Psalm 35:13 source
In this session, I'm going to continue with some of the secrets of answered prayer. In fact, I'm going to deal with one specific major key to effective praying and although this key is clearly presented throughout the Bible from the Old Testament right through the New. I think the majority of Christians are unaware that it exists and I think the failure to use this key that I'm going to be speaking about it is one main source of ineffectiveness and the body of Christ. No doubt, you're wondering what the key is and let me say that when you hear it you are not likely to say "Praise the Lord."
I want to turn again to the sermon on the mount. When Jesus is giving instructions about how to pray, and I want to take two parallel passages. The first one is in Matthew chapter 6 verses 5 and 6 and Jesus says, "And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites." And then He describes how the hypocrites act and then he says in verse 6, "But, when you pray, pray in this way." So, He uses the phrase, "When you pray," twice. The first time He starts with a negative, "Don't pray like the hypocrites." But He doesn't finish there, He ends with a positive, "This is how you ought to pray." And we have actually devoted the last session to analyzing the pattern that He gave us.
But now, I want to move on and that same six chapter to verses 16 and 17 and here He introduces another dimension of prayer and He says, "Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites." But it never stops with the negative. A lot of people think that's where He ends. And He goes on the next verse, "But when you fast," and then it tells us how to do it in a way that's acceptable to God. Now, I think you can see there's a close parallel between what Jesus says about praying and what He says about fasting.
First of all He says, "When you fast," then He says, "Don't do it this way, do it that way." But to my way of thinking, the phrase, "When you fast," indicates that Jesus expects His disciples, did I say prop fast? When you pray, Jesus expects his disciples to pray. How many of you would agree that those words indicate Jesus takes it for granted that we as His disciples will pray? It doesn't say, "If you pray," but He says, "When you pray," and I imagine that most of us here tonight would agree that the Lord expects us as Christians to pray regularly. Isn't that right? Okay.
Now we go on to the next stage and it doesn't say, "If you fast," He says, "When you fast." What does that indicate? It indicates that he expects us to fast and just the same way as expects us to pray. Is that logical? Are you with me, even maybe reluctantly? But still you're with me? Well, don't be reluctant, I agree that the subject of fasting is not an easy to say, "Praise the Lord" about, but I want to tell you, when you discover what's in this subject, you will say, "Praise the Lord" you'll say, "Thank you God for giving us this key." See, Jesus' words about praying and about fasting is exactly parallel.
When you pray, don't pray this way, but pray that way. When you fast, don't fast this way but fast that way. See, Jesus puts praying and fasting on exactly the same level. My conclusion is that if He expects us to pray He also expects us to fast. I'm so glad that I have one great predecessor in the ministry that arrived at the same conclusion.
Actually, there were many of them, Luther arrived at that conclusion. But the one I have in mind is John Wesley and I've read John Wesley's journals years ago and they stirred me and stimulated me and he said, "Something that this affect, I am persuaded that if a Christian has understood the need to fast and does not practice fasting he will backslide just as surely as a Christian who has understood the need to pray, and does not pray." And John Wesley would not ordain to the Methodist ministry, any man who did not commit himself to fast every Wednesday and Friday until 4 p.m. That was at basic requirement for being ordained to the Methodist ministry.
You might say, “Well, what's the purpose of a fasting? Is it just to make life hard for me? To deny me of pleasure?" My answer would be, no.
Doubtless there are a number of purposes but I'm going to deal with only one, and that is, it is a God appointed way to humble ourselves and I will show you this very, very clearly out of scripture. See, the greatest single specific barrier to getting an answer to our prayers is pride and anything that will get that barrier out of the way will facilitate the answers to our prayers.
God has been speaking to me personally just lately about the awful dangers of crime and Ruth picked up a little book, she owned it but we really not paid much attention to it by Andrew Murray, who is one of those preachers of the previous generations who's still feeding the people of God today. How many of you have read at least one book by Andrew Murray? That's most of the people here. That's remarkable.
I don't know whether you know this but in the book it's entitled in the original, "The Humility of Our Lord." It's been republished with a simpler title. I think simply 'humility' and I read this just a few weeks ago, and it really spoke to me personally about my own life. I hated pride for years but I got a new vision of how vicious and how evil pride is and how it keeps us back from all the blessings that God intends for us. This message runs through the Bible. It's a universal truth. It was not demonstrated first on Earth.
You know the first demonstration of the evil of pride? What was the first sin in the history of the universe? Tell me. Pride, who committed the sin? Lucifer, that's right, an angel in heaven and if that pride is a sin and causes an angel to lose his place, how much more susceptible are we to pride as sinners here on Earth? Let me give you just but 3 passages or scripture that deal with pride and with humility.
The first is in Luke 14 and verse 11 and it's the end of a parable where Jesus speaks about how to act when you're invited to a banquet and note 14 and I mean we get to invited to banquets nowadays, sometimes, I was up one yesterday and Jesus said, always so practical, He gets that simple in the place. First of all I want to find out to you that God never says, He'll humble us.
