The Real Human Experience of Prayer

This week, I was working on a sermon. I had a sermon I wanted to give. I want to talk about marriage, actually, what I was working on. I worked on it, worked on it, and finally, Thursday, I don't know, I wasn't happy with it. I talked to my wife about it, trying to get some ideas. I had another sermon, and I had it partly prepared, and I wasn't happy with that either.

I said, well, I'll give that in the future. I actually went back, and I started looking through some old sermons. I found a sermon that I gave 10 years ago, well, it was a little over 10 years ago, in which I told everybody in San Antonio, Austin, that I was going to give them a part 2. And I never did. So this is a part 2 of the sermon, 10 years ago. I just don't want you to think that I never keep up with this.

So this is part 2. I got a call this week from a man, who, he said, I'm interested in coming to church. And he said, I want you to teach me how to pray. He said, I don't know how to pray. And people will call me or come to me all the time, especially new people, and they have questions about prayer.

How often do I pray? What position do I get into? What do I say? Do I pray directly to the Father? Some people come from backgrounds where they have zero understanding of prayer. Sometimes I'll sit and talk to people whose entire experience of prayer is going to a church where it's a ritual, when they stand up and recite the Lord's Prayer. That's all they know.

So is that what I do? Do I just recite the Lord's Prayer? And I've had people ask that. But that's not only just with new people. If you've been to the church for a long time, you can still struggle with prayer. What do I pray about? Is God really listening? I've actually had people ask me, you know, I've been praying for 30 years. I don't have anything less to say. I mean, what am I going to tell God? He doesn't already know.

I've had people have a hard time. They've come to me and they'll say, I have a hard time praying about my problems because God loves my problems, so why should I go bothering with them? I mean, He knows what the issues are, right?

Or I prayed for a certain thing for 10 years now. I guess I just give up. And so we still struggle with prayer. And this is what we give servants on prayer. We talk about the mechanics of it. We'll go to what's called the Lord's Prayer. It's a model prayer. And we'll talk about how you could use that as an outline. And there's a lot of instructions in the Bible to deal with the mechanics of prayer, especially in the New Testament.

But what I had done in this sermon 10 years ago was I had gone through numerous examples of prayer, real examples of people who gave a prayer in the Bible. And what that prayer produced, what it produced in God's reaction to them, and what it produced in their reaction to God after the prayer was answered, or not answered, or how it was answered. And I remember telling everyone, now I've got a whole other set of prayers I want to tell you about that I never gave. So, part two. What we're going to look at today are some specific instances of prayer.

And this is very important because it gives us the human element. Okay, pray God's kingdom come. So you say, okay, I'm going to start praying for God's kingdom come, or pray for your daily prayer. Okay, I'm going to go ask God for the things that I need. But let's look at when real human beings had to get off their nieces and pray to God in different circumstances, and how God responded to them. And just as importantly, what we're going to look at today is how people responded to God's answer, how people responded in this relationship with human element.

So, we're going to look at prayer in the real, human experience of prayer. We're going to look at a number of different instances. The first one we're going to look at is in 1 Samuel. So let's go to 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel chapter 1. We all have favorite characters in the Bible, or people we look up to as sort of role models.

1 Samuel 1 to 2 is about one of my role models. So what I've always admired is Hannah. Hannah is the mother of Samuel. Now, we usually don't think much about Hannah. I mean, we know she's mentioned in the Bible. Yet, the first two chapters of Samuel is about this woman, and it's about her relationship with God.

And actually, much of chapter 2 is a prayer by her. So this woman actually wrote part of the Bible. It's actually wrote part of the Bible. And in her prayers, there's a number of prayers here, we understand that we can learn something about our relationship with God.

We know from the beginning of this book that Hannah was a woman who, her husband had two wives. Now, God teaches us lots of ways in the Bible. Every once in a while, I'll meet somebody, and he'll say, I want to come to your church, but what do you teach about polygamy?

The moment he says that, I know this guy is going to want to come to our church, because, well, we don't teach. You know, polygamy is something you should do. Oh, well, the Bible says you should. You know what? Go through every single instance of polygamy in the Bible. There's lots of them. And write them down and add them up. And every single one of them is negative.

Now, how, like, what does God have to do to get our attention? I'll give you 60 or 70 cases. I don't know how many there are, but there's got to be scores of them. I'll give you 60 cases, and all of them are bad. Do you get the point? No. They don't get the point. God sometimes, you know, stands on the mount and fingers out to the commandment. Sometimes he teaches us in a lot of different ways.

There's a lot of bad examples. But what's interesting here, and I know my wife and I were talking about this in the car driving here, this woman is absolutely adored by her husband. You wonder if she's not the first wife. And the problem is, she couldn't have children. Now, in that society, everything was passed on to the children.

