The Defense of Prayer, No. 1

Techniques of the Christian Life

JD15-01

1. The indwelling of the believer by the Holy Spirit is permanent in the church age (John 14:16). He is here and He will continue to indwell us throughout the church age. This is one of the unique features of the church age. This was not true in other age. The Holy Spirit came and went sovereignly.
   
   
2. The Holy Spirit enables the believer to learn the Word of God. The Holy Spirit can only teach a spiritual Christian; that is, one who is filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). To the Christian who is filled with the Spirit, God the Holy Spirit is able to teach him the spiritual phenomena of doctrine. Also, it is the Holy Spirit who brings to the Christian's memory what Jesus Christ has said. John 14:26 promises to us that the Spirit of God will do this for us. He will help us to remember what the Lord has said. The Bible contains what Christ has said, and consequently the Bible is the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). But the Christian can obviously remember only the doctrine that he has studied. What he has not studied cannot be called to his memory.

   This is where many Christians make a serious mistake. They know that they have a living human spirit, and they know that God the Holy Spirit has been given to us as our guide and as a teacher, and they think that just having the Holy Spirit is all you need to have guidance from God. But you can go from the point of salvation, God the Holy Spirit coming into your life and indwelling your body, and never have one moment of guidance from the Spirit of God unless you have the Word of God which is the means through which He guides us. Consequently, unless you are a spirit-filled Christian who can be taught the Word of God, and unless you are a Christian who is learning the Word of God, you cannot expect to have any guidance from God the Holy Spirit. What you do is fall into some trap of emotionalism; some trap of sweetness and light outlook; or, some substitution of some kind, and you call it the guidance of the Lord.

3. The Holy Spirit teaches the Christian's human spirit (1 Corinthians 2:10-16). Compare with that Romans 8:16.
   
   
4. The Father gives divine guidance to the believer through the teaching of the Holy Spirit (John 16:13-14). What you have not learned, the Spirit of God cannot use to give you the Father's guidance.
   
   
5. To know the will of God for oneself, we must know the Word of God (2 Timothy 2:15 and 2 Timothy 3:16).
   
   
6. The results of the teaching of the Holy Spirit are found in 2 Timothy 3:16. They are:
   
   
   1. It is profitable for doctrine. We learn categories of truth.
      
      
   2. It is profitable for reproof. That is, it points out our sins to us when we learn the Word of God.
      
      
   3. It is profitable for correction. It points out how to get back on course again. 1 John 1:9 is getting back on course through the Word of God.
      
      
   4. Finally, it is profitable for instruction in righteousness which is our experiential sanctification; that is, knowing doctrine tells us how to live.
      
      
7. How to learn from the Holy Spirit is explained to us in Isaiah 28 13. There you have the expression "precept upon precept," which is classification of truth upon classification of truth. You have to learn the Word of God by its classifications. It also uses the phrase "line upon line," which means just like you see it in your Bible, verse-by-verse instruction in the Word of God. Thirdly, it says, "here a little, there a little," which means regular study of the Word of God on a day-by-day basis. Spiritual binges inspired in you by some challenge that somebody gets up and gives will not do it. This is what is dangerous about spiritual challenges. If God's people are not given the word of God along with a challenge, they will be inspired to storm out to do something that they will not be able to cope with. Challenges are very dangerous things. You have to have the basis of a systematic intake of the Word, and then you have all the challenge that you need.
   
   
8. The Holy Spirit cannot teach the believer who does not expose himself to the teaching of Bible doctrine. That should be a self-evident fact. If you are not someplace where you are being instructed, then the Spirit of God cannot teach you.
   
   
9. Failure to know necessary doctrine in a life situation is compensated for with emotional responses. When you don't know doctrine, you go to emotion, and you cover up with that. With that point I should say we are not decrying or belittling emotion. Again, we're trying to put it in its proper perspective and in its proper place.

For example, they will have a caricature of burning incense. I'm going to pray so I'm going to go and burn incense. Or, I'm going to light candles. When I was in Guatemala a few weeks ago, every Roman Catholic cathedral was filled with people who were on their knees lighting candles and earnestly speaking to the candle almost as if it were a living thing in itself, trying through that religious act to reach God. They were praying. To light that candle meant that you were praying. This is a factor of heathenism.

