Gooding, David: 2 - Perseverance in Prayer

And a very good evening to you, and shall we begin our study by reading in the Gospel by Luke and chapter uh eleven. The Gospel by Luke, chapter eleven. And let's begin there at verse five. And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend and shall go unto him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine is come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him? And he from within shall answer and say, trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed, and I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity, he will arise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say unto you, ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and you 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. And of which of you that is a father shall his son ask a loaf, and he give him a stone? Or a fish, and he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he give him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him. And he was casting out a demon which was dumb. And it came to pass when the demon was gone out, the dumb man spake, and the multitudes marveled. Alongside that, let us put chapter eighteen in this same gospel. Gospel of Luke, chapter eighteen. And he spake a parable unto them to the end, that they ought always to pray and not to faint, saying, There was in a city a judge which feared not God and regarded not man. And there was a widow in that city, and she came oft unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while, but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest she wear me out by her continual coming. And the Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge saith. And shall not God avenge his elect, which cry to him day and night, and he is long suffering over them. I say unto you that he will avenge them speedily. How be it, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? And finally, for the moment, the book of the Revelation and chapter eight. The Revelation, chapter eight. And when he opened the seventh seal, there followed a silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which stand before God, and there were given unto them seven trumpets. And another angel came and stood over the altar, having a golden censer. And there was given unto him much incense, that he should add it unto the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints went up before God out of the angel's hand. And the angel taketh the censer, and he filled it with the fire of the altar and cast it upon the earth, and there followed thunders and voices and lightnings and an earthquake. Chapter eleven and verse 15. The seventh angel sounded, and there followed great voices in heaven, and they said, the kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. And the four and twenty elders which sit before God on their thrones fell upon their faces and worshiped God, saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God the Almighty, which art and which wast, because thou hast taken thy great power and didst reign, and the nations were wroth, and thy wrath came, and the time of the dead to be judged, and the time to give their reward to thy servants, the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, the small and the great, and to destroy them that destroy the earth. God give us good understanding of his word. Now, as you remember, you have given me three occasions on which to come and talk to you on the topic of prayer. Prayer is the topic you set me, and tonight I want to deal as best I can with a problem that, in my experience, uh, befalls many a believer in this very area of prayer. And the question that befalls them is this: when is it right to persevere in asking God for something? And when should we, after a true request, take no for an answer and cease praying. There are, of course, in scripture, are there not, many a passage that seem to encourage us to persevere in prayer. And all the handbooks on prayer will tell you that prayer is not for the faint-hearted. Prayer is for those who are prepared to persist in asking, and in the end, if only you persist long enough, God will answer your prayer and honor your faithful persistence. And yet, on the other hand, some will tell us, well, that wasn't Paul's way, was it? When it came to the thorn in his flesh, he tells us in two Corinthians chapter twelve, he besought the Lord three times that this difficulty should be taken away from him. And obviously the Lord did not remove it. Instead, the Lord said to him, the Lord has said to me, says Paul, putting it in the perfect tense and repeating it as though it were the Lord's final decision on the matter that Paul was prepared to accept. The Lord has said to me, and that, that decides it. My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness. And it appears, therefore, that after having asked the Lord three times and receiving on each occasion a no, Paul desisted from praying. And then come our very solemn fellow believers, and they wag their warning finger in front of our nose, and they say, do be careful. You can ask too much, you know. There is a Psalm verse that says he