It's good to be here. Good to
see everybody. It's been a while, ain't it?
I've threatened to kill your pastor. I've drove five hours
just to get here, but it's worth it. It's worth it. If you want
to turn with me to Luke chapter 11, That's where I'll be reading just four verses, Luke chapter
11. I just want to try, if I can,
just for a few minutes, maybe to leave you with this one thought.
Lord, teach us to pray. Boy, we get so busy, don't we?
It's a busy world we're living in. We were told if we had all
this technology that we would have more time on our hands and
man, technology's got us bogged down and traveling and going
and coming. Lord, teach us to pray. Teach
us how to pray. Teach us just to pray. And that's
what I want to think about just for a few minutes with you. Luke
11 and verse 1, and it came to pass as he was praying in a certain
place When he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him,
Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And
he said unto them, when you pray, say, our Father which art in
heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be
done in heaven, so in earth. Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone that
is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Now there's another parallel
passage with this in Matthew 6 you can read, and just a little
bit longer than that. I want to read here, I want to
look at this with you just for a minute, and I guess you won't
find a better request that his disciples made, except maybe,
Lord save us, we perish. But this is a good request. Lord
teach us to pray. And then they added, as John
taught his disciples. Seemed like preachers. If there's
ever anybody that should teach us to pray, it should be preachers.
John taught his disciples to pray. When God told him to go
out and preach, he taught his disciples to pray. And then the
Son of God came down from heaven, took our humanity, and what did
he do? He taught his disciples to pray. A good minister, a good preacher,
I'm just convinced, teaches people to pray. I mentioned the other
day that sometimes there in the congregation, somebody will come
to me and say, Pastor, thank you. What a good message. What
a good message. And it almost always comes to
me, are you a praying person? Do you pray? This is the way
I could gauge my ministry, and Brother Todd could gauge his
ministry. How good a ministry is it? It's not that you have
huge crowds, and boy, who wouldn't love to have huge crowds to hear
the gospel? It's not so much how widespread
your ministry is, but I think the way to gauge a good ministry
is this. Do the people who hear me preach
pray? Do they pray? Are you praying,
people? When your pastor preaches to
you, do you go home and do you pray? It seems like this verse
here implies at least, and I think probably we could conclude in
verse 1 that John's disciples were a praying people. And we know the Lord's disciples
were praying people because you can follow these fellows on when
the Lord Jesus went back to heaven and you can see they prayed in
the upper room On the day of Pentecost, there was 120 of our
Lord's disciples waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit.
And here's what the Word said about these people. These all
continued with one accord in prayer and in supplication. The Lord teach us to pray, and
He did, didn't He? And they started praying, and
they continued in prayer. And then in Acts chapter 2, when
Peter had preached the gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down
from heaven, and these 3,000 people were saved, here's what
was said of them. They continued steadfastly in
the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and breaking of bread and prayers. The disciples must have taught
them to pray. And then in the book of Acts,
when the gospel began to spread, and the Saul was persecuted in
the church, this is what these fellows said in Damascus. Ananias said, Lord, he has authority
and has come here to bind all of them that call on your name. As the gospel spread, and you
see disciples Converted to the Lord, they just kept praying.
Everybody was praying. And this is the one of the ways
that they addressed the church. In 1 Corinthians 1.1, And to
the church of God which is at Corinth, to them who are sanctified
in Christ Jesus, call to be saints with all them that in every place
call. upon the name of Jesus Christ,
both theirs and ours. Lord, teach us to pray. Teach us to pray. How else are
we going to know that we're his disciples if we don't pray? I never known a disciple that
didn't pray. Have you? Lord, teach us to pray. And how does the Lord teach?
