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00:06 Mingala for those of you who speak Burmese, that's about all I know.
00:21 in Thai. And I don't speak much Malay. I did learn one expression tohan meati
00:28 which they say is Indonesian. It means the Lord bless you. I am glad to be here. I uh my wife and I have uh
00:38 delighted in serving the Lord in the land where our daughter and son-in-law and two grandsons have been serving for
00:45 the last nine years. Some of you may know Dr. Michael and Karen Crane. Uh
00:51 Michael teaches at the seminary here in EKL. Um my wife and I came here in the summer
00:59 of 2017. Were here for nine months then. Uh worked at the uh in the Bible school
01:05 that was set up for the Burmese Christians in this city. And uh were that for nine months. Went back to home
01:11 for four months at the invitation of uh the immigration officer at KIA2.
01:18 And so, uh, but we came back with a new passport and, um, a little bit wiser,
01:23 uh, last August and have been here since then and getting ready to leave, head back home in about two weeks and two
01:29 days. So, our service here is coming to an end. Um, we may be back. We don't
01:36 know. We're praying the Lord about it right now. So, hey, young lady, that's I know you. There's another Oranguti out
01:42 here. Okay. Um,
01:49 Lyn, uh, my wife and I also we uh, we know a couple of the members of your church, uh, Moren Guy and Masimo, their
01:56 son. We've met, uh, Moren and her husband and their son a couple several years back through introducing through
02:02 through our son-in-law here. Uh, great folks. And Moren's got a beautiful wife,
02:07 relatively married. What, just a few months ago, is that right? I'm sorry. Did I say
02:12 Mashimo? It's his new wife. So, Masimo's not here today, is he? Okay, that's
02:18 fine. Um, the uh
02:23 topic I want to share with today, and I know normally have expository preaching out here, but uh sometimes you you
02:30 attack a subject and you and there's no one scripture that will adequately deal
02:38 with that primary subject. And prayer is one of those issues. Um it has uh jumped
02:44 at me since we retired from the mission field about nine years ago. I went back
02:49 to the states and uh early on in that retirement I ran across this scripture that really grabbed my heart in 1st
02:57 Samuel 12:23 which says, "But as for me, far be it for me, far be it for me that
03:02 I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you and I will teach you the
03:09 way that is good and right." And for a long time I thought about that said, you know, Lord, what why is it such a
03:16 grievous sin against God when we fail to
03:21 pray? I think all of us have we've had people ask us to pray for them and we say, "Yeah, I'll be glad to pray for
03:26 you." And we and we pray for him once. If we don't write it down, we're going to forget it. And so I've got a real
03:32 long prayer list. I don't like forgetting uh because my mind forgets very easily. That's what happens when
03:37 you hit 73. Um but but there's something
03:43 there's some special category of sin involved here when we fail to pray.
03:52 And I believe that it's because through prayer, God has brought us into a relationship
04:01 with him, into a partnership with him through which he works.
04:09 So often in scripture, if you were to go into a Bible study program and
04:15 uh bring up the word ask, it's amazing how often you find that
04:21 ask, ask, ask. The scripture teaches us one thing, if not if nothing else, that
04:28 prayer is not a substitute for work. It is the work for which there is no
04:34 substitute. I haven't always thought of prayer like that. So often you say, "Well, Lord, you know, I'm just so busy today and I'll
04:42 spend 10 minutes reading the Bible and I've got maybe five minutes to give to you today, Lord." You know, and if
04:47 that's I that's all I can give. Okay? So, you have to be happy with that. Well, he's not happy with that. I' I've
04:53 found that out the hard way sometimes. Um prayer is totally essential for our
05:01 growth in Christ, for our life in Christ, for our participation with God
05:07 in the things that he wants to do in and through us. So there's nothing there's
05:13 nothing in all the world that can substitute for prayer. You remember the time when the first
05:19 church began in the book of acts and uh the a the apostles the apostles were
05:25 busy with so many ministries including helping to feed the poor and getting
05:30 food to the widows and they finally came to realize that they were neglecting the most important things important aspects
05:36 of their ministry the word and prayer and actually it puts those words prayer and the word is a way to put them in
05:42 that order not that one is more important than the other equally important and so they said it's it's not
05:47 right for us to neglect the word and ministry of the word to set tables here
05:53 to do all this this other work. It's an important work that they're doing but but the most important Peter was saying
05:59 is this right here. There's no there's no substitute for it. Now realizing this
06:06 as believers we need to understand what are the requirements and what are the hindrances
06:13 for getting our prayers answered. And this morning we're going to deal with just a few of these. It would take hours
06:18 and hours to deal with all that the Bible says about prayer, the requirements and the hindrances. But we're going to hit some of the
06:24 highlights. One primary requirement
06:29 that a lot of Christians tend to kind of overlook that it's
06:36 holy living. Living pure lives, lives that are pleasing to God.
