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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/clark-logan/the-fresh-air-of-prayer/
Now we're going to begin reading this afternoon from Psalm 121, Psalm 121, and we shall read the first two verses. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.
Now over to Matthew chapter 14, the gospel by Matthew and chapter 14, and we'll just read one verse there concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, verse 23, and when he had sent the multitudes away, he, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ, went up into a mountain apart to pray, and when the evening was come, he was there alone.
Now back to the Psalms, if you will, to Psalm 73, Psalm 73, reading two verses there, verses 16 and 17. The writer is writing in perplexity, we'll deal with that in a moment or two, but he is a perplexed man, and this is what he writes in verse 16, when I thought to know this, it was too painful for me, until I went in to the sanctuary of God, then understood I their end.
Final reading in the letter to the Hebrews and chapter 4, Hebrews and chapter 4, we shall read from verse 14, seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession, our confession, for we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Maybe just one more verse in chapter 8 and verse 1, Hebrews 8 and verse 1, the writer says now of the things which we have spoken, this is the Son, we have such a high priest who was set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, now that's all we shall read just now from the scriptures of truth.
I'm sure all of you from Iowa know about the AQI, the air quality index of Iowa, is usually reported as being good. Occasionally it is slightly downgraded to fair, because some of your pesky neighbors are burning their fields after the harvest, and even from Canada, sad to say, and the smoke drifts down into Iowa.
The air quality index is calculated from a number of things, and one of them is the ground level ozone. Most of you have heard somewhere along the line of ozone. Ozone is not oxygen O2, ozone is O3, and you've heard people raving about the ozone layer, that's the high ozone layer that protects us and holds in the ozone layer that protects us from the ultraviolet radiation.
But the ground level ozone is something else, it's generally known as to be smog, smog, ground level ozone. And then they will always also estimate what they call the PM 2 .5, the particulate matters, the small pieces of material in the air, 2 .5 microns or less.
Now, a hair, a human hair, is 7 microns, so we're talking about little pieces in the air that you cannot see but contaminate the air, the air that people breathe. That might not be a problem for you, but if you're subject to asthma or you have a respiratory problem, the air quality index will be very important as far as you are concerned.
Yesterday we spoke about the marks of a healthy Christian. I hope you remembered some of them at least. And then we developed the first one, the good food, and then we spoke of clean water, and then we spoke of pure air.
I'm going to suggest to you that the freshest air that the Christian can breathe is in the sanctuary of God's presence because prayer should come to us as natural as breathing. And in prayer, what we can do is we can rise above the toxic smog of the world.
We can go up. We can get above it. We can go higher when we pray. Indeed, as I hope to show you, we can enter heaven itself, the very sanctuary of God, when we exercise our prayer life and we speak to God in prayer.
That would be a great thing if we could keep above the toxic smog of this world. In John chapter 17, the Lord Jesus Christ in what is called his high priestly prayer speaks of the world. Now, let me mention four prepositions from that chapter.
First of all, we learn that we are saved out, out of the world. That's our salvation. That's our deliverance. We have been saved out of the world. Secondly, we are to be not of the world. That's our sanctification, day by day, learning to be more holy, learning to be more like Christ, rising higher again above the toxic smog of this world.
So we're saved out of the world. We're not of the world. But the Lord Jesus Christ also reminded us that we're still in the world. That's our location. We can't escape it until the Lord takes us home.
We're still in this world. It can affect us. That's our location. But then he says another very interesting thing. He says, I'm sending you into the world. What does he mean? Is he sending us back to the toxic smog?
No, he's sending us back to be his witnesses. That's our vocation. We have been sent into the world to witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. My dear brother, my dear sister, if you're not witnessing about the Lord Jesus and witnessing for him, you're missing out in the great joy of telling others of the great things that he has done for you.
As we said yesterday, if it's worth having, it's worth sharing. So that's our relationship to the world. Although I want to encourage you today, we can live above it through prayer, and prayer is speaking to God, and there are no limits to that.
