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This is Michael Brown. Class is in session as we continue in the school of prayer. And one of the great mysteries of prayer is that prayers aren't answered immediately. Sometimes prayers take months, weeks, years to be answered. Sometimes we find ourselves praying for the same thing over a period of years. He influences, but he doesn't just say, okay, every day I don't like what you're doing.
I'm gonna change you into a robot and have you do this or that. That's not the way he operates. So as we're praying for others, sometimes it's a process of God softly in their hearts or God bringing them to conviction or God bringing them into a circumstance where they finally recognize their need for him.
Other things, it's harder to understand why there's a delay, but here's the deal. We must pray prayers of faith. We must pray prayers of faith. There is the prayer of faith where you pray one time and you know that it's done and that's it. As Jesus says in Mark 11 24, that if we believe that what we asked for, we've received, then we have it.
It's already done. 1 John 5, John lays that out as well, saying that this is the confidence we have before God, that if we ask anything according to his will, we know that he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, then we know we have the petitions we desired. 1 John 5. It's a prayer, and many of you have experienced it, where you pray and you know it's done.
It's done. Nothing's changed outwardly, but you know it's done. How many times have you experienced that? It's wonderful when it happens. Some of you say, I never have. Well, I pray and hope that you do. It's a prayer whether you just have faith because you've been meditating on the word and looking at his promises or it's a sovereign thing where he just gives you faith, but you pray and you know it's done. I don't have to pray it again, but nothing changed outwardly.
It's done. Think of it like this. Someone says, okay, I'm over in this other country and I'm going to wire you money. And just with our computer system and the banks here and your banks in the state, it's going to take like three hours before the money shows up in your account. But it's coming through. And they say, I just hit the button. And you know it's done.
It hasn't shown up in the account yet, but you know it's done. So sometimes there is that supernatural transaction and you know that you know that you have the answer and you're praising God before the answer comes. You're praising God before anything's changed outwardly.
You just know it. And there's joy. There's peace. And the doctors come out.
The hospital shaking their heads. No, and you're like, everything's going to be all right. No, no, no.
You're in denial. No, everything's going to be all right. Everything is going to be all right. So the devil wants us to test our relationship with God and not trust God because of prayers that have not been answered. Even if God answered a hundred prayers you prayed supernaturally over a 30-year period, but you pray again and nothing happens, the devil won't say, oh, where's God?
Where's God? Or the ten prayers or the hundred prayers that have gone unanswered. And as far as you know, you're praying according to the will of God. You're praying in harmony with the will of God.
As far as you understand, that's what you're doing. And prayers aren't being answered. The devil wants you to question, he's not really there. Or something's wrong with you. Or he answers others, but not you. Or you're in the wrong religion or whatever.
So there's always going to be a test. The devil will seek to attack us in the very place where God is wanting to work in our lives. Many times you're under attack in your faith and your prayers because that is the area where God wants you to grow.
And that is the area where he wants to give you supernatural grace. It took Moses 40 days and 40 nights to pray for Israel after the golden calf. Daniel prayed for 21 days before he received his answer.
Jacob wrestled with an angel all night long. So sometimes we wrestle in prayer for hours, sometimes days, sometimes weeks, sometimes years. But what we have to realize, and we'll get into more about persevering in prayer, there's some great stuff from Andrew Murray I want to share with you. I read recently on persevering in prayer that's just wonderful and I want to share it with you. But understand that every prayer prayed in faith makes a difference.
I've said this before but I want to say it again. Every prayer prayed in faith makes a difference. You never know when the final breakthrough will come. But every prayer that is prayed in faith makes a difference. When Jesus said ask and it will be given, it's in the context of a passage discussing the need to be bold and to persevere in prayer. And the Greek for ask, seek and not, Matthew 7 and Luke 11 is continually keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking. There is going to be demonic resistance. There will be lies from the enemy that will try to dissuade you from fulfilling the work of God and from being a person of prayer.
Just understand there's going to be resistance. Prayer is beautiful. Prayer is glorious. Prayer is deep and rich. Prayer can also be a battlefield. Prayer can often be a battleground. The purposes of God will often take very long to be fulfilled and we must pray them through even in the natural. Children are not instantly born.
There is a pregnancy period. Good things take time. Good things take time. I have been teaching, training in ministry schools for over 40 years now in many, many, many different contexts and settings.
And I'm constantly pouring into young people, college age, that are getting prepared, studying for work of ministry in the future. And I've talked about the Mighty Mouse Ministries. Oh yeah! Do you know from the time that a mouse couple comes together, the gestation period for a mouse is about three weeks? So mother mouse conceives and three weeks later, three weeks!