granted their request, but he sent leanness into their soul. And so, of course, there is, I can't deny it, can I? The Psalm, of course, is referring to that famous occasion when the Israelites came to Moses and they said, look here, Moses, old fellow, this just will not do. We're fed up with this manner, morning, noon, and night, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Dear me, we were better off in Egypt with our cucumbers and garlic. If you can't do better than this, Moses, uh, we're not going on with it. Give us flesh to eat, they said. And they insisted on having flesh. And God gave them flesh. While it was yet in their mouths, God smote them. Look at that, say our solemn brothers and sisters. Now there's a warning for you. Don't keep on asking. Leave off, lest God, um, give you what you ask for, and then you will wish he hadn't. So what shall we make of it? I shall attempt to answer that tonight by taking two major passages of scripture that talk of persistence in prayer. And I shall begin to answer, I shall not end, I shall not finish all answering all your questions, but I shall begin to answer the problem by inviting us all to consider the context in which these exhortations to persistence in prayer are given. Now, last week we thought of prayer as between us and God. We thought of it with ourselves as children coming to make requests of our Heavenly Father. And we listened to the Lord Jesus assuring us that our Father knows what we have need of before we ask him. As we come as children to a father, it isn't to inform him, though he likes us to tell him what we want, but he knows in advance what we need and loves to give it when it is appropriate and asks us to come and ask him so that we might get the reward of praying, which is not the particular gift that we may be seeking, but fellowship with God. God himself is the reward of our praise. This week I move on to speak of prayer in the context, first, of ourselves as scholars, as pupils in the school of God's holiness, as men and women who are being taught and trained to perfect holiness in the fear of God. And then I want us to think about ourselves as saints, as God's holy people, who from time to time suffer injustice of one kind and another in this ungodly world. So then, both as scholars in the school of God's holiness and as saints amidst the tribulations and persecutions of this world, we are exhorted to persevere in prayer. There may be where other areas too where we are right to persevere in prayer, but in these two we have the full of authority of scripture so to do. Let me begin then by reminding you again of the pattern prayer that our Lord Jesus gave us, and the proportion that that prayer reminds us of. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Surely our Lord does not mean us constantly to repeat those phrases in parrot fashion, though if we repeated them more often, perhaps it would do us no harm, because the prayer gives us a pattern, doesn't it? And part of that pattern is the very proportion that we ought to learn in our praying. The pattern our Lord gives us starts with three requests for God's concern. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Three requests concerned with God's interest. How easily it is for us to get our proportions and priorities somewhat different, isn't it? Rushing into God's presence, oh God, remember Granny's arthritis, and I've got the toothache, Lord, uh, and I need a job tomorrow anyway, for I'm out of work. And of course, like children bursting upon their parents with their unpremeditated requests, God smiles, doesn't he, when we come bursting in as children with the things that are so pressing upon our hearts. But it would be good for us to grow up, wouldn't it? And as mature sons and daughters of God, to begin in our prayer life to develop a true and proper sense of priority. What things ought to come first in my order of urgency? And according to the pattern, the first three things are God's interests. Then come three prayers in the pattern for my own concerns. On them I want to concentrate your attention. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation. Three requests for us, three requests for God's interest, three requests for our own. Let's look at the three requests for ourselves. One of them concerns the material things of life, doesn't it? Give us this day our daily bread. And you can put all else that goes with our material and physical well-being into that bracket, can't you? If granny's arthritis isn't improved, she won't have any appetite for eating the bread anyway, will she? You'll see. Ha. And if the tooth isn't dealt with, you won't be able to chew the old crust, and so forth and so on. All those things that concern our physical well-being and loom so large. Yes, of course, we are encouraged to pray for them. And of the three things that concern us, those things come first. You'll see you can't get to heaven without cornflakes, can you? If you get my meaning, you'll see. You can be as spiritual as you'd like, but if you don't eat your cornflakes, you you'll you'll you'll die, of course you'll die, and you won't have any strength or puff left to start embarking on your moral and spiritual education. So you do have to pray for the batter pudding and the cornflakes and all that goes with it. God is realistic, isn't he? How shall I give myself to prayer for spiritual things if I've had no food this last week? But when we've said that, the proportion is one to two, isn't it? One for physical things, but the other two things, for moral and spiritual things. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses. You say, Mr. Preacher, it is time somebody enlightened you. That prayer isn't for good Christians like we are. You'll say that's for the Jews. Look what it says, forgive us our trespasses. You don't have to ask God to forgive you. He's forgiven you already through the blood of Christ. We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sin, you'll say. So, we don't have to ask God for forgiveness. You don't really. Ah. So, if I, um, drive my motor car carelessly and, uh, can't brake and, uh, run over your child and break its leg, I don't have to ask you for forgiveness. Is that so? Because God has already forgiven me. So, I don't need to ask you for forgiveness. How would that go? Well, that would be plain nonsense, wouldn't it? Also, we have to learn to distinguish between the forgiveness that God has given us through Christ, of which he says, their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. His forgiveness at the legal level, that's one thing. But forgiveness at the level of God's family and life in the family of and the kingdom of God from day to day, that's a completely different thing. And I need to ask the Lord's forgiveness, don't I? For if I carry on sinning and I don't confess it and I don't seek his forgiveness, then scripture plainly tells me that the Lord will chastise me. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. If we would judge ourselves and discern ourselves, and where we have failed, seek the Lord's forgiveness, he will not chastise us. But like the good Father and Lord he is, if we don't confess our sins, and if we don't repent and seek his forgiveness, he'll chastise us until we come to a better frame of mind. And if I need to show my dependence on God constantly for my daily bread, give us this day our daily bread, I need with equal frequency to ask God's forgiveness, do I not? What day, what night, my dear brother, my sister, can you bow before God and say, today, Lord, thank the Lord, I don't need God's forgiveness. I've done everything a hundred percent well. There'll never be a day like that until we get home to glory. And the sensitivity that it develops in my spirit will make me aware that my brother and sister, they also need forgiveness. And if I expect the Lord to forgive me, I must forgive my brother and my sister. Life in the family of God. And if I need forgiveness for what I have done wrong in the past, then I need God's help, don't I, not to do wrong again in the future. And lead me not into temptation. That shows a proper attitude, doesn't it? There will be times when God in his wisdom does, as he did with his own blessed son, by his spirit lead us into situations where we shall be tempted. What all my a- what ought my attitude to be to that? Well, not that of Peter, for when our Lord warned him that the temptation was coming and Peter was liable to fail it. Peter, with foolhardy courage, said, Lord, but it's going to be all right, Lord, I would never break down. Unhappy man. He had done better to pray, oh Lord, don't let me come into such a situation. Why should I pray it? Well, as even as I pray it, I remind myself and I remind the Lord that by myself I'm not enough to face life's great tests. I could come unstuck. Therefore, I need God's protection. So I may pray, Lord, lead me not into temptation, if in your will it is possible to keep me from the severe. Lord, today, if you please me, ease my path. Two requests, then, at the moral and spiritual level, over against the one request for my physical Need. needs. It is on those spiritual and moral areas of our life that I now want to suggest that we are encouraged to persistence in prayer. And the first parable our Lord gives us on the topic is found in Luke eleven where he paints for us first a delightful little picture of an Eastern village. Ancient oriental villages, and to some extent modern oriental villages, are a little bit different in their standards and behavior than we are. Our Lord pictures a man who, in the middle of the night, twelve o'clock at night, had an unexpected visitor arrive, and all ladies present know the, uh, uh, the sinking feeling, uh, when you go to the door, you'll see, and there's your long lost Aunt Sally just arrived from America, and she didn't give you any warning, and she's come, and really you are on a diet, and you haven't got anything in the fridge you could possibly put before the dear lady, and it's too late to send her out to McDonald's, they're shut, and you wouldn't like to take her to McDonald's anyway. And what will you do? You'll see it's an embarrassing thing, and you would be embarrassed to the roots of your hair to go to the next door neighbor and say, lend me a can of soup and some Heinz