A Simple Way to Pray

Welcome to the Dividing Line for today. My name is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona. It's a delight and privilege to be with you here on the show today in the absence of Dr. James White.

Rich is here also and there are some announcements and we want to make you aware of those regarding James and the current ministry opportunities taking place just now. Right, I want to.

Let folks know that right now they are doing the Tuesday session in Johannesburg, South Africa. You know, there are so many hours, so many hours ahead of us, so it's kind of weird to think about that, but they're wrapping that session up here this evening and then tomorrow Dr. White will be traveling to London and I want to remind folks that, and there's a link on the webpage, I keep moving it to the top of the list there of his current, his appearances, his upcoming appearances in Europe as well as South Africa.

But Friday night, Dr. White will be debating Adnan Rashid on the topic of, is the Trinity a divine revelation or man-made doctrine? And that is going to be an excellently attended debate that's going to be at the Kensington Temple and all that information is on our website there.

There is a link for more information from the Kensington Temple website and then one that is last-minute, kind of shoehorned in. The folks at Kensington Temple realized that Dr. White was not really involved or active on Sunday and I guess they have a number of services on Sunday morning into the afternoon even, and they decided they wanted to set aside their 2 .30 service and have Dr. White do a special presentation for them and the public is welcome to come.

So if you are you're already done at your church, go on over to Kensington Temple and he's going to be discussing the same thing he did in South Africa in Cape Town, the session on Scripture and the LGBT agenda.

And given that they are going to be in London, I find that quite an interesting topic to be doing there, but really, really hoping I'm not going to have to, you know, put ministry resources to get Dr. White off a sticky wicket maybe, is that what they'd say down there?

I don't know. But anyway, no, I think that's going to be an excellent time and it is a presentation that needs to be heard. I'm not exactly sure how long they're planning on him being able to do the presentation.

He actually told me, when I told him about it, he says, you realize, I can go on and on for hours on that topic. So that is something to keep in mind there if your schedule is open for Sunday afternoon in London.

And then on Monday, May 16th, 7 p .m., he will be at the Lodge Hotel in Colteraine, Northern Ireland. I can't even begin to try to pronounce that. Don't you either. I know, you're tempted. If you're anything like James, he'll be over there, oh let me do, yeah, no.

And the topic there will be the reliability and transmission of the Bible, and that is in Belfast, Ireland. So that's Dr. White's schedule. Now regarding what we're doing here, okay, because that's also, we're trying to keep home fires burning, you know, as they say.

Thursday, this coming Thursday, I will be back behind the microphone trying to do a one-man show. You're gonna be treated to a lot more of the techie stuff, because after our last, my last attempt at doing the show, I realized people were telling me that there was all kinds of problems, and the recording of it that I had taken had little glitches and stuff in it, and we discovered that the folks at Telestream, where we get our software code, that we use Wirecast version 6, just isn't up to snuff in comparison to what we're using with version 5, and have been using with version 5.

So we rolled back to version 5, and I told James before he left that all I gotta do is program into each of the different shots the numbers. Well, version 5 doesn't do that. So I'm gonna have to be a little more active on the techie side.

Now, if you saw what I did in January and you hated it, or if you liked it, you might want to go back and do a refresher, because there's going to be things as I pick up with the cross-examinations that followed each of the presentations, and I'm gonna be pointing some things out along the way, because to me they're just screaming things that need to be pointed out, and so that's what I'm gonna be doing.

But it will be built on the presentations and the things that I pointed out in my first two episodes as I presented my evaluation of it, and to give you a little bit of a teaser here, one of the things, and it was objected to greatly, that I said this at the tail end of the second session, that Mr. Flowers, you know, he wants me to come on his show.

He wants me... I have no interest. And my point, I said this and I've said it on social media, Professor Flowers is not interested in listening. He's not. And I'm going to show it and demonstrate from this debate that not only is he now not interested in listening, he certainly wasn't interested in listening in the debate, and if you're looking for it, it is plain as the day is long.

So with that, little teaser for Thursday, and then next Tuesday follow-up, and I don't know how far I'll be able to get into it, but basically in this scenario I'm gonna take the two rebuttals, or two cross-examinations, and just basically run them back-to-back, and yes this time in order.

