Enjoying Your Prayer Life

Prayer as the Chief Exercise of Faith

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. I'm David Roth here. This Friday, March 14th, beware the Ides of March.

Not quite.

St. Patrick's Day in New England is a pretty big deal. When is that, Sunday? I think I'm busy on Sunday. You can write me, mike, at nocompromiseradio .com. Don't forget, we have a YouTube channel that's up.

We lost our YouTube channel. Now, we've got a new one. So, that was the Lord's doing for losing the last one. What are we going to talk about today? Today, we're going to talk about prayer. That's right, prayer.

Now, I've been going through James, as you know, the book of James on Sunday morning. So, it spills over into NoCo world, where I talk about the same topic, maybe in the same passage, but a different format, different way, because it's just in my mind, and I want to kind of express myself and see if I can talk about it, thinking myself clear on the radio.

That's what I do. And you say, well, you're not really radio. You're just a podcast. True, but we are on a radio outlet in Alaska, Wyoming, and Belize, three places. We started off on WVNE here in Worcester, Mass.

And after three or four years, we just decided not to pay the 12, 15 grand a year. Good thing, because I think our Patreon giving, is there a couple hundred dollars a month? Thank you for our Patreon folks.

And it just, if it was 2 ,000, 1 ,000, maybe we could be back on the radio, but not asking for money. Just stating the facts. That's a fact, Jack. Today, the prayer section is found at the very end of the book of James, James chapter five.

And he says, is any among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any one cheerful? Let him sing praise.

That's prayer.

Is any one of you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up.

If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed fervently that it might not rain. And for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and heaven gave rain and the earth bore its fruit.

Enjoying Prayer by Focusing on God

Today, we're going to talk about prayer. Now, I just read a little book that you should read and that little book is by Michael Reeves and it's called, I don't know, Enjoy Your Prayer. Enjoy Your Prayer Life.

Great little book, you ought to get that. Maybe I should have him on sometime to talk about it. Really, really good, easy to read, helpful. And it starts off discussing John Calvin's Institutes where he calls prayer, quote, the chief exercise of faith.

Prayer's a way that faith expresses itself, Reeves would say. So you believe in a God you can't see. You believe that he's a good father. You believe that he answers prayer. You believe that Jesus is alive.

And so the chief exercise of faith is prayer because you're praying to someone you can't see. You're asking someone that, you know, is omniscient to help you, omnipotent to help you. And Reeves goes on to say that our prayer life reveals how much we want communion with God and do we really depend on him.

Okay, I think that's really good. And here's what he said that I especially want to convey to you today. When you default to thinking of prayer as an abstract activity, a thing to do, the tendency is to focus on the prayer as an activity, which makes it boring.

So I have to do something. I've got to pray. I thought I said that to myself today, I've got to pray. Instead, Reeves says on page 20, small little booklet, focus on the one to whom you're praying, reminding yourself who you're coming before is a great help against distraction and changes the prayer.

Very, very good. Okay, I have to pray. That's true, there are commands in the Bible to pray. But if you believe what Reeves says, and I think you should, instead of the activity, think about the one to whom you're praying.

I'm praying to this God who creates with the word. I'm praying to this God who says to pray and I'll answer you, seek. I'm praying to this God that is a father. He's a great father to me. It's not a thing to do.

It's the person to whom I'm praying. So today on No Compromise Radio Ministry, I wanna talk a little bit about prayer in light of that, in light of focusing on the one to whom you're praying. Sound good?

Prayer in Suffering, Praise, and Spiritual Weakness

So what he says is he says, well, if things are going hard, you're suffering, let him pray. Let him come to the one who is the great God.

Pray.

If you've got any kind of problem, any kind of suffering, any kind of issue, I want you to pray. I want you to set your mind on things above. I want you to think about who I am and tell me your troubles.

Tell me your trials. Now, on the other side of the spectrum, we have some great joys on this earth. Even though this is in heaven, we have some great joys. And if you have any great joys or you're cheerful, let him sing praises.

Are you cheerful? Well, singing praise is prayer. You're praising God. There are certainly psalms of praise, prayers of praise. Let him sing. This is where we get the word psalm.

