Sermon on the Mount - Part 11

Greetings in Jesus' name. It's been a real blessing to be here, a blessing to hear that story being read this morning and the comments about Balaam. I think it's quite fitting into what I want to talk about today in several ways, which is on the subject of prayer in the next section of the Sermon on the Mount. Let's, why don't we stand again and we'll read this next portion and pray and then we'll look into it. This portion will be Matthew chapter 6 and we're going to start in verse 7 and I'll read to verse 15. And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetitions as the Gentiles do. Sorry, it starts in verse 5. When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in synagogues and on street corners, so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner chamber, close your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetitions as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. So do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Pray then, in this way, Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. Let's pray. Our Father, in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, and your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. We pray, Lord, that you would help us as we look into these words. That you would give us insight, give us understanding. We pray that you would give us, this day, our daily bread. You would help forgive us, as we forgive others. And that you would not lead us into temptation. We pray that you would deliver us from evil. And we believe that yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. So we want to talk about prayer today. Prayer is and should be a major part of our life. An important part of our life. The psalmist says in chapter 19, And so because of that, it should be important to us how we pray. It should be important to us that that our prayer is right. Whatever right means. And the psalmist says, Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Prayer is the primary way of communicating with God. I think there's other ways that we can communicate with God, like in expressing things to Him and Him expressing things to us, such as in singing, in worship, in scripture reading. I hope something like that would be going on right now as someone speaks, teaches, others listen, something like a communication with God is going on. But prayer is on a somewhat different level and is the primary way in which we communicate with God, with the one who we claim to be our master. So I didn't know if I wanted to ask for a show of hands in this, but you can if you want. You don't have to feel obligated. How many people like struggle to feel like they struggle in their prayer life? How many people find themselves like getting distracted while they're praying? How many people, thanks for the honesty, how many people find it common to like after they're into prayer for a little bit, they find their mind has wandered into something that is not something that they were going to bring before God and has nothing to do with that. How many people find that sometimes after done with a prayer, they think about it and they were like, I just absent-mindedly repeated the same things I often pray and I didn't really have all that much meaning in it. How many people find themselves doing that? I find myself with all these things. How many of you read the scriptures or history of men of God and vibrant movements of God and think that there was something there that I don't very often feel or sense or have or experience in prayer? I do that. Sometimes I think we're inclined to think that these great men of God had it all together, that they didn't struggle with these same things that we struggle with. And we tend to think sometimes that if we'd like to improve our prayer life and our connection, our communication, this communication through prayer, through God, that we would like to go ask these great men and ask them like, what's the secret? Tell me the secret. What's the secret to this? To being able to have meaningful prayer. And then sometimes we'd like to try to imitate someone else's prayer life. But you know, I don't, I think these great men of God could identify with our struggle more than we sometimes think. The apostles came to Jesus and said, teach us how to pray. Like John taught his disciples how to pray, you teach us how to pray too. Paul, the great apostle Paul, once said, we don't know how to pray like we should. Isn't that something? And now here in today's passage, the Lord himself is telling us how to and how not to pray. And I think we should be all ears. This teaching on prayer is in the center of the Sermon on the Mount. If you take Matthew 5, 6, and 7 together, this teaching is right smack dab in the center. And I think prayer is very central to having a relationship with God. I think communication is very central to any relationship. I think one of the, one consistent thing about all good relationships, whether it's husband and wife, whether it's a father with his children, whether it's brothers, brothers in the brotherhood, brothers and brothers, sisters and sisters, whether it's employers and their employees, one common consistent thing in a good relationship is that there's communication. The people, the two people are able to communicate well. The reason that they're able to communicate is because they understand each other. And if they don't understand each other, they desire to understand each other. And the reason that they understand each other is because their hearts are synced together. And the reason that their hearts are synced together is because they're of the same spirit. Now, people may not always, in a relationship, people with a good relationship and the ability to communicate, they may not always think the same thing, but their goals are the same. They may not always feel the same thing, but they're fighting the same battle together. They may not always see the same thing, but together they have identified and agree on what is friend and what is foe. And so it's because of being of the same spirit that our hearts are knit together. It's because our hearts are knit together that we understand each other. And it's because we understand each other that we have this free and open communication with each other. Even to the point of being at a loss for words to express ourselves. And yet that person who we have this relationship with knows what we're feeling, even though we can't adequately express ourselves. That's why Paul said when he said that thing, we don't know how to pray as we should. He said, yet the Spirit in us groans within us utterings that we don't have words for. So I would just encourage us if our line of communication is lacking, whether this is with God, I mean, most of the message today is about our communication with God, but if our line of communication is lacking, whether it's between God or man, we might benefit some by learning some communication skills, but we'll benefit far more from learning how to understand the other person. And if we lack understanding, we might benefit some by learning some skills in listening and comprehension, but we'll benefit far more by becoming one heart with the person. And if we're not one heart with one, the other one, it means we're not of the same spirit. And if we're not of the same spirit of God, then we're not one of His. So let's look at these things that Jesus said here. In verse 5, When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward in full. Now in the last message, when we talked about secrets and almsgiving, I talked a lot more about secrets and about this relationship that we nurture and can nurture with God by not seeking honor from men about almsgiving, praying, and fasting. And I won't expound much on that in this message. But just like to recap it, we can nurture a relationship by having and doing these things for God in secret without men knowing it. And we can damage the relationship by displaying it so that people can see it. Just like the damage that gets done when you blow a secret. That's the kind of damage we do to our relationship with God when we do these things to be seen of men. What would you think of or about if a husband and wife waited to share their deepest and most personal things until they were in the assembly of people who could then see that they have this relationship with each other that they can talk these deep and personal things? Wouldn't we all say that relationship just doesn't go very deep? It doesn't matter how it sounds? Like, does that make sense? Like, there would just be something really wrong with that. If a husband and wife took the deepest, most personal and important things that they have to share with each other and they just displayed it and exposed it for everybody. So Jesus is saying here, don't try to have that kind of a relationship with me. That's the kind of relationship that the hypocrites are trying to have with me. I think I mentioned it in the last message that the word hypocrite really, that the actual meaning for the word hypocrite is an actor in a play. An actor in a play is portraying himself as something that he's not. When I was a young boy, I went with my family and I think a few other families somewhere and I cannot remember where this was, but it was at one of those, we were on a trip or something and we went to one of these places where they had like a, they had like this kind of village or something set up like an early American settlement might have looked. So there was old log cabins. There was the old blacksmith shop with the forge in it. And there were people working there. So there were men and women there. They were dressed in old colonial clothes. Or women baking bread in an old stone hearth or sitting at a wheel spinning material and stuff like that. Men out there with primitive tools making wooden barrels, whatever. And I, who've always kind of wished I could turn time back a couple hundred years and live more primitively, I was impressed. This was fascinating. But here's one thing that I remember and it was so disappointing to me. On the way home, we were talking about it. We were talking about what we saw there and my dad or somebody said, you know, those people who were working there, tonight, they'll go home. The women will slip in their blue jeans. They'll be mowing yard on their riding mowers and cooking their supper in the microwave. And I was just like, oh, what a disappointment. What a disappointment. That was all just an act. Actors, actors have a theater. They have a place where they're spectators and they portray themselves as something that they're not. Do we ever create our own theater out of the church assembly? Do we ever create our own theater out of the prayer meetings? The Pharisees, I assume that's who Jesus is talking about here when he's talking about the hypocrites. They did and had their own theatrical plays in theaters of their own and they were called synagogues and street corners. And they made a show of being very godly. Jesus is saying, don't be like that. And in verse 6 he goes on to say, but you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door, and pray to your father who is in secret. And your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Go to your closet, your inner room, I think maybe a very literal translation would be go to this secret storehouse and there alone pray to your father who you can believe and trust and hears you and then believe and trust that he will reward you according to his goodness. A consistent mark of men of God is that they spent time alone with God. They were not lonely or alone because they didn't know how to get along with people, but they were men who knew the value of being alone. Enoch, we don't know much about him, but it says he walked with God. Noah was a man who didn't have a whole bunch of people on his side, you might say. And yet he had, he communed with God. Abraham, he had a lot of people around him. He had a wife, he had lots of servants, lots going on, and yet every time that God speaks to him, he was alone somewhere. Maybe there was a time or so when Isaac was there, but usually he's alone. Isaac was a man who was used to, I think, used to going out alone in the evening to meditate. That's what he was doing when, I don't remember the name of the servant that came back with Rebecca. It says, Isaac, it was evening, and Isaac was going out into the field to meditate. Moses, Moses was a man who spent a lot of time alone. And I really think, when I look at the life of Moses, he spent 40 years in Egypt, he spent 40 years taking care of sheep, and then he spent 40 years leading the children of Israel into the wilderness, or out of Egypt, I should say. Now, I think Moses wanted to do this thing in the first 40 years. He wanted to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt. He was wanting to be there for them. But I think, I think there was a lot about Moses that wasn't ready. I think he didn't have this, his heart wasn't yet synced with God. And he had to spend this 40 years alone, much of the time, alone in the wilderness, and learn how to take care of sheep. And God was ready for him. The prophets, many of them, were lonely men. Jesus prayed many times alone. And we need to learn the value of that. We're on a journey, but it's a heart journey. And we're walking in the garden of our hearts. And there the Lord wants to communicate with us in the cool of the day. There's been many, many a man who could go on preaching moving sermons while living a secret, sinful life. There's been many, many men who've been very active and appearingly successful in ministry while living some ungodly life secretly. There's been many men who could attend prayer meetings but lived as hypocrites. There's been many men who could talk about what all they pray about, but there's no connection with God there. But no one spends much time alone in secret in prayer while living his life as an actor in a play. Jesus is encouraging us to pray on a personal level, alone, in secret, from the heart, believing and trusting that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. That's how Hannah prayed in the Old Testament. Maybe the end of Judges or 1 Samuel or something like that. What's that? Yeah, yeah, first part of 1 Samuel. She prayed and wept and her lips moved, but her voice was not heard, and yet God heard her prayer and He granted her request. Let me just read a few more verses about Jesus. In Luke 6, verse 12, it says, It was at this time that he went off to the mountain to pray, and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. In Mark chapter 1. So here in this setting, Jesus had spent the day doing lots of service. He was healing lots of people. He was casting out demons. And then the end of the day came, and then here in verse 35 of chapter 1 in Mark, it says, In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place and was praying there. Simon and his companions searched for Him, and they found Him and