beans. My aunt, uh, Eliza has come from America. So what do you do? But ancient Orientals would have had no such inhibitions. Here's a man, and the unexpected visitor arrives in the middle of the night, and he hasn't got anything to put before him. Well, a Westerner might say, well, it's nice to see you, look, but it is late. What if we go to bed now, and we'll get up in the morning early and have a decent breakfast? But not in the ancient East again. If a visitor arrived, you had to. Hook or by crook, if the very heavens fell upon the earth, you had to put some food before them, else you would never recover from the shame of not entertaining them to some meal. And that being so, here's the visitor, and you sit him down comfortably on on a lovely carpet or something, and off the man goes to his his friend down the road and hammers on the door, telling his woeful tale, a friend of mine has come from a journey and I've nothing to put before him. Please get up and lend me a loaf or two to feed the visitor with. And our Lord envisages the possibility that when the man knocks on the door, his friend is already snoring his head off in bed with his children, and being aroused by the hammering on the door, he manages to wake up enough to say, go and get lost. I'm in bed with my children. I can't be as disturbed at this time of night. Now, what, what, what man amongst you, said our Lord, if you had a visitor come and you went to your friend and you knocked on the door, even though it was in the middle of the night, and you, uh, asked him and he replied in that fashion, what man of you would then give up? You wouldn't, would you? No, you wouldn't. You'll keep on hammering on the door. I don't care what the man says inside about his being in bed and with the children and all that. And you'll keep on hammering until the poor chap got up and gave you the necessary bread. And our Lord comments what would be the secret of the thing. He said, I tell you, the fellow in bed will eventually get up and give the other man what he asks, not because he's his friend, but because of his importunity, which is an ancient word enough, you'll say, and really means, literally translated, his shamelessness. You wouldn't dare do it, of course, in the middle of the night. You'd be shamed to go to your neighbor and, uh, ask for a borrow a pound of sugar to put before your visitor. Now, this chap isn't ashamed. Absolutely brazen-faced, absolutely shameless. He's determined to have this, uh, this bread. And in the end, because he's determined to have it and keeps on knocking it and will not be ashamed, his friend gets up and gives it to him. He gets it because of his shamelessness, will not give up. Of course, there would be situations in modern life where we would behave like that, wouldn't we? Here's Mama, and uh, a three-year-old is now being violently sick and has running a temperature of about one hundred and five or something. And Mama doesn't know what to do. Her husband's away, a traveler, you'll see he is commercial traveler, he's away, and now what shall she do? Is this the onset of cerebral meningitis or something? Or is this that Johnny has eaten too much chocolate and ice cream round at the neighbors before he came in to tea and had tea as well, and Sarpa has gone to bed over full? It is maybe a little stomach upset. She didn't call the doctor Two o'clock in the morning, what? She would feel to a shame. But of course, it were the onset of diphtheria or meningitis, she'd never forgive herself if she didn't call the doctor, and she might be in a dilemma. Now, suppose it was grandfather who at two o'clock at night had a heart attack. Her mother wouldn't wait two minutes, would she? You pick up the telephone, ring the doctor, and however much the doctor complained, but I'm in bed with my wife and my children, it's two o'clock in the morning, and wait till tomorrow and come up to the Royal Vic at nine o'clock in the morning. She said, no, no, no, no, no, doctor, you must come right now. The man's had a heart attack. If you don't come soon, he'll be dead. She's utterly shameless. How can she be so brazen-faced and demanding? Well, you say, because in her scale of values, you'll see this is of absolute importance. She will not take no for an answer. So far the parable, and now the application. The parable is telling us, isn't it, that there are situations in life where we must be prepared to pray with that shamelessness, with that insistence, with that determination not ever to take no for an answer. What are those circumstances then? And what would we be praying for if we were praying for that? And our Lord gives us the answer, doesn't he? If you don't come soon, they'll be dead. She's utterly shameless. Obviously, she's so brave and faced and demanding. Well, you say, because in her scale of values, you'll see this is of absolute importance. She will not take no for an answer. So far, the parable. And now the application. The parable is telling us, isn't it, that there are situations in life where we must be prepared to pray with that shamelessness, with that insistence, and with that determination not ever to take no for an answer. Well, you