AOY 2014: Now Is the Time

Lord, Teach Us to Pray: The Science of Prayer

Jason Sliger

Army Of Youth

5. Lord, Teach Us to Pray: Part 2

Our next session, Lord Teach Us to Pray Part 2.

And I had a couple of questions that came up to me before I get started that I thought I'd just mention, at least 1 of them anyways, and the other ones are gonna be mentioned in my talk here in just a minute.

But the 1 question that I wanted to mention is the questioner said, well, I kind of felt like if I pray out loud, then the devil can hear what I'm saying.

And this is kind of a common thing that I've run into.

I don't know where it comes from, but it seems to be pretty prevalent in the Adventist church anyways.

And people are fearful to pray out loud because, oh, then the devil will hear what I'm saying and then he'll go and keep from happening what I've been praying for.

And so that's why I pray quiet, because I wanna be stealthy and keep the devil, trick the devil or whatever you wanna call it.

When we pray out loud, We are showing the devil by our words that we believe the promises of God and that we have faith in his word and in his power and his ability to hear and to answer our prayers.

And there's nothing that makes the devil tremble more than knowing that you trust God's word.

Listen, is your God that weak that he cannot keep the devil doing something in your life that he doesn't want him to do?

Your God is much, much more strong, much stronger than that.

There's a time for silent prayer, but there's definitely a time for verbal prayer because you are showing the devil, I trust the promises of God that he will do what he said he will do.

There's nothing that will make the devil tremble more than that.

So just a little thought on praying out loud.

I thought the rest of you'd like to be caught up to speed on that.

Some of the other things we're gonna talk about in our talk.

So, let's go ahead and bow our heads and we'll start with another word of prayer.

Father in heaven, we thank you for this time.

We thank you for the tools that you've given to us.

And dear Lord, I pray now that you would continue to instruct your children and that you would help us to see beautiful things from your Word.

So let's go ahead and say our Bible text together out loud.

And it says, Call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.

You must not have been too impressed with yourself.

The Sermon on the Lord says this in Steps to Christ, page 94.

The darkness of the evil 1 encloses those who neglect to pray.

That's something that's worth memorizing right there.

The whispered temptations of the enemy entice them to what?

And it's all because they do not make use of the privilege that God has given them in the divine appointment of what?

So why is it that the whispered temptations of the enemy overcome us?

Because we don't use the appointed gift that God has given to us in the divine appointment of prayer.

Vital for overcoming the temptations in our life is spending that time with the Lord each morning in prayer.

So we're looking at this text where the disciples come in Luke chapter 11 and verse 1 and it came to pass that as he was praying in a certain place when he ceased 1 of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.

Tool number 1 that we've looked at is to have a secret place to pray.

So you've already thought this through and you've written it down in your notes and you now have a secret place where you're going to meet with the Lord when you get home on Wednesday morning.

Number 2, we looked at having the time to pray and now you've thought about your schedule and You've outlined a time, a specific time, that you're going to meet with the Lord in prayer on Wednesday morning and every morning after that.

Number 3, we learn to pray aloud where only God can hear.

1 of the attendees came up and asked me, what about writing our prayers?

Another, it's just, the concept is we wanna keep our mind engaged in our prayers.

And when we do it in our minds, we tend to wander and repeat ourselves and get distracted and fall asleep.

But if we're saying it out loud, or if we're writing it down, you know, David wrote down his prayers in Psalms.

So if we write down, we're keeping it engaged in our minds as we're praying in that act of devotion to God.

And then number 4, we talked about learning how to hear or to listen to God's voice speak to us.

So these are 4 tools we've looked at so far.

Tool number 5 is to present His promises.

Matthew chapter 7, we're all familiar with this promise.

The Bible says, ask and it shall be what?

Jesus simply invites us to come and to ask, to present before him our requests.

The best requests that you can request of God are requests that are already outlined in the Word of God.

Uncle Arthur tells a story about a little boy 1 evening in his bedroom praying to God.

And mother overhears the prayer of this little boy.

As he's praying to God, he says, Lord, dear Jesus, please give me a pet elephant.

