already. The book of 1 Chronicles in chapter 4. 1 Chronicles and the 4th chapter. I was having a bit of fun with your minister this morning, but you really probably wouldn't have had to have read that too many hard names this morning. Nevertheless, the look on his face was a sight to behold, so it was worth a bit of a scam there that I ran. 1 Chronicles in chapter 4. A look to verse 9 and 10. And Jabez was more honorable than his brethren. And his mother called his name Jabez, saying, because I bear him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, O that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that Thine hand might be with me, and that Thou wouldst keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me. And God granted him that which he requested." We'll finish our reading there, and trust that the Lord will stamp the reading of His Word with His own divine seal of approval, that He will bless it to our hearts in the preaching that follows from it. With the Word of God open before us, let's bow and seek the Lord's face together in an opening word of prayer. Let's pray. Our gracious Master and our loving God, again we're gathered together this morning with the intention of worshiping Thee. We acknowledge that Thou art worthy of our worship. Thou art worthy of all our praise. Thou art worthy of our thanksgiving. Thou art worthy of all that we can do for Thee, and all the glory that we can give to Thee, and all the praise that we can offer to magnify Thy name. We praise Thee and thank Thee that Thou hast been good again unto us, and demonstrated Thy greatness, Thy faithfulness, Thy loving kindness unto our souls. We thank Thee that we're covered today with the blood of Jesus Christ, saved for all eternity by the blood of the Lamb. We thank Thee and give glory to Thee today, that thou hast shown thyself over and over again to be the faithful, never-changing, covenant-keeping God. We look to thee today to bless us indeed. We confess that we have no power in and of ourselves to either bless one another, to be blessed, or to in any way influence one another for thee, except, Lord, thou dost fill us with thy Spirit. We pray this morning that thou wilt do us good We pray that great grace would be upon us all, both preacher and people. We pray that Thou wilt save the lost. We pray that Thou wilt edify the saints. Build them up in the most holy way. Expand the kingdom of Christ. Get glory for Thy name. We'll give glory to Thee for all that Thou dost do. In Thy name we pray with thanksgiving. Amen. This coming week on Wednesday, my wife and I will mark our 25th wedding anniversary. And so considering that that is quite a significant milestone and considering also that within the space of about a month, I'm going to turn 45 and am starting to wonder now seriously what I'm going to be when I grow up. I've been thinking, I suppose, about various milestones that we pass along the road of life. And our life, if you consider it, is made up of a number of different milestones. Our firsts, our bests, our worsts. And we can look back from time to time and say, well, I've passed that milestone, a significant milestone in the life of our daughter, Catherine, has just passed. She graduated from high school, another milestone will occur at the end of August when she goes off to college and is away from home for the first time. She gave me a Father's Day card today. And it's, as you open it, it's, or the first front of it says, shout it from the rooftops. And then I opened the card and it said, Katie's going off to college. And so actually, we're not really looking forward to having her go that much, but at least not some of us. I think her brother probably is happy enough. As far as the rest of us, well, you know, that's a milestone that's going to come her way and we're going to share with her in that. Well, the Lord allows our lives to be full of these milestones and these things that we look back upon years later and think, well, there was a significant turning point in my life. There was a time when things changed for me. And when we come to these milestones, it's appropriate. for us to look back and to consider, well, where, from whence have I come? How have I arrived at where I am? What am I going to be next year, five years from now? Who will I be? What will I be? How will my circumstances be by that time? What's, where am I going? And these are significant questions I suppose they're self-analytical to some degree. I suppose they're questions that are appropriate for us to ask at these significant milestones that come into our lives. Well, when we come to the book of First Chronicles, we would perhaps pass over it fairly lightly and not consider it very much. And yet, buried in First Chronicles, in the fourth chapter, we find a very brief biography of a man who was used of God, an individual who desired much of God, and who became much for God, and his name is Jabez. Jabez, we find, was more honorable than his brethren. His mother called his name Jabez. His life at its beginning was a milestone for someone. His Mother called him Jabez, and of course