During World War II when I was in China, I was in Peking on one occasion visiting some of the temples. I had an excellent rickshaw boy as a guide. He took us into one temple that was dimly lit. When I first came in, I thought there were two huge posts in front of me. Then I realized that these were not posts but that these were the legs of a monster giant Buddha. You finally had to look up and you saw this Buddha standing over there, potbellied and smiling, looking down on you. He was the Buddha of long life. Our guide said, "You may pray to Buddha to give you long life." And he handed us a taper to light the candle right there--good old heathen pagan mystic ritual. He handed it to me and I shook my head and said, "No," because I knew who was behind Buddha of long life--fatty boy up there--and it wasn't God. The other Marine officer with me went for it. He took it and he lit it thinking that by this act of prayer, by lighting this candle, he would achieve something.

They also used to have prayer wheels in China. You would walk through the temples of the priests, and here was the prayer wheel, and here was this fellow babbling and spinning the wheel the whole time. People used to throw in a few prayers. They'd walk by and give that wheel a spin sending a lot of prayers out.

Some people think that we should have that back home here sometime. That's the idiocy of paganism. But there are people who spin their wheels and then they say, "Hmmm, prayer doesn't work. God is not answering." Some people bring sacrifices; they use their prayer beads; they read their devotional books; they make pilgrimages; they bring offerings of food; they fast; or, they practice self-denial. That has nothing to do with the technique of prayer. So if you hope to get God's attention through these rituals that you may perform, you're going to be disappointed because your technique is wrong.

So Jude 20 has told us to meet apostasy, in the first place, by developing a spiritual maturity structure in your soul. "But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith." Now the last part of that verse gives us a second defense against apostasy, and that is praying in the Holy Spirit. Here is the second way that God provides to enable us to resist apostasy--praying in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has a major role in our prayer life. Praying in the Holy Spirit means praying from a soul which is controlled by the Holy Spirit. Obviously, we have immediately touched upon a major technique of the Christian life. You understand that there are certain techniques by which we live as Christians. If you do not use these techniques, your Christian life will falter. One of them, for example, is the confession of known sins. Another one here is a life of prayer. The Christian who does not pray is neglecting a major technique of the Christian life, and will be become eventually an effective believer.

The Holy Spirit plays a major role because the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit edits our prayers. In Romans 8:26 we read, "Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmity, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered; and he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit because he makes the intercession for the saints according to the will of God."

Praying: this is the Greek word "proseuchomai." It is a verb in the present tense which as you know means that it's to be a constant experience of the Christian life. "Pray without ceasing" is the Scriptural admonition. It is active which means you do it to yourself. You don't go to a priest or some intermediary or some great religious leader and say, "Pray for me." It is not wrong for you to ask other believers to join with you in prayer for a specific need that you have. However, be sure that you are simply asking them to join you before God in that prayer and not asking them to do your praying for you. All of you are perfectly qualified, as believers, to do your own praying. So, it is active here. You are to do your praying. It is a participle which means that it is a divine principle which is here being declared. To pray in the spirit means to pray in the condition where you are in fellowship with the Father because sins have been confessed and the Spirit of God is enabled then to lead you in your prayer life.

The number that you have to dial is JOHN-146. John 14:6 is the number you have to dial on this direct dialing system. If you can't dial this number and have not dialed this number, you have no access and no hope of being heard. John 14:6 reads, "Jesus said unto him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father but by Me.'" The connection is established through your new birth through your relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now once the connection to heaven is established, it never has to be reinstalled. You have a permanent hotline to the Father's throne of grace. You will never call this number and find a busy signal, day or night. The service man will never come by and cut off your service because of lack of payment. It is a grace system, and it's all been paid for already. The Father invites us therefore without any hesitation for any reason at all to call him at any time. Jeremiah 33:3 says, "Call into me and I will answer thee and show the great and mighty things which you know not." Hebrews 4:16 adds to that, "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." You have no reason whatsoever at any time to have any hesitancy to approach God.

Now the Old Testament saints were taught a technique for prayer. When the Old Testament believer approached God, he had to approach God on the basis of the promises that God made. They would call upon God and say, "Now God you promised to do this, and I call upon you as a true and honest God to do this that you have promised." Sometimes they would even be given the very words to use in this prayer. In Deuteronomy 26:5 ff, they are given the very words that they were to use in prayer. But Christians today are not told what to say. We are, as a matter of fact, not to use some stereotyped repetitious prayer that we read somewhere, that someone has written, that we repeatedly use. That's religion. Consequently, it is wrong to use the Lord's Prayer as an approach to God. There is nothing more ridiculous than using the Lord's Prayer. Religion is the worst thing that ever happened to mankind--man trying to gain God's favor through his own efforts. This is what religion teaches people.

I saw a television program one time where there was a man on the high seas. He was in a boat and the boat was sinking. He ended up in the ocean. His boat was sinking under him and a school of sharks was circling him. So guess what he did. "Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name." He starts repeating the Lord's Prayer while the sharks are circling him. Why? Because he thought this was a way of gaining safety against the sharks. Instead he should have been yelling, "God do something about the sharks please." He'd have been more on the beam and probably would have gotten better results. The model of the Lord's Prayer is simply a model, and it's meaningless superstitious magic for us to repeat it.

What God wants you to do is to talk in your own words. How would you feel as a parent, those of you who have children, if your youngster came up to you and he decided he'd like to ask you for an ice cream cone? So he came up with his little brother or sister and said, "Daddy, I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream," because you read a little poem, a little jingle, to talk to you. Every time the kid opened his mouth he was dangling to you in some way. That's exactly what we do with God the Father who is infinitely more interested, the Bible has indicated, to supply us with our requests than even our earthly fathers are. So, don't treat God with your little stereotype poems and your little religious rituals. When you use a prayer like that, you are just a little bit away from the man who is spinning his prayer wheel and trying to approach God in that way.

Now the basis of effectual prayer is the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. His name refers to all that He is as the Son of God; all that he has done; and, all the authority that He represents. Jesus taught this change from the Old Testament order of praying on the basis of God's promises to praying on the basis of His authority as the Son of God (John 16:24). This new basis, the Christian is told, will guarantee him results. In John 16:23, the Lord says, "Whatever you shall ask the Father in my name (on the basis of My authority, on the basis of My leading a view through the Spirit of God), he will give it to you."

There are certain practices that the unsaved try to imitate. They try to approach God in prayer. They try to ask God even in Christ's name, but they have no authority to use His name. They have no relationship to the Son of God so this will not work. Sometimes, however, God will answer the prayer of unbelievers. I don't think we can say that He will not do that. There have been many occasions when unbelievers have called upon God and their prayers were answered. If God did the answering of that prayer, it was only on the basis of the grace of God and His mercy that he elected sovereignly to extend. It was not because that person had a claim. But you and I, as believers, have a claim upon God. When we speak to our Father, he has to listen to us. He has to consider and he has to respond because we approach Him on the authority of His Son whom he will never reject, and to whom he will never turn a deaf ear. You have a totally different ground than the unbeliever does.

So, our approach is, we who have accepted Christ, to come to the Father which in itself declares and admits that only He can solve our problem, and our names carry no weight, but the name of Christ carries all the weight that we need. Since the Father gave up His Beloved Son in salvation (that was the greatest thing he could do for us), He will not refuse us lesser things. Romans 8:32 tells us this.

So here we have examples of the petition answered, but the desire that they sought was not answered. We have another condition where the petition is not answered, but the desire is granted.

This is man's way for solving a problem. How often have you asked for God to give you this solution to a problem, and God came along and he solved your problem, but in a different way. That's what we're talking about. Man's way is rejected. God gives His way. You don't get what you ask for, but you do get your desire fulfilled--the solution of your problem.

Then there is a third category where the petition is answered and the desire is answered--both of them.

So here are three ways that your prayers are going to be handled:

1. You will sometimes ask God for something; he will give you what you ask for; but, what you wanted by that thing will not be granted you. This is a very dangerous experience to have and it happens to pushy Christians. It happens to people who insist and petition God that they are going to insist on having a certain thing, and when God grants it they discover that what they desired has not been fulfilled. As a matter of fact it causes people a great deal of grief.

2. There is also the situation where the condition is that the petition is not answered but you do get the thing you desired. God knows a better way to grant you what you seek.

3. Then there is the situation where you are right on the beam in Holy Spirit led praying. Your petition is answered and your desire is satisfied. That's the kind of praying that we should seek to accomplish.

Then we come, of course, to the sad category of petitions which are not answered and desires which are not answered. This is such a major classification that we're going to stop here and we're going to pick that one up in the next session.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1973