapping for him, and it was a time of joyous time. The president
returned back to Washington, D.C. The preacher got off. There
wasn't anybody there. And he was somewhat bothered
by it. No one there to welcome him back.
And he thought about it a little bit, and he said, well, the president
got home. He was home. But he said, I haven't
got home yet. And the people of God, they're
not home yet. So there isn't any very many
joyous occasions where we're having the applause of men and
the praise and the blessing of men. We're in this world, and
this world is no friend of grace to help us on to God. Many trials,
many tests, many adversities in this world. And so I hope
this morning that the Lord has something for each one of us. Now the Lord Jesus Christ told
this parable to this end, and this was the end that he had
in mind, that men ought always to pray and not to faint. Now I'm shut up to this particular
passage of scripture this morning. I can't preach from any other.
This is it. I have to preach this morning
from this passage of the Word of God. I'm shut up to it and
I hope that the Lord will give you grace to bear with me as
I attempt to bring these thoughts to you. Now Jesus was a prophet. He was a prophet mighty in word
and mighty in deed. And we read of him in the scripture
that Jesus began both to do and to teach. Now in the exercise
of prayer, the coal mountains and the midnight air witnessed
that the Lord Jesus Christ was as great a doer as he was a teacher. Now when he exhorted his disciples
to continue in prayer and to pray without ceasing, he was
only asking them to follow him in his steps. to follow Him, to imitate Him,
the Lord Jesus Christ was a praying man. He was a praying man. He was a man whom God had sent
into this world and He had upon His shoulders that great burden
of bearing the sin of all of His people and of their salvation. And He would give an account
of every one of the Father's sheep, all that were given to
Him. He had mighty and weighty burdens
upon Him. He was a man of sorrow, a man
that was acquainted with grief, a man that knew and understood
the weakness of flesh. And He understood it. He told
the disciples, He said, you watch and pray, lest you enter into
temptation. The Lord Jesus knew what temptation
was at the hands of Satan. He understood these things and
he felt these things very keenly. And the disciples, you know,
they had such weak flesh. We all have weak flesh, do we
not? weak flesh. But here the Lord
Jesus Christ is bidding us as it were to follow in his steps. And I believe it's a great encouragement
to the students if they know that their teacher is doing that
which he himself is exhorting them to do. And certainly the
Lord Jesus Christ was following or he was certainly a praying
man himself and exhorted others to pray and to follow in his
example. Now if there was anyone who might
have been supposed to need no prayer I believe that it would
certainly have been our covenant head, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because the Lord Jesus, he did always those things that pleased
the Father. The Lord Jesus was in tune with
heaven. He walked in fellowship with
heaven all the time. And you wouldn't have thought
that he that taught that the Father knew beforehand what we
had need of when we prayed that it would be necessary for him
to pray Because the father already would know what his son, his
own beloved, his only begotten son, the son of his love, needed. And therefore, if anybody in
the world that didn't need to pray, you would think it would
have been the Lord Jesus Christ. But he prayed. Oh, how he prayed. How he cried unto God. And so how much more should we
who are inferior pray? Those of us that are the children
of God, but yet we live in a body wherein we have experienced sin. And where we have walked in a
manner that was contrary to God's mind and law and truth. And we
have experienced that and we're so weak in our flesh and so given
over, we have such an enemy in our own breast. Every one of
us are aware of the fact that, you know, and as I survey this
situation and look it over from day to day, the number one individual
that I'm most afraid of in all of this world is is me. I'm more afraid of me than I
am of anybody else. You say, why is that soul preacher?
Well, it's because I know that in here, in my breast, there
is an enemy of my own soul. There is an enemy of God. There's an enemy of truth. There
is an enemy that would sabotage my own spiritual life and bring
me to shame and to ruin if it were not for the grace of God.
There's an enemy lurking within us. The Lord Jesus Christ had
no such enemy as that lurking in Him because the Lord Jesus
Christ, as we well all know, was without sin and He was perfect. Now then, he prayed, so how much
more should we that are inferior pray? So pure, yet always drawing
near to the Father. The Lord Jesus Christ drew near
to the Father. He was perfect, and yet he drew
near all the time to the Father. Well, how much more should we
who are sick with sin and how much more should we who are sinful
and depraved draw near unto God, draw near for a fresh anointing
of the Spirit, draw near daily for cleansing at the hands of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said if we confess our
sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness The Word of God says that the
blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin. And how desperately do we need
that cleansing daily and hourly in this world. Now then, so mighty,
so great, and yet so prayerful was the Lord Jesus Christ. And
surely this morning we ought to receive this instruction.