06:45 It's pretty simple thing to understand. If a Christian is living in sin,
06:51 deliberate sin, but then presume under presumption, he
06:56 goes ahead and prays to God said, "Lord, you know, I really want this. I really want this." You know, and if God is
07:02 going to overlook their sin and go ahead and answer their prayer, then God would be complicit
07:09 in encouraging a lifestyle that's not pleasing to him.
07:16 Um, if we expect God to answer our prayers, we must live our lives in ways that
07:22 honor the one who can answer. It's uh like this. Suppose you have a son and
07:29 your son comes to you and you and your your son's getting ready to go out. Um it's a Saturday and and you say to your
07:37 son, "Son, before you go, your room, it's a mess. It's a it's a pig's pin."
07:43 Okay. Um I want you to clean your room.
07:49 I want you to make the bed. I want you to sweep and then mop the floor. I want
07:55 you to pick up all the stuff that's laying around the floor. Fold your clothes up that your mother washed for
08:00 you and put them nicely in the drawer and clothes in the closet. Make it look like people living there. And your son
08:09 says, "Wow, Dad, those those are such wise words. I mean,
08:16 I'm just blown away. I'm super impressed, Dad. You know what, Dad? I'm
08:21 I'm going to gather my friends together this afternoon and I'm going to I'm going to recommend
08:28 that we begin a special club and we're
08:33 going to and we're going to study the wise words that our fathers give us. We'll call it the words of our fathers
08:40 study club. Okay. Thank you, Dad, for for giving me those wise words.
08:46 And then he walks out of the house and he doesn't clean up the room.
08:52 Well, evening time comes and dad is seeing the room
08:57 and uh but the son after dinner says, "Hey, dad, my my friends and I were going out to town this evening. We're
09:03 going to see a movie. Really good, good, clean movie. Dad, you don't have to worry about it." Okay. And my friends, you know, we're not going out doing
09:09 drugs and drinking and all the party stuff. Okay. Just But and I need to borrow the car if that's okay. You know, this is kind of what I normally do on
09:15 Friday nights, right, Dad? Uh, can I have the keys? No, son.
09:20 You cannot go out tonight. You cannot go with your friends. I'm not going to give you the car. Hey, why? What's What's
09:29 changed that, son? You remember what I told you this morning to clean the room?
09:36 You didn't clean it. Yeah. You know, I was just so busy today. you know, we're out running around doing so much stuff
09:42 and it just sort of skipped my mind and uh but but I have talked to my friends
09:47 about start starting up this uh the words of your father club and they're all thinks that's a great idea.
09:54 Well, son, you're still not getting the car tonight and you're going nowhere because you dishonored me by not obeying
10:02 me. So sometimes as Christians we presume
10:08 upon the goodness of God and failing to look at one of the primary requisites of
10:14 prayer and that is living a life of obedience. If the father were to say, "Ah, son, you
10:20 know, I know you didn't clean your room and I really wanted you to clean your room, but I love you so much." And so
10:26 here's here's a car here's a car key here. Okay, go ahead and take have fun. You know, remember stay away from the
10:33 bars and the bad girls. Okay. No. If the father did that, he will be complicit.
10:38 He would be say, "Really, it doesn't make any difference if you obey me or not. Whatever you want, I'm going to give you." God does not work like that.
