Essentials of Effective Prayer — Zac Poonen

Listening to God in Prayer

It's a wonderful thing to kneel down and pray. And so when our eyes are closed, it's good to try and remember be conscious of Jesus there in our midst and in the beginning you may not think too often about it, but if you keep at it here, I've been in huge churches where we had kneel down and pray and many times when I couldn't hear others, I was comforted by the fact that prayer is not only speaking, it is listening as well.

Confession and God's Readiness to Hear

Prayer is like making a phone call to God and God's line is always open. The only time it won't listen is if there's sin in your life. It says if I regard sin in my heart, Psalm 66 verse 18, if I regard sin in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.

Or to paraphrase it, the Lord will not pick up the phone because there's sin there. But if you have confessed sin, the Lord will always hear us and sisters, you must pray. Little children can pray. And when I couldn't hear people at a distance, I was remember that prayer is also listening.

So I can't hear that other brother or sister praying. Okay, Lord, now I can listen. What are you trying to say to me? When I can hear another brother or sister praying, then I can follow along with that prayer and say amen.

And all the time in a public prayer meeting like this, when I cannot hear what someone is saying, I can listen. That's a very good habit to develop. You know, when it says that Jesus would spend long hours in prayer, what do you think he was doing?

He wasn't telling the Father so many things. What is it the Father didn't know? Jesus said the Father knows everything before you even tell him. So we can get bored trying to pray and pray and say so many things.

Developing a Habit of Listening

But I found if you develop the habit of listening, and listening is not something you can do only when you're on your knees. You can be listening when you're working. You can be listening when you're doing something else in the midst of other work when you're driving down the road.

To have a heart attitude that says, Lord, I'd like to hear you. You know, like Samuel prayed, like Eli told him, speak Lord for your servant is listening. I want to encourage you to develop that habit of prayer because it changed my prayer life.

I'll tell you. Because I read a word like pray without seizing in 1 Thessalonians 5 and Jesus said in Luke 18 verse 1, we should pray always. There's no verse in the Bible which says you must pray for 10 minutes or 1 hour or 2 hours.

It says pray always and pray without seizing. I can't be talking to God and telling him all types of things without seizing, but I can be listening without seizing. And you know, you develop this habit of listening, listening, listening, listening, listening during the day.

You will even find over a period of time that God speaks to you at night. You know, you happen to wake up in the middle of the night sometime. Say, Lord, I'm listening. You've got something to say to me.

Why did you wake me up at this time? So it's a very good habit to develop. I want to tell you after I've just enjoyed it. In fact, if you keep listening, God can give you words that you can bless other people with, words of encouragement.

And it's a wonderful thing when you can give to someone. I'm not talking about preaching. I'm just talking about sharing one word to encourage someone in a phone call or in an email or anything. It's a wonderful thing to be always listening.

Reading the Whole Bible and the New Covenant

Just a little practical suggestion on prayer. So, we've spoken a lot in this church about New Covenant. And the reason we emphasize that so much is because hardly anybody emphasizes it. And when we see portions of Scripture which are not being emphasized by others, I believe God needs to have some churches emphasizing those things that are left out.

I look at the whole Bible in picture language, I'd say it's like a jigsaw puzzle or the face of Jesus. I mean, if you have the whole thing there, you see the face of Jesus Christ. I'm only using an illustration, the whole Bible.

And what people have done is there are some people who got favorite subjects from the Bible. And they always pick those favorite subjects. It's just like concentrating on a few pieces of that jigsaw puzzle and many pieces are missing.

So you can't see the face of Jesus clearly at all. Because there are some pieces of this jigsaw puzzle missing completely. So when you read the whole Bible, you say, hey, these are the pieces that's missing.

And so then God raises up people to emphasize those truths which are not emphasized by others. That's how God raised up Martin Luther 500 years ago to preach that salvation is not by giving money in the Roman Catholic Church, but by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

So I want to encourage all of you to read the New Testament. Get into the habit of reading a little bit of the New Testament every day and say, Lord, I want to know you better. I want to learn to love you more and it can make a tremendous difference in your life.

Praying to God Rather Than to Impress People

So what I want to share with you today is the New Covenant prayer with Jesus taught us in Matthew chapter 6. He was telling us how not to pray, first of all, and then how to pray. The first thing he said about we are not to pray, Matthew 6, by the way, verse 5.

