Does prayer really, really change anything? The answer to that and other questions on this edition of Key Life. Hi, I'm Mike Kellogg and you are now listening to Key Life, where you can find honest answers to honest questions about God's Word. Now, here is Steve. Thanks, Mike. And Pete Almondson, appreciate you coming in to join me on Fridays from your busy and it is busy and I so much. Well, you know every pastor is busy and you're busy, man. Yeah, but nothing like pastors. I just, I don't know how. I didn't know how busy I was until I didn't do it anymore. It's 24 hours a day, it never stops. I mean, they call you two o'clock in the morning. Hey, pastors, I get you up and say, no, I'm up at two o'clock all the time, man. I fall into sleep listening to more drunks at two o'clock in the morning. They're just going on and on and I know Jesus wouldn't fall into sleep. But no, you're going to tough job and I know it. And I appreciate the time he gives us. By the way, guys, we'd love to get your questions, but you have to write them down. Send them to Key Life, post office box 5,000, Mateland, Florida, 32794, Key Life Canada, post office box 32150, Cambridge, Ontario, in 3H5 in 3, or you can email us at steveatkeylife.org. And by the way, don't use the 1-800 key life number to ask questions. You can get the magazine free. You can make a contribution. You can become a part of key life, take family free. And you can get the booklets we offer free. But you got to write your questions down. And we love your questions and the only dumb ones, the one you don't ask. We get thousands of these and we need to get to it. So keep your prayers short. Would you be? No, ladies and prayer and then we'll get to these questions. Father, we do thank you that you go with us. You never leave us no forsakeness. We praise you today for the fact that you are omnipotent and omniscient. That you are all powerful and that you know all and that you're with us wherever we go. And we honor you for your greatness. We thank you for your grace and mercy and kindness. And Lord, we really look forward to getting together to worship you with the rest of your flock. And this weekend we do pray that you would give our leaders the message that they should give and that they would speak it clearly and boldly and powerfully. And that our ears would be open not just to what we want to hear, but what you are trying to say to us. Make us learners. And may they be in a sense prophets to us as they speak. We thank you for key life and for this ministry that has reached so many. We thank you for the freedom and joy that we have felt as we heard the gospel in a fresh way. And so we just commit the ministry to you again for your blessing. Be with us now as we look at these questions and we look for you to do great things. Through this time we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. This is from Illinois. Does prayer change circumstances? Do our prayers really matter? Well, we know that God is absolutely sovereign. And He's already ordained. Everything is going to happen. If he's in 11. So why pray? So I don't know. I mean, you're the resolution. That's very helpful. Jesus, we're prayerful. Jesus, we're prayer modeled for us by Jesus. We're commanded to pray and to pray without ceasing. He said, ask and you'll receive. That's right. You see we have the faith of a grain of mustard seed. That's right. You can say the mountain. It'll go. Get up and go. He said, greater works than I do. And I do. Yeah. Because I go to the Father. And so prayer is a big deal. We don't know really theological. I don't think we can put it all together here in honor as to how exactly at all. It all works together. How God's sovereignty and how our human responsibility work but prayer is powerful. It's important. And we ought to be doing it. And it does change things. We need to pray. Somebody has said that a sovereign God takes into account our prayers at the moment of His creation, His ordination. There we go with time and sovereignty again. Well, time and history. See us Lewis. And it's a light, a little book. If you guys haven't read it, you ought to get it. It's not a heavy book at all. It's letters to Malcolm. It's really on prayer. That's great. There really was no Malcolm. I mean, he just used that as a literary technique to say some things about prayer. But the Father's really low. And he deals with his problem, ultimately saying, as you did, I don't know. But we do know that Jesus said it was important and that it did change. Yeah. You know, first John 5, 14, 15 says that if we pray, ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us and whatever we ask, we have the request that we desire it of Him. And so we know that there's a lot in Scripture that we ought to be praying about and should pray for. You know, I should pray that people get better. But I don't know, you know, particularly if someone's so supposed to get better or if they're supposed to die. You know, if that's in God's will, but I pray that they get better. But I do know that, for instance, if God, if I'm proud, I can pray Lord humble me. Because that's His will. That's His will. And I do know that He will humble me and make me humble. And do you think that maybe this question, and we all do this, presupposes? I was praying this morning and generally, you know, I ended by saying, Lord, I really appreciate this time with you. Then I thought, and I had this whole, I had a shopping list. I mean, I got a lot of stuff that's bothered me right now. Most of which could be fixed with money. No. But I got a lot of things that are really made your concerns. Some people that are really hurting and some people that I love that are going through. And I just had this shopping list. I was just going down, telling God all the stuff that He needed to fix. And what, and I cheer for you if you