through my mind as we are making the transition here from a crowd of people up front to one person up front describing what that's like. It's almost like trying to hold a gallon of water in your hands or to make 10 cats go the same direction that you want them to go or a fruit basket upset. I'm not quite sure which to describe it with but I'm very grateful for the young people that come up each week to help out in leading us in worship. I want to today take us on another little side excursion before we go back and finish up Psalm 119. I'm still trying to decide whether we will do more than one. We may start here, go finish Psalm 119, and then come back. During the Young People's SALT Leadership Meeting, the Scripture Accountability Leadership Training Meeting, we were talking about the New Year and trying to figure out what could we do that would help us to refocus our spiritual attention at the beginning of the New Year. We kicked around several ideas, and as they were kicking around some ideas, One hit me in my mind and stayed there and so I'd like us to focus on this thing that God has put in my heart today and that is the subject of prayer. We talk about prayer a lot. Every one of us knows that prayer is necessary and vital to our spiritual health and yet I don't know anyone, myself included, who is satisfied with his or her prayer life. I remember hearing, as I was younger, hearing stories, and Jeremy remembers this better than I do, the person who said, if I've got an extra two hours of hard work today, then I better spend an extra two hours in prayer at the beginning of the day, Martin Luther. He only normally spent two or three hours. three hours in prayer each morning. Instead, if I have an extra hard day, I get up an extra hour or two or three or four early and pray that extra. However much more effort I'm going to have to expend at the end of the day, I get up early enough to expend that much effort in prayer at the beginning of the day. And I hear testimonies like that and I go, okay, that's definitely not where I'm at. A number of years back, hearing the call to prayer, at that time I had the energy to be able to respond in a way that I wanted to respond, and that was to start getting up at six and praying for two hours before the day began. Then as my children got older, life got much more complicated and I was unable to maintain that discipline. Once I got into the habit, now getting into the habit was difficult because I remember I started doing it in our living room right close, I'd get the fire going in the fireplace really well and about 15 minutes after it got good and glowing hot, I'd be laying on the floor and Judy would come out and say, I thought you were coming out to pray. Oh, I was. That was my intention. And so I started moving over into the room that's now the library, the small library in the church there. It was much colder when I got there and it helped me to stay alert longer until I was able to develop the habit to be able to stay awake. Part of the habit was figuring out how do you pray? What do you do for two hours? So I want to talk about that in the future. Today I want to go back to the motivation. What is it that will help me to want to pray? What are the things that are the foundation to building prayer into my life? Remember what Jesus said when he was driving the money changers out of the temple. My house will be called a house of prayer. We look at that and say, Yeah, the temple should be a place of prayer. And yet, where is God's house now? It's in us. We are the temple of the living God. And so, as you feel, as we talk through this today, as you feel the Lord stepping on your toes and putting conviction into your heart and soul, know that it is much more so for me as I've been wrestling with this for the last few days. The scripture gives us many examples of prayer. We'll look a little bit more closely at some and a little less closely at some others and there are many, many more than these. These are just a few of them. But look at 1 Samuel chapter 1. 1 Samuel chapter 1. F-I-R-S-T, not S-E-C-O-N-D. Okay. First Samuel. There was a certain man from Ramatheim, Zophim in the hill country of Ephraim and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuth and Ephraimite. He had two wives. The name of one was Hannah, the name of the other Penina. And Penina had children, but Hannah had no children. Now this man would go up from his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests to the Lord there. When the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Penina, his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters. But to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, but the Lord had closed her womb. Now, we could stop there and talk about marriage. There's a whole lot right there already. Anytime you have two affections, you're toast. You are in for trouble. God designed us for one affection that would last our lifetime. The toast here is that Elkanah loves Hannah, but Hannah cannot have children. God has closed her womb. And the other wife, I'm sure Penina, said, Oh, it's just too bad that God hasn't opened your womb. And however innocently she might say that, the effect has to be devastating. And the jealousy would have to grow. So to Hannah, he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah. And I'm sure Penina would think, I wish he loved me like that. It reminds me of another story. The woman who named each of her children. Maybe now he'll love me. Surely he'll love me after this. Now my husband will appraise me. Each of her children have the name that demonstrate her crying out for her husband's love and not receiving it. Leah with Rachel. It happened year after year