said to Him, Everyone is looking for You. And He said to them, Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby so that I may preach there also, for that is what I came for. And He went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee, preaching and casting out demons. As I read that, I thought, Does that describe our lives? Shouldn't it describe our lives? I'd like for it to describe my life more. At least collectively, as a body representing Jesus. He got up early in the morning while it was still dark, and He went alone and He prayed. And He spent time in prayer. And then when they came looking for Him, He said, Well, let's go to the town and let's preach. For that reason, let's preach the kingdom of God. For that reason, I came to the world. And so He went and He preached and He dealt with the evil forces that were around. I just think, you know, Jesus said in one place, He said something like, As my Father sent me, so send I you. If that was the purpose for Jesus coming, it's the purpose for us. Let's go back here to Matthew and look at verse 7. Verse 7 says, And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetitions as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. Now, something happens here. In this statement that Jesus said, there's a difference between something that Jesus is saying in verse 5 or in verse 6 and verse 7 that I discovered many years ago. I think it has improved my understanding of what Jesus really is saying here. But it's not really evident in the English language. It's kind of evident in the King James translation, but it's more evident in German, and that's where I discovered it. So when Jesus says there in verse 6, He says, But you, when you pray, that you is singular. He's saying, You, when you pray, do it this way. Go to your closet in a secret place and pray alone. Now when He says in verse 7, But when you are praying, that you is plural. He's now talking to you when you pray together collectively. When you guys are together in an assembly praying together. Don't use vain repetitions in many words and think that you'll be heard by that. That's what the Gentiles do. This time, He's not faulting the pagans. He's faulting the Gentiles. They have their prayer rituals. They dutifully repeat things. Or they make many words. And that word, that term here that He uses, meaningless repetitions, vain repetitions maybe sometimes, babblings. Some translations say babblings. So, I think He's just talking about this meaningless wordiness. Don't do that. The Gentiles think they'll be heard by these kind of things. We could see that. We could see that in that time when Elijah and the prophets of Baal were there asking for fire to come down and these prophets of Baal just kept on and on and on and they thought maybe if they go louder, they would get His attention. If they cut themselves, if they do the right things. And I thought about this when Norman was sharing this morning about Balak's thought about doing what he wanted to be cursings in different places. Like, you know, they don't have the right concept of God. And I suppose Balak thought maybe like, well, maybe if we do it in this location, the stars will line up right or whatever. And that's not our God. Jesus even goes on to say in verse 8 why we shouldn't do that. He says, so do not be like them for your Father knows what you have need of before you ask Him. And the implication is that their Father doesn't know what they need. We're praying to our Father. Now, let me ask you fathers of children, when your children come to you with a request, like what moves you? What moves you to really consider their request deeply? Is it when they come with carefully crafted words? Is it when they use language that's way above their level? Is it when they use meaningless repetitions or just ask for the same thing that everybody else is asking for? Is it not when you sense in them a deep longing for something that is good and unselfish? When the child just asks in this childlike simplicity, just spills it out, and you know it comes from the heart, and you know that there's no deceit there at all? Are those not the factors that usually move us to really, really consider what our child's asking? I think it's the same way for the Father. I do not think He likes deceit whatsoever. Do you remember that time when it's in the first or second chapter of John, and Nathanael, Philip, I think, came to Nathanael and said, Hey, we found the Messiah, Jesus from Nazareth. And Nathanael just blurts it out like, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Now, you could think Jesus might have been offended by such unpolished talk, but He doesn't seem to be. He says, Behold, an Israelite in whom there is no guile. There's no deceit in this man. He's an honest man. I think sometimes people pray in terms and in languages and in flowery speech and in volumes that aren't normal. Sometimes there's this idea that there's this supposedly holy language, and we pray in the d's and vows, and I just think it's rubbish. I'm not saying somebody can't have that habit and not have a good heart about it. I once heard Peter Hoover say that he had this vision. He had this short little vision that he was on the other end of prayers. And he was there with God and he was hearing these prayers come in, and he said it sounded terrible. There was just all this sing-song and archaic language and just things that had no meaning to it all. And he just thought, Man, what a pity. Jesus has to listen to this all day long. Cyprian wrote when we pray. Cyprian wrote a lot about prayer. A lot about prayer. He said when we pray, we should let our speech and petition be under discipline, observing quietness and modesty, for it is characteristic of a shameless man to be noisy with his cries. On the other hand, it is fitting to the modest man to pray with moderate petitions. In fact, in his teaching, the Lord has told us to pray in secret. Tertullian wrote, Do the ears of God wait for a sound? How then could Jonah's prayer have found its way to heaven from the depths of the sea creature's belly? His prayer wound its way through the entrails of such a huge beast and from the very abyss, though a huge massive ocean. So what superior advantage will those who pray too loudly gain except to annoy their neighbors? In fact, by making their petitions audible, what less error do they commit than if they were to pray in public? So though, and back here Jesus is saying, don't use this meaningless repetition. And though He doesn't want us to be repetition, He does want us to be persistent. We see this in other passages that Jesus talks about prayer, like Luke 11. Luke 11 starts in by saying, It happened while Jesus was praying in a certain place. After He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught His disciples. And then gives that version of the Lord's Prayer. And then after He was done, Jesus said here in verse 5, Then He said to them, Suppose one of you has a friend. And he goes to him at midnight and says to him, Friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine has come to me from a journey and I have nothing to set before him. And from the inside, he answers and says, Do not bother me. The door has already been shut. My children and I are in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, even though He will not get up and give him anything because He is His friend, yet because of His persistence, He will get up and give him as much as He needs. Jesus taught a lesson about persistence