I'm not going to remix it. I'm going to put them in order, and point out some things along the way, and we'll see if I get into the rebuttals, and then the cross-examination that followed on that too, depending on how much time it is.

Well if you need some technical help, I'm.

Always here for you. You know, I'm your guy, the tech guy, right? You could sit.

Over here and smile. Push that button! Which button? No, that button, not that... That's right. What did you just press, John? Captain, you can't take much more of this! Right. So I'm gonna let you get back on track here with today's show, and let you.

Move forward. So thank you, and keep praying for Dr. James White, everyone who's listening in, and tremendous material he's covering over there in South Africa, and England, I'm sure it's going to be a blast.

I've been to Kensington Temple many times, so I can picture where he'll be, where he'll be ministering, and at some point they will interrupt, because they probably have another afternoon service. They have so many there, but that's great that he's got that opportunity, and they have the opportunity of hearing him in person.

Prayer, Evangelism, and Divine Election in Matthew 11

On today's show, we're going to talk about prayer, and I hope it's going to be a blessing. I want to just follow up on some of the things that I was talking about last time on evangelism, and I love how in just a few short verses, Jesus says so much.

I mean, it's obvious he's the master teacher, but he didn't have a problem in his mind regarding evangelism and divine election, and a lot of people do. They think if God has this elect people, why would there be a need for evangelism?

Of course, the answer to that is God not only ordains the ends, which are his elect coming to Christ in saving faith, but the means, and that is prayer and the preaching of the gospel. And there was one section of Scripture that blessed me some years ago, just to see Jesus have no issue with this.

Matthew 11, let me just read these words, verse 25. At that time, Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you've hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.

Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my father, and no one knows the son except the father, and no one knows the father except the son, and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal them.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and lowly and hard, and you'll find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

So often we hear these words without any context at all. Come to me, all who labor and heavy laden. This is the universal call of Jesus to all under the sound of his voice. Come to me, all who labor. Jesus is teaching that God hides things from some and reveals them to others, and he's happy about it.

He's praising his father for this. And I remember thinking, why would he be excited over the hiding of things? It's as if there's something valuable and he's hiding it, making sure they don't find it.

And then he says, come to me all in the same breath. There's no three hour division between the one statement and the next. I thank you, Father, you've hidden these things and you've revealed them to others.

And no one can get into this unless you choose to reveal it. Come to me, everybody. Wow. So there's the God who hides, and then there is this evangelistic call of the gospel that goes to all. Come to me, all.

And for decades I read those words, but I think what I'd done was see verses 25 through 27, which speaks of God's sovereign election, as unrelated to the following words, where he invites all to come.

And I just thought it'd be important to say that. I want to see what Jesus said. I appreciate the theologians. I have a renewed love for some of them. Not everything they said was true. No one person or all of them collectively are infallible.

But it's Jesus. I want to see Jesus saying these things, and the Apostle John, and Paul, and Peter, and finding these truths in Scripture. And I hope that's a blessing for you to hear Jesus on the matter.

He had no issue with divine election and evangelism, and he put them together just as Paul did in Romans 8 and 9 on sovereign election, followed up with chapter 10. How shall they hear without a preacher?

Those things go together. I think most of us, when we turn to the issue of prayer, would say we could use some help, if we're honest anyway. It would be very easy for a pastor to bring in someone who's known for their prayer life and make everybody feel a little or a lot condemned.

They could talk about what they do in their prayer life as they pray for India and China. And yesterday I prayed four hours for the nation of India, and we're thinking, wow, did I say anything to God yesterday?

When was the last time I spent 15 minutes in prayer? But for some on the spectrum of prayer, they're doing very well. Others, their prayer life is atrocious. They don't really feel they have one. But whatever our level of maturity as a Christian, most of us, I think, would admit that we could use some help in the matter of prayer.

And we're prone to be discouraged because of endless repetition. We can get distracted so easily. The enemy of our souls would love it if every Christian was someone who was not in prayer at all. He fears the prayer life of the Christian because he knows God answers prayer.

So how do we go about shaping a life of prayer, carving out time in our day to be people of prayer? Let me start with a few quotes from Charles Spurgeon. I find this when I find a quote of Spurgeon on a matter I don't usually need to find anyone else because he usually nails it.

