When to Pray

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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May 23, 2019

00:04: We're going to be today in James chapter 5.
00:07: We're pushing hard to the end, but we may only have this week and next week depending on how much we get through this week as our study.
00:23: We'll see how today goes.
00:25: If we get through today, verses 13-18, we're in James 5, if we get through verses 13-18, then we will only have one more message, and then I've got to figure out where we're going next.
00:41: Anybody got any suggestions? What do you want me to teach? Hebrews? I'm going to go with no.
00:49: Three years in Hebrews at my church.
00:53: Ephesians maybe? I think Brother Mark did Ephesians recently.
01:01: Let me think.
01:03: Now, I want to hear, I do want to hear your thoughts, I just, I have to think about what I'm prepared to do.
01:10: Yes, sir.
01:11: You know how they called me back in the ancient days? They Hebrew'd it.
01:19: I think the set up is, that's why women should expect their men to make coffee, because the Bible says Hebrews.
01:29: That's the set up.
01:32: What about Bethlehem? Again, all of these are fine, I'm thinking.
01:39: Whatever it is, we're going to go through the books.
01:42: We still have different ones.
01:44: Yes, sir.
01:47: I thought about going to the Old Testament, I actually thought about maybe teaching through Genesis.
01:54: But again, it's long, that's what I'm thinking about is the length, but we're going to, I appreciate hearing it.
02:01: I want to hear it.
02:01: Everybody said a book.
02:02: That's good.
02:03: That lets me know you're enjoying the verse by verse teaching, because that's the way I like to teach.
02:08: So if that's working, then we'll keep it going.
02:11: Well, today we're going to look at verses 13 to 18.
02:15: I'm going to read it to you, and then I'm going to pray for us, and then I'm going to go through the lesson.
02:19: I have a lot to get through today.
02:21: Like I said, I don't know that we'll get through it all.
02:23: If we don't, we'll come back next week, but we'll see.
02:30: Verse 13.
02:32: Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray.
02:37: Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.
02:42: Is anyone among 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.
02:53: And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.
02:58: And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
03:02: Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another that you may be healed.
03:07: The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
03:13: Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he fervently prayed that it might not rain.
03:20: And for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth.
03:24: Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.
03:33: Let's pray.
03:35: Father in heaven, I stand before these men today as a fallible man, and I ask Lord that you would keep me from error for the sake of my conscience, for the sake of their hearts and their souls, and Lord, for the sake of your name.
03:51: Lord, I want to see your name lifted up, and I want to see your word understood.
03:57: I pray, Lord, that when we open the word today and we look at this subject of prayer, God that it would be a new push in our hearts to push us to our knees, that we would understand the absolute desperation of life that is lived apart from prayer.
04:20: And I pray this, Lord, that it would encourage the believers, that it would challenge those who have yet to bow the knee to Christ, and that today would be today for them a moment of reckoning for their soul.
04:39: I pray all this in Christ's name, amen.
04:48: I want to begin today a little differently than I might normally begin in a passage because I think that this passage is easily misunderstood, and quite often because of that, it is misapplied.
05:10: You guys are probably familiar with faith healers and those who claim the ability to buy some kind of special miracle from God to be able to either lay hands on you or to speak over you or to anoint you with oil or some other type of physical action, bring about healing to your body.
05:44: We've all seen it.
05:46: If you've never seen it in person, we've all seen it on the television screen with men that will stand on the podium.
05:55: They will call up people from the audience and say, this is Joe Smith, and Joe Smith has hearing loss, and I'm going to place my fingers in his ears and he's going to be able to hear.
06:07: They put the fingers in the ears and then he can hear, and then somebody else will come up with a gimpy leg and they'll say this person's leg is now healed, and boom, they're jumping around and sprinting around the stage, or maybe you've seen the guy on television who walks out and he asks people, does your back hurt? And they'll say yes, and he says, well, it's because one leg's longer than the other, and he'll lay them down and he'll stretch the legs out and he'll say, here, this is your healing, and he'll cause their legs to be the same length as if they were to begin with, and so on.
06:46: So you're all familiar with these things, am I correct? You know what I'm talking about? This isn't new.
06:53: Well, I want to address the subject of faith healing as the introduction because I think that this passage, in fact, I don't think it, I know that this particular passage has been misused as a proof text for these people who do these types of things.
07:12: One of the things you never see.
07:14: You never see a soldier who had his legs blown off, wheeled up to the stage and miraculously grown new legs.
07:26: No, it doesn't happen, does it? You never see somebody with, an old shop teacher missing a finger, you know? I had one.
07:35: You had a shop teacher.
07:36: Why listen to a shop teacher missing fingers? I mean, if there's one guy that you need to be teaching, he's like, watch the guard on that saw, I'm not messing around.
07:50: You don't ever see him come out and snap, and now he's got a finger.
07:57: Did Jesus do that kind of stuff? Yes, he did.
08:00: He put a guy's ear back on.
08:02: He absolutely did.
08:03: He took a guy who had leprosy.
08:08: Leprosy was a, see here's the difference, there's a difference between organic disease and psychosomatic disease.
08:18: Organic disease is something that is physically measurable, such as the loss of a limb.
08:26: Even something that's internal can be physically measurable.