Imagine, if you will, this message this morning as being not preached
to you by me, but imagine this message this morning as it comes
fresh from the lips of the one who was the great master of prayer,
the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Imagine this message as coming
from Him because it was the Lord Jesus who told this parable to
the end. that men ought always to pray
and not to faint. Now then, the first thing that
I want to do this morning, after opening this up as we have, is
to kind of give you an overview of what I believe that this particular
parable is to teach us. And then, I want to spend some
time talking to you about prayer, and I hope that this will be
acceptable and helpful to you as we study it this morning.
Now, these verses here that are before us, as we begin to give
you an overview, we find that they teach us, first of all,
the great importance of perseverance in prayer. the great importance
of perseverance in prayer and I believe that is the one truth
that we are to receive from this parable is that we are to persevere
as the people of God were to persevere in prayer. Now let me give you, let me just
talk to you a little bit about this story. Here the Lord Jesus
told this parable saying in verse 2, there was in a city a judge
which feared not God, neither regarded man. Now there was a
widow in that city, and she came unto him, saying, You avenge
me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while,
but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God,
nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge
her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. Now, in this city
there was this judge, as our Lord tells us, and this judge
was a wicked man. He was an unjust judge. He was
a judge that was bribed all the time. He was a judge that feared
not God. He was an evil man. He had no
fear of God in his heart, and he had no fear or regard for
any man, anybody's personage. He had no regard for them whatsoever. And then there was this widow
that was in that city. This widow, and this is the character
here I want you to focus your attention upon because she is
the example of persevering prayer. She is the example of one who
sought, who sought and sought deliverance from her adversary
to this unjust judge. She persevered until she was
delivered from her adversary. But there was this widow and
she came to him and she said, avenge me of my adversary. You're the judge and it is in
your hands to deliver me, avenge me of mine adversary." And he
would not for a while. He said, I'm busy. I've got too
many more important cases. The truth of the matter was that
he had too many people that had money to buy him off. He had
no time, no regard for this woman and the fact that she needed
to be delivered, and so therefore he would not listen to her. He
paid no attention to her. And he would not for a while,
it says, but afterward he said within himself, though I fear
not God, nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth
me. Now this widow would not let the situation drop. Now as
historians tell us, this woman and her husband prior to his
death had a piece of ground. And this piece of ground was
their only possession in this world. And after her husband's
death, there was a neighbor that was kind of like Ahab, who stole
Naboth's vineyard, and he just literally took over her ground
and claimed it to be his. And it was the only possession
this widow and her children, her fatherless children, had
left in this world. And she would not allow the situation
to remain. She had to have her property
back. She needed it. She desperately
needed it. Her children needed it. And she
would not allow that the situation just remain as it was. She needed this property. And
so she bothered this unjust judge. She kept on pestering, she kept
on saying, avenge me of my adversary. And as the story goes, as some
have more or less drawn out this, it is said that this woman, that
she followed this judge on the street behind him saying, deliver
me of my adversary. And she would get into the courtroom
and she would disturb the whole courtroom. They couldn't have
a case. Because this woman was, she just
kept hollering, hollering until she was ejected out of the building. Avenge me of my adversary. I've got to have some help. I
must be delivered. You've got to take my case. Something's
got to be done for me. And she kept it up and she kept
it up. And it is said that the judge
lived in a particular house and he had a veranda outside and
he would go up there in the evening and that there was a bank across
the road. This woman would go up on the
bank where she could see over and she would cry at night, Avenge
me of my adversary! And this judge said, well, by
her continual coming, she worries me, she batters me. And that's
the word. I mean, she's tiring me out.
She's wearing me down. She's afflicting me, and she's
a nuisance. She's a nuisance to me. She's
just bothering me with her continual, continual coming, her perseverance. in demanding of me that I take
up her case and do something for her. Now beloved, this is
the example that our Lord gives us here of persevering prayer. This importionate widow, this
widow that would not take no for an answer. She demanded something
be done and she was demanding it of the individual that was
in a position to help her. And this man could do it. And
the Lord said, I want you to hear what this unjust judge said. I want you to hear him. And here's
what he said. This unjust said, well, I'll
do it. I'll do it because she's wearing
me out. She's wearing me out. I'll do
it. And so in answer to her perseverance, she gets what she is crying for
and what she desires and what she must have from the unjust
judge. And the Lord said, I want you
to hear what he said. I want you to hear what he said.