That's the song.

Oh, things are hard. There's a God who cares for me and I need to ask him for things. He's a friend.

He's kind.

He will listen. He can do something about it. He doesn't like to see me suffer. He has sovereign purposes, but I'm supposed to go to him. And if you're really happy about something and cheerful, who gave you those great things?

Oh, the Lord.

So you just go to him and say, I'm thankful. Thank you for these great things. I can rejoice. I'm sad when I come to you, Lord. I'm happy I come to you. And I've got a song of praise in my mouth. I'm exercising faith as I pray.

I want to be having communion with you and enjoy you and to be dependent on you and to not think I'm just have to pray, but you're the one I get to pray to. Then he says, is any among you sick? Now this word sick means physically sick, emotionally sick, spiritually sick.

What does it mean here? 14 out of 18 times, according to my reckoning, it has to do with spiritual weakness. And so I think it should be translated, is any among you weak?

Spiritually weak.

Why do I think it's that? Well, because of the word, but also hear the context. If you're sick, let him call for the elders of the church. Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

And the prayer of faith will save the one who is, yes, he says sick, but the sick, but this is a different word. This is exhausted. And the Lord will raise him up. And if he's committed sins, he'll be forgiven.

So what's happening here? Well, if you're suffering, pray. If you're cheerful, pray, praise. And if you're spiritually weak, call the spiritually strong. Call the spiritually strong. He goes on to say, does he not?

A little bit later in verse 16, the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. And so if you can't pray, you're too tired to pray, tired spiritually, weak spiritually, you don't know what to do.

You're having one of those kind of crisis times in your life where you're just down and out spiritually. And that means you're weak spiritually. You're defeated. You call those who are walking by the spirit.

You call those who are strong. You call those who can come and help you. So you call the elders and they come and pray for you. Now, a lot of stuff has been talked about when it comes to the oil and anointing, but really the key issue is prayer.

It's the context of prayer. It's the main verb is prayer. And the anointing is secondary to the prayer. Now there are different ways to take a look at this verse, but my view is simple. The word weak, the word sick, the word is they're spiritually struggling and weak.

Much better translation than sick, I think. They're exhausted. That's the other way to translate sick later on in verse 15. And so you call for people who are strong and they pray for you and they anoint you.

Now the word anointing, it could be like medicinal anointing where you rub somebody with oil, like a masseuse would, or it's symbolic, kind of dabbing on your forehead and on your cheeks or, you know, making the sign of the cross type of anointing.

And this one is not like the regular anointing. This is not the spiritual anointing. This is like rubbing. And so you work through it and you go, wait a second, what's happening here? Why would there have to be oil involved?

Is this medicinal oil because they used oil for somebody who's really sick physically and this can help them? Well, I guess if that's your view, that's what seemed to make some sense. But if your view is they're spiritually weak, spiritually sick, spiritually exhausted, can't really pray for themselves, they call for the elders to pray for them.

Here's what one of my old professors said. It is more adequate to say that the anointing is for the purpose of symbolizing tangibly the setting apart of the man to miraculous healing work of God. It would be an aid to his faith by prompting a sense of expectation.

Jacob anointed the stone at Bethel to identify it as symbolizing the house of God. When he poured oil upon it, it was not to make it well. Being set apart for God's special attention and care. Another commentator said, the anointing stimulated the faith of the sick person.

Jesus sometimes called the sick aside for private conversation and touched them before healing them. Once before healing a deaf and mute man, he put his fingers on his ears, spat and touched his saliva to the man's tongue.

And so what we have is a little object lesson. You could just pray and God will work, but to try to help the weak person who's not really exercising faith, we're gonna give him some sight. And that sight is going to be some oil, tactile, sensual, touching, seeing, feeling.

And so we're gonna set you apart with this oil and we're gonna pray over you. And the prayer of faith will save the one who's exhausted or worn out. And the Lord will raise him up. And if he's committed sins, he will be forgiven.