08:29: I have something called fatty liver, which means they can go in and they can look at my liver and see that it has a problem.
08:36: I have a problem with my liver.
08:38: And so they go in and they can tell that it has this.
08:41: It's called metatatic statitosis.
08:43: It just means that my liver's got an issue, so I have to consider that with my diet and other things.
08:50: But that's a problem, right? That's an organic disease.
08:56: Losing your ear, that's organic disease.
09:01: A back pain might be organic, or it might be psychosomatic.
09:06: And it's impossible to prove whether or not you were healed of back pain, because you're the only one who would know.
09:13: It's impossible to prove whether you were healed from tinnitus.
09:18: Do you know what tinnitus is? Ringing in the ear.
09:21: You'll be amazed how many people, these faith healers will say, he had ringing in his ears, and now he doesn't anymore.
09:30: Oh yeah, I know there's this kid over here who ain't got no legs.
09:32: We're not going to worry about him, we're going to worry about the guy with ringing in his ears.
09:36: That's the more important.
09:37: And you see how ridiculous? Thousands of people converge on these conventions.
09:47: They're wheeled in, sometimes on beds.
09:52: They're forced to the edges, they're not allowed on the television screens.
09:57: They're put in the balconies, they're put in the back, they're told you can't come.
10:02: People who come on to the chancel or the stage are hand-picked, put on stage, made a show of, and all those people who came with the cancerous children, with the lost limbs, with the broken backs, leave the same way they came.
10:24: And what are they told? You didn't have enough faith.
10:27: What garbage.
10:31: What awful trash.
10:36: And it cost you, yeah, it cost you a ticket to get in.
10:41: So you see, I have no patience for this.
10:46: I have spent quite a bit of time examining the claims of these teachers, and men like Justin Peters, who is a man with cerebral palsy, who goes and demonstrates the falsehoods of these teachers.
11:02: And by the way, all of these people who claim to have these miraculous healing gifts are as heretical as the day is long when it comes to theology.
11:09: Their theology, their biblical understanding of God is so incorrect, it's dangerous.
11:14: Benny Hinn talks about the nine gods, and now there's three trinities, and three times three is nine, so there's nine being of God, and blase, blase, and Paul Crouch talks about you are little gods, and you just go on and on.
11:34: It's garbage.
11:35: The guy you're talking about, he's the guy with the palsy, right? Justin Peters, yes, he is.
11:40: He's in the American Gospel.
11:42: Yeah, he's in the film.
11:42: Okay, yes, if you've seen American Gospel, you've seen them.
11:45: They show him, telling him, get out of line, see this.
11:48: Yeah, well, and he told, it all started with him when he was a young man.
11:52: He was brought to a faith healer, a lady, his father brought him to a healer, and she said, how much money do you make, and his father said, well, why does that matter, and she says, well, the amount you can give to the Lord's work is the amount of work you'll do in your life.
12:07: Oh, goodness.
12:09: Nice.
12:11: Exactly, it's a Ponzi scheme, and we're the Ponzi's, right? We're the ones getting paid.
12:18: We're the bottom of the pyramid.
12:19: That's right.
12:20: They're the ones at the tip.
12:21: They're the ones with the $20,000 a night hotel rooms, riding in the Bentleys and the Audys and all these different things, and wearing the suits that cost more than my annual salary.
12:33: Wasn't it, like, didn't Benny Hinn's nephew, Kosty, is out in California, he's doing a good job, he's coming against that stuff.
12:41: Now, I say all that, I bring all that up, because again, this passage is one of the passages that's used to try to prove the modern idea of faith healing.
12:55: My goal today is to show you that it's not a right understanding of the passage.
13:01: Before I do that, I want to read something to you.
13:03: This is where I say I'm concerned about time.
13:05: I need somebody to kind of be a timekeeper for me today.
13:08: Oh, lookie there.
13:08: Okay, I got it.
13:11: I'm going to read to you from a commentary.
13:13: I rarely do this.
13:14: I mean, I use commentaries in my study, but I rarely bring anything.
13:16: I had to bring my Kindle to be able to read this to you.
13:20: This is Ten Truths About Divine Healing.
13:25: Ten Truths About Divine Healing.
13:26: This is from the Believer's Bible Commentary, it's just one that I use, and I think it's well put together, and I want to read it to you.
13:33: I'll kind of go quickly, because it's a lot, it's ten things, right? Number one, Christians agree that all sicknesses, in general, the result of sin in the world, if sin had never entered the world, there would be no sickness.
13:45: That's number one.
13:45: Understand.
13:46: If Adam had never sinned, we'd all be healthy all the time, you know, it would be perfect.
13:54: Sin is the ultimate cause of all sickness.
13:57: That doesn't mean that every time somebody gets sick, it's a result of their individual sin.
14:02: But what we're saying is that sin itself came into the world, or sickness is in the world because of sin.
14:09: That's number one.
14:09: Number two, sometimes sickness is a direct result of sin in someone's life.
14:16: First Corinthians 11.30, we read that Corinthians were sick because they participated in the Lord's Supper without judging sin in their lives, and without confessing it and forsaking it.
14:26: You read First Corinthians 11, it says some of you are sick and some have even died because of the misuse of the Lord's Supper.