And then in verse 7 and 8, he said, and shall not God avenge
his own elect? which cry day and night unto
him, though he bear along with them." Now the first thing then
that we've called your attention to is that our Lord here in these
verses is teaching us the great importance of persevering in
prayer, not giving up, but continuing our suit at the throne of mercy,
continuing to cry to God day and night in our situations,
and in our trials, and in our tests, and the adversities of
life, and the unfairness of life, to cry to God and to continue
to persevere before His throne. Now then, beloved, it is importunity
that obtains from such a wicked man, and how much more Will it
obtain for the children of God from the righteous judge their
Father in heaven if we just persevere and cry to God and will not,
will not let Him go until we receive the blessing? Now the
second thing that I want you to see is found in verse 7 and
8, and these verses teach us that God has an elect people
upon earth who are under his special care. God has an elect
people in this world who are under his special care. And in verse 7 it says, and shall
not God avenge his own elect which cry day and night unto
him, though he bear long with them. Now, beloved, his own elect. Notice that phrase. Shall not
God avenge his own elect? Turn, if you will, to John 17
quickly, and I want you to look here, if you will, at verse 9
and 10. I like these words. The Lord Jesus said, I pray for
them. He's praying for God's elect,
and he says, I pray not for the world, but for them which thou
hast given me, for they are thine. They're thine. His own elect. They're thine. And then in verse
10, and all mine are thine. All that you've given to me are
really yours. They belong to you. They're your
elect. And thine are mine, and I'm glorified
in them. Now beloved, these elect ones,
election certainly is one of the deepest truths of the scripture. One of the deepest truths taught
in all the word of God. But I believe it's necessary
to say something about this because I do not feel that any child
of God will ever really be able, they won't have the impetus,
they won't have the ability to stay in prayer and persevere
in prayer and cry to God as they ought to unless they understand
who owns them and how they came about being the children of God. How did we get to be God's children? How did we get to be those that
have the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in us? How did we get to be the
Lord's? Well, beloved, it was because
of election. God has his own elect. It is the everlasting purpose
of God. Where before the foundation of
the worlds were laid, the Lord hath decreed by his counsel,
it's secret to us, He hath decreed to deliver from the curse of
the damnation of sin those whom he hath chosen in his own well-beloved,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And he chose these out of mankind. Jesus said, I don't pray for
the world. I don't pray for the world. I don't pray for those
that are strangers. And to the grace of God, those
that are goats, I'm not praying for them. I'm praying for those
that you've given me out of the world. Thine they were and thou
hast given them. Me and so these have been chosen
have been brought by the Lord Jesus Christ through his redemptive
work They have been brought to everlasting salvation Now beloved
this testimony is true. This is sound speech which cannot
be condemned God's people are the Lord's by virtue of them
having been chosen by God in old eternity God said he's love
on them And there are special people unto God, and there are
peculiar people unto God, and they belong to Him. And He exercises
special care over them, and He means to deliver them, and He
means to bless them. And if God saved you in Christ,
He means to continue to deliver you as long as you live in this
world. God means to do it! But He would
have you to ask Him for these deliverances, to pray to Him,
to seek Him, and to cry after Him that you might have these
deliverances. Now election is inseparably connected
with faith. in the Lord Jesus Christ and
conformity to his image. You can read that in Romans 8
verse 29 and 30. And then it was when Paul saw
the working faith and the patient hope and the laboring love of
the Thessalonians that he knew their election of God. He knew
their election of God. Now above all, we have here a
very plain mark described by our Lord in the passage here
that's before us. And here is that plain mark of
God's elect. God's elect are a people who
cry unto Him day and night. God's people are a people that
will not let Him go. They continue to cry unto Him,
and though He bear along with them, Though the Lord bears long
with them, though the Lord does not get up in a night, though
He does not get up in a day, though He does not take up their
case in a week, a month, years, yet God will bear them up and
He will deliver them. He'll bear long with them, but
He will deliver them speedily when the time comes. When the
appointed time of deliverance arrives, God will be there and
He will deliver His people. And He'll deliver you on time. He will. But God's people are
a people. One of the marks of election
is that you cry unto God day and night. Now, God's people
are essentially a praying people, no doubt. There are many persons
whose prayers are formal and hypocritical, but listen to me,
one thing is clear, and it's very clear, a prayerless man
must never be called one of God's elect. A man who doesn't have
a cry in his heart day and night unto God. A man who when he wakes
in the middle of the night does not have a cry in his heart to
God for his children, a cry unto God for the church that he attends
and visits and that he supports. A man who doesn't have that cry
in his heart about his circumstances and his situation and the difficulties
that surround him in this life and the troubles that come in
like a flood upon him. A man that doesn't have that
cry in his heart to God always is not one of God's elect. Now
listen to me, a prayerless man then must not, listen, there
is no stillborn children in God's family. All God's family are
a praying people. They cry to God. They have that
in their heart. They must call upon the Father. Now then, that's what I see that
the elect do. They're called his own elect.
