Four Ways that Prayer is Nurtured, Part 1

Introduction: The Place of Prayer in the Church's Purpose

0:02 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday evening, March 11, 2001, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:12 I believe that most of you gathered here tonight know that my absence from this pulpit last Lord's Day was not a planned absence, at least in terms of human plans. I was originally planning to minister here on the Lord's Day and then to fly down to Greenville, South Carolina on Monday. for the ministry at the Greenville Seminary. But given this disruption of our normal pattern of things, I've chosen to bring the next message in our series on living together in the Father's house.

0:49 Because today, in a very real sense, or this evening, will be the second half of the sermon begun two Lord's Days ago, when in our Lord's Day morning meditation we considered the place of prayer in the purpose of the Lord's Day. The purpose and work of God in the life of the Church. For those of you who have not been with us, and I see several faces that to my knowledge have not been with us, we are presently engaged in a series of studies that I have entitled, Living Together in the Father's House. And what we are doing, as our Church Constitution requires, is taking some of the biblical truths that are captured and stated in some kind of an orderly manner, manner in our church constitution, and I'm seeking to preach out those biblical principles, having parked particularly on the statement in our constitution concerning the purpose of the church, having identified that all-encompassing purpose as that of bringing glory to the God of the scriptures, having identified some of those God-ordained activities by which we seek to glorify God, and some of the commitments essential to maintain those activities, we have come to the question, by what means shall the church pursue this

2:17 God-given purpose, and what means should dominate in the outworking of those various activities mandated by scripture? And the answer given in our constitution is that the church believes that there are two categories of such means, those that I've called the primary and indispensable means, namely, prayer and the public and private ministry of the word, and secondly, discretionary and dispensable means, and we identify them in our constitution as the sale of books and tapes, radio broadcasts, the training of men for the ministry, and etc., and I believe we have rightly identified and made a distinction between the primary and indispensable means, and the discretionary and dispensable means, and while I've acknowledged that there is some overlapping between these means and matters already addressed, that I've decided to preach on them as they are highlighted in our constitution. Two Lord's Days ago, as I've mentioned, we began to preach on the primary and indispensable means, and I've consider the first of these two primary and indispensable means, namely prayer. And in that

3:40 study I attempted to persuade you from the scriptures that no church can legitimately claim to be a healthy biblical church that is not a praying church, a church that cannot be described as one in which there is a pervasive atmosphere of prayer gives up any claim to calling itself a healthy biblical church. And my method in attempting to persuade you of this fact was to consider with you the place of prayer in the apostolic church. And I collated approximately two dozen passages of the word of God under three headings. We saw together that the church was born in a pervasive atmosphere of prayer, that the churches grew and flourished in a pervasive atmosphere of prayer, and that the churches were exhorted to maintain a pervasive atmosphere of prayer. Now, what I propose to do tonight is to identify some of the major biblical convictions which prompted and made nurtured this pervasive atmosphere of prayer. Let me illustrate what I'm saying. If you were to come

Conviction 1: Total Dependence on God's Power

5:07 upon a tree in the time of its fruit bearing, and you were to see upon that tree an abundance of well-shaped, healthy-looking, properly developed apples or pears or peaches, whatever kind of fruit that tree might be bearing, you would have every reason to assume that that tree had been properly pruned, properly fertilized, supplied with sufficient moisture, and that its root system was healthy. You would have every reason to make those assumptions if you saw big, well-formed, luscious fruit hanging on the boughs of that tree. Jesus said, You make the tree good, and its fruit good, or the tree evil, and its fruit evil, for a tree is known by its fruits. And whenever you find a church marked by a pervasive atmosphere of prayer, that sign of healthy fruit in that church, it is because there is a root system that is nourishing that tree. And if any of those roots are severed, or if they are allowed to become sick and worm-eaten so that they

6:33 do not supply life and nourishment to the tree, there you will find an atmosphere marked by pervasive prayerfulness beginning to wither. And if it's not corrected, that condition will eventually produce death. And so I want us to wrestle together with this question. What are those convictions that we have? What are those convictions that we have? And if they are not willing to listen, then without understanding that, I would have to ask, is there any wish to make the tree healthy? Is there any wish that we can be a healthy tree without all these convictions and convictions that function like taproots and the healthy root system to a tree that draw up into itself the moisture and the nourishment from the soil, that that tree might be a healthy tree? Well, as I've reflected upon this, I believe there are at least four such major roots that feed the an atmosphere pervaded with prayerfulness. I trust to get through all four of them, but they are so critical.

