The Minister's Prayer Life — Paul Washer

I'm the pastor of Christ Reformed Baptist Church, which is a church plant in Charlottesville, Virginia. I first met Paul a couple of years ago here in Virginia. He was preaching at a small independent Baptist church in Forrest, Virginia, Don Rice's church.

And I went to hear Paul preach, and I was impressed, as many people have been, by his earnestness and his passion in preaching the gospel. It was a small congregation, but boy, it was a heavenly experience to be there, to worship together.

And so that was really before Paul's videos and audios went viral, particularly the shocking youth message. And so he wasn't as well known, I guess, in those days. And we arranged at that time for him to also come to Charlottesville and have a weekend where he had a gospel preaching mission there that was very edifying and stimulating.

And just an observation about Paul personally, having spent time with him that weekend. First of all, I think Paul would be the first in line to say that he is a sinner saved by grace, and so we don't want to make much of him.

We want to be like John. We know we must decrease and he must increase. But I will say about Paul, having observed him and knowing that he's a sinful man, I saw a spirit of what the old men used to call disinterestedness in Paul.

Lack of interest in the world and great interest in Christ. And I think that's what probably has been most powerful and encouraging to those of us who are in the ministry and one way the Lord has used Paul's particular gifts.

We've communicated over the last couple of years that every once in a while he would call and say he was praying about coming to Virginia, somewhere along the I -81 corridor, and now that's a reality.

And so as he's here in the Old Dominion with heart cry, and I just want to say, I guess, on behalf of this fraternal, if I may, and also perhaps for other churches and folk in Virginia, that we welcome you to the Old Dominion.

We're praying for blessing, for heart cry, for the ministry that will happen to around the world through the ministry. But then also we are also excited because of any residual blessing that might come by virtue of the fact that this ministry is now based in our area.

And so we look forward to fellowship in the gospel and prayerful support of your ministry. So Paul, come, we hear you gladly.

The Need for a Life of Prayer

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, for your presence, for your smile, favor unto the chief of sinners. Mercy, good portion of your spirit. Father, you know me. Limitations, you have taught me to trust thee, O God.

I love you. I worship you. But your presence is with us. Your presence, life-giving, changing everything it touches. And help us, Lord, in such a way that men will know we have been helped. In Jesus' name.

It is always very difficult for me to come to a place like this. I don't really fit. Comfortable in the bush, mission field. And I don't mean it as a slight. I feel more comfortable, actually, in churches filled with people who have gathered in the name of Jesus but do not know him.

Riddle has forgotten what are better well-read here than I am. And I tell you, did you pray this morning? Do you tarry before the throne of God every day? There is a scary thing to me about this reformed Puritan biblical sovereign grace resurgence.

Do we rejoice in the Puritan piety? Do we know the experience of David Brainerd? Have we cried out all night in the snow, in the woods, exposing ourselves to the elements or whatever may be required? Do we even believe that the presence of God can come into a place and lay every person low?

Do we know the power of the Holy Spirit? Do we know the presence of God in such a way that it seems to literally disintegrate us and then put us back together again? Oh dear brothers, there is so much to be done in this world and the power of the flesh will not accomplish it.

And the power of the intellect will not accomplish what must be done. It is the power of the living God. And I don't understand the mystery. I can't defend the reason. But I know this, that apart from prayer, abiding, enduring, believing was dead as a doorknob with all our diarrhea.

I need God. Sometimes I can't breathe. You remember those times of tarrying in His presence. And you knew God was there. A doctrine that told you He was omnipresent. But that presence of His was manifest in that room with you.

Once that has touched your life, you can't live. I'm not talking about some charismatic experience. I'm not talking about something that was foreign to the fathers, theological fathers that we most love and honor.

Read Edwards. Read Braman. Read Flavin. For a lack of knowledge. You know that. What in this book is supernatural, is it not? Does not come by the wrangling of reason necessarily. It comes also through the revelation of God.

And that is a spiritual matter. Our people perish for a lack of knowledge. They need God's word. But they need the spirit of God to reveal to many that we need the spirit of God to touch our mouths. To touch our hearts.