You can speak to God anywhere, everywhere. Not just the sweet hour of prayer, a whole day of prayer. God will not mind. He'll welcome that. Wonderful thing about speaking to God. You can repeat yourself as many times as you like, and you can wander about and lose the track as often as we might do, and God will never grow tired of you speaking to him.
The network is never down. You don't even have to pay for it. It's been paid for already. You can live in his presence by speaking to him right through the day. I want to try and get this over to you over this weekend.
That he becomes your God, not just a Sunday morning God, but that you can walk with God, you can talk with God, Enoch, walk with God 300 years, and as I said, I think I said it not just a five-minute prayer in the morning and an evening benediction of some kind at night, but listen, young men and young women, talk with God, converse with him, and you dear older friends, we all need to learn these lessons, and we're still learning them, and we're not there yet, but it certainly will be good for us to understand that God is the God of my life.
Every moment, every hour, I need thee. Every day, I need thee. In every circumstance, I need thee. So, I'm saying to you, get to know your God, walk with God, talk with God right through the day. I know you have some demanding work to do, and you must focus and concentrate on your occupation.
I understand that, but you know, as you walk there or come back from there, talk with God in the office, in the college, get to know God because he's with you, he's beside you, he's at your elbow, and you can talk with him right through the day.
The great privilege, as someone has said, if you want to soar like an eagle and go higher, stop scraping around like a turkey. Now, please, I like turkey. I hope you understand. I enjoyed the turkey, and I know some of you have turkeys that you love very much.
In fact, you keep dozens and maybe hundreds of them. I understand that. I'm not downing turkeys, but if you want to soar like an eagle, you'll have to go higher, and that's what I'm trying to encourage even today.
Somebody has said, you've heard it said, he's so heavenly-minded, he's of no worthy use. Now, they're talking about someone, and they think that his head's in the clouds. I want your head to be, in fact, above the clouds, and it is only those who are heavenly-minded who are of real earthly use.
So, let's try and go higher. Our prayer lives, oh, dear. The problem is no one sees them. God sees them, of course, and He is waiting for us to enter His presence and to converse with Him, but, oh, our personal prayer lives could do with a revamp, I think.
Sometimes we neglect it. Sometimes we forget it. Sometimes it's despised. Sometimes it's so shoddy and careless. I speak to my own heart. We could all improve as we seek to speak to God in prayer. So, let's look up.
Let's think, first of all, of the hills. That's what the psalmist was saying, look up. The hills, from whence cometh my strength. And the hills would remind us of the shepherds. Now, that particular psalm is not marked as a psalm of David, but I want us to think about David.
And the hills above Bethlehem, they're still called the shepherd's fields, 2 ,000 feet above sea level, the hills, the pastoral hills around Bethlehem, where the young David was minding the sheep, outside the town there of Bethlehem, and all that was going down there in the town, he was above it.
He was on the hillsides with the sheep, alone with God. He learned many, many lessons. But he also learned lessons, certainly, about shepherding, up there in the hills, above the town, the hills, from whence cometh my strength.
And you know, it's a great thing to learn about shepherding. In every assembly, there should be a number of men that God has raised up to care for the sheep, for the flock. In Acts chapter 20, you'll get all three names, the elders, that speaks of their maturity, the overseers, that speaks of their necessary watchfulness, making sure, looking out for danger.
But there are also those who feed the flock. They are the shepherds. And maybe some of the shepherds in your assembly, I hope you know who they are. They have a heart for others. They have a care for the sheep.
They are with them. They are among them. They feed them. They lead them. They guide them. They guard them. The lessons of shepherding. But listen, just a minute now. We all should have a shepherd heart.
We all should have a care for others. We all should be seeking to help others and look out for others, for one another. But these dear men, oh, they learn lessons. Let me tell you this. Sometimes we don't sleep.
Sometimes we weep. The burden of shepherding. Little David there one day, a lion and a bear came and would have ravaged the flock. Took a little lamb. By God's grace, he was able to rescue that lamb. He was learning about the sheep there on the hills above Bethlehem.