14:33: You read it, I didn't make that up, that's there.
14:35: So is there a time when sickness can be caused from sin? Yes, it can.
14:41: Not always, but it can be.
14:44: Okay, that's number two.
14:45: Number three, not all sickness is a result of sin in someone's life.
14:50: Job was sick in spite of the fact that he was a righteous man.
14:54: Job chapter one, verse eight.
14:56: The man born blind was not suffering for his sins.
15:00: Jesus said, remember his disciples said, what sin has he committed? And he says it was neither him nor his parents who sinned, but he was born this way so that it might be shown today, that the glory of God might be shown in him, right? Was it sin that caused the sickness? God was using it to glorify himself.
15:16: So sometimes sin causes sickness, sometimes sickness is not a result of sin, right? Number four, sometimes sickness is a result of satanic activity.
15:28: It was Satan who caused Job's body to be covered with boils.
15:31: Job chapter two, verse seven.
15:33: It was Satan who crippled the woman in Luke 13, 10 through 17.
15:36: It says she was doubled over and that she was bound by Satan for 18 years.
15:41: It says that.
15:42: So Satan does have the ability under the authority of God to bring sickness into our lives.
15:47: So that's a biblical truism.
15:50: Number five, God can and does heal.
15:55: Let me say that again.
15:56: God can and does heal.
16:00: In fact, all healing is from God.
16:04: He is called the Lord who heals, Exodus 15, 26.
16:07: Every case we've ever been healed is because God used some means to bring about our healing, but God is the ultimate healer.
16:14: He is the physician, okay? So people ask me, well, you don't believe in faith healers, do you believe God heals? Yes, I believe all healing is from God, okay? Now, number six, God does still heal miraculously.
16:34: The Gospel contains many illustrations of this and it would be incorrect to say that God generally heals in this way, but neither should we say He never does.
16:43: There is nothing in the Bible to discourage us from believing that God can heal miraculously today.
16:48: I do believe that there are people that I have experienced in my own life who have experienced miracles from God.
16:54: Not because they were touched or anointed or slapped or knocked over or blown on by some preacher, but because God chose to miraculously intervene in their life.
17:05: And I don't know if you've ever seen someone who it seems as if there was a miracle, somebody who goes in and has stricken with cancer, they come back later and there's no cancer, no more at all.
17:14: That's a miracle of God.
17:16: At least I would argue that it's a picture of a miracle.
17:22: So does God still heal miraculously? Yes.
17:25: Number seven, we must also be clear that it is not always God's will to heal.
17:32: This is the one that a lot of people have an issue with.
17:35: They'll say, God always wills my healing.
17:38: I say, says who? You're not going to ever die? Think about it logically.
17:46: God always wills my healing, so you're going to live forever.
17:49: No, I'm going to die one day.
17:53: Let me try it again.
17:55: God always wills your healing.
17:57: Yes, you're going to die one day.
17:59: Can you keep going? You don't die.
18:04: I'm going to hit myself again.
18:05: You're going to die from sickness one day.
18:09: You die because your body wears out.
18:14: Something that's constantly healed never wears out.
18:16: That's right.
18:18: Yes, sir.
18:19: In John 5, verse 14, it says, Go with your sinner forgiven.
18:22: Go with sin no more, lest something else might happen to you.
18:24: Is that a result of what you're talking about? I think that can be a warning against not sinning and worse things happen.
18:33: Sin can bring sickness.
18:35: In fact, sin brings sickness in multiple ways.
18:37: Think about this.
18:38: There's something that I call the wrath of consequence.
18:41: Paul talks about Romans 1, the wrath of consequence.
18:45: He says the wrath of God is being revealed in heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness.
18:52: Wrath comes in different ways.
18:54: We talk about the eternal wrath of God.
18:56: That's the kind that we're going to get when you go to hell.
18:58: Hopefully we don't.
19:00: But that's the wrath of hell.
19:02: But there's also the wrath of consequence.
19:04: That is, we do things that hurt us.
19:07: That's a built-in consequence.
19:08: Somebody spends all their life drinking, they get liver disease and die.
19:11: By the way, I didn't drink.
19:12: That's not how I got liver disease.
19:13: But I'm not a drinker.
19:15: But if somebody drinks their whole life and gets liver disease, that's a built-in consequence of that.
19:20: And I would say that's a...
19:23: The principle of reaping what you sow is built-in to scripture.
19:28: And it tells us we reap what we sow.
19:30: So if we spend all our life sexually promiscuous and we end up with a sexually transmitted disease, that's a built-in consequence.
19:36: If we spend all of our life smoking and we end up with lung cancer, that's a built-in consequence.
19:41: See? That's what I would call the wrath of consequence.
19:45: It's just something that's built-in.
19:46: It's natural.
19:47: And by natural, what I mean is it's a natural consequence that God has built into that.
19:52: Did you have your hand up, brother? I'm sorry.
19:54: Yeah, it's pretty personal.
19:56: I have a skin pigment disorder.
19:59: Parts of my skin tan, the other parts don't.
20:03: Apparently, I've been told as a kid, it's a curse on my family.
20:09: Some people in my family have it.
20:10: Like my twin sister, not at all.
20:13: Dark hair, whatever.
