April 8, 2012
Scripture:
This morning, our brother reminded us of the Children of Israel, after they had crossed the Red Sea, as they burst forth in song. What an event! There were about six hundred thousand Israelite soldiers, and with all the rest could have been a million or two people singing. But now, look at Judges: the people were in the land and the Philistines were fighting against them. There is another song and another group of voices, but this time it is only two voices. Read Judges 5:1 - 9.
309 - I think when I read that sweet story of old
Prayer
1 Kings 3
David had passed away and Solomon, his son, had taken his place. Today we are going to look at Solomon as he began to reign as king. We find first that he loved the Lord. We read in I John 4: 19 that “We love him because he first loved us.” David loved the Lord and we have many psalms to show for that; it is good to find that Solomon loved the Lord too.
One night, as Solomon slept, the Lord came to him in a dream. He asked Solomon if there was anything he wanted. But before Solomon answered the Lord, he remembered what God had done for his father David. He was thankful. Like Solomon, we should be thankful for what the Lord has done in our lives.
Then Solomon told the Lord what he wanted. He could have asked for blessings, long life, or riches. But he started by telling the Lord that he was not very old, and he didn’t feel ready to become king. This shows us that Solomon was humble. He could have been proud and said that he was ready and able. But he realized the big responsibility of becoming king, and was overwhelmed by it. So what did Solomon want? Solomon asked the Lord for wisdom and understanding. He knew that he would need it to properly judge the people. Solomon was wise. Last week, we heard about the water pots, and how we can fill our lives with anything. One way to become wiser is to fill our lives with the Bible. Read Proverbs 1:7 & 8. There are times as children when we don’t want to listen to instructions, and there were probably times that Solomon didn’t want to hear the instruction either. However, he listened to the Lord because he knew that it would help him be a better judge.
The Lord was pleased with Solomon’s request for wisdom, and told him that there would never be a wiser man than he. He also blessed him with riches and wealth.
During Solomon’s reign, he needed wisdom to judge righteously. He once had a case similar to this. Suppose you had a brand new bike. One day, you rode it to school, parked it and went inside. At recess you went out and found that your bike wasn’t there. Someone else had taken your bike to ride on. You asked him for the bike, but he said yours was still parked, pointing to an old scratched up bike. To settle this, you went to the principal. Both of you told your stories to the principal. Then the principal said, “I’m going to get a saw and saw the new bike in two, and each of you can have half of it.” You love your bike so much and don’t want to see it get cut in half, so you told the principal to give the bike to the other boy; however, the other boy thought that cutting it in half was a good idea. From that the principal knew that you own the bike, because you didn’t want it to get hurt. This is the kind of wisdom that Solomon was given.
May we each be like Solomon and ask God for wisdom, so that we are able to do the right thing in each situation.
Luke 11:5-26
Last week we saw the Pattern of Prayer; and so today we move on to the Perseverance of Prayer. Jesus gives the illustration of a man comfortably in bed with his children, and a neighbour who comes at midnight requesting three loaves of bread. This man wanted to say, “Don’t bother me!”, but because of his friend’s perseverance, he finally rose and gave him the bread.
Any parent knows that children know how to be persistent. Just like children, the Lord wants us to be persistent in prayer. If we give up praying too early, He might think that we don’t need what we were praying for. We can take a lesson from people like Miss Sclater: she prayed for her brother’s salvation for forty years before he came to Christ.
Because of the importunity of this friend, the man in our story rose and gave him as much as he needed. There was no lack of provisions on his part; and there is no lack on God’s part to fulfill our requests. We also learn that we can ask for specific things: this man asked for “three loaves,” not just “food”.
The man in bed was so comfortable that he didn’t want to minister to the needs of another. This is a very real danger for us. We can become so comfortable in our surroundings that we fail to see and meet the needs of others in less comfortable situations.
We now come to asking, seeking, and knocking. This is the Provision of Prayer. Each of these actions is more intense than the one before it. Seeking is more intense than asking, and knocking is more intense than seeking. The most intense form of prayer—which we don’t get here—is when you couple prayer with fasting. The fact that Luke uses the phase “every one” shows that access to God through prayer extends past the Jews to anybody in the world. This grace is a theme of the gospel of Luke. Asking is supplication, but there is greater effort in seeking. There are many references to seeking in the Old Testament: “Seek ye the LORD while he may be found” (Isaiah 55:6), “Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). Knocking is asking for what you can’t get until the Lord opens the door.
“If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Vv. 11-13). This passage brings in the aspect of relationship; because now it’s not just your friend, it’s your son. Jesus was a Son, and ultimately ends up talking about His Father here. We should want wholesome nourishment for our bodies and our souls. God has provided our souls with the Scriptures to feed on, but He’s also gone beyond that. He’s given us the Holy Spirit. Those on whom the Spirit fell at Pentecost were praying, and ever since then those who are saved receive the Holy Spirit.
Doctrine about the Holy Spirit is not always easy to understand. In both the Old and the New Testaments we have people with spiritual life (for which you need the Holy Spirit) but only those in the New Testament have the person of the Spirit. Some people in the Old Testament were filled with the Spirit temporarily, and in John 20:22 Jesus breathed on the disciples and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost”. It’s almost as if the Spirit has different levels, because this certainly didn’t fill the disciples with the Spirit the way that Pentecost did. In John, the Holy Spirit is called the Comforter. He is one of God’s best gifts to the Church.
The Holy Spirit is with us while we are on earth. In heaven we will be the Bride of the Lamb and be joined in a much greater heavenly union.
Hymn 362 - Two little eyes to look to God
Prayer