And he had the concept that we've just been talking about of divine election, and yet he was very much wanting the people of God to be praying, and he was strong about it. His famous quote is, if sinners be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies.

If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for. That's certainly a strong statement. I believe it's born out of the biblical text. He said this, I know of no better thermometer to your spiritual temperature than this, the measure of the intensity of your prayer.

Another quote, it is a good rule never to look into the face of a man in the morning till you've looked into the face of God. There he's talking about a life of prayer. It is well said that neglected prayer is the birthplace of all evil.

Someone with an intimate prayer life with the Lord is less prone to consistently live a life of sin. It's not always the case because we are all prone to sin, but it's a safeguard. The one who has no intimacy with God and spends no time with God has very little in terms of a resistance against sin.

So that's a very, very important point. Prayer can never be in excess. A lot of things can, prayer can't. Prayer meetings are the throbbing machinery of the church. Another quote of his, Christ scholars must study upon their knees.

True prayer, I love this quote, is measured by weight, not by length. A single groan before God may have more fullness of prayer in it than a fine oration of great length. We shall never see much change for the better in our churches in general till the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of Christians.

So it is. Prayer is so vital that Jesus taught much about it. The apostle Paul wrote in Philippians, be anxious for nothing but in everything. By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Prayer as a Discipline of Attention and Trust

So how do we go about praying? Well, I'd like us to turn in our Bibles, if you have one, to the book of Leviticus. I'd like us to see what is said there. There's an important point I want to get to, but along the way, I want to just highlight some of the truths of Scripture that I believe will be really helpful to us.

I think many Christians are embarrassed about their prayer life. They don't take time to pray because they do feel it's just repetitive when they do, when they do actually take time to pray or else they feel bored or else their thoughts become so distracted.

And I remember just years ago having this little help given to me, which was this. You're praying and you're spending time reading the Scripture and then suddenly a thought comes to you, I've got to get milk at the store.

Totally unrelated. And you think, I've got to get milk at the store. And then it becomes this consuming thing and you're trying to read your Bible and all you can think about is the thing you have to do when you finish your prayer.

I've got to get milk at the store. And you're so distracted, you're not involved mentally in the process at all, the process of prayer. Well, just get a pad and a pen and write down simply milk at store.

And you know what you've done when you've done that? You can now forget about it. You know that when you leave the time of prayer, that won't be something you'll miss doing because you've written it down.

You'll get to it. And that allows you to read your Bible and be praying with your mind focused. And there might be something else that comes along. Get Johnny his medication. Write that down, whatever it is you that comes to your mind so that it's not a distraction in the time of prayer.

Leviticus chapter 25, verse 1. The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai saying, speak to the people of Israel and say to them, when you've come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord.

For six years you shall sow your field and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits. But in the seventh year, there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord.

You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land, the Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself, and for your male and female slaves, and for your hired servant, and the Sojourner who lives with you, and for your cattle, and for the wild animals that are in your land.

All its yield shall be for food. Then on to the 26th chapter here of Leviticus, verse 34. Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate while you are in your enemy's land. Then the land shall rest and enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate.

It shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbath when you were dwelling in it. And as for those who are left, I will send faintness into the hearts in their lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight.

In other words, they're going to be scared of just about nothing. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues.

They shall stumble over one another as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And you shall have no power to stand before your enemies, and you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.

Goes on, and those of you who are left shall rot away in your enemy's lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquity of their fathers, they shall rot away like them. If you keep reading, you'll see this.

Israel was given this command by God to allow for the land to have rest every seven years. There would be no seeding of the land, no crops that would be the result of it every seventh year. Israel hadn't done this.

There had not been a land for which no crops would be planted. I think it was fueled, no doubt, because of economic uncertainty, but mainly lack of trust in God, and it seemed like a logical need to produce food to survive, and Israel had failed here to trust God in this.

And in giving this command to the people of God, it's as if God says, okay, I've seen what you've been doing. I've seen what you've not been doing, and it's been 490 years, and every seventh year I ordered you to trust me and give a Sabbath rest to the land so it might be replenished.

