A Time to Stop Waiting In Prayer

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, September 1st. Waiting on the Lord is an important discipline, but there is also a time to stop waiting in prayer. Learn about that as the series How to Talk to God continues. Let me present you with a little dilemma and see if you can identify with this. Suppose, for example, that whatever your work may be, you lose it. And your boss walks in tomorrow and he says, I'm sorry, we don't need you any longer.

I hate to have to tell you this, going to pay you two weeks and that's it. So you come home and you reason to yourself. You say, well, the Lord, I know that I've lost my job for a particular reason.

Surely you must be trying to teach me something and I want to know what you're teaching me. And so what shall I do at this point? And so you have one or two things you think about. You say, well, shall I wait upon the Lord and just sit and do nothing and wait for God to do something or shall I go out and pursue seeking another job or some other vocation? And so oftentimes we're in that dilemma and we don't know what to do. And so the question arises, when do you wait upon the Lord and when do you get up and do something?

So let me put it this way. There are times when you face a situation and you don't know what to do that you don't do anything. You just feel God's assurance, don't move, don't make a decision, don't do anything, just wait upon me.

On the other hand, there are times when a situation arises and some circumstance changes and you say, what shall I do? And God wants you to get up and take the initiative and do something. Well, in this particular passage here, I believe there is an example of what God is saying to Joshua to help us identify a problem that many people have in their prayer life. When as a result of not knowing maybe exactly what to do or thinking they don't know what to do, they sort of fudge on God a little bit and they keep wondering, why doesn't the Lord answer my prayer? Why doesn't God change my circumstances? Why does God allow me to be in this circumstance? Why did God create all this in the first place? And so instead of being able to have it clear in their minds and hearts what's going on, they just sort of fumble around in their prayer life and either they quit or they just sort of pray out of confusion and frustration.

Now I want you to listen very carefully because most of what I'm going to say is to build the background of about five statements I want to give you, but it's very important that you get the whole picture of what's happening. Right before chapter seven, the people of Israel have gone to, have crossed the Jordan and have faced the city of Jericho, invincible, impregnable walls. And I'm sure when they got there, they said to themselves, there ain't no way for us to take this city because there was no one going in and out.

They were absolutely seemingly self-sufficient within themselves. But the scripture says that God tore the walls down all the way flat to the ground so that the nation of Israel could march in. So Joshua said, now look, the next city is Ai. Sent in a bunch of spies and so they came back and they said, Joshua, just a small place, no problem. And after all you need to do, Joshua sent up a couple of thousand, three, maybe 3000 others and we'll take Ai. Look what we did at Jericho. Big mistake is in what we did. They didn't do a thing at Jericho. Look what we did at Jericho.

We'll take Ai with no problem. So the calamity came because Joshua, instead of listening for God's promise and God's strategy, he listened to his cohorts talk about what they were going to be able to do, never waiting for God's strategy at all, sent in about 3000 men, little old itsy bitsy city of Ai came rushing out, put them on the run, killed 36 of them and put them in absolute humiliation and disarray, came home all discouraged and disillusioned. And the Bible says that the people's hearts turned like water. They were so absolutely overwhelmed with fright. He says their hearts became like water. Now you know sometimes when you felt strong and in your strength and God was doing something and then all of a sudden fear gripped you and absolutely your spine turned to spaghetti and you felt like running water.

There was just nothing in you strong at all. That's the way they came back in humiliation and absolute defeat. And so they exercised pride.

They ceased to exercise caution. They didn't wait upon God for his direction and his guidance. And so they got in trouble. So what I want you to see here is the result of that is Joshua's crying out before God because what he does here sounds just like all of us at some time in our life. So look, if you will, at verse six. So when they came back defeated, the Bible says in Joshua, rent his clothes, fell on the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord until the evening tide, he and the elders of Israel and put dust upon their heads.

Now let me show what he did. It says he rent his clothes, which when a person was grieved, just totally grieved beyond their comprehension and their capacity to face it, they would just tear or shred their garment. So he ripped off his garment in absolute grief. The scripture says not only did he tear his garment, he fell upon his face in humiliation and it says he fell upon his face before the ark of the covenant. The ark of the covenant contained the commandments of God given to Moses. So God gave the ark of the covenant to the nation of Israel as a physical material symbol of the presence of God. So the wherever the ark of the covenant was, that's where God was in their mind that indicated to them that of God's presence. So when the ark at one time was removed from them and you recall that in the enemy's lands, they had all kinds of sores and boils begin to break out and God began to judge them.

The ark of the cabinet meant the presence of God. So he rent his garment out of grief. He humilled himself before God by lying before him before the ark of the covenant. And the scripture says that he put dust upon his head and that was the indicate that he was in mourning.

So he and the elders of Israel, that is the major leaders of Israel, that's what they were doing. Lying flat out before God, dust on the head, garments rent, mourning and crying out. So here he is, and I want you to notice his prayer. He doesn't mention a single promise from God. There is no thanksgiving from God. There's no praising the Lord. There's no reminding God of any of his promises. He's in humiliation before God, greed in his heart, unburdening his soul.

