This wants you to know that William Cooper is not someone who simply had a poetic gift, but is someone who out of his own experience, a profound discouragement and despondency, and the frustration of unanswered prayer wrote that hymn. And so know that this man is your brother in the struggles that we face in the Christian life and be encouraged to learn from him and to know that behind a frowning providence there is the smiling face of a father who loves his children. And now hear the good news of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. According to Luke, chapter 11, and beginning of verse 1, now it came to pass as he was praying in a certain place when he ceased that one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. So he said to them, when you pray, say, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And he said to them, which of you shall have a friend and go to him at midnight and say to him, friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine has come to me on his journey and I have nothing to set before him. And he will answer from within and say, do not trouble me, the door is now shut and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give to you. I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will rise and give him as many as he needs. So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find knock and it will be open to you for everyone who asks, receives and he who seeks, finds and to him who knocks, it will be opened. Have a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish, or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, let's pray together, Lord Jesus, we continue to wrestle with this matter of prayers that remain unanswered or prayers to which you give the answer no, and it's hard for us, and you know that our frames feeble, that we are weak. So we need your Spirit, we need your presence in our lives to gird us up and to strengthen us, to give us faith and then to sustain that faith that we might rest in you and trust you, and know you to be a Father who loves his children and who never fails them. But also Father, we need your Spirit, that your Spirit might come together in connection with your Word so that by Word and Spirit, we are instructed and our minds that are pressed out of shape by unbelief and temptation in the world might be pressed back into shape in our hearts that so often long for the wrong things might be instructed to long for the right things, and then be enabled to long for the right things. We need your Word and Spirit that our wills might be engaged so that we might go forth from this place with praise in our hearts, praise on our lips, testifying before the world that you are everything you claim to be. So in our need, O Lord, we vow before you to ask for your Spirit to come alongside your Word and that you, Jesus, would teach us for the sake of your name and for our good. Your name, do we pray, amen? Please be seated. There's a very famous piece of artwork, a painting by a Norwegian painter named Edvard Munk, and this painting is called The Scream, and it's a depiction of a gaunt and a ghost-like, almost an apparition-like figure, and the particular technique, and I really don't know anything about how to paint, and I know very little about the techniques that people employ as they paint, but in the little bit of reading that I've done on this and the little bit of exposure that I've gained, Munk employs a technique, broad brushstrokes, heavy, heavy brushstrokes to depict this gaunt-like feature in a virtually frozen sort of a manner. Not as you look at this painting is the impression that you get that this gaunt-ghost-like figure is frozen in a stream of agony and terror. It is a cry of extraordinary anguish, the kind of thing that you might experience when you have a nightmare and you're terrified by the apparitions of the night, by things that go bump in the night. In the background of this gaunt-like figure, there is a lake and a little village next to the lake, and one commentator, one art critic, has suggested that what Munk really wants to do in this painting, in addition to depicting this great existential anxiety, this great anguish, that what he also wants to do is depict for those who would see this painting, this notion that in the midst of our anguish and in the midst of our cries and our groans we are alone in the universe, and there is nobody at home to hear us. And interestingly, on that lake, in the background behind this figure, are some little sailboats with their masks and their cross-trees, and there are in fact three masks with cross-trees on the surface of this lake. And this particular art critic suggests that Munk is suggesting to us, that those masks with their cross-trees are in fact crosses, and the crosses are empty, and they were always empty, and there has never been a redemption, there has never been a salvation, and because there has never been a work of God upon the cross, God if he exists at all, has demonstrated himself to be silent, and so there is no hope, just the frozen cries, anguished screams of those in need. Anybody who has wrestled with this business of unanswered prayer knows something, something of that feeling. But trust we all know that Edvard Munk, if that really is, a representation of his convictions that Munk is wrong. There is someone at home in the universe, that is the only reason that we are here this morning. There is no other reason for us to be here. If you need a moral code, go someplace else. If you need instruction about how to order your calendar. Take a time management seminar. If you are interested in philosophical speculation or theological conundrums and riddles, if you are fascinated by ancient texts and love ancient languages, go someplace else. That is not why we are here. Because we believe in our heart of hearts that someone was impaled upon that cross and that after having been impaled upon that cross, having died, he was entombed, and he is alive, and he is the sovereign God of the universe, and he hears the cries of his people. He