10:46 And we got to remember that there are requirements. Now, there's a lot of scriptures that speak to this very
10:52 issue. One of the best is Isaiah 59:1 and2, which says, "Surely the Lord's arm
10:58 is not too short that he cannot save." The context of this, by the way, is prayer. Okay. God's speaking to Isaiah
11:05 about the people of Israel about prayer. Said, "The Lord's arm is not so short that he cannot save his nor is his ear
11:12 doled that he cannot hear, but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God. Your sins have
11:20 hidden his face from you so that he will not hear."
11:28 Isaiah is saying, "Hey folks, if you're coming to God in prayer,
11:33 you got to have your room cleaned up. God is not impotent. He can do anything.
11:41 There's nothing impossible for God. God is not deaf like an old man. He's
11:50 definitely older than dirt, but he has no age. He's not deaf. Nothing wrong with his hearing." Some people go to God
11:57 say, "God, you know, I've asked you this time after time after time, and you just won't answer my prayer. What's going on?
12:02 Is there a steel wall up here between me and heaven?" You know, the Lord will say, "Hey, have you
12:08 cleaned up your room? What's that over in the corner over there? What's that under the rug over
12:14 there? Have you cleaned up your room?"
12:19 No, the Lord is quite capable, but he said he will not he will not listen to
12:25 our prayers when we're not living the kind of life that is honoring and
12:31 pleasing to him. Sin hinders
12:38 God answering our prayers becomes a wall.
12:46 Now, some people say, "Well, that's, you know, you mean God can't?" No, he can. He can answer
12:52 any prayer. But he won't. Okay? There are some things that God is going to do in spite of how we act. You look at the
13:00 history of the Jewish nation. There were so many times that God said, "I'm ready to wipe these people out. Moses, I'm
13:06 going to start over again with you." And Moses stood in the gap, said, "Lord, please don't do that. the nations will
13:11 think you brought your your your tribe out here just to kill them that you were not able to take them into Canaan. And
13:19 so the Lord said, "Okay, you know, I mean, not that Moses said, I mean, the Lord was just waiting for Moses. He was
13:25 teaching Moses about prayer. Okay, that's another story another day." Um,
13:31 but living the kind of life that is pleasing God is powerful. And one of the
13:37 best scriptures most of you familiar with in James 5:16 said the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
13:47 Some some will misinterpret this. See in the scriptures
13:53 righteousness you look at it in two aspects. Okay. One
13:58 aspect is the righteousness comes by faith. Okay. In 2 uh corinthians 5:21 it
14:06 says for our sake he that is God the father made him the Messiah Jesus the
14:14 son God he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become
14:21 the righteousness of God. What does that mean? Means that Jesus
14:27 Christ gave his life for us. We all know that he paid for our sins on the cross.
14:32 And when we put our faith in him, the father takes our sins, puts them on
14:39 Jesus, and takes the perfect righteousness of his only son and places
14:46 it on us. So that from the point we become followers of Jesus,
14:51 God the father looks at us as he looks at his own son righteous.
14:58 Now that is absolutely critical. That's that's that's what that's what we call a
15:03 Christian. Someone who has had the righteousness of God placed on us because we placed our faith in his son.
15:09 But there is another aspect and another aspect of righteous and that is a holy
15:15 life. A life lived in obedience to God. A life that is following Jesus as Lord
15:22 and Master. A life that is walking with the spirit. a life that is seeking to
15:28 walk with God on a daily basis in obedience and that is the kind of
15:33 righteousness that James is speaking of here. Now the first righteousness is obviously very essential. If you don't
15:40 have this righteousness that is imputed to us because uh from God through faith in him then this part of righteousness
15:48 here is absolutely impossible. One who does not know God cannot live a righteous life. It's not in us. It
15:54 wasn't in me. I didn't become a righteous person in God until I was 18 years old. And that's another story for
16:02 another day also. So, so here James is saying the prayer of a righteous person
16:10 says man that's generic men and women those who are living their lives in
16:16 obedience to Christ in obedience to the word that he has given to us. these the
16:22 prayers of these kind of believers is powerful
16:27 and effective. Now, one of the most well-known scriptures that deals with
16:33 this entire thing, it almost almost summarizes all of the qualifications of
16:39 prayer, but it doesn't hit all of them. This one here that you're probably familiar with. 2 Chronicles 7:14 said,
16:44 "If my people who are called by my name
16:49 will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways,
16:56 then I will hear." Now, you get that? Then I will hear
17:04 from heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their land. This is a
17:10 conditional promise. That first word if. Okay, that means something is required
17:15 of us in order for God to hear our prayers and to answer our prayers and to move on behalf of us. The first thing he
17:22 said, if my people who are called by my name,
17:29 we worship who? Jesus Christ. We are what?