He says, when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites. And he's talking particularly about he said they love to stand and pray in the synagogues, in the street corners, to be seen by men or to be heard by men.

So the first thing the Lord tells us about prayer is don't pray to people, to impress people. Now, it's very easy to say that, but to actually come to the place where you pray in public anyway, to pray to God is quite difficult.

At least I found it difficult. I remember the first time I prayed in public as a young man, I was more conscious of the people listening to me. I wasn't praying to Jesus at all. I mean, I knew the words to pray, but I was very conscious a lot of people are listening to me.

And I'd go home and I'd say, Lord, I didn't really pray that to you. I prayed it and made it impressive for people to listen. I don't want to do it like that. And the next time I'd pray in public, again, it was there.

Again, I'd say, Lord, and I'll tell you it took me years, not days, but years to break free from that and say, Lord Jesus, I'm gonna pray to you in public as well. I want to be free from whether people think it's a good prayer or I'm talking to you, and I'm leading everybody in prayer to you.

I want to encourage you to, it will not come overnight. It may take you a few years, but you start today. Lord Jesus, help me to be conscious of you when I pray. And little by little, you know what will happen?

You'll become more and more conscious of the presence of the Lord all the time in your life. And that will make a tremendous difference in your life. That you're conscious of the Lord's presence, and in his presence is fullness of joy.

Your life will be so cheerful and joyful, and all that depression and heaviness that can come through circumstances will disappear, and your life will be like a smooth sailing on a calm sea. So here's something that we can train ourselves to develop.

So he said, don't, a hypocrite is one who's trying to impress people. He said, don't pray like that. It's the first thing he said, we're not to pray. And he says, people who do that, it says in verse 5, they got their reward.

Their reward was, they wanted to impress everybody with their prayer, and everybody was impressed. Sure, they got their reward. That's not why we pray. I'm not saying this to condemn anyone. We all are like that in the beginning, but if you battle it, dear brothers and sisters, you can come to a place, as I said, after a while, where you're more conscious of Jesus than about people, and gradually it moves on to our singing.

So often when we sing, we are more conscious of the song, and the tune, and everybody's singing together. We're not conscious that I'm praying to Jesus in that song as well. Lord, I'm saying something to you.

It completely changes our life when we practice this more and more, that I'm praying to the Lord Jesus, and ask the Holy Spirit to help us. So that's a good lesson for all of us to learn, in praying and singing, to develop the consciousness of Jesus being there, and I'm talking to him, and praying to him, and so in that connection, he said, pray to your father who's in secret, and your father sees in secret, verse 6, will reward you.

Matthew 6, verse 6. When it says, go to your inner room and close your door, I look at it, not just a physical door, that's also there, but in a room like this, when I shut my eyes, I'm closing the door.

And then I'm praying to the Father in secret, because I've shut the door, and I don't want to be conscious of other people here with me in the room. Close the door, and I pray to the Father, and the wonderful thing, when I'm really praying to him, it says, your father will see in secret, and he'll reward you openly.

Avoiding Meaningless Repetition in Prayer

I want to encourage you to take that little phrase, your father will see in secret, and reward you openly. So the other thing he said about not to pray is, one was this, you know, praying in the presence of the Lord.

Secondly, Matthew 6, and verse 7, when you're praying, don't use meaningless repetition. There are some churches where they say, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. It's like a to me, it's a meaningless repetition.

I believe in saying hallelujah, but if you read in Revelation, in chapter 19, they always say hallelujah, because the first time the word hallelujah comes in the New Testament, by the way, in case you didn't know, is in Revelation 19.

Turn there, turn with me for a moment there, because hallelujah is a very common phrase used by Christians, and they'd be surprised to know that it's never used in the New Testament, except in Revelation 19.

And I want to say hallelujah, but I want to say it the way it's written in the Bible. You know, when we align our thinking, not according to what is Christian tradition, or a Pentecostal tradition, but according to the Bible, then it's good to say hallelujah the way the Bible says it.

Turn with me to Revelation in chapter 19. So this is the first time, by the way, in the entire New Testament, that the word hallelujah comes. It doesn't come at all before this. And he says here, in the very first verse, the last part, hallelujah.