To touch our lives. As preachers. As pastors. We can't live without this. Oh, that some of you would tear yourself away and go into the woods and not return for a week. That you would climb up one of the mountains from the ground.

Surrender this wrestling until you touch my life. You change your spirit. You've got to know Him. Brothers, I have sometimes jokingly said that when a Jehovah Witness knocks on my door and they say, We're Jehovah Witnesses.

I'll open up the door and say, well, come on in. So am I. And I'll let them talk for about 10 minutes. And I'll say, you're not a witness for Jehovah. You are lying. Now, why do I do it that way? Because I heard a man years and years ago said, I will not allow a cult to steal my name from me.

My heritage. Nor will I allow TV preachers, many of them heretics, and movements to steal the Holy Spirit from me. I will not be afraid of Him. I will not turn in my heritage or my mantle as a man of God, because other people speak falsely with regard to the Spirit of God and His power upon their life.

The Holy Spirit's Power in Acts

And in this book is the book of Acts. And I see in that book mighty works of God. It's not the acts of men, it's the acts of God through men. And I see things that apparently Christ saw that His men needed.

To realize they saw Him resurrected, and yet some still doubted. They were still afraid. And it wasn't until the mighty wind of the Spirit of God blew through them, was poured out. There's so much wrangling today about the text, and we missed the entire meaning of the text.

Yes, we have to look at it correctly to defend ourselves and our flocks from those who would interpret. But at the same time, do not miss the point.

They needed.

They had seen Him die. They had seen Him resurrected. But it wasn't until the Spirit of God was poured out in a Joel, New Testament, New Covenant type way, that they were able to stand and bear witness to this Word.

There is absolutely nothing withheld from God's Beloved, from Christ. There is no spiritual blessing withheld from you. There is no measure of His presence that He will deny you, but you have not. You're carried by another.

If I'm saying something, you need. Some of you are so worried, and will even say, when you leave this building, well, He didn't even open up His Bible until the first 15 minutes. Can't you not hear that God is speaking?

Biblical things are being told to you at this moment. I am not a great systematic theologian. I know my limitations. I am not a scholar. I will not stand in seminaries, and I so appreciate men who do.

If it weren't for them, I don't know where the direction of my life would have gone. I so need brilliant men. I am not one of those. But the one thing I can tell you is that all the thinking, for men to even be able to grasp with their mind, it must be a thing of Ezekiel to have these dead bones live.

You see, we are to be scholars, be businessmen, and administrators. We are to have the power of words to tempt men from the tent. They need Christ formed in them. They need to reach the full stature of Christ.

And that requires knowledge. Again, our people perish because of a lack of knowledge. But, oh, my dear God, lift up your pants and show me your knees. Was Paul not an intercessor? Was he not? Oh, my dear brother, listen to me.

Prayer as Spiritual Warfare and Intercession

Impossible. In prayer, there is nothing impossible. Besetting sins in their life. And they think that literally that's the way it's just always going to be. Content with slavery. Their knees are caught until they're delivered from that sin.

We preach, and we preach, and we preach, and we preach, and we preach. But where is the demonstration of power? Yes, men are changed through preaching. But have you ever seen men changed through your prayer life?

And hit your knees and fought and fought and wrestled and Christ is formed in them. And you saw a maturity and a glow and a life that was absolutely unexplainable apart from the power. Most ministers today have sold their ministry to Fifth Avenue.

And to marketing. And to culturally sensitive business models of church. It's absolutely pathetic. But don't sell your ministry to mere scholarship. You are a man of in-sacred prayer. Secret prayer. Even that statement set some of you trembling and frightened.

Will you go off on us? Is he really not of our camp? Is he a little bit too, well, given to experience? Again, go back and read those old books of yours. Amen. Find those men. We are more than administrators.

We are more than mere men who dwell in the presence of the Most High. Every conflict in your life. Every brokenness in your body has one purpose. It's to send you to your knees. There's no battle fought in this culture.

The thing is done in prayer. I want you to look for a moment. Let's just, verse 1. We have a parable to show them that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart. Do you know, women today, even among ministers, they say, Well, I don't really have a specific time of prayer.

I just kind of pray all the time. I do not believe them. Because I have learned that practicing the presence of God and practicing prayer is a learned discipline. It comes from tarrying with your God.

