(Luke 11:5-8; 18:1-8, 10-14)
All of these parables teach us something about prayer. The parable of the three friends (Luke 11:5-8) is included in a passage on prayer given in answer to the disciples’ request, “Lord, teach us to pray.” First the Lord Jesus gave what is usually called the “Lord’s prayer” which tells us what to pray for. Then He gave this parable that tells us how to pray, that is, persistently and boldly. After all, it takes a certain amount of boldness to go to someone, even a friend, at midnight, knock on the door, and ask for food to give to another friend. God wants us to pray like that _ to ask, seek, knock (verse 9), be persistent, be bold (not irreverent, but not timid either). The friend really wanted the bread, so he persisted until he got it. If we really want something we will continue to pray until we get it. If we don’t really want it, why bother to ask God for it at all? We know God hates lukewarmness (Rev. 3:15, 16), so we can understand that He wants us to pray as though we mean it.

The parable of the importunate widow (Luke 18:1-8) is similar in emphasis to the one about the three friends. The widow persisted until the ungodly judge finally agreed to provide her legal redress. God is not unrighteous; prayer does not persuade Him to do something He had no intention of doing before the praying began. However, God wants us to continue to pray about a matter until the prayer is answered. If our requests are righteous, we can be assured that God is going to act on our behalf.

While the two parables we have just noticed tell us how long to pray about a matter (until God answers), the parable of the Pharisee and publican (Luke 18:10-14) tells us what kind of prayer it is that God is likely to answer. The Pharisee’s prayer was a prayer of pseudo-thanksgiving. I say "pseudo" because he gave God no credit for any of the good things in his life. The implication is that he had done it all himself. We can be thankful if our sinfulness has not reached the depths it might have, but it has been the grace of God which has restrained us, not any innate goodness of our own. Thanksgiving is a proper and necessary part of prayer, but the Pharisee expressed no sense of need whatsoever. How could God answer the prayer? The Pharisee did not ask for anything, did not even hint that he needed anything. Even his thanksgiving left God out. No wonder the Lord said that the man "prayed … with himself."

The publican’s prayer, while short, says a great deal. He was saying that he was sinful and God is holy; and because God is holy, He is not going to look with favor on sin and is going to punish the sinner. It is necessary to obtain God’s mercy if one is going to avoid eternal disaster. God is always ready to answer a prayer like that _ one that acknowledges the need of the one praying, and the absolute dependence upon God to meet that need.

Let us be diligent and fervent in our prayers and let us remember how needy we are. Our sense of need will lead us to persevere in prayer, for we will realize that God is the only One capable of meeting our need and that we must continue to seek His help, for there is no other resource.

FRAGMENT
Prayer is the contrite sinner’s voice, returning from his ways;
While angels in their songs rejoice and cry, "Behold he prays!"

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My Name, He will give it you" (John 16:23).

What liberty is given here! However, an unqualified "whatsoever" would leave us unrestricted, and the Lord would thus have opened the door to all the desires of unbroken, self-serving wills among His people. But He adds, "In My Name." This is His limit_that which He sets up.

If we apply to God for anything in the Name of Christ, it must needs be in keeping with what Christ is. It is as if Christ Himself were asking it of His Father. He does not want us to make Him the messenger, as if we had not the liberty to approach. We have the same blessed liberty which He has, for grace has made us sons, and we are loved of the Father with the same love wherewith He is loved (John 17:23). He wants us to realize that holy liberty, and to go ourselves with our request straight to the Father in His Name, as if it were Christ Himself presenting it_He who is always heard, because He always does what is pleasing to the Father.

But how could Christ present any request to His Father inconsistent with His own character and ways? He acted always within the circle of the Father’s will. To pray in His Name, then, involves our presenting to God only that which Christ could and would present. It calls for a real setting aside of our own wills and for moving only within the circle of God’s will, where Christ always was and is. Setting up our own plans, then making use of Christ’s Name with God, as if He were pledged by it to obey us, is an awful mistake, which He will rebuke to our shame.

Oh, to have more of that lowly, broken spirit which finds its home in the Father’s will, its delight in Christ’s interests here, and which, burdened with that, knows how to plead with God and never give up! And though the answer may be long in coming, victory is as sure as His throne. "Scripture cannot be broken" John 10:35), and He has promised, "Verily, verily, I say unto you. Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My Name, He will give it you" (John 16:23).

