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It reads, From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust and have not, ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. Ye fight in war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses know ye not that the friendship of the world is at many with God. Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. What I want to preach about this morning is prayer. And specifically I want to preach about how to have your prayers be answered. Now, any of us who prays about anything, obviously what we want is for our prayer to be answered. Now, if you don't want that, then you don't understand prayer. A lot of people think that prayer is just a ritual or an exercise that we go through. There are religions in this world like Islam and Catholicism that involve repetitive prayers. You know, just bowing down and chanting words. Not really trying to affect any kind of change, but rather just to go through a ritual. Oh, I'm supposed to do this five times a day. I'm supposed to point my rug this way. I'm supposed to rub these beads. Whatever. And the Bible says, when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them. He's saying don't be like that. For your heavenly Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask it. And so if you look at the word prayer, notice in the passage I just quoted, it's related to the word ask. And if you study the word pray throughout the Bible, a lot of times you'll see that it's one person talking to another. Nothing to do with God. They will be speaking to another person and they will say I pray thee. When they're asking for a favor. Sort of like saying please. Because to pray means to ask. And the reason that we pray is because we want our prayers to be answered. And we ask because we want to receive. Not to just go through an exercise. Not to go through a ritual. Therefore, if we're going to spend the time praying, we want to make sure that we get our prayers answered because that's the whole point. That's the idea. The Bible says here, ye have not at the end of verse two, because ye ask not. That right there proves that praying can change circumstances. And change things and cause us to receive things. Now Calvinism will teach something else. They teach like these other religions. It's just an exercise we go through. God's already decided what he's going to do. And we go through this exercise wrong. Many times in the Bible, God changes course when man prays. When man intercedes. Moses is a great example in Exodus 30. We could go through all those examples. That's not the purpose of the sermon. But when we pray, we ask that we might receive. Now God right here tells us a few reasons why someone might not receive. And there are a lot of other ones we're going to go over. First of all, it says in James 4 verse 2, ye have not because ye ask not. Now that's kind of a no-brainer. If you're not praying, you're not going to receive. You're missing out on things that God asked for you. You're missing out on help that can come and be there in times of trouble. You're missing out on comfort and strength that God can give you when you're in times of weakness. You're missing out on physical needs that you might have that could be met by the Lord because you're not asking. And so we need to realize that first of all, God expects us to pray. He's not just going to automatically give us what we need. He wants us to ask. Now a lot of people, they don't like to ask for anything. Now that's pride. And God demands of his people humility. Now first of all, to be saved, you must be humble. It's impossible to be saved without being humble. You say, well, how does that work? I thought you said believe. Yeah, but in order to believe that you are a sinner that deserves hell and that you have no chance of earning your way in heaven, guess what? In order to believe that, you have to be a humble person because people who aren't humble, they don't believe that. People that are not humble people, people that are proud, they think that they are good enough to go into heaven on their own merits or their own goodness. And so in order to get to heaven, you have to be humble. You must humble yourself before the Lord and realize I am nothing. You are everything when it comes to getting into heaven. And so that's humility. But going forward, God wants us to continue to be humble people. God resisted the proud, but give it grace to the humble. He says just a few verses later there in verse six. Tie it into this, okay? And so if we are proud, we don't want to ask for anything. If we're humble, we'll go and say please and ask God to give us what we need. So we have not because we ask not. God wants us to ask him. He's not going to automatically give us things unless we ask, according to verse two there. Now let me read you a scripture quickly that highlights the fact that not praying is a sin. Of course, the Bible commands us flat out. He says pray without ceasing. And so that's a command to pray right there. But also back in the Old Testament, Samuel says in 1 Samuel 12 23, Moreover, as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you. Did you hear that? So Samuel said if I ceased to pray for you, that would be a sin against the Lord. He said, but I will teach you the good in the right way. So first of all, we see that not praying is the problem with some people not getting their prayers answered because they're not praying. They're not receiving because they're not asking. But look at the next verse. It says in verse three, yes. So now we're talking about people who are praying, but yet their prayers are not being answered. Now, many faith healers and televangelists will tell you, hey, anything you pray for, you just automatically receive it. There's no condition upon it, just asking you shall receive. That is not biblical because right here the Bible says you ask and receive not. So is it possible to pray for something and not receive it? Absolutely. He says you ask and receive not. And he explains one reason why. Because you ask amidst that you may consume it upon your lust. He's saying you're asking for the wrong things. Now, go through Matthew 7 and we'll see this again. He's saying you're not receiving what you ask for because you're asking for the wrong things. That you may consume it upon your lusts. See, when you're praying for things to fulfill your fleshly lusts, that's not the kind of prayer that God's interested in answering. He says right after that, ye adulterous and adulterous. Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. He's saying praying that God will fulfill your lusts is actually putting you in enmity with God. It's putting you in the boat of the worldly people. And that's not what God has given us prayer to accomplish. And this is highlighted again in Matthew 7, beginning in verse number 7, where the Bible reads, ask and it shall be given to you. Now, let's not just stop there, right? A lot of people take scripture out of context. That's when they miss the point. We can't just stop and ask and it shall be given to you. Let's keep reading. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Sounds like a carte blanche to me so far, but if you keep reading, he says, or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If he then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father, which is in heaven, give what? Good things. Is he going to give anything? Just gives everything. No. He said he'll give good things to them that ask him. Yes, it is true that everyone that asketh receive it. You know, if I were to take my children as an example, as Jesus used here, if my children were to ask me for bread, I'm not going to give them a stone. If they ask me for fish, I'm not going to give them a serpent. Everyone that asketh is going to receive in my family, right? Now, if the neighbor kid asks, is he going to receive every time? No. But my own children, if they ask me for bread, I will give them bread, everyone that asketh receive it. But does that mean I'm just going to give them anything they ask for, no matter what it is? But what if they ask me for good things? If they ask for good things, I will give them good things if it's within my power. I have limited power. God's power is unlimited, so he can give us any good thing. He has no limits upon his power. Now, go to 1 Peter chapter 3, if you would, toward the end of the New Testament. 1 Peter chapter 3. How is it that we can get our prayers answered? What is it that causes God to answer the prayers of some and not of those? First of all, we must ask. Number two, we must ask for good things. We must ask for right things. We need to ask for things that are according to his will, that are not things to just feast our lusts upon, but rather things that are actually helpful and good for us. Look at 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 12. The Bible reads, For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers. But the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. Now, let me ask you this. According to that scripture right there, are God's ears open unto everyone's prayers? No. He said that the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers. But the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. You know, when you talk about the face of the Lord being against you, it reminds me of exactly what he said in the passage on prayer in James 4, when he said, The adulterers and adulteresses know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God. That's how your face said against God, enmity there. He says, Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. So when we are at enmity with God, he's not listening to our prayers. He does not hear our prayers, okay? But when we are doing righteousness, his ears are open unto our prayers. Now, if you would, jump back to the Old Testament, back to the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 28. Go to Proverbs 28. While you're turning to Proverbs 28, the Bible reads in Psalm 66 18, If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. Now, this is a person that's saved, is it not? This is a child of God. This is David speaking, and he says, If I, David, regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. So not only is not praying a problem, not only is it a problem when we're asking for the wrong things, but honestly, if we are living a worldly and sinful life, a life that is characterized by worldliness, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, adultery, all the things that God has told us not to do that he would classify as evil or wickedness, if we have iniquity in our heart, the Bible says the Lord will not hear us. Part of the problem of getting our prayers answered could be sin in our life. Sin in our life can prevent us from having our prayers answered by God. So listen to this. If there's something that you really need from God, and you are earnestly desiring for God to hear and answer your prayers, one of the best things that you could do is to get sin out of your life. Purge iniquity out of your heart, purge sin out of your life. None of us is perfect, but we need to examine ourselves, find the sins in our life, find the things in our life that are displeasing to God, and confess them to God, and say we're sorry, and confess and forsake our sins. Obviously we're not going to be perfect, but the more iniquity and sin we have in our heart, the less our prayers are going to be answered. It's a biblical concept. There's a lot more scripture here. Look at Proverbs 28, 9. The Bible reads, He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination. That's a pretty strong word there when he says that your prayer is abomination. Not only is God not hearing your prayers when you're living just a completely sinful and wicked life where you don't want to hear what God says, you don't want to hear the Bible preached. He says not only that, your prayer is actually offensive to him. I mean it's not just that he's just ignoring it or just stopping his ears at your cries. That would be bad enough, but actually it angers him. It bothers him. An abomination means that it's something that basically is disdainful to him or disgusting to him. He doesn't want it. It's irritating would be another word that we could use. It bothers him. He doesn't want to hear it because it's disrespectful. Think about this. What if my children disobeyed all my rules, were disrespectful to me, and said, Dad, I don't want to hear what you have to say. It said here, somebody turned their ear away from hearing the law. I don't even want to hear what you have to say, Dad. Now go make me a sandwich. Now give me bread. Now give me fish. Now give me food. I'm going to say, no, you're going to bed without dinner. My parents are the same for thousands of years. Why? Because we need to understand that God is not just someone that's up in heaven to just give us everything that we want as we don't give him what he wants. As we disrespect him and we don't obey him. We don't give him the glory to do his thing, and then we just expect him to just jump when we need something. If we want him to do something for us, we need to get under his rules. We need to get under his laws. First, we need to listen to it, by the way. You can't even obey God's laws unless you hear God's laws, because it's a big book. And many people today, they'll reject Bible preaching. They'll reject the type of preaching that goes on in this church, and they don't want to hear it. Not because they don't like me. And there are some people who don't like me. God bless them. Go find another biblical church of someone that you do like. But a lot of people, they think they don't like me, but it's not me that they don't like. It's the laws that they don't like. It's the word that they don't like. They could not endure that which was commanded. You know, you remember in the Old Testament, when the Lord spake unto the people out of the mound, they didn't want to hear God speak. The voice was too much for them. They didn't like that voice, and they didn't want to hear it. But in the book of Hebrews, it says, for they could not endure that which was commanded. So according to the book of Hebrews, it wasn't the voice that bothered them. It was what the voice was saying. You know, a lot of people say, oh, I got to leave that church because you're yelling too much. But honestly, it's what's being yelled about that causes people sometimes to leave. And I'm not saying that anybody who leaves this church is not right with God if they go to another Bible preaching church that fits their needs. But you know what? Honestly, a lot of people just don't like to hear sin reviewed. They just don't like it. And look, isn't that what the law of the Lord is? I mean, what part of the Bible do you think these people are