The Most Amazing Invitation from God!
By Pastor Matt Black
January 6, 2008
Lord's Day morning & evening
Jeremiah 33:1-3
Introduction: God answers prayer ALL THE TIME! And all the time GOD ANSWERS PRAYER. And that is so true. It’s not enough just to talk about prayer; we must practice the principles of Biblical prayer. I want to show you some Biblical principles of prayer this morning that I hope will help you from Jeremiah 33. Jeremiah was a prophet who had a preaching ministry of almost 70 years! Jeremiah had been thrown in the jail in the king’s palace by the political dignitaries (See Jeremiah 37:15ff). Chapter 33 records the message Jeremiah received from God in his 40th anniversary of ministry, and so he is around 55 years of age.[1]
Basically the king said if you keep on preaching and praying, we’re going to throw you in jail! We don’t want you exposing our hypocrisy. We don’t want you interrupting our fun. But Jeremiah would not buckle—he would not give in. So he kept on preaching and praying and ended up in an ugly jail cell. So this passage records Jeremiah’s second of three imprisonments.
As I said, Jeremiah had been prophesying for forty years. But during this year in prison, God suddenly goes virtually silent. During this dark time, God speaks to Jeremiah only twice. But if God’s going to go silent to test your faith, and leave you with only one promise during your valley experience, then the one God gave Jeremiah during this time is the one you want to have. We find recorded here in Jeremiah 33:3.
Would you stand with me as we read the first three verses of Jeremiah 33? “Moreover the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah the second time, while he was yet shut up in the court of the prison, saying, 2 Thus saith the LORD the maker thereof, the LORD that formed it, to establish it; the LORD is his name; 3 Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”
[Prayer for guidance]
So Jeremiah is in jail, and he’s a bit discouraged as you can imagine.[2] They had physically beaten Jeremiah up (See Jeremiah 37:15ff), threw him in a dungeon, then they transferred him to a jail cell in the palace. They started starving him. He’s probably sick and cold and tired. Emotionally and physically he is exhausted, but spiritually, he is persevering. You see, Jeremiah was not alone in that prison. It was during this very time that he gets a message from God. God came down and began to reassure Jeremiah that He was in total control. God says “I’m the maker of everything. I’ve formed it. I’ve established everything.” So notice what He says in verse 2, “Thus saith the LORD the maker thereof, the LORD that formed it, to establish it; the LORD is his name”.
Let me tell you what God is doing. He’s saying “Jeremiah, I want to remind you that I am in total control.” He wanted to remind Jeremiah He was just as much God when this prophet was in prison as He was when Jeremiah was free. He tells Jeremiah, “I’m the maker of everything! I hung the stars in place. I split the waters of the Red Sea. I cause the sun to rise and the seasons to change. I’m awesome! I can do anything. And you’re not alone in this prison cell. I the LORD am with you—‘the LORD is my Name’.” God is in total control and He knows right where Jeremiah is because He put Him there for His own purposes.
Having said that, God goes on to give the most amazing invitation found in the Bible here in verse 3. We all know this verse. We’re going to break it up into six sections. “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”
Today I want to us remember six things:
Ø The Privilege of prayer
Ø The Priority of prayer
Ø The Promise of prayer
Ø The Prize of prayer
Ø The Place of prayer, and
Ø The Practice of prayer
There are many invitations in the Bible. God says “Come unto me…”
Illustration: When I was a kid, I would forget about how good popcorn tasted, until while walking through the Mall, I would smell the aroma from the popcorn shop. That aroma was a personal invitation to go in there and buy the popcorn they were selling. That popcorn was irresistible.
That’s what this verse is. God gives us the aroma of pleasure found in Him. He whets our appetite for Him. We need the invitation of that aroma. We need that reminder! He says “Call unto me”! What an invitation!
I. First we see the great Privilege of praying. God give us an awesome invitation. He says, “Call unto me”.
A. This privilege comes from a Powerful God—a Great and Mighty God! It is a privilege that the great God of the universe would look down to little tiny insignificant people like you and me and make this kind of an invitation. He says “I want you to ‘call unto Me’”! It is something that education cannot answer for me—why in the world would God ever be interested in me?
It wouldn’t make any difference to God if I was around except for one thing. He created me for this privilege. He created the sun and stars to shine. He created the clouds to rain. He created the fish to swim. He created the bees to swarm, and He created you and me to pray. He’s formed me and He’s established me. He’s my Maker. He’s saved me to be a prayer warrior. It is as natural for a Christian to pray as it is for a human being to take air into his lungs! And that great big holy and righteous God calls on little tiny creatures like you and me, and He give us this amazing invitation. He says “Call unto me”. It’s why we were created!