17:36 Little Christs. That's what uh the word Christian means. First given to the body of Christ in Antioch,
17:44 little Christs, Christians. We are called by his name. He said, "If my
17:50 people, we belong to God. We're his, we have taken his name,
17:56 will humble themselves." What is humble? Humble is an attitude of mind that
18:03 recognizes that when we come before God in any capacity, particularly in prayer,
18:10 that we recognize that God will answer our prayers, not because of what we have
18:15 done for him, and not because we're living a righteous life. Okay? Righteous
18:22 living is necessary for prayers being answered. But he doesn't pray. He said, "Okay, I'm going to answer your prayers
18:28 because you're the you're the best kid on the block." No. Hey, humble means we
18:34 come before him and we say, "Lord, I am a s, you know, by nature I'm a sinner.
18:39 You've saved me. Everything good in me is because of you." There's a scripture
18:45 in Romans 11, I think verse 33, says, "Who has ever given to God that God
18:50 should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things to
18:56 him be glory forever. No one has ever done anything for God
19:03 that requires God to pay us back. We're fortunate that we don't get what
19:09 we deserve. That's a mercy. Grace is getting getting what we is
19:16 getting the things that we don't deserve. do good things.
19:22 So when we come the attitude of humility is saying Lord I deserve nothing. I haven't I haven't done anything that
19:29 requires you to answer my prayers. Lord I just love you. You are great. You have
19:34 saved me. You've made me your child. Okay.
19:40 Pray and seek my face. Some people say well you know why should we spend all
19:46 this time praying? God knows what we need already. Haven't you memorized Psalm
19:52 23? The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. And as a kid, I always thought, well, if
19:59 he's my shepherd, why don't I want him? You know, that's nothing to me. You say, I I'm not going to be in need. That kind
20:06 of want. And so I say, well, you know, if the Lord is my shepherd, he's going to take care of me. I'm just his little
20:11 lamb, so he's going to take care of all my needs, and I don't have to worry about asking for it. No, that's not true.
20:16 He wants us to ask. He requires that we ask.
20:21 Do you know the first thing that God the Father said to the incarnate son? You
20:26 look in Psalm chapter 2, beautiful psalm. It's all about the father and the Messiah who's coming. And in verse eight
20:34 of that said, uh, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I'll
20:42 make the nations your heritage, the ends of the earth your possession.
20:47 God the Father saying to the Son, to the eternal God incarnate, saying, "Now
20:55 you're on earth, pray." The father says, "Son, pray. Pray for
21:01 what? Ask of me and I'll make the nations your heritage is the in God is saying to the
21:08 son you pray to me and it's my will that people from every tongue tribe people
21:14 and nation will become a part of the kingdom of God that's my will you son
21:21 have to pray toward that and Jesus spent so much time in prayer so much time
21:31 asking is so important We do not presume upon the graces of God and say, "I don't need to ask because he
21:37 already knows what I need." No. All through the scriptures, if you go into a good Bible study program and type in the
21:43 word assert, word search, ask. You'd be blown away by the number of times it comes up talking about prayer.
21:49 You've got to ask. You know, it's kind of like sitting at the dinner table and you have a table loaded down with great
21:55 food and you've got a son who's growing leaps and bounds and he's just gobbling everything down and he finishes the
22:01 first plate in about uh a minute and a half and he's sitting there. He wants more. He's got a little bit of pride.