in prayer in Luke 18. When He said, Now He was telling them, verse 1, And now He was telling them a parable to show them at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart, saying, In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. And there was a widow in that city and she kept coming to him saying, Give me a legal protection from my opponent. For a while he was unwilling, but afterwards he said to himself, Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection. Otherwise, by continually coming, she will wear me out. And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge said? Now will God not bring about justice to His elect who cry to Him day and night? And will He delay long over them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth? Jesus also commends that Canaanite woman who just didn't quit. She just kept persisting. Lord, help my daughter that's demon possessed. So Jesus condemns wordiness, but He praises persistence. I think verses like that one of the apostles wrote, like pray without ceasing. I don't think that those things are meaning like to make long-winded prayers that never end, but to keep coming back. To keep returning to our Father and trusting and leaning upon Him. Seeing our need for Him. I think Jesus also encourages here praying together with like-minded people and that it has power. It's in that context that Jesus says where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I with them. Throughout the book of Acts, you see the people coming together and they prayed together. They were of one heart. They were of one spirit and they prayed together and houses shook and prisoners got released and there was lots of power there. The church was praying that night that Peter was in jail. Peter lay in prison sleeping and the church was up praying all night. And I think that's reversed too many times today and the church is sleeping and there's prisoners here and there crying out for help. So we see here in verse 7 and 8 that God does not hear because of volume. He does not hear because of quantity of words. He does not hear because of eloquence of speech. He hears because of persistent returning to Him. As a Father who knows our needs better than we know them, we come to Him. So we keep coming back to Him consistently till either His heart is moved to us or our heart is moved to Him. And we're of one heart and one mind. Now, going back to Matthew here, now He tells His listeners what to pray. This prayer, we know it as the Lord's Prayer. It is the opposite of wordiness. It is the opposite of repetitious. It is simple. We can read it in less than a minute. And I think Jesus wants us to pray these words. Not exclusively, but I think He gave us these words to pray so that we would pray them. And that we would pray them with meaning. That we would think about what we're asking for. If the Sermon on the Mount is the most important preaching or teaching that Jesus gave for the New Covenant, which I believe it is, then this prayer is the most important prayer for the New Covenant. So He starts in by saying, Our Father. I heard somewhere as I was looking into different things about this prayer, I heard somewhere, and I didn't take the time to verify this, but I heard somewhere that this is the first time in the whole Bible that a prayer gets addressed to our Father. So think about this. John had said, I don't know if you remember what I talked about in the very first message of this series. In John 1, we were going through John 1 there, and Jesus says, As many as received Him, and that as received Him has less of the meaning of like have been given to, as like have taken a hold of. As many as have received Him or taken a hold of Him, those He gives the power to be sons. And so we can be sons, we can be children of God. And now Jesus is up here on the mountain, and He's gathering together this new family of believers, and He's there as the older brother telling them this is how we're going to pray. We're going to pray our Father. We're not addressing a thing out there in outer space. We're addressing our Father. And He says, Hallowed be Your name. That means sacred. Hallowed means sacred or holy. The early church wrote some about how this means that His name should be hallowed in us. His name should be made holy in us. And though we should address Him as Father, or we could say as Dad, we should remember that He's not a casual dad. He is a great and holy God. Angels, when they came before His presence, they covered their eyes. And they didn't stop saying day and night, holy, holy, holy. That's how holy, how hallowed and sacred He is. And yet He wants to be our Father. He wants us to be His sons. And He says, Your kingdom come. When we're saying that, we're saying, come reign over us. Your kingdom, O Father, Your kingdom come here. Your rules, Your law, Your power, Your authority, come down here to us and rule our lives. Reign over us. Your kingdom come. And Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Your will, He says, be done on earth as it is in heaven. Don't we often find ourselves begging God for our will? We end up telling Him what to do. And Jesus is telling us to ask Him that His will be done. We're asking Him for His will to be done in us. When we say on earth, we're talking about His will being done in us, we are earth, right? The word Adam means ground, a ground man. He's a man made out of the ground. And so we're all earth. We're going to return to earth again. We're asking His will to be done here on earth as it is done in heaven, as it's done in His realm. It's been helpful for me sometimes, as I have been, at times when I'm trying to discern the will of God about something, it has been helpful to think. Would this be His will in heaven? Can I, I know it doesn't always, it doesn't always translate, but still a lot of times it does, and it's helpful to think it in that light. Could we imagine this thing in heaven? Could we see that the approach that we're about to take, maybe not the particularities, maybe not the external things, but the mentality, the approach, and the thing, that the way we're going to go about doing this, could we envision that being peacefully done in heaven? It's a good way for us to sometimes discern whether something is within the will of God or not. Our flesh is from earth and our spirits are from heaven. As it says there in Galileans, there's a battle going on between the flesh and the spirit. The spirit wars against the flesh and the flesh against the spirit. And Jesus is not saying, He's not praying to God and saying, Oh Father, overlook my flesh and behold my spirit. Neither is He saying, Destroy my flesh and get rid of it and just help my spirit. He's saying, I want you to rule. I want your will to be done in both spirit and flesh. In both my body and my soul. Both heaven and earth. The next phrase is, Give us this day our daily bread. I think many have wondered if this meaning is physical or spiritual. I think it can be both. If physical, Jesus is telling here, ask for your basic sustenance because it's something you need. He's not saying, Lord, give us steaks and shakes. He's saying, Give us bread. And just give it for today. He's not saying, Give us food for a long time, but just give us what we need today for now. I don't know this for certain, but I kind of think Jesus is referencing, or there's a link here at least, to the manna that the children of Israel were fed in the wilderness, which they called the bread of heaven. The Israelites had