B. This privilege comes to Puny man. God commands us to pray, and we ought to obey this directive because are too small to argue. David said, “What is man that thou art mindful of him or the son of man that thou visitest him?” (Psalm 8:4; cf. Hebrews 2:6). What is David saying here? When you look at the majesty and the awesomeness, and the greatness of God—He is so mighty and I am so small! God in Genesis 2:7 “formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul”. And the God that created all is the God that controls all (Colossians 1:16-17), and he invites us, yea, commands us to pray! He who controls everything that happens, who sustains all creation, who maintains all things by the Word of His power has issued us a command: “Call unto me!”
But this invitation is not only a privilege. It is a priority.
II. I want you to see the Priority of Prayer. We ought to make prayer a priority because it is commanded by God here in this passage.
The God of the universe is issuing this directive: “Call unto me”!
A. The commands to pray are constant in the Bible. It’s every where. Not only do we read that we should “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) but the Bible without ceasing tells us to pray.
Isaiah 55:6, “Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near”.
Matthew 7:7, “Ask and it shall be given unto you…”
Mark 14:38, “Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.”
Colossians 4:2, “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving”.
We are told to “Come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). And which one of you here is not in need at this very moment?
B. We need a command because our flesh is weak, and in our flesh we would almost rather do anything else rather than pray. “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is [ALL TO OFTEN] weak” (Matthew 26:41). Your physical nature is always in opposition to God’s will unless it is actively crucified. “The flesh profiteth nothing. It is the spirit that quickeneth”! (John 6:63). We must obey this command and deny our flesh!
Our flesh will agree to minutes for Christ if you give it hours for the world. This is why the Bible commands us to deny ourselves. This is why we even need a command to “call unto” God. It seems strange, but our flesh often blinds us temporarily, and we find ourselves sleeping through our spiritual life. The act which God commands ought to be our greatest happiness! Our flesh makes us forget that the highest pleasures of humanity are found in the presence of God, and God knows that our flesh erases our spiritual memory banks.
Transition: But now I want to show you something better than the invitation of prayer. Here in Jeremiah 33:3, we find something even better than an invitation. We have the certification of prayer. God personally certifies that He will answer prayer.
III. Now let us look at God’s Promise in prayer. “I will answer thee”. This promise is not from another human being. If it were, it would be no good. This promise is from the God of the universe who NEVER lies. Listen to His guarantee. If you do this I will do that. If you “Call unto me…I will answer thee”. What an awesome guarantee, what an awesome promise: he says, “I will [NOT MIGHT] answer thee”.
It doesn’t get plainer than that. He said “Call unto me…I will answer thee”. Now do we believe that? Do we believe that God not only hears our prayers but also answers them?
A. I want you first to see the verification of this promise. Human beings make promises, and you cannot trust them. Why? Because human beings lie. But here we have a promise from a God who CANNOT lie!!
Titus 1:2 tells us that the God who promises eternal life “cannot lie”! Can I remind you that it is not that God will not lie, or should not lie, but it is that God CAN NOT lie because it is against His nature and against His character. And if God said “I will answer thee”, that means one thing and one thing only. That means He will answer you. That’s exactly what it means.
When God certifies something you can depend on it. What ever your need is, Call unto God, and He will answer you.
B. Now I want you to notice the demonstration of this promise. God says, “I will answer thee…” God has already given us the greatest gift in heaven. Why should He not give us lesser ones? That’s exactly what Paul says in Romans 8:32, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”
If God has given you the Lord of Glory, why wouldn’t God answer even your most insignificant prayer?
1. Are you fearful? Call unto God—He is a strong tower. Isaiah 41:10, “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness”.
2. Do you have a heavy burden? “Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved” (Psalm 55:22). Cast all your “cares upon Him for He careth for you”.
3. Are you sick? Call unto God, for in God is healing. He is the Great Physician. David said, “he healeth all thy diseases” (Psalm 103:3). Isaiah said, “with His stripes we are healed!” (Isaiah 53:5). James said, “The prayer of faith shall heal the sick!” (James 5:15).