as often as she went up to the house of the Lord. Penina would provoke her. And so Hannah wept and would not eat. Then Elkanah, her husband, said to her, Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you eat? Why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons? Then Hannah rose after eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. She, greatly distressed, prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. She made a vow and said, O Lord of hosts, If you will indeed look on the affliction of your maidservant and remember me, and not forget your maidservant, but will give your maidservant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and a razor shall never come on his head." Now it came about as she continued praying before the Lord that Eli was watching her mouth. As for Hannah, she was speaking in her heart, only her lips were moving, but her voice was not heard, and so Eli, as he looked at her, thought she was drunk. So Eli said to her, How long are you going to make yourself drunk? Put away your wine from you. And Hannah replied, No, my lord, I am a woman oppressed in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have poured out my soul before the Lord. Do not consider your maidservant as a worthless woman, for I have spoken until now out of my great concern and provocation. And Eli answered and said, Go in peace, and may the Lord God of Israel grant your petition that you have asked of him. And she said, Let your maidservant find favor in your sight. And so she went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad. Now you remember the story that she gets pregnant. has a baby son. The next year Elkanah says let's go up and she says no I'm going to wait until he's weaned because he belongs to the Lord. So several years later she comes back and dedicates him to the Lord. Chapter 2, I want us to look at just the first couple of verses here. Hannah prayed and said, My heart exalts in the Lord. My horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth speaks boldly against my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation. There is no one holy like the Lord. Indeed, there is no one besides you, nor is there any rock like our God. Boast no more so very proudly. Do not let arrogance come out of your mouth. For the Lord is a God of knowledge, and with Him actions are weighed." And she goes on and tells about how the Lord cares for the lowly. Her prayer was driven out of a desperation that the Lord would come to her salvation. She wasn't praying for salvation from sin, she was praying for salvation from the oppression and the suffering that she was going through in this relationship. that the Lord heard her prayer and answered her prayer and her response to that was to exult in the Lord another example here David in 2 Samuel so move just a few pages forward 2 Samuel chapter 7 down to verse 11 David through the Nathan prophet. David wants to build a house for the Lord, a temple for the Ark of the Covenant and for the Lord's presence. And God has sent Nathan to him to tell him, you're not going to get to do it, but here's what I will do. And in verse 11 we'll pick this up. Even from the day that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel, and I will give you rest from all your enemies, the Lord also declares to you that the Lord will make a house for you. You want to make a house for me, I will make a house for you. So he's not talking here about a physical house, he's talking about establishing his line to rule over Israel forever. Verse 12, When your days are complete, and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendants after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever." We can stop there for a moment and say, how did we see that fulfilled? We can see it fulfilled in two ways. One physical and one spiritual. The physical with Solomon building the temple of God and God establishing his house there in Jerusalem. But again, who is the promised descendant whose house will last forever. We look to Jesus for that. What is the house that Jesus is building? Is it not we, the temple of the living God? And it will be established in us forever. Verse 14, I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, speaking here of Solomon, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men. but my loving kindness and this is again that work has said which is my loyalty shall not depart from him as I took it away from Saul whom I removed before you your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever your throne shall be established forever in accordance with all these words and all this vision so Nathan spoke to David so then David the king went in and sat before the Lord and he said Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house that you have brought me this far? Remember, where did David come from? What was his ambition in life? Follow after my dad. What does dad do? Well, one thing he does is he takes care of sheep. We don't know what else he did, or if anything else. And that was his ambition as far as his physical life was to be a man that my dad can be proud of. To grow up and be someone who is able to care for the sheep, able to protect the sheep, able to fight off those who would cause trouble to my household. He was not seeking the kingship and when Samuel came they had to send out for him. He wasn't like some, he said, oh there's somebody coming by the house today, I gotta come in and see what's going on. No, he was just doing his job faithfully. He says, what is this that you have brought me thus far from shepherd of sheep to shepherd of your nation? Verse 19, And yet this was insignificant in your eyes, O Lord God, for you have also spoken