the names of the Old Testament had great significance. So she marked that milestone of his birth with a significant name which she gave to him. We'll go into that more a little later. And then he had certain desires, certain holy desires of God. And he prayed that God would grant those desires. and God saw fit in his providence to grant them. Those things ultimately became the living biography, the holy record of the life of Jabez. And I want us to consider this man's life this morning. Now, recently some unusual things happened up where we attend worship up there near, or in Westminster near Broomfield where we live. I'd been talking with a prayer partner of mine. I have several men with whom I pray on a regular basis there in the church. One of them had gotten a little book called The Prayer of Jabez by a man called Bruce Wilkinson. And he and I began to talk about it. He asked me if I'd ever preached on it. And I said, yes, years ago I did. And so he then gave me the book as a gift when he was going away to do some mission work in the Caribbean. And so he gave me this book. Well, usually when I get home from work in the evening, I'm too tired to read anything. I don't even, I don't read the newspaper or anything. I get home and eat dinner and shortly thereafter go to bed. Well, for some reason, after he and I had been talking about this book, I took the book that he had given me and I read it. I read it probably on a Tuesday night. Well then, prior to that, I had spoken briefly on the prayer of Jabez in the prayer meeting that we had at our shop on the Monday. So then Monday, we'd had spoken on it. We'd had time of prayer. Tuesday, I read this book. I went to church up there in Westminster on Sunday, and that was the graduation Sunday. And so while I was sitting in the first service, it was obvious that the minister of the church was having some trouble. He has been suffering from asthmatic bronchitis and was having difficulty breathing. Well, he preached about 10 minutes and just packed it in. He couldn't continue on. It was obvious that he wasn't doing well at all. So I went to go check on him because he'd gone home and I just want to make sure nobody had to ring 911 or something. And so I went to go check on him and see how he was doing. And as I walked in behind him into his house, he said, are you ready? And I said, am I ready for what? He said, well, I can't preach the second service. So are you ready to preach the second service in another hour? And I said, well, yes, I can. And I said, in fact, actually, I've been reading the life of Jabez this week, because he had preached that morning on the prayer of Jabez. And so I said, yes, actually, I can probably preach on that very text. So I said, give me your notes. And so he gave me his notes. I had a look at them. I couldn't very well use too much of them. It's like going to war in Saul's armor. I went back home and looked at my old notes on when I had preached on Jabez and thought, oh, that was an awful effort, you know, and threw them out. So then I finally sat down and in about 30 minutes wrote an outline that I was happy with, and went back and preached it. So, when I came to the conclusion, or when I got the invitation from your minister with regard to coming down here and preaching in Littleton again, there were only two messages that came to mind, two messages that presented themselves. One was this message that I'm going to preach to you this morning, and it comes from 1 Chronicles 4. The second also, comes from 1 Chronicles in chapter 4 as well, and I'm going to leave you to try to figure out where it comes from, although I don't want you reading that chapter while I'm preaching, okay? You can read it later on. But nonetheless, we come to the prayer of Jabez, and in the prayer of Jabez, we find that it's the inspired biography of a man who desired much from God, and who became much for God. Now certainly we don't seek to make heroes merely out of men. However, the lives of those whose biographies have been recorded in the scripture are written for our admonition. They tell us something about true holiness. They tell us something about godliness, and in some cases they tell us about the antitype of that. We know by negative example what not to do. Ahab and Ahaz and some of those others are for us negative examples. But these things that are written about these men and women are written in order that we might understand God and understand how to have a right relationship with Him. Jabez was one of those men who had a relationship with God that was to be admired and one to be desired. He was an individual who desired much of God. God granted him what he requested, and he became much for God. The first thing I want you to see with me as we look into the life of Jabez this morning is that he was a man of humble origins. He was a man of humble origins. Jabez means pain. You'll recall to mind that in ancient civilizations, especially in oriental civilizations, the name was very significant. When you named a child, it may have indicated the circumstances in which the child was born. It may have