20:15: But apparently, my great-great-great-great grandparents, there were a couple, and she cheated on him and he died a few days later.
20:25: And apparently, she woke up one morning, had a patch on her head.
20:32: She had red hair, but now she had a white patch, which I have too.
20:35: And her skin was like that too.
20:37: And it kind of freaks me out.
20:41: Because like you said, past sins can affect generations.
20:47: It bothers me a lot.
20:52: There's a long road there I'd want to be careful going down as far as generational curses and things like that.
20:59: And I don't know.
21:01: It's like she died from a broken heart.
21:04: Yeah, I don't know.
21:05: Again, there's so much to unpack out of that.
21:10: But here's the thing.
21:11: None of that can keep you from Christ.
21:13: And you know that.
21:15: You understand that, right? That's the most important thing.
21:17: No matter what has happened, what your grandmother did, whatever, that can't keep you from Christ.
21:22: She cannot keep you from being saved.
21:24: So that's the most important thing.
21:26: Everything else, we can talk about another time, maybe privately, because that's a pretty heavy thought, just all of the consequences of things that happen with that.
21:34: I don't want to speak without more information.
21:38: But just know that none of that keeps you from Christ.
21:42: All right.
21:44: Again, number seven, it's not God's will always to heal us.
21:47: And we see this in different times.
21:49: Paul left Trophimus sick at Miletus, 2 Timothy 4.20.
21:52: The Lord did not heal Paul of his thorn in the flesh, 2 Corinthians 12.7-10.
21:56: God's will is not always to heal.
21:58: People don't always like to hear that.
22:00: But it's just the truth.
22:02: Number eight, God has not promised to heal in every case.
22:05: Therefore, healing is not something we can demand from Him.
22:09: I've heard people say that.
22:10: I demand healing, or I command healing in the name of Jesus Christ.
22:15: You don't have that power.
22:16: In fact, in Philippians 2.27, it says healing is a mercy.
22:24: Do you know what mercy is? Undeserved grace.
22:29: Well, grace is undeserved favor.
22:31: Mercy is not getting what you do deserve.
22:33: It's the other side of the coin.
22:35: But it's always something that God doesn't have to give.
22:40: God doesn't have to give mercy.
22:42: He doesn't have to give grace.
22:44: So if somebody says, I demand my healing.
22:46: Who are you demanding it from? God? I remember, I've got a video of a guy.
22:52: He said, God, when I put a demand on God's will, He sits up and listens.
22:58: Really? Who are you? I don't know where he's at.
23:03: You know, if I was standing next to him, I'd probably do this.
23:09: Yeah.
23:12: Because that's dangerous thinking.
23:15: I put a demand on the sovereign God, King of the universe.
23:19: I put a demand on Him, and He sits up and listens? Get out of your minds.
23:30: Number nine.
23:31: This is an important one.
23:32: This one takes a little deeper thought.
23:36: While it is true in a general sense that healing is in the atonement, yet not all the blessings that are in the atonement have been given to us yet.
23:43: For instance, the redemption of the body is included in Christ's work for us, but we will not receive it until Christ comes for His saints.
23:50: At that time also, we will be completely and finally healed of our diseases.
23:53: You ever hear somebody say, by His stripes we're healed? And they try to claim that as some type of physical healing? Like they'll get a diagnosis with some kind of a sickness, and they'll say, oh, I ain't worried about it.
24:06: By His stripes I'm healed.
24:08: As if to say, I'm guaranteed healing because of the atonement.
24:12: We are guaranteed healing because of the atonement, but not in this life.
24:17: First, the stripes that He healed us with bore our sin, and we are completely healed of our sin sickness because of Christ now.
24:27: But this body is still going to go away.
24:29: This body is going to die.
24:31: This body is going to go into the ground.
24:32: And one day this body is going to be raised, a new body.
24:36: The Bible says that in 1 Corinthians 15.
24:37: We're going to receive a new body.
24:39: Our soul and our body will be reunited.
24:41: We will have a new body.
24:43: But until then, this body is still going to be corrupt.
24:46: This body is still going to see corruption.
24:48: Number 10, and now I'll move on.
24:52: It is not true that failure to be healed indicates a lack of faith.
24:59: If it were, this would mean that some would live on indefinitely, but no one does.
25:04: Paul, Trophimus, and Gaius were all not healed, yet their faith was virile.
25:11: Virile, not viral.
25:12: Were virile and active.
25:16: We had a lady in our church who was the most faithful woman I had ever met.
25:20: I just buried her.
25:22: She died a few months ago and we had her funeral.
25:27: And she was in a wheelchair from the age of 12.
25:30: She lived to 73, I think.
25:35: Wonderful saint of God.
25:38: But being in that wheelchair, she told me a story.
25:41: She said she was going through an airport and somebody walked up to her and said, in the name of Jesus Christ, rise and walk! She was paraplegic.
25:53: She had her spine broken.
25:56: Her legs didn't function from the waist down.
26:00: And when she didn't get up and walk, what did they say? You need more faith.
26:07: Yeah, Johnny Erickson taught us the same thing.
26:09: Johnny Erickson taught us that there was a swimmer, a diver.
26:14: She dove into a pool, broke her neck, lost all feeling from the neck down.