Your property, your wealth. So, her husband needed children. So we don't know which wife came first, but I think you could probably draw a conclusion. By the way he loves this wife, he had a second wife in order to produce children, which was an economic necessity at the way the society was structured. You had to have children. We do know that she suffered greatly because of this.

We say that, look at verse 6 when it says, and her rival, this is the other wife, her rival also provoked her severely to make her visible because the Lord had closed her room.

Now, we know that it says her husband would give her double portion. In other words, he treated her twice as good. Everything he did, he tried to make her happy. In fact, there's an interesting statement here. Typical male statement. She is distressed. She was absolutely distressed. Look at verse 7. So it was year by year when she went up to the house of the Lord that she provoked her, therefore she wept and did not eat.

In other words, when they would go to one of the pilgrimage feasts, probably, so either would be either during the Passover days of the Mother Bread time, Pentecost, or Peace and Tabernacles, when they would go year by year to the house of the Lord. Well, what would happen is this woman would make fun of her.

You don't have a child. I do. You know, of course you can understand this woman is probably jealous because he loves her, so she feels like she's nothing more than a baby machine. I mean, this is not a good place to be, okay? She's a baby machine, he loves her, so she just drives this woman down in a society where a woman's value is based on how many children she produced.

So we have to try to put ourselves in his position to understand. I mean, you know, most women, many women, have a desire to have a child. They can be overwhelmed. This woman's desire was not only her own biological need, her own psychological need. It was that she was looked down upon in society, and she was actually being hampered and put down by another woman in her own household every day. So this is an overwhelming experience for Hannah. Now, her husband's response in verse 8, or whatever, she's not eating.

She's so depressed she can't eat. That Elkanah, her husband, said to her, Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart so green? I just love this segment. Am I not better than ten sons? Well, you got me! I love you! Is this my love enough? And I say, well, what a cruel guy. But no, I mean, I can see that. I love you.

I adore you. I do everything for you. I don't love her. I love you. And I do everything I can for you, and you're the apple of my eye. Isn't that enough for you? Now, a woman would say he doesn't understand. He didn't understand. He doesn't be cruel or he doesn't understand. We have each other. Is that not enough? Hannah says, you don't understand what I'm missing. You actually have children. You have children in our household, but they're no money. So, Hannah arose, after they had finished eating and drinking and shied. Now, Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the tabernacle of the Lord.

So, they're actually a child over the tabernacle is. And Eli is the high priest. Now, this is the most revered, respected man in all of Israel. He is the man who every day of a totalment goes into the holy of holers. Only he can do that. And he also is a very God-Kellan. So, this is a very respected man. He is considered a man in which God does very special things to him.

So, he is the judge, he is the high priest, he is the leader of the nation. This man is very, very important. And I stress that because of her response to what he does. Verse 10, and she was a bitterness of soul and prey to the Lord and wept in ageless land. It is often believed that Samuel wrote... Samuel, we're not sure. It's 1 Samuel. It's interesting the amount of effort he puts in the words he chooses to describe his mother's anguish.

Which is... it's made to authors one of the reasons why David Samuel wrote this. There's an awful lot of effort put in here to describe his anguish. That this is psychologically, emotionally more than she can say. And she made a vow and said, here's her first prayer. O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your maidservant to remember me and not forget. Not forget your maidservant, but we'll give your maidservant a nailed child and we'll give him to the Lord all the days of his life.

And no razor shall come upon his head. Now, asking for a nailed child is very interesting there, because she says, the reason I want a nailed child is I want to give him to you. You can do great things to him. He can be a leader, he can be your priest, he can be your servant, he can be whatever you want. I will give him to you if you'll give him a nailed child.

Because this need to have this child is so great. Verse 12, and it happened as she continued praying before the Lord that Eli watched her mouth. And I had a spoke in the heart, only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard.

Therefore Eli thought she was drunk. And he thought he probably prayed before. I thought about this. Sometimes I pray when I hear walking. And I find myself walking along and I know I realize my lips are moving. And I think people have to think, there's that crazy guy. Look, there he goes. He talks. Who's he talking to? Because I'm babbling away. She's honoring. By the tabernacle, crying out to God. So much so that her lips are moving, but her voice is coming out because she's saying it in her head.

He looked at her, the most important man, the most spiritual man in the entire nation, looks at her and misjudges the situation. I want more can happen with this Lord. Now she's being misjudged by the greatest spiritual leader in the country.

It says, verse 14, So Eli said to her, How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you. Now at this point, here is the normal reaction. What's interesting in the cases we're going to look at today, the people's reaction to the situation was not the normal human reaction. And they all walked prayer.

She's before the Almighty God, humbled before the Almighty God. Her husband doesn't understand her. She's in a trial that has zero chance of it working out unless God does it for a miracle. And she's now being falsely accused by the most spiritual persons in the country. You know what the normal reaction would be? That's the last song I have out of here. You know, God, you are a fool. God, you don't know what you're doing. You put this trial on me, you give me a husband that doesn't understand me, he has to take the second wife who just plagues me, and she keeps having children, and now you're going to accuse me through one of your leaders? One of your elders? That's it, God. You've abused me enough. Right?