and His own elect. God will deliver, He will deliver
them and He'll bear along with them. But I tell you, Jesus said
that He will avenge them speedily. He'll come to them. He will visit
them. He will come down and their case
will be handled by the Father. The Lord will take it up because
they're His own. And He exercises special care. Dear sister, dear brother, remember
this. God will take up your case because
He took it up in old eternity. And Him taking it up there in
election determined that He would always take your case. And that
your case, as you present it to Him, as you tell Him of it,
is already known to Him. Your walls are before Him. And
He knows your case. Just continue to tell it out
to him because the Lord is going to deliver you now Then the third
thing this verse teaches us that true faith will be found very
scarce at the end of the world True faith will be found very
scarce now you look in verse 8 I tell you that he will avenge
them speedily nevertheless when the son of man cometh when the
son of man cometh It says this shall he find faith? On the earth
shall they find faith on the earth. I believe this shows us
the usefulness the let me say it another way the uselessness
of Expecting that all the world is going to be converted before
Christ comes you know we have various denominations in the
world that teach that the world's getting better and and that we're
going to win the world for Christ, that they are, that they're going
to get everybody to make a decision and everybody's going to be converted
and we're going to have everybody's going to be saved and we're just
going to have such a joyous time, the Lord is going to come back.
Jesus said when the Son of Man comes back, shall he find faith
on the earth? Will there be anybody believing
God when the end comes? Is there going to be anybody
around that's trusting the Lord? Well, what's the use of ignoring
the facts? They're right under our own eyes.
We know that faith is scarce right now. It's as scarce as
it was in the days of Noah. when there was only eight souls
that went into the ark. Faith is scarce on the earth.
It's scarce as it was in Sodom when there was only four of Lot's
family that was led out by the angels. I say that as we consider
that, we've got to consider, it's under our very eyes. Where
is faith to be seen in our day? The kind of faith that Jesus
has been talking about, the kind of faith that makes a man or
a woman cry after God, makes him acknowledge that he's nothing
and that he has no help and that he's without, that he's low and
that he's humble before God. Where do you find the kind of
faith where you find men just leaning on the Lord, just trusting
God for everything? No, everybody's got a crutch.
Everybody's got something to lean on. They got something besides
God. And this world is full of it.
Our security, we got to have everything besides God in this
world to make it. Nobody can just make it on God. Well, I'll tell you what, that's
because faith is scarce. That's the way it is. How many
of around us really believe God? How many of us really believe
Him? How many of us really believe the Word of God? How many of
us do? Well, how many live as if they
really believed that Jesus Christ hung on a cross outside of Jerusalem? How many believe that Jesus really
died for them? How many really believe that?
That there is a judgment of heaven and a hell to come? How many
people really believe that? Well, there's not very many.
Not very many. These are painful and serious
inquiries that we make, but they demand, and they deserve an answer. Our Lord said, shall he find
faith on the earth? Shall, when the Lord comes, will
there be any faith? Will there be any? Well, that's
serious. These are painful, I say, and
serious inquiries. Have we faith ourselves? Do we
believe God? Are we crying after Him? Will
we let Him go? Have we given up on it? Have
we said we can't do it anymore, we can't take it anymore, we
can't stand it anymore, we don't have enough time left, there's
no need to pray anymore. Now, my friend, we may be weak,
we may be frail, we may be discouraged, we may be cast down, but if we
just believe God, if we just believe Him and cast ourselves
upon Him, then my friend, surely, surely in our hearts this morning,
we know, we know indeed that the Lord has undertaken for us
and that we're His. Now, this is something that I
think that we should do. I want to spend the rest of our
time talking about this subject of prayer a little bit. I think
it's very important that we do this. I hope that we believe
God. And if we do, let's praise Him for it. Let's give thanks
to Him for it. But now, let's get back here
to this prayer. I can't let it go just like I
have. And I've said some things about it, but I want to say some
other things about it. Let me get back to it right now.