22:07 You know, that's 14, 15 year old kids get a little bit of pride here. Anybody here 14, 15? Most of us are a little bit
22:13 more than that. And so he wants more of the steak and potatoes.
22:18 And uh he's just kind of sitting there waiting for someone to give him some, you know, and uh his dad knows what he
22:26 wants, but his dad's saying this to himself, I know what my son wants, and
22:32 when he asks, I'll give it to him. You know, uh it's just it's just being
22:37 polite. You know, we got to be polite to God, folks. You know, he says, "Ask.
22:43 You have not because you ask not." And sometimes you ask because you use it on your own needs and not in according to the will of God.
22:50 So here in 2 Chronicles he said pray, ask and seek my face.
22:60 Seek my face. What does that mean? It means to build up that relationship,
23:06 that personal relationship that you have with God. Prayer is not just a matter of sitting down and going through a list of
23:13 your needs and saying, "Lord, here's my here's my list." Okay? It's got a long
23:18 list today, Lord. You know, you know, I haven't I don't have time to read them all out to you, but you know what I've written. And just take a quick glance,
23:24 okay? I've got five minutes to spend it with you here. And um that's all. I got to go to work. Bye.
23:30 Um, you know, when I when my kids were young, my wife and I, we love spending time with the kids, just sit down and
23:37 talking and sharing with them, building up that relationship and and they're old now, ages 46, 44, 43, and 40. Okay? Son,
23:44 daughter, son, daughter, son, daughter, son. Got 11 grandkids also. Six boys and
23:49 five girls. Our quiver is definitely full. Okay? But we love just sitting down and talking with kids, you know,
23:56 and prayer is about talking with God. It's about developing that relationship. That's why he says, "Seek my face. Know
24:04 me." And Jesus in that great uh great prayer in uh John chapter 17:3, he said,
24:10 "And this is eternal life that they know you the only true God in Jesus Christ
24:16 whom you have sent." And we know God by spending time with him in prayer.
24:22 Said, "Pray, seek my face and turn from your wicked ways." We've talked about
24:28 this. Live a life, get your room cleaned up, live a life that is pleasing to God.
24:35 Repent and then
24:41 we do the if then God does his part. He said, "Then I
24:48 will hear." What does it say back in Isaiah 59? Said, "Your sins have hidden
24:54 his face from me so that he will not hear." He will not hear. But we follow
24:59 the very clear instructions of scripture of how to come to God in prayer. He
25:04 said, "Then I will hear from heaven and will forgive your sin and will heal
25:12 your land. Restore the relationship." Okay. Now, so
25:18 we got to be careful as believers not to presume that just because we are
25:25 followers of Jesus Christ that he is going to listen to and answer every prayer that we bring before him in
25:33 particular to know that if we are not living life with a cleaned up room, he's
25:39 not going to listen. That's good. Even if the things that we bring before him
25:44 are things that he desperately wants to do in and through us, you know, we bring
25:51 this we live in a we got filth in our lives and we bring this issue before God
25:56 that is dear to his heart and and the Lord would say I want to do that. I want
26:02 to do that son. I want to do that my daughter but I will not do that because in in answering your prayer I will be
26:09 condoning sin in your life and I will not condone sin.
26:18 Faith. Faith is one of the primary requirements
26:23 that we have for prayer. This verse here that you're probably familiar with. Without faith it's impossible impossible
26:29 to please God. For anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists.
26:34 That seems to be you know understood but not for everybody. I asked a Buddhist
26:40 monk one time in in in Laos. I was teaching this teaching the scriptures to him and and of course the Buddhist
26:46 priests in in Laos's Buddhist priests elsewhere they they spend a lot of time uh meditating and and quoting the the
26:53 polyonato
26:59 and meditating and seeming to be praying and I asked this monk one time I said
27:06 when you pray who is listening who hears your prayers
27:13 And I was so saddened to hear his answer. He said, "I guess nobody.
