The "2002 Annual Conference Wrap-Up" states that "Delegates
... also affirmed a renewed emphasis on prayer in the denomination." When
the query on prayer was presented at Louisville last year, it was stated
that the people throughout our congregations ought to be able to express
audible prayers.
Some Church of the Brethren congregations have had special prayer emphases during the winter months. The Annual Conference Moderator
sent out a letter last fall to remind congregations of the recommendation
that was made by the Conference last summer. Pastors were encouraged to
preach a series of sermons on prayer. The Church of the Brethren Messenger
has published a series of prayer experiences. These have all been reminders
hopefully that the prayers of righteous people are "powerful and effective"
(James 5:16b).
One of the greatest deficiencies in the American church
is the prayerlessness. It may be helpful to study the prayers of the Bible
to help us become more diligent in the practice of prayer. Bible prayers
often had to do with character improvement and with a plea for greater
devotion to the Lord. Paul's prayers in the New Testament epistles are
instructive. He prayed for a spirit of wisdom (Ephesians 1:17), for a deep
sense of God's presence (Ephesians 3:17), and that our lives might abound
in love (Philippians 1:9).
The book of Jonah, in the Old Testament, is filled with
references to prayer. There is a reference to prayer in every chapter of
the book.
In chapter 1, the sailors prayed from fear (1:5a).
In chapter 2, Jonah prayed in faith (2:1-7).
In chapter 3, the Ninevites prayed with fasting (3:8).
In chapter 4, Jonah prayed in foolishness (4:23).
God answered every one of the prayers except Jonah's prayer
recorded in chapter 4. Jonah's foolish prayer which begrudged the mercy
God had shown to the Ninevites was not answered. There are some prayers
which God does not answer--at least not with a "Yes." In fact, the main
article in this issue of the BRF Witness concentrates on some reasons why
our prayers might not be answered with a positive response.
The second chapter of Jonah is one of the most enlightening
chapters on prayer. There is no petition in the prayer. Jonah asks for
nothing; he simply cries out in acknowledgement to God. Sometimes our prayers
are like those of Old MacDonald's Wife--"Give me, give me here; give me,
give me there ... give me, give me ... "On occasion it is healthy for us
just to thank God, and praise Him, without asking for anything.
We note too that Jonah prayed when he was in deep trouble.
Jonah 1:17 says that he was in the belly of a fish. It seems like we must
have problems, difficulties, and hassles-in order for God to get us on
our knees! It is when our backs are to the wall, and we don't know which
way to turn-that we are more inclined to pray. But prayer is not intended
for "emergency use only." Prayer should be a regular, daily, and ongoing
activity. God is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can
ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). God expects us to manifest a confidence
in Him which leads to asking in simple trust (Matthew 7:7-11).
Floyd Pierson, a retired Africa Inland Mission worker,
was a man who prayed in every situation. He was constantly in an attitude
of prayer, and ready always to pray audibly. So habitual was his praying
that when he went to renew his driver's license late in life, he said to
the policeman who got into the car with him, "I always pray before I drive;
let's bow our heads together." Pierson did it almost without thinking.
The examiner undoubtedly wondered what kind of ride he was in for!
Prayerlessness is really a great sin. When we do not devote
time each day to earnest, believing prayer--we are saying in essence that
we can cope with life without divine aid. Prayerlessness is really practical
atheism. Prayerlessness in the Christian life says that we believe in God,
but we can usually get along without Him!
We should call upon God to give us a fresh view of this
incredible resource-believing prayer. In heaven, we will likely look Pack
with regret that we prayed so little.
--Harold S. Martin
Jesus prayed often, and if He found praying necessary
in His life, surely prayer ought to have a significant place in the lives
of each one of us! To begin the day with a few words of prayer, and close
it with a couple routine phrases—is not the effectual fervent prayer that
should characterize the true believer. Mothers can lift up their concerns
to God in prayer while mending clothes and waxing floors and preparing
meals. Fathers can meet God in behalf of that boy away in grade school,
or the married daughter who is now raising a family of her own. He can
pray while working with a bale of hay, laboring at a workbench, or sitting
at a desk in the office. The Bible says, "Men always ought to pray and
not lose heart" (Luke 18:1). We must cultivate the habit of being constant
in an attitude of prayer.