of the house of your servant concerning the distant future. And this is the custom of man, O Lord God. Again, what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord God. For the sake of your word, some say for the sake of your promise, And according to your own heart, you have done all this greatness to let your servant know. For this reason you are great, O Lord God. There is none like you. There is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears." And then he continues on talking about God's work in the nation, about his praise of God. David's prayer was one of mostly thanksgiving. God, you promised this, look what you've done. It's so far beyond anything that I could have asked for, and I did not seek it out, but you by your sovereign direction have led and put me in this place." And he's responding to God's actions with his prayers. Solomon, 1 Kings 8, we could continue that. He says, what was my father that you raised him up? What am I his son that you raised me up and established not only me as the king on his throne but your house in my presence? What am I that you would do this thing? And praising God for his continued direction over his life. We could go to Hezekiah and we could look at when the Assyrians were marching up against him. we know they had a huge army and Hezekiah's response here in 2 Kings 19 helps to keep the 1 and the 2 separate and change glasses oh that's clear now I can see ok 2 Kings 19 go down to verse 14 Hezekiah took the letter that Sennacherib's generals had given to him in this letter basically said don't let your God deceive you into thinking that he's going to protect you look at all these other kings who turned to their God for protection against us where are they? where are their kingdoms? don't you trust in your God because what God can deliver you from my hand And so Hezekiah, verse 14, takes the letter from the hand of the messengers, read it, and went up to the house of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord, put it on the ground in the temple. And he prayed before the Lord and said, O Lord, the God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made the heaven and earth. So incline your ear, O Lord, and hear me." This is the same word that David uses when he says, I've inclined my heart to your word. I've inclined my heart to obedience. I've inclined my heart to meditate upon you. I'm leaning into you and trusting that you will hold me. And so now he says, Incline your ear, O Lord, and open your eyes and see, and listen to the words of Sennacherib which he has sent to reproach the living God. Now, if we were praying this prayer, we would probably have started out and said, Oh God, He wants to destroy us. You have to come protect us. And then we'd probably remember, so that you'll be glorified because you're so mighty that you protected us. But He doesn't start there. He comes out and He says, Lord, You're the Creator. You're the Sovereign. You are the one who is over all. And He is coming to you and saying, who can protect those that I want to injure from me? You can't. So He starts out with God's reputation. He's challenging you, not me. I'm just the city that's in the way. Verse 17, Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have devastated the nations and their lands, and they had, and they were brutal conquerors. They have cast those nations' gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands. They were wood, they were stone, so they have destroyed them. Now, O Lord our God, I pray deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God." They believe that there is no God that is capable of stopping them. But there is. So Lord, stop them. It just so happens that it would be a good place to stop them right here because we believe in you so we are calling out to you all those other nations when they came against them they called out to the wood and the stone and said save us and obviously they couldn't but we call out to you because you are the creator and so Isaiah the son of Amoz of Hezekiah came to Hezekiah and said Thus the Lord God of Israel says to you, because you have prayed to me about Sennacherib the king of Assyria, I have heard. This is the word that the Lord has spoken against him. She has despised you and mocked you, the virgin daughter of Zion. She has shaken her head behind you, the daughter of Jerusalem. Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? And against whom have you raised your voice and haughtily lifted up your eyes? It is against the Holy One of Israel." Now catch what's going on here. He's picturing Israel as a woman and Assyria as another woman and he's saying Assyria has come up behind you Israel and mocked you because of your virginity. and has shaken her head behind you like what a foolish woman you are because you trust in God. You did not blaspheme Israel. You did not blaspheme. You haven't been raising your eyes and being arrogant. You have not raised your voice and strutted around in haughtiness. When she is despising you, she's not despising you, she's despising me, your God. So God says, her spite is against the Holy One of Israel. 