turning their ear away from? When it says they're turning away their ear from hearing the law of the Lord, you think that they just didn't want to hear that part about love thy neighbor? They didn't want the laws. What are laws? What's another word for laws? It begins with an R. Rules. Rules. It's like they don't want to hear the rules. They don't want to hear that God has a right and wrong and good and bad. And so they reject that. And they say, I'm going to live my life the way I want to live my life. I'm going to do what's right in my own eyes. And God, will you please help me and give me this, this, that, and the other? He said, wait, you don't want to hear what I have to say. You don't want to live by my rules. I'm not going to hear your prayers. And so that's a big thing when it comes to getting your prayers answered, is getting sin and iniquity out of your life. None of us is perfect. God knows that we're flesh. God knows that we are dust. But he does expect us to listen to him. I don't expect my children to be perfect. But I do expect them to respect me and follow the rules and at least make an effort. Now, can we lose our salvation? No. But is God going to answer our prayers when we're disrespecting him and disrespecting his word? Absolutely not. There's so much that the Bible says about this. Go to Micah chapter 3. And while you're turning to Micah 3 toward the end of the Old Testament there in the Minor Prophets, 1 Samuel chapter 8 gives a similar teaching. In 1 Samuel chapter 8, if you remember, this is when the people had desired a king over them that they might be like unto the other nations. Well, God had already given them laws that explained to them a system of government that did not include a king. God said, I'll be your king. I'll be your lawgiver. I'm your priest. And God was to rule over the people. And they demanded a king. And God told Samuel, don't be offended, Samuel. He said, they've not rejected you from ruling over them. They rejected me from ruling over them. That's the way God looked at it. They didn't want to hear his law. So then Samuel in 1 Samuel chapter 8 begins to warn the people about how things are not going to be better when they have a king. In fact, things are going to be worse. And these are all the things you're not going to like about it. And he goes on and on and on about how everything's going to be bad when they have a king. And he says this in verse number 18. He says, you shall cry out in that day because of your king, which he shall have chosen you, and the Lord will not hear you in that day. So a lot of times God will warn us, hey, if you do this, this is going to happen. If you push the button, the light bulb's going to come on. And we get that warning, and we say, you know, I'm going to do it my way anyway. Even though God's telling me clearly not to do it, I'm going to do it anyway. And then we cry out to God, say, God, help me. You know, a lot of times God says, hey, I'm sorry, you didn't listen. And we have to reap the consequences of our actions. So what is that to say this? It's all to tell you that we need to get sin out of our lives if we want God to really answer our prayers. And I'm going to get to the fact a little bit later why we want God to answer our prayers. He's all-powerful. I mean, he can do so many things. Look at Micah 3, verse 1. It says, and I said, here I pray you. And here's another good example of the word pray being used by a human to another person, just basically saying, please hear me, is what he means. He's saying, here I ask of you, is what he means there. Here I pray you, Micah 3-1. O heads of Jacob and ye princes of the house of Israel, is it not for you to know judgment, who hate the good and love the evil? That sounds pretty bad, huh? Who pluck off their skin from off them and their flesh from off their bones, who also eat the flesh of my people and play their skin from off them, and they break their bones and chop them up in peaches as for the pot and as flesh within the cauldron. Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but he will not hear them. He will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings. Another scripture that clearly says, God will not hear those who are wicked. Now these people, they sound like they're probably not even saved. I mean, these people are probably really wicked, reprobate, godless people. But still, he says, I'm not going to hear you because of your sin, because of your wickedness. Go, if you would, to Psalm 18. Psalm chapter 18. While you're turning there, I'll read for you from 2 Samuel 22, 41, the Bible reads, Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies, this is David speaking, that I might destroy them that hate me. They looked, but there was none to save, even unto the Lord, but he answered them not. Then did I beat them as small as the dust of the earth, I did stamp them as the mire of the street, and did spread them abroad. Look down there at Psalm 18, verse 40. Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me. They cried, but there was none to save them, even unto the Lord. And look at that Lord all in all finals. I mean, they're calling out to the Lord himself by me. But he says he's not going to answer them. He answered them not. Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind, I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets. Go to 1 Peter, chapter 3, toward the end of the New Testament. 1 Peter 3.7, while you're turning there, I'll quote you a familiar verse. 1 John 3.22, the Bible reads, And whatsoever we ask, we receive of them. And would to God we could say that. Hey, whatsoever we ask, we receive of them. That's a great testimony. But he says this, because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. That's why whatsoever we ask, we receive of them. Look at 1 Peter 3.7, Likewise ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered. So right there, God is showing that our actions, even within our marriage, could cause our prayers to be hindered. What does it mean to slow down, stopped, prevented? And it says here that if we don't, as husbands, dwell with our wives according to knowledge, give honor unto our wives as unto the weaker vessel, basically what he's saying there, giving honor to the wife as unto the weaker vessel, what he's saying is, you know, I'm not saying for you to be subservient unto her. But he's saying you ought to be honoring and respectful toward your wife, and give her the honor. And what is honor? I mean, respect, okay? Giving her basically the respect and admiration that she deserves, and he says that we are heirs together in the grace of life, and if we don't, he says our prayers could be hindered. So basically, if you treat your wife poorly, okay, and look, just because the Bible says the husband's the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, and that as the church is subject unto Christ, the wives should be to their own husbands and everything, but here's the thing, does that mean that we should treat our wife poorly? No. See, a lot of times people misunderstand things just because something is, you know, cut and dry that says, hey, I'm the boss, I'm the head, obviously the wife is supposed to obey. That doesn't mean that we should treat our wife poorly. Look, didn't Jesus have all power, all authority, all glory? Yet, remember when he made himself in the form of a servant? Remember how he humbled himself and