Sad to say, however, we are apt to be much more earnest when our will is at work than when it has been surrendered. How much more earnestly men will work in a business of their own than in the employ and interests of others! It but reveals that in us (that is, in our flesh) dwells no good thing (Rom. 7:18). Let us then take courage. Let us lay hold of His business, carry it in our hearts, make it our own, plead with God about it according to the measure He has given. If Christ be our Object, let us ask of God_ask much _and we will receive much, and our joy will be full here and our reward great there.

"The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months" (Jas. 5:16,17).

"And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word" (1 Kings. 17:1).

The verse just quoted from 1 Kings gives us Elijah’s first appearance in public. But the Spirit, in James, has graciously furnished us with the account of a yet earlier stage in Elijah’s history, and one full of instruction to us. In 1 Kings, Elijah is introduced in a way which might seem abrupt. He is presented to us as at once boldly entering upon his sphere of labor with the grand and solemn announcement of God’s chastening hand upon Israel. But we are not told in this place anything of the prophet’s previous exercise, of how he came to learn how the Lord would have him to speak. It is the New Testament writer, James, who lets us into the secret of Elijah’s prayer to God, before he ever came out in active service before man..

Now, if the Holy Spirit had not informed us about this important fact by the pen of James, we should have lacked a very powerful incentive to prayer. But Scripture is divinely perfect, lacking nothing that it ought to have, and having nothing that it ought to lack. Hence it is that James tells us of Elijah’s secret moments of prayer and wrestling, when he had, no doubt, mourned over the lamentable state of things in Israel, and also fortified his spirit for the part he was about to act.

This circumstance in the life of the prophet teaches us a very profitable lesson. We live in a time of more than usual barrenness and spiritual dearth. The state of the Church may well remind us of Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones. We have not merely to cope with evils which have characterized bygone ages, but also with the matured corruption of a time wherein the varied evils of the present world have become connected with, and covered by, the cloak of Christian profession.

In such a condition of things, what is the resource of the faithful one? Prayer:patient, persevering prayer; secret communion with God; deep and real exercise of soul in His presence. Only in His presence can we arrive at a true estimate of ourselves and things around us, and obtain spiritual power to act for God among our brethren or toward the world without. Elias was a man of like passions with us and he found himself in the midst of dark apostasy and widespread alienation of heart from God. He saw the tide of evil rising around him, and the light of truth fast fading away. The altar of Baal had displaced the altar of Jehovah and the cries of the priests of Baal had drowned the sacred songs of the Levites. In a word, the whole thing was one vast mass of ruin before his view. He felt it; he wept over it; he did more:"He prayed earnestly."

Here was the sure unfailing resource of the grieved prophet. He retreated into the presence of God, he poured out his spirit there, and wept over the ruin and sorrow of his beloved people. He was really concerned about the sad condition of things around him, and therefore prayed about it_prayed as he ought, not coldly, formally, or occasionally, but "earnestly," and perseveringly.

This is a blessed example for us. Never was there a time when fervent prayer was so much needed in the Church of God as at this moment. The devil seems to be exerting all his malignant power to crush the spirits and hinder the activities of the people of God; with some, he makes use of their public engagements; with others, their domestic trials; and with others, personal sorrow and conflict.

But Elijah was not merely called to pass unscathed, as an individual, through the evil. He was called to exert an influence upon others; he .was called to act for God in a degenerate age; he had to make an effort to bring his nation back to the God of their fathers. How much more, therefore, did he need to seek the Lord in private, to gather up spiritual strength in the presence of God, whereby alone he could not only escape himself, but be made an instrument of blessing to others also. Elijah felt all this, and therefore "he prayed earnestly that it might not rain."

Thus it was he brought God into the scene, and God did not fail him. "It rained not." God will never refuse to act when faith addresses Him on the ground of His own glory, and we know it was simply upon this ground that the prophet addressed Him. It could afford Elijah no pleasure to see the land turned into a parched and sterile wilderness, or his brethren wasted by famine and all its attendant horrors. No, it was simply to turn the hearts of the children to the fathers, to bring the nation back to its early faith, to eradicate those principles of error which had taken fast hold of the minds of the people. For such ends as these did the prophet pray earnestly that it might not rain, and God hearkened and heard, because the prayer was the offspring of His Spirit in the soul of His dear servant.

(From "Life and Times of Elijah" in Miscellaneous Writings. Vol. 5.)

These six points I wish to notice:Why we should pray, when we should pray, how we should pray, who should pray, to whom we should pray, and for whom we should pray.

Why Should We Pray?