27:19 I guess nobody." Because under Terra Buddhism, there is
27:24 no teachings about God, the creator. Uh you ask the Thai Buddhist, "Where'd the
27:29 world come from?" And they say, "When I was born, it was here. When I
27:36 die, it'll still be here." I'm not really concerned about where the world came from. But here the writer of
27:42 Hebrews said uh anyone who comes to God must believe he exists. Okay? As
27:48 Christians that is presumed. No one's going to come and pray to God if they don't think he exists. The about the
27:55 only time atheists ever pray to God is when they're getting ready to go over the side of a cliff in their brand new car and the first thing they holler is,
28:01 "Oh God, help me." You know, there are no atheists in the foxhole, as they say.
28:07 crisis comes and even an atheist recognize God exists. Okay?
28:12 But but notice it said and without faith impossible to please God. He uh must
28:18 believe he exists and that he rewards those who seek the reward
28:24 who seek the thing they're praying for. No, he say he rewards those who seek him. This is reinforcement of the 2
28:31 Chronicles 7:14. You know, seek pray and seek my face. seek him.
28:40 Now faith, what is faith?
28:49 Some some some folks we we we get really confused about this, but faith is really
28:54 a very simple and godly thing. Amazingly, divinely
28:60 simple. It is simply believing that God is going to do what he said.
29:08 He's going to do what he said. What has God promised?
29:15 In Hebrews 11:1, another text very familiar. This sort of gives the standard definition of faith. Faith is
29:20 being sure of what we hope for and certain of what
29:27 we do not see. Well, what gives us upon what is the
29:33 basis of our hope? What what is it that we're wanting that we can't see? What's the basis of hope? And some folks say,
29:39 well, you know, you've just got to work up enough faith. You've just got to conjure it up from inside and just
29:45 really believe with all your heart and just sort of say, you believe it. I believe it. I believe it. I believe believe it. I believe it. You know,
29:51 faith is not an emotion. Although quite often emotion will follow.
29:57 Faith is not based on what you feel but it is based on what God has said in the
30:04 scriptures. 1988
30:09 August of that year my father was told he has a very rare form of cancer
30:14 incurable called lenitis plastica. Um he aged 20 years and three months he
30:22 knew he was going to die. My older sister Dale, a believer in our Lord also was was
30:30 totally convinced in her heart that God was going to heal our dad.
30:37 And and she shared that. She said, "I I know God's going to heal." And I said, "Dale,
30:43 based upon what?" She said, "I just I just feel it. I feel like God's telling me he's going to heal Dad." My dad died
30:49 November 28th, 1988. And my sister just totally
30:56 for for about 10 years she was, you know, she really couldn't hold down the job and she was so close to that. You
31:02 know, Dale wasn't basing her faith upon the word of God. There's no place in the
31:08 word of God says he's got to heal everybody. Most all of us are going to die at some point. You know, I've got 73
31:14 years on this body and I get enough wrinkles, I'd make a great prop and a prune commercial.
31:20 But faith is based upon what God has said. It is simply this believing that
31:27 God will do what he has said in his
31:32 word. Okay. Great examples of this Abraham. Paul
31:39 Paul spoke of the faith of Abraham. Abraham, he was he was uh he already had Isaac, his son, the promised son through
31:47 whom God said, "Through this son, your descendants will be as numerous as the stars and as numerous as the grains of
31:52 sand of the seashore." And then one day, the Lord says says to Abraham, "Take your son, your only son,
31:59 whom you love, to the mountain that I will show you and sacrifice him there."
32:06 And Abraham had lived long enough and a walk close enough with God and seen God do some amazing things in his life. And
32:12 he was immediately obedient to the command of God. And this is where Paul,
32:18 this is what Paul is talking about, said had no distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God. What
32:24 prom? The promise that through Isaac would come a multitude of descendants.
32:29 But he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God.