7:33 I've not preached particularly in this way before on the subject, so I want to preach in these things and not simply preach over and preach out the four headings that I've prepared. First of all, prayer is nurtured by the conviction that the church is totally dependent upon the power of God in order to fulfill the purpose of God. Prayer is nurtured by the conviction that the church is totally dependent upon the power of God in order to fulfill the purpose of God. As surely as it is affirmed, it is a fact revealed in the scriptures that the church is as dependent upon the power of God to accomplish the God-given purposes of God as you and I are dependent upon oxygen to live. Oxygen is not optional. Prayer is not optional to the life and to the well-being and to the usefulness of the church. Prayer is not optional to the life and to the well-being and to the usefulness of any given church.

8:52 Note how unmistakably clear our Lord Himself made this fact to His followers as He was preparing to go back to heaven. He is filling them with a consciousness of the place of His power as they would accomplish His work and fulfill their mission. Turn to Luke chapter 24, if you will, please. Luke chapter 24.

9:22 We read, in verse 45, that the risen Lord opens the minds of His disciples to understand the scriptures. He tells them that the message that they are to preach is one that focuses upon the necessity and nature of His death, the fact and the implications of His resurrection, and that this message of repentance unto remission of sin should be preached in His name unto all the nations beginning from Jerusalem. So their minds are open to see the truth of the word. He has directed them to see the task before them.

10:02 But having their minds open to understand the scriptures and seeing clearly the task before them is not enough. He goes on and says to them in verse 48, You are witnesses of these things, and behold, I send forth the promise of my Father upon you, but carry in the city, until you be clothed with power from on high. Now we noted several weeks ago the significance and the uniqueness of Pentecost. I am not seeking to establish some doctrine of tarrying meetings in order to obtain the Spirit.

10:41 What I say tonight is predicated upon what we considered about the uniqueness of Pentecost. But it's interesting that with respect to this passage, unlike the emphasis, of the Upper Room Discourse and the coming of the Comforter and the ministry of the Spirit, there is a peculiar focus upon the Spirit coming to endule these disciples with power to accomplish their mission. And that's the same emphasis that Luke records in Acts chapter 1. The disciples ask a question concerning God's program for the days to come.

11:21 And the Lord says in essence, Look. This is the issue that should occupy your mind, my present program for you. And here it is, verse 8 of Acts 1. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is to come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

11:48 So our Lord is making it abundantly clear to His disciples that, His power in the person and ministry of the Holy Spirit is not optional. It is not a luxury. It is that upon which they are to be totally dependent. And likewise in John 15, our Lord has been giving instruction concerning the coming of the other Comforter, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the one called alongside to help.

12:23 The one who will make real to them their union with Christ and His union with them. And in the well-known words of John 15, 1 to 8, our Lord uses this extended metaphor, this analogy of His people and their relationship to Him, sharing a common life. He is the vine, they are the branches. It is essential, verse 4, that they abide in Him.

12:52 And He says, I in you. Now note carefully this language. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, so neither can you, except you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches.

13:10 He that abides in Me and I in him, the same bears much fruit. Now notice the plain, simple, blunt edge of these words. For apart from Me, you can do, nothing. Severed from Me, cut off from My life, you can do, nothing.

13:34 Nothing of any consequence as far as the advancement of the kingdom. You may engage in much activity, much activity that is religious in its external dimensions. But without Me, severed from Me, cut off from My life-giving presence and power, you can do, nothing. And what is clear in the teaching of our Lord, is very clear in the thinking of the great Apostle Paul.

14:03 Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. This is in a section that is one of the richest sections in all of the New Testament concerning the nature and the power of the new covenant ministry. Contrasted with all covenant ministry and the ministry of Moses. And it's in this section, and it's in this setting that the Apostle Paul says, in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 4, such confidence we have through Christ to Godward, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to account anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.

14:47 And here is the stark contrast. And in the original, it's even more vivid. The Apostle says not that we are sufficient of ourselves to account anything as coming out of ourselves. When we think of any good having its source in us, no good.

15:09 We are not sufficient of ourselves to account anything as from ourselves. But our sufficiency is out of God. Out of self, out of God. There are the two alternatives.

15:25 And the Apostle is persuaded that there is nothing of any significance, of any worth in the work of God that comes out of ourselves. But only that which comes out of Him. And this is why the same Apostle in the well-known passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 welcomes all forms of afflicted dispensations, as the old Puritans would call it. All kinds of personal difficulties and opposition that keeps him pressured in this present consciousness that when I am weak, driven out of any sense of strength in myself, then am I strong.

16:09 Most gladly will I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may spread itself like a tent over me. My brethren, if we do not maintain this conviction that the church is totally dependent upon the power of God to fulfill the purpose of God, then the root of a pervasive atmosphere of prayer will wither and will die. Now note that I didn't say we can do nothing religious, nothing seemingly spiritual without the power of God, but rather that we cannot fulfill the purpose of God for the church. God has reserved to Himself all of the power necessary to fulfill every facet of the purpose of His church. And prayerlessness in an individual, man or woman, boy or girl, prayerlessness in a church is a silent but a convincing witness to expose idolatrous, creature confidence. Let me repeat that.