to, they had to depend on God for this. They could not produce it themselves. They could not take it and replenish it and make it multiply and make it so they could hoard it up or anything like that. They had to depend and trust that they could go out every day and God would do something for them and they could eat. It's just a way, way different setting than when we settle down on a place and we start planting and we start harvesting and we start gathering and we start accumulating and we start hoarding or having the ability. We ought not do some of those things, hoarding and so forth, but we have the ability to and we have the tendency to and yet the children of Israel were on the move. They were on a journey and this wilderness was a testing ground for them and it was testing them to see if they could just simply trust God. I think there is a spiritual meaning in this. Produced by the Spirit or Matthew and Luke at least recorded this word and so translators had to try to guess a meaning. Go ahead, Brad. Yeah, well, I mean, he said a lot more about it than what I said, but I just know, like, according to what he said, like, Origen spent a lot of time trying to explain what this word might mean because it's kind of a mysterious word. Anyway, so some of these early Christian writers think it's talking about the bread of life, which then in turn is Jesus. So whatever the case, Jesus is saying, whether we take it spiritually or physically, give us the sustenance we need for now. And he says forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. Now, this is a big subject and I actually plan to talk more about forgiveness. For the sake of time today, I plan to talk more about forgiveness in the next message. But let me just briefly say, he says forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. We are asking God to forgive us in the same way that we forgive others. I think we can translate that to mean that if we don't forgive others, we're asking God not to forgive us. And this concept is super conflicting to the false gospel that desperately tries to make salvation have nothing to do with anything that we can do. And yet I don't think Jesus' words could be too much clearer. And on top of that, this is the only thing that afterwards he expounds on and says, for if you forgive others their transgressions, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. And this is not the only place Jesus says this. We read it in Matthew 18 and other places. I'll talk more about that later. He says lead us not into temptation. In Luke 22, Jesus said, pray that you enter not into temptation. God, James, I think it is that says God does not tempt us. We are tempted when we are drawn away by desires. In this prayer, I think Jesus is saying we're asking God to not allow us to be led away by the tempter. He's not praying to God that, oh God, please don't test me. He's saying don't lead me into temptation or allow me to be led off by the tempter, away from you. And then he says deliver us from evil. Again, he's not praying that evil would disappear and not afflict us. He's saying deliver us from it. Or I think it could rightfully say deliver us from the evil one. Psalm 3419 says, The righteous cried and the Lord helped and delivered them from all their afflictions. This theme is repeated through Psalms a lot. Psalm 107 repeats this theme over and over where he talks about the people, how they were out in the desert and they were hungry and they were thirsty and then they cried out to the Lord and the Lord delivered them from their affliction. Then he talks about people who were in darkness and bound in poverty and fetters and how they cried out to God and he delivered them out of their chains. Or the same about the people who were in the storms of the sea. And the last portion of that prayer says, For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. That ending is missing in a lot of early manuscripts. However, the Didache makes mention of it and it's a fitting ending to a prayer. We start in by saying, Our Father, and we end by acknowledging that the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours. I want to look at verse 14 and 15 in the next message maybe and we'll combine it, probably combine it with fasting. I want to kind of wrap things up here. When righteous men pray, much is accomplished. Psalms 34, 15 says, The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are open to their cries. Psalm 145, 18 says, The Lord is near to all who call upon Him in truth. God is a hearer of hearts, whether there's a voice or no voice. I'll just share this. My experience is that I found it helpful even in private prayer, all by myself, to pray audibly. It helps me stay focused. I've also found, I'm not trying to get people to copy my ideas, but I'm just telling you things I've found helpful. If it can be helpful for you, praise God. I've helped to think a little bit before I pray. Think about who am I coming before now? Envision God somehow. Either as a shepherd or as a man coming before the throne or beholding some part of the various ways that God expresses Himself. Cyprian says this, Be constant in both prayer and reading. First, speak with God and then let God speak with you. And let Him instruct you in His teachings. Let Him direct you. In Proverbs 28, 9 it says, He who turns his ears away from hearing the law, does anybody know the rest? Even his prayer is an abomination. He who turns his ears away from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination. Tertullian wrote, Prayer is the wall of faith. It is her arms and missiles against the foe who keeps watch over us on all sides and so we never walk unarmed. As I was reading some of the things Cyprian wrote about prayer, he said this at one point, He said, Let us urgently pray and groan in continual petitions knowing this, beloved brethren, that I was not long ago reproached in a vision about this that we were lethargic in our prayers and did not pray with watchfulness. Therefore, let us strike off and break away from the bonds of sleep and pray with urgency and watchfulness. Maybe I'll just try to share this real quick. I don't remember where I read this and who wrote it. It's somewhere. One of the early church writers wrote it. But I get this impression that, and I don't think there's anything wrong with the fact that our life in many ways looks different than theirs. I think it can't otherwise. And yet I get this impression that the people, they were known. The early church was greatly known for their hospitality. They were known amongst each other and by the heathens or the pagans around. Like, these people are super hospitable. So I get this impression that they were the people who would invite people in or if somebody came, they were given a place to sit down, they were brought some kind of refreshments, something to eat, something to drink, and you spent some time with them, maybe washed their feet even, and so forth and so on. And they were really known for this. And in fact, it was one of the effective ways of their witnessing. It was one of the ways directly contributing to how people converted and joined them. But I also think, I get the impression, just from various writers, that they were more quick to pray for each other than we might be. And I just encourage this for each other. One of these writers, as I was reading somewhere, I read something like this where he said, don't dismiss a brother, or maybe it said brother, I'm not quite sure, don't dismiss someone