And the prayer to offer in faith will restore the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up. When was the last time you did that? Have you ever done that? Now, as I've preached James, oh, several times since I've been here, I think I've only had one person ever say to me, you know what, I'd like to have the elders come.

And this particular man had prostate cancer. That's before I had my prostate cancer. I should have been nicer to him. I was nice, but no one knows what it's like until you actually hear those words. You have prostate cancer.

But anyway, he came to me, so it was not like he'd call for us. He came to me to talk about it. So it was more of physical sickness. So I don't think this was really regarding that. And I walked through it and I said, and if I'm wrong, if it's regular physical sickness, then I'm happy to do it for you, but let me just tell you what I think.

So after I gave him my explanation, he said, no, I think you're right.

We won't do that.

Spiritual restoration. And certainly then that man can confess his sins. And then that man will be forgiven for those sins, right? Committed sins, they will be forgiven. And of course this spiritual weakness, spiritual sickness, spiritual exhaustion, I think does have to do with sin.

There are other factors, but the person can't blame others, can't blame society for some of these things.

That he's going through.

So he just confesses those sins. And of course, God is faithful and just to forgive us those sins. And so then he says, confess your sins to one another, pray for one another that you may be healed.

That's just the way this goes.

It's just this general thing. Talking about this particular man who's spiritually weak, he asked for the elders to pray. The elders use a little bit of sight things with the oil, and then he confesses his sins.

He's forgiven, of course.

And so by the way,.

It's a good thing to confess your sins one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed. Why? Because the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. We confess our sins.

He's faithful and just to forgive us. We confess our sins to one another when we sin against another. And if you're really spiritually weak and you need to say to the elders, I'm involved in pornography, then you say that to them because they can help you.

Mike Ebenroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry. I think it was Luther who said he'd confess his sins to a priest under two conditions. That if he's personally sinned against him or his first name was one and his last name was another.

Oh, sin is always a sin against God, against you and that you only have I sinned and done what's evil in your sight so that you are justified when you speak and blameless when you judge. That's Psalm 51, four.

Sometimes we sin against other people. So you just confess it. That's all. You confess it. When you confess your sins to God, that's part of prayer too, isn't it? Not. And prayer really works. I mean, sometimes my faith is so small, I don't know if it really works like it should.

I mean, I know theologically it does. I can read, but I'm talking about deep down in my heart. And then you begin to read the Old Testament. You think Joshua prayed and the son stands still. Elijah prays and the widow's son is resurrected.

Elisha prays and the Shunammite's son was resurrected. Hezekiah prays, not 1 ,000 Assyrians killed, but 185 ,000 Assyrian soldiers killed. The church prays, Peter, out of prison. It makes me think we should pray more.

Effective prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much. Okay, well, I'm not an elder. Will God listen to me?

Of course.

The prayer of a righteous man or woman is powerful and effective. Of course the Lord is going to hear you because he loves you. He sent the son to die for you. Jesus is making intercession for you. The spirit of God is praying for you when you're too weak to know what to say.

This is a righteous prayer and it's a fervent prayer. It performs its work. I found some other examples of answered prayer in the Bible. Abraham prayed and God gave him a son. Moses prays, Israel redeemed out of Egypt.

Gideon prays, defeats the Midianites, 300 men. Hannah prays, God gave her Samuel. David prays, God gave him a kingdom. John prays, Elijah prays, Paul prays, Solomon prays. Solomon prayed for wisdom and what did the Lord do?

Gave him wisdom. I love Colossians 4 .12 about this effective righteous prayer. Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bond slave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers.

It's a labor, it's earnest. Jeremiah 29, then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. And of course we see the demonstration of prayer's power with Elijah. He was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed fervently.

That's a tie in to that earlier verse in verse 16, that it might not rain. And for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth. And he prayed again and heaven gave rain and the earth bore its fruit.

Jesus’ Example of Prayer

Now, every one of these things that we've been talking about in the book of James, it's like, okay, this is what we're supposed to do. This is a family code is to pray. And by the way, Jesus prayed on earth.

In the morning, what was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went away to a secluded place and was praying there, Mark one. Luke five, Jesus himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.