Now, the subject of prayer ought always be interesting to God's
people. It ought to always be. Now, I
never... I mean, I know there's some people
that have the gift. of public prayer. There are some
people that can pray publicly and there are some people that
can only pray privately. They don't have the ability,
they don't have the gift, they don't have the liberty to pray
openly and publicly. But anything that the Bible says
or anything that I read on the subject of prayer is always interesting
to me. It's interesting to my soul and
it ought to be to you. Now why is this? It's because
prayer is the very life of true godliness. Prayer is the very
life of holiness and godliness in this life. Here is where I
believe that our relationship with God begins as far as in
time is concerned. Prayer is the birth cry of a
heaven-born child of God. You remember old Saul of Tarsus. He was struck down on the road
to Damascus and he was taken into the city and And the Scripture
says of him, Behold, he prayeth. He's praying. He's praying. This old Saul of Tarsus, struck
down and converted. Behold, he's praying. And as
we said a few minutes ago, there are no stillborn children in
God's family. If you don't have a cry in your
heart toward the Lord, something's wrong. You can trust your new
birth by this, as God put a cry in your heart. Now, I'm not asking
you this morning how wordy you are, or how coherent your prayers
are, whether they're all fitted, and whether they're all just
finely given out and all. I'm not asking for that. I'm
just asking you, is there a cry in your heart? Is there a prayer
in your heart? Can you pray to God for yourself? Can you pray to God for your
family? Can you pray about your situation, your weaknesses and
your frailties and your losses and crosses and bereavements
in this world? Can you take them to God? Is
there something in you that drives you to Him? Drives you to the
Lord? Well, beloved, here's where spiritual
life either flourishes or decays right here on this ground of
persevering prayer. Right there it is. Are we a praying
people? Augustine said that where faith
fails, prayer ceases. And it's a gospel truth. Whenever
you come to that place where you can't believe God anymore,
where you say, I just give it up. I just can't believe God
anymore. I can't believe His providence.
I can't believe He's for me. I can't believe that God is for
us. I can't believe. Look at my life.
Look at what's happened to me. Look at all the calamities that
have befallen me. Look at all my situation and
just look at how poverty stricken I am. When it comes to a place
where you can't any longer believe God, Prayer is going to cease. You're going to give it up. Prayer,
my friend, our hearts are moved by faith to pray and to seek
the face of the Lord. Now then, whatever throws light
on this subject then of prayer is for our soul's health. It's
for our health. Let it then be graven deeply
in our minds. That, beloved, it is far more
easy to begin a habit of prayer than it is to persevere in that
prayer. You might come to the place where
you got a little fear of death in you. You might come to the
place where you have some trouble and where you have some emotional
feelings and all of that. But there are a lot of people
that began to pray and then, my friend, they began to pray
but they come to a place where they just lose the heart to continue,
to continue to cry unto God. Well, praying then requires faith
in the living God. We're so apt to become weary
and to give way to that suggestion of the devil that it's no use.
that is no use. Now I want to say this because
it's so important that I do so. You people that are young in
the faith You people that know Christ, and Christ has arrested
you and laid hold of you, and you know that you're in Him. I'm sure that there's a prayer
in your heart to God. I'm sure you are praying, and
I'm sure you're seeking His face. And maybe you've got a habit,
a set time when you go and seek the Lord's face. This is wonderful. This is good. I want to tell
you this, that the older you get, now there may be some that
wouldn't agree with me this morning, that the older you get, the more
difficult it is for you to persevere in prayer. People pray more when
they're younger. Don't tell me they don't. They
pray more when they're younger because they have hope. Time! And they have hope! But whenever
time begins to pass away, and hope begins to leave, and the
evil days come now, wherein a man has no pleasure any longer, it's
very easy for him to turn it off, and to say, Just leave it
in God's hands. Whatever happens, whatever comes,
whatever comes down the road, I've dealt with it, I've fought
all these years, I've been at it. I mean, I've had the pick
and the shovel, and I've been working on this thing all these
years. And really and truthfully, where
am I today? Where am I today? That's the
devil telling you, give it up! Give it up! And we listen to
that. We hear it. I've heard it. We've
heard it. I've heard it over and over again.