Prayer is the Christian's source of strength and
joy. It is a vital link between the soul and God. It is a major source
of spiritual power. Don't neglect it. And if after examining my life with
regard to the hindrances pointed out in this message—and there is still
silence when I pray—I need to accept God's silence in the belief that He
is using it to discipline me and to help me grow.
If you are unsaved—you have no promise that God
will answer your prayers. God may do more than He promised, and as a result
He has sometimes answered the prayers of unbelievers. But the only prayer
an unsaved person can pray with the certainty that God will answer is,
"God be merciful to me a sinner."
The normal Christian life should be a life of
regular, daily answer to prayer. In the model prayer (the Lord's Prayer)
Jesus taught His disciples to pray daily for bread and to expect to get
it, and to ask daily for forgiveness and to expect to be forgiven. While
answered prayer should be the normal experience, it remains a fact that
many times we fail to get the answer to the cry of our hearts. There are
certain hindrances which frequently cause God to withhold the requests
that we ask.
1. Asking From a Selfish Motive
God says, "You ask and do not receive, because
you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures" (James 4:3). The
first thing that hinders prayer and causes God to withhold what we ask
is a selfish purpose in our praying. If we pray simply for the gratification
of self and for the satisfaction of our own pleasures, the Bible says we
ask amiss (we ask wrongly). If we ask from a selfish motive instead of
for the glory of God, He does not promise to give our request.
You remember the story that amused us when we
were children. It was the story of a wishing cap, and when the possessor
wore the cap, he was vested with the power of obtaining immediately whatever
he wished for. Human beings sometimes seem to regard God's promise to answer
prayer in a similar fashion. They think God is pledged to satisfy all their
selfish desires and that He ought to lavishly give them everything they
ask.
Sometimes folks desire great wealth and pray that
God will bless them financially. It may be all right to pray for success
and prosperity in business, but we must be very careful to examine our
motives and see that they are proper. God knows the motive of the heart,
and He loves us too much to entrust us with riches, when He knows we would
spend them on our own pleasures, and thus let the wealth become a detriment
to our souls.
Sometimes a Christian wife prays for the conversion
of her unsaved husband. This is a proper thing for which to pray, for it
is God's will that all men should be saved. But as proper as that prayer
is—it is often hindered because the wife who offers it is praying for the
conversion of her husband from a purely selfish motive. She says to herself:
"Our married life would be so much happier and it would be far more pleasant
for me around the house, if my husband were a Christian." All that of course
is true. No two persons can know the deepest joys of married life when
one is a Christian and the other is not. But for a wife to pray for the
conversion of her husband for those reasons alone is selfish. The real
reason for praying for the conversion of one's husband should not be so
that things will be more convenient for you—but because you know that without
Christ he is lost and without the hope of eternal life. James says that
sometimes we do not receive the answers to our prayers because we are too
selfish in our praying. We ask and receive not because we ask amiss, that
we might consume it on our own pleasures.
2. A General Indifference toward the Bible
If our hearts are turned away from the Scriptures,
and the Bible is not of any interest to us, then our prayers are going
to be an abomination. Proverbs 28:9 says, "One who turns away his ear from
hearing the law, even his prayer shall be an abomination."
It is proper for Christian people to read good books, but if those books stand between you and your regular reading of the Bible, it is better not to read the books. After all, how can anyone who is not interested in the Bible, who fails to read it, whose heart is turned away from it—how can that person ever please God in prayer? Jesus says, "If…My words abide in you, you well ask what you desire, and it will be done for you" (John 15:7). And John says (in I John 5:14), "If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us." The person who doesn't love
the Bible, and isn't eager to read it, and doesn't gladly accept its commands—cannot meet the conditions of these promises, and thus his prayer-life will be hindered. God says we should ask according to His will. And if we want
to know God's will we must study God's book. Ignorance of the Bible and
its basic teachings accounts for many hindered prayers.