say, because in her scale of values, you'll see this is of absolute importance. She will not take no for an answer. So far, the parable. And now the application. The parable is telling us, isn't it, that there are such If you don't come soon, you'll be dead. She's utterly shameless. How can she be so brave and face and demanding? Well, you say, because in her scale of values, you'll see this is of absolute importance. She will not take no for an answer. So far the parable, and now the application. The parable is telling us, isn't it, that there are situations in life where we must be prepared to pray with that shamelessness, with that insistence, and with that determination not ever to take no for an answer. What are those circumstances then? And what would we be praying for if we were praying for that? And our Lord gives us the answer, doesn't he? In verse thirteen of chapter eleven: if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit that we are to show that persistence, that shameless perseverance, that refusal to take no for an answer. And I hear somebody, now our preacher tonight would do well to take a course in dispensationalism, because now, dear me, he's fallen into his second error in the course of one short evening. Ask for the Holy Spirit indeed. What is the man saying? Doesn't he know that we're living after Pentecost and that every believer has the Holy Spirit? We don't have to ask for the Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit. The Jews before Pentecost, why, of course, they had to ask for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit had been promised them in the prophets, that God would one day pour out his spirit on all flesh. It was to happen on the day of Pentecost, but before Pentecost. The Jews rightly asked for the Holy Spirit, but we don't have to. We have the Holy Spirit. Yes, every believer, upon believing, is sealed with the Holy Spirit, and that's indisputably. But does that really mean we don't have to ask for the Holy Spirit in any sense whatever? That can't be right, can it? For in two fa- passages, passages so famous that I shall only need to remind you of them, Paul tells us that in his prayers, he not only constantly mentioned his converts in the various cities of the Roman Empire, but what he prayed for them constantly, assiduously, perseveringly. What he prayed for them was this, and I read from Ephesians chapter one and verse, uh, uh sixteen and seventeen. I cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. And who can that spirit be, except the Holy Spirit? And then again in chapter three he tells us, doesn't he? For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, that you may be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man. Twice over, in this one epistle, Paul tells us that prominent in his prayers, his daily prayers for his converts, I make unceasing mention of you in my prayers, he says. And the things he's praying for are the enlightening of God's spirit and the strengthening of God's spirit in their hearts. Why should I need to pray for those things? If Paul prayed for them, I surely should pray too, for myself and for others. Why do I need to pray? Because, my dear brothers and sisters, to start with, what Paul is talking about is a real practical process. I pray that God may give you a spirit of revelation. They already had the Holy Spirit. He has told them thus far. They received the Holy Spirit. They've been sealed with the Holy Spirit. But now he prays that God will give them a spirit of revelation. That is a practical process, I repeat. It is not an automatic process. All is not to be found saying, well, I don't need to pray for that, God's going to do it anyway for them. This is a spiritual goal that needs constantly to be aimed at, a process constantly needing to be performed, and therefore a process constantly to be prayed for. I cannot tell, of course, what you pray for in your assembly meetings. I'm trying to remember the last time I heard it in a church prayer meeting. Somebody praying this prayer. Why do I need a spirit of revelation? That I may know what is the hope of his calling. Because I know that we're all going to heaven. Ah, yes, yes, we know it with our upper brain, don't we? What we are praying for is for the hope of his calling to become so real, as though God took a veil away. And to our heart's eye, the glorious goal, the heaven that is before us, becomes that more vivid, that more real. Till its realities begin to transform life's sense of proportions. And the hope of his calling becomes so real that it alters even our sense of priorities in prayer. Here you are in your bungalow, sir. It's a beautiful bungalow, I know, and you are very interested in the garden, and there's one little patch in the garden, and the grass won't come right, the dogs have been at it or something, or the cat, and the, the, the, you know, and what shall I put in this last square inch in the garden, and it's occupying you and your attention. It is assumed a great proportion. When there comes a letter from the aforesaid Aunt Sally, who's not got, now got back from America, and she's saying, I, I am so delighted