or a brother out of your house without praying for them. And then he says something like, this is my own wording, but he says something like this, for if you would not send him away without feeding him food and water, how would you send him away without giving him some spiritual nourishment? And I just think that's so beautiful. I just think how it would be if we were more prone to that, if we were more like, bringing people into the house, we sit down, we have time to talk, we have time to set a cup of something to drink and a piece of bread or something in front of him, and we eat together and we pray together and then we dismiss. It seems like a blessing. If we try to do something like that in some religious way to try to get the attention of other people, we'll totally miss it. Why don't we just love each other? Why don't we love each other that much? But that's just the result. We become of one heart. We start understanding each other and the result of that is that we communicate and prayers and communication flow. Don't go condemning yourself if you find that your prayer life is struggling. I think there's a voice that can sometimes come, a voice of condemnation that's like, you didn't spend enough time in prayer today. You need to be on your prayers for more hours than that. You haven't prayed hard enough. It's your fault that God hasn't answered your prayer. I think that's often the voice of the enemy. Jesus is inviting us into a simple but meaningful communication with Him. Not with many and lofty words, but just with a persistent turning to Him and allowing Him to change our will to His. In the book of James, in the book of James in chapter 5, verses 16 to 18, it says, Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of the righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah, listen to this, Elijah was a man with nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. And then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain, and the earth produced its fruit. What a man. What a man. Don't we all want rain? It's getting super dry. Haven't we been praying for rain? But I guess what I want to say is like, it says Elijah was a man just like us. And if you look at the life of Elijah, I think he had similar struggles in prayer that we face. I think he struggled, and I think he doubted sometimes with his prayers, and I think he thought sometimes that God wasn't listening to him. There were times when he expected to hear God, and he didn't hear Him, and there were times when he heard Him when he wasn't expecting. There's that time when Elijah was, it was just after this great victory against the prophets of Baal there on Mount Carmel. You would think of all times Elijah would be on a spiritual high right now. I mean, I just had the most obvious encounter with God. It was so great. He heard me. I barely got the words out, and it was answered, and it was on display for everybody. And yet, what did he do? He goes and he lays down under a juniper tree and says, God, take my life. Everyone is against me. And he laid down to sleep, and God, an angel, or somebody brought some bread and something there and told him, get up and eat. So he got up and ate it, and he laid down and slept again. And an angel laid some bread down again and said, get up and eat. You've got a long way to go, and you need this sustenance, and so he got up and ate. And then he started traveling, and I might be adding some of my idea here, but God did not tell him where to go that we can read. He just told him, you've got a long journey to go. And Elijah gets up, and he starts walking, and where does he go? He heads over to Mount Horeb, which is the same as Mount Sinai. I don't know, but I could think that Elijah thought, okay, this is where God spoke one time way in the past, and he really got the people's attention. That's where I'm going to go to hear from God again. And he goes over there, and he climbs into a cave, and he's down and out about it, and God says, what are you doing here? And Elijah's like, I've been so zealous for you, and everybody's against you, and everybody's against me. And God said, I'll speak to you. And so Elijah, if I remember right, he goes to the entrance of the cave, and there's this fierce wind that comes. The wind was so howling and strong that it ripped rocks apart, and the stones fell and broke apart from the wind. But God was not there. He heard nothing of God. And after that, there was an earthquake, and it shook, and it rumbled, and it rattled, but God was not there. And after that, a fire swept through. A great fire. And Elijah expected to hear God in that, but God was not in that. But after that, it says there came a small, still voice. The Septuagint says it was a gentle breeze, and God spoke to him. And Elijah wrapped his head in his mantle. He beheld all of these great and powerful and ferocious things, but when he heard that still, small voice, he wrapped his head in his mantle. And God said again, what are you doing here? And told him to go somewhere else. So let me just wrap it up. It doesn't take many people. Great changes for the kingdom of God have happened with small numbers of prayer warriors. It doesn't take long prayers. Peter was saved from drowning by saying three words, Lord help me. The publican who went to the temple to pray was justified, and I think he said seven words, God be merciful to me, a sinner. The prayer that the Lord tells us to pray here, I didn't count the words, but you can probably say it in 30 seconds. Let's strive together in prayer, as Paul said. Let's pray to our Father in a hidden place, but with an open faith, constant but not repetitious, fervent but not wordy, modest but not casual, as a privilege and not a chore, in simplicity and sincerity, honestly and meaningfully, day and night. Let's pray in spirit and truth, with understanding and love, toward the one who calls us his children. May the Lord add his blessing. We'll open it up for any corrections and comments. Thanks, Brother Duane, that was refreshing. A lot of, yeah, there's just a lot of thought-provoking things in there, but to just kind of condense it down to a couple things I thought about, I was thinking about, Norman made a comment during his opening about how these people just kept asking and asking kind of the same question to the prophet, and it seems like that's something that happens in life when people don't want to take no for an answer. They can just ask the same question, and it's actually a really effective tactic. When you ask somebody the same question enough times, they can change their answer or doubt their decision, whatever it is that they told you. And yet they were asking for something wicked, but then you have to contrast that with Jesus' instructions on prayer in the New Testament and instructing people that God is a God who wants to be entreated, he wants to be asked again and again, and then he gives those stories that Duane shared about the widow and the judge and then the man with a neighbor who needs food in the middle of the night to feed his friend. Anyway, so what's the difference? What is the difference? Because one seems like it's honorable and good and right, and one seems like it's not. Anyway, I don't know exactly what the answer is, but it seems like part of it might be at the end of James, or at least a concept that could maybe help answer that question when James tells the rich people, I'll just paraphrase it, I don't have to read it, but just that you ask and you have not