Well, this, I love this. How does the Lord teach his disciples
to pray? Lord, teach us to pray. Well,
first of all, we see in this first one here that he taught
them by example as he was praying. This is the most amazing thing
to me that the Son of God prayed. When he come down from heaven,
he prayed. I don't know when he began to
pray. That's a mystery to me. But the first time we ever hear
him and see him is when he was 12 years old, when he said his
first words, and he must have been praying then because of
where we found him. We find him in the temple, and
what did he call the temple? The house of prayer. He was praying
when he was 12 years old. He prayed all the time. It was
said here he prayed in a certain place. He prayed everywhere. He prayed in all kinds of positions. He prayed in the wilderness,
He prayed on the mountains, He prayed in the houses, He prayed
in the temple, He prayed in the fields, He prayed in the gardens,
and He prayed on the cross. He prayed when He was sitting,
He prayed when He was standing, He prayed when He was kneeling,
He prayed when He was laying, and He prayed when He was hanging.
Our Lord prayed. Lord teach us to pray. like you
pray. At his baptism he was praying. Why would he be praying at his
baptism? If no other reason to teach us
that you and I should seek God humbly at that ordinance. You know the Apostle Paul was
calling on the Lord at his baptism. I wonder if he got that from
his master. Before he chose his apostles, he spent all night
in prayer. He did that as an example to
us that before we do anything in the Father's kingdom, before
we make these choices that we have to make, how wise it is
not to lean upon our own wisdom and strength, but to pray to
our Father. When he was transfigured on the
mount, And the voice came to him from heaven, saying, Thou
art my beloved son. You know he was praying then
to teach us that we should humbly pray when heaven favors us. Well, we talk about praying in
the valley. We need to pray on the mountain, don't we? Pray
when God hides His face and pray when He shows His face. Pray
when we can't comprehend His love and pray when we can. The Lord prayed. When he ate
food, He always prayed, didn't he? Always gave thanks to show
us and teach us that we should pray and give thanks for our
food because it's sanctified by the word of God and in prayer.
In the garden under his great afflictions, he prayed and the
Bible says with strong crying and tears unto him that was able
to save him. And what does that teach us?
That in our greatest afflictions, The safest thing and the best
thing to do is pray. When a heart is broken up with
a bitter, woeful cup, then's the time to go to Christ in prayer. How do we know that? He taught
us that, didn't he? The Lord Jesus taught us to pray. Christ prayed for His enemies,
even when they persecuted Him, and while they persecuted Him.
Father, forgive them. And He did that to teach us to
pray for our enemies. And He taught us the best way
to pray for our enemies because He prayed for His enemies Himself. Lord, teach us to pray. When
He had finished His course and was ready to give up the ghost,
He prayed, Father, unto Your hands, I commend my spirit."
And he did that to teach us to pray when we're ready, when we're
ready to leave this life until the life to come. How many dear
saint has left with their hearts full of assurance and they had
an easy time crossing over that river? And it wasn't because
they were so presumptuous about it. We don't deserve to go up
there, do we? We don't deserve to go up to
heaven, we all know that. And the Lord has taught us to
pray, Lord Jesus, receive our spirits. We ask for that, don't
we, in prayer, because he taught us that. The Lord teach us to
pray. Boy, he's taught us by example,
hasn't he? In everything, every situation,
pray. And I love the way verse 1 says
this, notice this. When he had ceased, one of his
disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray. Not until he ceased. That tells us something, doesn't
it? Nobody would have dared got up and left during our Lord's
prayer. I mean, if they had, it would
have been an emergency. Prayer is so important, brothers
and sisters. We shouldn't even cough if we
can help it during prayer. If an emergency occurs, leave
during singing or leave during preaching. But wait until they
cease praying before we do anything. How important it is to pray. And they didn't dare get up and
leave or interrupt him while he was praying. Not until he
ceased. Prayer's important, ain't it?
Prayer's important. I said down there, This morning
or sometime in the conference, sometime people say, the least
we can do is pray for you. The least we can do is pray for
you. That's the most we can ever do, ain't it? And boy, when somebody's
praying, and they're praying with the Holy Ghost sent down
from heaven, oh my, then's the time to listen. I tell you, I
have been so blessed out of people's prayer, just about as much as
I have out of preachers preaching. Haven't you? Listen. Listen,
he's talking to heaven. Listen. The Lord teaches us to
pray. And then, beginning here in verse 2, the Lord not only
teaches him by example, but he gives us a pattern here to pray. When you pray, say, it's good
to pray, but here's a good farm. Pray. After this manner, He said
in Matthew, pray, and he begins by addressing God and us and
our relationship with God. If what's our relationship? Our
Father, which art in heaven. Now I say this to my shame. I
remember this so well. After the Lord had saved me,
I remember reading this prayer, and the one in Matthew 6, and
I thought, I don't see Christ in that prayer at all. I actually
thought that. I don't see Christ in that prayer
at all. Christ is all in this prayer. Our Father, which art
in heaven. My goodness, Christ is there.