indicated the desire, the aspiration that you have for the child. There were very often times when The name was indicative of the character. For example, Jacob, his name means the grabber of the heel, the heel grabber. Because when he came forth as a twin, he was grasping the heel of Esau's brother. Of course, he tripped up Esau on many occasions in the life of Esau and of Jacob. And Jacob was a, what we would have called a con artist. And he was that way for a good portion of his life until God transformed him. When God transformed him there at Panael, God gave him a new name. The name that he gave him was then Israel, Prince with God. And so you see that in that particular case, there was a change of name, which indicated a change of character. Sarai was changed to Sarah. Abram changed to Abraham. God gave the names, allowed these people to have these names for various significant reasons. Jabez's name means pain. Now, you consider, his mother said, I bear him with sorrow. Well, that was an auspicious sort of entrance into the world. Mother says, well, this is the pain. And you can imagine how humiliating that would have been when he was a young child growing up. I mean, most children are sensitive about their names. to begin with. Well, you can imagine, well, here comes the pain. Oh, now the pain's coming. And so you can imagine what that would have been like. And many of you boys and girls think, well, that's what I call my brother or sister. Well, yeah, it's humiliating, really, when you think about it, to have a name that means pain. And it obviously had an effect upon him, because later on when he prays, he says that I, when he prays later on in Verse 10, he says, that thou wouldst keep me from evil that it may not grieve me. There is a translation of that, that it may not grieve me, that indicates that he was asking that he would cause no pain. So his name obviously had an effect upon him. He thought about that. And so, in many respects, I believe that we can say that Jabez was a man of humble origins. But having said that, There are a host of other people to whom we could look in the scriptures who also came from very humble origins. For example, when Eve bore Cain, she said, I have gotten a man with the Lord, or with the help of the Lord was the indication of what she was saying. She had hope when Cain was born. By the time that Abel was born, however, I believe she realized that the man that she had born was not the promised Messiah from Genesis 3.15. And so, by the time she had Abel, she called him Avel. Avel, which means vanity. And so, in many respects, even though he was a godly person, Abel's name meant vanity. Once again, rather humble origins, if you want to consider. And then you consider the life of David. of all the brethren that he had, when Samuel went to the feast, was told of God to anoint the next king of Israel, where was David? Was he the foremost among his brethren? No, he was the least among his brethren. In fact, when they had this feast and Samuel was come to anoint the next king of Israel, they didn't even consider bringing David in. He was left out with a sheep. In fact, he was still out with a sheep when all the other brethren had passed by before Samuel, and God had rejected all of the other brethren of David. And then finally, Samuel had to say, isn't there another one? And then Jesse, of course, said, yes, there's David, but he's young, he's out with a sheep. Samuel said, well, we're not going to sit down until he gets here. So you realize that he came really from very humble origins. He realized also that even at the point at which God was about to make him the champion of Israel, and there in the 17th chapter of 1 Samuel, when he went out to take food to his brother, his oldest brother Eliab talked down to him. He said, why did you come out here? With whom have you left those few sheep out in the wilderness? I know the pride, the naughtiness of thy heart. You've just come to see a battle. That's all you've come for. Very humble origins. The man who was ultimately to be the sweet psalmist of Israel, the individual who ultimately was to be the king, the person who was to take Israel right up to the point where it was on the brink of its golden age, and his son Solomon would rule Israel during the golden period of Israel's history. Yet, very humble origins and very humble things throughout his life occurred when you consider that he was a mercenary, he was chased up and down the countryside by his father-in-law, attempting to kill him. This was David's origin. Also like Jabez, a very humble origins. You think of the disciples of Christ. And who were they? Well, they were fishermen. They were tax collectors. They were people who were not of the upper echelon of society. They were people of very, very humble origins. And when you consider then Jabez in relation to the person of Jesus Christ, What do you find? Well, the whole of Christ's ministry upon the earth, up to the point that he dies upon the cross and is buried, is called the humiliation of Christ. The next stage after his resurrection, or at his resurrection and beyond