17:26 Prayerlessness in an individual or in a church is a silent but convincing witness to expose an idolatrous, creature confidence, a confidence on which God has pronounced nothing less than a curse. I want you to turn to Jeremiah 17 to see that that language is not overblown excessive rhetorical emphasis, but it is simply expressing what is clearly taught here in Jeremiah 17, beginning with verse 5. Thus saith the Lord, Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord. He shall be like the heath in the desert, a barren place, shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness of salt land, and not inhabit it. Blessed is the man whose trust is in the Lord, and whose trust the Lord is, for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters that spreads out its roots by the river, and shall not fear when heat comes, but its leaf shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought,

18:52 neither shall cease from yielding fruit. And that person, that church, that company of believers that truly trust in the Lord, and is persuaded that without Him we can do nothing, that truly accounts that out of themselves there is nothing that they can do to accomplish the work of God, there is an individual, there is a church that is frequently and fervently at the throne of grace, crying out of this disposition of confidence in God that He alone can accomplish His work in and through the church. Prayerfulness is the witness to trust. Prayerlessness is the witness to unbelief and to creature confidence. And the day is like pulling teeth to get people to come to a prayer meeting, to have the kind of prayer and the spontaneous prayer meetings that some of you have established. And when we've heard of it second or third hand, it has thrilled our hearts to know that there is that instinctive recognition that we do not have the stuff that we need to do the work of God. May that spirit deepen and increase and become even more pervasive among us.

Conviction 2: Discernible Relationship Between God's Power and Prayer

20:14 But whenever there is a subtle shift away from this conviction that the church is totally dependent upon the power of God in order to fulfill the purpose of God, there the taproot that sustains an atmosphere of prayer has begun to be severed. My second heading is this. Prayer is nurtured by the conviction that there is ordinarily a discernible relationship between the power of God and the prayer and the prayers of the people of God. Now I know some of you get weary with my lengthy headings, but trying to state God's truth accurately and in a balanced way in our own words is an awesome responsibility. And I've chosen each of these words carefully. Prayer is nurtured by the conviction that there is ordinarily a discernible relationship between the power of God and the prayers of the people of God. Some have said, and I've read their books, that there is always an inseparable and a predictable relationship between the power of God and the prayers of the people of God.

21:34 I've read language such as this. Little prayer, little power. More prayer, more power. Much prayer, much power in an almost mechanical way.

21:46 I don't see this supported by Scripture. One would have to be omniscient to say it is an inflexible rule of the working of God in the history of the Church. However, the Word of God does indicate that ordinarily there is a discernible relationship between the power of God and the prayers of the people of God. And we, as God's people, are not to be concerned with the question, what may God sovereignly do to maintain His rights as a sovereign?

22:24 But what does He ordinarily do in the way of His revealed will for His people? That's to be our concern. And what I'm asserting is that if this Church, if you as individuals are to maintain a climate that is marked by pervasive prayerfulness, that disposition will be nurtured by the conviction that there is ordinarily a discernible relationship between the power of God and the prayers of the people of God. And there are many reasons for this.

22:59 Let us just consider several very basic ones. I like to think of prayer as the law of the kingdom of Christ to which the King Himself has subjected Himself. Turn to Psalm 2. Psalm 2.

23:17 It is the law of the kingdom of Christ to which the King Himself has submitted Himself. The Psalm begins with the question, why do the nations rage, the peoples meditate a vain thing, everyone coming together in order to oppose the purposes of God and the reign of His Son. God, verse 4, sits in the heavens and laughs, then speaks to them in His wrath, and will vex them in His sore displeasure. In spite of all of your efforts to frustrate my purposes, God says, I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion.

23:56 Now God lets us into His decrees, those things which for the most part are secret to us in many of their facets. But here we are brought in and allowed, as it were, to hear conversation within the Trinity. I will tell of the decrees, I will tell of the decrees. The Lord said unto me, Jehovah speaking to Messiah, His King, whom He is going to set upon His holy hill of Zion.

24:27 The Lord said unto me, You are my Son. This day have I begotten you. That is, upon His resurrection and ascension He is begotten to the role and official position of Messianic King. Not I have begotten you, that is, given you life and being.

24:45 No. There is a terminology that would be used when a King was installed. It would be said He was begotten, not as to His being, but as to His official position and role as King. And so Jehovah says to the Messianic King, You are my Son.

25:04 This day have I begotten thee. Now look at verse 8. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the uttermost part of the earth for your possession. Think of it.

