1 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
Introduction
Study the early chapters of the book of Acts and you will discover the people repeatedly going to God in prayer. They prayed together and they prayed for one another, and as a result of their marvelous prayer life, great things were accomplished. For example, in the early chapters of the book of Acts it says that when the people prayed, the place was shaken. More than just the place where they were meeting were shaken that day—the whole world was shaken, and it has continued to be shaken by the power of the Holy Spirit when the people of God meet to pray.
I think the greatest need in our churches today is to learn how to pray again. We don’t just need some new programs, methods, or novel approaches, but what we need more than anything else is the power of God upon the existing programs and techniques. When those things are charged with the power of the Holy Spirit, unusual things will begin to happen.
I shared with our prayer group last Wednesday night some startling facts concerning the state of Texas in the past seven years. The population of our state has increased by 13%. In that same period of time the average attendance in Sunday school has increased only 1%, and the average number of baptisms has gone down 10%. That shows that the state of Texas is becoming more and more pagan with every passing year. And I see leaders everywhere wringing their hands in despair, asking, “What are we going to do?” They are trying to think up a new program, a new technique, or a novel method to reach the state of Texas. What we need to do is to get back to the basics, and the basics are prayer, the word of God, and sharing our faith with individuals throughout the day and throughout the week. We are trying to establish that kind of ministry and that kind of emphasis in our church.
The Bible teaches us that there are many different kinds of prayer. In the book of 1 Timothy, chapter two, Paul begins by saying, “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time” (verses 1-6).
This passage is a marvelous appeal on the part of the apostle that the people of God get busy to pray. He mentions four different kinds of prayers that people can offer up. First of all, he talks about supplication. The word supplication means “to make a request for yourself.” I think that is probably the most common and the most natural form of prayer—that I ask God to meet some need in my life.
Then he suggests the idea of praise within the context of prayer. We should not only ask God for what we need, but we should praise God for who he is. There is a place in prayer for praising our heavenly Father, not just for what he has done, but for who he is.
Then Paul talks about intercession, which means going to God in behalf of someone else. In intercession, we’re not asking God to do something for ourselves—we’re asking God to do something for others. It is the practice of praying for one another.
Then he adds to that the giving of thanks, which means that we simply express our gratitude to God. We express our deep abiding gratefulness for what God has done for us. You put it all together and he is saying to us that prayer is asking God for what we need. It is praising God for who he is. It is beseeching God in behalf of other people, and it is thanking God for what he has done.
Now the kind of prayer that we are thinking about tonight and we are most interested in right now is intercessory prayer—the kind of prayer that takes place when we go to God in behalf of someone else. All of the great servants of God in the Bible were men of intercession. Read about their lives and you’ll discover that they went to God not only for their own needs, they also felt a sense of concern for their brothers and their sisters and those around them. They were continually going to God in behalf of other people.
Take, for example, Abraham—the great servant of God in the Old Testament. Before there was ever organized religion, Abraham became greatly concerned about his nephew Lot and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He went to God in behalf of those cities and because of the prayers and the pleading of this righteous man, those two great cities had the possibility of being spared.
Take the life and the experience of Moses—the great leader of God’s people as they were organized into a nation. He led them out of the bondage of Egypt and into the Promised Land. There came a time when God was so displeased with the nation Israel that he was about to destroy them, but Moses interceded in their behalf and he said in so many words, “God, if there is no other way to save these people, then blot my name out of the Book of Life so that they may be saved.” He was doing nothing less than approaching God in behalf of Israel. Moses was always interceding for his people.
Intercession was a vital part of the life and the ministry of Jesus. Oftentimes he prayed for his disciples. He told Peter on one occasion, “Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not” (Luke 22:31-32). When he talked about Satan sifting Simon Peter as wheat, he was telling him that Satan was going to shake him up and do everything he could to destroy Peter. But he reminded him that he had already interceded in Peter’s behalf.
In the later part of the book of John, there is a marvelous prayer that Jesus prayed for his disciples. The prayer was not just for those disciples who were alive then and there, but it was for all disciples of all ages, as if the prayer of Jesus had no end to it. It continues until the very end of time. And Jesus, who interceded for us in his days on earth, is still in the process of interceding in our behalf in heaven.
The apostle Paul was a great man of intercessory prayer. You can read his epistles and in almost every one of them, there is a prayer that he not only prays, but he writes down and passes on to the people. He wanted them to know what he was praying about. He was praying again and again for their spiritual strength, growth, and well-being in the Christian life.
We find throughout the Bible that there are examples, illustrations, and reminders of the fact that we ought to pray for other people. Paul claimed that he had been helped on many occasions by the prayers of God’s people. When they interceded for him, something marvelous and wonderful happened in his life.
[1]I want you to understand that intercessory prayer is not a way to manipulate other people. Sometimes we believe that if we start praying about something in the life of another person, that it is automatically going to take place. That’s just not true. If God answered every prayer that we offered up in behalf of someone else—especially if there were a tinge of selfishness in that prayer—then pretty soon we would be manipulating the lives of other people, and God will never work in your life or in mine, contrary to our will. I mean if the whole world were praying for me to be saved and I didn’t want to be saved, I wouldn’t. God will never superimpose his will (or your will) upon the free will of man.