Give it up. It's no use. There's not enough
time left to turn your situation around. You can't possibly go
back and change anything. It's got to go on like it is.
And one of the old, I think it was Mr. Grinnell that said this,
he made this statement. He said we're bid to take, not
to make our cross. God in His providence will provide
one for us. And we are bid to take it up. We hear nothing of ever laying
it down. We don't hear anything of laying
it down. Our troubles and our lives live and they die together. Now this is where we feel when
the evil day comes near. We say, well, our troubles, they're
never going to die until we do. We're not going to get rid of
these troubles until the day we go to the grave. We'll never
get ourselves free from all of these temptations and all of
these trials and these heavy weights that are upon us in this
world. But my brother, listen. Then's
the very time when you ought to remember this parable of our
Lord. That's when you ought to remember
this parable. We must recollect that our Lord
expressly told us always to pray, not to faint. Not to faint! Don't give it up! Don't give
it up, but cry to God in those desperate times. Cry to God and
seek His face and ask Him for a lively spirit even though the
body is weakening. Ask Him for power and strength
even though you're getting weaker after the flesh. Ask Him for
power of soul and power to lay hold of Him, the ability to pray
to Him. His blessings upon this generation. I'll tell you if somebody don't
get to where they can pray and pray down the blessings of God
upon this generation. How weak and powerless the churches
are in our time. How weak the preachers are in
our day. Nobody with the power to preach
and to teach the Word of the Living God needs to be somebody
begin to pray that the Lord of the harvest will send forth into
the fields laborers that God will do something in our day. We need to be seeking His face
and the devil is out to shut us down and say, don't do it.
And we need to remember this parable. Don't faint! Pray! Seek the Lord's faith. Now, do
you ever feel a secret inclination to hurry up and to shorten your
prayers and to become careless about your prayers? Now, if not,
If you've not admitted them all together, you're a rare individual. You really are. Because there's
not very many people that are stirring themselves up to take
hold of the Lord. Not very many people. And I hope
this morning that this will turn you about. This is a direct temptation
of the devil. This is of the devil. He's trying
to sap. He's trying to undermine the
very citadel of our souls. He's trying to Cut the ground
out from under us and take away from us our life's blood, the
power of our souls, the ability to come before God, to come forth
unto God and pour out our burdens and hearts. unto Him. Let us
resolve that however long the answer is in coming, to pray
on steadily, patiently, persevering, and let us never doubt the good
of it. Let us never doubt, I say, the
good of it. Because Satan trembles, the poet
said, when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees. Well, men ought always to pray,
the Lord Jesus said. They ought always to pray. Now
then, let me just say a few words about that and I'll close. We have always something to pray
for, do we not? It should be, as the Puritans
said, a holy habit. a holy habit to pray. And then I think again that affection,
the love of God in our hearts invites us to pray. Men aren't always to pray. They
aren't always to pray because they got something to pray about.
They've got needs and burdens and people all around them have
needs and burdens and trials. And then the love of God just
draws out the souls of the Lord's people to Him. Have you ever
felt the love of God shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost?
Romans 5, 5. Have you ever felt this? Have
you ever felt Pentecost in your own soul? My friend, if you ever
feel Pentecost in your own soul, God's Holy Spirit shedding abroad
His love in your heart. Five minutes of that be worth
all of the religious exercise you've had in your whole life.
God's love in your soul. Drawing out your heart to Him.
Drawing up your soul in affection to Him. And then necessity urges
that we pray. It urges it. You only let a child,
I remember one time we lived over on the west side of Great
Falls and there was a big old dog next door and I believe that
dog was, what was the name of that dog, it was St. Bernard.
And he was harmless as he could be, he wouldn't hurt anybody.