25:20 The Messianic King must ask for His inheritance as King. Ask and I will give. And if you ask the question, Would the Father give if the Son, the Messianic King, did not ask? To me it is a silly question.

25:39 My Bible says He will come into His rightful inheritance in the way of asking. Ask of me, the Father says to the Son, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, the uttermost part of the earth for your possession. So it should not surprise us that when the King Himself appears, and in the Sermon on the Mount where He gives the manifesto of His Kingdom, right in the midst of it, He gives us the principles of prayer and He says in Matthew 7, 7, Ask and it shall be given you. I am asking and receiving from my Father. You ask to receive those things from your Father. Ask and it shall be given you. Will it be given if I do not ask?

26:36 I have no promise that it will be. There is a divinely established relationship between the asking of the Son or daughter of the Kingdom and the giving of the Father through the Son. Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find not.

26:56 And it shall be opened unto you. And then it's interesting, Luke who emphasizes more clearly, more repeatedly than any of the other Gospel writers, the prayer life of our Lord Jesus demonstrates that even in conjunction with the Holy Spirit coming upon the Lord Jesus, fulfilling the promise that I will put my spirit upon my servant out of Isaiah, we read in Luke chapter 3, verse 21, these interesting words, Now it came to pass when all the people were baptized that Jesus, also having been baptized, and prayed, and prayed, the heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form as a dove upon him and a voice came out of heaven, You are my beloved Son, in you I am well pleased. For our Lord Jesus, the fulfillment of all of the promises of the Father to the servant with respect to him being anointed with the Spirit, Luke tells us there was this intimate relationship between the giving of the Father and the asking of the Son. While praying, the heaven is opened and the Spirit descends upon him.

28:25 Our Lord in Luke 11 ties together the asking of his people and the giving of the Holy Spirit. Luke chapter 11, you remember, he gives a parable to encourage what we call importunity, persistence in prayer. Then our Lord brings the whole passage to a wonderful conclusion. Verse 13, if you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.

29:05 Give to those who ask. Give to those who ask. And so it's not surprising to find the Apostle Paul using language such as he uses in Philippians 1 and verse 19. Here he is in a Roman prison.

29:24 He's writing to this church that was the darling of his heart. And he can say this of that church in relationship to himself hundreds of miles away. Verse 19 of Philippians 1, I know that this shall turn out to my salvation, my deliverance. How?

29:42 Through your supplication and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Supplication and supply of the Spirit. Now the question is, would Paul have known the same degree of the supply of the Spirit in the midst of the particular circumstances there in a Roman prison had they not prayed and supplicated? I don't know.

30:11 All I know is this, the Apostle is unashamed to say there is a very clear, observable relationship between the prayers of the people of God and the supply of the Spirit of God. That's there on the face of the text. Whatever else it may teach us, it does underscore what I've tried to capture in my heading. Prayer is nurtured by the conviction that there is ordinarily a discernible relationship between the power of God and the prayers of the people of God.

30:47 So again, it should not surprise us that when Luke is giving a record of God's dealings with his people, there in that well-known Acts 4 passage, the servants of God have been threatened. They come back to their own company. Acts 4 and verse 23, they lift up their voice to God with one accord. They quote from the second Psalm.

31:11 They say, verse 29, Now, Lord, look upon their threatenings. Grant unto your servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch forth your hand to heal that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus. Things which apostles were commissioned to do, but which they knew they had no power to do without present supplies of the grace and power of God. Even apostles commissioned to heal the sick, commissioned to validate their testimony with signs and wonders.

31:48 They are crying out, Lord, look upon their threatenings. Grant us boldness while you stretch forth your hand to heal signs and wonders done. Verse 31, And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were gathered together, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness. The Spirit is given in a fresh, intensified outpouring of His grace and His power upon the people, upon the apostles.

32:22 And the next paragraph tells us, verse 33, With great power, mega power, gave the apostles their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace, mega grace, was upon them all. The Spirit was conveying intensified measures of gospel grace upon all the people, and intensified measures of power upon the preaching and testimony of the apostles, all as the outworking of this paragraph that shows the people of God praying. So I say, there must be extracted from the Scriptures this conviction that there is ordinarily a discernible relationship between the power of God and the prayers of the people of God. One can only wonder in looking back upon one's own life of how many things might God say to me, to you, in the language of James 4 in verse 2. You have not because you ask not. Not you have not because it was sovereignly decreed that you should have little.

33:44 You have not. And what is the cause? Because you ask not. Yes, you ask and receive not because you ask amiss.

33:54 That deals with wrong motives. But James begins by dealing with prayerlessness, not asking. And I say then, by way of application, we must never draw back from our heart's persuasion, and our unreserved confession of the absolute sovereignty of God. I trust that until Christ returns in this increasingly man-centered age, when people act as though they are the masters of their own faith and the captains of their own souls, that in this place there will be a people who believe into every atom of their being the truth of Ephesians 1.11 that the God whom we worship works all things after the counsel of his own will. But I trust that with equal conviction there will be a people in this place persuaded that this sovereign God accomplishes his sovereign will in and through the church that prays that he would manifest his grace and his power. To say that we expect him to work in power when we are not praying is wicked presumption. Here's a person utterly indifferent to diet, to exercise, to rest, to environment,

35:20 to having good basic health habits. And because he had an Uncle John who smoked and drank and never got off his couch and was pathetically overweight and lethargic and lived to be ninety-five, he said, Well, my Uncle John, nothing happened to him and I'm just going to live to be ninety-five. The person who is utterly indifferent to the known principles of maintaining good health and yet expects good health is guilty of wicked presumption. Do you agree?

35:51 God has ordained means. And to pray and to expect in the will of God that we might have good health respecting those principles, that's the way of faith, that's the way of honoring the sovereign God who works by means. Well, in the same way, in some of the most profound statements of God's commitment to do His own sovereign will, right in the midst of that, God will say, But by the way, I want you to ask me to do the very thing I'm sovereignly committed to do. Look, for example, at Jeremiah 33, trying to establish that there is ordinarily a discernible relationship between the power of God and the power and the prayers of the people of God. God has been saying through the prophet that He's going to restore His people from their captivity in Babylon. And at the latter part of chapter 32 of Jeremiah, you have some of those new covenant promises, promises that will find their greatest fulfillment in that which far transcends the return from captivity 70 years after they went into captivity. Now, picking up that thread, look at chapter 33, verse 1.

37:13 Moreover, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the second time while he was shut up in the court of the guards, saying, Thus saith the Lord that does it. The Lord that forms it to establish it. Jehovah is His name. Here is the word coming from God.

37:34 And God identifies Himself as the God who does it. The God who forms and establishes it. Jehovah. I am that I am.

37:46 I will be that I will be. That is His name. Now look at verse 3. Call unto Me, and I will answer you and show you great things and difficult which you know not.

38:01 For thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city, concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which are broken down to make a defense against the mounds and against the sword, while men come to fight, etc. God says, though I have hid My face, verse 6, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, and I will reveal unto them abundance of peace and truth, and I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them as at the first. God says, I am God who does what I purpose to do, and this is what I purpose to do, but nestled in the middle of it, God says, call upon Me, and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you know not. And Daniel is a beautiful example of a man who believed that. He says, when I understood from the prophecies that the seventy years were just about to expire, I set myself to seek the Lord by prayer and fasting, trying out that God would do what He has sovereignly purposed to do. Well, if God is going to call out more of His elect through the life and witness of this assembly, if God is going to continue to use the people of God in this place to make forays into the kingdom of darkness, if God is going to do this,

Conviction 3: Conditions for Answered Prayer are Real, Reasonable, and Attainable

39:29 we must be convinced that there is ordinarily this discernible relationship between the operations of His power to accomplish those ends and the prayers of His people. But then thirdly, if we would have a healthy root system causing us to become and remain and increasingly be marked as a healthy church with an atmosphere pervasive in prayerfulness, then this third principle is one that we must continually keep before us. It's this. Prayer is nurtured by the conviction that the conditions for answered prayer are real, reasonable, and attainable by the grace of God. Prayer is nurtured by the conviction that the conditions for answered prayer are real, reasonable, and attainable by the grace of God. Now, what do I mean by conditions? Well, if we had said last Lord's Day, if you attend the Saturday morning sessions of the seminar on spirit wars, you will be served lunch in the church multipurpose room.

40:52 There's a promise you will be served lunch in the multipurpose room, but there's a condition. You must attend the Saturday morning sessions. If, then. If is the condition, then is the promise or the fulfillment.

41:08 Based upon compliance with the condition. So what I'm saying is this. If we as a church, if we as individuals are to maintain and to grow in the spirit of prayer and prayerfulness, that attitude, that climate will be nurtured by the conviction that the conditions for answered prayer are real, they are reasonable, and attainable by the grace of God. They are real conditions.

41:37 When God says, if, then, He's not playing games. If I had regarded iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not hear. God's not playing games. His conditions are real.

41:55 Further, they are reasonable. They are not arbitrary. There is a spiritual rationale behind those conditions. And they are attainable by the grace of God for if they are not attainable, the promises attached to the conditions are a mockery.

42:13 Suppose we were to say, if you show up in the church parking lot Saturday morning and leap over the main auditorium and land on Horseneck Road, you will have lunch, sir. Well, I'm mocking you with any promise of lunch because I've set up an absolutely unreasonable and unattainable condition. Now, God doesn't do that. The conditions that He sets forth for answered prayer are attainable by the grace of God.