But when we pray for other people, we have the opportunity to influence their lives. A power is let loose through our prayers that reaches out to touch the life of somebody else.
I don’t understand the logic of it. It’s almost as though we were saying, “Well, I will pray for you because I know your needs more than God does.” But that is not true. Or “I care about you more than God does,” and that is not true either. I can’t explain the logic of intercessory prayer, but there are a lot of things that I believe, accept, and enjoy that I don’t understand. I am persuaded as sure as I am alive that if we go to God sincerely and genuinely in behalf of someone else, God will work to influence, to convict, and to lead that person, and there is a greater probability of the good taking place than in any other way. For that reason, I pray for people who are lost. For that reason, I pray for families who are distressed. For that reason, I pray for people who are sick. I pray for people who are having financial difficulties, or who need to find a job, or who are having trouble living with one another. I keep praying for all of the needs of people because I believe that somehow in some way, God chooses to work and to deal with people as a result of our prayers.
There is a marvelous teaching on prayer in the life and the ministry of Jesus that illustrates the essentials of intercessory prayer, and I want to share those essentials with you briefly. It is found in the book of Luke, chapter 11, and the passage begins with the disciples coming to Jesus and asking, “Lord, will you teach us to pray as John taught his disciples to pray?” These disciples of Jesus had watched John the Baptist, and they had watched the followers of John the Baptist, and they knew that these were great men of prayer. They didn’t know all that they needed to know about prayer and they came to say, “Lord, you teach us to pray.” Now that suggests to me that prayer is something that you can learn to do. We need to place more emphasis on teaching people how to pray. We are going to do that.
It is interesting that they never asked Jesus, “Would you teach us how to preach?” even though preaching was mighty important to Jesus. They never asked, “Lord, will you teach us a course in public relations? We need to know how to get along with the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” They never asked, “Lord, will you teach us how to perform miracles?” Somehow they sensed that prayer was so important to Jesus. They said, “Lord, teach us how.” In response to that, he gave to them the Lord’s Prayer.
The Lord’s Prayer is a model prayer. It was never intended to be recited as a ritual in church every Sunday. It is okay if you do that. It doesn’t hurt anything. It probably doesn’t help much, but it doesn’t hurt either. Jesus gave it as a pattern for the building of your own prayers, and if you will study it, you will receive guidance and direction in knowing how to pray yourself.
Jesus taught his disciples to pray, saying “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the glory and the power forever.”
That’s how you are to pray, and using it as a model, we can learn how to pray more effectively. To reinforce it, Jesus told the story of a man who was a visitor at the midnight hour. The man had been on a journey and he was ravished with hunger. He desperately needed bread.
In that day and time people often waited until the cool of the evening to travel. The eastern sun was so hot that a man could hardly afford to travel in the heat of the day. He would wait until the afternoon and the early evening to begin his journey. This man had done just that, and he had finally arrived close to his destination at the midnight hour. He came to a friend and he said, “Friend, I am starved to death. I need something to eat.” Well, in those times, they baked their bread daily in that country. There were no grocery stores and no bakeries open, and people would bake just enough bread for each day’s use so that it wouldn’t be stale the next day. In this particular home, they had eaten all of the bread for that day. There was nothing left. Hospitality was a sacred duty, so he could not possibly turn away this traveler who was in need of a place of rest and food to eat. So at that untimely hour he left his home and went to the house of a friend of his, and he knocked on the door to awaken this friend and asked him to give him some bread so that he could feed his hungry visitor.
He knocked once, and the man inside the house answered. He shared his request with him and the man on the inside of the house said, “I can’t. This is a terrible hour. I am asleep and all of my children are asleep and I can’t afford to wake everybody up to give you some bread.”
Remember now, that the houses were nothing more than just one-room huts. They were like the little houses I’ve entered in a number of places around the world, with dirt floors, mud walls, and perhaps thatch roofs. Everybody in the family slept in one little room, and they probably slept on mats on the floor that were strung out all across that floor. The door in this story—which was probably more like a see-through gate to us—had been shut for the night.
Ordinarily in the day, the door was left open, and people could easily come and go in and out of the house. Nobody bothered to knock or to do anything like that. But at nighttime, homeowners shut the door. Oftentimes they did it to shut their animals in more than to shut the rest of the world out. The animals commonly slept in the house with the people.
This man had shut the door and the animals were in. The chickens and the other animals were in the house and his children were all spread out there on the floor on their mats. For him to get up in that tiny house and open the door would be to disturb the whole family. At first he refused. “I cannot come,” he answered. But the man on the outside kept persistently knocking and begging, so finally he got up and went to the oven and found the bread that the man needed and gave it to him and satisfied his needs.[2]
Now Jesus told us this parable primarily to encourage us to be persistent in prayer. But since it is the story of one man going to another in behalf of his friend, it illustrates four vital things about intercession.
