Honest People Pray Honest Prayers

Carter Conlon from the historic Times Square Church in New York City. Psalm 22 reveals that every struggle that comes into your life and mine has a higher purpose. All things work together for good to those that love God and are the called according to His purpose.

All things. Welcome to this week's edition of A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon from Times Square Church in New York City. Today Carter takes us to Psalm 22 where we find David crying out to God and asking where God is in his time of struggle and sorrow. And we find this prayer will transition into one of praise and gratitude. Let's join Carter as he reads from Psalm 22 in a message titled Honest People Pray Honest Prayers. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from helping me? And from the words of my groaning, O God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not hear. And in the night season I am not silent, but you are holy and thrown in the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in you, they trusted, and you delivered them. They cried to you and were delivered. They trusted in you and were not ashamed. That means they were not triumphed over. But David is saying they trusted and you delivered them. So why are you not delivering me? That's the context of it. But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men, despised by the people. All those who see me ridiculed me.

They shoot out the lip. They shake the head saying he trusted in the Lord. Let him rescue him. Let him deliver him since he delights in him. But you are he who took me out of the womb. You made me trust while on my mother's breasts. I was cast upon you from birth from my mother's womb.

You have been my God. Be not far from me for trouble is near and there's none to help. Many bulls have surrounded me, strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.

They gape at me with their mouths like a raging and roaring lion. I'm poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it has melted within me. My strength has dried up like a potsherd and my tongue clings to my jaws. You have brought me to the dust of death."

I'm just going to stop there. So this is a season in the life of David where the first 15 verses, and maybe a little bit more, is strictly an accusation against the faithfulness of God. You would think that God would be offended by such a song. Why have you forsaken me? There's an inference like he's actually challenging the faithfulness of God.

He's in a place of despair and says, God, you made promises to me that you're not keeping. I've called out to you. You promised that you would always be there. You said you'd never leave. You said you'd never forsake me.

I knew you as a child or a youth, David could say. I knew when I called out to you that the power of your Holy Spirit came on me and I was able to do amazing things. But here I am now. You needed me, in a sense, to defeat Goliath and you needed me to fight the lion and the bear and now I need you. And so where are you? Why do you withhold your hand of power from me? I'm doing my part. I cry in the daytime, he says in verse 2, but you don't hear.

It's a third accusation. You've forsaken me. You're not helping me. You don't hear me. I'm doing my part, David says, but you're not doing yours. Now, he goes on and says, our fathers trusted in you. Others have, in other words, and you delivered them. They cried to you and they were delivered. They trusted in you and they were not ashamed or triumphed over. In other words, David is saying, you've been faithful to others. Why are you not being faithful to me? You took me, in verse 9, he said, out of the womb and you made me trust as a child.

In other words, I've loved you and I have believed you since I was young, since I was a child. I was cast upon you from birth from my mother's womb. You've been my God and trouble is near and there's no one to help. I'm poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint.

It's just like I'm coming apart, basically is what he's saying. My heart is melted like wax. I have no more courage. I don't know how to stand against what's up against me and I don't know where to find the strength. My courage is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue clings to my jaws. I have nothing left to answer my enemies. And then he finishes it off in verse 15 with one final accusation. You have brought me to the dust of death.

In other words, he's saying, God, you are responsible for this. I trusted you. I called out to you. You didn't deliver me the way you've delivered others. Has my confidence in you been in vain? I've trusted you since I was a child, but you've responded in a sense to my cry to you as with silence. And you have brought me to the place where I'm going to die.

That's what he felt like. I'm at the place where my strength is gone. My heart is melted. I'm completely undone and I don't know what to do.

And his final accusation is it's your fault. You brought me to this place. Why have you forsaken me? Now, keep in mind, David, King David is a Christ type in the Bible. And he is spoken about as a man after God's heart.

It's amazing. You and I would think that God would be offended by such a prayer, don't you? I mean, you go into your prayer closet and pray a prayer like that. You would honestly think that God's going to strike me dead praying that way. I mean, how do you pray like this and accuse God of being unfaithful, and yet how do you get away with it? But he's not the only one that ever prayed that way in the Scriptures.

You don't have to turn there, but I'll just read it to you. Moses, in Exodus chapter 5, when he was after 40 years in the wilderness, Moses is sent back to deliver the people of God out of the captivity of Egypt. And, of course, when he first stood before Pharaoh, and I guess he had something in his head about how this is going to go. We all do, right?

We all get this. We all craft this view of what our life is going to look like and how God is going to respond. And so he stands before Pharaoh as he's told to do and says, Thus saith the Lord, with all the courage he can muster, let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness. The end result is the people are given more to do. Their taskmasters are set over them.