He would be learning about the waywardness of sheep. He would be going after the wandering, bringing back the straying, lifting up the stumbling, the fallen, binding up the broken. He would learn many lessons from God up there on the hillsides and lessons about the dangers.
In the local assembly where the flock gather, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, why is the assembly prayer meeting so often the smallest meeting? Why? It's not so important. Oh, I tell you it is. One of the elders in my home assembly, my home elders were men I deeply loved and respected.
None of them were very public men, actually. They weren't always. We didn't always hear them. But one of them said, you know, the assembly prayer meeting is the powerhouse of the assembly because prayer is linked with power.
Prayer is also linked with purity. Power is linked with purity. Prayer is linked with power. Try and support your assembly prayer meeting. Fellas and girls, it's an important meeting. When you can get above things and see things from another perspective, and we can pray for one another and we can pray for a lost world out there.
Public prayer, I believe, should be relatively short and specific and sincere and guided by the Spirit of God. There's really no place in public for very, very long prayers that go around the world. No, the Lord knows our hearts.
Sometimes we forget. We go on a little bit long. But you remember, David, what he learned on those hillsides. He could say, the Lord is my shepherd. He needed a shepherd. And that's where he learned it there on the hillside.
Let's go to the mountain, the mountain. The Lord went to the mountain to pray. Why? To get above things, not just to the hills, to the mountain. He often went alone. You'll read of the mountain scenes in the Gospel of Matthew.
There are eight of them concerning the Lord Jesus. They're worth studying. The eight mountain scenes of the Lord in the Gospel of Matthew. But for him, it was a familiar place. He was alone with God, a lone figure with an upturned face, seeking his father's help and guidance.
You remember, before he chose the 12 disciples, he spent a night in prayer on the mountain. He continued all night in prayer to God. Why did he pray all night? Can you not say it in 10 minutes? He was wrestling with the weight of 12 imperfect men.
He knew it before he chose them. He knew Judas and what Judas would do, but he was guided by God. And Judas became one of the disciples, as you know. Judas Iscariot, I speak of. But when he was up on the mountain, too, he could look down and see them there in the storm.
He was praying for them. And it amazes me how he saw them, because after all, here we are in the little lake of Galilee. And if there's a storm, usually there's a lot of spray and a lot of wind. And it's very hard to see.
And of course, he was the son of God. He saw them struggling in the storm. Up on the mountain, watching them down there on the sea in the storm. But it's on the mountain that servants can learn about the Father.
And we're going to go back to Moses, because God called Moses up to the mountain. He was a man of the mountain. And he learned about God because he discovered that up in the mountain with God, it was a fearful place.
We read of the thunder. We read of the lightning. We read of the earthquake. We read of the fire. We read of the smoke, what he felt, what he smelt, what he saw. Because God is holy. And God was impressing upon the people in the earthquake.
They were to stay back. But Moses was up in the presence of God, learning something of the holiness of God. It was there he received the Ten Commandments, telling something of God's character, his holy character.
When he delayed coming down from the mountain, what was happening down there? He was up there, thank God. But what was happening down there? Remember at the end, he had to rush down because the sinfulness of men's hearts.
He was no longer gone. And they thought he had delayed. They turned to gross idolatry. Sad to say, Aaron was in the middle of it. Aaron assisted it. Now, Aaron is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ in a real sense of service and the offerings of sacrifice.
But he's an imperfect picture, as we all know. He was carnal. He sinned. He was mortal. He died. That's why the Lord, we learn of him being the Lord, the high, great high priest, after the order, not of Aaron, after the order of Melchizedek.
Because Aaron died and he was replaced, but Melchizedek had neither beginning or end. Speaking of the eternal priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ for you and me, he will never need to be replaced. You have a high priest in heaven.
So on the mountain, men of the mountain, you could think of Noah, Abraham, Caleb, David, Elijah, men of the mountains. What the lessons they learned there up in the mountain. Moses was told, get thee down.