23 Through your messengers you have reproached the LORD, and you have said, With my many chariots I came up to the heights of the mountain, and to the remotest parts of Lebanon, and I cut down all its tall cedars, its choice cypresses, and I entered its farthest lodging place, its thickest forest, I dug wells, and drank foreign water. And with the sole of my feet, I have dried up all the rivers of Egypt. Metaphorically speaking, I have destroyed the source of their life. Have you not heard? Long ago I did it. From ancient times I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass that you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps. In other words, have you not heard, do you not understand that I am the one who enabled you to do this, not you? I am using you to punish these people, and you are becoming arrogant in your being a tool. You're just a tool. So verse 26, Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength. They were dismayed, and they were put to shame. They were as the vegetation of the field, and as the green herb, as grass on the housetops is scorched before it has grown up. But I know you're sitting down and you're going out and you're coming in. I know you're raging against me. Because of your raging against me and because your arrogance has come up to my ears, therefore I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips and I will turn you back by the way which you came." What a picture. And then he says to Hezekiah, this will be the sign for you. You will eat this year what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from the same, and in the third year sow, reap, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit. The surviving remnants of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward. And then to Assyria, you're dying. for I will, verse 34, I will defend this city to save it for my own sake and for my servant David's sake." Again, his house will be established. That night 185,000 Assyrians died. There's no historical record except there's a couple of brief references that people believe are talking about this. Part of the reason why there's probably no historical outside of the Bible reference to it is because Kings told about their victories not about their defeats. There are some who have said this army, they never had armies that big in those days. That would never happen. and besides 185,000 that would have been the entire army he would have had nothing left to go home with and yet some speculate that if the army was that large it would have been spread out throughout the entire land with garrisons of tens of thousands in different places and so 185,000 could have and probably would have been representative of a large number in each of the garrisons dying that night but there is a reference in Egypt's history about Sennacherib coming down towards Egypt and part way down changing his mind thinking that he has rebellion at home that has to be stamped out and so he turns home and he returned suddenly without warning the time frame fits exactly with this time frame and interestingly when he got home two of his sons murdered him and his youngest son Esarhaddon took over the king as king of Assyria. God put a hook in his nose and pulled him back. Hooks and noses are such a vivid picture to me. One time I was fishing with my buddy and And he liked to wear these little floppy hats with his lures and stuff in them. And we fished in kind of confined places where there wasn't a lot of room. And so we were fishing kind of side by side. And I cast out. What is that hat doing in the water? John! But even more graphic than that was my coach told me about fishing with his brother and his cousin. and they were fly fishing and they were on a stream and they had the stream and then a wide sandy bank that his cousin, I think it was, was back about 30 feet and his brother was beside him and his brother was up by the water flicking his line back and forth and my teacher, Mr. Burns, was off to one side watching everything that happened and he said, pulling it back and sending it back out and pulling it back. The other guy was back there getting his fly all hooked up and ready to go and all of a sudden he went. And then he reached up and grabbed something and as his brother pulled on the pole, the cousin reefed back on whatever it was that he was holding on. And this went on for two or three times before he finally said, Stop! And the guy turns around and says, What's wrong? He says, My nose! You know, when somebody puts a hook in your nose, you go wherever the hook pulls. Hezekiah cried out to the Lord in prayer, and God answered. put a hook in Sennacherib's nose and took him back to his own land and then punished him for his arrogance against the Lord who had enabled him to become a mighty king. Ezra chapter 9 keep going to the right before you get to Psalms and Job Ezra chapter 9 When these things had been completed the princes approached me and said the people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands according to their abominations. What had happened was Ezra had brought a group of people back to the Holy Land with him and these people had intermarried with the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Jebusites and the Ammonites and the Moabites and the Egyptians and the Amorites. knowing that God had forbidden them to do this. And many of these people he brought back with him were from the priestly line. And they absolutely knew better than that. Verse 2, For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has intermingled with the peoples of the lands. Indeed, the hands of the princes and the rulers have been foremost in this unfaithfulness. And what he's acknowledging here is it harkens back to when they intermarry like this, they also adopt the gods that go with the daughters. And they bring them into their homes and they begin to worship them. This is why intermarriage between a believer and an unbeliever is something that God abhors. It's because more often than not, the unbeliever becomes the dominant spiritual authority in the house. and the believer will give up his beliefs or her beliefs in order to keep peace in the house. And so Ezra says when I heard about this matter I tore my garment and my robe and I pulled some of the hair from my head and from my beard and sat down appalled. Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel on account of the unfaithfulness of the exiles gathered to me, and I sat appalled until the evening offering. But at the evening offering I arose from my humiliation, even with my garment and my robe torn, and I fell on my knees, and I stretched out my hands to the Lord, and I said, O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen above our heads, our guilt has grown even to the heavens. He goes on and he confesses that this is the pattern of his nation, that they have sinned against God. Verse 8, that now for a brief moment grace has been shown from the Lord our God to leave us an escaped remnant and to give us a peg in his holy place. and that our God may enlighten our lives and grant us a little reviving in our bondage, for we are slaves, yet in our bondage our God has not forsaken us, but has extended lovingkindness," again has said that loyalty, has demonstrated his loyalty to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to raise up the house of our God, to restore its ruins and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem. And now what should we do but forsake your commandments?" He says, I'm embarrassed and ashamed. This gift you've given to me and we turn around and just walk all over it. What was the outcome of this? the call went out to the land every man of the remnant that came back came to confess their sins and to start a new obedience and they put away the daughters of Canaan the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Jebusites and the Ammonites and the Moabites and the Egyptians and the Amorites They sent them back to their father's homes. And some of them even had children. A costly, costly obedience. Another example, Isaiah chapter 63. Isaiah is acknowledging or asking for God to finish the judgment that he's promised to give and to demonstrate his loyalty or his loving-kindness. Down to verse 7 or so, I shall make mention of the loving-kindnesses of the Lord and the praises of the Lord according to all that the Lord has granted us and the great goodness toward the house of Israel which he has granted them according to his compassion and according to the abundance of his loyalties or loving-kindnesses. For he said, Surely they are my people, sons who will not deal falsely. So he became their Savior. In all their affliction he was afflicted. The angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his mercy he redeemed them. And he lifted them and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. Therefore he turned himself to become their enemy and fought against them. Then his people remembered the days of old of Moses. Where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? Where is he who put his Holy Spirit in the midst of them? Who caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses? Who divided the waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name? Who led them through the depths, like the horses in the wilderness, that they did not stumble, as cattle which go down in the valley? The Spirit of the Lord gave them rest, so you led your people to make yourself a glorious name. notice his prayers God we have sinned against you and yet you and your loyalty to us continued to provide and care for us Habakkuk Habakkuk 3 just after Nahum before Zephaniah and Haggai just three little pages tucked in there in your Bible at least it's three in my Bible might be four in yours or two Habakkuk chapter 3 a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet according to Shigionath Lord I have heard the report about you and I fear O Lord revive your work in the midst of the years In the midst of the years, make your work known. In wrath, remember mercy. His splendor covers the heavens, and the earth is full of His praise. His radiance is like the sunlight. He has rays flashing from His hand, and there is the hiding of His power. Before Him goes pestilence, and plague comes after Him. He stood and surveyed the earth. He looked and startled the nations. Yes, the perpetual mountains were shattered. The ancient hills collapsed. His ways are everlasting. And he goes on and he talks about God's glory demonstrated in his judgments and in his mercy. And he asks for strength. Verse 16, I heard and my inward parts trembled at the sound of my lips quivered. Decay enters my bones and in my place I tremble. because I must wait quietly for the day of distress for the people to arise who will invade us." He says, I know what's coming. God, I know you're sending your judgment and your right to do so. I know it's coming. and I can hardly stand up because of my fear. My knees are quaking, my body is shaking, I feel like everything is coming undone inside of me, but I must wait quietly. Verse 17 Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, even though the yield of the olive trees should even fail, and the fields produce no food, and even though the flock should be cut off from the field and there be no cattle in the stalls. Your judgment is coming. I know it's coming and I know it's going to be devastating. And should there be nothing good for me out of this time of your judgment and wrath being poured out, even in all of that, yet I will exult in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength. And He has made my feet like the hind's feet, or like the deer feet in the mountains, stable and sure, and makes me walk on the high places. Praising God in His glory, acknowledging God's judgment is coming, and the rightness of that judgment, and that I'm going to have to stand here and take it. But even in that, I will praise You. Jesus in John 17 Jesus spoke these things