42:47 They are real conditions. God's not playing word games. But they are reasonable, not arbitrary, and they are attainable by the grace of God. And what are those conditions?

Condition 3a: Pray According to God's Revealed Will

43:02 Well, let me just point in the direction of two or three of them. First, we must pray, according to the revealed will of God. Nothing could be more basic. 1 John 5, verses 14 and 15, a very clear statement of this condition.

43:21 Verse 14 of 1 John 5, this is the boldness that we have toward Him that if, there's the condition, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of Him. If we know, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears, and if we know that He hears, we know that whatsoever we ask, we will have the petitions. This is an echo of our Lord's words in John 15, 7. If you abide in me, and what? My words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, your will being influenced by my word and by your union with me, by the maintenance of vital union and communion with Christ, and the word of Christ living in us, shaping our desires, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done unto you. So, if we are persuaded that this is a real, reasonable, and attainable condition for answered prayer, we're going to live in our Bibles if we want to pray effectively.

44:50 When someone describes the blessed and fruitful man or woman as one who meditates in the law of God day and night, this is no little part of that fruitfulness. For Jesus went on to say, Herein is my Father glorified, right after He said, If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask what you will, it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit. And the intimate connection is, in no little measure, the fruitfulness that comes from prayers that are aligned with the will of God.

45:22 We'll live in our Bibles, and our Bibles will live in us. Colossians 3.17 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Let it be at home in your heart.

45:33 Let it fill the living room and the sitting room and the kitchen of your heart, and the closets. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. My brethren, there will be more actual praying back the promises to God in our prayer meetings, because that's the way we'll be dealing with God in the secret place of prayer. I shall never forget, and he would be embarrassed if he were sitting here, but I think I must say it.

46:01 I sought to learn to pray like that as a young Christian, but I was struck with how little I had learned it the first time I prayed with my dear Jonathan, Pastor Ashiel Blaise. I preached to a group of ministers there in England, 1970 or 71, and I saw this handsome black man sitting on the front row, transfixed. I don't think he blinked once while I preached. When I was done, everyone left, he was still sitting there.

46:33 I went to him and said, Brother, you want to pray, don't you? He said, yes. We went up to my room in the dormitory there at Leicester University. We got on our knees and this dear man began to pray.

46:45 And I'd never heard anyone pray like that. Oh Lord, do you know that big West Indian voice, Jeffrey Holder type voice? Have you not said in your word, it is the word of the King? And he began to recite God's promises back to him, one after another.

47:04 And I did something very unspiritual. I either thought of doing it, I can't recall, one can romanticize the past, but I was tempted and I may have yielded the temptation to lift my head up and peek. And I wouldn't have been surprised to see a theophany. It was as though he had the hem of Christ's garment and he wasn't going to let him go.

47:26 And he bound Christ to him and himself to Christ in prayer by the promises, by the promises. Dear people, none of us may attain to what some of us believe is a special grace and gift of intercession that God has given to our dear brother. But surely, we can make more conscience about this condition if my word abides in you. Not just occasionally and obliquely touch your mind and your heart, but if you abide in me and my words abide in you.

48:01 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Now do you see the connection? Why there must be strong, vigorous, honest, comprehensive teaching and preaching of the Scriptures? That brings the word into the heart and into the mind.

Condition 3b: Pray with No Unresolved Controversy with God

48:20 Why there must be consistency in the devotional life, family worship, the word of God coming to us in all these directions that when we pray, Christ's word is abiding in us. And what we ask is according to the revealed will of God. Second condition is, we must pray with no unresolved controversy with God. We must pray with no unresolved controversy with God.

48:49 That is a real, reasonable, and an attainable condition. I didn't say we must pray as sinlessly perfect. No. I said with no unresolved controversy with God.

49:04 In Isaiah 59, God's language to his people is unmistakable. It is unmistakably sharp and clear. Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear. It appears that God has been cut off at the elbows, that he's short-handed.

49:30 He can't reach in to your circumstances. It appears as though God's had a significant hearing loss. You pray, and it's as though God is death. He's cut off at the elbows.

49:44 His hearing is impaired. No. The Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear. But, your iniquities is separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you so that he will not hear.

50:05 Then the prophet calls them to repentance, identifies their specific sins. I quoted earlier, Psalm 66, 18. Let's turn to it and note the context. Psalm 66, verse 16.

50:31 Come and hear, all you who fear God. I will declare what he's done for my soul. The Psalmist is saying, I'm going to give a testimony of some recent visitation of God to my soul. I cried unto him with my mouth.

50:46 He was extolled with my tongue. If I had regarded iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have heard. But, verily God has heard. He has attended to the voice of my prayer.