I mean having a pet elephant, how extravagant would that be?

If the Lord answered his prayer request and gave him a pet elephant, do you think that he would appreciate that pet elephant 3 weeks after he got it?

When he had to clean up the messes that that elephant makes and buy all the food that that elephant needs to eat and fill up the water pot with all the water that that elephant needs to drink?

Can you imagine How long it would take to take an elephant on a walk.

And so this mother had a little work to do and she had to sit down with her son and educate him how to pray to God, what requests to make.

But it's unfortunate that many of us in our prayer time, we're asking for elephants.

It sounds good at the time, but If God were to answer many of our prayer requests 3 weeks after we prayed them, we would think, oh Lord, what have I done?

So we want to, as we pray, we want to present the promises of God in our prayer time together with the Lord.

Now, here's the qualifying characteristic.

In 1 John 5, verses 14 and 15, the Bible says, and this is the confidence that we have in him, that If we ask anything, what's the next part?

And if we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have a petition that we desired of Him.

So John makes it clear, when we pray, we can have full expectations that God will answer the prayer if we are praying according to What?

Now, the book of Education, page 257 says, he makes it plain that our asking must be according to God's will.

4. Lord, Teach Us to Pray: Part 1

Okay, so this morning we're going to get practical in our time together.

The session is called, Lord Teach Us to Pray, Part 1.

Lord Teach Us to Pray, Part 1 and part 2.

But before we get started, how many of you worked on your memory verse?

Who wants to come up front and do it in front of everybody?

Any volunteers to come up front and say it?

I guess you can't understand me if you need translation.

Anybody else Need to go back for translation?

Let's be supportive of our good brother here.

Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou hast not known.

Dear mine, thirty-twelve years straight, Call on to me, call on to me, and I will answer thee, and show you the great things which thou knowest not.

Great and mighty things which thou knowest not.

After hearing it 3 times, you should be able to do it.

Go unto me and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.

Call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.

Today's our last day with the workshops and you might wanna tune out.

Review the passage daily for a while and then start reviewing it weekly after you get more proficient with it and then you'll start reviewing it monthly, and it'll be amazing how God will just bring this passage to your mind right when you need it the most.

Okay, without any further delay, let's go ahead and get started with a word of prayer.

Would you bow your heads with me as we pray?

Loving Father in heaven, oh, what a wonderful time we've been having, learning about the beautiful advantages of prayer.

Lord, you've taught us so much, and we're here again today, coming before you into your presence, because Lord, we just wanna learn more.

We know there's more to this, and that your word has lots to say.

Thank you for those who have been working diligently to commit this passage of scripture to memory.

Bless each 1 of us, Lord, as we attempt to get it word perfect in our minds and keep it there, hiding your word in our hearts.

So bless us now as we spend a little more time together, I pray and I Thank you in Jesus' name, amen.

Taylor Bunch in his book Prevailing Prayer, page 13, he was an Adventist, makes this beautiful poetic statement about prayer.

He says this, Someone has said that prayer is the golden river at whose brink some die of thirst while others meal and drink.

Prayer is like a river that flows through our life and some will drink deeply from it and will find strength.

Others will die of thirst because they are not exercising the privileges of prayer.

A couple of months ago, I was in Florida in the United States.

We drove down there for Thanksgiving holiday in the US that we have.

And we stayed with my wife's grandmother who is 99 years old.

And I was walking through the house to go to the bathroom in the evening and her bedroom is right across from the door going into the bathroom.

And as I walked out of the bathroom, you could look right into her bedroom.

I walked out of the bathroom and I looked into her bedroom.

And I saw something that I will never forget by God's grace as long as I live.

3. Prayer, What’s the Point, Anyway?

We've felt conviction, and we're seeing, Lord, the importance of true conversion in having an effective and meaningful prayer life.

And Father, as we look at some of the purposes of prayer, what the point of it is, I pray, Dear God, that you would speak to our hearts this afternoon and that you would continue to drive home the importance of prayer in our lives and in the lives of those that we know.

So Father, I pray now that you would speak to us, and I thank you in Jesus' name.