served his disciples? He said, if I've washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet, because if Jesus Christ, the God of the universe, made flesh, could basically kneel down before his disciples and wash their feet, which is obviously a humbling activity. He said, if I can do this for you, then you ought to be able to do this for one another. And so was Jesus relinquishing his authority by washing the disciples' feet? Was he saying you guys are the boss now? But he was still loving, caring, and he said, I came not to be ministered unto, but I came to minister and to give my life a ransom for many. You see, the pastor of the church, although a leader, should be serving the people, you know, teaching the word of God for their benefit, helping the church grow and move forward and guiding in a way that's not being a lord over God's heritage, but being an ensemble to the flock, something that's helpful to the flock, something that's beneficial to the flock, not someone who serves themselves of the flock, okay? And the same thing applies with marriage. You know, our goal in getting married is not to have a servant that's basically there to just serve us, okay? Now, obviously, our wife ends up serving us. I mean, she cooks, she cleans, she takes care of the house. Obviously, that's helpful to us. We pay the bills. That's our end of the bargain. We go out and work by the sweat of our brow and put food on the table. Obviously, both of us have our roles. Both of us have our functions. But we should treat our wife with dignity and respect and kindness, love, affection, spend time with our wife. Well, do we have to? You should want to. You're supposed to want to. And that's how the Bible says husbands love your wives, even as Christ loved them. If you love your wife, you're going to want to do things for your wife. You're going to want to make your life better. You're not just going to want to just say no to your wife. Just for the sake of saying no. Just to show that I can. No. I mean, look, there are times, and look, if you're a husband and the word no is not in your vocabulary, hey, that's another problem that you need to fix. You need to learn the word no. But honestly, the way I live my life is that if my children or my wife, if they want something and I have the power to give it to them, I give it to them. I'm not just in the business of purposely withholding things from my wife or my children just to show that I can. And the reason why, one reason, is partially because I love my wife and children. I want them to be happy. And so if I can do something that's going to make them happy, I'm going to do it. You know, if I have two options, and either option will work, and either option will be pleasing to God, and my wife likes one option and she doesn't like the other option, you know, why wouldn't I just go with all things being equal? Just go with the option that my wife likes. That's going to make her happier. Why not? Because the Bible says, therefore, and this is in the context of prayer now, He says, in fact, let's go there. I should have read it. This wasn't even in my sermon, but it actually fits perfectly. Go to Matthew 7, because this actually ties in perfectly with what we're looking at. I didn't even include this. I quit reading. I read you Matthew 7, 7 through 11. I didn't even read you verse 12, but let's tie it in because that has everything to do with what I'm saying. He says in verse 11, let's repeat it, if you then be evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him? Look at the next word in verse 12, therefore. Now, therefore, whenever you see the word therefore, you need to see what it's there for, okay? It's tying in something that was just said. It's a conjunction relating what's about to be said with what has been said. And he says, therefore, because of the fact that God will give good things unto his children, just as we give good things unto our children, he says, therefore, all things whatsoever he would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets. So right there we see that the golden rule, so called, the famous passage that everybody knows about the golden rule, people often quoted in a more dumbed down version, do unto others as you have them do unto you. I like to quote it the way the Bible. I encourage you to memorize this verse and quote it the way the Bible has it. It's obviously in its perfect form. Why tamper with it? And so when the Bible says, therefore, all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. Think about that. If people ask me for things, if people ask me for help, if my wife asks me for something, or my children ask me for something, just think about this. Well, when I ask God for stuff, do I want him to give it to me? You know what I mean? And so here's the thing. Sometimes we know best about what our children need, though. We know that our children, we don't want our children to become spoiled, so we don't just give them everything that they want, right? Well, guess what? God's thinking the same thing about you. He doesn't want you to get spoiled, so he doesn't give you everything that you want, okay? And so you have to think of it that way. And so if my wife is always coming to me and asking me for things that are good things, that are things that would be legitimate things that she would like to have, and it's within my power to give them, and I'm always just saying no, no, no, because I'm just not a generous person, I'm just a self-centered person that wants everything to be my way all the time, okay, then that's going to affect how God is with me. You know? I mean, if I'm not giving to others, if I'm not generous with my wife, if I'm not giving honor unto her as the weaker vessel, God said my prayers will be hindered. Because if I'm treating my wife poorly, then God's going to look at that and say, well, this guy doesn't treat others very well. You know, why would I treat him well, okay? Because God treats us in the way that we treat other people. And so that could be another aspect to having our prayers hindered. First of all, not praying. Second of all, praying for the wrong things. Third of all, having a life filled with sin. Fourth of all, treating other people badly is going to cause God to be less generous with us because of the way we treat other people. The Bible says, give and it shall be given unto you. Good measure pressed down. And let me say this, we often think of that as giving unto the church. You know, I mean, hey, if we give to church, it will be given unto us, okay? That's how we often apply it. But when the Bible says, give and it shall be given unto you, a lot of that's just talking about giving to other people. When the Bible used the word, for example, giving alms, alms is not even talking about giving to church. Alms is talking about giving to the poor, giving to other people. And when he says, give and it shall be given unto you, he's not just saying giving to the Lord and it shall be given unto you. Because the Bible says in the book of Proverbs, he that giveth unto the poor lendeth to the Lord. Are you listening? He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord and what the Lord, and I'm paraphrasing, but he basically says what the Lord borrowed, he's going to pay back. And so when you give to the poor, God will pay you back. That's what the Bible says. And so our generosity to others can have an impact on God's generosity