26:17: She's lived her whole life that way.
26:21: One of the most faithful women of God I've ever heard.
26:25: And yet people say, well, you just don't have enough faith.
26:28: You know what amazes me? Guys like those guys out in California, the Bethel, they wear glasses and they preach faith healing.
26:39: Or they got dandruff and stuff.
26:42: But they're wearing glasses.
26:44: What's your deal? I'm sorry, there's irony dripping.
26:52: Yes, sir.
26:53: And it wouldn't be, you know, at these conventions, charging people money.
26:57: That would be at the Mayo Clinic, interest of Mayo Clinic, you know, giving children cancer.
27:01: Absolutely.
27:02: Absolutely.
27:03: There's so much, there's so much that we could say.
27:08: There's so much brokenness in it.
27:10: There's so much deceit in it.
27:12: And as I said, that's all introduction.
27:14: We haven't even gotten to the text yet.
27:16: I just wanted to say those things.
27:18: False teaching, right? That's right.
27:19: That's a sin.
27:21: Yes, it is.
27:22: In fact, James tells us, do not all assume to be teachers because teachers will be judged more strictly.
27:28: Those people who've called themselves pastor, priestess, apostle, whatever, they're going to stand before God and He's going to say, depart from Me, I never knew you, you workers of lawlessness.
27:41: James 7, 21-23.
27:44: Did we not do many mighty miracles in your name? Did we not cast out demons in your name? And I will say unto them, depart from Me, you workers of iniquity.
27:56: It's a dangerous day coming for such people.
28:00: Alright, having said all that, let's look at the text.
28:02: Because now, with that as a backdrop, we're going to look at this text.
28:10: James, he asks three questions.
28:13: Verse 13 and the beginning of verse 14, he asks three questions.
28:18: One, he says, is anyone among you suffering? Two, he says, is anyone among you cheerful? And three, he says, is anyone sick? So we have three statements.
28:28: He says, is anyone suffering? Is anyone cheerful? Is anyone sick? Three questions.
28:41: And based on those three questions, we get the rest of this.
28:44: I want you to know this whole section is about prayer.
28:48: You say, how do you know it's about prayer? Because every verse between verse 13 and verse 18 has the word prayer in it.
28:56: Every verse has the word prayer in it.
28:58: Let them pray.
29:00: Let them pray over him.
29:03: Prayer of faith.
29:05: No, James 5, 13 to 18, buddy.
29:09: James 5, 13 to 18, buddy.
29:10: Every one of these verses has the word prayer.
29:14: And any time you see repetition, remember, I've taught you this before.
29:18: Any time you see repetition, that means that's the theme.
29:20: That's the thesis.
29:21: That's the focus.
29:22: So the focus here is prayer.
29:24: He says, is anyone suffering? Well, why would anyone be suffering? Remember who he's talking to.
29:30: James has been preaching to who? You go back to James 1, verse 1.
29:34: He's preaching to the dysphoria, those who had been dispersed, those who had been pushed out of Jerusalem, those who were under persecution.
29:42: This was a difficult time in the church.
29:44: Many people are suffering for their faith.
29:47: And he says, is anyone suffering? Let him complain.
29:51: Isn't that what he says? Is anyone suffering? Is anyone suffering? Let him argue with his brother.
29:58: Is anyone suffering? Let him lash out in anger.
30:02: No, that's not the answer, is it? He said if anyone is suffering, what does he do? If he's suffering, pray.
30:13: Now again, I want to get through this text, but I could stop right here and spend the rest of the time just talking about the value of the answer to the question.
30:21: People come to me all the time.
30:22: Pastor, I am dealing with something in my life and it's difficult.
30:25: Let us pray.
30:28: Let us pray.
30:30: Two minutes spent in prayer is worth an hour spent in counseling.
30:35: We sit there and we just jabber on and on and on and on when we should just be praying.
30:40: Go to the Source.
30:42: Go to the One who we really find our strength and power in.
30:46: We waste a lot of time jabbering when we should be spending time praying.
30:49: And by the way, if Facebook and Twitter do nothing, they're going to stand in judgment one day against everybody who said they didn't have time to pray.
31:00: All these people who have time to post pictures of their breakfast and 50 pictures of their kids' graduation when they said they don't have time to pray.
31:08: That's right.
31:09: YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, they're all going to stand in judgment over us when we say, oh, we just didn't have time to pray.
31:15: It's a lie.
31:17: Most of us don't pray because we don't want to because it's difficult.
31:24: You say, why is it difficult to pray? Because we have to face ourselves when we pray.
31:28: We have to face our God.
31:30: We have to get serious for a moment.
31:32: And it's easier to be amused.
31:34: You know what amuse is? Well, you understand the alpha primitive, right? When you put the A at the beginning of something, like if I put the A at the beginning of theist, it becomes atheist, right? Well, the word muse, do you know what the word muse means? It means to think.
31:56: Amuse is distraction.
31:58: Amuse means to not think.
32:01: So we call it amusement park.
32:03: We go there to turn our brains off and let Mickey Mouse lull us to sleep.
32:08: We talk about television, they're amusements.
32:10: We turn on the TV so we can shut our brains off.
32:14: The extra one on the pinball machine that said for amusement only.