I checked my email when I got back to the hotel to go over my notes for this, and I got an email from my wife with this quote, and I thought it just was great, and I wanted to share it with you.

She sent it to me as an encouragement, but I thought it kind of dovetailed really well with our last presentation on surrender.

She says this, God desires us to trust implicitly in Him.

And if it is for our good and His name's glory to do the work, it will be done.

The work of surrender will be done because it is in accordance with his honor and glory.

Ellen White goes on and she says, we are to wait.

We poor mortals need to purify our souls that when the Lord works for us, it will not ruin us.

You know, oftentimes when we experience the power of God in our lives, it can be a means of leading us astray.

And that's why she's saying that it might not ruin us when the power of God is manifested in our life.

But I really like that 1 little line right there, the power of the Lord is limitless.

When it comes to surrender in our lives, when it comes to answer prayers, the power of the Lord is limitless.

Alright so tomorrow we'll maybe take a couple of you to come up here and share it but let's go ahead and read it together now.

Call upon me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.

Wonderful text, spend a little time memorizing it this afternoon.

I think there's some free time between the Q&A session this afternoon and dinner.

Get together in groups, sit in a corner, work on it, quiz yourself.

Another good way to do Bible memorization is instead of writing the whole verse out, you can take the first letter of each word and write that first letter of each word.

So it'll help jog in your memory what that word is without actually looking at the full word itself.

This is a method of memorization that I use personally.

So both ways, you can write it all the way out, or just on the backside of the card, or backside of the paper, write the first letter of each word for your revision, and that will help you retain it in your mind even better.

So we're gonna do a little quizzing on that tomorrow.

There's a story told about a man who had the name of Krishna, who was named Krishna.

He had little to no interest in religious things or in Christianity.

He had no interest in anything other than his religion.

And he went over to go spend some time with his family, his brother I believe it was, and his sister-in-law and their kids, for a couple of days.

And each day, Krishna, he had the opportunity to sit through morning and evening worship each day.

He didn't really care too much about this.

He didn't care about Christianity and it was a little bit of a burden to have to sit through this morning and evening devotions, but he did it because he was there visiting his family.

The end of his visit came and Krishna was going to go back to wherever he lived.

So the whole family went down to the bus stop with him.

And there in the busyness of the bus station, people bustling around and rubbing shoulders with each other and the anticipation of getting on the right train and getting there at the right time.

They got to the spots, they got to the train.

And as everybody was saying their goodbyes, Krishna's little niece, who was raised in a Christian home, she, before her uncle stepped on the train, she grabbed his hand, and she said, Uncle Krishna, can I pray for you?

He didn't want to offend his little niece, so he said, sure, go ahead.

And so she prayed a simple little prayer.

The simple little prayer was this, Dear Lord, In the name of Jesus, please keep my Uncle Krishna safe.

You know, he didn't like this whole Christian thing, and so he just, you know, said goodbye, got on the bus and, you know, went home.

On the way home, the bus went over some of the more mountainous parts of the region where he lived, and before he knew it, just out of the sudden, out of nowhere, he heard the sound of screeching brakes, blaring horns.

The bus, I think I said it was a train, but it was a bus, the bus jerking to the side and before he knew it, the bus was tumbling end over end down the side of a cliff.

Things were flying everywhere, people were screaming, It was chaos as they were going down this mountainside, end over end.

There was a tremendous impact at the bottom of the valley and then Everything went still.

Krishna looked around at the carnage all around him.

The mangled bodies, the collapsed bus, bags everywhere blown apart from the impact.

And in the eerie quietness at the bottom of the valley, Krishna heard a voice in his mind, the voice of his ten-year-old niece.

Dear Lord, in the name of Jesus, please keep my uncle Krishna safe.

He heard that in his mind as he was down there at the bottom of the valley, and he began to ask himself the question, who is this Jesus?

Well, needless to say, Christian evidently or inevitably embraced Christianity because of the prayer of his 10-year-old little niece.

I love listening to my little girl pray in the morning.

Powerful, powerful listening to the prayer of a little child.

My little girl, oftentimes after our prayer, she will say, I want Jesus to come down.