Seven goes into 490, 70 times, so that's 70 years totaled up. Then, okay, it's as if God said this, you won't rest the land, so I'll give it the 70 years of Sabbath rest that I commanded you to have with this land, for you to give this land, and I'm gonna have you removed from the land for 70 years.

And that's where we start reading in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 25. That's the background here. The land was not given rest from the people. The people did not give the land rest, so God says, I'm gonna give the land rest from you, the people.

I'm taking you out of here. I'm taking you into exile. This is my doing. Let's read of this in Jeremiah. Genesis, Exodus, Jeremiah, chapter 25. Look with me in verse 11 if you have a Bible with you. This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years.

Then, after 70 years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste. Chapter 29.

Even when God was saying this to the people of Israel, He had not finished with them in any way at all, and that's the context of this very famous verse in verse 11. For I know the plans I have for you.

Verse 10, the verse before. For thus says the Lord, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. This place is obviously the land of Israel.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you'll call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

I'll be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I've driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

That's the prophetic promise of God. Now in Daniel, if we go to the book of Daniel, we have Daniel reading of this promise we've just read in the book of Jeremiah. So Ezekiel, on our Bibles, here we go, and Daniel chapter 9, Daniel's reading the book of Jeremiah.

Let's start in verse 1. In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus by descent Amid who was made king of the realm of the Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah, which was the passages we've just been reading, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah, the prophet must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely seventy years.

So picture the scene, Daniel's reading Jeremiah, he's in exile, and he's reading the promise of God that the exile would last seventy years. Verse 3, then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.

I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession saying, O Lord the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love in him keep his commandments. We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled.

Here was not just a confession of personal sin but of national sin. We, he says, we, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled and turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants the prophets who spoke in your name to our kings our princes and our fathers and to all the people of the land.

To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness but to us open shame as at this day to the men of Judah to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to all Israel those who are near and those who are far away in all the lands to which you have driven them because of the treachery that they have committed against you.

To us, O Lord, belongs open shame to our kings to our princes and to our fathers because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness for we have rebelled against him and we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws which he set before us by servants the prophets.

All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside refusing to obey your voice and the curse and oaths that are written in the law of Moses a servant of God have been poured out upon us because we have sinned against him.

He has confirmed his words which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us by bringing upon us a great calamity for under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem.

As it is written in the law of Moses all this calamity has come upon us yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. Therefore the Lord has kept ready for the calamity and brought it upon us for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done and we have not obeyed his voice.

And now O Lord our God who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and have made a name for yourself as at this day we have sinned we have done wickedly. O Lord according to all your righteous acts let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem your holy hill because of our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us.

Now therefore O our God listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy and for your own sake O Lord make your face to shine upon your sanctuary which is desolate. O my God incline your ear and hear open your eyes and see our desolations and the city that is called by your name for we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness but because of your great mercy.

O Lord hear O Lord forgive O Lord pay attention and act delay not for your own sake O my God because your city and your people are called by your name. I don't know where to stop it there's just so much in all that we're reading.

In fact I just want to read a few more verses. Verse 20 here comes the answer from Gabriel. While I was speaking verse 20 and praying confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and presenting my plea before the Lord my God for the holy hill of my God while I was speaking a prayer the man Gabriel whom I'd seen in the vision at the first came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice.

He made me understand speaking with me and saying O Daniel I have now come out to give you insight and understanding at the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out and I've come to tell it to you for you are greatly loved therefore consider the word and understand the vision and so it goes on.

There's much more that could be said about this but just wanting to make some points about the prayer life of Daniel. What strikes me as very obvious is after finding the promise of God of deliverance and of a return from exile after 70 years he realized it's just a very short time it's almost the 70 years being fulfilled.

As I'm reading this Daniel was thinking what do I do now. What he didn't do was passivity. He did not just sit in a chair and say well God you're a God who just promised it I know you'll fulfill it amen.

No he went to pray what he read as the promise of God drove him to prayer and in seeing the sovereignty of God over the nation of Israel and of all the nations rather than being passive about it it drove him to pray because he was praying to the God who ruled the nations.