Why? Because salvation and glory and power belong to our God, and because his judgments are true and righteous, and he's judged this Babylonian corrupt Christianity, which he calls a harlot here, and he's avenged the blood of his servants.

And then a second time, hallelujah. Again, a reason. Because the smoke of this corrupt Babylonian Christianity is judged as rising up forever. And from the throne, the others also say verse four, amen, hallelujah.

And then again, we find in verse 6, a great multitude towards the end saying, hallelujah, because the Lord our God, the Almighty is reigning. So notice there that it's not an empty hallelujah. Hallelujah means, yah is the short for Jehovah.

Jeh is short for Jehovah or Yahweh. So hallel is praise. Hallelujah is Hebrew for praise the Lord. So you might, if you say praise the Lord in English, that's the same as hallelujah. So why am I praising the Lord?

Yeah, something wonderful has happened. God has sovereignly overruled some situation. There can be all types of things. So what the Lord said in Matthew, turning back to Matthew 6, is don't say something meaningless in prayer.

There are many Christians who develop a habit of saying something and they're not thinking of what they're saying. It's just a, as a ritual, they say, it, what we say must be from the heart. I mean it.

I mean, praise the Lord because He's done something here. Praise the Lord because God is on the throne. Praise the Lord that he's triumphed over the devil in this situation or something like that. It's very good and it's not just in prayer time, you know.

There are many times when I'm alone. I say, well praise the Lord for what you did here, Lord. It's wonderful to see your, when he saves you from some accident. Spontaneous, Lord praise you. I praise the Lord for what you've done.

So don't use meaningless repetition. It's not just in the word hallelujah. There are other things that we can, we think that God will hear us if I say that 20 times. That's what he says here in Matthew 6 verse 7.

The non-Christians, they think, the Gentiles, they think they'll be heard for their many words. If they pray a long prayer, God will hear. It's a lot of rubbish. I mean, God is a father. He's not waiting for a big lecture from you.

Prayer is listening and then speaking to God. And I'll tell you in my, in my prayers, I listen a lot more than I speak. And I'll tell you the reason. Supposing I'm sitting here talking to a man who is a 10 times more godly than me.

I won't talk so much. I'll tell you honestly. I'll say, hey, I got a lot to listen from you, brother. I'd like to hear you. I mean, I may say a few things and if I got one hour, I may speak to him for five minutes and listen for 55 minutes.

I mean, if I'm speaking on a telephone, for example, and you see me speaking for 55 minutes and listening for five minutes, you'll be absolutely sure that the person at the other end of the phone is a young brother.

On the other hand, if you see me on a phone, listening for 55 minutes and speaking for five minutes, you know that the person on the other end is a more godly man than me. So imagine, if you're speaking to God, should you be listening more or speaking more?

You can answer that. Definitely, you should be listening much more. But so many people, it's sitting in the presence of the most of a godly person, let's say a human being, first of all, and you talk, talk, talk, and I can say, okay, bye.

You don't even give a chance to talk. That's how a lot of people pray to God. They're given their big shopping list to God. This is what I want. There's all these things. Okay, in Jesus name, Amen. And that's why our prayer life is so shallow.

Our relationship with God is so shallow. It's like a husband and wife who hardly ever talk to each other. If a wife, the all she tells her husband is, okay, when you come back from work, here's a list of 25 things that you must buy for me when you come back.

And that's all there is every day. A lot of Christian people's prayers like that. There's no expression of, don't you think a wife should express her affection to her husband and say how much she loves him?

And that's how I want it. That's how I do that frequently to Jesus. God already knows my shopping list. I don't have to make a list on that. But what he wants to hear from me is that I really love him, that he means more to me than everything else in the world.

Thankfulness in the Healing of the Ten Lepers

I often think of that story where, you know, the ten lepers, they were healed. You know that story. They cried with a loud voice, Lord heal us. And Jesus said, go and show yourself to the priest. And on the way, before they reached the priest, on the way, they were healed.

And one man, you know the story, it's in Luke 17, one man came back and with a loud voice, he fell at Jesus' feet and said, thank you, Lord. Okay, maybe I should show that to you. So because there's something very interesting there that happens at that time, which you may not have noticed.