You might say, but I’ve prayed for God to heal me, and I am still sick. We must ask according to His will. God often uses sickness to draw us purge our heart from sin. Though sickness hurts our body, it often cleanses our soul. Other times God uses sickness to test and exemplify our faith, as he did with Job. Now you may pray for God to remove your sickness, and He will answer you. In reply he may simply give you more grace and more faith to endure! But God’s answers to our prayers are always the best for us! He never makes a mistake. When we ask God for an answer, we must always understand that God’s answers are infinitely better for us and have a much higher purpose.
You see we often ask for the silver, and God says no to the silver so that He can give us the gold. Sometimes we ask for Him to lift a burden or to remove a thorn in our side, and instead, God says, “My grace is sufficient for thee”. He promises if you will ask, then He will answer.
C. God’s promise though, has certain prerequisites. It is not a promise to just anyone. It is a promise to those who know and love God. God has not promised to answer those who do not love Him and who do not obey Him. So let me say here and now that unanswered prayer is not the fault of God. James says “ye have not because ye ask not” (James 4:1). Fundamentally, if you are connected to God by the new birth, you will have answered prayer. GUARANTEED. God is a prayer answering God. God is a reluctant God to any one of His children. God hears the cry of the little sparrow, and how much more will he hear your cry if you know Him!
The problem is that many times we have a different definition of prayer that what God calls prayer. Prayer is not just talking to God. Atheists talk to God. Cultists talk to God. Heretics talk to God. In fact all three groups of these people have hundreds and thousands of their own seminaries and preachers scattered around the world. These people have a form of prayer, but it is not prayer.
Many people pray. Mitt Romney is a politician who happens to be a Mormon. He prays. Glenn Beck another Mormon who is a talk show host prays. The Beatles have a famous song about praying to Mary called “Let it Be”.
Listen, prayer is the privilege only of those who have been born again and who are slaves and friends of Jesus Christ. Prayer is an entering into another world through Christ who has gained us entrance. Prayer is union with Christ through the new birth. Prayer is communion with God, living with God in another world. He says “seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you.” He says “seek my face”. The problem is that sometimes love for God and union with Christ has nothing to do with our prayers. I believe what we call prayer is sometimes no different than a lost person in a 7-11 filling out the numbers for the lottery. James says “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (James 4:3).
Biblical prayer is something more than asking God for things. Biblical prayer’s desire is God Himself. The motive of all prayer is hungering and thirsting after God—“to know Him” as Paul said in Philippians 3:10.
But let me specifically give you three prerequisites for any prayer that God will hear.
1. Biblical prayer is always humble. It is always from a broken and a contrite heart. For “God resisteth the proud but He giveth grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5). “A broken and a contrite spirit” God “will not despise”.
2. Biblical prayer is always hungry for God’s will. 1 John 5:14, “if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us”. You see you are not praying unless you are hungering and thirsting for righteousness. You are not praying unless your “soul thirst for God and your flesh longs for God in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is” (Psalm 63:1). Prayer is a desire for God. You may pray for things, but you realize those things are nothing. Ultimately what you really want is God. If you pray that way, you’ll get answers.
And that brings us to the next things I want to say.
3. Biblical prayer always fruitful. It always bears fruit. It always gets answers. We read in John 15:5, 8, “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” And verse 8, “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples”. The blessed man in Psalm 1:3 is “like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper”. You see God’s on our side. God doesn’t want us to be unsuccessful. He wants us to bear fruit. He wants us to get answers. God wants us to be fruitful and to be productive, and to be successful in Him! And so God says, if you call “I will answer”! That’s His promise and His will!
The question is not “does God answer prayer”? Because He unequivocally does. So the problem is not with God’s hearing—the problem is with my praying!
The question is: are you really praying? Are you unburdening your heart to God? Are you believing God? “If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you’ll move mountains.”
I want to give you two areas where God answers prayer. This is the kind of fruit bearing that all Christians ought to have, even young baby Christians. There are many more than this, but I want to give you just two: salvation and provision.
a. I believe God answers prayer when we pray for the salvation of lost souls.
i. Moses said in Exodus 32:32, “Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin;and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.”
ii. Paul said in Romans 9:2-3, “I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. 3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh”.
Illustration: Prayed for sister for ten years, sometimes waking in the middle of the night. After ten years, God brought her to a church of about 20 people. She sat next to a little girl of 12 years old. She said I’m too big a sinner for God to save me. The little girls said “That’s what I thought, but that’s just who God saves”. And my sister came to Christ.