That would be the normal, you-in reaction. That is not hers.

Verse 15. But Hannah answered and said, No, my Lord, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I drunk either wine or a toxicated drink, but I poured out my soul before the Lord. Do not consider your mates or an wicked woman, for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief I have spoken until now. What was interesting is, Eli didn't even ask her what her prayer was. It just says in verse 17, that Eli answered and said, Go at peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition, which you have asked of him.

And immediately she felt better. It said she went, she washed her face, she ate, and she believed God was going to give her some kind of answer. What we know happened is that she could hear prayer.

Now, here's what's also amazing in this story. And this tells us something about Hannah as this remarkable person.

She goes to her husband with this little baby. Now, he's got the son through his favorite wife. Life is good.

My wife's happy, my other wife is happy, guys don't have two wives. Okay, this is a good one. Okay, let me tell you. But, okay, life is good. She comes to him and says, as soon as he's weak, I have to take him and give him to the hikers.

Because that's what I promised God. That's the prayer I pray, and that's what I promised God.

Now, what would be your reaction to that, guys?

Would you let your wife take and give your son a wife? It's amazing, as Kath and Kana said, that's what you promised. That's what you have to do.

You give our son away.

That would be, as a dad, that would be devastating. As a mother, that would be devastating. I have to give my child away, because it's what I promised I would do. It's interesting, in verse 27, she says, She says, So she takes this little guy, and she takes him to the tavern, and she tells Eli, You must raise this one. He's the serve here in the tavern, as I gave him the gun.

Now, how would a mother feel about that? I'll tell you how her hand felt. As a mother, she might be thinking, how would I give... As a father, how would you feel? Your wife is giving your boy away. How did she feel about that? We're thinking about prayers. She's awkward of prayer.

She made a commitment to God in that prayer. Well, there's another prayer, chapter 2. There's another prayer by Hannah. Look at verse 1. We're not going to read the whole prayer. I guess it was zero out of two verses. And Hannah prayed and said, What is her response to taking her little toddler and giving him oil? She says, I'm so happy!

I'm so excited! I asked God to give me a child, and I got three years, or four years, whenever she, you know, nourished the child. They tended to nurse a little longer than that. It's only so long. I nursed my child. I took care of my child. And now I'm going to give him away because he's God's. How great is God to do this for me?

She made a commitment to God, and she was absolutely joyful to fulfill her commitment, because she loved God. She's death. See, this isn't the normal human reaction. This goes against all... It goes against everything that is considered maternal instinct, which she obviously had a lot of. But the whole point is, I do that of A. And she gave her maybe one. And she rejoiced her, because this honors God. And we have this prayer that she prayed. We go down to verse 18 here, chapter 2. But Samuel ministered before the Lord even as a child. So what happened? When they went and told Eli, Remember me? I'm the woman that was here, and you thought was drunk. And you said, God would answer my prayer, and he did. Here's my baby. But I committed to God that this is his child. So here he is. He is the served God. And what's amazing, once again, is her influence, just like her influence on her husband. Her example was so great that her husband said, Give away my son. The Eli said, Did I take him? You have to realize, this is her influence. The high priest says, Did I better take him? And he takes him, this child, and he had two sons, who were absolutely failures. It's interesting. Eli's sons were failures, and God had to have somebody to replace Eli. And guess who shows up as a child? Somebody else. Guess who's trained to be the next high priest and judge? If it isn't his son, it's him. Why a Samuel? Because Pentecai. Take this more. God says, Okay. Because Eli's kids were turning out little bad. I want you to understand, can his prayer here reveal so much about her and her relationship with God? It says here, moreover, verse 19, his mother used to make him a little robe. It's very interesting. It's little robe. It doesn't say robe. He's a little guy. He's a little robe. She makes him a little robe and brings it to him year by year when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. And Eli would bless El-Kay, then, his wife, and say, The Lord gave you the sentence of this woman for the loan that was given to the Lord, that they would go their own home. And the Lord visited Hannah so that she could sing to more three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, the child Samuel grew before the Lord. From this point on, the story changes. It's not about Hannah. It's about Samuel. The story changes. But the story is relevant only when we understand Hannah. We understand how Samuel got there. We understand what the price was that she had paid in her worship of God. And she was happy to do so. She rejoiced him. She had to go against her own emotional makeup. There are two lessons we learned here that are very important. One, humbly worshiping God will help us not be offended by other people.

