In Genesis 20 we get the curious story of Abram, King Abimilech and Sarah.
For a while Abraham stayed in Gerar. While in Gerar the king, Abimelech, came to Abraham. Abraham told him that his wife, Sarah, was really his sister. Abimelech therefore took Sarah.
Then God told Abimelech in a dream “You are as good as dead because of the women you have taken: she is a married women.” Abimelech explained that he didn’t know she was married and Abraham told him that they were brother and sister. God said that Abimelech could either return Sarah to Abraham or have he, and everyone he knows, die.
Now Abimelech summoned all of his officials and told them what happened, obviously they were all afraid. Then Abimelech summoned Abraham and asked “What was your reason for doing this?” Abram replied, “I said to myself: ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will surely kill me because of my wife.’ Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother, and she became my wife. And when God had me wander from my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.“‘“
Then Abimelech gave Abraham some sheep, cattle, slaves, and Sarah, and told him he can live where ever he would like in my lands. Abimelech gave Sarah 1000 shekels for his offense against them.
Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his slave girls so they could have children again, for the Lord had closed up every womb in Abimelech’s household because of Abraham’s wife Sarah.
We Find Abraham (who would become Abraham), mighty man of God, lying, and seeming to lack faith that God can defend him, so he takes matters into his own hand and lies! Fearing that Abimelech, a Philistine king, was a man who had no fear of God, Abraham played Sarah to be his sister rather than his wife. Once again Sarah found herself being taken to be the wife of a pagan king.
What now of the promises of God? How can God give Sarah a son of Abraham if she is to become the wife of another? And how can Abraham- the patriarch of our faith, who trusts God with his soul, be so unfaithful to God when it comes to trusting him with his physical welfare? The scripture here also reveals a very important piece of information: Abraham had formed this policy back in Ur: Abraham said, "And it came to pass when God caused me to wander from my father's house, that I said unto her, This is the kindness which thou shalt shew unto me, at every place wither we shall come, say of me, He is my brother."
Abraham had become a new man since that day back in Ur, and had even had his name changed; yet we still see evidence of his old man- the man who feared. He had never address this old sin and now we see it popping up again. But God would be faithful when Abraham was not.
Abraham thought God was unable to change the ways of a pagan man, but as the scripture says, "the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord" God also protected Sarah by keeping Abimelech from her. God then warned him in a dream that he was a man's wife.
And faithful and loving God did not condemn Abraham and take away his recorded righteousness but told Abimelech, "he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live." When we would have left Abraham to fend for himself in his own selfish choice, God stepped in a restored him. This is the FIRST CASE OF SOMEONE PRAYING FOR SOMEONE ELSE IN THE BIBLE. It teaches us that God desires us to pray for one another and he will answer such prayers when they are heartfelt and true.
This plight of Abraham should seem painfully familiar to us. How often have we fallen into the same sinful traps time after time? How often have we trusted God for something great only to turn away from him in fear over something small?
How often are our own problems a result of our own bad decisions? But God does not forget us. He waits to restore us, and to use us to pray for those we have hurt. How often he shows us that even the Heathen are in his hand and that he is in control over all things. How often does he call on you to pray for other people?
Friday, October 30, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
School of Prayer No.1 God Desires for Us to Pray
The apostle Paul has a word from God which we need to hear all the time, The word is found in his first letter to Timothy, chapter 2, verses 1–4:
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thankgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way. This is good and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior who desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
The main point of the text is the command to pray, and Paul mentions three things about this command to pray that we should listen to very carefully. First, he mentions its paramount importance: "First of all, I urge you to pray!" Second, he mentions the wideness of its scope: "Pray for all men, especially kings and all in high positions." Third, he mentions the content or aim of these prayers: they include thanksgiving and the request that our lives be spent in peace and tranquility to the end that men might be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.
Prayer Is of First Importance
First, let's focus on the paramount importance of the command to pray for others. Why Paul thinks this is of first importance becomes clear when we look at the preceding context. Notice the word "then" or "therefore" in verse 1: "First of all, then (or therefore), I urge that you pray for all men." That word alerts us to the fact that Paul's command to pray for all men is an inference or a conclusion that follows from something he had just said. In the preceding verses (1:18–20)
Paul is saying is that in order for your ship of faith to stay afloat, you need to see to it that you don't do the things your conscience condemns or leave undone the things which your conscience demands. Paul's charge to Timothy to hold on to faith by keeping a good conscience is tremendously important, and any help Paul gives on how to keep a good conscience should be received with open arms. We are to pray because God desires us to pray!
In the Great Commandments of Mark 12:28-31, all God's instruction is summed up in this: Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself. Therefore, anything we do to people that is unloving will prick our conscience and threaten our faith. With that as a foundation we can start to see why prayer for other people is at the top of Paul's list of things we must do in order to keep a clear conscience.
What Makes Prayer So Important?