What else would you want to do? What other greater privilege has been granted you than to tarry with God? You say, we ought to pray all the time. But how do we learn to practice the presence of God? How do we learn to pray all the time?

I submit to you, it is by the discipline of a separated prayer life. Of getting up in the morning or day. Come to believe that in fighting this battle, One of the best things for me to do is this. To discover what my flesh most hates.

And do that first. Before I weaken or distract it. To get up in the morning and I will tell you this. My flesh hates prayer more than Bible study. Because Bible study can actually be used for my glory.

I can know more than others. I can speak better than others. If I study well, I will be able to speak at conferences. But no one will know about my life of prayer. I will gain nothing from men, but I will gain much from God.

My flesh hates. Another thing just for you young ministers. We are never to be anxious. It is funny to me that men who believe so much in the sovereignty of God. Would actually be anxious. But I wake up sometimes in the morning anxious.

The devil uses those things as distractions. It may be some imaginary thing causing me anxiety. It may be just a little problem, but it begins to eat at my mind. So the first thing in the morning, what do I do?

Philippians 4. I am anxious for nothing. So what must I do? Take that anxious thought, whatever it is. And go to God with it immediately. And clear my mind of all anxiety. Now I stand before a sovereign God.

Prayer, Preaching, and the Minister's Dependence on God

And I am fully convinced of it. Everything. There is a sense of being carried in preaching. Where you almost, it seems as though. You don't even know what direction you are being drug into. Again, not to say we are not to be expositors.

We need to be better expositors. I need to be a better expositor. But, you can have every T crossed, every I dotted. And there is no power. You know what I am talking about. You have seen men wax eloquently.

And yet your soul was not moved. Nothing was dealt with in regard to your conscience. A parable. Specifically to let men know that they should always pray. A parable is built around this. With one purpose.

That you would always pray. And the Lord is not here preaching something He did not practice. The incarnate God was man of prayer. Isn't it amazing that no one ever walked up to Jesus and said, Jesus teach us to preach.

No. They didn't say, Jesus teach us to walk on water. But they did say, Lord teach us to pray. So many people said, oh if I could do anything I would see Paul preaching on Mars Hill. If I could do anything I would see my Lord interceding.

I would see my Lord interceding. It says that the heart of man was not a factory. We can make expository things to be cherished. Compared to him they are rubbish. Then he says, in verse 2 he says, in a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man.

Now what are we seeing here? He is putting before us a person who is the anti-type of God. Compared to God he is completely at the opposite end of the spectrum, isn't he? He doesn't fear God. He doesn't respect man.

There is no virtue in him. You can just picture this man. A greedy, miserly man with a narrow spirit and a small heart who is consumed by self and self-promotion. And there was a widow in that city. Now, please understand, widows at that time, like still in some places in the third world, is the most destitute, helpless person on the face of the earth.

There is no one as destitute as she except for maybe her child. No help, no economic power, no social power, no political power, no power whatsoever. If she dies in the street, the only word the public will be, how do we get her body from us, her, to some place where we no longer have to see her rotting corpse?

She has nothing. Then it says, there was a widow in that city and she kept coming to him saying, give me legal protection from my opponent. For a while he was unwilling, but afterward he said to himself, even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection.

Otherwise, by continually coming, she will wear me out.

Literally, she will hit me under the eye.

It's a type of word used when two boxers are fighting and one beats the other half to death and the one is just bruised. This woman is tenacious, utterly tenacious, and the only reason that this miserly, horrid man gives in to her is because she keeps coming,.

She keeps coming, she keeps coming.

He can't take it anymore. She wrestles with him. Now, verse 6, and the Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge said. Now, he's going to tell us exactly what all this parable is about. So many times people get confused in parables because they look for meaning absolutely everywhere in the parable.

They find little minute things and nuances, but a parable, I believe, although it can teach many things, is always given to drive home one central truth. And he's going to reveal that to us right now.

He says, and the Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge said. Now, what did he say? He said, this is what I'm wanting you to learn about your Christian life, about prayer. Listen to what the unrighteous judge said.