They're not given straw to make their bricks. And they come to Moses, the people, and they say, You have come and you said God's going to deliver us. But since you've come, things have just gotten worse. And you put a sword literally into the hands of our oppressors to take our lives. So Moses, in chapter 5 of Exodus in verses 22 and 23, returned to the Lord and said, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Why is it that you have sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to the people.

Neither have you delivered your people at all. Now this is Moses. We know Moses is the great deliverer, but he comes back to God. And I can honestly see, it's not stated clearly in the scriptures, but in my heart I can see this. Moses is saying, Oh, I remember this.

We did this 40 years ago. You told me that my life was going to be used to deliver your people out of captivity and when I set my hand to do it, the end result is that I had to flee into the wilderness where I've lost everything. Even my ability to speak is gone. I was an eloquent speaker. Now I can hardly put two words together. You sent me back here one more time and here we are again, Lord, 40 years later.

No different than it was the first time. Why have you sent me here? It's you who's brought trouble on the people and you've not delivered your people at all.

I obeyed you and you have done nothing. In case you think it was just Moses, Joshua, who was Moses' successor when they went into the promised land, there was a little town called Ai and they went up against this town and they ended up having to flee and ended up suffering defeat. And in Joshua chapter 7 verses 7 to 9, Joshua said, Alas, Lord God, why have you brought this people over Jordan at all?

Why did you even do this? To deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? Oh, that we had been content and dwelled on the other side of Jordan.

It doesn't really sound like Joshua, the Joshua we know. Did you bring us here to destroy us? Why did you send us across the Jordan in the first place? Oh, God, I wish we had just stayed where we were and not trusted you.

That's really what he's saying. I wish we hadn't trusted you and come over this river just so that you could allow us to be defeated before our enemies. And he goes on and says, Oh, Lord, what shall I say when Israel turns its back before its enemies? For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear it and surround us and cut off our name from the earth. Then what will you do for your great name?

In other words, you're doing nothing. We've done it right as far as I know and we've come into the promised land and you've allowed us to be defeated by this little wee city and the kings around us are going to hear about it. And you said you were sending us in here to glorify your name.

But if you're not going to walk with us, if you're not going to give us the victory, then once we're defeated, what are you going to do then for the great? It was really an accusing prayer that Joshua prayed before the Lord God himself. And who can forget Jeremiah? Jeremiah chapter 20. I love the original King James when Jeremiah says in chapter 20, verse 7, Oh, Lord, you deceived me.

In other words, I had a vision. I'm going to stand up and I'm going to say, that saves the Lord. And something's going to happen. The earth's going to tremble and people are going to fall. They're all going to repent. Jeremiah finds out that people are resistant.

They don't really care what he's talking about. It's not producing the change that he thought it was going to produce. And he says, Oh, Lord, you deceived me. That's the original King James and I was deceived. No, Jeremiah deceived himself. God never deceived him. But nevertheless, that's his prayer as misguided as it was.

He says, you are stronger than I am and you've prevailed. I'm in derision daily. Everyone mocks me. In other words, he didn't think that was what his ministry was going to produce. You know, sometimes we get into ministry. A lot of young folks are heading out of this Bible college soon and you have a picture.

You try not to have it, but you already have it. And when it doesn't turn out, you end up in this argument with God. You know, he didn't anticipate that everyone was going to mock him. He thought, surely somebody is going to know that God has sent me. For when I spoke, I cried out. I shouted violence and plunder because the word of the Lord was made to me, a reproach and a derision daily. Then I said, I will not make mention of him nor speak anymore in his name. In other words, I'm done, Jeremiah said, talking about you. I'm done speaking for you. You gave me a word. You gave me a picture that he thought in my mind it hasn't happened. So you're on your own, God. I'm out.

I'm not speaking for you anymore. Now, we all know that Jeremiah was the man that the Bible tells us the word of God was like a fire shut up in his bones. And even though he tried to hold it in, he couldn't hold it in. And then who can forget Jonah, the great missionary sent with one of the great revivals in the history of the world, a whole city so evil they don't even know their left hand from their right. They have absolutely zero spiritual knowledge.

They are the avowed enemies of God and God's people. And Jonah went and his message was not even a message of mercy. His message was a message of judgment.

He didn't offer any mercy. He just said, 40 days, 40 days, the fire of God's coming down, you're all going to die. That was his message. And he walked through the city.