How could this woman be suffering this man, have a husband that doesn't understand, a woman who's absolutely emotionally abusing her, and the man of God treats her like she's a drunk? That's pretty bad! How do you not get offended by all that? Because she's humbly worshiping God. That's right. Her focus was on God. That's what her focus was. So she was offended by all this. It hurt, but she didn't change who she was. Secondly, effective prayer requires that you and I make commitments to God. Now, you shouldn't go out and offer all your children to God. That's not the point. But you and I make commitments to God all the time. When you ask God to bless you, there are responsibilities that come with those lessons. When you ask God to help you or forgive you, there is obedience that is required. You and I have obedience responses to God that are all the time. Whether it's keeping the Ten Commandments, or how we treat each other or our families, we have obedience responses to God all the time. We make commitments to God every time we pray. Every time we say in Jesus' name, Amen, we're saying, let this prayer be fulfilled.

And what we find from Hannah is a person with this remarkable ability to follow through with her commitments to God and be joyful about it. She actually is happy about her commitments.

What we usually do, and this normal human reaction is, is that because we really don't trust in God's goodness, we believe that He's keeping us back from something. I've mentioned this before. And since we believe He's keeping us back from something, what we do is we resent our own commitments.

Yes, God, I believe in the Sabbath.

Oh, until I have to lose a job over the Sabbath, then I resent you.

Yes, God, I thank you for this woman you brought into my life until she doesn't fulfill my every dream and idea. She's not my slave. It's like, oh, well, no, she's not what I wanted.

We make commitments.

Hannah fulfilled her commitments with joy.

Her prayers reflect that.

We have these two great lessons. One, we have a humbling worship in God, helps us not be offended by others.

And secondly, effective prayers require that we make commitments, and when we truly trust God, we fulfill those commitments with joy. There's a happiness in it.

Now, another prayer is in Proverbs 30.

Proverbs 30 was written by Agor.

Nobody knows, really, who Agor is.

All we know is he is the son of Jacob.

And since nobody knows who Jacob is, that doesn't help at all.

But it's a very fascinating chapter filled with wisdom, and there's a little prayer in the middle of this chapter that tells us something very important.

Verse 7.

Two things I requested you deprive me not before I die.

I want you to think of this for a minute. What if you had a chance to go to God and God said, okay, you get two things?

Ooh. Ooh. Two things. Okay. Two things.

And it's not like the genie in the bottle. If you get one wish, I pay for a thousand wishes. Okay, now it's not half. You get two things. What do you want?

What would it be? Perfect husband? Lots of children?

Great career? Lots of money?

What would it be, your number one request?

Well, you say, okay, now the first request has to be spiritual, so I can get my second request. Okay, that's interesting, because we're going to get both of these requests, okay?

The first request is, remove falsehood and lies far from me.

Now, it's interesting when you read commentaries on this verse, because they can't figure out if the Hebrew means, removes falsehoods and lies from within me, or removes, remove falsehoods and lies from, you know, against me.

Which has led many to believe it must mean both, which would make perfect sense.

His first prayer is, give me a clean conscience by removing falsehood from within me.

I'm going to tell you the most difficult prayer you'll ever give.

Now, I'm going to use the term intellectual honesty.

I'm not talking about how honest you are with other people.

I'm talking about how honest you are with yourself.

How you will justify actions.

How you will process your feelings, your emotions.

How you will take God's way and apply it to everyday life, in your life, not other people's lives.

It's always easier to judge somebody else's life, right?

But how are you going to be honest with yourself and God?

See, a lot of difficult prayer.

God, please remove all falsehood from me.

Not give everybody else, but from me.

All lies that are in here.

Because the greatest lies we believe are the ones we tell ourselves.

You see, ourselves.

Why do I do what I do?

What a prayer!

First request, remove falsehood and lies from me.

Now, that would also mean externally, so you could pray, God, please help protect my reputation from false accusations.

There's one thing we know in the Bible, almost every man or woman of the Bible that really did a great work of God, and people bring false accusations to this.

That just seems to be a part of the Course.

But, you know, so we pray, please protect our reputation.

Please protect me from false accusations.

And we should pray for that.

So that is a huge implication.

Remove falsehood from me. Take lies out of me.

Help me be intellectually honest with myself.

Because you may be honest with everybody else but yourself.

Okay.

Well, the next part of the prayer has to get easier.

Okay, if you ask for that, the next thing must be a bump.

Right?

The next thing must be the most beautiful, white adorable.

Okay, whatever.

The next one is just as difficult.

Remember, he's only asking for two things.

Before I die, I would like these two things.

The second one, the last half of verse 8, Give me neither poverty nor riches, Heaten with the food allotted to me, Lest I be full and denied you, and say, Who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal, And profane the name of my God.

But wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Wait a minute. I want to rewrite that.

God, probably like ten million dollars would make me forget you, so God just give me five of you.

That's not what he prays.

He says, God, please don't get me so much, I forget who you are.

Now, please don't let me be in poverty, so I forget who you are.

Because if I have too much, I'll forget you, I'll think I did all this myself, I'll take pride in myself, I'll become arrogant, self-reliant, I'll forget you, I'll treat other people poorly, I'll become dishonest.