toward us, okay? And so we should be kind and loving to our wives. Give them things, okay? Does that mean that we have to give them what they have? And wives will go home and say, the pastor said, give me this. I'm just joking. Obviously, it's not a have to thing, okay? It's a thing of, hey, why wouldn't we if we love our wives? Why wouldn't we want to show them a good time? Why wouldn't we want to give them nice things if it's within our power? They work hard. They do a lot of things for us, you know? It's not going to hurt our authority to humble ourselves and be nice like Jesus did, okay, by washing the disciples' feet. That's not going to make us have any less respect or dignity or authority. I mean, let me ask you this. Do you respect Jesus less because he did that? Is anybody in this room saying, well, you know, I thought that Jesus was, you know, this high and mighty King of Kings, Lord of Lords, but, you know, I don't know, it's just so degrading when you wash the disciples' feet. I just feel like I can't respect him the same way anymore. Does anybody feel that way? No. So that's what I'm saying, okay? We can still be kind and serving without people respecting us less. In fact, people will respect us more. I love Jesus more because of that story, okay? And would to God, we would have leaders in America that would want to serve us, right, instead of just serving themselves of us. It'd be great to have pastors across America who want to serve the people, not to be served all the time. Okay? It'd be great if we had fathers who saw themselves as someone who's providing a good life for their wife, providing a good life for their children, not just, hey, these are my wife and children that are here to please me all the time. No, obviously they're going to please us. They're going to work for us. They're going to do things for us. But you know what? We should turn around. And if we want to be the greatest husband of all, we're going to be a servant. We're going to be out of our own free will, not being forced to. And if somebody else is forcing you to do it, well, that's enslavement. But when you do it of your own volition, hey, that's respect-worthy. That's praiseworthy. When you humble yourself and are loving and kind and serving to other people, that's a great thing. That's generosity is great. And I could go so many different ways. I want to stay on prayer. But let me just briefly say this. A lot of times, people that are very politically minded and they think a lot about politics and so forth, they sometimes get some bad ideas. And maybe it's a little bit of a rabbit trail. But some people, because they're such an apologist and a defender of the capitalist system, which obviously, hey, I'm all for it. I believe in it. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for the free market capitalism. But then we'll start basically defending people and become an apologist for people who are greedy and who do abuse people. And so here's the thing. Do I think that the government should rein in all these people? No, because the government just makes things worse every time they touch anything. But does that mean that it's OK to be a greedy person who abuses your workers? I mean, you see what I mean? So we need to draw a line between our political views of what a government should do and what's right and wrong. We shouldn't, this guy has every right to be abusive to his workers and to pinch every penny and to not pay them what they're worth and to put out garbage products and rip everybody off and say, look, just because we don't want big government, though, that guy should be controlling himself. And that guy needs to read the Bible. The Bible says to sell all you have and give it to the poor so that you'll have treasure in heaven. You remember that verse? That doesn't mean that we want to confiscate the wealth of the rich. And so people need to draw this line. And not get so into right-wing politics that they don't forget that, wait a minute, I'm not supposed to be greedy, though. I'm supposed to be generous. I'm supposed to be giving. I'm supposed to be helping my brother. Not because I have to, because I want to. No one should ever be forced to. But that doesn't change the fact that it's the right thing to do to give money to the poor, to be nice, to help other people, and so forth. And I hope that that makes sense to you. I hope you understand that. But let's move on on prayer quickly here. So we saw several reasons why people's prayers are not being answered. Let's look at it from a different perspective of getting our prayers answered. How to get our prayers answered. Well, first of all, we could just take the reverse of every point we've had so far and say pray. You know, the more you pray, the better. The Bible talks about the story, and I'm not going to turn there for the sake of time, about a woman who needed a judge to step in. You know, she basically was being abused. She was being taken advantage of. And she was trying to go to court, and she wasn't getting any justice. You know, I mean, that does happen. And so she's going to court. This judge, he's on the take. He's a corrupt judge. Now, there aren't any more of those today on the planet. But back then, there were corrupt judges that were actually taking bribes and on the take. And so this judge did not fear God. He did not fear man. He was on the take. He was a corrupt, crooked judge. But the Bible says this woman just bugged him every day. And finally, he said, you know what? I'm going to help this woman for one reason, just to get her off my back. I mean, just because of the fact that I'm sick of her coming back. It reminds me, one time, I worked a job. And this is when I was a teenager. I worked at a pizza restaurant. And there was a guy who came in, and he asked for a job every day. And he was a guy who was handicapped. You know, he had a lot of seizures. And so he was mentally very slow. Really nice guy, but just really slow. Not all there, OK? He was definitely handicapped. And this guy came in, applied for a job. You know, they didn't give him the job. He came in again. He came in again. He came in again. I mean, this guy came in over and over and over. And finally, they just hired the guy. You know, he just kept bugging him when they hired the guy. And they hired this guy. You know, they'd have him work several days a week. I mean, he did OK. I mean, he didn't do a bad job. I mean, obviously, he was not as effective as other workers could have been because of his disability. And so he would move very slowly, get distracted easily. He was able to perform in functions. He was able to do the jobs. And he was a funny guy. You could talk to him and everything. You could talk to him and have a normal conversation with him. But you'd say something, and you'd have to give him several seconds to register what you just said. You'd say something and just kind of wait. Then it would click with him. And then you'd keep talking. You know, I got a lot of funny stories about that guy. But this sermon is not out of the time that was placed. But anyway, doesn't that show you how just persistence can pay off? And here, the Bible says, well, if that judge who was corrupt did that for this woman, he says, how much more is your Father in heaven going to avenge his elect that cry unto him day and night? You know, is he not going to hear you? So praying not only one time, but praying again and