Illustration: I prayed for the father of my best friend. Ralph Sr. had leukemia. I prayed for him daily, but then I got news that he died. I realized that day at my locker that if Ralph Jr. asked, I would have to say that his father was in hell. I was heart broken. I went to Ralph Sr.’s funeral. There Ralph Sr.’s son Ralph Jr. told me “I want you to meet someone”. It was an uncle who had been visiting Ralph regularly. He was a Christian. All this time he had been gving Ralph Sr. the gospel. And I had no idea that months before he died, Ralph Sr. had come to know Christ. That funeral became a celebration for me.
Listen, I’m here today because an elderly lady named May Ketterman prayed for me for years. God answers prayers for lost souls! You are here because somebody was praying for you. Prayer is the means of grace whereby He works out His sovereign will.
God says, “Call unto me and I will answer thee”!
b. God also answers prayer provision for your needs. Philippians 4:19 “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
How many of you have a need?
Illustration: This year we found ourselves in need. Kristen had a need for some medicine that was literally thousands of dollars—over $1600 dollars a month. Now I’ve been trying to grow a money tree, but we haven’t been successful yet. So we prayed. And we prayed. Now we didn’t get $1600. No, you see we ask too little. That’s only a month’s supply. We prayed, and out of nowhere, Jill opens the front door and there is a SIX month supply of Kristen’s medication.
Illustration: Listen, God says “Call unto me, and I will answer thee!” I found one of our single moms crying in the sound room on a work day. Found out she just had a $500 car repair. That’ll make anyone of us cry. We prayed that God would provide. She didn’t take from her tithe to pay that. In fact she had come to the conviction that the tithe comes out first. No, she prayed. And God not only provided every penny for that car repair, but he gave her a 25% raise at work the next week!!! God says “Call unto me, and I will answer thee”.
IV. So let’s now look at the Prize of prayer. The prize of prayer is not the thing we ask for, but our communion with God Himself, and the deep abiding joy that we have in knowing Him. Now the deep pleasures of prayer are naturally hidden. To have the “joy unspeakable and full of glory” you must pursue it. I’m going to show you that this verse teaches that the great and mighty and hidden things of God, i.e., the higher ground illuminated by the Holy Spirit can only be found through persevering prayer. There are many things that we learn about God that we can only learn in prevailing prayer. We are going to learn that right now. This is a doctrine in the Bible called “spiritual illumination”.
We read in Jeremiah 33:3, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” Prayer brings great hidden things to light, things only revealed through spiritual illumination. And there are many things that we do not know because we do not pray. Prayer gives us what we lack, and that is spiritual illumination. I want to show you this from this verse in the OT, and then I want you to see Paul’s extended treatment of it in the NT.
A. First let’s look at the Old Testament Hebrew Definition. The phrase “mighty things”—literally means “fortified” things, things that are hidden or protected behind a wall. Essentially, God says, call unto me, and I will open things up to you which were closed before—I will illuminate spiritually blinded or dull eyes.
1. Let me make a Clarification.
We all agree that the Bible is of no private interpretation. There is no new revelation. Spiritual illumination is not revelation. There is no new truth. But as you get closer to God you will see truth clearer. The more you pray there is a higher level of commitment to and conviction of the truth. The more I have gotten to know God in prayer, the more His truth has burned in my heart. In prayer God will unlock to you the “golden nuggets” of the Scripture and make that Scripture applicable to all of life. And what you thought was not so clear in the Bible before will become clearer and clearer.
But there are many things about God and His Word that we cannot grasp because we lack the power and presence and illumination of the Holy Spirit. We may know many things intellectually of God, but there are many things we do not know experientially and spiritually of God. You can study your Bible all day long and not learn anything life changing about God. But when you get on you knees, those truths take on a whole new level of urgency and conviction!
Learning new things is exciting! Have you ever seen a new believer? They’re constantly learning, learning, learning. There hearts are constantly burning within them as they walk with Jesus. How long has it been since your heart burned in you? If you are not learning, it is almost definitely a result of a lack of prayer.
2. Now let me give you an Illustration. You may see go to the Sears Tower. You may go up a few floors and be amazed. But it’s a whole ‘nother thing to go to the Skydeck! God wants to take you to the Sky Deck and show you things you’ve never seen before.
If you call unto God, He’ll answer you and “shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not”. Those great and fortified things will become unlocked for you. There are many things that can only be learned in the prayer closet. You can get some things in your head by reading God’s Word, but in order to hear His voice and really be illumined, you must commune with the Author of the Book.
So that is the definition from the Old Testament Hebrew phrase “mighty things”.