and lifting up his eyes to heaven said father the hour has come glorify your son that the son may glorify you and this demonstrates his setting aside of the rights of deity He didn't say, okay, Father, I'm going to reveal my glory to my disciples. He said, no, Father, that's for you to do. Even though I have the right of deity and I could cling to that and say, I am going to reveal my glory, I'm yielding that to you, even as a humble servant. So even as you gave him, or he's speaking of himself, authority over all flesh, that to all whom you have given him, he may give eternal life. This is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God, the Jesus Christ whom you have sent, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on the earth, having accomplished or finished the work which you have given me to do. Now, Father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was. I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they have come to know that everything you have given me is from you. For the words which you gave me, I have given them. They have received them. They truly understood that I came forth from you, and they believed that you have sent me. So I ask on their behalf, I don't ask on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those you have given me, for they are yours, and all things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them. I am no longer in the world, and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, the name which you have given me, that they may be even as we are one. While I was with them, I was keeping them in your name, which you have given me. And I guarded them, and not one of them is perished but the son of perdition, so that the scripture would be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, so that they may have my joy made full in themselves." And he goes on to continue praying for them and for us. urgent prayer. And the disciples in Acts 4.23 that we looked at a couple weeks ago, Lord they're railing against you and they're punishing us for speaking in your name. So now listen and consider their threats and then help us to be bold and empower us so we can speak boldly the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many, many other prayers But the call to prayer is very clear. Scripture is full of it. It is everywhere through the Scripture. Jesus prayed constantly. Luke 4, the temptation to leave the control of the Spirit, to leave his obedience to God by the wayside and exercise his own self-rights. Do what he's capable of doing. If you are the Son of God, you can. Why don't you? Because I've emptied myself of those rights and I'm yielding to the Father. And so, led by the Spirit, he went into the wilderness and was tested. And led by the Spirit, he returned from the wilderness. Later on, remember, after he'd been feeding the 5,000 and healing all those who came, he said to the disciples, get in the boats here on the shore and you guys go across the lake. I need to go up into the mountain and pray. I need to get apart and pray. You guys go ahead and I'll meet you on the other side. And he went up into the mountain to pray and spent the entire day in prayer. In another place he says, I don't do anything unless I see my Father in heaven doing it. Prayer was a key part of his life. And the Bible teaches us that prayer is vital. God says, when you will call on me in Deuteronomy chapter 4, He says, when you get into the place where I have punished you, but you turn around and you call on me and you seek me with your whole heart, I will hear and will answer. Jeremiah 29.13 says the same thing. When you will seek me with your whole heart, I will discover myself to you. I will be found by you." I was looking for an adjective, and vis-a-vis, no, there are a couple of fancy words that I'd never heard before, leuceloid or leucelid or something like that. They all mean, it's so clear that it's so obvious that you can't miss it. that call to prayer is clear in scriptures. How do we learn to do it? If it's clear that we ought to do it, how do we learn to do it? One is by praying. All of us have heard testimonies of someone who was talking about, you know, I don't know who this God guy is, but I know I ought to be praying, but I just don't know how to pray. And someone would say to him, just talk to him. Like you're talking to me, talk to him. We learn to converse with people by doing it. Prayer is much the same way. Part of the learning process is just the act of doing it. Before I accepted the call to come here as pastor, one of the things I told the elders was, I don't know if I can preach. I've never had to preach week in and week out. I don't know how I'll do. I don't know if I can maintain the discipline of study. I don't know. I get extremely nervous in front of people. I don't like being in front of people. I'm uncomfortable in crowds. I don't know what to do. I don't know if this is something that you want to invest in." It still amazes me that they said, come on ahead. Part of the way we do it is just doing it. You just do it. Part of the way that we learn is by meditating on scripture. Looking at some of these prayers that we've looked at. Looking at other prayers in scripture and seeing how did they pray? What was the focus of their prayers? What were the kinds of prayers that God answered? How did he act? How did he respond? what was demonstrated in their heart, what was demonstrated in their attitude as they were praying. And we look and we study and we try to discern by meditating upon the scriptures the testimony of God's work through prayer. And we learn by praying with others. One man asked another if he could come and pray with him because he had heard