I see three reasons why prayer for other people is of first importance in keeping a clear conscience, in view of Jesus' teaching that love is our greatest duty. First, prayer taps the power of God on behalf of others. We could try to help others, even presidents and congressmen and governors and mayors and aldermen and police chiefs, without praying for them. And, judged from a very limited perspective, we might do a little good that way. But the little good that we could do by our little power is not worthy to be compared with the great good God can do for people that he sets out to work for. So if we want the best for people, if we really love them, of first importance will be prayers on their behalf. The first thing you do for a person, if you love them, is to ask God to work for them. Of course, God's answer to your prayer will almost always include your work of love, but it will also include much more than you alone could accomplish.
A second reason prayer is of first importance in keeping a clear conscience is that it is the easiest step of love. You don't even have to get out of bed to pray for kings and all those in high positions. It requires no financial sacrifice and no great physical exertion. Of all the forms that love for others can take, prayer is the easiest. And isn't it true that if you are unwilling to do something easy for the good of another, then it is very unlikely that you will be willing to do something hard for them? So it makes sense that Paul, in urging us to keep our consciences clear, would first of all urge us to do the easiest act of love, to pray for people.
And the third reason prayer is of first importance in keeping our consciences clear is that it reaches farther in its effects than anything else we can do. Before the satellites were orbiting the earth we could broadcast a TV program live across the country but not around the world. But now it is easy to reach the other side of the world with a live broadcast by sending our signal out into space and bouncing it off a satellite.
That is the way it is with prayer. If a Christian wants to do the most good possible to the most people in the short time he has, he will turn to God first, whose influence reaches, without interruption, to every molecule and every mind in the universe.
Paul urges you first of all to fulfill the love command by praying for all men, because prayer taps the power of God on their behalf, prayer is the first and easiest step of love, and prayer reaches farther in its good effects than anything else we can do.
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thankgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way. This is good and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior who desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
The main point of the text is the command to pray, and Paul mentions three things about this command to pray that we should listen to very carefully. First, he mentions its paramount importance: "First of all, I urge you to pray!" Second, he mentions the wideness of its scope: "Pray for all men, especially kings and all in high positions." Third, he mentions the content or aim of these prayers: they include thanksgiving and the request that our lives be spent in peace and tranquility to the end that men might be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.
Prayer Is of First Importance
First, let's focus on the paramount importance of the command to pray for others. Why Paul thinks this is of first importance becomes clear when we look at the preceding context. Notice the word "then" or "therefore" in verse 1: "First of all, then (or therefore), I urge that you pray for all men." That word alerts us to the fact that Paul's command to pray for all men is an inference or a conclusion that follows from something he had just said. In the preceding verses (1:18–20)
Paul is saying is that in order for your ship of faith to stay afloat, you need to see to it that you don't do the things your conscience condemns or leave undone the things which your conscience demands. Paul's charge to Timothy to hold on to faith by keeping a good conscience is tremendously important, and any help Paul gives on how to keep a good conscience should be received with open arms. We are to pray because God desires us to pray!
In the Great Commandments of Mark 12:28-31, all God's instruction is summed up in this: Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself. Therefore, anything we do to people that is unloving will prick our conscience and threaten our faith. With that as a foundation we can start to see why prayer for other people is at the top of Paul's list of things we must do in order to keep a clear conscience.
What Makes Prayer So Important?
I see three reasons why prayer for other people is of first importance in keeping a clear conscience, in view of Jesus' teaching that love is our greatest duty. First, prayer taps the power of God on behalf of others. We could try to help others, even presidents and congressmen and governors and mayors and aldermen and police chiefs, without praying for them. And, judged from a very limited perspective, we might do a little good that way. But the little good that we could do by our little power is not worthy to be compared with the great good God can do for people that he sets out to work for. So if we want the best for people, if we really love them, of first importance will be prayers on their behalf. The first thing you do for a person, if you love them, is to ask God to work for them. Of course, God's answer to your prayer will almost always include your work of love, but it will also include much more than you alone could accomplish.
A second reason prayer is of first importance in keeping a clear conscience is that it is the easiest step of love. You don't even have to get out of bed to pray for kings and all those in high positions. It requires no financial sacrifice and no great physical exertion. Of all the forms that love for others can take, prayer is the easiest. And isn't it true that if you are unwilling to do something easy for the good of another, then it is very unlikely that you will be willing to do something hard for them? So it makes sense that Paul, in urging us to keep our consciences clear, would first of all urge us to do the easiest act of love, to pray for people.
And the third reason prayer is of first importance in keeping our consciences clear is that it reaches farther in its effects than anything else we can do. Before the satellites were orbiting the earth we could broadcast a TV program live across the country but not around the world. But now it is easy to reach the other side of the world with a live broadcast by sending our signal out into space and bouncing it off a satellite.
That is the way it is with prayer. If a Christian wants to do the most good possible to the most people in the short time he has, he will turn to God first, whose influence reaches, without interruption, to every molecule and every mind in the universe.
Paul urges you first of all to fulfill the love command by praying for all men, because prayer taps the power of God on their behalf, prayer is the first and easiest step of love, and prayer reaches farther in its good effects than anything else we can do.
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