B. But now I want to show you the New Testament Explanation on this experience of spiritual illumination that Jeremiah is talking about. Turn over to 1 Corinthians 2 would you? We are going to look at the passage beginning with verse 6, but we are all very familiar with 1 Corinthians 2:14, “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
A lost person can know truth about God, but he has little or no conviction about Bible truth. He doesn’t understand it as a life and death issue.
As we pray we come more and more into conformity to the mind of Jesus Christ. Now thought Christ had not yet come, the same Spirit was in operation in the Old Testament illumining the minds of believers in the coming Christ.
1. Look over at 1 Corinthians 2:6-14, 16, “Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: 8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. 10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” Verse 16 says “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”
We have the mind of Christ! Verse 12 said that we’d been given the Spirit of God “that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God”. We commune with God’s Spirit in prayer.
2. We see this also in Romans 8:14-16, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. 16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God”.
God’s Spirit causes us to cry out to God—to call unto Him. To illumine our hearts to this world.
Illustration: A couple months ago I was undergoing all these tests on my eyes. When you go to the eye doctor they sometimes give you a test that no one should have to go through. They dilate your eyes. Your eyes go out of focus and you can’t see a thing! I had to go through that. I was pretty much good for nothing as far as driving or doing much of anything. But then I got my new prescription contacts. I put those in and I could see again. I saw things I’d never see before. My wife teases me and says, yeah like street signs and stop lights!
What a wonderful thing to see! Now let me give you a spiritual prescription to see better spiritually. You need to pray!
3. Application: If you were given a trial by jury of your peers, your friends and family and before the judge of the earth, would you be convicted of being a Christian?
Is there fruit in your life?
V. The Place of prayer. Spiritual illumination takes place where ever and when ever you are communing with the Spirit. And God says to Jeremiah, I know you’re in a jail cell, and you’re going to need to commune with me. “Call unto me”.
Remember Jeremiah is in prison here. And he’s got more prison time even after this year of imprisonment. From the dungeon he went to the king’s jail. From the king’s jail he’s going into the muck and mess of the broken cistern—chained in a broken water tank!
Now sometimes we don’t know our own needs, and it takes hard times in our life to squeeze those prayers out of us.
Jail cells have been places of great prayer and spiritual illumination. John Bunyan spent 18 years in a damp and dirty prison cell in Bristol England. Out of it came many prayers and also many books. One best know is “Pilgrim’s Progress”.
But many times God has to slow us down with sickness or tragic circumstances, unfair and unjust circumstances. That’s all ok. God is the judge. But we all have our dark dungeons of life, and God says—that’s a great place for spiritual illumination.
VI. Finally, I want to give you four words of the Practice of for praying, calling unto God.
A. My first advice to you is this: KEEP YOUR SELF CLEAN. We are to pray “without ceasing”. This means that we are to keep in a state of unbroken holiness and communion with God. We are to keep our selves from sin and to keep ourselves close to the Saviour.
1. Objection: Does this mean that I’m to enter into a monastery and close my door and 365 days a year pray, and never sleep, never go any where?
2. Answer: That is inconsistent with the Bible, and it is not at all what God means. When He says pray without ceasing, it literally means that as children of God you and I as believers have an unbroken communication with God as we go through the day, wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, whomever we’re with. We can pray in the shower, driving down the road, we can pray while we work, and we ought to. That’s why God says “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me” (Psalm 66:18). We want that circle of prayer with God to ever be unbroken—“Nothing between my soul and the Saviour”. 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” You see, we must be in the habit of confessing our sin, so that all day long we can have an unbroken communication line from the earth to the heavenlies with unbroken communion with our loving heavenly Father.
So keep yourself clean.
B. My second word of advice to you is: MAKE TIME.
Time for prayer will not just drop down on us from heaven. Mother, if you are waiting for your children to tug on you and say “It’s time to pray”, then you’ll be waiting a long time. Father, if you’re waiting for your boss to tell you to take a vacation and get some prayer time in, it’s not going to happen. You have to MAKE TIME!
God would not give us the great invitation to “call unto Him” and “seek Him” if prayer were not possible to make time to pray! The Bible would not command us to “pray without ceasing” if prayer were not possible. The Bible would not tell us to enter into a private place, into our prayer closet, if it were not possible. He would not tell us to “Ask…seek…and knock” if prayer were impossible. Prayer is possible if you are a child of God.
Why don’t we make time?
1. Unbelief. The problem is not our business, the problem is our unbelief. If a lost person had the winning number to the lottery, do you think he would play the lottery? If were in prison and you had the key for your jail cell, do you think you’d unlock it?