Can we make God change His mind or purpose by our prayers? I answer, yes! Does this startle any? It need not, for I have three scriptures to show how, in the past, prayer has caused God to change His mind or repent. I allude to the prayers of Moses, Hezekiah, and the captive Jews at Babylon. For the prayer of Moses turn to Exodus 32. The people had turned aside to worship a golden calf and Jehovah was about to destroy them. He said to Moses, "Let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them…. And Moses besought the Lord his God." His prayer prevailed, and in verse 14 we read the wonderful statement, "And the Lord repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His people." Is it not marvelous! The prayer of a man moves the almighty God of heaven and earth to change His mind. God is, of course, unchangeable in an absolute sense. "God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent" (Num. 23:19). He is not like fickle man, and His eternal counsels will and must forever stand. Yet in a certain sense He does repent; and prayer is the mighty "power that moves the throne."

The second scripture is Jer. 26:18,19. Micah the Morasthite prophesied against Jerusalem in the days of King Hezekiah. But the king "besought the Lord, and the Lord repented Him of the evil which He had pronounced against them."

Finally, look at Psa. 106:44,45. When the people were "brought low for their iniquity," and delivered into the hands of their enemies by Jehovah, they resorted to prayer. And "He heard their cry, and He remembered for them His covenant, and repented according to the multitude of His mercies." The prayers of God’s people cause Him to repent. This gives the deathblow to fatalism, and furnishes the saints of God with a most powerful incentive to prayer.

When Should We Pray?

Unceasingly, according to the fourfold testimony of the Word. "Continuing instant in prayer" (Rom. 12:12). "Praying always" (Eph. 6:18). "Continue in prayer" (Col. 4:2). "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17). We cannot be always on our knees, I know. Prayer is to be our habit of life. A spirit of prayer should characterize us. We are only safe as we are dependent; and dependence expresses itself in prayer. Who is so strong or so secure in circumstances as to have no need of continual prayer?

How Should We Pray?

The answer is sevenfold:

1. Boldly. "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace" (Heb. 4:16). God invites us to make known our requests, and we should pray fearlessly.

2. Believingly. "Let him ask in faith" (Jas. 1:6). The prayer of unbelief is never answered. "Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord."

3. Intelligently. "If we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us" (1 John 5:14). "His will" must qualify our every request. Will you give your child your razor when he asks, or even cries for it? God is too wise and good to answer many of His children’s prayers. How many ask for earthly prosperity or easier circumstances! These would often be their ruin, spiritually, and a Father’s love withholds them from His children.

4. Holily. "And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight" (1 John 3:22). The Psalmist says, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me" (Psa. 66:18). The apostle wills that "men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands" (1 Tim. 2:8).

5. Persistently. The parable of the unjust judge should encourage us to persevere in prayer (Luke 18:1-8). We need more "stick-to-itiveness" in prayer.

6. Thankfully. "In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God" (Phil. 4:6). Remembrance of past mercies and answers to prayer will encourage us to expect further blessing. And God loves a thankful spirit.

7. Briefly. "Lord, save me" (Matt. 14:30), was the three-worded prayer of Peter. Long prayers will kill a prayer meeting quicker than almost anything else I know of. They were not the most spiritual men in the world who made "long prayers" (Matt. 23:14). Pray in your closet all night, if you wish, but prayers in public edify most when brief.

Who Should Pray?

All believers, young and old, male and female, are to pray. None are excluded from this happy privilege. Every child of God will pray almost involuntarily. "Behold he prayeth," it was said of the newly converted Saul of Tarsus. At the prayer meeting, of course, the sisters are to "keep silence." But no brother should think he cannot pray in public. Some say they have no gift for prayer. But I do not need a gift to beg if I am starving. Bestir yourselves, my silent brethren, and do not sit like dumb images on the benches from one year’s end to another. It is only the sisters who are to "keep silence in the churches."

To Whom Should We Pray?

Paul bowed his knees "unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 3:14). Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" (Acts 7:59). We have no example or precept for prayer to the Holy Spirit in Scripture. We read of praying in the Holy Spirit, but nothing of prayer to the Holy Spirit. For whom should we pray?

We are enjoined to pray for "all men" (1 Tim. 2:1):

1. Sinners. "[God] will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4).

2. Saints. "Supplication… for all saints" (Eph. 6:18). “Pray one for another" (Jas. 5:16).

3. Servants of Christ_evangelists, pastors, and teachers. They need our prayers. Let us not forget them in our closets or in the prayer meetings. Paul repeatedly asks for the prayers of the saints.

4. Backsliders. We have no direct scripture for praying for wandering saints. But we have our Lord’s example. He says of poor backsliding Peter, "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not" (Luke 22:32).