One Christian says, "I prayed for years that God
would sanctify me wholly and root out inbred sin and make me absolutely
pure within—but He hasn't heard my cry." This person prayed without carefully
consulting the Scriptures. God has expressed His mind very clearly (in
the Bible) concerning the matter of rooting out inbred sin. One who knows
the Scriptures will not pray a prayer like that. The Apostle John says,
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is
not in us" (1 John 1:8). John (the disciple whom Jesus loved)—the one into
whose care Jesus entrusted His mother; the one who wrote five of the New
Testament books—this same Apostle John includes himself and says, "If we
say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in
us." If the person who prayed the prayer had read the Bible carefully,
the prayer would never have been verbalized. All Christians should earnestly
seek to familiarize themselves with the Scriptures, for "one who turns
away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be an abomination."
3. An Unforgiving Spirit toward Others
Jesus states plainly that Christians who will
not forgive others, will not be heard themselves when they ask forgiveness.
Jesus says in Mark 11:25, "And whenever you stand praying, if you have
anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also
forgive your trespasses."
It is mere folly to expect God to answer
our prayers if at the same time we are cherishing wrath and bitterness
in our hearts toward others. There are some Christians who would never
attend a theater and never belong to a lodge and never play a game of bridge—but
who at the same time are guilty of the sin of unforgiveness. It is easy
to brood over past differences just enough to keep our wrath warm. If we
pray while holding bitterness in our hearts toward others, our prayers
are really hypocritical, and God has not promised to hear.
We are to completely forgive others. Jesus says
in one of His parables (Matthew 18:35) that we are to forgive "from the
heart" (that is, genuinely and without limit)—because God has so graciously
forgiven us. And yet in almost every congregation of believers there are
persons who refuse to speak to others, and who are so gripped with the
sin of holding bitterness in their hearts—that they have made shipwreck
of their lives. If we want our prayers answered, we must learn to completely
forgive. God has never promised to answer the prayers of those who harbor
an unforgiving spirit toward others.
4. Allowing Discord in the Home
Contention and misunderstandings in the home become
a hindrance to an effective prayer life. Many times this hindrance is overlooked.
Peter (in I Peter 3) speaks about the conduct of husbands and wives, and
tells us that an inconsistent life in the home will cause our prayers to
be hindered. He says, "Likewise, you husbands, dwell with them with understanding,giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered" (1 Peter 3:7).
Harmony in the home is tied to receiving the answers
to our prayers. When two unite in marriage, God views them as one flesh.
He expects them to think together and plan together and pray together—and
if there is disharmony and a lack of agreement, prayers are going to be
interrupted. We should never let the sun go down on a family squabble because
it is like a snowball—the farther it rolls, the larger it will grow. Discord
in the home grieves God. If there is a lack of harmony and a lack of agreement
in our homes, our prayer-life will be hindered.
We can make all kinds of pretense about piety.
We can be very faithful in attending Sunday services and various church
meetings, and participating in Christian work, but remember that God's
eye is on our home life! How many a man is there who, if you heard him
talk in prayer meeting or in the Sunday School class, you would think he
is a perfect saint of God. His words are so winsome and winning and earnest.
But in his home he is quite different. He is harsh and domineering and
impatient and overbearing. Some men who are angels in public are devils
at home—and then they wonder why their prayers are hindered.
And some women are as sweet as a summer morning
when you meet them at the Lord's house, but at home they sometimes are
nagging and hard to please. The husband is tired when he comes home from
work. As husband and wife sit down to the evening meal, she says, "John,
did you mail that letter I gave you this morning?" He looks aghast. He
puts his hands into his pockets and finds the letter still there. He says,
"Darling, I'm sorry, but I forgot to mail it." She says, "Of course you
forgot to mail it! You always forget to mail it! You never do what I ask
you to do!" And on and on she goes. No wonder prayers are hindered.