Yet we have the key to heaven, and we say that we are too busy to unlock God’s answers for us. We have the great God of heaven promising that he will answer us, and we actually have the audacity to say that we are too busy to pray!
2. Procrastination. We do not plan to pray. We all have 24 HOURS in a day, and we all need to cut something out. We are too busy! That’s the most over used excuse in the book! There are pastors of churches who pray and others who don’t pray. There are people in your line of work who have awesome communion with God and some who don’t. There are mothers of small children who pray, and others who don’t.
a. Objection. Maybe you’re here this morning, and you disagree with me, and you have given up on prayer, and you for the most part believe it is impossible. You are waiting until life slows down. First let me tell you that life will never slow down.
But let me take the most difficult situation that a person can ever face—someone that has absolutely NO time or opportunity to pray. How about a mother of small children? How can she pray?
When God says “Call unto me”, he’s not excluding any child of God, no matter how busy your life is. You may have the absolute busiest life on the planet, but if you are a child of God, I guarantee you, you have time to pray.
b. Answer/Illustration. Let me tell you about Susanna Wesley. She had 19 children! To say that she was a busy woman would be an understatement. When she needed time with God, she would sit in a chair and throw her apron over her head. Her children knew not to disturb her during her prayer time. We’re told that she seldom spent less than an hour each day in prayer. Her sons John and Charles Wesley founded the Methodist church and wrote many of the hymns that are still sung by Christians throughout the world.
John, her fifteenth child, said this about his mother: “I learned more about Christianity from my mother than from all the theologians in England.” What an encouragement to any of us who think we are too busy to find time to pray!
C. My third word of advice to you is: FIND A PLACE. God says “Call unto me”. With such a great invitation, I'd like to encourage you to find a place where you can go and spend time with God uninterrupted from the distractions of this world.
Now this command was given to Jeremiah while he was in prison. If you are a child of God, God’s presence is with you where ever you go. You do not go to find God, but to go somewhere that you can place your whole attention on Him. And I want you to know that there may not be a great place for you to pray. I don’t think the prison was the place where Jeremiah preferred praying. But you have to find the best place where God has placed you.
I love what one old saint of God said about Jeremiah’s praying in this very uncomfortable place. He said, “No confinement can deprive God's people of his presence; no locks nor bars can shut out his gracious visits; nay, oftentimes as their afflictions abound their consolations much more abound, and they have the most reviving communications of his favour when the world frowns upon them. Paul's sweetest epistles were those that bore date out of a prison” (Matthew Henry). So find a place where you can be undistracted and uninterrupted from God’s presence.
D. My fourth word of advice to you is: NEVER GIVE UP. The old timers used to say we need to “pray through”. If you know you are clean, and you still don’t get an answer from God, then you need to keep calling unto Him! We see this in Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: 8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” Now the words “ask…seek…and knock” in the Greek language from which we get our New Testament are in the continual tense. What does that mean? Well, it means keep on asking, keep on seeking, and keep on knocking! It’s not something we do one time and give up on.
So you say, Pastor, what happens if I pray and God doesn’t answer my prayer today? Well, then I’ll pray about the same thing tomorrow, and the next day, and the next week, and the next month, and the next year. My dear brothers and sistters, God does not always answer when we want Him to, but He who has far more wisdom than we can ever imagine promises to answer us. “Call unto me, and I will answer thee!” God is not reluctant to give you anything.
Matthew 7:9 goes on, “what man [FATHER] is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? 10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”
You have not because you ask not. God is willing. But are you asking?
How about you? Are you doing these four things?
1. Are you KEEPING YOUR SELF CLEAN?
2. Are you MAKING TIME?
3. Have you FOUND A PLACE TO PRAY?
4. Have you determined to NEVER GIVE UP?
Conclusion: You see, our problem is not that we ask too much from God, but that we ask too little. We ask for much too little from our great and awesome God. God created the worlds. He says “Call unto me and I will answer thee”! Do you believe that? God ALWAYS answers! He never sleeps or slumbers. He’s never on a vacation!
There is no reluctance in God to give us anything!! Call unto Him and He will answer!!
[1] Zedekiah, the last of the kings of Judah before the captivity is on the throne. Jeremiah 37 and 38 tells us about how Jeremiah was thrown into prison. He went from a dungeon to a jail cell in the king’s palace, to a broken musty, probably disease infested cistern (water tank).
[2] It was not the first time. In Jeremiah 20:9 tried to resign from the ministry. He said, “…I will not make mention of him [THE LORD], nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.”