Some people say if God is sovereign why pray. My answer is if he isn't sovereign there's no need to pray. It's because he's sovereign. We pray. We pray to a sovereign God who will accomplish all his will.

And Daniel in reading of the promise of God did not become passive. He found the promise of restoration in the scripture and he started praying as never before with renewed hope with renewed vigor. Hear his words.

Hear the O's of the heart. O Lord hear our prayer. O Lord hear me. O Lord forgive. O Lord pay attention. O my God. He poured out his heart to God. Excitement welled up in his heart and this was a prayer that God was pleased to answer.

The moment he started praying and God in his word has shown us his will. God's word is his will and so we have to clear away foggy thinking because the battle is often won or lost in the mind. Most of the spiritual warfare you and I will ever do happens between our ears.

In fact when we look at the New Testament it tells us that the enemies we face are certainly hostile. But our job is to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. The weapons of our warfare.

2nd Corinthians 10 are not carnal Paul wrote but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. What are those strongholds. These are strongholds in the minds. These are worldviews. These are views of the world that are in absolute hostility against God and with the word of God we can penetrate these fortresses in people's minds bringing them captive with the gospel of Jesus Christ and the truth of scripture.

But we have as Christians to clear away our foggy thinking. Why pray if God is sovereign. The answer is we pray because he's sovereign. We're not praying to some lieutenant who might get a job done if he gets certain things in his favor.

He rules the nations. He decrees something and brings it to pass. Isaiah 46 he decrees the end from the beginning and says all my purposes shall be achieved. That's the God of scripture. And that's why we can pray to him with confidence.

I believe a problem in our prayer life is not with the quality of the Christian but with the method of their prayer. There are many very well motivated Christians but they're distracted or else they're discouraged.

They think if God is this sovereign God why would I need to pray. I hope I can just with this passage in the Leviticus and Jeremiah and Daniel passages show you the promise of God should drive us to prayer.

I believe pressure be meaningful but it cannot be meaningful to the spiritually dead. There's no desire whatsoever to have a life of prayer. But it's different for those who are alive spiritually. They're born again.

They're regenerated. They're born from above. They've got new dispositions. They want what they didn't want before. They want God. The unregenerate man wants the benefits of God without God. They want to sleep at night without any guilty conscience.

They want heaven if it means the absence of pain. They just want don't want God when they get there. They don't want to see Jesus and be in worship. They don't want to bow the knee to him. But the Spirit who has possessed our hearts cries out Abba Father.

And there's this declaration of I want to tell him how I love him. I want to talk to him. I want to have an intimate relationship with with him. There's a God would orientation in the human heart now because of the work of the Holy Spirit in the Christians life.

Someone without the Holy Spirit is not a Christian at all. Every Christian has received the Holy Spirit according Romans 8 verse 9. So indwelt by the Holy Spirit. There's a desire to pray. And if someone wants to live for Christ and has no specific sin issue that he or she refuses to confess and fight against then the basic problem in prayer is not with sin or failure but with oftentimes method.

How we going about it. So I want to address that and hopefully this can be intensely practical. I'm really that's my heart as as a pastor I want to help people to pray and not just say you need to do it and say we need to do it.

We all do. But here's some tips along the way that I've learned that I hope can be of a blessing in your own life as well. For many prayer is like a duty rather than a delight. How do we go about praying then.

Martin Luther was obviously greatly used by God and was looked to by many at the time of the Reformation for leadership and I'm thankful that some people really looked out for him. One was his barber man by the name of Peter and in the many many in a real sense Luther trusted this man because he had the sharp knife in his hand to shave him and could have cut his throat because as you remember at the time Luther was a very wanted man.

There was a price on his head. But a relationship developed between this barber Peter and Luther. And in one of the sessions while the barber was cutting his hair he said how do I pray. And Luther left the barbershop and in haste according to all the records and started writing a letter to the barber.

And it became a simple way to pray. The title of a book that has gone around the the world and it's still being sold today. In fact you can look it up get it very easily on the internet. Just look up a simple way to pray by Martin Luther.

You can get it in a free format on the internet. Archie Parish has helped put some of the background to the book into a booklet. It's about 34 pages originally maybe a little bit more with what Archie Parish adds to it.