that, is his exaltation. But the humiliation of Christ with his life here upon earth, being born and that in a low estate, living under the law, living among trade people in Nazareth, one of the most despised areas of all of Israel, so much so that they would say, can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Christ living upon the earth in very, very humble circumstances and under very, very humble conditions. The point that I want to make out of this is this. Your origins, no matter how humble they are, are not a bar or a preventative to keep you from seeking the face of God. They are not that which will stop you. They are not that which will keep you down. They are not that which will keep you in any way away from the Lord your God. Very often we think, well, who am I to call on the name of the Lord? Who am I to seek the Lord? Here I am. I'm a nothing. I'm a nobody. I count for nothing in the world. Who am I at all to seek the Lord's face? Well, these people came from very humble origins. Jabez was called the pain. David was a keeper of sheep, that lowest of the professions in the day in which he lived. Abel, the man whose name means vanity. The disciples of Christ. All of these people were people of humble origins. And the thing that I want you to draw from this is this. Know a state of life from which you come no matter how humble it is. No matter how much of a nothing you think you are. These things, however, how humble they may be, are not a bar to prevent you from seeking the Lord. All these other folk to whom I have been referring thus far are people who ultimately sought the Lord and whom God blessed. So consider then, right at the outset, no matter where you come, you may be the least of your family, you may be the least of your group of peers, you may consider yourself to be a nothing and a nobody, yet it does not prevent you from seeking the Lord. Jabez sought the Lord. Scripture says he was more honorable than his brethren. Now the next thing I want you to see with me this morning is even though he was a man of humble origins, yet Jabez was a man of holy hunger. He was a man of holy hunger. If you look with me down in verse 10, it says, And Jabez called on the God of Israel. Jabez called on the God of Israel. The first thing I want you to notice is that he prayed. That he prayed. When I say it's important for us to notice that he prayed, prayer is the evidence of life in a Christian. Prayer is the evidence that there is something spiritually vibrant going on. I'm not talking about just prayers that are just recitations. I'm not talking about prayers that are nothing more than a string of stock phrases or something that's just recited over and over again to no profit whatsoever. When I say that he prayed, I'm talking about genuine prayer. Prayer that comes from the heart. Prayer that arises up out of a holy desire. to seek God's face. Jebez prayed when the Apostle Paul, who was known as Saul of Tarsus at that time, was converted on the road to Damascus. God's great argument to Ananias, who was being sent to go see Saul of Tarsus, and Ananias was protesting. God said, Behold, ye prayeth, It is the evidence of spiritual life within that you pray. Our brother this morning in a very significant statement was talking about what had gone on at that camp that number of years ago. What was the evidence that the Holy Spirit of God had come down and was moving? Was that these young men were on their knees seeking the face of God, praying, The Holy Spirit of God was moving. Brought them to the place of prayer. Prayer is the holiest of exercises in which we engage. It is the place in which Satan will oppose you the most. I don't think Satan's too terribly concerned, honestly. If you read your Bible, you might be somewhat concerned, but plenty of people read their Bibles. Those who are the Hasidim spend their lives reading their Bibles. You can read your Bible. I don't think he's that concerned. I think he's concerned to some degree, but I think he's not too overly concerned. Or if you attend worship services, certainly I think he's concerned to some degree if you're attending worship services. Or if you're participating in witnessing or something else. But you get down to pray. You get down to besiege the throne of grace and prayer. You get down to lay hold of God in prayer. Satan's opposed. He's going to do what he can do to keep you from succeeding in the place of prayer. To keep you, if at all possible, from praying at all. And if he can't keep you from praying at all, he wants to make your prayers ineffective. Why? Because prayer is the life breath of the child of God. Prayer is the place where we lay hold of the throne of grace. Prayer is the place where we do business with God. One of the most attractive things to me about the Free Presbyterian Church when I first came into it was the praying. It is the thing that has made the most difference probably in my life overall. The theology has been a great contributing factor. The evangelism has been beneficial, but the praying has been what has counted probably most of all in my own personal