hears them. That is the only reason for us to be here, still in the midst of that as we have been wrestling with over these last three weeks, and now four, there is this business, this struggle of unanswered prayer. And the question is, how do we think about it? We have this deep conviction, this heartfelt conviction that God is alive and that he is well and that Christ having come is the great expression of God's life and of his concern for people, his interest in people. And we gather together to worship this God and we believe to be alive and whom we acknowledge to be the sovereign Lord of the universe. So how do we think about unanswered prayer? How do we think about it? And I have suggested that it is a little bit like juggling, that you have to keep a bunch of balls up in the air at the same time. And I do not want to take a whole lot of time to rehearse all of that, I will encourage you to get the tapes, I will say to you again, I do not make money on these tapes, I do not suggest that you get them because I think they are particularly good. I am simply trying to struggle with you in the presence of the scriptures and before God to come to terms with this business of unanswered prayer. So pick up the tapes and listen to them and if you have questions, please, let's get together and talk. But here are just a couple of things, very quickly, as we think about this and we try to keep these balls up in the air, the first thing that we have to acknowledge and we acknowledge this by looking at the book of Job, the first thing we have to acknowledge is that when our prayers remain unanswered, prayers for a job, prayers for healing, prayers for relationships with children who are in trouble, when those prayers remain unanswered, we have to acknowledge that sometimes they remain unanswered, not because there is anything wrong with us or in us, but simply because God has ordered it so. And so we wrestle with this in the presence of a sovereign God. And then the second thing we've said, and I'd encourage you, I'd plead with you, to think on this and again to pick up the tape from last week, get the early service, the late service, probably that later service maybe was a little better, had a little more time, pick up the tape. The second thing you have to say is that prayers may remain unanswered because God would have us examine ourselves and would have us look into our hearts and acknowledge if there is sin in our hearts, acknowledge if there are patterns in our lives that need to be changed, if there are idols before which we bow. These little gods that we trust for security and assurance and for joy, all of which turn to dust in our hands and can never satisfy the deep longings of our hearts. And so again, the gracious logic of unanswered prayer is that God would say no to our prayers where there are these idols in order that we might examine ourselves and turn from them and back to Him. The one who is alone the source of our life and our good, and it would not be fatherly affection for that one God to allow us to persist in a life of disobedience or neglect when that life of disobedience or neglect will only lead us to destruction. That's not what fathers do. That's the gracious logic of unanswered prayer. And so it may be that there are things in our lives and our hearts that need to be examined. And then here is the third question that I want us to wrestle with this morning. I must ask in seeking the answer to the question, why are my prayers not answered? I must ask the question, am I praying the right things? Am I praying the right things? Am I praying for the right things? Now I know that Paul and his letter to the Philippians encourages us in everything with prayer and supplication to make our requests known to God. He tells us to bring everything before the Lord. And that is a perfectly right thing for us to do. Whatever our requests might be, whatever our desires might be, whatever the longings of our hearts might be. And having been encouraged to do that isn't the next logical question? Isn't the next thing that we would ask, well, what might God want me to pray about? What might God desire me to pray about? How might my prayers be ordered so as more and more to bring them into conformity with what is in his heart and what are his priorities? So we have the freedom to seek the Lord about anything. We have the freedom to ask the Lord for anything, and yet the Bible gives us great help, instructs us in a number of places as we seek to answer this question, am I praying the right things? Now as we come to this, the first thing that I want to do is respond to you, frankly. I want to respond to comments that you have made and questions that you've asked, hasn't been scores and hundreds, but it has been enough to suggest to me that you are thinking about this. The first thing that I want to do is respond to the interest that you have expressed in this wildly successful little book, The Prayer of J. Ves. It's come up in conversations with many of you. And so I want to do that. And I want to get at this business, am I praying the right things by looking at this little book, but looking beyond the book and looking to the text from which this book arises? Now probably won't come as a great surprise to very many of you to know that I'm not particularly fond of this little book. That may not come as a great surprise or a great shock to you. I don't think it's very helpful, quite honestly, and I think in fact that it is somewhat dangerous. And you see, it's my responsibility to respond to the things around you as best I can before the Lord as I contemplate the teaching of Scripture and help you interpret the world around you. This little book is a piece of that world. And so I feel because you've raised questions about it, the need to respond. And I really don't mean to rain on anybody's parade here. You know, I don't want to be a sour puss. I'm not against mom. I'm not against the flag. I'm not against apple pie. I'm not against any of those things. And I don't want it to be suggested to your minds that I'm