Turn with me to Luke's gospel in chapter 17. And verse 11. See, this is, I'm talking about prayer. These lepers were praying. As he entered a village, verse 12, Luke 17, verse 12, ten lepers who stood at a distance met him and they raised their voices.

Notice the phrase, they raised their voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said, go show yourself to the priest. As they were going, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, he said, I have to go back and tell the Lord.

Now, let me assume that they'd already walked about half a mile. Half a mile means what? 10 -15 minutes, they'd already been walking. Or let's say one mile, they'd walked 20 minutes. And they must have thought, no, who's gonna go back and walk another mile back, go and thank Jesus, forget it.

But one man said, no, I'm gonna walk that one mile back and thank the one who, I've been a leper all my life and here this person healed me, you mean I won't go and say thank you to him? He left the other nine and started walking back.

And it's amazing how he went back and again, he fell on his face with a loud voice. Again, verse 15, he prayed with a loud voice and we read in verse 13, and he thanked God with a loud voice as we read in verse 15.

That's wonderful. When I can pray fervently and thank God fervently when the prayer is answered as well. Very often we forget it and that man was a Samaritan. The other nine were Jews and one was a Samaritan.

Samaritan is like the low class, you know, people who are despised and that is the man who thought of thanking God. And the point I wanted you to notice is this, when Jesus saw this, he said in verse 17, weren't there ten people cleansed?

Where are the nine? So my question is this, did Jesus expect the other nine also to come and say thank you? I mean, we teach our children to say thank you when they're three years old. It's just, it is the right thing to do when you get something and particularly if it's something like cleansing from leprosy, that's not like a little gift.

That changes your whole life and Jesus says, where are the nine? It's not because Jesus is waiting there to get thanks. He's not a selfish person saying, hey, I'm waiting for everybody to come and say thank you to me.

Rubbish! Jesus was the humblest man that walked on the earth and humble people don't go around expecting thank you from others. Then I asked myself, you know, for example, I do something for people. I've done lots of things for people, for Christians in the last 50 years of my life and I can tell you most of them are not thankful.

In fact, many of them bite the hand that has fed them for many years. I've had that experience numerous times biting the hand that fed you, but I say that's okay. I don't, I serve the Lord, not people.

But why did Jesus expect these nine lepers to come? Not for his sake. That's the point I want you to see. For their sake, when I am thankful, it makes me a better person. It's not that Jesus gets something when I say thank you to him.

So when the Lord tells us to be thankful, it is for us. We go more outside ourself. When we pray asking for something, we're centered in ourself. I want something. I want something. I want something. But when we say thank you, I'm not gonna get any more by saying thank you.

I'm thinking outside of myself. I need to give God glory. It's a wonderful habit to develop to say thank you Lord for what you've done for me. In fact, every day it says in everything give thanks just to just for the fact that we are alive in the morning when so many hundreds of thousands of people in the world have died.

Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord for small mercies. And so it was Jesus wanted those nine people to be changed. That's why he wanted them to thank. And now you see what happened. Read carefully. When we give thanks, it says in verse 18, we give glory.

One way of giving glory to God is just by saying thank you. Thank you Lord for what you did there. Thank you for this. Thank you. We can keep on thanking him for anything. Thank you for a safe journey or thank you for anything.

That is one way to give glory to God. The other thing I want you to see is Jesus said to this one Samaritan who came, stand up. Your faith Margin of my Bible says has saved you. That's the correct translation.

Your faith has saved you. What did the other nine get? Healing. What did this guy get? Healing plus salvation. Your faith has saved you. So he got something more than the other nine just because he came and said, thank you.

And I've learned that, that people who learn to give thanks to God always end up getting something more than those who just pray. It's really true and very often we miss the best part of our fellowship with God when we don't thank him for what he's done.

I really believe, you know NASB says your faith has made you well, but in the margin of my Bible says literally what Jesus said was he, your faith has saved you. I don't know why they didn't put it in the main text.

But your faith has saved you. Salvation, you got salvation whereas the others only got healing. That's a great example of what a warning of what we can miss when we don't thank God and think of the our past life and the numerous situations in our life where we got something and we didn't thank him.