But what happens maybe if I'm in poverty, I'll steal, cheat, and lie, become dishonest. He says, I don't want either of those trials.

So please keep me to never have either of those extremes in my life.

Take falsehood from me, and help me not to be too rich or too poor.

Maybe just a little on the rich side.

But that's not what he says!

I have tried to rewrite this, I don't care how many, I'm ashamed to tell you how many times I have tried to rewrite this prayer.

It's not what he said.

That's what makes this another amazing prayer, just like Hannah.

This is not the formal human response to God.

It is a remarkable response to God.

The person who someone who went to God is then helping me, intellectually honest, help me keep my priorities straight.

Because what we don't realize is, sometimes, if we don't have our priorities straight, it doesn't matter how much you have, it will never be enough.

It reminds me of the story of the woman who was always complaining to her co-worker, she just didn't make enough money, she didn't have enough money, and she complained, and she grinded, and she worried.

She finally went to her boss and said, I just don't have enough.

I don't have enough. You know, I just don't have any personal money at all.

I just paid all my bills, that's all I have, and I really would like more money.

I just have to look for another job. He went, whoa, whoa! He said, you're a good worker.

He said, well, how much do you need? She said, I would need at least, I need $40 more a week.

She said, okay, let me go look at the, you know, review your words and look at different things.

He came back within a couple hours and said, you know what, you deserve $40 more a week.

Next paycheck, come out this week, you got $40 more a week. Boom.

She's ecstatic! She's happy! She thinks, you know what, I can get that purse I've been wanting.

In fact, next week I can get that pair of shoes I've been wanting, things I've been not being able to have, because I've been having to take care of the kids, and they call them bills, saying, wow, you know, maybe he said I was worth it.

I should have asked for 80.

And at that moment, she's just as unhappy as she was before she got the raise.

At that moment, we've all done that. She's just as unhappy as she was before.

Nothing's changed. She makes $40 more a week, but it really means something.

She's just as unhappy. The money goes just as fast. She's just as unsatisfied with whatever she's been through.

Just give me enough that I can be happy. As that I don't forget you.

Interested prayer. It takes a little courage, by the way, to go ask that prayer.

It takes a little courage to go ask that prayer. Because it goes against basic human nature.

Okay, a third prayer. Let's get to 2nd page 6. Now, this one's a little different in terms of the story.

We read through the story. We look at this prayer. But it wasn't until recently that I started to realize there's a lesson that comes after the prayer.

There's a great lesson in this story after the prayer. And I had to go through that. I just had never caught it before.

I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes. It took me a long time to forget this one. Just recently, I should have really figured this one out.

2nd page 6, verse 8. We have a situation here where the king of Syria is trying to pick a fight with Israel.

So he's going to invade and set a trap. Get my army in there, set a trap, and I'm going to ambush him.

So he's trying to pick a fight. And it starts in verse 8.

Now, the king of Syria was making war against Israel, and he consulted with his servants, saying, My camp will be in such and such a place. So he gets his army commanders together and says, Okay, what we're going to do is set up our camp here.

There's reason for that. Because he's going to ambush the king of Israel.

He's going to aid him into a fight or ambush him. But he's got him where he wants it. He's picked his ground.

Now, the man of God says to the king of Israel, saying, Beware that you do not pass this place, for the Syrians are coming down from there.

So the Syrians show up, and they set up their camp. They get it all set up, and nobody shuts up.

There's no fight. The last thing you want is an army ready for a fight, and no fight takes place.

Discipline breaks down. Everybody gets on the board. They start gambling and drinking. This isn't good.

So here's the problem. So it says, the king of Israel sent someone to the place, which the man of God had told him.

That's the important thing. He was watchful there, not just once or twice.

Not just once or twice. Over and over again. They got shot up, and over and over again the Israelites would never show up.

So the king of Syria, in verse 11, therefore the heart of the king of Syria was greatly troubled by this thing. He called his servants and said to them, will you not show me which of us is the king of Israel? Which of you is the spy?

Now this is a real bad place to be if you're his officer corps, because if he thinks what he'd do is a spy, you're going to die.

There's no trial. The king's going to say he died. It's probably not going to be really pleasant either.

So the officer corps comes in and he says, which of you is the spy?

And then in verse 12, one of his servants said, not my lord, but Elisha the prophet who is in Israel tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom.

I wouldn't even tell your concubines anything.

Because whatever you say, God tells Elisha. Now what you'd think if the king of Syria would say, maybe we should mess with their god, but he's such an arrogant guy.

He doesn't get it. He believes that the god of Israel is telling him things. Because it's part of that thing we've talked about before. They believe the national gods.

So the Syrians believe that their gods are bigger and stronger than Yahweh. It's not that they didn't believe it in Yahweh.