to have renewed fellowship with you that I'm, I, I, I, I'd like to give you a present, and I want you and your wife to take a world cruise. It's co- it, it will take six weeks, and uh, you better start getting ready for it now because the boat leaves on January the first, and you'll need all the summer clothing you can get hold of because this is going to the tropics and all sorts of marvelous places, uh. And you can't believe your ears and eyes, and you and your wife sit down to consult. Well, we shall have to get moving then. And you know what? The square inch of the lawn gets forgotten, doesn't it? And what you're going to fill in that patch, shall it be tulips or winter pansies, somehow has receded a little bit. And now it's a full dash to the hosiers and the, and the couturiers to get the, you know, the summer tongs to go on the, on the cruise. Yeah. Yes, the calling has become real, and it's altering life's proportions. And with it, there comes a new sense of wealth. And when you've seen tigers in Kenya and elephants in Zaire and kangaroos in Australia and, uh, Eskimos at the North Pole, then somehow winter pansies, uh, well, they're still interesting and beautiful, but they, you know, they slide into their proper proportion in life, don't they? And life becomes wealthier. All my brothers and sisters. How we do get dragged down by life's petty details, don't we? And there drains out of us that sense of wealth that we've been called to share the reigning of the universe with Christ. Just today I was reading Paul's advice to the married and the unmarried. Not but what I'm beyond it now, I fear, but, uh, I was reading it nonetheless, and he was saying, oh no, my brethren, consider God's call. Do consider God's call. When God calls you, it doesn't mean that you've got to change your lifestyle. Are you a slave? Well, you can remain a slave if you have to and still serve the Lord. Are you married? Well, it doesn't mean you've got to get divorced or something. Uh, no, you can stay in the calling where you are called of God. But the call of God does mean this. It will alter life's proportions. For the time is short, my brothers, says Paul, and it remains that those that have wives be as those that don't have them, and those that buy as if they possess not, and those that use the world as not using it to the full, for the time is short, and soon the little temporary will be gone. Oh, how much time, energy, thought, and even prayer we spend on what, after all, is only the temporary. And we've lost the sense of proportion. That we have a calling to incalculable riches and to incalculable responsibilities in the kingdom that is yet to be. And life is the training ground to prepare us for the responsibilities for which God has called us. And I shall need to be strengthened in my little heart, shall I not, rooted and grounded in love. Why? So that I shall be able to bear life's difficulties. The man who wrote those words was a man who, having served the Lord twenty four hours of 20 every day, with his travels, with his writings, with his preachings, with his daily work at tent making, with his persecutions, with his imprisonments, with his shipwrecks. And you could have found him wallowing in the Atlantic, clinging to an old bit of wood for dear life. And if you dare say to him, and Paul, hmm, feel sorry for you. After all you've done for the Lord and his people, surely God could have done better for you like this than to let you down there in the soup. And from Paul there would have come a strident rebuke. Don't you pity me? I am persuaded that neither life nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. We shout loudly in our prayers to God sometimes for the simple reason that we're not grounded in his love. Isn't that so? And we can't take the pressure. But if our hearts were more deeply rooted in his love, we should be more like Paul, able to take the pressure and the persecution and be unmoved and persevere still. We need the operation of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. And therefore we need to pray for it. And so our Lord encourages us to pray. How shall we pray? Well, first of all, with that same shamelessness that took the oriental villager in the middle of the night down to his friend's house and kept him hammering on the door until he got what he wanted. What made him do it? Well, to him it was unthinkable that he should go back empty-handed with nothing to put before his visitor. And we, as we come to pray for the great operations of the Holy Spirit in our lives, my brethren, we better first make up our mind. Is it so that I could do without it at the pinch? For if I can do without it, then I probably will. You know, I've had thoughts of being an Olympic, um, uh, gold medalist at swimming. The ideas appeal to me. I can picture myself standing on that box of air. It doesn't look very substantial, but anyway, standing on the top box number one, you know, with the thing, the sash around me, uh, and uh, the national em- anthem being played. Number one, gold medalist swimming. And imagine me going to a, a trainer and saying, I'd like you to take me on. I want to become Olympic