5. Enemies. "Pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you" (Matt. 5:44).

6. Rulers. "For kings, and for all that are in authority" (1 Tim. 2:2).

In conclusion, our subject is a large one, and I have left many things unsaid. Such a study can only be suggestive, never exhaustive. Study the subject for yourselves.

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor" (Exod. 20:16). "Thou shalt not raise a false report; put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment… Keep thee far from a false matter…. Thou shalt take no gift; for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous" (Exod. 23:1,2,7,8). The ninth commandment refers to lying in a way that one’s neighbor (that is, another person with whom one is acquainted) is unjustly accused or convicted. Closely linked with this is taking a bribe to pervert justice (Exod. 23:8).

Lying is not only sinful when directed at one’s neighbor. Gehazi sinned when he told Naaman that Elisha had changed his mind and would receive Naaman’s gift after all. He followed this with a lie to Elisha when asked where he went (2 Kings 5:20-25). Gehazi lied in order to satisfy his covetousness.

Ananias and Sapphira lied for a somewhat different reason. At a time, in the early weeks of the history of the Church, when the more wealthy saints were selling their land or houses and distributing the proceeds to the poorer believers, Ananias and Sapphira sold a possession and brought only a portion of the proceeds to be distributed to the poor (Acts 4:33-37; 5:1,2). Now there was no clear-cut sin in holding back some for themselves. The sin occurred when they lied in representing their gift as the total proceeds from the sale when in fact it was only part (verses 3,4). In other words, the sin of lying developed out of a root of hypocrisy — pretending to a greater degree of devotedness to the Lord than was really there.

Lying is not an insignificant sin in God’s eyes. "These six things doth the Lord hate; yea, seven are an abomination unto Him:A proud look, a lying tongue,… a false witness that speaketh lies" (Prov. 6:16-19). "Lying lips are abomination to the Lord" (Prov. 12:22). Gehazi’s punishment for lying was the receipt of Naaman’s dread disease_leprosy_just as he had received, under false pretenses, Naaman’s gift. Ananias and Sapphira’s punishment was instant death_a warning that even in a period of great grace shown to man, God will not be mocked by the religious pretensions of those who claim to belong to Him. The prescribed judgment under the law for one found guilty of bearing false witness against another was to bring the judgment intended for the innocent person upon his false accuser (Deut. 19:16-19; read also the account of Haman and Mordecai in Esther 5:9-7:10).

We have considered lying out of spite toward one’s neighbor, lying to satisfy one’s greed, and lying as part of a false front, or hypocrisy. What, now, about lying out of fear, to protect oneself from danger? Is this, or any other kind of lying ever justified?

Abraham feared that the Egyptians would kill him so they could have his wife, who "was very fair." So he asked her to pass as his sister so that he might at least save his own skin if any of the princes of Egypt decided they wanted Sarah (Gen. 12). The unsuspecting princes did take her that the Pharaoh might have her for his wife; they even paid Abraham handsomely for this prize. But as the outcome of this untruth, plagues came upon Pharaoh’s house and Abraham and Sarah were expelled from Egypt in disgrace because of their lie. It is quite clear from the account in Genesis 12 that the Lord would have taken good care of Abraham and Sarah if they had told the truth. (See also Genesis 20 and 26 for similar accounts in the lives of Abraham and Isaac.)

Sarah lied to the Lord out of fear:"The Lord said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, who am old?… Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid." For this the Lord rebuked Sarah, albeit rather gently, "Nay, but thou didst laugh" (Gen. 18:10-15).

Simon Peter boasted to the Lord, the night before the crucifixion, "I am ready to go with Thee, both into prison and to death" (Luke 22:33). Yet, later that same evening he was so afraid for his own safety that he lied three times when asked if he was one of Christ’s disciples (verses 56-60). The Lord rebuked Peter without saying a word:"And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter … and Peter went out and wept bitterly" (verses 61,62). Later, Peter was wonderfully restored to the Lord and became a bold ambassador for the crucified and risen Christ (John 21:15-19; Acts 3:12-4:14).

Thus, it seems clear that God does not look favorably upon lying, even when done for self-protection. In my ministry at the Baltimore City Jail, where most of the inmates are awaiting court appearances, I have often counseled the men to tell the absolute truth in court, whatever the cost might be, and to plead mercy of the court and place themselves in God’s hands. It would be far better for them to receive a prison sentence and have God with them than to be sent back to the streets without God.

In the next issue, Lord willing, we shall consider some further aspects of lying, including that most respectable of sins_"jes’ kidding"_as well as the matter of speaking the truth in a negative or harmful manner.