It was quite a lengthy journey. Then he waited on a hilltop to see what was going to happen. At the end of 40 days, nothing happened except for the mercy of God. And God comes to Jonah and he says, is it right for you to be angry, Jonah? And Jonah said, it is right for me to be angry even unto death. I am so mad, I'd rather be dead than talking to you right now. I'm so upset at your mercy. And you even took away the plant.

Like, you gave me a plant to at least give me some shade and the plant died. And he was so mad at everything around him. And earlier on in the scriptures, he said, I knew you were going to do this.

That's why I didn't want to go. I knew, I knew that they would, our enemies who have caused us immeasurable pain would humble themselves and put on sackcloth. And I knew you, I know you, you would forgive them. And so I'm just really mad. These people don't deserve forgiveness. And so God says, is it right for you to be angry? And Jonah said, yes, go ahead and kill me.

I don't care. You know, I've been there. When I went into ministry at the beginning of my days, Pastor Teresa and I, we gave everything for God. And one day in exasperation, I went out on a gravel road near our home at that time. And I literally shook my fist at God.

I was so mad. And here's my prayer. I said, is there some crooked side to you that I'm unaware of? Do you get delight in doing this to your servants? I gave you my family. I gave you my future. I gave you my job. I gave you my home. And I gave you all that I have, all the energy that's in my body. And you respond. You respond by taking away my strength.

Is there something about you that I don't know? I remember saying, if this is the way you treat your friends, I'd sure hate to be one of your enemies. I was so mad that day that if God had said, I'm going to turn you into a pile of dust, I would have said, go right ahead and do it. I was absolutely furious. But his response to me took me unaware. I was expecting a response in kind when I prayed that way before God. But his response to me was, I love you.

And it literally melted my heart. I never expected God to speak that way to me when I was speaking the way I was to him. And it changed from a place of anger on the road. I had no idea that God was leading me into an understanding of the new covenant. And I was stubborn. And that was a place he pulled me into.

This was only a few years before coming to New York City. That he had to give me an understanding of grace and of mercy. The eternal reward that he gives to us is not based on the things that we do for him. It's based on obedience to what he's called us to do. And giving our whole heart just to the work of God.

Whether it's raising a family, whether it's being an honest employee, whatever it is that he's given us to do, that we just simply do that with all of our heart. When we go back and we think about these heroes in the Bible, we see David as the conquering king and the sweet psalmist of Israel. I find it ironic he's called a sweet psalmist with Psalm 22 being one of his psalms. Moses is known as the victorious warrior who took the people of God out of captivity and brought them into the promised land.

Joshua is known and remembered as the one who went in and conquered the promised land and divided it among the people of God and encouraged the next generation. Jeremiah, of course, is known as the prophet who had the fire of God. God didn't take the fire. He didn't take the fire of his presence from Jeremiah. He actually turned up the heat when Jeremiah said, I'm not speaking on your behalf any longer. I'm done. I don't get you.

I don't understand you, so I'm not speaking. And God responds by just reaching down and turning up the dial a little bit and causing the heat to rise until either he speaks or he explodes. Something's got to happen. And, of course, we remember Jonah is not as the guy who was sitting on a hilltop saying, Kill me. Go ahead, kill me.

I don't care. We remember him as the great revivalist who went into a town. Of course, he came out of a whale. When I go over to the UK, I said Jonah was the first evangelist from Wales.

But anyways, Jonah went in and he preached for the short season he did and is known as a great revivalist that brought the presence of God. Psalm 142, verse 2, the psalmist says, I pour out my complaint before him and I declare before him my troubles. See, here's the point. Here's the point.

Here's the summation of everything I've said so far. God is not offended by honesty in our prayers. He is offended, however, by pretentiousness.

That means fakery in our prayers. You think in Luke, chapter 11, verse 8, the Pharisees stood. He uses them as a bad example. And the Pharisees stood up in a prayer meeting one day and he said, Oh God, I thank you that I'm not like other men are. He's offended when we pretend to be something we're not. He's offended when we come to him with a dishonest heart. You know, a lot of people pray and you're going through all these struggles and trials and difficulties and questions.

Then you go to prayer and you feel like you've got to kind of sanctify the whole thing and make it look before God like you're trusting him with all your heart when you're not. He's not offended by honesty and I've learned that over the years. If you're bummed out, say so.

If you're having struggles, say so. Don't pretend you're something you're not. Don't pretend you have a victory you don't have. That's the one thing that offends God. Be honest with God.

It's the honest person who gets the victory. In chapter 20, in verse 47 of Luke, he said to the scribes, he said, In a sense, you devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. Your ministry position, you're using it to enrich yourself.