You say, Bruce, how is Christ there? God has sent forth the
Spirit of His Son. And to our hearts, crying, Father,
Father. By one Spirit, we have access
through Jesus Christ to God. He's here, isn't he? The triune
God is addressed here as we pray. All three of them come together.
Our Father, our Father. That's the Spirit crying, isn't
it? And we're going through the Son to the Father. This is our
relationship with Him. And I tell you, I have got so
much comfort and strength just going and still in my soul. and
believe in the eternal God is my Father. And just addressing
Him that way, no matter how I feel, my Father, my Father. That's the children's prayer,
isn't it? You may be here tonight and you're lost, you're an unbeliever.
You probably won't want to pray this prayer because you really
can't. And if you pray this prayer and he answers it, you're probably
in trouble because if you pray thy kingdom come and it does,
it's probably going to crush you. Your best prayer to begin
with is to pray, God have mercy on me, a sinner. And then when
he sends the spirit of adoption into your heart, then you can
pray, my father, my father, my father. And where is our father? Well, he says here that he's
in heaven. Our Father which art in heaven.
The first thing we do is acknowledge our Father and then acknowledge
where He is. And that tells us something,
just acknowledging where He is. He's above us, isn't He? We approach
unto Him who is above us. He's above all. He's in heaven. Heaven is His throne and this
earth is His footstool. He's over all. He's above all. He rules all. And how could we
go call God our father and pray without addressing our father
as the sovereign God that he is? He's in heaven. Heaven is his throne and the
earth is his footstool. But he goes on to make a little
statement here concerning him lest we think that he's some
sort of a despot, an evil tyrant that rules in heaven. and rules
in earth, he says here, hallowed be thy name, holy and high and
reverent and worthy and just and good. Oh, he's sovereign,
but he's a just sovereign, ain't he? He's a holy sovereign. He's
never done anybody wrong and he never shall do anybody wrong.
He's never treated any of His creatures wrong or unjust. He cannot and He will not. Has
He ever treated you wrong? Has He ever treated you in an
unjust way whatsoever? He's worthy to be exalted and
hallowed and holy and good and right is His name. Here's the
way Moses taught us to pray. He said, because I will publish
the name of the Lord, ascribe ye greatness to our God. He is
the rock, His work is perfect, all His ways are judgment, a
God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is He. And it's amazing that He rules
this universe and all the creatures in it, and He's never done wrong.