But up there in the mountain, servants learn about the holiness of God. So we have the hills. We have the mountain. Let's come to the sanctuary. That's what it's called. And in the sanctuary, searchers learn about the future and receive reassurance.
Because in the psalm that we have read, there's a man who's perplexed at the prosperity of the wicked. And he's saying to God, Lord, I don't understand. These wicked people, these evil people who have no time for thee, they're doing very well.
They're prospering. They're having such a good time. Everything seems so smooth for them. And I'm trying, Lord. I'm trying to be holy. I'm trying to follow you. I'm trying to keep your word. And my feet are almost slipping because it seems useless, pointless.
I don't understand. I'm troubled, Lord. Please help me. Where did they find help? There's a little word there. I try to emphasize it. Until I went in, excuse me. Until I went into the sanctuary, then understood I their end, the end of the wicked, the judgment that would lie ahead, the sanctuary experience, giving him clarity in his perspective.
And the sanctuary is a holy place where God dwells. And we could take the picture from the tabernacle or the temple and all of the lessons associated with it, the holiness of God. The sanctuary is a holy place where God dwells, a meeting place where men now can draw near, a fearful place where the glory shines.
That's why the high priest needed the incense. You see, often where there's God's glory, you need a cloud because man cannot look on the direct glory of God. And the priest was warned on the day of atonement, come with the incense.
And the incense was put upon the altar. And there was this smoke because they were going into the very presence of God. And if they didn't do that, they would die. God is holy. But it's a meeting place where men draw nigh, a fearful place where glory shines.
It's a humbling place where blood is required because of sin. It's a wondrous place where mercy is dispensed, the mercy seat. It's a vital place where communion is maintained. We need to know what it is to go into the sanctuary of God, above the smog of earth, to the hills, to the mountains, to the sanctuary of God, spending time in his presence.
It's a transforming place. For the writer of Psalm 73, wisdom was imparted. Perspective was restored. Character is molded. Those that dwell in the secret place of the Most High, where do they abide? Under the shadow of the Almighty.
It's a good place to be in the sanctuary of God. That brings us to the throne. We're trying to keep up there. The hills, the mountain, the sanctuary, the throne room. What happens there? Sufferers learn about his faithfulness.
When we were reading from Hebrews chapter 4, God has given us two helps on the way home. There is the help of the Word of God, that it scrutinizes our lives, and we should reapply it to our lives, and we should learn and respond and repent and improve as the Word of God is effective in our lives.
But there's not just the Word of God. There's the Son of God, a sympathizing high priest, and he's mentioned there as the great, the only one, the great high priest. And oh, there in that, we have access freely.
As I was trying to say, at any time, frequently, we can come boldly before the throne of grace that we might obtain mercy and find grace to help in our time of need. When we're suffering, when we're tempted, and we learned in verse 14, three wonderful things, a blessed assurance, what we have.
We have a great high priest. Where he is, he's passed into the heavens. Who he is, Jesus, the Son of God. For that reason, let us hold fast our profession. Three things about him in verse 15. Oh, how wonderful they are, a strong consolation.
He is touched. He feels for us. He's touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He was tempted, but he was sinless. Three beautiful things about our great high priest. And then, of course, in the final verse, we're exhorted to come, obtain, and find grace to help in our time of need.
I spoke yesterday about the activity of prayer, that we should know what it is to have a time of prayer. I tried to emphasize that attitude and atmosphere of prayer, speaking to God throughout the day, every day, about everything, about anything.
Never tired of hearing us. But today, as I close, I want you to look up above this earth. Get above it. Live above it. We have to live in it, of course. You know what I mean. But in our spirits, we're free to go above it.
To the hills, where shepherds learn about the flock. To the mountain, where servants learn about the Father and His holiness. To the sanctuary, where searchers learn about the future and find reassurance.
To the throne, where sufferers learn about His faithfulness. Look up. Go up. Speak up. And God will hear and answer your prayers. May the Lord bless us for it. Amen.