repeatedly praying and asking God to hear you is there. OK? So that's the reverse of the first point. The second point about praying for the wrong things, obviously we need to ask for the right things, things that we know that are good according to the Bible, things that God wants us to have. OK? Number three, if sin is holding us back from getting our prayers answered, give the sin out of our life. OK? Number four, be generous with others. Give unto others. Help others. And then say, OK, God, I'm giving. I'm generous. Now, can you help me with my need? And he'll be generous. People that are generous are going to get their prayers answered from God. That's a biblical concept. But not only that, there are some other ways that our prayers can be answered. OK, go to James 1. The Bible says in one of the four gospels, I don't have it in front of me, in the book of Luke in one chapter or other, go to James 1. But he talks about the fact that the disciples came to him. And I just preached on this recently. That's why it's in my mind. But he said, if you have faith, they asked him to increase their faith. And he said, if you have faith of a grain of a mustard seed, you'd say to this mountain, removed out a yonder place, and it would be done. He said, if you have enough faith, basically you could move mountains. You could actually cause this sycamine tree to be plucked up by the roots and to be cast into the sea. So if we have faith, basically all things are possible to him that believe it. But he's looking at the disciples, which did they have some faith? His disciples? Well, they forsook everything they had and followed him. We'd look at that and say, well, that's a lot of faith. He looked at it and said, well, it's less than a grain of mustard seed. If you have faith of a grain of mustard seed, you'd say to this mountain, it ought to be removed. So there's always a lot more potential for us to grow in faith, is there not? If those kind of men had it, and they kept being called ye of little faith, ye of little faith, and you're thinking, man, they have more faith than me. We must be like nano-faith, microscopic faith compared to these people in the Bible that are doing greater things than we've done. But we did see some people in the Bible do some things that were almost on the level with having a mountain picked up and cast into the sea. How about when Joshua caused the sun to stand still? That is just as amazing. Really, if you were to look at the magnitude of the proportion, really making the sun stand still is actually a greater miracle than moving a mountain, because the sun is a lot bigger than a mountain. You're stopping the whole universe. You're stopping all these heavenly bodies that have been in motion non-stop. The Bible says that Joshua cried out, sun stand out still, and the Bible says that it was about the space of a whole day, that the sun stopped. And it said never again or before did God hearken to the voice of man like he did that day. So that's probably the number one prayer request in the Bible that was answered. Joshua asking the sun to be stopped. Yeah, Hezekiah made it go back 15 degrees. Wow. I mean, it's still big, obviously. But when you put it next to Joshua, you're kind of like, oh, not impressed. But anyway, obviously, it was a big miracle. Both of those things are unbelievably huge miracles. OK, I like what Hezekiah said. He said, well, if it goes forward 15 degrees, that's not that impressive. It could go backwards. So at least we have a little more faith, which is a little harder. But those are amazing miracles. That shows the power of prayer. What about Elijah, who was a man of light passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly. Did he pray flippantly or casually? No, he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not upon the earth. I mean, look, I know it's not raining here today, but it's raining somewhere. But when he prayed earnestly, he said it rained not upon the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he said, he prayed again, the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. And it says the effectual fervent prayer. That's talking about the persistence, the earnestness of our praying, the earnestness being seriousness. He says the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man. That goes back to the thing about getting sin out of our life. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Go to James 1. The Bible says in James chapter 1, verse 5, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that give it to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. But, see, if you just read verse 5 by itself, it's like, hey, if you ask, it's on its way. But if you read the next verse, it says, but let him ask in faith, not during wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive wisdom of the Lord? Is that what it says? No, it says let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. So there is an element of faith involved in prayer. There has to be some faith there in order for you to receive what you're asking for, okay? You cannot pray and waver and doubt. You pray without doubting. You pray with as much faith as you can muster up because that is part of getting your prayers answered. God wants to see our faith. That's the fifth point. Faith is how we get our prayers answered. Believing that God wants our prayers answered. When I was a kid, I grew up in my young years in an independent fundamental Baptist church. But I don't remember a whole lot of the sermons. Because you know how it is. When you're a kid and then 20, 30 years go by, I'm turning 31 on Tuesday. 30 years later, 20 some years later, it's hard to remember sermons. But I do remember just a few things. There's just certain things you pick up on as a little kid. And I probably wasn't listening as well as I should have. Some kids are probably not listening like they should right now. But anyway, I remember this one point that the pastor made when I was a little kid. He said, faith is when you pray. This is what he said. He said, faith is when your wife is pregnant and you pray that it's a girl and you paint the room pink. He said that's faith. Basically what he's saying is, and it was a joke. But what he's trying to express is that you pray believing that you'll receive what you're asking for. And so he said, pray that it's a girl and then paint the room pink. Okay. And that's basically showing, hey, I believe God's gonna answer my question. That's obviously a silly thing to pray for. Because what does it matter whether you have a boy or a girl. It's like I asked this one guy one time. I said, so do you want it to be a boy or a girl? And he said, I don't care if it's a boy or a girl just so long as he's healthy. Wait a minute. He's like, that's not what I meant. I got you. So faith is involved. We need to believe that God's able to answer us. You know what I've noticed about soul winning too? Because we pray when we go soul winning, don't we? And that's a serious part of soul winning. We pray for God to lead. We pray for God to direct us and guide us. Now look, God can't make people get saved. That's their choice. That's up to them. But I'll tell you this. When we pray for God to lead us, he can direct us to the one whose heart is tender, the one who's got the time available to listen to us and to hear us. That's why our prayer comes into soul winning. And we can also pray that we will