So, okay, what we have to do is we somehow have to cut the pipeline between Yahweh and Elisha. I just find that interesting.

So we've got to cut this pipeline because Yahweh and Elisha, and when we cut this pipeline, then he won't let anybody talk to him and we'll be able to go beat up on Israel.

That's the way they thought in the painting.

So he said, go and see where he is. And I mean instead to get him. And it was told, say, surely he is a Dothan.

Therefore he sent a horse and chariot and a great army there, and they came by night and surrounded the city.

So he sent this contingent under his army. Now we don't know what a great army is, but it wasn't 12 guys, okay?

He sent this army, he's big enough to surround a city.

And when the servant of the man of God arose early and went out, there was an army surrounding the city with horses and chariots, and the servant said to him, This is Elisha. He asked my master, what shall we do?

I'm sure the beggar went out and said, what are you here for? Just send over Elisha and we'll go home.

So he answered, now we have Elisha's first prayer here.

Do not fear for those who are with us or more that those are with them.

Elisha prayed and said, Lord I pray, open his eyes, as he may see, and the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

Elisha's still worried about it. We can take him.

Now you've got to think, this guy says, there's you and me. And you're getting a little old as two.

And we're surrounded by an army. The guy let him see it. Now he's like, do you see this? Yeah, I see this.

So the prayer produces a miracle. And I really want to stress, his prayer produces a miracle. And this is the first miracle that's going to happen to this.

It's his response to the prayer and the miracle that's important.

So Elisha said, don't worry about it. God's going to take care of it. We're protected. It's okay.

So, verse 18. So when the Assyrians came down to him, there's another, he must go out and meet the... I don't know what that phrase means, means came down to them. I don't know whether he went out to meet them or they came into the city, but you know, he's out confronted with the people that are supposed to arrest him.

So when the Assyrians came down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, Strike this people I pray with blindness. And he struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha. And I find that interesting because my first response is, you know, God, leprosy would be nice.

We haven't had an earthquake in Israel for years. That'd be sort of cool.

Or like in the time of Moses. Just thought it'd all go crazy and kill each other. We could stand up the walls and watch the whole thing. He asked him to be blinded, of all things. Now, you think of making thousands of men armed to the teeth with armor, with horses and chariots, and they're all blind. The chaos of the enormous. Everybody's groping around. They're falling down. The horses are running off. And Elisha comes out and he says to the leaders, Now Elisha said in verse 19, This is not the way. Nor is this the city.

Wait a minute. Where he's coming to get Elisha and Dotham. I understand that this really isn't who you're looking for. And this really isn't the city. So it reminds me of Star Wars.

The Jedi said, This is the man you're looking for.

This isn't it. This is the place you're looking for. It's not? I mean, they're blind.

He says, Follow me and I will bring you to the man you see.

Oh, good. But he took them to Samaria. Samaria is the capital of this room. It's where the army gives.

Now, by this time, I'm sure they're all disarmed. The horses are chariots. You can't ride a horse as a blonde. You can't ride a chariot. So if you could just picture thousands of guys, probably all holding hands.

And Elisha and this guy that can't stop giggling beside him. And they're leading these people all into Samaria. They just want armies on the walls, and they open the gates, and they leave this entire contingent of the Syrian army into the middle of Samaria. And then they are all blind. They have no idea where they are. They're just following this guy. He says, I have to go where you need to go. Just come with me.

So they get there.

We're sweaty. So it was when they had come to Samaria that Elisha said, Lord, open the eyes of these men that they may see. Lord, open their eyes, and they saw that they were inside Samaria.

Uh-oh. No chariots. No armor. No weapons. No horses.

And you're trapped inside the city.

The soldiers are on the wall around you, not to keep you out, but to keep you in.

I don't know if you know much about military strategy, but I can tell you, in the ancient world, this was the worst situation you could be in. There's not much worse. Maybe if you were an earthquake or something leprosy, but that's, you know, this was about as bad as it gets.

Now, all these miracles, all these prayers, and so look at the faith of Elisha.

But that's not the point that's major in these prayers. It's what happens next.

Verse 20, look. Now, when the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, My father shall I kill them, shall I kill them?

Now, he repeats it for I don't think he's saying, Elisha, should I kill them? I did. Shall I kill them, shall I kill them?

This is Elisha. Yay! We get to kill all of them!

God had told Elisha to kill them.

Now, you think about the time, like Elisha, Elijah, who preceded him, he told him to kill some people, and he did. He didn't tell Elisha to kill them.

The people of God, the men of God, never killed somebody unless they were told to. It's Elisha's response to all these miracles. What would be the normal response? Yeah, God made them blind. This is so they can watch us slaughter them, kill them all. Right?

They invaded our country, killed them all.

And that's not Elisha's response.

Verse 22, but he answered, You shall not kill them. Would you kill those whom you have taken captive with your sword and your bow?