Listen to him. Because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection. Otherwise, by continually coming, she will wear me out. And then he goes on in verse 7. Now, will not God bring about justice for his elect who cry to him day and night, and will he delay long o 'er them?

Persevering Faith in God's Sovereignty

One thing I appreciate about Charles Spurgeon, you would put it today, either sovereign grace, or formed. 1689, he was right there in the middle. But when Spurgeon came to a text, he just preached the text.

And he did not try to reconcile it with some other doctrine in order to supposedly protect that doctrine. It's like trying to protect our doctrine from the Scriptures. That God is absolutely sovereign over absolutely the foundation of the earth.

And that has gotten me in more problems, that belief, than any other thing. Scriptural, and yet at the same time. And I have not been called to explain it. Along with so many other great doctrines of Scripture.

Rather than spend my few years on this planet trying to supposedly reconcile everything in my mind, I would just as soon be obedient to the simple truth. To hold on to a sovereign God, apart from which there is no hope for man, universe, or the full orb of creation.

I will hold on to that. And it is my security and my strength, and the only means I have of knowing that prayer can be answered. And yet in this great mystery that goes so far beyond my mind,.

To do before my God,.

What this widow did before this terribly unjust man, Jacob. He wrestled with God. Until you bless me. There is some way God gets the light out of that. There is some way in which God is joyful in wrestling with His people.

Enough to ask, and ask, and ask, and ask. He says in verse 8, I tell you, that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith, or the faith, on the earth.

Now, I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. And yet when we go through the book of Psalms, where if you want to learn how to pray, begin with the Lord Jesus Christ. And then go to Psalms and the Apostle Paul.

You will learn how to pray. When we go to the book of Psalms, we discover something that seems to contradict this. He says that the Lord will answer quickly. The Lord will deliver quickly. And yet when we go to the book of Psalms, we are told David is waiting day and night.

It's the cry of David. It's the cry of the prophets. And there's this waiting. There's this enduring. This is wrestling. Persevering in prayer. How does this work? It's in Scripture. And how common it is.

You cry out to Him, and there is delay. You persevere, and there is delay. And you keep crying out to God. Delay, after delay, after delay. But when He does, the matter is settled in a few seconds. As in the battle of Midian that was associated with the coming of the Messiah.

As in that battle, you do not live to break a jar, but it is His own doing. Learn this lesson. When you see a supernatural, miraculous deliverance wrought by true prayer, when it occurs, you will see it.

You will know that it was God, and you will rejoice in Him. But then, not the next day, not even the next week, probably not even the next month, but within a year or two, here's what will happen. The deceiver will come, and he will hint to you, you know, you were young then, when you thought God did something miraculous.

But the thing can be explained entirely by natural means. Have you ever seen that happen? You will see God work a great miracle among you, and then He always waits because He's so astute. A few years down the road, He begins to convince you that that was just youthful zeal, fanaticism, all explained naturally.

That is why when God did great acts of deliverance to Israel, He would tell them, pile up a bunch of rocks, write down the story. Never, never, never forget.

The thief comes to steal.

Even the testimony of God from us. You know, some of you have been in the ministry longer maybe than I have been alive. You know the great works of God. And some of you have forgotten them, and you need to go back, and you need to remember, so that the next time a deliverance is demanded, you know you serve God who delivers men, who delivers His people.

Will He find faith? The faith. If it perseveres, will He find it on the earth? You know, I don't want to be too dramatic about this or read something into the text, but it's almost as if at this moment, the disposition or attitude of our Lord changes.

It's almost as though He's saying, listen to me now. Fellowship with a God who answers prayer. You ask anything in my name. And then stops for a moment, a pensive moment, and says, but then again, when I come back, will anybody be believing what I have said?

I can tell you how much you believe. How much do you ask? How much do you persevere? Men, is it not true in your own lives that you have wrangled in the flesh and you have struggled and you have worked and you have been sincere and you have fought and fought and fought in your own strength and could do nothing and then finally driven to prayer and it took so little prayer actually for the matter to be resolved.

Well, the last meal, the only recourse we have now is to pray. What a blasphemous, dirty state. You go to the closet expecting, expecting. Here is a problem that I want to deal with and I am so sorry.