have goldness, that we will be filled with the Spirit, that we will preach as we need to preach, that we will be guided and directed. And when we pray, when we go soul winning, you know what I've noticed? People who go out soul winning, not expecting anybody to get saved, expecting to be a failure. And I don't know if you've been exposed to this or not, but I've seen a lot of people go soul winning. I'm not talking about our church, but other places where they go out and they expect to fail. Like somebody gets saved and they're shocked. Wow, somebody got saved. It's amazing. It's great to be excited when people get saved, but you know what? If you go out and knock a lot of doors and preach the gospel to every preacher, you're going to get people saved. It shouldn't come as a shock when somebody gets saved. But I'll tell you what, the people who go out with a defeated attitude, they don't get as many people saved as the one who says, we're going out to win souls. We're going out with confidence. He either goes forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheep with him. And that confidence in the Lord that he's going to lead us, that he's going to direct us, that he's going to guide us, that causes him to be more likely to answer that prayer because of our faith. Faith helps us to get our prayers answered. But quickly, just a couple more things. Go, if you would, to Matthew chapter 18. Here's another way to get our prayers answered. Because I mean, we ought to all be interested in this for whatever our own personal reasons. We might have different reasons why we're interested in this sermon, but we all have prayers that we want answered. We all have things that we need from God. We need God to step in and help us. And so, you know, your reasons for this sermon being applicable might be completely different from my reason. You might have a totally different need, but I guarantee you we all have a need that we want God to fill and that we want God to hear our prayers. This sermon applies to everybody. From the smallest child to the oldest senior citizen, not that we have any in our church, but Matthew 18 verse 18 says this, Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loose in heaven. Tell that to the Calvinist that says we have no power. Tell that to Calvinist that we have no role, we're just all puppets on screens, just robots carrying out God's will. You know what? Man can create a robot. God is greater than man because he created a flesh and blood human mind that has free will and a soul that decides. Computers can't decide. Computers just do what they're told or they can do random, but they can't decide the way that we decide. They cannot make a decision based on what they want to do. They don't have desires. God is so much greater than man because God created us with free will. Look, God gave us power in verse 18 right there. He says in verse 19, Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Now is that not saying that we can get our prayers answered by teaming up with someone else and praying? Isn't that what it says? It says if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. Now obviously the Bible definitely teaches that when we pray, we should enter into our closet, shut the door, pray to our Father which is in secret, and our Father which seeth in secret shall himself reward us openly. You know God, that's point seven. I mean how to get your prayers answered? Pray by yourself with the door shut that nobody knows about. That's a way to get your prayers answered. But another way to get your prayers answered is to team up with someone else and pray. You see God wants us to pray by ourselves in the closet with the door shut. He wants there to be praying that no one else knows about, that no one knows about. Because he wants to know that our prayers are for his benefit, not as a show to everyone else. That means there should be praying that we do that no one knows about, that no one has any idea about, that is just between us and God alone and he will see that, that we're praying to him alone and we're relying on him alone, he will answer that prayer. But there's another aspect. So look, it's not either or. Don't choose publicly or in private. It's both. Do both. Pray by yourself but also pray with others. You know and I've noticed the power of praying with someone else and I've seen God answer a prayer many times in an amazing way when I teamed up with someone else and prayed. You know when we agreed and said hey let's pray about this right now. Now you say how do you pray with other people? How does that work? And I got to hurry but quickly turn to I got to hurry not just because I'm worried so much about the comfort of you the congregation but you know I need to get home to my wife also so because she's only in the early stages but still you know when I get home she's in the early stages of labor. Very early stages right? All right brother Dave your phone's not ringing or anything? All right we're good to go then. He's the one who's taking the phone. Where did I return? Get my head back in the game here. Matthew 18 let's go to let's go to first Corinthians 14. There's so much in my notes and you know when you're preaching on a subject like prayer how do you how do you squeeze it all into one sermon? And that's why I started to write a sermon on prayer but I decided I'm just going to have to take one aspect getting your prayers answered because there's so many different levels of this subject. I just really want to hone in on this subject of getting your prayers answered and so I do want to cover a couple other things. Go to first Corinthians 14 and this is a a passage that has to do with the church and it's all about having a decent orderly church doing things right. There were a lot of things that were going on at the church of Corinth that were basically disrespectful. People didn't know how to behave themselves in the house of God. For example you have people bringing food and drink just basically treating it like a movie theater. You know popcorn and sodas is what they were doing and he says you know don't you have houses to eat and drink it. He said people were coming to church drunk. Can you believe that? In the church of Corinth people came to church drunk. I mean that's ridiculous. I mean God told the the whole testament priest he said if you drink wine or strong drink when you go into the tabernacle of the congregation I will kill you. Okay that's what he said to the priest and the church of Corinth people are showing up drunk. People are snacking. People are not treating it with proper respect. People were having like they were treating it like their own open mic karaoke. You know like a like a star search or an American idol where everybody just wants to get up and hear themselves talk and everybody wants to sing. Everybody wants to perform. Everybody's got a revelation. Everybody wants to preach. We're going to have 10 preachers this service and everybody everybody you know it was just a zoo and he's trying to get things under control and say look there's a maximum of two or three people are going to preach per service. He said you know you need when one person's preaching the other people need to be quiet and listen not be just bursting out interrupting not a dialogue of people competing for the mic. Okay he's just explaining a lot of things. He's explaining how they were trying to do it multilingual