Luke nine, it happened that while he was praying alone, the disciples were with him and he questioned them saying, who do the people say that I am? Matthew 26, Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane and said to his disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray.

And the list goes on and on and on and on. Finally, James ends. My brothers, verse 19 and 20, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

I think the ESV study Bible is right here. This is a closing section and it's a summary. So if you know someone that is struggling with anything in the book of James, counting it all joy, blaming God in temptation, not being a doer of God's word, someone who's partial, somebody that has a bad tongue, somebody that has bad wisdom, somebody that's complaining, somebody that doesn't think about the future with God in mind, whatever, doesn't pray.

Here, James is saying, help. Help those people. Go to them. Come alongside of them. You're a family. Brothers, if you've got a brother who's hurting, you go help the brother. If any among you strays from the truth, get the word planet, strays, kind of cockeyed, goes awry.

Well, then you want to help. Wander from the truth. What truth is that? The truth that's in the book of James. Love God and love neighbor. And you turn them back. You help them with repentance and confession.

We're our brother's keeper. Are we not? There's a corporate responsibility. And we're to know that when we do that, here's a promise. This is encouraging. This is comforting. This is good for us to know.

Let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death. I mean, sometimes there's a sin that leads to death. Is there not? We're concerned. We come alongside. It's not that Christians are going to pay for sins.

In hell, that's already been taken care of. But the point is we're to be concerned about other people. And so we come alongside.

Wow.

That's an interesting way to end the book, is it not? I mean, John, the way he ends first, John, his little children, keep yourself from idols. Watch out. Here, hey, here's a book of 54 imperatives. And if you know somebody that's not doing these things, come alongside and help them.

Come alongside and help them. As a matter of fact, some of the people who say they're Christians and they're not, that's the ultimate salvation and soul from death. We'll cover a multitude of sins. Let's see what the ESV study Bible says.

Here on verse 20. Not physical death, but spiritual death. Timely intervention will save his soul and bring forgiveness from God. The person who saves a sinner in this case is the person who restores the one who's fallen.

Ultimately, of course, only the Lord saves a person. The one who restores the person will cover the many sins of the one who is strayed. For the one who returns from the way of error receives forgiveness.

And again, only God can cover sin, but Christians can be agents of God's forgiveness. Do you think that is right? Do you think that's right? ESV study Bible also says the style of James is abrupt. There's no concluding greeting as in most New Testament letters.

Instead, James calls the community to action in helping those who have fallen into the ethical sins dealt with in the book. Therefore, this closing section acts as a summary of various sins and their solutions.

So I think if you want to think about this clearly, there are believers and unbelievers here in this section as we think about body life. So if there are believers that aren't obeying these things, come alongside and help them.

Sins will be covered. And this is my brothers, they're among you. And this could include people that are among the church that aren't believers. And if you show them their sin and you show them the mercy of God, and they believe there will be a multitude of sins covered.

So I think both are here. He says, my brothers to talk to the church, if any among you, and that could either be profession or possession. So my name is Mike Ebendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry.

That is it for the book of James. Someone said, if you wish to know how to be saved, read Paul. But if you wish to know how to save should live, read James. I think that's a good word. My problem is going to be Sunday.

How do I get through all this? If I had any sense at all, I would not have any notes. I'd just get up there and preach. If I had any sense at all, but I don't usually have any sense.

I don't have sense.

I'm trying to think what's happening just back from Reformed Baptist Church in New York City, Providence Reformed Baptist Church on 62nd Street meets at the Rock Church. If you're in the city, that's a good place to go.

I'd tell you that's a wonderful church. We have a ladies conference at our church. Matter of fact, I should be promoting this and I have not been. So let me promote it right now. True Womanhood Conference at Bethlehem Bible Church, March 28th at 6 .30 PM and March 29th at 8 AM, $25 a person.

That includes continental breakfast, lunch and snacks, dessert, conference materials, Cedarville professors, Joy White and Erin Shaw will teach True Womanhood in the home, church and community.

How about that?

Sounds good.

Mike Abendroth, No Compromise. Radio Ministry. Talk to you soon.