32:35 He grew strong in his faith. He did not start off strong. He threw poor Sarah
32:42 under the bus at least twice. He said, "Just tell her you're my sister." Okay? You remember that story? Um, as he gave
32:49 Lord God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
32:55 See, Abraham's faith was based on his experience with God, the knowledge of who God is and how God works in acts and
33:03 what God had said to him directly. This there was no Bible in those days, but Abraham had a lot of close communication
33:10 with God. And God had said through Isaac, you will have multitudinous descendants. And even though it looked
33:16 like Isaac was getting ready to get stabbed to death and burned on the altar on the top of the mountain, Abraham
33:22 said, "No, through this son, even if God has to raise him from the dead, through this son." So if faith wasn't based upon
33:30 some feeling, Noah, uh
33:36 Noah, righteous man love the Lord. Lord says,
33:42 "Noah, I'm going to destroy the world and I'm going to kill out all life
33:49 except for you and your wife and your three sons and do and their wives and
33:54 two of everything and some of the things that bring on seven because you're going to be eating them." Uh, and so Noah
34:00 built the ark. Why? Because he knew that God did not lie. And what God said, what
34:08 God promised, in this case, it was a it was a promise of destruction. God was
34:13 going to do it. Moses leaves his herd of sheep down there in Midian, age 80, when
34:20 God says, "Moses, it's time to go back to Egypt." Moses said, "Oh, no, God, please send somebody else. Just send
34:26 that's not me." Said, "No, Moses, you're going down there. You're going back to Egypt. You're going to confront Pharaoh
34:33 and through the miracles that I'm going to do through you.
34:39 Pharaoh is going to let you go and you'll know it's true because you and all of Israel will be back here on
34:47 this mountain worshiping me. It's going to happen. So Moses went by faith knowing that God
34:55 is a God who keeps and and his faith was built on based on what? on what God had said. He knew what God had said.
35:03 He hadn't written the first five books of the Bible yet. That's coming a year later. Okay?
35:09 So, you see this faith. Faith is based upon knowing the book.
35:18 Knowing the book. This is a fellow. This quote, this is a
35:24 quote from old Balum. this prophet who uh Bailac, King Bailac of the Moabites
35:30 tried to get him to curse Israel, but he couldn't do it. But Balam, who didn't even know God, he said, "God is not a
35:35 man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should change his mind.
35:40 Does he speak and not then then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? Even a
35:46 lost man knew that this is what God is." God does not lie. What he says, he does.
35:52 And so we we need to know what does God say? What has he said?
35:60 Getting back to this son. Remember that first son who uh didn't clean up his room.
36:05 Couple years passed. He's uh finishing high school. Just graduated from form
36:10 six as they call it here in Malaysia. Uh senior in high school, finished classes and he's getting ready to go off to
36:16 university or the uni as you call it here. I've learned a lot of melee. Um
36:23 Uh, and he says, "Hey, Dad. Dad, dad, you know, I'm I'm going to university in
36:29 three months here and uh I'll be living uh just off campus and probably getting a job, too. I'd like to come home and
36:35 visit here." You know, we're about two-hour drive from the school. He said, "Dad, I need a car." You know, the son didn't have money. His dad was a rich
36:41 man. Get everything he needed. So, he said, "Dad, I need a car." Dad says, "Mhm, okay. Appreciate you
36:50 telling me that." you know, doesn't do anything. So, the son said, "Well, what's what's going on here?" You know,
36:55 a few days later, he said, "Hey, Dad, you know, uh, son, you don't need to say anything. I I
37:01 remember what you asked me the other day. I've got this book here for you, son. Automobile maintenance manual." Okay,
37:09 son. I I want you to take this book and read it. Okay? Take the book and read it. Now, dad doesn't say anything about
37:16 giving him a car. He just says, "Take the book and read it." Some textbook said,
37:22 What's What's with the old man, you know? I mean, he knows I need a car. I'm
37:27 not going to be fixing it myself, you know? I mean, this book probably says some things I probably need to know, and
37:33 maybe sometime I'll get around to read, but I need a car now. Yeah. What's the sense in having a manual if you don't have a car? He's not very happy with
37:40 dad. Well, a month goes by. Hey, and the sons come say, "Dad, have you thought more about the car?" He said, "Son, have
37:47 you read the book that the auto miner Oh, no, Dad. You know, I have I just been so busy of the summer with this
37:53 part-time job pumping gas down at the gas station. Son, read the book.