Beautiful story of the power of God in the life of this man and the prayer of this little girl as she prayed for protection for her uncle, Krishna.

In the book Great Controversy, Ellen White says this, it is a part of God's plan to grant us an answer to the prayer of faith that which He would not bestow did we not thus ask.

She's simply saying that there are things that God does in our life when we pray that He wouldn't do if we didn't pray.

If we didn't ask, and 1 wonders, what if Krishna's 10-year-old niece had not prayed that little prayer, what would have happened?

What would have happened in your life today if you hadn't spent that little time with the Lord this morning in prayer?

But the servant of the Lord tells us that it's part of God's plan to grant to us an answer to the prayer of faith, that which He would not bestow, did we not thus ask.

It is important for us to ask God for things in prayer.

There are things that won't happen in our lives if we don't spend that time with God in prayer.

Of course, you know this promise here in James 4, and verse 2.

2. Where Prayer Begins

This 1 I've entitled, Where Prayer Begins.

And this is a really important presentation.

It's not overtly about prayer, but it's an important component that if we don't have an experience in this, in our spiritual journey, it's going to greatly hinder our prayer life.

So before we begin, let's start yet again with another word of prayer.

Father in heaven, I thank you again for your goodness in our lives.

I thank you Lord for giving to us the gift of prayer and that you as this mighty God who controls all of the universe and speaks things into existence, wants to hear from us this speck of dust in your vast creation.

What an awesome privilege it is for us to be able to come into your presence through prayer.

And Father, I pray that now as we look at this subject, that you would speak to our hearts yet again and help us to be more like Jesus.

I forgot to put this in in our last study.

This is our theme Bible passage for the whole 6 presentations.

Jeremiah 33, 3, I quoted it a couple of times yesterday.

And what I would like to see happen is I would like to see you have this Bible passage memorized by tomorrow.

Bible says, thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.

So as we hide God's word in our hearts, It helps us remove that sin that we talked about a little while ago out of our lives.

Jeremiah 33, 3, call upon me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.

It is a fantastic promise that I've claimed many times in my prayer life.

You know, when I have my prayer time in the morning, prayer is as much a part of my devotions as studying the Bible is.

And this Bible passage just really blends the 2 of them together, that as I come to God in prayer, He will show me great things out of His word.

And so I claim this promise in my devotional time, and I ask God in my prayer time, show me great and mighty things, which I could never understand if it weren't for you and your word.

So I would hope that we can have this passage memorized by tomorrow.

You write it out on a little card, keep it in your pocket, put it on your phone, whatever it is, tonight before you go to bed, spend a little bit of time working on retaining this passage and focus on having it word perfect in the King James Version.

And we're gonna work on this in our workshop so that we have it retained in our minds.

So, to start with, there's a story told about a communist prison in Jeliva, Romania.

And This particular communist prison camp was especially harsh on its prisoners.

It was in a cold environment, the windows were broken, the wind would blow in, and even the snow would build up inside of the prison.

The prisoners became accustomed to the frequent special treatment from the prison guards, known as beatings.

It was a difficult place to live as a prisoner.

And 1 day there was a pastor, a Christian pastor, who had been in this prison camp for 8 years, suffering the harsh treatment day after day after day.

Some of his joints in his body would never recuperate from the treatment that he had suffered.

Parts of his body would never work the way they used to when he first went into the prison camp, and he was always cold.

And as he sat in the middle of the prison camp outside, perhaps on a log or a chair or something like that, dismally watching what was going on, Frequently there would be new prisoners that would be escorted into the prison.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

5. Lord, Teach Us to Pray: Part 2

56m

4. Lord, Teach Us to Pray: Part 1

1h

3. Prayer, What’s the Point, Anyway?

1h 10m

2. Where Prayer Begins

1h

1. What’s Hindering You?

47m

Lessons From the Flood- Part 2

59m

Lessons From the Flood- Part 1

56m

Three Wise Men

1h

Nevertheless

41m

Town Hall Meeting

1h 56m

19- The Priesthood of All Believers

57m

6. Christian Perfection - Romans 8

57m

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