There's nothing systematic about that prayer at all. Here is the man crying out before God, oh my God, why have you done us this way? Now let me ask you, let's be honest. How many of you have ever gotten under pray and if you're real honest, you'd have said, oh God, why'd you put me in this mess?

If you're honest, most of you are not. All of us, it's sometimes have said more than likely, Lord, how did I get in this mess? And then you see, we don't want to say, Lord, here's what you did to me, but here's what we say.

We sort of cover and camouflage what we feel. We say, Lord, why did you allow me to get into this mess? And Lord, why do you treat me this way?

And if you love me the way you say to, why do you allow these things? All we're doing is blaming God. Now listen, God is not to be blamed for all the messes we create. So here is Joshua blaming God for what's going on. And what does God say? The Bible says that God says, Joshua, what are you doing lying down your face?

Get up. Now he probably didn't say it quite like I said it. He may have said it in far more stern words. Listen to what he says. The Lord said to Joshua, get the up.

He didn't ask him why. Get the up. Wherefore lies thou upon thy face? He says, Joshua, what are you doing lying upon your face here? Now here's what happened. And God tells Joshua what happened. A sin has been committed in the nation of Israel.

Somebody has taken the gold and silver and you would have found out who it is and you are to stone them to death and then burn them, the whole family. So here's what they had to do. It's a big responsibility. Now God was trying to show them that when he said something, he meant what he said. And verse 13, he says, thou canst not stand before thine enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you. And what he was saying is, he says, I'm not going to help you in any more battles till you deal with the issue at hand. So Joshua did exactly what God said and they corrected the situation.

Now I say all of that simply to bring it down to two or three things I want you to notice. I think oftentimes we make a mistake in our prayer life that we're not even quite aware of. We wonder why God does not answer our prayer.

We talked about all different means of why and why not and so forth. Why doesn't answer our prayer? Why he doesn't bless us the way we know that he wants to bless us, the way he's promised to bless other people and the way we see him blessing other people. We want a prayer life that is effective. We want to be able to talk to God, have God hear us and respond accordingly. So all of that is natural and normal and that's what God wants for each one of us.

But the question comes, why is it that we pray and we pray and we pray and somehow those things don't fall in place like they ought to? Well, I think there's a similarity here in this passage that I want you to notice. Here's what Joshua did. Now, let's don't blame Joshua too much at this point, but I want you to see a similarity here. Joshua came back realizing that they'd been defeated and instead of saying, Lord, here am I, search my heart, search the heart of the nation of Israel. He said, Lord, why did you do this to us? So he wanted to blame God and as a result of that, of course, God said to him, now Joshua, you've laid on your face before me in sackcloth and ashes and you've been grieving in your heart. You've rent your garment.

Joshua, get up off your face. A sin has been committed. Correct that problem. Then I will bless you until you correct that.

There'll be no blessing. Now, here's what happens oftentimes. Sometimes you and I come to a situation and we want an answer from God and God says, here's the answer.

When you correct that, then I'm going to bless you. And sometime, now listen, not all the time, all the time, we don't know what it is. Sometimes God will say something's not right and we have to keep searching out to find out what it is. But when God says to us, here is the thing that you need to correct in your business. There's dishonesty in your business.

You have a practice in your business that is not in keeping with my will. You've got to correct that. Or here's a habit in your life. You've got to deal with it or in your family. You've got to deal with this. And you see, as long as we say, all right, Lord, now I want to thank you for showing me that. And then we just pray about it and pray about it and pray about it and pray about it.

Now listen, listen to me carefully. There's some things God wants to identify and he wants us to pray. He wants us to wait and pray and listen and pray because God's doing something within us, doing something in this situation.

And as we've explained before, when he's ready, we are ready and he works it all out. But there are times when God says, deal with this. We say, thank you, Lord Jesus, for showing us what we need to deal with.

Now we're going to deal with it. Now, Lord, I just want you to show me and you know what we do instead of having the courage to deal with it, we sort of skirt around and we say, Lord, I want to thank you for showing me all about that. Next time we get under pray, we keep praying about it and we keep praying about it. And what we've discovered is it's easier to pray about it than to deal with it. And so if there's something back there that you've not dealt with, somebody you owe some money to and, and you skirt, you pray, oh, the Lord bless the church and bless this and bless missions and bless my family and bless all these things. And God isn't here in one bit of that. When God says, deal with that, when you deal with that, then I'm going to bless you. And you see, God knows that everybody makes mistakes. Everybody sins against them at some time, not because we want to. Everybody has failures in his or her life.

That's not the issue. God isn't in heaven waiting to check on your next failure. He wants to know if we're willing to deal with it. If we have a repentant spirit, if we want to say, Lord, you're right. I must deal with that immediately. I will do so. And I believe the whole principle of that passage is not to lay blame on Joshua, though Joshua did go about it in the wrong way.