We missed something there. So if he, that's another habit to change. Lord, I want to develop the habit of thanking you for little things, big things. It'll make a tremendous difference in our life. It'll make our life more cheerful, make us more cheerful in our relationships with other people.

Thanksgiving as the Answer to Anxiety

I want to show you one example of that in Philippians in chapter 4. Philippians chapter 4 almost impossible commands. Philippians 4 6, be anxious for nothing. That means have zero anxiety in your life.

We should have a concern for things, but there's a difference between having a concern and anxiety. For example, if your child did not come back from school at the proper time, they were supposed to come back.

Here, most parents go and pick up their children. In India, children come back on their own. They ride a bicycle or something like that. And if they're supposed to come back at 3 .30, and they don't come back by 3 .30, and they don't come back by 4 .30.

Should you be concerned? Of course. Should you be anxious? No, because the Bible says don't be anxious. I mean if you're not concerned, you're not a good father or mother. You shouldn't be concerned. Hey, what happened?

But to be anxious, to be in a panic, and to imagine that the worst possible things happen? No. Now, how to get rid of it? How to get rid of this anxiety, which will naturally come into our hearts in some situation?

Here's the answer. We're Philippians 4 .6. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication. Means specific request. And with thanksgiving. Notice that phrase. With thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known to God.

So even in a situation that can cause panic, the Lord says, no, don't get anxious now. Take that request to God. Maybe you're not facing it right now. Maybe this is a word that will help you three months from now.

But keep it in mind. Make your requests known to God with specific requests. This is Lord. This is what I'm concerned about. This is the thing that's worrying me now. I want to make it known to you. And when I'm saying thank you, I'm saying, Lord, I believe my request has come to you.

The file is on your table. I've with my request written on it. I want you to answer me. Thanksgiving is the thing by which I say, I believe you've heard me. It's very important when I pray to God, to add thank you.

And when you do that, you made your request known to God. It says the peace of God which surpasses all understanding and comprehension will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. I'm not saying that every single problem in our life will be solved.

We live in a world which is under the curse and because this world is under the curse, there are sicknesses, babies die. There are all types of problems on this earth. People go through losing a job, financial difficulties.

But in the midst of it all, if I follow this principle, our Heavenly Father will do something for us which other people in the world cannot face. See, problems come to all of us because they're all children of Adam.

We are made of dust and the world is under a curse and as long as you live in this world, we face a lot of these problems. I'm not saying that we won't face them. But it's wonderful to have God as our Father that we can take these things to Him and say, thank you Father that you heard me.

Faith in God's Deliverance

It says my mind and my heart will be protected in the Psalms. I want to turn with you to Psalm 34 and Psalm 34 and verse 19. Psalm 34 and verse 19 says, The afflictions of righteous people are many, but the Lord delivers him out of them all, in some way or the other.

It's a great verse for me. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of all of them in some wonderful way. And that's what I see in all the miracles that Jesus' servant is sick, five miles away or ten miles away.

You know the centurion told the Lord that, Lord Lazarus is sick. He's dead now. He's dead for four days. Lord, there are five thousand men and five thousand others, men, women and children, ten thousand people.

There's not enough food. Everything was a prayer. What shall we do? Jesus solved the problem. They cried out. They believed He'd do it. He did it. Now I'll tell you the cases where, there were a few cases where He didn't do it.

Turn with me to Matthew chapter 13. Hometown, that is Nazareth. That's where He grew up. They knew. They had treated Him just like any other man for 30 years. He came to His hometown in Matthew 13 54.

They're wondering, how did He get miraculous powers? All these miraculous, they are here, Mary's other children and his sisters. I don't know how many but at least two. They are here with us. Where did this man get all this power?

And they took offense at Him. They couldn't respect Him because of their unbelief. This is some of the saddest words in the Gospels. Question, did they need a miracle? Did many of them need miracles? Yes.

Did Jesus have the power? Second question, did Jesus have the power to do those miracles? Yes. Chapter 6, where it's written like this, verse 5, Mark 6, you know verse 1, it says He came to His home. There in Matthew 13, it says He did not do it.

They got healed. But He couldn't do many miracles for them. And He wondered at their unbelief. It's a very important thing in the New Testament that you can't get something unless you have faith for it.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God. See that verse in Hebrews 11, don't have faith, it's not, you can't please God. You read the Bible every day. You can't please God because you don't have faith.