interested in raining on your parade because I'm not. And there are a number of things in the book that are great reminders. They're great encouragement. There's a strong encouragement that we should see God as a powerful, loving, relentless, heavenly father who is determined to bless his children. He's determined to do that. And he's relentless in that. And there's a strong encouragement in the book to have a great and growing sense of expectation about God's blessing in our lives, about God's work in us and around us. And yet, there are some things in the book that I think I really do think are harmful and one thing that is extremely serious and an extremely serious defect in the book. So let me just mention a couple of these things. In the first place, the Bible or the book gives virtually no attention to the context, the historical context, and the redemptive historical context of the prayer of J. Benz. And by that failure, kind of an unforeseen consequence. By that failure, there is an encouragement, it seems, to me, of bad Bible study habits. Bad Bible study habits. And the question that we all, one of the questions we all wrestle with is, how can I get personal benefit and personal application out of the scriptures? That is a concept that we all ought to be concerned with. But the first answer to the question, how do I derive personal benefit, personal application of the scriptures to my own life? The first thing that we have to do as we seek that application is to understand, seek to understand what the original intent of the author was. And what he intended his original audience to hear. Now that's a principle of Bible study, write it down. That's what makes Bible study arduous work. Bible study is different from devotional reading. You know, you can read the Bible in a devotional sort of way, but if you want to get the greatest benefit from scripture, you've got to do the hard, hard work of seeking to understand what the author intended and what he intended for his audience to hear. I mean, my office, my library is full of books, and they don't go unused. They're used weakly and the reason they're used weakly is because I have a responsibility to seek to come to terms with what the author originally intended and what the audience was originally designed to hear so that I can extract from that eternal principles that have application to my life. And that's what makes this business hard. That's what makes coming to terms with the teaching of scripture an arduous thing. But it's worth it. So here are some things that are important to know about First Chronicles 4, verses 9 and 10, and the stuff surrounding those two verses, those names, those unpronounceable names that you encounter. First thing you need to know is that First and Second Chronicles are written for a post-exilic audience, okay? They are written for those folks who having been banished from Jerusalem because of their disobedience and sent to Babylon where they lived in captivity, where their leaders were made slaves, where they were oppressed, where they became discouraged, where they lost sight of their identity, who they were. These two books are written for that audience who return now to Jerusalem and who seek to rebuild what had been ruined, a city that was devastated by Babylonian hordes, a temple that was desecrated by the idolatries of pagan nation. And they come back to Jerusalem not in great tens of thousands as they first came into the Promised Land centuries before, but they come back in very small numbers. With very limited resources and surrounded by enemies who would seek to frustrate their attempts to rebuild the city and rebuild the temple. They're without resources. They're without protection. They're without great numbers. And what these folks, as they come back from the exile, need to know is who they are and whether or not God's purpose is failed. You see, there's a purpose here. There is an audience and the author has a concern for that audience because he himself is a Jew and he is writing these books to encourage them about who they are and about God's purpose. And so he rehearses the history of Israel in a particular way so that that might be done. And as you read Chronicles, you'll find, for example, that David's sin with Bathsheba is omitted. You'll see that Absalom's revolt is omitted. You will see that Adonais is seeking to usurp the throne for himself. Those things are omitted. You'll find them in the Samuels, but you won't find them in Chronicles. Why? Because the writer, not being dishonest, because the record is already there in other Old Testament books. But this writer has a different purpose and what he wants to do is lift up and exalt. This glorious and central place which the nation Israel is to occupy in the midst of the nations. This is a nation originally called out of darkness and into covenant relationship with God. And God's design, as he promised through Abraham, was that Abram and his seed ultimately the Christ, that Abram and his seed would be a blessing not unto themselves, but to the nations so that if you read Isaiah 62, for example, verses 1 and following, the picture is there depicted of Israel, this nation in the midst of the nation, a nation so blessed of God, blessed in terms of righteousness, blessed in terms of justice, blessed in terms of compassion, blessed in terms of prosperity and security and safety. So blessed is Israel that the nations would look at Israel and would say, God is in her midst, and so let us go up to Jerusalem. Let us go to that place that we might learn of the Lord and hear His Word and be instructed of the Lord. That was God's original design for Israel. And Israel having fallen into disobedience was judged by God and sent into exile and now is brought back and the writer of Chronicles these two books. Seeks to set before a people easily discouraged, easily disheartened, and without resources seeks to set before them who they are and what God's purpose for them is. And in the prayer of J.B.S. there is a model, a picture, a snapshot, both in His prayer and in