He's never done wrong. He's worthy to us to approach
unto Him and say, Halward, just and right is thy name. Somebody
says you don't have to look in a book, you don't have to read
the Bible to see what's right and doesn't. It's right because
He does it, because He's God, because He's God. Halward, holy
and high and reverent is thy name. And then he says, pray
like this, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come. In another place it said the
kingdom of God is within us. This is a mysterious kingdom,
isn't it? Getting into it is a mystery. Being in it is a mystery. It's a mysterious thing. The
kingdom of God is within you. It comes within you. So we could
pray like this, Oh Lord, let your kingdom come to my heart. Let it come to many hearts. Let
it come to all our hearts. Your kingdom come. Another place
is called the kingdom of God's dear son. He's translated us,
He's delivered us out of the power of darkness and translated
us into the kingdom of His dear Son. Could we not pray like this? Oh Father, fill the kingdom of
Your Son up. Fill it up with poor sinners. And you know there's coming a
time when the kingdom of God is going to be revealed, isn't
it? He's coming and He's appearing. to judge the world, and his kingdom
is going to be revealed. And the dead's going to be raised,
and they're going to go up to heaven. He's going to separate
the righteous from the wicked, and he's going to say to the
righteous, come you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom
prepared for you. However his meaning is, thy kingdom
come, it's good to pray, thy kingdom come. If it's coming
within us, Lord send your kingdom within us. It's filling up the
kingdom of his son, oh Lord let your kingdom be filled up. If
Christ is coming to reveal that kingdom, oh Lord your kingdom
come. Whatever manner it is, I long
for his coming, don't you? Oh thy kingdom, thy kingdom come. And it's coming, isn't it? Aren't
you glad it's already come to you and it's in you? And aren't
you glad you're in it? Aren't you glad you've got hope
waiting for his coming kingdom? Lord, thy kingdom come. And then he says this, Thy will
be done on earth as it is in heaven. Thy will be done. Now,
have you noticed this? We've been going on here for
quite some time and this prayer still hasn't addressed us. Ain't
that amazing? It's not dealt with our troubles
and our problems and giving us advice on how to work our way
through it. It's not telling us to make requests
for anything. It's not talked about us at all. It's about our Father. praying
to our Father. Don't tell us something. Maybe,
just maybe, there's something more important than our problems. Maybe there's something more
important than the difficulties that we're going through. Maybe
there's something more important than we are. Maybe God's more important than
we are. Maybe His glory, maybe the worship of Him is more important
than anything else. Reckon that's what He's telling
us. He hasn't got to us yet. You know, if we would learn to
pray like our Lord taught us to pray, we wouldn't have near
as many problems as we do. Our problems seem like mountains
sometimes, but if we begin here, I'm sure by the time we got through
worshiping Him and His character and talking of His kingdom and
all of this, I imagine our mountain of problems would come like little
molehills, don't you? Would you hold that thought for
just a minute and let me show you that over in the book of
Acts? I tell you, he taught these men to pray well. Look in the
book of Acts chapter 4. This is an incident that happened to the
early church and the apostles. They were trying to stamp out
Christianity, the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin. You see that there
in verse 1, where they were preaching. The Sadducees came upon them
and all of these high priests and Caiaphas and all came upon
them. And you see it there in verses
5 through verse 7. And verses 16 and verse 18. of chapter 4, saying, this is
what they said, what shall we do to these men? For that indeed
a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them
that dwell in Jerusalem. We can't deny it, but that is
spread no farther among the people. Let us straightly threaten them
that they speak henceforth to no man in his name. And they
called them and commanded them not to speak at all, nor teach
in the name of Jesus. Now that's the threat that they
made. And we see a little bit later on, they were prepared
to carry that threat out to you, because their threat became whippings. And these apostles got the church
together. And look here in verse 23. Being
let go, They went to their own company
and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto
them. And notice what they did. And
when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one
accord. And here's how they began their
prayer. Lord, thou art God. And everybody breathed a big
sigh of relief. Isn't that the way to approach
God in prayer? In our troubles? Doesn't that
immediately turn our mountain into molehills? Who are these
persecutors anyway? They're just men. Who is God? Lord, Thou art God. What a prayer. What a way to
begin our prayer. How would I have done it if I
had been faced with this trouble? I would have probably ran right
into the presence of the Lord. Lord, we're in trouble now. We're
at the end of our road now. You've got to help us. Lord,
you've got to help us now. We're in trouble. Wouldn't that
have been awful? Wouldn't that have been almost
insulting? They just stopped. They stilled themselves. And
they said, look whose presence we're coming into. The Lord,
he is God. And they begin to describe what
he did. Which hath made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all
that in it is. Who by the mouth of thy servant
David said, why do the heathen rage? And the people imagined
a vain thing. The kings of the earth stood
up, the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and
against his Christ, for are the truth against thy holy child
Jesus. For to do both Herod and Pontus
were the Gentiles and the people of Israel, for to do whatsoever
thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord,
behold their threatenance, and grant unto thy servants that
with all boldness we may speak thy word. And they went in there, so doubtful,
I would imagine, so fearful, not knowing what was going to
happen, and they just stilled themselves, and they prayed unto
their Father in heaven. the creator of all things, who
is over all things and rules all things. And I bet you when
that church dismissed, there wasn't anybody upset about these
threats, don't you? Are you in trouble? Are you having
trials? Of course you are. Begin it like
this. Lord, teach us to pray and teach
us to pray like this. Oh Lord, thou art God, the creator
of all things. What's my troubles? What's my
problems? What's my trials? What's my confusion? What's my darkness? When I consider
who my God is, the creator of the ends of the earth. Thou will be done. Thou will
be done. What's more important than His
will then, if He's God, the ruler of all things? What's more important
than the will of God being done? Don't you want His will? Whatever's
contrary to His will is sinful, isn't it? Thy will be done in
heaven as it is in earth. Now look back over at my text
again, in Luke chapter 11. He finally gets to us. He finally is going to let us
make a request and look what it is in verse 3. Give us this day our daily bread. Isn't that amazing? Give us this
day our daily bread. The world don't even recognize
They can't have their bread without God gives it to them. But you
and I do, don't we? The most simple thing that we
think little about, we can't even supply it for ourselves.