32:17: Yeah, that's right.
32:18: Just shut your brain off.
32:21: Prayer takes thought.
32:24: Prayer takes focus.
32:29: How many of you ever fell asleep praying? I tell you what, you ever want to try to fall asleep and you're having trouble, start praying.
32:35: The devil will ensure you go on right to sleep.
32:38: He'll do that to read your Bible.
32:41: He'd rather you be asleep than praying and reading your Bible.
32:44: But the reality is this, if we are suffering, we need to pray.
32:49: Now the next thing he says, he says if you're cheerful, you need to pray.
32:57: Praise.
32:58: What is praise? Singing.
33:03: It's actually prayer too.
33:06: Because singing praise is another way to pray.
33:10: By the way, if you ever wonder why we sing so much in church, and some people don't like to sing, especially guys.
33:17: Guys get in, oh, I'm not going to sing.
33:20: Oh yeah, that guy over there, he's all that.
33:23: I'm not me.
33:25: Put your antennas up, but mine are right here.
33:27: You know, whatever.
33:28: We guys are very, very, we don't want to sing.
33:34: It's a pride issue, it is.
33:40: Singing is corporate prayer set to music.
33:50: That's what singing is.
33:52: It's corporate prayer set to music.
33:57: So really in a sense, James is saying, if you're suffering, pray, and if you're cheerful, pray.
34:05: Whatever the situation, you need to pray.
34:09: Now if you're suffering, your prayer is going to be much more guttural, it's going to be much more, you're down on your knees, you're suffering, oh God.
34:16: But if you're happy, and you're spiritually cheerful, you're going to be, yes God, and now your prayer is like a song.
34:22: That's why you sing that praise.
34:26: Yes sir? What about you doing it for the wrong reasons? Oh man, there's people who do.
34:31: What about you doing it for the right reasons, just being honest with yourself, you know your heart ain't right, you're doing it for the right praise people? You talking about people who do that in church? Yeah, yeah, I mean, we could go, you're not wrong, we could go down that route.
34:48: There's some people who like to put on a show in worship.
34:52: Used to be, in our church, there was people who had more charismatic background when they came to us.
35:00: And I think they were genuine, I don't think they were really trying to put on a show, but man, everybody else is standing there singing, and this lady's doing jumping jacks.
35:07: I mean she really was.
35:08: She was very, very much into it.
35:10: And somebody says, well that's just her spirit, that's just the way she wants to worship.
35:13: That's fine, that's why I didn't say that to her.
35:15: But I do wonder sometimes how much of that's a show.
35:18: Not necessarily from her, but from other people.
35:21: So you do have to, but again, you're not there to judge their heart.
35:25: Question is, are you afraid to lift your hands because of the guy next to you? That's, I think that would be, I think that's the question.
35:32: The thing I was getting at is, do it for God, but don't do it because of everybody else around you doing it.
35:38: That's right, that's right.
35:39: Would you lift your hands if you were by yourself? I'm saying, would you lift your hands if you were by yourself? I'm not saying you, I'm saying that person, whoever.
35:47: That's the way I'm doing that.
35:48: I always try to think four-way on the situation instead of thinking one-way.
35:52: If I'm doing it for these people, they can see me, then I'm really doing it for God.
35:57: That's right.
35:57: Yeah, we should be.
35:58: We should always be praying and praising for God.
36:01: So James asks the question, is anyone suffering? Pray.
36:05: Is anyone cheerful? Praise.
36:07: And then he changes a bit because he says, if anyone is sick, let him call for the elders of the church.
36:17: Now that, that changes a little bit the situation because, number one, this word sick.
36:28: How many of you, is there anybody whose Bible translated so differently? Is everybody translated sick? Verse 14, is anyone among you sick? Everybody says sick.
36:40: Okay.
36:41: Now I don't want to challenge the girth of Bible translators because the translators of the ESV, the translators of New American Standard Bible, the translators of the King James, these are brilliant men.
36:53: They have a reason for translating words the way that they do.
36:56: But understand this, words have a semantic domain.
37:00: That means they have a domain and range in which they can be used depending on the semantics or the syntax of the sentence that they're in.
37:06: This particular word in the New Testament more naturally refers to weak than sick.
37:18: Why is this weakened by their suffering? Yeah.
37:20: So I like to think of this, rather than thinking of this as a sickness of, like somebody has a cold or somebody has an infection, this is somebody who is weakened by the difficult walk that the Christian life brings.
37:37: Remember what we talked about.
37:38: These are people who have been pushed out of their land.
37:40: These are people that have been pushed away.
37:41: These are people that are weakened.
37:42: You say, well, how do you jive that with Scripture? Well, you remember in Romans 14 when it talks about the weaker brother? Asteneo is the Greek word.
37:51: Same word here.
37:53: And that's not talking about sick physically.
37:55: That's talking about weak in their spirit.
38:01: 1 Corinthians 8 talks about the person who's weak and doesn't eat the meat offered to idols.
38:05: Remember it talks about their weakness? That word is used over and over and over.
38:09: The weak brother, the weak brother, the weak brother, the weak brother.
38:12: Guess what word is used? Asteneo.
38:14: Weak.
38:16: Same word here.