I was actually going to preach on 1 Corinthians 15, but I want us to go for a minute and look in chapter 11 of Hebrews. I want to resolve something, at least in my childlike, simple way of thinking, this has been resolved in my mind.

Faith Grounded in God's Word

In verse 1, Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Now this text is book worthy. Several books could be written on this. It has. But it is so wise because the question, we are led to ask this question, how can I have assurance for what I hope for?

And how can I have conviction about what I have not seen? Because you are all rightly afraid of the great majority today of those who claim Christ, who presume upon Him. They are demanding, presuming, guaranteeing things that they have no right to guarantee.

We know that. But I sometimes say this, I think the charismatics believe things God has never promised. The reformed guys don't even believe what He has promised. Brothers, I could come here, it wouldn't be any good for you for me to do some theological treatise.

You know more than I do. So just bear with this for a while. This is maybe what you need to hear. Do you know, I discovered several years ago, I listen at times to men like John Piper and I read Ian Murray is my favorite of the modern day guys.

I love John Flagle, his first volume. Spurgeon is my all-time favorite. But you know after a while you begin to discover something. I really am not discovering anything really new. Even though these men say it in such a great way.

But you know I was in a conference a few years ago. And before I was to speak, they asked for six new converts to come up and share their testimonies. They had been saved for six months to a year. And when they got up, I didn't learn anything new.

But I remembered so many things I had forgotten. Their zeal. Their childlike faith. Their passion. Yes, they were sometimes seeing God as those who see animals in clouds. Animals that aren't there. Yes, sometimes they were doing all sorts of foolish things.

But weren't those times, weren't they wonderful? You were believing God. It was new. It was fresh. It wasn't just contained in some thesis. It was a vital relationship. Maybe that's why God sent me here today.

So that someone with a balcony more like a new believer would address you. Who knows so much more. To return. I'm not afraid of making mistakes in my prayer life. Because I serve a God of grace. But here's something amazing about this passage.

He says, now faith is the assurance of things hopeful. The conviction of things not seen. Now how can we do this? How can we have assurance? Conviction about things not seen. There's only one way. The Word of God.

The Word of the Living God. The Bible. My body hurts most of the time. My right hand right now is numb. I've got problems in my spine, in my neck. And for years the Lord has not healed me. Nor do I suppose.

I don't even really want Him here. So much has been reaped from my maladies. So many blessings. But He never promises in Scripture.

To specifically heal Paul Washer. He can.

And He does heal people. But in that great mystery and wisdom of His He doesn't heal everyone. And I'm content with that because my Lord knows. He knows what we need. Even before we ask Him. But I do have great assurance for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

I'm going to swing out of His web based upon that with no fear. You see, so we have great conviction and we have great hope. Why? Because He thus saith the Lord. Yes. But now here comes the problem at least in my mind.

Praying According to God's Promises

Well then Lord, how do I pray for someone who is sick? How do I do that by faith? There are certain things that my renewed heart and my desire is because there are many things that are not specifically promised in this book.

Now, I know what so many people have heard is a cliché that I do not like. God always answers prayers. Just sometimes the answer is no. I do not like that. I do not agree with it. And I think that it leads to some misunderstandings.

Now, here's what I want you to see. For all those things that are great promises in the Scriptures, brothers, sisters, pray those promises. Pray them. The promises with regard to spiritual growth. I mean, Ephesians 1 in itself, pray that for your wife.

In 1 Timothy 3, for an elder or immature man in the church, pray that for your pastor. This is the way I can pray by faith. And it's found in Hebrews 11 verse 6. And without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him.

My faith is not that God is going to do the specific thing I ask Him. Now, I know you think the alternative is, yes, He may say no. No, I don't believe that. God may not do the specific thing I ask Him, but He will reward the faith.

He will do. There will be benefits for seeking God in the matter. If I see a saint that is ill, I have one of the men I most admire on this planet right now is dying of pancreatic cancer. I am asking God to heal that man.

I am begging God to heal that man. Why? Because it's what I desire. Being in sovereignty, healing. But here's what I know. That if God does not heal him, He will reward it. He will give the important that he needs.