He has to give us, not one day, but day by day, that essential
thing that keeps us alive and strengthens us. He has to give
it to us. He has to give us an appetite
to eat it. to digest it, to get strength from it, and then tomorrow
we go pray again. Our Father, give us our daily
bread. You say, Bruce, the world don't
recognize that. No, they don't recognize that. But you're not
of the world, are you? You're not of this world. You
recognize where you get the little things. More important than your
clothes. You can live without your clothes.
You can live without a house, you can live without a vehicle,
you can live without a job, but you can't live without food.
You'll die without food. And we're utterly dependent upon
our Father to feed us. We're just dependent upon Him
as the little sparrows that have no barns, and they don't reap
and they don't sow. We're just as dependent as they
are. When you come to us, how does
He address us? Utterly dependent for our day-to-day
existence upon our Father. That's why we should always give
Him thanks for our food, because He's given it to us. Give us,
give us, give us our daily bread. Then he goes to a big thing in
verse four, and forgive us our sins, but we also forgive everyone
that is indebted to us. Boy, that's a big thing, and
utterly indebted for our food. Now we're utterly indebted for
our forgiveness. Why do we ask God to forgive
us? He's the one we've sinned against. He's the one that paid
the great price by sending his son to atone for our sins. We
don't go anywhere else to ask for forgiveness, do we? You fellas
got a local church? We got a huge Catholic church
just down the street from us, St. Ann's. What's your big one
here, Todd? You got a big Catholic here?
I tell you, people sometimes get on to me because I tell you,
I mock Catholicism. I try not to mock the Catholics,
but I mock Catholicism. We got a huge, the building burned. Some drunk got in there drinking
their wine and drunk the building. Man, they built a humongous building. And in that building, they built
a pretty little booth, beautiful little booth. And it's got two
little compartments in it. You get in one side, and the
priest gets in another side. You confess your sins, and he
forgives your sins. And I told some of them the other
day, I said, just out the back of my office, I've got a booth. They call it an outhouse. I call
it a toilet. We put it in when the kids had
a little pool so they could go there and use the restroom. And
I say this, I might as well go to my toilet and confess my sins
to the walls as to go down there in their toilet and confess my
sins to that man. Isn't that so? When we pray, we say, Father,
We're not speaking to a mere man. No man. We're speaking to
God. Our Father, You forgive us. Why? Nobody else can. But God. Who can forgive sins but God
only? We're utterly indebted to Him. This is a debt that nobody can
pay. But it's already been paid. by
the Son of God upon Calvary's tree. And now we can come every
day, every day, every waking moment of every day and say,
Father, I've sinned. Don't hide it, brothers and sisters.
Don't hide it. Don't carry it on your conscience.
The Lord Jesus come down from heaven and taught us how to pray. Let's pray as he taught us. He
taught us rightly. When you sin, when you fall,
go immediately to the Father and tell Him what you've thought.