38:17: So now I want you to hear it that way.
38:19: Is anyone among you weak? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him.
38:27: Why would you call for the elders to come pray? Because when you're weak in your spirit, you need someone to come and pray for you.
38:34: You need someone to come and pray with you.
38:37: You need someone to come be your spiritual strength in your time of weakness.
38:42: And who do you go to in the church? The elders.
38:46: Those men who have been commissioned.
38:47: Those men who have been ordained to a place of spiritual leadership in your life.
38:53: Your elders are your spiritual leaders.
38:56: They are the shepherds in your life.
38:58: And if you are weak in spirit, you go to them and what does it say? Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil.
39:07: Now this is a big one.
39:10: Because in a lot of churches what that means is they take a little bottle, they do a little bottle like that and they rub, a little dab will do you right there on the forehead, right? But in this particular instance of the word anointing, there's two Greek words for anointing.
39:28: One means a ceremonial anointing like would be done in the temple, right? But another one means to rub with oil and it's a physical thing.
39:42: It's a physical, after somebody might be done doing some kind of an exercise or something, they might rub them with oil to relax them.
39:50: Or they might comfort them by rubbing them with oil.
39:53: That's the way the word is used here.
39:56: Putting it on your forehead, I'm being touchy, but putting it on your forehead, that's a ceremonial act.
40:04: That's why it really isn't what James is talking about here.
40:08: This is a physical act.
40:10: It's a comforting act.
40:14: Yes sir, I see you want to ask something.
40:15: When Mary rubbed Jesus' feet with oil, that was a ceremonial act? No, that's an act of worship.
40:26: I'd have to look at which word is used.
40:30: Creo is the ceremonial and then there's the other word which means the act of massaging or rubbing with oil.
40:37: Essentially though, I think this is a physical act of encouragement.
40:42: Not only are we going to pray for you, but we're going to encourage you.
40:46: We're going to use oil to strengthen you.
40:50: A physical act of strength.
40:51: Brother, you had your hand up.
40:52: Go ahead.
40:52: Yeah, my mom would say a lot of times when I come over to her house, she'll still annoy me.
41:05: She'll pray and say, don't let me put the oil on you.
41:08: I don't mind it.
41:09: No, and again, I want to back up and say if that's how somebody understands this, I don't think it's what James is saying, but I don't think it's wrong either.
41:19: I was in a church last week.
41:20: I had to speak at a graduation.
41:21: The whole front aisle of the church had bottles of oil which is where they bring people up and they rub oil on them.
41:27: Hey, you know what? I'm not going to condemn them and I'm not going to say it's necessarily wrong.
41:32: If that helps them, if that encourages them, in fact, if your mom encourages you, then God bless you.
41:37: That's not wrong.
41:38: What I'm saying though, in this particular sense, I think it had more of a practical, physical value, maybe even a medicinal value.
41:48: Using oil as a medicine was done in the first century.
41:51: I think it had that kind of a value rather than that of simply some kind of a ceremonial thing.
41:59: I think it was more physical than it was ceremonial based on this text.
42:04: You come to the elders because you're weak and you receive from them strength.
42:09: You receive from them strength.
42:10: Because it goes on to say, verse 15, and the prayer of faith...
42:14: Whose faith? The elders.
42:16: They're the ones praying.
42:17: And the prayer of faith will...
42:19: And again, it says, save the one who is sick.
42:21: This is the verse people use.
42:23: Well, right there, it's proving that you're going to be healed.
42:25: The word healed ain't there.
42:27: It says saved.
42:30: That's important because the word saved means to restore.
42:36: And the word sick there means to be weary or exhausted.
42:40: The prayer of faith will restore the weary and exhausted person.
42:45: The person who is wearied with the Christian walk.
42:48: Yes? I've been to a couple of churches on my daddy's side.
42:55: They touch a woman's head and they catch the Holy Ghost and stuff.
43:00: What kind of people do they meet? They understand, as you said, catching the Holy Ghost.
43:09: That is a charismatic expression.
43:12: They believe that the Holy Spirit comes upon people in a tangible, physical way whenever they lay their hands on someone.
43:23: That's kind of a longer answer that I have time to give right now.
43:27: But the simple answer is that's an understanding that we would call a charismatic understanding.
43:33: They're a charismatic church.
43:36: More than likely.
43:36: I don't know your daddy's church, but more than likely that.
43:39: I would understand it a little differently.
43:41: I would take a little issue with it.
43:43: Oftentimes, it's emotionalism.
43:45: People get real emotionally excited.
43:47: They say, oh, he's filled with the Holy Spirit because he's shouting.
43:49: I remember when I was 12 years old, my mother went to a charismatic church.
43:54: My mom wanted me to be baptized because she didn't want me to go to hell.
43:57: They told her when you turn 12, you become an age of accountability, which I don't believe that, but they said 12 years old, that's cut off.
44:03: You've got to get baptized.
44:05: Well, I got baptized, and it was cold water.
44:07: I came out.
44:08: I went, whoo! Everybody said, oh, he's got the Holy Ghost.
44:12: I said, no, I'm cold.
44:15: I wasn't making fun.
44:16: I was 12.
44:17: I wasn't being a jerk.
44:18: The reality was, there wasn't catching the Holy Spirit.