But old David was out in the yard, just a little old fella,
a little tyke. That dog came over there and was going to lick
him, you know. He wasn't going to bite him, he was going to
lick him, but he had a tongue as big as a spade. But anyway, old Dave, boy, he
took to the house. Necessity, that dog he thought
was going to get him. And I'll tell you what, there
are many, listen, the cause of necessity, we must seek the father
and we must ask the father, give me your hand. Lead me, dear Father. Lead me in the way. In the midst
of these perils, Father, take hold of me and lead me. We're in dangerous circumstances
every hour because of the roaring lion going about, seeking whomever
he might devour, and then seducers are waxing worse and worse in
the world. Necessity urges us to pray. and to seek the face of Almighty
God. Prayer is the only antidote for
fainting. Is that right? Prayer is the
only... You're going to faint if you
don't pray. You're going to faint. Now, the Lord Jesus just did
not fill space with words. The Lord Jesus spoke because
it was necessary. Men are going to faint, Larry,
if they don't pray. If they don't pray, they'll give it up. You're
going to give it up. You say, well, I'm not in that
kind of a crisis, preacher. You're not today. But you will
be down the road. There are some of the Lord's
people, there are some of us that are in crisis, that we right
now, we're crying to God, deliver, deliver, deliver! And every time
we wake up, we're crying, deliver, oh Lord, deliver us, deliver
us. We're crying to God. You say,
I don't have that urgency, preacher. Well, but now just be careful. The day is going to come when
you're going to have it. It's coming right down the road.
The day is going to come whenever things are going to change. You
know, that's one of the most certain things that we've got
to deal with is that things are not going to stay the same. They're
going to change. They're going to change. Man's
healthy. I thank God for it every day. I can breathe, and I can
breathe good. And I don't have any problems.
I can do whatever I need to do. Anything I'm called on to do,
I get up and go do it. Doesn't make any difference what
it is. I go do it. And I thank God for it. I praise
His name. I don't take any medication of
any kind and I praise God for it. I'm thankful for it. But
I know that the day is going to come when that's going to
change. I know it's going to change. I know the day's going
to come when I'm going to have to ask somebody to get up and
get me a glass of water. I'm going to have to ask somebody
if they do this or if they do that or would you please do so
and so and such because I'm not going to be able to do it. I
mean that is if things work out like they normally do. We're
going to get down and get to a place where we can't function.
Somebody's going to have to give us some medication. We're going
to have to start buying medicine. The day will come. Things are
going to change. We may end up, only God knows
where we'll end up. That's in His hands. That's in
His hands where we're going to end up. But things are going
to change. And I'm going to tell you this,
if you can't pray, if you don't pray, If you won't pray, then
you're going to faint. You'll give it up. You'll just
throw it in the towel. You'll just be a mess and bring
reproach on the name of the Lord. You'll not glorify God in the
hour of your death. I remember this story. There
was a man, I'll tell you this and then I'm done. There was
a man who had six sons and those boys were godless, godless rebels. And this man prayed for his sons,
prayed for them, wanted so much to die in such a manner as would
be a good testimony to his boys. And so the hour came when he
was about to expire, and so he called all of his sons in around
the bed. And he was under a cloud himself. The old man was under a cloud.
He was having a tough time dying. It's hard for him. He was a godly
man, but he was under a cloud. He couldn't see things clearly.
Things weren't right. Have you ever been under a cloud? Have you ever had to pray for
faith before you could pray about anything else? Have you ever
been to a place where you've just been simply stripped out
and was hollow on the inside, felt that way? Well, this old
man was having an awful time dying. But yet he tried to say
what he could, and he died. So they had his funeral, and
after the funeral, well, the boys came back to the house,
and they were standing around, and the oldest boy said, said,
now, I just want to say this word to you all. He said, you
know how Dad lived. He's a godly man. He walked with
God. He sought God's faith. He tried
to do what was right. You know that. And he said, you
see how he died. What a struggle he had in the
hour of his death. What a struggle he had. And he
said, now if our dad, who lived the way he did, had that trouble
in the hour of his death, how much more trouble will we have
in the hour of our death? Having lived such a vain life
and lived in rebellion and ungodliness, how difficult is going to be
our death? And all of them agreed with him.
And the old man's prayers for his boys were answered just through
that. God delivered his boys and saved
them, every one of them. And I'll tell you what, we never
know how God's going to deliver, and how he's going to save, and
how he's going to affect, and how he's going to touch, what
he's going to do. We never know how he's going
to do it. But remember this, God will deliver speedily. He will. He'll deliver. You are
His own elect. Cry to Him. He will, He will
avenge you. He will deliver you. He will. Trust Him. Trust Him. Father,
we give thanks and praise unto Thy faithful and gracious and
holy name. Give Thy blessing. Cause the
message to bear fruit. Calls us, our Father, to have
the victory in our hearts and to give us, our Father, give
us that Spirit of God in our souls that would enable us to
cry, to cry unto Thee. Give us the victory. In Jesus'
name, Amen.