True—many homes are burdened with family members
who are not Christians—and many times there is a lack of cooperation on
the part of the unbeliever. In such cases, the Christian partner must continue
to pray, and God does graciously answer. But it never helps to nag and
constantly criticize the one who is slow to cooperate. Our sweet reasonableness
in the midst of tense moments will have tendencies to win the unbeliever.
5. Unconfessed Sin in Our Lives
A final factor that hinders the answer to prayers
is any unconfessed sin. We have pointed out a number of sins thus far which
are mentioned in the Bible as hindering the answer to prayer. These include
praying with selfish motives, harboring an unforgiving spirit, and allowing
discord in the home. There are other reasons why prayers are hindered.
These include a lack of faith (failure to believe that God will answer),
an unwillingness to help answer the prayer, and a failure to pray with
an uncovered head for men, and with the veiled head for women. God may
do more than He promised, but He does not generally promise to answer the
prayers of those who disregard His order in headship.
Finally, however, it must be pointed out that
any unconfessed sin can block the answer to our prayers. No Christian can
be successful in prayer if he is permitting the practice of sin in his
life. This is especially true if he knows he is doing wrong and he is not
willing to confess his transgression. The Bible says, "If I regard iniquity
in my heart, the Lord will not hear" (Psalm 66:18).
True—all of us have sinned. But if we hold to
a sin, and love it, and make an alibi for it, and excuse it—then that puts
a separation between God and us as individuals. It short-circuits the communication
system, and we are just wasting our time even trying to pray.
If your prayers are not reaching God's throne,
search your life for some evil that might be lurking there. Look back into
the dark recesses of your heart and mind. It may be some questionable habit;
or some petty jealousy; or carelessness; or lustful passion. It may be
the love of money, or some shameful secret sin in your life. Perhaps only
you and God know about it. If you love a sin, and if in your heart you
are excusing it—it is going to hinder your prayers and stop heaven and
shut the ears of God so that He will not hear. The solution is to get it
confessed and forsaken, and to restore fellowship with God.
Prayer is a communication system almost like a
telephone between us and God. An older friend in Christ said to me one
time: "Brother Martin, do you know what God's telephone number is?" I said,
"No, I can't say that I do." She said, "It is Jeremiah 33:3." God says
(as recorded in that passage of Scripture), "Call to me and I will answer
you, and show you great and mighty things which you do not know." That
is a beautiful promise—yet often we behave as if the lines were busy or
as if the phone were out of order.
A Christian night-attendant in a city drugstore
tells of his experience with prayer. The store was open all night to fill
emergency prescriptions. The attendant slept on a couch at the rear of
the store, and one who wanted service during the night rang a buzzer at
the front door. The attendant was just about sleeping one dark, rainy,
dismal night—when he was aroused by the buzzer. When he answered the door,
it was a little boy, who said, "Please mister, get this medicine as soon
as you can; my mommy is awful sick." Sleepily and hurriedly he filled the
prescription and the boy was off. After the boy had gone, the pharmacist
put away the bottles and recorded the prescription—only to notice to his
horror that he had given the boy a deadly poison, instead of the medicine
he had intended to give.
The pharmacist did not know which way the boy
had gone; it was raining and dark outside; he looked in the phone book,
but there was no name to match his record. And then he did as we often
sing—"What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear;
what a privilege to carry, everything to God in prayer"—he went back to
his cot and on his knees asked God to overrule this tragic mistake for
His own glory. He then lay down again.
Soon the night attendant was aroused again by
the buzzer. It was the same little boy. He was crying fiercely. He said,
"I was running down the street to get this medicine home as soon as I could,
and I slipped and fell and broke the bottle. Will you please fill it again?"
You see—God overruled this tragic mistake in answer to the prayer of a
humble Christian.
Prayer is the Christian's source of strength and
joy. It is a vital link between the soul and God. It is a major source
of spiritual power. Don't neglect it.