Ladies, think of that! Not nine months! Three weeks! Sorry to make my voice so squeaky there, but I'm talking about mice. Three weeks later, the baby mouse is born. How big is a baby mouse? It's got to be absolutely tiny. Hey, labor can't be that bad with something that small.
It's absolutely tiny. If that mouse is able to grow and become a mature mouse, how long is it going to live? Two years, maybe? If we can avoid the cats and the poison and the snakes and other natural stuff, maybe a couple of years? I don't want Mighty Mouse Ministries.
I don't want to pour into people and train them so that they can become overnight sensations and then the next day they collapse and fall. No, no. God's purposes are bigger. Now let's switch and think about elephants. Let's think about elephants.
Mrs. Elephant conceives a baby and it is about 22 months. Moms, think of that. 22 months of carrying the baby in the womb. Then, when the baby is born, maybe it weighs like 600 pounds and it hits the ground and starts walking and then it has no natural predators.
A grown elephant has no natural predators and can live to be 70, 80 years old. That's what I want for ministry in life. I don't want the Mighty Mouse Ministry variation.
I don't want microwave ministry with instant results with no preparation because it's not going to last. And many times, friends, the things that are of the most importance, the things that we pray for, the things that we cry out for, the things that we intercede for, changes in our own lives, changes in our families, changes in our nation. They take time and God wants us to sign up for the long haul and to realize the absolute importance of persevering in prayer. I'm going to come back to the parable of the unjust judge, Luke 18.
It's very relevant but I want to come back to that because Andrew Murray speaks so well to that and I'll do a whole broadcast on that. But let me continue the need for faith and perseverance. Many of us, we're not in danger of backsliding but we're in danger of discouragement and accepting second best for our lives instead of persevering and getting more of what God wants for us. When we become discouraged, we usually keep attending church services and other religious obligations but we're quick to neglect prayer.
It's like, yeah, I go to church, I do this but prayer is the thing that often gets neglected when we're discouraged. Galatians 6, verse 9. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Let me read that again, Galatians 6, 9. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we'll reap a harvest if we do not give up. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1. Hebrews 12, verse 1. Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 36. You need to persevere so that when you've done the will of God you will receive what he has promised. Hebrews chapter 6, verse 12. We do not want you to become lazy but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. Can I read those again?
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Part of my daily routine since I found out about them. So it's a good time now and so generous with you, our listeners and viewers. And so generous to the Line of Fire to help us reach more and more people. So thank you TriVita.
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Monthly support would be the best of all. So thank you for partnering together with us. Hebrews chapter 12 verse 1, let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. You must persevere. To get the prize, to get to the goal line, the finish line, you must persevere.
It is a simple reality of life. Everything in life that's going to be effective, be it working, be it training for a sport, musical instrument, education, raising a family, growing in God, takes perseverance and prayer is right in the middle of it. We must learn to persevere in prayer. Hebrews 10, 36, you need to persevere so that when you've done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. Hebrews 6 verse 12, we do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.
I want to camp out here for a little while and talk to you about the need to persevere. It says in Proverbs the 24th chapter, if you faint in the day of trouble, your strength is small. And many of us love God during the good times, love God during the easy times, love God when we're healthy, love God when we're prosperous, love God when our family is doing well, love God when our ministry is doing well, love God when our church is healthy and thriving.
We do great. And then when hard times come, where's God? Well, you know what that means? It means we were more serving him for the fish and the loaves. It means we were serving him more for the outward benefits, serving him more for what he could do for us. There was no sense of our sinfulness and our need of a redeemer. No sense of the fact that we owe him everything.
He doesn't owe us anything. No reality of the understanding of what God did for us through the cross and our lifelong indebtedness to him. 1 Corinthians 6, 20, you're bought with a price, you're not your own, therefore glorify God with your body.
Where some texts would read with your body and your spirit, which are God's. So in point of fact, we owe him everything. We belong to him. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson tide.
He washed me white as snow. Here I am, Lord. I'm yours.
When Isaiah encounters God in his glory, in Isaiah 6, what does he say? Here am I. Send me. Many times we don't understand that we don't get that.
And we think God's just like our heavenly butler. Press the button. Okay, I need you to do this.
Heavenly concierge. Yeah, I need you to do that. Okay, I got a problem here.