Praying by the specific will. Is this perfect, my asking? How am I in principle? No, I don't have to. I go with the desires of my heart. I petition my God for what I see in Scripture, for what is in my own heart.

And I know that even if, even if the thing I desire is not the thing to be given, I know that God will. And there will be decisions made in the heavenlies. There will be things done.

And there will be benefit from that seeking of His face. So now I see this. God answers prayer.

It's always yes. He may not do in His wisdom what I am asking. But if I trust in Him, if I trust in Him, I know that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him. God, I come to you. We're starting a church in Radford.

God, I come to you. I've prayed about you raising up elders. I've prayed about this. I don't really know which one ought to come first. I don't know how to handle this situation. Lord, just know, I plant myself at your doorstep.

I look up to you.

And I stay here. Even if I do not know.

Specifically what to ask you, I stay here as a sign that I am utterly dependent upon you. And I believe that even though I ask you, others will seek you. Power. Now you see how wrangling and wrestling with God and yet full confidence in His sovereignty.

Recovering Prayer in the Pastor's Life

Brothers,.

There are John Pipers.

And there are John MacArthurs and these people. It's not scary to run away. Your problem is not that you're too weak. Your problem is you're too strong. Study Greek. Study Hebrew. Study systematics. Study church history.

Read the old books. The old books. The old books. But you need life. You need life. Would it seem strange to you for a man to sense a weakness in himself and to separate three or four days or two weeks?

Would it seem strange to you for a problem to rise up in the church that in rather than tackling it just all at once in our own wisdom, you might separate time to pray, to wrestle with God in a minute.

Or even if you were asked a question to give an answer that you would say, may I have time to pray? Oh, brothers. Brothers, your inheritance, it's not lands and it's not cars and it's not fine homes. It is to dwell in the court of God above everything.

You are men who dwell in the court of God. The sweet hour of prayer that calls me from a world of terror. They've not given themselves much to pray. They said, how should I pray? I said, pray, fight until you can honestly say with that hymn writer, sweet hour of prayer.

I will give the Lord my first hour. Sweet hour. And then, you see, praying is an amazing thing in that the less you pray, the more difficult it becomes to pray. The more you pray, the more you care. You can pray until you think, what has happened to the time?

It's already 8 .30. There's things that will happen. ...may not be post-millennial where everything is just going to get greater and greater. It may be. Your post-millennial eschatology may be that things are just going to get worse and worse and worse until Jesus comes.

Let me tell you something. Jesus could come back tonight. Jesus may come back in post-millennial. Didn't they? ...going to do something. ...of your eschatology. Unless you've got a word, most of us know about our eschatology.

...the darkness could not overcome it.

Regeneration and the Conversion of Men

God's demonstrations, if not the greatest demonstration.

In all of time,.

Is not the creation of the world, but the creation of a new man. The work of regeneration, which has been lost in our time, is the most powerful demonstration of the power of God. He made this world...

But He creates a man anew from a mass of depraved humanity. Why would I not believe that God wants to demonstrate such power in the conversion of men? ...for the conversion of men. Establishment of biblical churches.

Let's fight on our knees. And let's believe God. Let's believe Him. There's so much... ...taking up too much time. Beware of only praying with your boots on. This, years ago, something, a statement that was made by Alexander McLaren, actually.

He talked about, in his study, he wore his boots. And that got me to thinking, he was talking about what? That preparation for preaching is hard work. But then I began to think, must I always... ...with my boots on.

Must I always come to God with my boots on? The point I'm trying to make is that if the Bible becomes only exegetical work for you, and the only time you approach it is with your boots on, you are in danger of losing a relationship.

So I come to the Word with my boots on. But when I've wrangled with the text to pull my boots off and walk with it, to delight in it, it's just about to enjoy the Bible. It is not a riddle book to delight in the Word of God.

Intercession and Communion with God

It's the same way with prayer. Yes, let me tell you something. Intercessory prayer is hard work. Don't let anyone kid you. Most people do not pray because they think that it's easy for some people to pray.

No. Intercession is hard. And that is praying with your boots on, and you must do that. But if all you do is pray with your boots on, you are in danger of losing a relationship. To walk with Him. To just walk with Him.