Tell Him your evil motive. Tell Him what you've said. Tell
Him what you've done. Be honest with Him. And you know
the promise that you have? If you confess your sins, He
is faithful and just to forgive you your sin and to cleanse you
from all unrighteousness. And I don't know if we've ever
prayed a prayer that this shouldn't be involved in. We don't get
up here like this and start confessing. Nobody wants to hear that. But
I tell you, when we get along with our Father, we do, don't
we? He knows anyway. Confess. Forgive us our trespasses. And I tell you, when we think
of how many sins we've been forgiven, And when we think of the great
price that removed our debt, it shouldn't be any problem for
any of us to forgive anybody for sinning against us. Nobody's
committed near the sins against me that I've committed against
God. And since he's so freely and
graciously forgiven me, can I not forgive anything that somebody
might do to me or say to me? I learned a good lesson not long
after the Lord saved me. There was a fellow come to me
and said these ladies had been talking about me, these ladies
in the church, two older ladies. And boy, I got so upset because
they lied on me. They just lied on me and it made
me so upset and I got where I couldn't pray. And I went to the Lord
and I said, Lord, forgive them. for saying what they say and
forgive me for the attitude that I've been in. And you know, come
to find out that guy was lying to me. Them women never even
said that. Wasn't that awful? Take it to him. Take it to him
and forgive. Don't carry this business of
sin around with you. Lead us not into temptation.
Now this is a mystery here. Lead us not. We know that God
never led anybody into temptation. God can't be tempted with evil,
and neither tempteth He any man. What's this about? Well, there's
a negative way that He can lead us into temptation. Not a positive
way, but a negative way. Just leaving us alone. He can
do that, can't He? leaving us to the devices of
the devil. If he does that, then that would
lead us into temptation. Look what happened to Peter.
Peter, Satan has desired to have you that he may sift you. He
wants to lead you into this and then devour you. But I pray for
you. I pray for you. I'm keeping you
from this evil. But Satan entered into Judas,
and boy, look how he led him to betray the Son of God. Lord,
don't lead me into temptation. Lord, don't leave me to myself
and my own devices and my own strength and to Satan's malice. Lord, please deliver me from
evil. Deliver me from temptation. We don't even know ourselves.
Did you know that? Old Donny Bell used to tell me
this a lot. He said, you know, Bruce, he said, if opportunity
and desire comes together, we're in trouble. And he said, I've
noticed myself. Sometimes there's opportunity,
but there's no desire. Sometimes there's desire, but
no opportunity. And he said, that's the way the
Lord seems to keep me from temptation. But if they both ever come together,
we're in trouble. We don't know ourselves if we
don't pray this prayer, do we? If we don't see the face of God
before we see the face of man in the morning, we just don't
know ourselves. Peter got up one morning. And
he said, I'm going out to meet with some Gentiles and have dinner
with them and fellowship just a little bit. And he didn't have
time to pray. Lord, keep me from temptation.
So he ran on down there and while they were eating, these Gentile
brothers came down there and suddenly Peter got afraid and
denied the gospel. He had no idea when he got up
that morning he denied the gospel. I never will forget a story that
I was reading about Adolf Eichmann. He was Hitler's right-hand man.
He's one responsible for killing so many people. But this shows
you that we don't know ourselves, how quickly we can change and
what we can do if he don't keep us from ourselves. And there
was this young girl, she saw Adolf Eichmann kill her mother
and dad and all her brothers and sisters. He shot them all
himself. And when the war was over, the
Jews caught Eichmann and put him in jail, and she was a younger
woman then, and she said, I want to talk with him. I want to ask
him why he would do what he did. And they let her interview Adolf
Eichmann. And she interviewed him, and
she came out of the interview, and they said she was visibly
shaken. And she said, what disturbed
her more than anything? She said, I saw that man kill
my entire family and never blinked an eye. But she said, I talked
just now to a normal man that you would have never believed
would have been capable of doing what that man did. We can do anything. That's the
capacity that we have. We can commit any sin, be led
into any temptation, if God leads us to ourselves. Oh, how essential
this prayer is, brothers and sisters. Lord, lead us not into
temptation. Deliver us from evil. Deliver me from myself. From
myself. God bless you. God bless you,
Todd. Lord bless you. I'm finished.