His person, a person and a picture, a model of what it is that God intends to do with the whole nation and desires to do with the whole nation. J.B.S. does not come back to a prosperous circumstance. He is devoid of prosperity. He is without resources. And if I might paraphrase the prayer of J.B.S. given the context of first and second Chronicles, it would sound something like this, oh God, in the midst, in the midst of our adversity, in the midst of our lack, so blessed me, so extend the borders of my territory, that your original purpose might be fulfilled to establish this nation as a nation in the midst of the nations, that you might be glorified in the salvation of the nations. That's the context, that's the meaning, that's the intent of the original author, as he looked at his world around him. So he asked the question, we asked the question, what might be the application then of this? Well for J.B.S., the application was in the midst of hardship and deprivation, Lord, bless me for the sake of your name. Our world is a world of unparalleled blessing. To get close to the heart of J.B.S., our prayer is the application of this text might be Lord bless me with the grace to let go of the prosperity with which I've been blessed for the cause of your kingdom, that your kingdom might be graded all the earth, that salvation might come to the nations. That might be the right application of this particular text, the our line. And I tell you it's troubling to me to read this little book, and while on the one hand the author would say this is not the prosperity gospel, arose by any other name, still looks a heck of a lot like a rose, and that's what troubles me. Beloved me, I say this, I say it patiently, I say it kindly, it seems to me, arguably the last thing in the world we need in this culture is larger stock portfolios. Some of us may. But it seems to me that if our hearts are where unrobled J.B.S. heart was, our prayer in application of that text might be that God would grant grace to let go of some of what we have. So that's the first thing, the first thing, is to look at the passage in its context to understand what was originally intended and then to seek to apply it. And here's the second thing, and this is the thing that is deeply, deeply disconcerting to me. And again, I'm not interested in raining on anybody's parade, and I want us to think properly about these things, the second thing, and the thing that is deeply, deeply distressing to me, is that the author having described this prayer of J.B.S. as a daring prayer that God always answers, a prayer that contains the key to a life of extraordinary favor with God, an extraordinary claim. We made that claim, nowhere in the book, is the finished work of Jesus Christ as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of His people, and the only means by which we gain access to the presence of God who is glad to give this life of extraordinary blessing to His people. Nowhere is that atonement of Jesus, described as the foundation for the appropriation of that blessed life. Nowhere is the high, priestly, and mediatorial work of Christ explained as the only basis for our approach to God. Nowhere. I tell you, I've read the book, I encourage you to read the book, and I tell you that a Muslim, a Jew, a unitarian, a liberal Christian could read this book without offense, without encountering the offense of the cross. And that, it seems to me, is something to be deeply concerned about. Now we can say in response to this, and I'm sure at least I trust that this is the case, we can say in response to this that the writer has assumed all of that, and yet I would challenge you to read the letters of the Apostle Paul, and ask yourselves whether or not at any place in connection with prayer or anything else, the finished work of Jesus Christ in His atoning work as a sacrifice for sinners, and His mediatorial work as the high priest who represents us before the Father in that work. I would challenge you to find a place anywhere in Paul's letters where prayer or anything else is disconnected from that work of Christ. Let me give you just one example. First Timothy 2, one in following, therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. For kings and for all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence, where this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior who desires all men to be saved and who come to a knowledge of the truth for there is. Why? That we may make these intercessions and prayers and supplications in behalf of all men. The connecting particle in verse 5 is the word 4. What is the basis upon which we may make these intercessions? Here's why there is one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus who gave Himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time. It is not disconnected from the mediatorial work of Jesus. Jesus said, I'm the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me. It seems to me, for us, for those of us who live on the other side of the cross and who have so much more than Jepus had at His time, it seems to me that if we talk about prayer without laying a solid foundation upon the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ, we make an egregious mistake. Something that it seems to me is not honoring to God and something that seems to me that could have disastrous consequences for people who read the book. We live on this side of the cross and we love it. If there is a secret, if there is a key to a life of favor with God, it is Jesus and that life is not to be found in any place else. The third thing, something I mentioned last week, I'll suggest this to you and I'll encourage you yourselves to contemplate this passage in Luke. The third thing to ask is, where do I look if I want to pray as God would have me pray? Isn't that what we would want? Would we not want to pray as God would have us pray if I'm sitting in my living room and I'm alone and I'm wondering about prayer and I'm wrestling with prayer and I consider myself a disciple of Jesus Christ, where would be