because you ask amiss and you ask that you may consume it upon your lusts. And so I think motives of the heart are vital and helping us get to the answer of that question about what's the difference, what's the difference between asking again and again and again in a way that is displeasing to God and also in a way that pleases Him and makes Him want to give us good things. And then, I don't know, I just, I'm not sure how connected it is of a thought, but just on the subject of prayer and to Duane's point of, I guess, personal fervency in prayer, praying the right things, there's a story, I don't think it's a true story, and maybe you guys have heard it or maybe you've even shared it, but of these three priests who are arguing about the best positions for prayer and the first guy is advocating for down on, and this is just kind of like my made-up version, winging it, but he says, no, no, the best way to pray, the best way to pray is on your knees with your head bowed in the presence of your Almighty Father. Then he can hear your prayers. And then the next guy says, no, no, I think the best way to pray is standing up and with your arms outstretched and your head lifted up towards the heaven boldly before the throne of grace. And the third guy says, no, no, I don't think either of those are the answer. I think the best form for prayer is standing on your head. And the guys kind of look at him and he says, what? They say, what? And he was like, yeah, you know, the other evening I was kind of wandering through the darkness and I stumbled and fell into a ditch on my head and I couldn't get out and I just cried out to the Lord and He delivered me. And anyway, like, I think the point of the story is not just to be funny, but the point of the story is that really the best position and the best posture is fervency and sincerity in praying to God. Thank you, Brother DeWayne. One thing that came to my mind is you were saying how to be able to understand people and I was just, like, over time since my conversion I've just realized more and more just how to understand people like when they go through struggles. Like, there's some aspect to where, like, when I hear other brothers say, yeah, like, oh, I've definitely struggled with being focused in prayer. And it's like, oh, like, I struggle with that too. Like, I'm not alone. Like, I don't feel like some outcast. And it's encouraging, you know, to continue working on those things. It's just a really nice thing to have compassion on people, like when, especially when we go out and witness to see people just in the state that they're in. It's like, oh, like, we were there one time. Yeah, I just thank you for the message. Yeah, Brother Duane, yeah, thank you. Got some different thoughts here. Appreciate that message. Certainly, I need it. Yeah, I always, I just want to improve my prayer life. But, yeah, based on some of the thoughts, I appreciate, Brother Max, what you're sharing there. Yeah, it does make me, as Brother Duane mentioned, think of Hannah that, yeah, much how I would imagine if I was the man that fell and I was head down and I'm in a pit, maybe like Joseph was, thrown down in the pit, and you're just so urgent and just crying out. And that was the foster of Hannah when she was going before the Lord, just humiliated by the second wife of Elkanah, I think was his name. But anyway, the husband. And she would taunt Hannah and she was just so broken and humiliated. And many, yeah, many women in the Old Testament were talking about the reproach that they had because they had no children and she was just broken and crying out to God. And God heard her prayer and especially when she said that if you'll give me this, I'll give him back to you. And she certainly did what she said she would do when he was five years old. She gave Samuel back to the priest. But anyway, yeah, just in kind of a little bit of regard to what Max was saying, yeah, it seems like to me that a short prayer where we're going before God just from gratitude and just love and all those emotional virtues towards God rather than feeling guilty because I haven't prayed today. Let me go pray. And we've made this long prayer with this big laundry list of things or whatever. I just think even if it's a short prayer and it's really from the heart that it's just going to be so much more just like sweet-smelling incense to the Lord as Revelation describes the prayer of the saints. And so, yeah, one thought would be, I know I've read this passage multiple times. I just think it's so important about prayer. Peter quotes from the Septuagint. I think it's Psalms or Proverbs, but it's 1 Peter 3. It starts in verse 10, but I'll just start in verse 12 because that's the relevant part. It said, For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayer. As I mentioned before, Acts 10, 34, 35, God accepts those who work righteousness and fear God. He said, The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. And that goes together with Isaiah 59, verse 1. Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, nor is His ear heavy that He cannot hear, but your transgressions or your iniquities have separated you from your God. His sins have hidden His face from you. Which goes right in line with that passage that Peter is quoting from, which, like I said, it's either Proverbs or Psalms. And so we must keep that in prayer or keep that in mind. And at the same time, James admonishes us to pray for each other that we might be, yeah, to pray for each other. Not to mention confess our sins to each other so we could be healed. But, yeah, I just wanted to share that. The other thing was regarding the word, which I appreciate what Duane was saying about, what is it, Matthew 6, verse 7, I think, where they translate it as, which I think is a decent translation, vain repetitions, because the Greek word is batologueo. So if you break it down, the prefix and then the main stem, the main part, logueo is related to logos. In the beginning was the logos who is with God. And the verb, one verb version of that would be lego. I speak, I say, I'm talking. And so it's related to that. And yet batos by itself means like stuttering. It means to stutter. So you put that together with the word that has to do with speaking, and it makes sense. Somebody that's repeating something over and over and over, that's exactly what Jesus is talking about. Don't be like the Catholics. I mean, not that I'm trying to beat them up. I can leave that to Brother Robert to do that. But, yeah, I mean, just being real and speaking to our Lord. Now the one thing I did have thoughts about too with regard to prayer, which Brother Duane didn't mention was, it's interesting, despite the fact we got this short prayer here, Matthew 6, and we also have Luke 11, the Lord's Prayer, it's short. And yet we frequently in the Gospel see that Jesus would go and spend all night with the Lord. He's saying don't be like the pagans and repeat the same thing over and over and over. And yet he tells us, I think the passage that Brother Duane might have mentioned about how won't your father, you know, here you see this unjust judge, but won't your father, if you continue to go before him, won't he quickly, you know, meet the needs. I forget how he said it. I'm paraphrasing. But meet the needs of his children. And so we should go to him and keep asking him. But not like in this, when we're praying, like we're just repeating the same thing over like some sort of chant or something. I think that would be one reasonable