to an extreme where people are praying in foreign languages speaking foreign languages. Nobody even understands what they're saying and it's just a complete madhouse. He said God is not the author of confusion. Here's how you get it under control. They had women speaking women preaching. He said no men preach. So this church had a lot of issues like that and in the subject of speaking in an unknown tongue or speaking in a foreign language in that subject he says in verse 15 what is it then? I will pray with the spirit and he's talking about praying publicly out loud in the church. He says I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the understanding also. I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the understanding also. He said if we sing hymns they need to be in a language that we understand. You know I mean the most radical we might get is in excelsis Deo you know and that's not even in our hymnal so we've never sung that. But the bottom line is there are churches you can go and it's in a foreign language. Roman Catholic Church until recently all the sermons are in Latin the singing's in Latin and even didn't you go to a thing brother Dave where it's like Greek Orthodox and there's a lot of stuff going on in Greek that no I'm talking about going back to the Greek. They couldn't even understand the service because it's in Greek and so that's what this is dealing with. We shouldn't be singing in foreign languages unless we understand what's being said. We shouldn't be praying in foreign language. No one should stand up and pray in a foreign language unless there's an interpreter there to interpret what's being said and he says this in verse 16. Else we in our modern vernacular would say or else else when thou shalt bless with the spirit how shall he that occupied the room of the unlearned saying somebody who hasn't learned foreign languages. He says how shall he that occupied the room of the unlearned say amen at thy giving of thanks seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest for thou verily give us thanks well but the other is not edified. So here he mentions two things. He mentions praying and he mentions giving of thanks. Well that's simple because the Bible says be careful for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God. So when we pray and request things from God we should also spend that time thanking him for the things that he's already given. So when we pray we thank him for the things he's done then we request new things to be done. Now here the Bible is talking about doing this in the church publicly and notice the Bible talks about someone praying publicly, giving thanks publicly and then people saying amen to what was said. And what he's saying is if they're praying in a language you don't understand don't just say amen because who knows what you're amening. You know what I mean? It's like oh sign this oh okay you know it's like okay what am I signing? You know when you just say amen you say what does amen mean? Well amen is a term that's used 70 some times in the Bible and amen basically means truth. It basically means that it's true. So when I'm preaching and I make a point that people especially like then a lot of times you'll hear them shout amen basically saying hey that's right that's true I agree with that. Okay so what happens is when the brother Richard and I for example if we're going to get together and say hey brother Richard let's pray before we go soul winning. You know let's pray that God will direct us and lead us. We bow our heads and you know that doesn't mean we both just okay ready let's both start praying at the same time in our own words. Now that's a confusion right that's babbling okay. So what will happen is we might take turns praying or maybe one of us will do the praying. And basically let's bow our heads Richard I'll pray and then when I'm done praying I say amen and then Richard says amen. Why? He's basically saying God I'm agreeing with this this is my prayer also. And so when there's a prayer that's said in church people say amen at the end of the prayer saying I agree with that I'm part of that I was praying that in my heart with you okay. And so there is an aspect in the Bible of getting together and pray. Praying as a church and praying in a group of two or three okay. And this is not done in a way that and I've seen this jibber jabber where like 30 people are in a room and they all start praying out loud you know that doesn't make any sense okay. But what you can do is you can get together and pray one person says amen to the prayer of the other concept that I just showed you there right there of course 1st Corinthians 14. Saying amen and someone else is giving a thanks or prayer as is mentioned there. And so we need to also get that that's where the aspect of hey pray with me on this giving a prayer request to someone else and say hey can you pray for me about this and that I'm going to pray you don't have to be together. It can just be hey tomorrow I'm going into this situation can you be praying for me tomorrow I'm going to be praying you're going to be praying there's an agreement there even if we're not physically in the same location we're both praying for the same thing that has power right there according to the Bible that's another way to get it answered. And so a lot of thoughts today and I could go on I could show you more I've got pages of notes but I want you to just try to let these things sink in that I've given you. You know what we all need our prayers to be answered God can provide all our needs he can do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask for things the Bible says is what he has the power to do. He can exceed all of our expectations when we pray he can give us things that we didn't even think to ask but we need to make sure that our prayers aren't being slowed down and hindered by us being a stingy tightwad with others greedy stingy tight you say that's America that's capitalism no you're being a stingy tightwad no should it be legal yes but does that mean we should do it no a lot of things are legal that we shouldn't do it's legal to drink I don't drink it's legal to do drugs I don't do drugs you know yes it is legal the doctor just you know scribble something on a pad and then you do it but anyway what the bottom line is that we need to get the sin out of our life we need to get the faith to realize God can move mountains all things are possible to him to believe it we need to ask for good things and we need to pray believing we need to get on our knees by ourselves and pray and then we need to also come to church and pray and pray with with our friends and loved ones also God will answer prayer if we'll ask we shall receive let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer Father we thank you so much we'll start out with prayer with thanksgiving Lord because you have been so good to our church you've been good to us personally and you definitely don't owe us anything because we have received so many blessings from you salvation our home in heaven Father please just continue to bless our church please help this sermon to to stir the hearts of your people that they would spend more time praying and that they would also follow these guidelines so that we could all get our prayers answered and we could all serve you in a greater way and have our needs filled and in Jesus name we pray these things amen amen