do this for me and this for me. Then at the end, I said, I really like this time with you. And then I realized, I really do. And maybe prayer, I wish my father was still living, because he died too soon. I didn't get to know him the way I wanted to know him. And if somehow God would grant that He would be alive again, I'd go spend time with him. And I wouldn't want anything from him. I just want to be with him. Yeah. And so sometimes we think of prayer as the methodology whereby we get what we want. Yeah. And maybe that's not, I mean, that's a part of it. But maybe that's not what it's about. I don't think it's the total, total thing. It's just getting our, getting our list filled. That's good. That is so good. Steve, I just finished, you know, I stay in when I travel. I last couple of times I stayed in the Hilton and they have these little biographies. They put me in Motel 8. How come you get to Hilton? I don't know. Maybe I'll get into a men's ministry or something. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. You know, that little biography written in 1956 by Conrad Hilton, the founder of all of these hotels. And I picked it up and started reading. It was very, very good. You know, he was a Catholic and his mother was a Catholic. And she prayed all the time as she said, sun pray. Every time there was a difficulty, she said, go pray. And you would, you know, we look at this huge chain ever before. Every one of these things that, every one of these deals, he put together. He was praying. Oh, man. And I know you say, well, you know, he was just praying to get this and get that. But he had a sweet spirit, at least from what I can tell. In many words, he prayed a lot. Yeah. It's a good story. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. And it really prompted me to say, you know, I need to pray more. Just, you know, just for the time in the presence of the Father. I think from now, when I speak, I'm a demand they put me in Hilton. Yeah. And I'll tell a bad spiritual thing. Yeah. You need to get that biography. You need to get that biography. Yeah. What's, this is from Oregon. What's the purpose of the law? Historically, you know, in terms of true, reformed theology, there's the civil use of the law, right? More regulating Israel. There was the, there was a second use of the law which Luther emphasized more. There's ceremonial. Which, well, civil ceremonial and moral. But I'm thinking the law can be used also in the sense that it can help regulate our laws. Yeah. As it did Israel, it can be used as a tutor to Christ. And then the third use of the law, the Calvinistica reform, tend to talk about the rule of faith in life. Yeah. And Luther tended to emphasize the second use of the law as a tutor to Christ. And Calvinists tend to emphasize the rule of faith in life. Yeah. Where do you go on all that? Well, I agree. I think all of those are a part of the law. I think we misuse the law. We use it to affirm our own righteousness so that we can be self-righteous. As if the Christian faith were a bunch of rules. And if you did all the rules right, then you're a Christian. Then you're in. And I think that's dangerous using the law. I think a use of the law. The law, Paul says, doesn't give us life. Right. And so I think I'm more concerned with the misuse of the law. But I do want to know what police is God. I want to know what he wants because I really got this thing about placing him. I don't always do it. But what kind of father would he be if I said, you know, you love me? And wherever you want me to do, I'll do it. And he said, I'm not going to tell you. And so he's told us. And that's a good thing. And I think the law measures. It allows me to know where to confess. So that I get hugged and forgiven. And where to praise if I'm living it so that he gets the praise. And either way he gets the praise because I'm forgiven. And he gets praised. And when I'm doing better and moving on to perfection, to sanctification, he gets praised for that too. Yeah. That's great. That's great. I love that your emphasis is not that we've got to be, you know, again, back to your statement. God is angry at us. Yeah. But the law does regulate guidance and show us the father's heart for us. I think he uses a lot of developments too. But that's another. Yeah. I think so too. The sanctification. And the law is perfect. The psalmist says. Yeah. And a lot of people think that because I talk about God not being angry and that Luther said if you sense in boldly, then I'm encouraging disobedience to the law. I'm not. The Bible is very clear about that. The law is God's gift. Not his curse. The grace of the law. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. This is from Ohio. You know, I say there are any dumb questions except the one you don't ask. This may be the... No, no. No. He says. How was Jesus pointless if He told parables, fictional stories, ultimately lies? Well, since you already ticked this person off. No. I understand. Now, these parables are a great pedagogical effort on the part of Jesus to make clear the truth that He was teaching. And the best way to do is to tell stories. Fairytales are not lies in the technical sense of proclaiming untruth with the purpose of leading people astray. Fairytales are fun. And then moral stories which was a part of the early education in public schools. It's a very important thing. And it's not lies. It's... I mean, if Jesus has said, this is the truth. I'm not making this up. And then told something wasn't true. Right. That'd be a lie. But nobody even thought that he was doing anything except telling this story to illustrate the truth. Drawn from their everyday practice. Yeah. Well, I think that's sufficient. Forget me for what I said. I guess I thought about that myself. Now that I think about it. 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