what a powerful prayer he was. Jeremy has another story from the reading he's been doing. I can't think of the pastor's name. Do you remember that? Ian Bounds, who has written extensively concerning the subject. And someone came in and wanted to pray with him a little bit before he was speaking. He was going to speak in the afternoon, so I'm going to start praying in the morning. And the guy came in, and as he listened to him pray, he was just amazed. And I heard someone knocking on the door, and I said, I'm not getting up from here. And the knocking became more insistent and more insistent. And finally the door opened, and they said, Sir, it's time to preach. Everybody's gathered and waiting for you. And this one who had come to learn how to pray by praying with him, counted up the hours that they had been in prayer and said it just seemed like a half an hour. The time just flew by. Learning to pray with others. Sometimes the person we're learning from does it very well and we go away and say, boy, I can't pray like that. Sometimes they pray with eloquent words and we think, I can't pray like that. But oftentimes it's the ones who have the most eloquent words when they hear somebody who prays from the heart and they say, I can't pray like that. And we can all learn from each other by praying together, praying with others. and learning from the experience of others. I have no idea who it was that got through this to me, but it's always stayed with me since I was a child. It's a whole lot easier to learn from others' mistakes than to make the same ones yourself. And those of you who know me and those of you who know each other know that each one of us have made plenty of mistakes. And so there's plenty that we can learn by praying together and working with each other. And the other thing, God answers prayer. It is so clear, so manifestly present, so visible, so well testified that there is no answer, no question but what God answers prayer. Sometimes the answer is yes. And sometimes the answer is yes very quickly. And those times we need to take and say, what an encouragement to remind me that God is listening. God is present. He is here. He sees. He is aware of what's going on. And when the answer comes quickly, we say, wow, yeah! And then we look and say, why aren't all the rest of my prayers answered that quickly? Because sometimes God answers no. And that's why Jesus said, when you pray, pray according to the will of God. Ask according to my name. Meaning, according to the character of what I would ask God for. And when we ask amiss, James says that we ask Him this because we want to spend it on our own pleasures. God answers no. Sometimes God says, now, yes. And sometimes God says, not now, wait. And sometimes that waiting is in trust that even beyond my lifetime, God is still going to answer. Hebrews 11 wraps up the chapter by saying, all these died without seeing what they were having faith about. But God answered their prayers. God rewarded their faith. Sometimes He says, not yet. Sometimes he says, not yet, and you will see it. Sometimes he says, not yet, and you're not going to get to see it until you're with me. Remember Simeon. God said, not yet, but you're not going to die. Sometimes it's not yet, and you won't get to see it until we're all together in heaven. But sometimes it's stored up for judgment. In Revelation, several times it mentions the prayers of the saints which are before the altar of God. And how the cherubim come and they offer incense along with the prayers of the saints. And then at one point they take these bulls and they throw them down over the earth. and the judgments of God are poured out upon the earth. What in the world does that mean? As I pray for somebody for salvation and they resist, and I pray and they resist, and I pray and they resist, and I pray and they resist, I share the gospel and they resist, and they just keep resisting, and there are others praying for them, and they resist, and they resist, and they resist, at some time the judgment will come. And they'll cry out to God and say, You didn't give me a chance! And He says, Yes, I did. I worked, and you refused. And I worked, and you refused. And I worked, and you refused. And I worked. Look at all these prayers that were offered on your behalf. And you refused. God always answers. So, since prayer is expected, are you going to plan to pray? Since prayer is expected, Are you going to arrange your schedule and your life so that you have time to be able to fulfill the expectation? It's a part of the life of a believer. It's there something God has given us as a way. Do I demonstrate my love toward my wife if I never talk to her? Usually that's a sign of something else. Are you kidding? You expect me to talk to you after what you said? Or what you did? Or what you didn't do? Or what you didn't say? We don't say those things, but we think them. You know, the lack of communication is usually a sign of a relationship that's drifting apart. What do we want? We want that relationship with God to get closer and closer and closer. So are we going to plan? to pray? Since prayer is learned, are you going to become a disciple of prayer? Since prayer is to be a part of the house of God, it's to be marked by prayer. Part of the glory of the church is prayer. So, are we going to become disciples of prayer? Since prayer is answered, are we going to stick around and wait for the answer? Are we going to become persistent in prayer? Are we going to work at it? I want us to remember to take the offering at the end of this service, but I don't want to break this up here. I'd like for the people who were up here as worship leaders earlier, if you would go ahead and come back up.