life. Because it is the holiest of exercises. And so we find first that he was a man of holy hunger, and that meant that he prayed. Secondly, I want you to see what he prayed, because it's significant as to what Jabez prayed. Notice what he prayed. First, he wanted the blessing of the sovereign God to be upon him in an obvious way. He wanted the blessing of the sovereign God to be on him in an obvious way. Oh, that Thou wouldest bless me indeed. You know, a lot of times people think, well, we always ought to be praying for other people. It's not good or right for us to be praying for ourselves. You realize, of course, that there are times when you're not going to be able to pray much for anybody else unless you pray for yourself first. And it's not wrong for us to seek that God would bless us. Very often we spend our time praying for other people. And that's not a bad thing. We ought to intercede for others. But let's remember that it's an appropriate thing, a scriptural thing, a biblical thing, for us to pray for ourselves. That God will make us who we ought to be, what we ought to be, how we ought to be, in order that then he might use us to influence others. Jabez prayed this prayer, an appropriate prayer, O that thou wouldst bless me indeed. He wanted the blessing of the Sovereign God to be upon him. Not just a blessing, O that thou wouldst bless me, but O that thou wouldst bless me indeed, in every way, fully. And he was praying that the Sovereign God would do that. When you get down on your knees, when you begin to pray, when you seek the Lord's face, you're acknowledging that God and God alone is sovereign, and that He is the only one who can help you. He's the only one who can meet you at your deepest point of need. He is the sovereign God. You're a Calvinist when you're on your knees. You're seeking the face of God, acknowledging that He's sovereign, and He alone can help you. Jabez said, O that thou wouldest bless me indeed. He wanted the blessing of the sovereign God to be upon him in an obvious way. And in that he was like the Lord Jesus Christ. In that he prayed, he was like the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ's ministry was bathed in prayer. You would have thought that Christ, being the second person of the Trinity, would have been able to have successfully gone without prayer more than anyone else. Because after all, he walked closer to God, did he not? But yet you find that the prayer life of the Lord Jesus Christ was a constant, living, vibrant thing. The ministry of Christ was bathed in prayer. Every time Christ was about to do something, He went and prayed. After He had finished ministry and preaching, He would go and pray. Constantly there was this demonstration in the life and ministry of Christ of an active, vibrant prayer life. And when Christ was praying, He was praying that God, His Father, would continue to work in His ministry. Continue to work in the lives of those that he was influencing. Read the High Priestly Prayer, John chapter 17. Christ there praying for his people. You find there that Christ is seeking the face of God his Father. And in that, Jabez was like the Lord Jesus Christ. In that, Jabez, in many respects, I think, acts as a type of Christ. A man whose life was bathed in prayer. who wanted the blessing of the sovereign God to be upon him in an obvious way. Something else that he wanted, you'll see, is he says that thou wouldst enlarge my coast. What he wanted here, I believe, is very plain in that it is not mere physical or material advancement. He wasn't just asking that God would make him rich. I don't think that God would have even recorded his biography, brief as it is, had he merely been seeking God's blessing in a material way. I don't believe that's the case at all. I believe rather what you find here is that Jabez was asking that God would enlarge his influence for God. Enlarge his coast that God would enable him to be spiritually beneficial and useful in God's economy. And so he said that thou wouldst enlarge my coast. He wanted to be able to influence others. And according to history, evidently Jabez ultimately was useful to God in this way. He evidently became a doctor of the law. He evidently had many disciples who sought his wisdom. So we see that this was his desire, that thou wouldest enlarge my coast. And I once again believe that that's an appropriate prayer, if you'll allow me a personal example of this sort of thing and the way in which God has dealt with me personally. Over the years, as the Lord has enabled me to minister in various places, I have asked that God would enlarge my coast. That he would give me a wider and ever-widening influence for the sake of the gospel. When, for example, we went to South Australia there to do the mission work that we did there for seven and a half, almost eight years, I asked that the Lord would give me a wide influence there, a wider influence than Diana and I had ever had before. And in the course of those seven and a half years, the Lord opened door after door after door to the extent that we had a radio broadcast that reached an area