I need you to fix this. God's under no obligation to do any of that. Oh, he'll keep his promises. He's a covenant keeping God. But we are obligated to him in the sense that we're here to serve him. He's not here to serve us. We're here to serve him.
Jesus remarkably comes to serve sinners and lay his life down for us so that we now can serve him. Relationally, we're a children. Vocationally, we are servants, bond slaves. Here we are. Send us.
Use us. That's our heart. That's our prayer. That's our burden.
That's our desire. Many times we think God's just here so we can have a nice convenient life. And when things don't go well, we're not going to serve God. Well, I wonder if we ever really knew him.
If that's our attitude, that we're just fair weather believers, that everything's nice and fine and sweet, we serve God and otherwise we don't? What is that? What is that? Jesus speaks of the shallow ground here in Matthew, the parable of the sower. Mark and Luke as well.
Matthew 13, Mark 4, Luke 8. The seed that falls on shallow ground, it quickly springs up. Quickly springs up. Boom, boom. Look at this. Look at this.
Look at this. We love the Lord. We are disciples. We are on fire.
Jesus, you're beautiful. And then the moment testing comes, persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away because there's no root. Now you can debate were they ever truly saved, were they shallow believers and fell away, were they counted for converts. You can have that theological debate and it's a fair debate. It's a good debate you can have. But the bottom line is, they don't endure.
They don't make it. Jesus said whoever endures to the end will be saved. This is a theme throughout Hebrews, Hebrews 3, that we receive as we go to the end with the Lord. This is our confidence and he will keep us. Philippians 1, 6, he who began the good work in us will bring it to completion. That's what we lean on, that he's going to carry us.
He's going to help us and help us get through. But in reality, friends, we're going to have to go through difficult times. John 16, 33. Jesus said, in this world you will have trouble.
The Greek word is thlipsis, which is the word for tribulation as in great tribulation. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart, I've overcome the world.
Paul, with his colleagues speaking in Antioch in Acts 14, uses the exact same word, thlipsis, except in the plural. We must go through many hardships, tend to the kingdom of God. He doesn't mean we will earn our salvation by going through hardships. He means there's going to be a lot of obstacles.
There's going to be a lot of junk. There's going to be a lot of difficulties to overcome. We're going to have to, on the way from here to there, we're going to have to go through this. Here, think of some of the beautiful words of Psalm 23. Even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, the valley of deepest darkness, I'll fear no evil, for you're with me. Oh, that's beautiful.
Hang on! It's beautiful, but we're going through a dark valley. I've been reciting that prayer more and more often, Psalm 23 in Hebrew, and other Psalms in Hebrew, just reciting them daily because of some intense trials I was going through.
And I thought, you've got all these promises. Psalm 91, With him am I in trouble. Or Isaiah 43, when you walk through the waters, they won't flood you. When you walk through the fire, you won't be burned.
Only problem is you're going to walk through water, you're going to walk through fire, you're going to walk through rivers. Here, we talk about the miracle of Daniel in the lion's den. Yeah, but he was in the lion's den.
Oh. And the fourth man in the fiery furnace was Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So Daniel 3, the fiery furnace.
Daniel 6, the lion's den. The fourth man in the fire, and they came out without even a smell of smoke. Yeah, but they were in the fire.
They were in the fire. The deliverance from trouble doesn't come unless we're in trouble. The promises of God going through us in the deepest, darkest days are only fulfilled when we go through the deepest, darkest days. The protection in the lion's den is only when we're in the lion's den. The deliverance from the fiery furnace is only when we're in the fire. That's life. That's what happens. It's not always as dramatic as the lion's den and the fiery furnace, but that's life, hardship, difficulty.
It's going to happen. In fact, Romans 5, Paul says, not only do we rejoice in the salvation that we have, grace through faith, this peace we have with God. Not only do we rejoice in that, but what does he say?
What does he say? He says plainly that we rejoice through hardship, trouble. Again, it's the word thlypsis in Greek, because this is going to produce perseverance. We glory in our sufferings and our trials for the gospel and even the hardship in this world, because we know that it's going to produce perseverance, and perseverance is going to produce character. And character is going to produce hope. And hope doesn't disappoint because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us. What an amazing passage in Romans, chapter 5. So we're going to have to persevere. There's a little mini message here in the midst of our teaching and prayer, but God will give you the grace to carry on. God will empower you.
Out of our weakness, his strength is made perfect. Oh, it's beautiful. It is glorious and wonderful.
Praise God, praise God, praise God. If you are not getting our monthly Frontline newsletter, it'll inject you with faith, truth, courage when you get it. It's absolutely free.
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