Teach Us To Pray # 2

Teach Us To Pray # 2

Let us take a few examples from Christ. In Mark we learn that He rose up early in the morning and went out to a solitary place and prayed (1:35). He began every day with prayer. You never get up without dressing. You never forget to wash your face and comb your hair. You always think of breakfast. You feed your physical body. Why do you starve your spiritual body? If nine-tenths of you were as weak physically as you are spiritually, you couldn't walk. Seventh-tenths of professing Christians have no family prayers and do not read the Bible. It is no wonder boys and girls are going to hell. It is no wonder the damnable ball-rooms are wrecking the virtue of our girls.

In the fourteenth chapter of Matthew it is told that when Jesus had sent the multitudes away He went up into the mountain and was thee alone with God. Jesus Christ never forgot to thank God for answering His prayers. Jesus asked Him to help Him feed the multitude, and He didn't neglect to thank God for it. Next time you pray don't ask God for anything. Just try to think of all the things you have to be thankful for, and tell Him about them.

Pride Hinders Prayer

Pride keeps us from proper prayer. Being chesty and big-headed is responsible for more failures than anything else in this world. It has spoiled many a preacher, just as it has spoiled many an employee. Some fellows get a job and in about two weeks they think they know more about the business than the boss does. They think he is all wrong. It never occurs to them that it took some brains and some knowledge to build that business up and keep  it running till they got there.

Here's two things to guard against. Don't get chesty over success, or discouraged over a seeming defeat.

"And when He prayed He said: "Lazarus, come forth; and he that was dead came forth" (John 11:43). If we prayed right we would raise men from sin and bring them forth into the light of righteousness.

"And as He prayed the fashion of his countenance was altered" (Luke 9:29). Ladies, do you want to look pretty? If some of you women would spend less on dope and cold cream and get down on your knees and pray, God would make you prettier. Why, I can look into your faces and tell what sort of lives you live. If you were devoting your time and thoughts to society, your countenances will show it. If you pray, I can see that!

Every man who has helped to light up the dark places of the world has been a praying man. I never preach a sermon until I've soaked it in prayer. Never. Then I never forget to thank God for helping me when I preach. I don't care whether you read your prayers out of a book or whether you just say them, so long as you mean them. A man can read his prayers and go to heaven, or he may just say his prayers and go to hell. We've got to face conditions. When I read I find that all the saintly men who have done things from Pentecost until today, have known how to pray. It was a master stroke of the devil when he got the church to give up prayer. One of the biggest farces today is the average prayer-meeting.

Praying In Secret

Matthew says, "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father, which is in secret; and thy Father seeth in secret shall reward thee openly" (Matt. 6:6).

Two men came to the Temple to pray (Luke 18:10) - the first was the Pharisee. He was nice and smooth, and his attitude was nice and smooth. He prayed: "God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican (tax collector). I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all I possess," and he went out. I can imagine a lot of people sitting around the church and saying: "That is my idea of religion; that is it. I am no sensationalist; I don't want anything vulgar, no slang." Why don't you use a little, bud, so that something will come your way? An it will come as straight as two and two make four.

Services rendered in such opposite directions cannot meet with the same results. If two men were on the top of a tall building and one should jump and one come down the fire escape they couldn't expect to meet with the same degree of safety. The Pharisee said, "Thank God, I am not as other men are," and the publican said, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." The first man went to his house the same as when he came out of it. "God be merciful to me, a sinner." That man was justified. I am justified in my faith in Jesus Christ. I am no longer a sinner. I am justified as though I had never sinned, by faith in the Son of God. That man went down to his house justified.

~Billy Sunday~

(continued with # 3)