He didn't say, Lord, I know that you're faithful. I can look back and see the Red Sea experience. I can see 40 years of taking me through all of that. And now I know that there must be something wrong and I want to deal with it. Lord, show me what it is. He is blaming God. So I want to give you five things never to forget in your prayer life. You listen, number one, write them down. There is a time to wait and there is a time to act. The time to wait is when you do not know from God what to do next. But once God shows you something needs to be corrected, you need to get up and get it corrected, then come back to praying.

You say, but now wait a minute. The Bible says praying always right. Men should always pray and faint not correct. What he's saying here is that doesn't mean you can't pray on your way to correct what God said, correct. But it means that we're not to wait and just him haul around fudge on God.

That's what I call just sort of fudging. Lord, I'm going to get around to it one of these days, sometimes because we don't have the courage to face up to it or deal with something in our life. So number one, there are times when we must wait upon the Lord and not to act until we get direction. The second thing is this, that blaming God in prayer is a waste of our time. When you get on your knees and you tell God all about your circumstances and you imply and you indicate that God somehow is slightly responsible for this, you might as well stop. Number three, you and I, when we pray and God shows us the error, it may be something over here that we need to correct or something in our own personal life, when he shows us the error that needs to be corrected, corrected immediately with God's guidance. And don't keep praying around about it and him hauling around telling God you're going to do it one of these days. It needs to be corrected when God shows you.

And as I said before, now I don't mean like a bulldog go rushing in, just chew everybody up or just one person. You ask the Lord to show you how to do it. God will give you the details. That's what he told Joshua. He said, Joshua, get up, get this thing corrected.

And then he told him how to do it. So you and I need to wait for the Lord's direction as to how, but you see, if we keep putting it off, God is not going to bless us until we deal with the issue at hand. All right. The fourth thing I want to say, and I want to say it again, I said a few moments ago, if you're not careful, you'll find yourself praying as a substitute for action. Now, God wants us to pray always, but he, and sometimes we have to pray and not act. But when he says move, we're to move. When God says move and you sell, I think I'm going to pray. It's much more worshipful. I'm just going to trust the Lord.

God says he's faithful. There's some things we have to take the initiative for. He said, Joshua, get up off your face, get out there and get those folks divided up and find out what the problem is and correct it. Then I want to bless you. You see, praying also involves initiative. We must deal with the issues that God lays upon us in order to reassure us of God's continuous blessing in our life. And the last thing is simply this, continuous prayer without dealing with the problem will cheat us of success.

And what he's saying in this passage is this. Once God shows us the air of our way, once he puts his finger on something, we are to get up off our face, take the initiative and correct it. Then we have the privilege of claiming God's blessing for future success. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for that passage.

And there's so many wonderful, exciting things that we like to share in that. And I do pray that you'll take the truth, that central basic primary theme of that passage and drill it into our hearts, riveted into our minds, put a cap on it so that we cannot escape it. And we pray that each one of us will exercise the courage, Father, to deal with, to focus upon, not just to look at, not just to talk about, not even simply to pray about, but having had you identify the problem in our heart, begin to look at it with initiative and begin to correct the situation in order that your blessing may flow again, once again in our life. Thank you for your generous, loving, kind, forgiving spirit toward us. And thank you, Father, that you look at the motivations of our heart.

You see our failures, but you also see our potential. And I pray that every single person might recognize that he or she has tremendous potential in Christ Jesus under the umbrella of his perfect will. I pray for somebody today who's unsaved that you'd speak to their heart and help them to see that all of their goodness, all of their good activities, all of their prayers, everything they do is absolutely to no avail until they deal with the primary issue of life is Jesus Christ my Savior and my Lord. And I pray that many today will accept Christ as their Savior and their Lord by confessing their sins, by repenting before him, by surrendering their life to you, by accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and personal Lord. And help them to see, Lord God Almighty, that all praying is useless, vain, empty words until first of all Jesus Christ becomes our Savior and our Lord. We thank you, Father, for speaking to our hearts. And I pray that each one of us will examine our heart, that we will examine very carefully to see if the full intention of your blessing we are receiving, if we're just being partially blessed because we're not willing to deal with some issue or issues in our life. I pray for every man, every family, every single person in this fellowship and those throughout there, Father, who really want to become the person you want them to be, that you'd speak to their heart and give them the courage to get on their face and then once you've identified the problem, get up, correct the problem, move on in their Christian life, growing, encouraging and being a blessing to others. And this I ask in Jesus' name and for His sake.

Now while our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed, listen, nobody can tell you how to pray. You must decide that for yourself. Nobody knows your heart like you and the Lord and He knows it better than you. He knows every single one of us just loves us with all of His divine unlimited love. He wants the best for us. He loves us divinely. He wants the best for you and for me. He wants us to want the best for each other. And so I want to ask you today, would you just allow God's message to sink deep into your heart, enough to be honest and say, Lord, let me look at my life, not someone else's life, my life.

And whatever you put your finger on, Lord, I want to correct that in my heart. And then I want to be able to be a blessing to someone else. Father, praise you for what you're going to do now. Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to A Time to Stop Waiting in Prayer. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.