51:02 Blessed be God who has not turned away my prayer nor his loving kindness from me. The Psalmist was conscious that when he prayed, he had no conscious, unresolved controversy with God. Big or little, insignificant or more significant in the world's estimation, to have the sand of an accusing conscience unwashed in the blood of Christ in the eye of the soul is to keep us from looking up with confidence. Proverbs 28, 9 is another pointed statement showing this same truth.

51:44 Proverbs 28 and verse 9. He that turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination. God is saying by his law, this is the way you are to walk. We turn our ear from the law and walk in our own way and then we come and ask God to do things for us.

52:07 The clear indication is that some who turn an ear from the law continue to pray. But he that turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination. And then the clear teaching of Mark 11, 25. Our Lord Jesus speaking, notice again how clear are his words.

52:31 Mark 11 and verse 25. And whensoever you stand praying, forgive. If you have ought against anyone in order that your Father also is in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses. If you have an unresolved conflict with another human being and it's not resolved because you've not taken the steps to deal with it in your heart and if necessary and possible in your life, you come to God and you will not be heard.

53:06 That's a condition of answered prayer. And then a well-known passage, 1 Timothy 2, where the apostle has told us that prayerfulness is to be a dominant element in the life of the churches. I will first of all that prayer, supplication, intercession, giving of thanks be made for all men. And then when he comes to the specific direction of the men who take the lead in prayer, look at the language.

53:34 I will that the men pray in every place lifting up holy hands without wrath and disputing. The men are to pray. They are to be the mouthpiece of God in congregational life. But they are to do so in every place.

53:56 The ordinary posture of prayer in that setting, the lifting up of hands, but he says it must be the lifting up not of defiled hands. Psalm 15, who shall ascend into the hill of God? He who has what? Clean hands and a pure heart.

54:16 No unresolved controversy with God. There has been cleansing in the blood of Christ, confession to God through Christ, and where necessary, confession to our fellow men. How can we expect the spirit of prayer to enable us to pray when we are grieving him by some unresolved conflict with God? Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption.

54:44 When he is grieved because of an ethical conflict with God or our fellow man, then we will not know his enablement so that we can do what Jude 20 tells us to do, building ourselves up on our most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. And Ephesians 6, 18, we are to pray with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. And whatever that involves, we should instinctively know that a grieved spirit based upon unresolved controversy with God will find us bereft of the Spirit's ministry as the spirit of grace and of supplication. Then the third condition very clearly taught in the scriptures is this. We must pray, not only according to the revealed will of God, pray with no unresolved controversy with God, but pray with the expectation of faith. So basic. Hebrews 11, 6, Without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, that's the first part, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

Condition 3c: Pray with the Expectation of Faith

55:59 We pray not only in the confidence that we're praying to the God who is, but the God who hears and who answers prayer. James 1, 5 to 7, where we are encouraged to ask for wisdom when conscious of the lack of it. We cry out to God, but how are we to cry for that wisdom? James 1, verse 5, If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and does not scold, and it shall be given him.

56:30 But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting. What is asking in faith? It's believing, verse 5, that if I come with no unresolved controversy to ask that which is agreeable to the will of God as discerned from the word of God, I can come to God and hold him to his word. Lord, you've said if I lack wisdom to ask, and you've told me you're dishonored if I ask and I don't expect to receive it.

56:57 So, Lord, I expect to receive it. Because you have bound yourselves in your pledge and promise. You remember one of the saddest words in all of the Gospel records, Matthew 13, 58, speaking of Jesus. He did not bear many mighty works because of their unbelief.

57:21 We must cry out with that man, Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief, and I love the prayer that the disciples brought to the Lord, recorded in Luke 17, in verse 5. They said, Lord, increase our faith. It's right to come to God.

57:40 You never need to say, Lord, if it's your will, increase my faith. Everywhere God commends faith, not fanatical faith that envisions what it wants, detached from the word of God and the principles of Scripture and the great concerns of the kingdom and God's concern to fashion us into the likeness of Christ and then tells us if we just screw up enough determination to get God in a hammerlock and we push Him long enough and hard enough and loud enough, God will finally cave in. That's paganism. That's not biblical Christianity.

58:13 That's the creature manipulating the Creator. But to come in humble dependence upon the mediation of Christ with a mind shaped and increasingly influenced by the word of Christ and to bring before God that request that flows out of the word abiding in us and having no unresolved controversy with God to do anything less than expect Him to hear and to answer insults, God is the God of truth and the God of a large fatherly disposition. For if we who are evil know how and delight to give gifts to our children, good gifts, how much more, how much more will your heavenly Father give to those who ask Him? And so, if we're to have a climate, an atmosphere marked by prayerfulness, then there must be this deepening conviction on all of our hearts that if we are to pray, we must recognize that the conditions for answered prayer are real, they are reasonable, and by the grace of God, they are attainable. My fourth head, I'm going to leave it. There isn't time to open it up and it's so critical.

Conclusion: The Awfulness of Prayerlessness and Call to Deeper Prayer

59:37 Let me just tell you what it is. Prayer is nurtured by the conviction that the church is engaged in real spiritual warfare with the unseen host of darkness. There were five or six pivotal texts that I want to set before you, so we'll leave that, God willing, for next Lord's Day morning. But I set before you tonight nothing novel, not the kind of thing that, you go out and nudge one another and say, oh, what a marvelous new insight.

60:05 No. We're in the most basic issues of the life of the church and the life of the individual believer. The reason prayer is so awful, the most accurate barometer of where we are spiritually, is because it's related to these issues. You can keep up the form and the ritual of a lot of things while the soul of it is dead.

60:29 But I tell you, if God the Holy Ghost is not present in our prayer meetings, there's nothing better than a dead prayer meeting. You have nothing to come in and give you some sense you spent your time in a good purpose. But when God comes and enlarges our hearts and enables us to pray for things agreeable to His will and to pray out of a context in which there are no unresolved controversies with God and we pray in the expectation of faith, that can become addictive in the right sense of the word. And then when we hear answers, when we hear answers to prayer, you find it in the Psalms, nothing stirs up more prayer than answers to past prayer.

61:10 I love the Lord, the Psalmist said, because He has attended to my voice and to my supplication, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live. God's answered prayer, I'm determined to pray and cry to Him all the more. Well, may God help us, dear people. And again, I speak to you of the younger generation.

61:30 This was confirmed in South Carolina this past week. Evangelical churches by the droves have dropped their midweek prayer service. I was talking to pastors from many different churches. No midweek prayer service anymore.

61:48 Very little public prayer in public worship. It's a horrible indictment. The fact that the church has lost its conviction that she is utterly dependent upon the power of God to accomplish His purposes and that there is an observable relationship between the operations of the Spirit of God in power and the prayers of His people. And it is a great indictment on the indifference of professing Christians to the real, reasonable, and attainable conditions for answered prayer.

62:31 May God grant that whatever we have known in the spirit of prayer in the past, God will so draw us into new dimensions personally and in smaller groups and in our life together as a church that we'll wonder if we'd ever prayed. And if God is pleased to take us there, He doesn't do that to mock us. Matthew Henry said in the this I close, when God purposes to bless His people, He sets them a praying. He sets them a prayer of praying.

63:09 Oh, let us pray that He'll set us a praying. We've got people sitting in this auditorium that have resisted gospel overtures, thundered and tearfully set before them for years. Could it be, and this is what has come to my heart, could it be that God is saying, my son, my children, this kind goes not out but by prayer. Here were apostles with conferred authority to cast out demons, and yet they met a case that they couldn't conquer.

63:39 And Jesus said, this kind goes not out but by prayer. What things would go out of some of our children, some of those who sit among us, if by God's grace we are taken into a new level of earnest, fervent, Bible-based, Spirit-empowered prayer from lives that have no unresolved controversies with the living God that seek Him in faith. Let's pray. Our Father, we are thankful for Your Word.

64:20 We thank You that it is a lamp unto our feet and a light to our pathway. And we would corporately confess to You the subtle sins of creature confidence that have cut the tap roots of our effectiveness in prayer. For we have insulted You by coming into Your presence and asking us to do things for us when we have been unwilling to do what You've called upon us to do. Forgive us for our presumption.

64:50 Forgive us for our arrogance. And we pray, our Father, that You will take the Word preached this night and use it to bring this, Your people, starting with me and all of its leadership. O God, we pray, bring us deeper into the school of Bible-based, faith-suffused prayer, that we might see You bear Your arm in ways that hitherto we have not known it. Our Father, we do not ask this for the sake of Trinity Church, but for the honor of Your dear Son, whose name and whose ways and whose gospel are despised and trampled in the dust. And rampant paganism, as we have heard in recent days, has taken the field and, Lord, we cannot be content that the enemy, like Goliath, mocks You and Your Son. O give us the heart of David that we would, in Your name and in Your strength, take on these Goliaths and see those victories that magnify You, the God of Israel. Lord, we think of this potential church-planting endeavor there in Atlanta, and we know the enemy, though not omniscient, he knows what we are seeking to do and we know that he will rear back and seek to oppose us.

66:17 O God, may we not be made vulnerable individually or as a church because of spiritual sluggishness, but may we, by Your grace, watch and pray that we enter not into temptation. So we commit to You ourselves Your word and pray that the blessing of Your Spirit's constant application of the word to our hearts will be our portion in the days to come. Hear us and answer us for Your name's sake. Amen.