swimmer, and if you'll give me a tip or two, I'm prepared to come next Monday morning, and you tell me, and then I should be all right. So what do you mean, come next Monday morning? You want to be an Olympic gold medalist? You'll come every day of the week for the next ten years. No, that's taking things to an extreme. Couldn't come every day. What, what time did I have to go to work at nine o'clock? Never mind, he says you'll be here at half past five in the morning at the swimming bars. twenty lengths, you know, before breakfast. Oh, I said, no, no, no, no, no. I wasn't going to take it. No, no, no, I can't do that. You can't do that? Well, there's no gold medal then. What fool would ever imagine he could become an Olympic gold medalist by one practice session? And we'll have to persist in it, won't he? Persist in it, persist in it, persist in it, persist in it. Exercise yourself to godliness, says Paul to Timothy. If I am to know the ongoing work of God's spirit in my heart of revelation and strengthening, I shall have to come constantly with that predetermined decision. I can't do without it. I must have it. God give it to me. And that is not a reference, that is our Lord telling us so. He says you are, gentlemen, don't get too upset, but you are evil, you know, actually. If you being evil. Our Lord's realistic assessment of human nature was not very high, ladies and gentlemen. He held that we all are basically evil. But if you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, and we do, don't we? For what father, if his son came asking for an egg, would give him a sto- a loaf, would give him a stone? Or came asking for a fish, and he would give him a a serpent or a scorpion. Of course he wouldn't. And if evil men nevertheless know how to give good gifts to their children, shall not God, who is the perfection of fatherhood, give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? So must we come, and constantly come, and persevere in our coming. Always. Always with the attitude that still we have not yet received enough, nor will we cease our knocking until we are perfectly conformed to the image of God's Son. Ask, says Christ, and you shall receive. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be open to you. For that this is the unfailing law of God's kingdom. God does not mock our praying. So then it may be that there are other areas in which we are called upon to persevere in prayer. I have already mentioned one more this evening, the area where we are saints amidst the hostility of this world. We shall consider that, God willing, next week. And as I say, there may be other areas where perseverance in prayer is called for. But we've learned enough tonight, haven't we? To see one of the most prominent areas where perseverance is called for. Where it's sit simply sickness of my body, I may come as a child and pray the Father. He may give me healing. Or as with Paul, he may not. Whichever he does, he will do it for the furtherance of my moral and spiritual character. And if it would be for my moral and spiritual good, he may grant me the healing I seek. If it would be for my spiritual good not to grant me that healing, but to call upon me to bear the difficulty, and thus to have deepened my faith, my moral fiber, and my spiritual character, God may be pleased to leave the difficulty. For this we may be sure, that the God who has called us to his kingdom and his glory never lose sights of sight of, never loses sight of the major goal, but will work all things together for that ultimate good, the kingdom and the glory to which he has called us. Happy are those men and women that have heard his call and cooperate with him persistently in their prayers for the development of their character. Shall we pray? And now, Lord, we thank thee for thy word. We have heard how our blessed Lord Jesus staked thy very character upon the certainty that thou will grant this our request, as we come seeking the grace, the illumination, and the strengthening of thy Holy Spirit. Help us, Lord, to respond persistently throughout life's journey. Put within us that desire that refuses to accept refusal, that desire that is uns- insatiable, that day by day as we pray, thou mayest be pleased to grant our request, open our eyes to the hope of thy calling and the wealth of thine inheritance in the saints, and the wonder of thy power towards us. That thou wilt strengthen these tiny, often cowardly hearts of ours and make them strong, that Christ may dwell there constantly, that we be rooted and grounded in love, may know the length and breadth and height and depth, and to know the love of God which passes knowledge. Bless to us thy word, we pray, as tonight we halt on this stage on our desert pilgrimage. Be with us as we sleep. Return, Lord, to the thousands of Israel. Watch by our pillows, and if for us another day dawns here, go forth before us, we beseech thee. Thou who knowest our frailty, lead us not into temptations too big for us to bear, but with them make the way of escape, that we may pass life's examinations all to thy glory and make progress in thy kingdom through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.