the place for me to go? To whom would I appeal? It seems to me that I do what the disciples did. I go to the master prayer. If I want to build on a solid foundation, if I'm going to construct a theology of prayer, if I'm going to erect an understanding of how God blesses his people, wouldn't I want to go to the master prayer and the one who knows the mind of the Father and the one who by his instruction in disclosing the mind of the Father would seek to bring me into conformity with the mind of the Father, which is a very, very good place to be. So where would we go? It seems to me that we would want to go to this Lord's Prayer and it doesn't matter which of the versions you pick, you can pick Luke 11, you can pick Matthew 6 and here are the priorities. The priorities which Jesus sets before his people and honestly, just in having reflected upon first Chronicles 4, these priorities of Jesus, I have to believe even though so very little is said about J-Bez. I have to believe, given the sense of urgency that there certainly is in his prayer, in the context of the post-exilic period, it really seems to me that the prayer of J-Bez and the Lord's Prayer reflect similar priorities. What is the first priority of Jesus certainly that we recognize God as our Father? Martin Luther has said, if I could understand the first two words of the Lord's Prayer, I would understand the whole of the Christian life. If I could come to terms with the fact that I and the Son, a daughter, a child of the God of Heaven and Earth, I would have comprehended the whole of the Christian life. And the glorious thing about this is that this Father is not confined to time and place or space, but he is the God of Heaven and Earth. This Father dwells in the heavens, in the highest of the heavens. And so I come to one, as the Heidelberg Cagicism says, that wonderful question, questions 26. I come to one, this one, whom I affirm to be the Almighty God maker of Heaven and Earth. I come to one who is both able to do things for his people because he is Almighty God, and he desires to do things for his people because he is a loving Father. He's both able and he's willing. And so in that confidence, what are the things that I pray for? The heart of Jesus was concerned for the name of God. That's the first priority. That the name of God might be regarded in the midst of the Earth. The thing that Jesus was concerned about was the kingdom, that the kingdom of God might find expression in the midst of the Earth just as it does in Heaven. A content like these things, folks, these are Jesus' priorities for us. And Jesus, through John, says, if we ask anything, according to his will, we know we have those things we've requested up in, first John 5. This is what we're getting here. We are getting the will of God praying. And Jesus cared about the name of the Father, that the Father's name be regarded. He cared about the kingdom and he cared that the kingdom be established in glory. And nowhere, nowhere is there the suggestion that the establishment of that kingdom would involve a painless uninterrupted life of blessing? Paul reminds the believers in Acts 14 that it is through many trials that we enter the kingdom. Paul and Philippians 3 asks not only that he might know the power of Jesus' resurrection, but that he might be conformed to Jesus' sufferings. And in Colossians, he says that in his sufferings he makes up for what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, not the atoning sacrificial suffering of Christ, but Christ in his agonies for his people and in his persecutions at the hands of the world. You pray for the kingdom. And are you willing like Joseph, like Paul, like Jesus to suffer not more, but even less for the cause of Christ? Jesus prays for the will of God. God's kingdom might be established that his will might be done. He prays most certainly that we might be granted day by day our daily bread and there's a context for that. There's a connection to Proverbs 30 verses 8 and 9. It's the only one of the petitions in the Lord's Prayer that has referenced to a particular text of the Old Testament. Listen, listen to this. Two things I request of you. Deprive me not before I die. Remove falsehood and lies far from me. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food allotted to me, lest I be full and deny you and say who is the Lord, or lest I be poor and steel and profane the name of my God. Wisdom says that we ask only for what we need. And the rest of this passage, Luke 11, makes very clear that a Father who loves us will never, when we ask for spread to give us stones, when we ask for an egg, give us scorpions. And so our prayers are simply, God, give me what I need, and then we trust Him to do it. Do we pray that we might be spared sin and temptation? Is that the priority of our lives in praying? So the question then arises in the midst of this business of unanswered prayer, and it's a tough business, and I know it. The question arises, are we asking for the right things? Are we praying the right things? I'm certainly, certainly glad for us to be encouraged to pray the prayer of Jabez, as we understand it in its context and its intent. But I'm strongly encouraging us to move beyond the prayer of Jabez to be instructed at the feet of the master prayer who is Jesus, and that we order our prayers after His instruction knowing that as He has instructed us, and as we pray in accordance with that instruction, we may have absolute confidence that we will receive the things that we've asked. Let's pray together.
Lord Jesus, please help us in this. Please help us to persevere. Please help us to receive instruction. Please help us weak and frail as we are to order our thinking after the pattern that is established in the Holy Scripture, particularly as we sit at the feet of Jesus. O Lord, be with us. Help us continue to instruct us and look upon your people. Look upon these with discouraged hearts and weak faith, and draw near to them and be the Father that you represent yourself as being in the Scriptures and encourage your people.