Such food and water before them that they may eat and drink and go to their master. He said, Whoa, whoa, whoa.

If an army surrendered to you, if you marched out in the name of God, would you slaughter them unless God had told you to?

Well, no, no.

And what gives you the right to slaughter these people?

It would have been so easy for God's response to create sort of a self-righteous, presumptuous movement by Elisha.

A decision by Elisha. He could have made a self-righteous, presumptuous decision.

Kill them all. But no, wait a minute. That's not what God says to do when he didn't give us any instructions.

So then he tells them to do something really strange.

Feed them. It sends them back.

Feed them and send them back.

Boy, that would be hard. But that's his response to God's response. He prayed, he got answered the prayer. His response is no. We're not going to be cruel.

Here. God has saved us and given them to us. Let them go.

What's interesting, verse 23 of the New King James says, Then he prepared a great feast for them. What does it say in other translations? Does it say great feast? Does it?

Can you imagine that? Oh, okay. The King and Israel, they're killing animals and bringing food, bread, wine. Okay, feast. They prepared great feast, and after they ate and drank, they sent them away and went to their master. Now, what I envision is, now you talk about a weird thing, you're the king of Syria, and you're at your camp with your main body of army, and you set out this mobile, highly armored group to go and chariots and wipe out, and just get one man. Now, you've got thousands to get one man, and you can see them now marching across the landscape. You look, hey, that's our guys. And they all show up, and half of them don't have their helmets, nobody answers swords or spears anymore. They've lost all their horses and all their chariots. Can you imagine giving that report?

You've got to go into the king's den. He says, well, report? I understand. One guy! Yeah, well, yeah. Well, who'd you fight? The one guy.

How many casualties? None. Well, how'd you lose the chariots?

He made us all blind.

And he didn't kill you? No. But as God's priest, so...

Notice the last part from verse 23. So the bands of Syrian raiders came noble, but to the land of Israel.

His prayer was, God, let's just make them blind. Stop this bloodshed. That's okay.

He didn't kill them. He didn't take God's answer and ordered them all to react in a vengeful, self-righteous way.

That's amazing.

I've got your answer in his prayer today. Then our last place I want to look at today is in Luke, chapter 17. Luke 17.

Of course, I could go on and on. I actually have a list of prayers we could go to, you know. I guess we don't have to... concert at 6.30. I could preach for hours. Wow. Luke 17, verse 11.

Tell you about Jesus here. He says, I don't know how serious leprosy was there. We know now that some leprosy is contagious, some isn't. But the type of leprosy that they dealt with was the worst part of it. And it would literally... I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen actually a leprosy. But it's a leprosy. It's a leprosy.

And it's a leprosy. And it would literally... I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen actual photographs of people with this extreme leprosy. It actually eats their skin away, and their muscles, and their flesh until it gets into the organs. You rot away, and it can take you years. It's the most hideous thing you could ever imagine. I can't even imagine the pain that people go through. As it attacks their nerves. And you saw horrible disease. And you were outcast from society. So there's ten of them clumped together. I mean, there's just ten guys, because they're the only ones they'll talk to. They're the only one... That's why they created leper colonies, where they put them together.

They could not come in. And they come into the synagogue. They could not come into people's homes. They could not, in public places, be in the crowd. They had separated themselves from the crowd. And they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, master, have mercy on us. So when he saw them, he said to them, so they're asking for healing. Go show yourself to the priest. And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed. Now, the priest had to declare a leper to be clean.

So when he said, go show yourself to the priest, he said, go show that you are clean. Now, they followed the instructions. But as they were going to the priest, they started to notice, you're changing. You're changed. They all were healed. They all watched each other. Then they looked at themselves, and they watched themselves be healed. This kiddishly deformed, flesh-eating disease.

Because even as they were all fine. I mean, this is an enormous miracle that everybody could see. Anybody who'd ever seen these men, they'd go up to a miracle. This just doesn't happen. This kind of leprosy does not get better. It's not in that way. It says, And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, he turned and with a loud voice glorified God. And he fell down on his face and he seemed to give a good thanks.

And he was a Samaritan, outcast in Jewish society. Samaritans weren't really Israelites. They had some Israelite blood in them, but they were people who had been brought in by the Assyrians. They mixed in with the Israelites. They had their own form of YHWH worship, which wasn't really the way God said. So they were religious outcasts. They were considered outcasts just even racially in the group. They ethically and ethnically in the group. They did see the temple as the center of worship. This is why, by the way, Jesus uses some of his parables of Samaritans as a good guy.

There's a reason for that. He's really taking it on Jewish society. But in this case, it's a real person. The Samaritan comes back. And he glorifies God. So Jesus answered and said, We're not tanklets, but where are the nine? Were they not any fount who would turn to give glory to God except the soprano? And he said, They have a rise and go your way, for your faith is made to do well. How many times do we not notice what God does? Now, we only see God in, well, God ever healed the atleapocene.