37:59 Okay. Okay, Dad. I'll read the book. Well, another month goes by, you know, it's end of July, university starting in
38:07 uh early September. And the son says, uh, the father said, "Hey, son, it's
38:14 getting close to un have you read the book?" Said, "No, Dad, but I need a car. I'm
38:20 not really interested in reading the book. Said, "Son, read the book." Well,
38:26 finally, you know, out of desperation, the boy opens up the book and starts reading from page one. They talking
38:32 about if the little red light comes on up there, shut off the engine because you're low on oil. If you keep running, you will you'll ruin the engine. Teaches
38:40 you how to uh change a flat tire. That's just really great news that, you know, this is almost like they're reading the
38:45 book of Leviticus here. Um, and uh, I'm sorry, Lord. It's a good book. It's a
38:51 good book. He learned a lot of stuff out of Leviticus. Far be it for me to denigrate anything in the word of God.
38:57 Okay, I shouldn't have said that. He'll tell me about that tonight. Um,
39:03 but finally in the book, he comes to this.
39:09 He said, "Wow, wow."
39:18 And this is what he reads. Son, and he finds this three places in the book. I
39:24 will give you a car if you come to me and ask politely, saying, "Father, I
39:30 have read the book. I have found your promise to give me a car. Based on your
39:37 promise to me, will you please give me a car?
39:42 If you ask this, I will give you a car.
39:48 He didn't know what was in the book, but when he read the book, he found the promise.
39:55 He goes and asked dad said, "Dad, thank you.
40:00 Thank you, Dad. May I have a car?
40:06 Yes, son. Let's go get a car.
40:13 We have the book. And we have the most amazing God who
40:21 loves to do good for his children.
40:26 He loves us to come to B. But he said, "Son and daughters, I want to do so much
40:32 for you, and I'm ready. There are many things that I want to do in you and through you
40:38 that will bless you and bless others through your life.
40:44 Keep your room clean and read the book because in the book
40:50 are the promises. the promises that we can claim. There's the commands and the principles that we
40:58 must obey and live by in obedience so that we keep living a life of a clean
41:05 room. And we come to God in humility
41:11 and say, "Lord, I've read your promises, please."
41:18 And he says, "Yes." And we say, "Thank you.
41:23 We are so privileged to have a God who hears prayer.
41:31 It's not like the poor Buddhist monk friend of mine in Ven Laos when I said who hears your prayers. He said I guess
41:37 nobody. Nobody. How many you know if you you talk to the
41:44 majority people in this land this this yesterday was the big day for them big
41:52 day for them they think uh that 27th day of the uh
41:58 of the fast day when our sins are going to be forgiven you know
42:04 it's not in the book not like that they don't know the God of the book
42:11 we We have an amazing God and there's so many things that he wants to do in this
42:20 land. The majority of the people in this land don't know the God of the book of the
42:29 of the Zabur.
42:34 We know him. There's a lot of things we need to pray for. Let's keep our room
42:39 clean. and know the boat. Stay in it every day.
42:44 Every day of your life. Don't let anything at all in your life interfere
42:49 with the time that God wants to spend with you and that you that we need to
42:55 spend with him. Through this, we get to love our father and he loves
43:01 us even more deeply if that's possible. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the
43:06 book, but most of all, we thank you for your for your son that you sent into the
43:13 world 2,000 years ago. You came to make it possible for us to
43:19 be your children by paying for our sins on the cross,
43:25 rising from the dead, proclaiming liberty and freedom and
43:31 salvation. Thank you, Lord, for all the the injunctions, all of the commands, all of
43:37 the principles that we know in your word and for the promises that you have made to us. Father, I pray for my brothers
43:45 and sisters in Christ here this day at First Baptist Church of Sub. Bless them.
43:52 May they all be disciples who walk so close to you every day Lord that through
43:57 this body of Christ your name and your word will be honored for we pray this in
44:04 Jesus name. Amen.
