Pestering God with Persistent Prayer

There is a book published by Revival Literature which I like a lot. It's a little booklet on the reality of persistent prayer. It has to do with the son of Ian Bounds and how the son Osborne finally found Christ at the tender age of 84.

That book is entitled Never Quit Praying for Your Loved Ones and it's written by Marion Price. I highly recommend it for in its pages is a real example of how Ian Bounds never quit praying for his children and how God honored the persistent prayers of Bounds, even saving his son 63 years after Ian Bounds died. I just have a little exhortation for you this evening because we don't have much time, but I want to speak on the very important aspect of importunity or persistence in prayer.

Our Lord gives us examples of this found in Luke 11 verses 5-8 and Luke 18 verses 1-8. We will look at these briefly, so place your thumb in those sections in Luke's Gospel as we proceed. I have a little teacup chihuahua named Jojo and Jojo understands this aspect of persistence in prayer.

I will be sitting at the kitchen table eating my meal and Jojo will whine and beg and bother me until she gets her desired object. That little dog just won't give up. She will bow to me, come lick my ankle, plead with me with her big pitiful eyes.

And work on my sympathy and she just begs and begs and whines and whines and she will pester me until I give in and grant her the object of her pleas, which is some piece of meat or cheese. Her tenacity and begging is unparalleled and although she is a dog, her activity of persistent pleading is a good example of how we need to pester God with persistent prayer. We too should approach our loving master and persist in our petitions and not let up and not quit until the answer is obtained.

My message this evening is entitled Pestering God with Persistent Prayer and I want to read you our passage of scripture tonight from two portions found in the Gospel of Luke. I will begin with chapter 18 and verse 1. And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that man ought always to pray and not to faint, saying, There was in a city a judge which feared not God, neither regarded man. And there was a widow in that city, and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.

And he would not for a while, but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith, and shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth.

Notice, friends, how Jesus places great emphasis in this passage on pestering a person with persistent petitions. Jesus speaks of this judge who was an ungodly man who did not fear God, nor did he regard man, but he gave in to this widow because of her pestering persistence, which bothered and troubled him and eventually wore him down. That widow from Luke 18 is a picture of how we should pester God with our persistent prayers until we too obtain what we pray for.

And we have the advantage over that persistent widow, for she came to an unjust judge, but we come to a righteous father who already has our best interests at heart. The ear of the Almighty is bent toward his righteous saints, but as this is even the case, the Lord Jesus teaches us here in Luke 18 that God delights in our persistence in prayer, that it is a matter to be applied at practice when we pray. The Puritan Bible commentator, Matthew Henry, had this to say about this passage.

Her importunity was provoking to the judge. Our importunity is pleasing to God. The prayer of the upright is his delight and shall avail much if it be an effectual, fervent prayer.

I like that. So our praying must have this aspect of pestering persistence. I remember years ago I used to meet with a group of local pastors to pray each week for revival.

They came faithfully for about three months, and then one by one they stopped coming. They had a desire for revival and wanted to pray for it, but they lacked the persistence in laying hold of God by faith and persevering prayer to actually see God come and move in their midst, so they gave up. They didn't see any immediate results, so they quit pestering God.

Listen, friends, just because we don't see an answer right away to our petitions, this should not discourage us to quit, but rather encourage us to pray more fervently, more faithfully, more persistently, for it pleases God when we have the faith of prayer and the persistence of prayer. Like E. M. Bounds, we don't have to live to see the answer to our prayer, but we will and must have an answer. I want to look at the other portion of Luke's Gospel, which speaks on this vital aspect of pestering God in persistent prayer.

Let us turn over to Luke chapter 11 and look at this companion passage on prayer. And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him. And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed, I cannot rise and give thee.

I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you, seek, and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? Now notice, friends, what Jesus is trying to teach his disciples in regard to this parable of the man disturbing his neighbor at an unseasonable time and obtaining his request through the means of pastoring him through persistence.

He just bothers the man until the man gives in. He gives him the desired object, which in this case is three loaves of bread. Notice the text says that because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.

In other words, the man received exactly what he asked for, not one loaf less. Now I want to bring out some important aspects of this matter of prayer in how Jesus relates an increasing degree of difficulty in prayer. Notice three levels of increasing difficulty which Jesus states in this parable.

We see three words, ask, seek, knock. We see the first level of prayer, which is to ask, to verbalize our request to God the Father to make the request known to him. Now God knows what we need before we even ask him, but we involve ourselves in our walk with God through a life of communication with him in prayer.

To ask is the first step. Now notice the degree of difficulty increases somewhat to seek. There is a greater degree of effort in seeking something for you have to go and search for it, uncover things, turn things up.

I lost my wallet one time when I was out doing door-to-door evangelism. So I retraced my steps to that neighborhood and uncovered bushes and weeds and everything else trying to find my lost wallet. I went home exhausted and sunk in my chair and my daughter who was four at the time asked, why are you so sad daddy? I told her I'd lost my wallet.

She came over to me and began to turn up the seat cushion of the chair I was sitting in and lo and behold, there was my wallet. It had slipped out of my pocket and was there at my house all the time, but there had to be a search for it. So in seeking there is greater effort expended.

And in prayer, the element of expended effort is greatly noticed by the Almighty. He is looking at our level of desperation in prayer and our persistence in prayer and our laying hold of Him in faith and believing prayer. And this is the last aspect of the increasing degrees of difficulty in pestering God with persistent prayer.

Notice Jesus says the next level is to knock. To knock requires not only a physical aspect but a mental one. You knock at a door with the anticipation that it will be opened to you.

It's having the faith that if you knock, the door will be opened. Now notice how Jesus mentions the son asking for bread from his father and should his father give him a stone or should the son ask for a fish and the father give him a serpent or should he ask for an egg and receive a scorpion. What this means is that God will never give us in answer to prayer a thing that is worthless or harmful to us from His perspective.

We must be persistent in our pestering Him in prayer, but if the prayer is for something that God knows will be spiritually worthless or harmful to us, He will answer the prayer by preventing our request through withholding it. This whole business of prayer is centered around our level of importunity in prayer. This vital aspect of pestering God with our persistent petitions until the answer is obtained is of vital importance.

Listen friends, what counts costs and what costs counts if we desire to have prayer lives which move mountains of resistance and shake the gates of hell, then we must stay on our knees in brokenness and importunity until the answer is gained. Well, I hope this little exercise has helped us somewhat tonight. Before we go to our knees in prayer, let us pray.

Great God, give us the grace to be fervent in prayer. Stir us up afresh this evening with an overwhelming sense of your majesty. May we lay hold of you in prevailing prayer, which is Jacob-like in its refusal to pray to let you go until we obtain a blessing.

Oh Heavenly King, may our heart cries move you to action. May we pester you long enough to please you. May we obtain the requests we lay before you this evening as we go to you in persistent believing, effectual prayer.

Hear us, Great King, and leave a blessing behind as we lift up our hearts to you this evening through our asking, our seeking, and our knocking as we approach your throne room in desperate prayer.