There is a Struggle that Comes with Prayer – Part 4
Dan 10:1 In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a thing was revealed unto Daniel, whose name was called Belteshazzar; and the thing was true, but the time appointed was long: and he understood the thing, and had understanding of the vision.
Dan 10:2 In those days I Daniel was mourning three full weeks.
Dan 10:3 I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled.
Dan 10:4 And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel;
Dan 10:5 Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz:
Dan 10:6 His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.
Dan 10:7 And I Daniel alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves.
Dan 10:8 Therefore I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength.
Dan 10:9 Yet heard I the voice of his words: and when I heard the voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground.
Dan 10:10 And, behold, an hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands.
Dan 10:11 And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling.
Dan 10:12 Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.
Dan 10:13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.
I hope as we are looking in depth at this important subject of prayer that it is not sounding like prayer is an A-Z. I hope that it does not give the impression that only a select few in this church (or any church) are worthy and able to engage in prayer. Prayer is for all of God’s people – from the youngest to the oldest. In fact, the devil fears the youngest of children communing intimately and sincerely with their God.
Saying that, the more we grow in Christ the more our prayer life should develop, and expand.
The reason why prayer can be so difficult at times is because it is so potent.
I don’t think anyone in here this morning is an expert in prayer. I definitely am not. It is an issue that we are always learning on and it is a battle every time we truly engage in serious consistent effective prayer.
But if you are going to be effective and impactful when you pray there are certain basics you are going to have to employ.
We have looked at some of these over these past few weeks:
- It is crucial that you know who God is and what He is capable of.
- You are going to have to know His will – which is primarily revealed in His Word and also applied and explained by the promptings of His Spirit. I’m not suggesting that you need to know the Bible from cover to cover, but, you need to know God’s take on what’s you are praying for.
- You are going to have to surround your prayer in thanks, praise and worship.
- You are going to have to believe God to answer the cry of your heart.
But, I want you to hear me: as important as it is to have a correct revelation of the character of God, as important as it is to be familiar with God’s promises and to recognize the promptings of His Spirit, as important as it is knowing that prayer is not just asking God for things, but that it involves thanks, praise and worship, as important as it is to exercise faith and not doubt in your petitions (as we talked about last week), if you are not prepared to be patient, be disciplined and travail in your prayers you are not going to see the realization of your prayers.
I want to look at prevailing prayer this morning.
If you are going to see answers to prayer you are going to have to fight. You’re going to have to be proactive. Spiritually impactful things do not come in this life without a battle. You are normally going to have to endure a lot to get there. There has to be travail. There has to be persistence.
If you are prone to get discouraged, if you are easily knocked off course, if you give up quickly, if you are impatient, then you are going to struggle in prayer.
Scripture repeatedly shows: from the time God reveals what He wants to do, and as we align with that in pray, until its realization, can often take time.
Hebrews 10:36 tells us:
“For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.”
Patience isn’t always our strongest attribute!
Patience is basically the ability to wait, or continue doing something, despite difficulties, or delay, without complaining, getting upset or giving up.
James 1:3 “…the trying of your faith worketh patience.”
Patience is a virtue. It is listed by Paul in Galatians 5:22-23 as among the fruit of the Spirit.
I think it is fair to say that none of us like waiting on answers to prayer. That takes real spiritual discipline, trust and persistence.
Well-known Christian writer Oswald Chambers puts it well: “Patience is more than endurance. A saint’s life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, and He stretches and strains, and every now and again the saint says, ‘I cannot stand anymore.’ God does not heed, He goes on stretching till His purpose is in sight, then He lets fly. Trust yourself in God’s hands. Maintain your relationship to Jesus Christ by the patience of faith. ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”
Isa 40:31 they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
When you are heavenly minded, you have time to wait, you are not in a rush, because God has things to do with you and others in the process.
Have a look at the lives of those who refuse to wait on God, and are continually rushing in and making rash fleshly decisions. Their life is a mess. They are all over the place. One day they’re going north, the next day they were going south. One day they’re going east, the next day they’re going west.
They don’t truly trust God because they do not intimately know Him. They don’t know how to stand upon His promises because they do not function by faith.
They are rather driven by their feelings or their own stinking thinking.
Carnal people try and manipulate God the way they manipulate those around them. The only thing is, it will never work with Him! All they are doing is praying to themselves, not to God. His ears are closed to such prayers.
Zechariah 7:13 shows this:
“…as he (God) cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the LORD of hosts:”
Wise Christians know that God will do the right thing in the right way in the right time.
Hebrews 6:12 “…be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”
Last week we talked about the need for faith when it comes to prayer. Well, patience goes hand-in-hand with it.
Got Questions Ministries say on their website: “In the Bible, patience is persevering towards a goal, enduring trials, or expectantly waiting for a promise to be fulfilled.”
Sometimes you have to fight for a blessing.
Hosea 12:4 says of Jacob in the Old Testament:
“Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us;”
The word prevail here means to overcome, or be a victor, endure, have power, and be able. It literally means: to be able to gain, be able to accomplish, be able to endure and be able to reach.
Does this describe your approach to prayer?
Pastor John Baros explains it like this: “prevailing prayer is prayer that has power or influence with God. It is the type of prayer that is capable of producing results, prayer that accomplishes something. And to prevail in prayer means to endure until you have prayed through to an answer.”
Listen to me very carefully. Scripture proves that there normally has to be travail before you prevail. Or, put differently, travailing prayer is prevailing prayer:
1 Thessalonians 5:17
“Pray without ceasing.”
Ephesians 6:18
“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;”
Romans 12:12
“Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant (or steadfast) in prayer;”
Now it says that you must be “instant” in prayer, but it doesn’t say you will get “instant” answers to prayer.
Many of us when we think of travail we think of childbirth.
John 16:21-22
21. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.
22. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.
Another natural fact is: the closer it comes to something being birthed, the more travail that is involved. You ladies know what I’m talking about!
Nothing is birthed without travail.
I have had the privilege of being at the birth of each of my children and learned quite quickly that there is nothing easy about a birth.
Jesus spiritualizes this when it comes to endurance and holding on in regard to spiritual matters.
We need to be aware:
- There are certain things we have to go through to get to where we are going.
- There are certain things we have to go through to enable certain things to happen.
- There are certain things we have to go through to produce in us what needs.
The greatest example of travailing and prevailing prayer was Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Listen to what it says:
Luke 22:44 “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”
This is extreme travail in prayer? Here He is about to take your sin and my sin upon himself. After all, Jesus knew “all that was going to happen to Him” (John 18:4).
- He knew he would be betrayal by one of His own disciples.
- He knew of the wicked schemes of the religious.
- He knew of the kangaroo court He would be accused in.
- He knew He was going to be mocked, scoffed, rejected and abused.
- He knew He was going to have His back scourged like a plowed field.
- He knew about the humiliation and agony of the cross.
But guess what? He kept going! He pressed through.
There is a lesson and an example here for us in prayer.
Do you have loved ones that are lost or backslidden? Scripture exhorts us to travail for them.
There is a powerful text in Isaiah 66:8 which refers to the redeemed of God:
“…for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.”
What is the purpose of travail here? Travail produces spiritual births.
Christians are spiritually referred to in the Word of God as Zion (God’s people). As we travail, things are birthed in the Spirit. Many souls become “born again” through someone’s travail. Things happen as we pray and travail.
Psalms 126:5-6 give us an amazing promise if we take Him at His Word.
5. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
6. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
George Muller put it well, “I hope in God, I pray on, and look yet for the answer. They are not converted yet, but they will be.”
I am not one to cry easily. But there have been key moments in my Christian walk when the Lord has absolutely overwhelmed me with a burden for a lost soul, that has caused me to weep over them. In every single case that I can remember that person ended up getting saved. To me that is supernatural. To me that is a God thing. That to me, is the anointing of God in operation. When you feel that, you run with it, because that is God on the move. He does not play games with people.
Nearly every instance, I was overwhelmed with a sense of a lost eternity and started to intercede for their never-dying soul. I believe the tears that I shed emanated from the heart of God.
Paul travailed for fellow-believers. He testifies in Galatians 4:19. “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you”
The Apostle Paul applies this analogy of the travail of a woman who’s going to birth a baby to the struggles and toils of spiritual intercession. It involves pain, endurance and time.
The fact is that we don’t always get immediate answers to prayer. In fact, if Scripture is anything to go by it often takes months and years to get answers to sincere God-ordained prayers.
Have you been holding on for a long time for an answer and you’re very discouraged? You feel faint? Don’t give up! Keep going!
We learn about Jesus in Luke 18:1-8:
1. And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
That word “faint” in the Greek here means to be afraid, to become discouraged, to become weary or tired, to despair, to lose heart, to tire of.
Jesus then backs this saying up with a parable. Remember, a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.
2. There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:
3. And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
4. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;
5. Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
6. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith.
7. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?
8. I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.
This is an earthly illustration to exhort us to prevailing prayer. It is imploring us to take a hold of God and not let go until He does the thing.
Remember He uses this parable to reinforce His statement: “men ought always to pray, and not to faint.”
This is talking about God’s response to those that are persistent, and those that do not give up.
Galatians 6:9
“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
We need to persevere.
What does it mean to persevere?
Keep going!!! It means to be determined to press through.
When we are determined to touch Christ, He will touch us.
It can be agonizing work to intercede for those in crisis, pray for the lost, or seek direction on critical decisions. It is even more wearisome when you don’t seem to get any immediate answer to prayer. What did the angel say unto Daniel in our main reading:
10:12 Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.
I 10:13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.
God heard Daniel’s request on Day One, however, unknown to Daniel, there was a battle in the spiritual realm that had to be gone through before he received his answer. Notwithstanding, this didn’t weaken Daniel’s resolve. So much for the ‘name-it-and-claim-it-gospel’. Daniel had NO time for that nonsense.
I have wonderful news for you this morning – God heard your cry the first day you made it.
Isaiah 65:24 “And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.”
Charles Spurgeon once said: “If the Lord Jehovah makes us wait, let us do so with our whole hearts; for blessed are all they that wait for Him. He is worth waiting for. The waiting itself is beneficial to us: it tries faith, exercises patience, trains submission, and endears the blessing when it comes. The Lord’s people have always been a waiting people.”
We are so short-sighted as human beings. We get so caught up in the moment that we fail to see the wider picture. We fail to see that we must go through this current conflict so that we can experience a future victory coming down the road.
Today’s battle will be part of tomorrow’s testimony – if you keep going.