It is impossible. Whatever else you may do, you come to the meeting and you are regular at the church services, but you don't have faith. It is impossible to please God without faith. And the devil said, no, you won't die.

Had they doubted God, they didn't believe. Very, very important. Without faith, it is impossible to please Him. And further in that verse, because when you come to God, so the first thing He says, believe that there's a God up there in heaven.

And secondly, believe that He's a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. You must believe that if I seek Him with all my heart, I will find Him. He will answer me. Very often, we don't get an answer because of, we don't really seek Him wholeheartedly.

Seeking God Wholeheartedly

Turn with me to Jeremiah 29. This is one mark of faith. One mark of faith is this. You know, we read it in Hebrews 11. Jeremiah 29 and verse 13. The Lord says, verse 12 first, you will call upon Me, you will pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

Listen, you will call upon Me, verse 12, you will pray to Me, I will listen to you. Jeremiah 29, 12. And you will seek Me, but you will find Me only when you search for Me with all your heart. Not otherwise.

If you don't search for Me with all your heart, you're not going to find Me. You know, brothers and sisters, how much we have missed by not seeking God with all our heart. I've used this illustration.

Supposing you're walking in the dark on a grassy field, and you drop a 10-cent coin. It's all dark. How long will you be searching for it? I don't think you'll search for very long. I can't imagine any of you wasting more than 15 minutes.

15 minutes is a long time looking for a 10-cent coin in the grass. You'd say, forget it. But if you had picked up $100 ,000 from somewhere in cash, maybe from the bank or something, and you went to different places before you went back home, doing different things, and when you get back home, you find, hey, that's missing.

You accidentally left it in one of these five or ten places you visited between the bank and your home. How long will you search for that? 15 minutes? You would search day and night for it. Make a phone call.

Go here. Go there. Go there. Search every place where you went to. And I say many people treat God like a 10-cent coin. They seek for something. They didn't get it. Oh, well, I don't have time to pursue that anymore.

We'll see tomorrow. You wouldn't do that if it was $100 ,000 that you misplaced somewhere. God says, you'll seek me and find me when I'm the most valuable thing in your life. You make God the most valuable person in your life, and he'll turn up for you every time you need him.

That's the secret. Make him the most valuable person in your life. Every time you need him, he'll turn up there. But you treat him casually. Oh, well, I couldn't find him. Doesn't matter. God says, okay.

That is unbelief. So without faith, it is impossible to please him. So these are some things that we must bear in mind when we think of how not to pray. Don't pray with unbelief. I want to say one more thing.

Forgiveness as a Condition of Effective Prayer

Jesus said in Matthew 6 and verse 14. If you forgive others for their transgressions, your Heavenly Father will forgive you. And if you don't forgive others, your Father will not forgive you. Very important.

When I'm praying, I must make sure I've forgiven others. Jesus repeated that. Turn with me. It's a little more clear in Mark chapter 11. It's amazing how Jesus taught his disciples some secrets of prayer.

The reason why many people don't get answers to that prayer. Mark chapter 11 and verse 22. Have faith in God. There are people who ask this question a little earlier. Verse 13. Matthew 11, 13. Mark 11, 13.

Sorry. Mark 11, 13. You know the story. Jesus saw a fig tree and he went looking for fruit. It was not the season for fruit. And he cursed it. Verse 14. May no one ever eat fruit from you again. And people ask me, did Jesus get upset because he didn't find any fruit on the tree?

Can you imagine? You and I wouldn't get upset when you know it's not the season for fruit. It says there it's not the season for figs. So obviously there won't be any figs there. There are only leaves.

Why did he curse it? Jesus never got upset because he didn't get food. He could fast for 40 days. He's not going to be bothered about a few figs. You see the reason. And the next day, it says, that is one day.

On the next, later on in the evening, it says here, when evening came, verse 19, they went to the city and as they were passing by in the morning, the next day, they saw the fig tree which was cursed the previous day, withered up from the roots.

And Peter said, Rabbi, the fig tree which you cursed yesterday is withered up. And Jesus, as it were to say, now I'll tell you why I did it. To teach you to have faith. Have faith in God. That's why he cursed the fig tree.