He always tells us to humble ourselves. I tell people God can humiliate you, but only you can make yourself humble. Don't pray, "God make me humble," because it's not a scriptural prayer and furthermore, you probably regret the results of that prayer. A few weeks, a month later, when you find yourself in the most humiliating situation you think, "God, how did I get here?" "That's how you prayed", "You prayed".
So Jesus says, "When you're invited to a banquet, don't walk up to the head table and sit at the chief's place, because you would be embarrassed when somebody comes along and say, but the speaker is going to sit here. You take place over there in the corner." Then Jesus says, "When you go then take the lowest place, be wise. When you know the bottom there's only one way you can go, that's up. I don't know whether you know that prayer by John Bunyon. This has been with me for years. "He that is down need fear no fall. He that is low, no pride. He that is humble ever shall have God to be his guide." See, when you're on the floor you sink, there's no lower you can go, they rarely do.
I am a minister in a large public gatherings like this without first taking my place on the floor, on my face before God and I can tell you, before this meeting, Ruth and I were there for quite a long while. That's when I feel really safe, is on the floor. So Jesus said in the end of the parable, "If you don't want to be embarrassed, avoid the situation. don't sit at the top table, sit in the lowest place and there's only one way you can be ask to go, that is up." And then He sums it up with these words in Luke 14:11. "For whoever exalts himself, will be abased. But he who humbles himself will be exalted." That's universal. In other words, it applies through the universe and it applies in heaven, it applies on Earth. The great demonstration of this truth is Lucifer and Jesus. Lucifer was a created being reached for a quality with God, his slipped and fell. Jesus had a quality with God. He humbled himself even to the death on the cross and describes as God highly exalted.
It says in Philippians 2:9, "Therefore, God highly exalted." Why did God exalt Him? Because He humbled Himself and everyone who humble themselves will be exalted. I can promise you exultation if you humble yourself. There are no exceptions. I have a series of messages which has this title, "The Way Up is Down." The lower down you go, the higher up you'll end. There are no exception to that. But I want to speak about humanity as an essential condition for effective prayer. I want to take a number of statements to this effect.
Let's look first of all before we do that, in James chapter 4 verse 10 and just other two passages before that, James 4:10, "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up." Notice humble yourselves. Don't ask how to do it, you do it. Bother up the lifting up if you do the humbling and then a very similar passage in 1 Peter chapter 5, actually I have proclaimed this before the previous message, verse 6. "Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time." And the previous verse says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
So if you are coming to God in prayer with your pride, God is resisting you and guess who can push harder. you cannot get close to God in pride. The book of Psalms says, "The Lord knows all the proud are far off," and that's where He keeps. There is no access to God with pride and so anything that enable us to humble ourselves is a priceless blessing even if it isn't always enjoyable at the time. And one of the biblically appointed ways to humble ourselves if by fasting. Now, I'm going to show you this right through the Bible.
I want to start with the statement by David, a very simple statement in Psalm 35:13, where he says, "I humbled my soul with fasting." I think modern translations mostly say, "I humbled myself," but the Hebrews says, "I humbled my soul." Why do you need the humble your soul? Well, your soul is an arrogant part of you. It's the self-absorptive part, the egoistic part. Your souls's got three main functions: The will, the intellect and the emotions and expresses itself in these places. I want, I think, I feel. And God says, "What you want isn't important. What you think is unimportant, what you feel is unimportant, what's important is my will and if your going to line yourself with that will, you've got to deal with your soul and one way to deal with your souls is to humble your soul by fasting."
I remember years ago, I preached this kind of message in Washington D.C. and there was a lawyer there, a Christians lawyer, and he got the message and he said, "I'm going to do it. So, tomorrow, I'm going to fast." And, when he did, he had a miserable day. Everytime he walked past the restaurant, he could smell the food. Everytime he walked past the confectionary, he would stop and look in the window. It was just a miserable day.
So at the end of the day, he gave his stomach a lecture, and he said, "Now stomach, you've made a lot of trouble for me today. You've caused me a lot of unnecessary discomfort, so for that, I'm going to punish you. I'm going to fast tomorrow as well." See, that is humbling yourself, it's bringing it into subjection. Let me say this, the stomach is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. Who's the master in your life? You, or your stomach? It's a good question. It's a question we all have to face.
Believe me, people in the ministry are not exempted from that question. I've fought the battle with my stomach many times. But when I get the victory, I get blessed. Not always immediately, not always dramatically, but in one way or another I come under the blessing of God and then when I become arrogant, God withdraws His blessing. I say, "God, what's happened?" And He gently indicates some way or other, "You've become proud and self-assertive again. You want your way, you're letting your will and your soul talk and it's got to be brought into subjection to my will and my word and my ways."
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