What does God do in your life every day? What does God do in your life every day? And how many times do you go to God and glorify God? How many times do you go thank God? Or do we just go griping for glory? How many times do we sit down and get on our knees and think about how smart God is, how great God is, how righteous God is, and we thank Him for being that way.

This is what makes the Psalm so amazing. There isn't anything in life that you're going to. You can't find a Psalm that deals with. And by the end of the Psalm, it's usually, I praise you. You are worthy. We don't even know what it means to say God is worthy. You and I go before God because it's not a right. We don't have a right to go to God, though in this country we're always concerned about our rights.

You and I don't have a right to go before God. It's a privilege. He that gives it to us or does it. You don't believe that. Go force your way before God. Go ahead. Try. Go demand God's grace. Go demand God's favor. Go demand it. Go demand God do something for you. Everything God does for us is because He gives us the privilege. It's not a right. We have no rights before God. And how often do we thank Him? How many times do you get on your knees and just say to God, Thank you for the privilege of being able to come before you? Because I don't deserve this. Only one came back.

In every one of these cases, the response of the person, Hannah, Agar, Elisha, the one leper, was all not the normal human response. That's what makes these four prayers so amazing. He comes back and He's shouting greatness to God and praises to God. And Jesus says, You're the only one. You're the only one who really understands God did this for you. And you had no way to get better except God did it for you. What a privilege. What a blessing. It's not our rights, folks.

What rights do we have? We're not equals with God. We have no rights. We have privileges that are given to us. We have blessings that are given to us. And we have commitments, or responsibilities. That's what obedience is. Obedience is a commitment. It's a responsibility. Right? But God didn't respond to you. God didn't say, Wow, I'm going to call that person, because they're so righteous. God called every one of us because we were unrighteous, and were to make us righteous.

Do we thank God for that? Do we praise God for that? Every day of our lives, the sheer privilege of being alive. That's a gift, too. You don't believe that. Have God decide you're going to die and try to stop it. If you really don't believe that, die and resurrect yourself. When we go through life, feel like God is being turned to us, instead of just thanking it every day, wow, you're really kind to me. I am so glad you give me this favor that I don't deserve.

That I thank you. That I want to be more committed. So really, these four verses, these four types of prayers, or instances of prayer, helps us see the human element. So I didn't just want to give another sermon, though. Okay, here are the fundamentals of prayer. This is part two of a 10-year-old. I want to ask how many of you remember 10 years ago. So what are the lessons we learned?

From Hannah, humbly worshiping God will help us not be offended by others. An effective prayer requires that we make commitments to God. And we must trust God's goodness so that we experience joy in our commitments. We feel joy in our commitments. From anger, in your prayers, ask God to clear your conscience from falsehood and lies. And to protect your reputation from falseness and lying. And two, seek for God to give you enough blessings so that you aren't living in poverty to become dishonest. But not so much that you rely on your riches instead of relying on him. From Elisha, we learned that we must be careful not to take pride in God's answer to our prayers in order to justify self-righteous behavior.

Presuptuous behavior. Yeah, God's really been good to me. That gives me the right to do this. Wait a minute. What does God want you to do? And then number four, from the ten lepers, we must never forget to be thankful for God's grace when he answers a prayer. And it wasn't a rite. It was a gift. A gift given to us, and we need to be thankful for that. Because if we're not, why would we ever expect another gift? Why should we ever expect another one? Be thankful for what he gives to us. Prayer is something a lot of people struggle with.

And what happens is, if you've been around a while, you're ashamed to get to struggle with prayer. You'd be surprised how many people struggle with prayer. Other people struggle with Bible study. Some people struggle with books. I know some people who could study their Bible three hours a day and can't pray for five minutes without struggle. I know other people could pray and pray and pray, but only if the Bible is work. It'd be great if we never get to the place where we can do both exactly right.

There's so many issues involved in coming to us in God and prayer. Our own physical health, sometimes our own sins, sometimes just being physical, sometimes the anxiety of the world. Sometimes it's like you say, I don't have anything to say. I don't know. I prayed, prayed, prayed, prayed, and today I woke up and didn't have anything to say.

I've actually killed. Okay, let's work through that. But let's also go... there's two things to do. Study the Psalms as prayers. What do you say, Scott? I want to go through the Psalms as prayers and give you a whole chart of how you can work through the Psalms for different issues in life. But also, study the prayers in the Bible. There are scores of prayers.

Some of them are one sentence long, or like Agar or J. Bez. They're going to become whole books. I don't know about Agar, but J. Bez, the guy wrote a whole book on the prayer, and it's pretty fascinating. Look, don't agree with everything. There's prayer after prayer. Men and women in so many situations before God, study their prayers. See that human element. See how God interacts with them. And remember, the power of prayer you see in your lives, because of their interaction with God, is the same power of prayer that you have in your interaction with God.