understanding of what that would be like, like vain repetitions. And yet Jesus prayed all night. So somehow we have to reconcile that whole idea where it's real from the heart. You're really going to the Lord, but you're not just repeating things like some sort of chant over and over. And even with the Lord's Prayer, I don't think it should be just let's read the Lord's Prayer. I think we should pray the Lord's Prayer. Like me, when I pray the Lord's Prayer, I take each passage and I actually expound on it and what I believe he's saying. Like, you know, like our Father in Heaven, let your name be holy. So there it is. It's a... I'm not going to go into that actually. But anyway, we're saying, you know, Jesus is saying let your name be holy. So sometimes when I'm praying to the Lord and he already knows because I've told him before and he knows it before I even pray it anyway, but it's like Lord, I know you're holy. The scriptures tell me you're holy. I believe that. And yet, Jesus, our Lord, who's sitting at your right hand is telling us to say let your name be holy. So what does that mean? I understand that Lord to mean, and I've prayed this before him, and so I just say all that because I don't think we should just like, in my opinion, just say the words that are on the page. I don't think that's what necessarily Jesus is saying. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Like it's some sort of repetitive thing. No, but from the heart, just take each passage of what Jesus is saying and just talk to the Lord about it. This is what I'm thinking this means, Lord. Help me understand it. Because I want to do what Jesus is saying, and then maybe go to the next passage. Jesus is saying, let your kingdom come. So yeah, I want your kingdom to be come, and I certainly want to be ready when your kingdom comes, Lord, so that I can be a part of it. And in that way, I pray the Lord's prayer, so I just share that. And I guess the last thing, and sorry I'm using up so much air time, is with Brother DeWayne, or Norman, that he had mentioned Numbers chapter, in the book of Numbers, 23, 24, 25, and then Peter. But there's a lot of other passages that talk about Balaam. Maybe I can share this with you later, brother. I use Bible Gateway. I just punch in Balaam, and I get a ton of passages where it talks about him that when you read them all, you see clearly why Peter says what he says, because it is in the Old Testament. So right here in Numbers 31, it talks about Balaam and what he did to stumble the children of Israel. Deuteronomy 23, and what he did to stumble the children of Israel. Joshua chapter 13, Joshua chapter 24, Nehemiah chapter 13, Micah chapter 6, and then you arrive at 2 Peter and Jude both talking what he says. So maybe I can share that with you later, brother. Thank you, Brother Duane. I appreciate all the comments, too. Max's comment about the posture. I know the Muslims like to pray prostrate. Jesus did pray prostrate, right? Let this guy prostrate flat on your face. And Mennonites like to kneel. Pentecostals like to stand up. But it's like Brother Max said, or Duane, rather, it's humility. No matter what, standing, sitting, I don't know about sitting, it's kind of rough, but I mean, if you have to sit and pray, it seems to be the least respectful way, but it's the humility that counts, right? It's not the posture, but it's the humility, at least in my mind it is. In that proverb, you quoted, those who don't hear the Lord's abomination, a lot of times people will say, you point out sin in their life. They can point out sin in my life. And they say, you know, you're in your second marriage, you're really dressing modestly, you know, you're wishing evil on someone, you know, like you're a soldier. And they say, well, let me go home and think about it. Let me go pray about it. Let me go pray about what? Jesus said, to love your enemies. He said, the permanence of marriage. He told us to dress modestly. Let me go home and pray about it. The prayer is an abomination to God. It's simple as that. As far as Nathanael goes, I could be wrong. Nathanael, how Dwayne connected it, he bridged it. You know, Nathanael, what could come out of Nazareth? And then he said, you know, truly a man, there's no guile in him. Woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Thessalia. Woe to you, Capernaum, right? Woe to you, Nazareth. You know, and he always criticized the ones, the Pharisees, the religious leaders, not the heathens and the pagans, right? Woe to you, Lancaster. Woe to you, Holmes County. Woe to you, Southwest Missouri. Woe to you. We're the ones, the ones that have the Sermon on the Mount. We're the ones that got to get our act together. You know, the seven churches of Asia repent. And so, the way he deals with the heathens and the pagans, that's not for us. We, woe to us. And the last one would be, I thought Brother Brett would get this, but I guess, he'd say this, but he didn't. And it's a small point, but I make a big point, and I did it to Yolanda and Winnell, and Sarah never, they could have went with it, but Sarah, my wife, she's a little stubborn, and she never went with it. But in the model prayer, thy kingdom come. Okay? Thy kingdom come. Hey, it came on Pentecost. You know, it came on Pentecost. Why are you praying for it to come when it already came? Church of Christ does make a big deal out of it, and they say, my kingdom increase. May your kingdom increase. Well, yeah, but you could say that the kingdom is going to be the second coming, so the kingdom come on Earth. Yeah, but it already came on Earth. And so, in my peanut brain, I always say, kingdom increase. I've been hooked on the Church of Christ by saying that. The kingdom came, so he told them before Pentecost. Go ahead. You got it. Yeah. That's what they say, but the preponderance of heaven, the Lord be magnified. Thank you. I appreciate both the messages. I really appreciated how you brought it out, Norman, about how he couldn't, his anger had blinded him, and he was talking to a donkey. Just how he wasn't in his right mind there, realizing what was going on. I really appreciated that. I just had a real short testimony about the prayer that I wanted to share, but I have been recently thinking about my prayer life, so I thought it was really timely. It was really good. But, a brother told me one time he was struggling with prayer, and he went into the bathroom, and there was a praying mantis in there. And he just started crying. It felt like God was showing him just how important it is. That's all I had. God bless you. Yeah, another quick testimony. I heard when I was fellowshipping with Brother Ernest down there in his group last weekend. Gail, Gail Bear, I think Robert knows him. He told me about this testimony of this one man that was involved with orphanages. And then he said the man, like his whole life, prayed for two specific people. And after that man died, he said both of them people came to Christ. And I was just like, yeah. It was really encouraging to hear it. Piggybacking on that, yeah, I was thinking somebody said something here recently, and it made me think about, well, in the vein of, or in the line of what I already read in 1 Peter 3, how about God inclines his ears to the righteous. Stephen was praying as he was being stoned, and killed. And Saul, it says, Saul gave his assent to it. And Stephen asked the Lord, you know, Lord forgive them. And he's praying on behalf of Saul and the others. And Saul came to the Lord. So I'll just share that.