44:24: I was just cold.
44:27: I think sometimes they see emotional outbursts, and they assume that's the Holy Spirit.
44:33: That's my answer.
44:34: Again, I'm not making fun.
44:35: I'm saying that thing.
44:35: I like how you say it because my thing is, they always do try to get people away.
44:41: I tell my dad, I can't go in there.
44:42: I mean, he can test me.
44:44: I don't know what to do.
44:45: Don't make no hand on me.
44:50: Alright, I'm running out of time.
44:52: In fact, I'm out of time.
44:53: Let me very quickly say this.
44:55: Verse 15 Prayer of faith will restore the one who is weary or save the one who is sick.
44:59: The Lord will raise him up.
45:01: And, this is key, if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
45:06: What does that have to do with anything? If he's spiritually weak, there might be a reason for it.
45:13: That's why it says, if he has committed sins.
45:18: If a person comes to the elders and says, I'm spiritually broken, I'm spiritually weak, pray for me.
45:23: They pray for him.
45:24: And he repents of his sin and is forgiven.
45:27: That's where the tie to this is.
45:30: See, some people have tied this into saying, well, every time you're sick, it's because of sin.
45:33: That's not true.
45:34: But the reality is, sometimes when you're weak, it is because of sin.
45:40: Some sin in your life has brought spiritual brokenness and you need to be restored.
45:44: You need to be lifted up.
45:46: And that's what God will do.
45:47: He will raise you up.
45:49: Verse 16, let me get through the end of this.
45:51: Therefore, confess your sins to one another.
45:58: Again, why would that even be there? It's because that might be needed.
46:02: I might have sinned against you.
46:06: And by the way, people say, well, when do we need to confess our sins? We always confess our sins to God.
46:15: We seek to always confess our sins to those we've sinned against.
46:19: If I've hurt you, I want to go to you and I want to repent and I want to confess.
46:24: And that becomes an issue of wisdom.
46:28: For instance, if a man's having trouble with some kind of a sin in his life and he's sinned against his wife and he comes and tells me about it, I say, go tell your wife.
46:37: But I won't necessarily tell him I'm going to go tell the whole church.
46:41: Right? But there might be a sense in which he needs to confess before the church.
46:48: The old adage, and it's not really a biblical adage, but I think it's a helpful truism, is that public sin requires public repentance.
46:57: So if you've done something that's been public, like let's say you've cheated on your wife and everybody in the church knows it, and now you've repented, everybody in the church needs to know you've repented.
47:07: You understand? Because if they wonder, then that's going to be a big question mark over your life.
47:14: So if it's public sin, it requires public repentance.
47:18: People go, oh, I don't like that.
47:19: Well, as I said, it's just a principle.
47:24: But I think it's a helpful one.
47:25: Why is it that when a person sins, they're brought before the church? In Matthew 18.
47:32: For repentance.
47:33: An opportunity for repentance.
47:36: So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed or restored.
47:42: Now this verse here, this section, boy, I wish I wasn't out of time.
47:48: The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it's working.
47:51: That's a horrible translation.
47:53: It's actually a very difficult sentence to translate.
47:56: King James says, The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
48:01: I like that one better.
48:03: But it's still hard.
48:05: It's a hard Greek phrase.
48:08: But it's difficult, but it's not.
48:11: It's only difficult in that the wording is difficult.
48:14: What it's saying is not really that difficult.
48:15: Basically what it's saying is this.
48:17: A faithful man who prays is giving you something valuable.
48:21: I mean, that's the Keith Standard translation.
48:24: It doesn't say it fixes everything.
48:26: It doesn't say it fixes everything.
48:29: Yeah, somebody who is a faithful man who prays, there's value in that prayer.
48:35: And then he gives us the illustration of Elijah.
48:37: And this is from 1 Kings 17 and 18.
48:39: This scenario, I'm going to draw to a close quick.
48:41: He says, you want me to prove that the prayers of a righteous man have a lot of power? That they're very valuable? Look at Elijah.
48:48: Elijah prayed, God shut the skies down.
48:51: It didn't rain for three and a half years.
48:53: He prayed again, God opened the skies up and it flooded.
48:58: So if you need proof that prayer is valuable, if you need proof that the prayers of a righteous man, a godly man, an elder in your life, if you need prayers that that's valuable, look to Elijah.
49:12: So again, the whole thing is about prayer.
49:15: If you're suffering, pray.
49:18: If you're cheerful, pray with song.
49:23: And if you're broken, if you're weak, if you're weary, go to somebody who can pray for you.
49:31: That's the focus of the whole text.
49:34: You need prayer.
49:36: I need prayer.
49:37: Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, God in the flesh needed to pray.
49:42: And if Jesus needed to pray, how much more do we need to pray? Alright, let's pray.
49:51: Father in Heaven, I thank You for Your Word.
49:54: I thank You for the opportunity to talk about the subject of prayer.
49:56: Lord, how much we need it.
49:58: How much we need it in our personal life.
50:01: How much we need it in our corporate life.
50:03: And how much we need it, Lord, from other people.
50:05: Father, help us to pray.
50:07: For ourselves and for others.
50:09: Help us to commune with You.
50:12: In Christ's name, Amen.