of about 30,000 people. We had the opportunity to go into every one of the public primary schools with a gospel at Christmas and Easter time, there to give the gospel to literally thousands of children. We were able to be involved in camp work. I was able to teach at the University of South Australia and give the gospel there under various circumstances, influencing both the professors and the students. The Lord just continued to open door after door after door. Even my leisure time, which was spent on a 400 square mile sheep station, opened the door so that I was able to influence the families in the agricultural community so that when we had special services, they would come in. hear the gospel. This is only the result of God enlarging our coasts. That's only the result of God enlarging our coasts. That's only the result of an answer to prayer. My point to you is this. You have a sphere of influence somewhere. You have a place where you influence people. Is it not appropriate for you to ask God to enlarge your coast? That the Lord would enlarge your coast, make you an influence for God where you are. Even in coming back here to the United States and coming back into the steel industry. And coming to the shop where I'm working now. Asking God, once again, to give me a great influence there. And to enlarge my coast in that place. And then to have the opportunity to preach that I've never had in any other steel shop so far. the opportunity to hold services, the opportunity to have prayer meetings there on a regular basis. This is nothing less than the hand of God enlarging our coasts. And it's an appropriate prayer for you to pray that the Lord would enlarge your coast. I don't know who you influence, but I know you influence someone. And I know that the same God who enlarged the coast of Jabez is able to enlarge your coast as well. The same God who took the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ from just being a ministry to a handful of 12 or maybe at one point the most 120 and to expand it over the whole earth. That same God is able to enlarge your coast and to give you a ministry and an influence far beyond anything that you ever conceived would be the case. He wanted as well for the hand of God to be with him. If you look with me, what does it say here? And that thine hand would be with me. And that thine hand would be with me. He wanted the hand of God to be with him. Now, if you look into the Word of God, what does the Scripture say about the hand of God? I'm not going to take you through every reference, but certainly, if you'll study this out, you'll find that the hand of God is significant because it is, in essence, the intervention of God in the life of the individual. And when the hand of God is upon someone, or the hand of God moves someone, it accomplishes various things. So Jabez's prayer was that the hand of God would be with him. Well, what does the hand of God do? Well, the hand of God empowers. If the hand of God is upon a prophet, that prophet is empowered by God to go and speak unto those who are around him in the name of God. The hand of God empowers. Jabez wanted the power of God. He wanted the hand of God to be upon him. The hand of God upholds. We find that in Psalm 139, particularly, there it speaks about the hand of God upholding. And so, therefore, you find that when we find ourselves at our weakest, when we find ourselves at our least able to stand, then we need the hand of God to uphold us. Jabez prayed at the hand of God. would be with him. Also, the hand of God provides. Certainly we think of the time when in 1 Kings 17, there where Elijah was sent out to the brook Cherith, and the ravens came in the morning, and the ravens came in the evening bringing him bread, and he was drinking of the brook there, brook Cherith. What do we say was going on there? That was the hand of God providing for him. The hand of God using the ravens. there to provide. So the hand of God not only empowers, the hand of God not only upholds, but also the hand of God provides. Certainly the hand of God comforts. When we find an individual who is mourning, grieving, sorrowing, the hand of God is there to comfort, and the hand of God is there to lend unto us that aid that we cannot have any other way. The hand of God comforts as well. The hand of God guides, leads us in the right way. The Lord leads us by His hand, shows us which way we ought to go, leads us forth, takes us by the hand and leads us where we need to go. Jabez was praying that the hand of God would be with him. And therefore, it's appropriate for us to pray that same prayer. Oh, that Thou wouldst bless me indeed, and enlarge my coasts, and that Thine hand would be with me." We want the hand of God upon us. It will be unto us if the hand of God is taken away from us. The hand of God that empowers. The hand of God that upholds. The hand of God that guides. The hand of God that comforts. We want the hand of God upon us. An appropriate prayer for us to pray. A Christ-like prayer for us to pray. You consider that Jabez was acting in many respects as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, one who desires the hand of God to be with him. Also, he wanted deliverance from evil. Notice what he says here, and that thou wouldst keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me. He wanted deliverance from evil, perhaps the best cross-reference that I can show you in the New Testament is in the Lord's Prayer. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. It was the desire that God would deliver him from evil. That God would deliver him from the influence of evil upon him, and also from his engaging in evil that would influence others. That it may not grieve me, and as I said to you, that might well be interpreted to mean that I might cause no pain. We want to be delivered from evil. We want that God should preserve us from the influence of evil in our lives. And also, we want that God should preserve us from doing evil. David said, keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins. The sins of the high hand. The sins that are done with a knowledge that this is something that I am doing in the very face of God, and with a knowledge that it is sin, and doing it intentionally regardless of what God or His Word has said. Keep me from presumptuous sins. Keep me from evil. Deliver me from evil, that it may not grieve me. So I want you to see that he was a man of holy hunger. Oh, that every one of us would be people of holy hunger. That we would not become so jaded, that we would not become so worn down by our evil generation, and an evil world around us, and evil influences that constantly bid for our attention and attempt to draw us away from the Lord. That we might not continually go down the road of getting less and less hungry in our holy desires, but rather that God would engender in us more and more holy hunger. that we might be more like Jabez himself, who prayed that God would bless him in thee, enlarge his coast, and that his hand would be with me, that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me." Because then I want you to see that ultimately he was a man honored of God. He was a man honored of God. And God granted him that which he requested. Two things, I think, that come forth here. First of all, God listened to Jabez. God listened to Jabez. God listened to him to the extent that he gave him an influence and a ministry. There is even evidence in the Scriptures, if you look over to chapter 2, in the book of 1 Chronicles, that there was a town named after him. The families of the scribes which dwelt at Jabez, there in the 55th verse, there evidently was a town named after him. And the history, as I said, indicates that he was a doctor of the law, that he had many disciples. We find that Jabez was a man to whom God listened, and then the second thing is Jabez is a man that God answered. God answered his prayer. We only will know in eternity the effect of God having answered the prayers of people with holy hunger. It will not be until eternity that we know how much has been done by God listening to the prayers of his people and by God answering their prayers even as he heard gave his and answered his prayers. That is one of the most powerful weapons at your disposal. That is one of the most powerful methods whereby you will influence your children. That is one of the most powerful means whereby you will see people brought savingly unto Christ. To be in the place of prayer, powerful in the place of prayer, seeking the Lord with that holy hunger that was the mark of the life of Jabez and seeing God ultimately answer. The prayer ministry of Christ ultimately was set forth, was evidenced as being as powerful as it was in the influence which occurred after the death and burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ praying for his people. Christ interceding for his people. Ultimately, Jabez, as I say, was a type and a picture of Christ himself. God blessed the ministry of Jabez extensively. And this was his prayer, and this was his biography. A person who desired much from God, and who ultimately became much for God. Oh, that God, by his grace, would do so with us. that our prayer might be the prayer of Jabez, that we might pray for ourselves, and see it come to pass, O that thou wouldst bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldst keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me. And God granted him that which he requested. So may it be for all of us. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank Thee and praise Thee for the opportunity this morning to look into Thy Word. We thank Thee for the blessing of it. We praise Thee, Lord, for the opportunity to see the life of an individual who was much like Christ. We pray that we ourselves would be much like Christ. We pray that we would be a praying people We pray that we would see these prayers answered in a most remarkable way. Bless us indeed. Enlarge our coasts. Cause thy hand to be with us. Deliver us from evil, that it might not grieve us. Use us for thy honor, for thy glory. Make us the living mirror image of Jesus Christ our Savior. For it is in the name of Christ we pray with thanksgiving. Amen.