1. Be aware. First of all, you must recognize the need in the life of someone else. A need that you cannot meet yourself. A need that only the heavenly Father can meet. I am persuaded that intercessory prayer has it origin in looking into the lives of people and seeing needs that you cannot possibly meet yourself. If we do not see the needs of people around us, we will not pray for them as we ought.
We need to ask God to give to us sensitive eyes to see and hearts to feel the needs of people around us. In a week’s time I’m apt to encounter people whose marriages are breaking up, who are so despairing of life that they have attempted suicide, who are struggling with problems with their children, or who are children having problems with their parents. There are people who have gone through great sorrow and their hearts are still aching from the loss. There are people who are facing the traumatic experience of major surgery in the hospital. All around us there are people who are hurting because of any and every problem you can imagine. It is not difficult for a pastor to see needs that he cannot possibly meet himself.
I am persuaded that you can see those needs also. Even though the person may not be coming to you to share their burden or request, if you are sensitive, and if you have eyes to see and ears to hear, you will see all around you the needs that you cannot meet. Let me tell you that regardless of what request a person makes of you, you never have to say, “Friend, I cannot help you.” Even though you may not have bread to give as this man had no bread to give, there is a friend you can go to and make a request in behalf of that person. And that’s what intercessory prayer is. It begins with the awareness of a need.
2. Love one another. The second thing that is vital and essential is love. When the man came to him for help, he could have said to him, “I’m sorry, I have no bread.” And that’s all. He could have said to him, “The hour is late and I need my rest. I do not want to be bothered by you. Come back at a more convenient hour tomorrow.” Or he could have said, “Go try somebody else’s house.” He could have found a thousand reasons not to take this friend into his house and into his heart and then go and intercede on his behalf to someone who could meet the need.
But you see there was in his heart a love and a compassion. He wanted to help. He was willing to sacrifice and any person who loves is willing to sacrifice. The two always go together. If you are willing to be put out, to go through some inconvenience, or to be disturbed at the midnight hour, you really do love. That’s the way love behaves. Love doesn’t seek its own.
Love isn’t always thinking about its comforts, its needs, and its pleasure. And intercessory prayer is rooted not only in the need of another person, but in a love and a compassion in your heart for them. If you do not love them, you will not intercede on their behalf, even though you may know the need is there.
I think that the lack of prayer in our churches is really due to a lack of love for one another and for the lost world. If we loved as we ought, we would intercede as we ought. There is a need. There is a love.
3. Have faith. The third ingredient is faith. We have to believe that there is a friend who can help us. The man in the story never would have opened his home and his heart and gotten up and gone out at that midnight hour had he not believed in a friend who was able and willing to meet his needs. It was out of his deep confidence in the ability and the willingness of his friend that he went to him and made his request. Just as surely as intercessory prayer is rooted in the needs of other people and the love we may have for them, it is also rooted in the confidence we have in God.
It is believing that God is able to do great things. That God is able to save the lost. That God is able to impress the wayward. That God is able to heal the sick. That God is able to straighten out a bent or broken marriage. And because we have confidence in what God can do, we intercede.
If we never intercede we either feel no need or no love, or we have no confidence in God. There are hundreds of promises in the Bible and scores of testimonies from Christian people everywhere that say to us that at the midnight hour of life that there is a friend you can call on. If you have that confidence you’ll learn to pray.
4. Remain persistent. The last ingredient to intercessory prayer is persistence. That’s why Jesus told the parable. That’s the central lesson of it. The man came and knocked, but he did not have his request granted immediately. He was turned away, but he kept on knocking and kept on knocking and because of his persistence he received what he wanted and what he needed.
Now Jesus was not saying to us that prayer is overcoming God’s reluctance. He’s not saying that God doesn’t want to help us and that God is not going to respond regularly, or that if we just keep on and on, finally God will give in. That’s not what he is saying at all.
He is saying to us that persistence is a test of our faith in God and our sincerity in prayer. There are scores of things that you have prayed for once and laid aside and never mentioned again. You prayed once and you forgot about it because you either were not really concerned and burdened about it, or you doubted that God would ever do it in the first place.
Persistence in prayer is a test. Do I really believe God? Do I believe enough to keep asking when the answer doesn’t come immediately? Am I convinced that God can and will answer? Am I really sincere? Is this something that really burdens me that I am concerned about?
When I really believe and I am really, really burdened enough to pray again and again, then God hears and he works in response to that. That’s why Jesus, having told the story said, “Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened” (Luke 11:9-10).
So we need to learn to pray, not only for ourselves, but for other people. If we see the need, have the love in our hearts, have faith in God, and are persistent, God can meet the needs of others through us.
I hope you want to be a part of that. Many of you have been praying like that for a long time. Keep at it. Some of us need to start it with a greater intensity. And it is my hope and prayer that that will result from our time together.
[1]Illustration.
[2]Illustration.