You're using it for personal gain. A grandizement that you love the chief of seats in the synagogues and you love robes and you love to be called teacher. And you cover it all up with long prayers. The only thing that really offends God, and you'll see it as you study the Scriptures, is pretentiousness. It's being dishonest because he already knows what's in our heart. Praise be to God. It's an awesome thing to know that we can come before the throne of God and we don't have to come and put on King James English and pretend that we have a faith that we don't have and pretend like we're not struggling or in trial or difficulty.

It's the honest heart that gets the answer. God is unoffended by honesty. You look at Psalm 22 and, I mean, realistically, you look at the accusations against the faithfulness of God in those first 15 verses and you say, well, that's horrific. How can you accuse God of forsaking you or not helping you or not hearing you, not delivering you from the power of your enemies, of bringing you to a place of false trust even from the day of your birth and accuse God of leading you to a place of death and not life.

I mean, it's a phenomenal thing. And yet, the proof that God was unoffended is that he put it into this book as inspired text by the Holy Spirit. Think about it for a moment. It's almost like when David wrote this or sang it, God said, I want that in my book. I want other generations to be able to read this because if they read it under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they're going to learn something about me that you can't learn just from a textbook.

They're going to learn something about my character. Not only is it written in the book as inspired text by the Holy Spirit, but Jesus Christ himself quotes it on the cross. It shows you how much he is totally unoffended by the words that God had given to his servant David.

So Jesus himself validates it by quoting it. And Psalm 22 also reveals that every struggle that comes into your life and mine has a higher purpose. All things work together for good to those that love God and are the called according to his purpose. All things. Our struggles, our trials, our questions, our anger, our disappointment.

All things work together for good. You know, David goes on in Psalm 22. He has absolutely no idea as he's writing this that he's been given a preview, as it is, of the cross of Jesus Christ. That he's been taken into the suffering of the Son of God. His Psalm that starts out as an accusation ends up with a revelation that is absolutely astounding. The honesty in this man's heart opens heaven to him. The dishonest heart finds a closed door to the revelation of God.

But the honest heart. You start reading this. Dogs surrounded me. The congregation of the wicked have enclosed me.

They pierced my hands and my feet. He's now moved beyond his own complaint. May I put it that way? And he's now being given a pre-incarnate Christ view of the cross. May I put it that way?

And nobody debates that. Psalm 22 is about the cross of Jesus Christ. I count all my bones. They look and stare at me. Verse 18. They divide my garments among them. And for my clothing they cast lots.

Remember in the New Testament the soldiers gambled for his garments at the foot of the cross. But you, O Lord, do not be far from me. O my strength hasten to help me. Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen. And then something phenomenal happens in verse 21. Out of nowhere you have 21 and a half verses of literal complaint.

And talking about weakness and challenging the faithfulness of God. And suddenly a line appears there and says, You have answered me. Amazing. Thank God. That has to be a revelation of the Holy Spirit.

How else could that happen? How do you get to that? How do you do these first 21 verses and get this one line? You have answered me. And then he goes on. He says, Not only have you answered me, I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly. I will praise you. David goes on to say, My praise shall be of you in the great assembly. I will pay my vows before those who fear him. The poor shall eat and be satisfied. And those who seek him will praise the Lord. Let your heart live forever. And then he goes from there, from his circumstance to declaring the faithfulness of God, to going into this great assembly, now going into the ends of the world.

Now think this one through for a moment. All the ends of the world, verse 27, shall remember and turn to the Lord. All the families of the nations shall worship before you, for the kingdom is the Lord's and he rules over the nations. What a journey he's taken from verse 1.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now he's in the world and he's seeing China. He's seeing India. He's seeing Europe. He's seeing South America.

He's seeing Asia. He's seeing people all over the world beginning to worship God. All the prosperous of the earth shall eat and worship, and those who get down to the dust shall bow before him, even he who cannot keep himself alive. He sees the judgment of God at the end of time. A posterity shall serve him that shall be counted to the Lord for the next generation. They will come and declare his righteousness to a people who shall be born, that he has done this.

You know what? David is not even sure what the this is, but he knows whatever the this is that God's about to do is going to be spoken about in the whole world. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Glory to God that he has done this. It starts with why have you forsaken me and finishes with the whole world. But from time to time, when you feel overwhelmed, talk to God about it.

Just tell him you don't like it. Moses did. David did. Joshua did. Jeremiah did. Jonah did. I could take you to others if we had time in the Bible.

They all did the same thing. But you see, honest people pray honest prayers. You've been listening to Carter Conlon from Times Square Church in New York City. For more information and resources to help you in your walk in Christ, log on to tsc.nyc. That's tsc.nyc. And be sure to be with us next week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon.