"I'm a prayer warrior."

[Music] Greetings and welcome, your listening to the Dittimiz podcast. I am Pastor Joseph Shley, joined by my brother, Pastor Jesse Shley. Jesse, what are we talking about today? A bunch of stuff related to prayer. So, every, I don't know if we're doing all the cliches that I've ever heard related to prayer. We're going to reserve some of the Catholic cliches for a different episode. So, I want to do an episode later on, don't you ask your friends or your relatives to pray for you or something, which is the Roman Catholic talking point for why they pray the saints? Because it's the same thing as asking grandma to pray for you. Even though you read the prayer, you're like, "Nah, I'm never talking to my grandma that way." I've never asked my grandma for grace, an extra dispensation of grace. So, we're doing. Anyway, more than like evangelical prayer. Yeah, I was just going to say all the evangelical ones. So, those would include things like the prayer warrior stuff, or the power of prayer. I know you had some stuff you wanted to say about language used in prayer. Like, don't you ever just talk to God or, "Hey, dad, dad." That's the answer. I wanted to name the episode "Daddy God," but I thought it would be too offensive. I'm trying to find all the clickbaits to lure people away. Why can't you capitalize the word "Daddy"? Like, it was an actual title. For God. Very reverent. See, they got you. See, you never said you've heard that before. I've heard that before. You didn't work at a Lutheran summer camp. No, I said I didn't. You're very God. Oh, I heard some crazy stuff at Lutheran summer camps, Lutheran quotes. I did hear somebody once, though, say to me, after visiting the church I was at, they were like, "Don't you ever just talk to God?" And I was like, "What do you mean?" And they're like, "Hey, dad, how's it going?" I was like, "No." Do that ever? I always think of today about what passage I would go to, specifically for that, to be, you know, to, like, examples in the Bible of people praying. Would they never pray that way? No. I was at, of the tax collector beating his breast in the temple who won't even look up when he's, in prayer, confessing his sins. And he's not like, "Hey, bud, how's it going today? Have it a good day?" Yeah, it's like every single psalm is not, there's no kind of that, like, it's your fishing buddy. And just like, you know, all they do is they take the one word "abba" from the Bible. And then they say that that means daddy. And then they start, I don't know, they turn prayer to a very, a very, very casual thing. And it's got too much to say. When it's tough now to say the word "daddy," it's just so weird. Yeah, that's weird. And gross. I, I always use it with the confirmation kits because they think it's hilarious. I don't actually prayer prayer like that, but I'm like, don't say things like this. And they're like, "No one says that." And I was like, "Oh, bro, I've heard it before." You said, "What kind of things have you heard about prayer?" And you listed like, "I'm a prayer warrior at the power of prayer." I just wrote down bonkers stuff because I've heard so, like, maybe it's some of the wildest things I've heard. Let's hear it. Well, one person was like, "I pray because God's outside time and space, I pray that God would go back in time and change the way things have happened." And I'm like, "This isn't so easy." I won't be done, but also, I'm like, "Change thy will in retrospect." And, you know, in fairness, I think we've all been like, "Oh, I don't know how this situation played out." And the news hasn't reached me yet, so you pray to God that it would, when it does, the news does come to you that it would be favorable news. Like, the thing would have worked out. You know what I'm talking about? But they were taking it more like a, if you got an F on your spelling test, that God would go back in time and make it so you got an A on your spelling test. And that's a very serious one. Like, loopered, someone of time jump movies. Do you have any other specific examples you want to do before we go into the comment, misunderstanding stories about people saying strange things related to prayer? No, I just was reflecting on this earlier today. And I wonder if it has to do with the fact that prayer is something that exists in all religions. So it's very easy to import bad doctrine and apply it to Christianity because everybody in some way has some form of prayer except maybe the like militant atheists, you know. But prayer and other religions is very much about like you achieving something from the deity by the way that you ask, even the what manner you do it. And it turns to kind of the work that gets something. Some of the people though just kind of associate it with like some form of meditation, which is more about not saying anything, but saying nothing and just like increasing the nothingness in your in your mind. Right. So you can become one with nothing and then you're everything, whatever, what is it? What is Brahman and Brahman is atman? Yeah. Yes, that's something of that nature. I think for the day's episode, some of this, I'm sure some of the anecdotal stories will come up as we go through this list of common misconceptions about prayer that have to do with things like the prayer warrior language or the power of prayer. So do you want to start with the first one? Yeah, the first one would be that prayer is about getting God to do something that he doesn't really want to do. I think we especially see that in the name and claim it or the prosperity preachers where it's kind of like God doesn't want to give you this thing. So prayer is about you convincing God to give you that thing that he doesn't want to give you. Yeah, and about your wits and strength and perseverance to be able to make it happen. Yeah, with the loose friends don't, I mean, I don't think we're as as tempted with the name and claim it stuff as some people kind of the philosophy of the name and claim it kind of gets imported when you know you'll hear sometimes kind of like the where we need to get as many people praying about this is possible so we can like storm the gates of heaven, which I was thinking about that earlier today too. And that's why I also don't like the language of prayer warrior because it makes it sound like you're going to battle and same with the storm the gates of heaven, but that makes it sound like God's the enemy right like we're going to go fight against him. Yeah, to get him to submit to us, because I'm not warring against the sinful flesh and you're warring against the principalities of darkness like the devil, but you're not warring against God per se and prayer is an activity between you and God. You might be wrestling with God, but that's like Jacob who is clinging to the Lord and he is asking God to keep his word, which is what God wants to do. So it's not quite the same thing like this is like giving the impression that we got to like make God do something doesn't want to do whereas Jacob is setting God's promises before him in prayer and calling upon the Lord to do what he's already promised. When I googled prayer warrior didn't you know what the first hit was. No, it was an article from the Babylon B, which is like a basically the onion, but like satire for Christians. This is what it was. The title was local women discovers prayer request gossip loophole. I get to call myself a prayer warrior while staying plugged into all the best gossip and it would that's kind of another ask spin off of this just that like people sometimes use let's get everybody praying as just an excuse to spread information around about what's going on in people's lives that maybe isn't pertinent for everybody to know. I remember as a child vividly mom being on the prayer chain at church which I don't really have a theological problem with but I just remember being the kid who answered the phone sometimes when land lines were a thing and it's people would tell it they were like they'd say their name and I'd be like who is this and I'm like you know nine years old and then they would tell me who to pray for it I was like I hope for the last person on this chain because nobody's going to get the right information after me. I don't really forgot about that and now you mentioned that I've never had a pencil ready and they start talking and I'm just trying to remember. All right so what pathages would people what pathages from the Bible would people point to to try to defend that idea that prayer is kind of again about changing the will of God. Well I mean you put down a couple the one I was thinking of especially with like the what's asking more and get more people asking and then we'll just break God down because he doesn't really want to do it so will move forces and I just thought of the passage with the persistent widow from Luke 18. I'm not sure if it's a little bit comparable that Jesus says where he says that there was a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying give me justice against my adversary for a while he refused but afterward he said to himself though I neither fear God nor respect man. Yeah because this widow keeps bothering me I will give her justice that she will not beat me down by her continual coming and the Lord said here what the unrighteous judge says and will not God give justice to the to his elect who cried at him day. and I, well, he delay long over them. I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. And I mean, if you just read it, and I guess you could kind of come to the conclusion that if we just badger God, like this widow badgered the judge, then eventually he'll cave in. The only problem is, the point at the end is that God's not an unrighteous judge. And if the unrighteous judge would do that, and he's a scumbag, then how much more can we expect God who actually does love us and where he has a lack? He's chosen us from eternity. How much more can we expect him to give us what we truly need? And then he once again, and I think you left off the explanation. Jesus says at the beginning, he told this parable to the effect that they might not lose heart and continue in prayer, right? Yeah, so it's not like, yeah, you're right. That's his what it says. So it's not that you're supposed to change God's mind by badgering him, but that as you consistently bring your petitions before him, that you would not lose heart if it doesn't seem like he's on your side 'cause the point is he is on your side. He is, and he's promised to give you good things, right? And the other instance of that would be, Jesus says a bunch of stuff about prayer and Matthew's gospel where he talks about not praying like the Gentiles who in the pagans who heap up the empty phrases, thinking that God will hear them for their many words. So we're specifically told that that's not how it's supposed to work. It's not like, do, and that's what the unbelievers think about their gods, right? Like, bever Baal and the lives of the prophets of Baal, they think that if they do enough stuff and they're in a frenzy and they're cutting themselves and whatever that their God will listen to them, that's not how it is with the true God. It's not like he doesn't want to listen to us, we gotta make him. And yet he does call upon us to, he invites us to have a continual audience with him and he'll answer our prayers. Yeah, sometimes I think with like the prayer chain thing, it's not about like storming the gates and getting enough people and that will force God's hand as much as it is about like in Christian loving unity, we wanna bear one another's burdens. And so we do want to share the things that we struggle with with those who likewise will pray, but then also will care for us. And it's their concern too. Paul says the same thing at the bunch of his epistles at the beginning where he'll mention to the church how he remembers them continually in his prayers and whatnot and that is to be an encouragement to them. Just like the knowledge of other people praying for us should be an encouragement to us because God hears the prayers of his children and he gives answer to it. Yeah, do you wanna do anything with like what passages the name and claim it people use? If they use anything, I don't know if they just like imported the theology from elsewhere and then go backwards and try to find passages. I doubt that they start with like a passage and they misunderstand. - The name and claimant is Matthew or Mark 11. Therefore I tell you whatever you ask in prayer believe that you have received it and it will be yours. And they turn that into it not being about true faith which receives from God and is united with the will of God because we have the mind of Christ by the Holy Spirit but they turn that into like whatever your flesh wants. Right, they're not making a distinction between the old man that lingers and the new man. It's just kind of like if you want something, ask for it and if you believe that you'll get it hard enough, then you'll actually get it. Which is not the same thing as true faith. - No, and it's not the same thing as being like I actually do want what God wants for me and if God hasn't revealed specifically, I mean, He has eternally revealed what He wants for me for my salvation but like the things that will happen in my life that will bring that that will preserve me in the faith and the trials and the sufferings that are necessary for that to happen. He hasn't necessarily revealed that to me. So I can say with the daily bread. Like same with He promised to give you daily bread but He has not always specified in what way it will come to you. And in the Bible He even says things like the daily bread oftentimes it's by Adam by the sweat of your brow you will be bread. So the idea that God might give it to us without any kind of work involved isn't true either. Which I think that leads well into the response. So the response to the idea that prayer is about getting God to do something that He doesn't really want to do, we have to understand what God's ultimate will is and how that takes priority. And of course His ultimate will is the salvation of our souls. So here's a quote from Peefer's dog, Maddox. He says, "The Christian is bitten to ask of God everything that is covered by the divine will and the divine promise. However, we must not forget that the will of Christians as far as they are Christians, coincides entirely with God's will." And that accordingly they ask God to give them not whatever their whim dictates but what accords with His command and promise. So examples of that in the Bible of course would be like Jesus praying in the garden of Gisemite where he says, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup for me, never the less not my will, but yours be done." And it's the humility, just out there for that. Because there's the humility in that particular prayer, which is not as much evident in the prayer warrior language of the storming the gates and getting it done type of language. One of them approaches God from a position of, like you say, humility and reliance. Whereas the other one, it kind of, it's, there's almost a prideful element of it, right? That we can almost control God in the way that we ask for things, which is not the goal of the Christian. It's not to control God, but to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. Yeah, and you were going on a passage? Well, the other one was John 14 where Jesus says, "Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it." So that clearly does not mean just, if you close your prayer with saying the words in Jesus' name, that that thing automatically comes true. But invoking Jesus' name is about faith. It's about how we pray to God the Father through the merits of God the Son in the Holy Spirit. And that when we do that, trusting in Christ and relying on Him for salvation and looking for that one thing needful in Jesus that we have, then our prayers are, they're polished and they're appropriate because they reflect this faith that we have. That's the point. It's not about getting something that you want by using a magic formula. Yeah, yeah. All right, let's move on to the next misunderstanding about prayer. And you wrote this one down too, but it's prayer is about figuring out God's hidden will for your life. I think this is a very popular thing among the evangelicals where prayer becomes a very anxious activity because it's kind of like God, God's will is for your life is this really, really secretive thing. And it's like he's got it on a binder in his desk and it's closed and prayers like the activity that God's given you to like sneak into his office and take a picture of it with your cell phone so you know what's gonna happen. And that's obviously when we read the Bible, not what prayer is supposed to be about. It's not to agonize us but to comfort us. Yeah, you think about how many people are like really concerned that they're gonna do the wrong thing that God doesn't want them to do. So they pray to God and then they expect some kind of like unmediated apart from the scripture answer. You know, we did an episode on the whole God laid it on my heart thing, but that's kind of what they're expecting is like some direct response from God that way they know because they're afraid if they don't do the thing that God wants them to do that God will be upset with them or that their life won't go well. And it's like, you know what? If you don't know what God wants you to do, why don't you just pray to him that if there is something obvious to be revealed that it would be revealed and then just leave it at that and then go about your day and do what you think is prudent and best. There's a great thing in the new category 'cause I'm about this where it talks about like the will of God and just they're like, what should you do? And they're like, I don't know, ask your parents, ask faithful Christians what their opinion is about the matter, you know, seek the counsel of good, trust for the authorities. - Yeah, I was gonna bring this up later, but in responding to that idea that it's kind of like prayer is figuring out God's hidden will for your life, the passage about the spirit interceding for us in our weakness from Romans 8 has good application here when we don't know what to pray for. So Paul says likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness where we do not know what to pray for as we ought but the spirit himself intercedes for us with gronings too deep for words. It occurred to me when I was writing the show notes for this that obviously that's supposed to apply to not knowing what earthly things would benefit us the most towards entering into our eternal inheritance. So it's not about like, I don't know if God wants me to be saved or not or I don't know that how his forgiveness comes to me or whether or not I should be certain of it. It's more about these other aspects of our life, these temporal aspects and not knowing which one would be most helpful to us at a given time for the sake of our faith. Like do I actually need to have that house that I'm praying for? Do I actually need to have the car that works or whatever? Those are the moments where we don't know what we ought to pray for. We just know that God wants what's best for us to get us to heaven but we don't know exactly what that might look like and in which case we have the comfort that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us and regardless of what we ask for, he polishes that prayer. for us so that we receive what is what is actually good for our souls. Yeah, I guess people mostly probably apply it to some circumstance that Romans eight passage that is like some circumstance where they're just so wrought with grief that they don't even know what to say. And I think that that's what they think of when they think of this passage. You know, I'm whether or not that's right or wrong, but I'm saying I think that's how most people think of it. Yeah, which I guess there could be an application there too. Like you come into a situation where there I don't know somebody gets diagnosed with some very aggressive sickness. And in the moment, you don't know exactly what to say to them and you don't know what to pray for. But you kind of do know what to pray for. Like you can pray that God would heal them if it be his will, right? But you could also but you're also going to pray that he would, you know, even if their life is taken from them that they would die and go to heaven that they would stay in the faith or if they don't know the gospel that they would come to faith. Like you know what to pray for. Yeah, not knowing how to how to talk to the person and where to start with is not the same as like I don't know what they actually need. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So you wrote down a couple passages for this one. Okay. I got first there's the ones that could be abused to suggest that this is how prayer works. It's like God's got the hidden plan. You got to use prayer to figure it out. That would be like Jeremiah 333 where it says call to me and I will answer you and I will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. But I think that's more about like what James says about anyone who asks for wisdom. God gives it. It doesn't mean that God's going to reveal to you. You know, these secret things that aren't necessary for your salvation that you just really want to know. Like think about when the kids ask questions about like heaven and they want to know if their dog is going to be there or whatever and you're like actually the Bible is not clear on this. Therefore you have to tell them the Bible is not clear. This is not saying ask God to that knowledge and then God will tell you that that thing. Yeah, and then the wind will blow and it will tickle the back of your neck and then when you're looking at your golden retriever and then you'll know that you'll know too. Go to heaven. My dog ain't making it into heaven. My dog is the only dog my kids like for whatever reason. That's because I just lies there. Yes. It's just another thing to take care of in the middle of the night though. So anyway, first John 514 is another passage and this one says and this is the confidence that we have toward him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us and I wrote that one there because it specifies that God hears those prayers that are asked and accordance with his will but people might wrongly take that to mean. So I have to figure out what God what God's will is in this matter of Christian freedom and then or else God won't hear my prayer. You know what I mean? So it would be like a situation of you don't know what job to take because the Bible doesn't tell you both of these jobs are good jobs. You can serve in both of them your neighbor and you can do it without sin and they're both good for your family and some people are like I really want to know which one I should take so I don't mess up. Well don't misinterpret this passage to think it's saying that you have to figure out God's will to ask him and then you know then it'll all work out. Because God's will in that matter is that he's left it up to your decision. He actually hasn't he's told you you could do whatever because he hasn't specified. So don't turn into a thing that gives you anxiety about figuring out which one you got to do. Right. So our response to this one is just that the aspect of God's will that we are concerned with his never his hidden will but his revealed will in Christ. So if you're trying to use prayers and means to discover the things which God hasn't revealed that's not really what it's for. It is more so for taking comfort in what he has revealed. Yeah and it demonstrates a lack of faith too because is your faith in the words of the scriptures like do you think that the scriptures are sufficient for your life or do you think they're not sufficient for your life. You should pray in such a way that demonstrates that you actually believe that what God has shown you in the Bible is enough for you. It's enough for like teaching you what things to ask for and it's enough for what you need to know to be saved. And it's just a lot of general wisdom that's given throughout the scriptures that can be applied to specific situations where you're like God's word doesn't say anything about this. It's like well I probably says more than you don't know God's word. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Probably says more even if it's not directly specific it could be applied to it. So do you want to explain any of these passages or any other aspects of this response? Well I would just say when we when we said earlier that the aspect of God's will that we should be concerned with is not as hidden will but the revealed will in Christ we mean God's will is that he wants all people to be saved and that he desires that we live holy lives. First, that's Loneans 4 for this is the will of God your sanctification. And James also says you know he says in James 4 you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. So there it shows us that like it's not God's will for our life that we just have a bunch of stuff that are sinful flesh once and you know we're like Epicureans who just eat drink and be married for tomorrow we are no more. He wants us to use the span of life that we have to serve our neighbor and he wants us in the midst of that to abstain from the passions of the flesh on our way to our heavenly home. So we should pray in such a way that reflects those truths and not be so concerned about the other aspects of God's will that we don't know that are hidden to us. We know he wants us to be saved we know he wants us to live holy lives pray that way. Yeah we know he works all things together for for our good. So you're just like I don't know God's God knows what he's doing in the midst of this situation. He'll give me what I need even if I can't see why. All right let's move on to point three which this one is not from a pious like the other two are from people who are kind of like misguided but still pious. This one's just an excuse it's that prayer doesn't really do anything at all so why even bother. I don't know if I've ever heard anybody directly have this kind of opinion before it's maybe some question that gets asked though. Yeah I would say the Comfort Man's asked that and I think actually not only the younger but like I think more mature Christians can sometimes want to know how they should understand the unchangeable characteristics of God like his immutability that there's no variation or change with him and how do they reconcile that with asking him for things because they're like doesn't he know so it's not so much what is the point but it's kind of like why am I doing this thing and partly the answer to the young people is why should you pray if you can't think of a good reason because God told you to which means that he knows better than you do and you should do what he says that's a good enough answer I mean it's a good enough answer too for like why do you go to church it's not the full answer the full answer is because of what you the benefit of it for you spiritually but part of the answer is third commandment buddy and part of the answer for this is second commandment and even if you had a hard time understanding what the benefit of it would be if God already knows in the mystery of the incarnation when God took on human flesh and became a man on the person of Christ Jesus prayed and he prayed a lot so clearly he believed that it was beneficial to him to be doing that and again not that not that I always tell kids it's like it is sufficient when your parents say take out the trash you just do it because they said so but there always is some kind of reason anyway and it's not necessarily wrong for you to ask humbly what that particular reason is yeah it's because there's a diaper in the trash and it reeks so take it out so it doesn't think of the house anyway so the idea that prayer doesn't really do anything so why even bother you're right that it can come from people who are skeptical about prayer but it can also come from Christians who just are legitimately interested in how to reconcile again like God's immutability with this activity so passages people might point to in this discussion would be like Matthew 6 where Jesus says your father knows what you need before you ask him which is interesting because that's a passage about prayer it is and it's a passage clearly given to comfort the Christian that they wouldn't have to have this like like the Gentiles do very kind of like polished anxiety about prayer I gotta have it I gotta have a correct or else it's not gonna work or bad or even worse than that bad things will happen to me if I don't get the prayer right because remember this is the point where Jesus says that if a boy asks his dad for a piece of fish or bread he's not gonna give him a scorpion right yeah and it's also true on the other side of it that if you ask our we ask our Heavenly Father for a scorpion not not realizing that it would harm us do we think God just can be like well they ask for it I'll give it to him yeah it's crazy how terrible our sinful flesh is that we take a passage from like Matthew 6/8 that's clear designed to comfort us in the anxiety of prayer and then we actually turn into a passage that gives us so that we don't do prayer So he already knows, so I've not got to what am I even bother? No. I guess the other passage would be the James 1, 17 where James says every good and perfect, every perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of lights with whom there's no variation or shadow due to change. So God doesn't change. That's why people are kind of like, well, if this thing's going to either happen or it's not going to happen. So why even bother asking him, which is an abuse of this passage because we have all these examples in the scriptures elsewhere, where God admonishes his people to ask him for things. And he doesn't change, so I'll just read the quote we have. So God promises that our prayers when said in faith do actually accomplish something. God changes his mind and heart in a way that doesn't undermine his character and nature. And this is a mystery that we know we're not going to be able to solve with human reason, but we shouldn't really care. If God has given us examples and told us that he will hear us when we pray and ask for things, then we should just pray and listen to him and have confidence. Even if we know that he's sovereign in all things, of course he is, but he's told us to do this thing. There's so many examples, especially in the Old Testament of people, like God says, he's going to do this one thing, which he clearly is doing. And then people pray to God and in some capacity, God relents of the disaster that he was going to do, right? Like he actually hears the prayers. And yeah, that's what Jonah is mad about in the Ninevites. He knows that so the message he's been given to preach is yet 40 days in Nineveh we destroyed, which is not like, hey, I might destroy Nineveh in 40 days, I'm going to destroy Nineveh in 40 days. He goes and preaches that message. They repent, but Jonah is mad because I knew God, I knew that those people were real bad and I knew that you were going to change your mind on that and let them, and let them be spared. But the point of God preaching the sermon of wrath, the point of him saying, there's going to be judgment is not so that you would fall into the judgment. The point is that you would not fall into the judgment. Because all he really wanted to do was just judge you. Guess what he would have done. He would have just done it. If you're warning about it, he would just do it. Yeah, so I wasn't gonna say that I think our people naturally hear this every year anyway, like on Ash Wednesday when we hear the jewel, too, passage, which goes like this, yet even now declares, "The LORD returned to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, and render hearts and not your garments, returned to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding and steadfast love." And he will, and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, a grain off, bringing a drink offering for the Lord, your God? Like, how many times in the Bible, like I said before, do people pray to him? They legitimately repent of their sins. They know that they deserve the punishment that they're getting, but yet as a child of God, they pray that God would be merciful. And sometimes the thing that was gonna be bad is not as bad as it could be. Yeah. David even says that about, well, that was an incense where, so he prays, I think this is in a waltz or sermon once. It's a really good point he makes. Like where he says that we pray for things and God's answer is yes in Jesus, which means that in many cases he gives us more than we'd even ask for. So when David commits adulter with Bashiba and Nathan said, "The child that's born to use going to die," David fasts and prays for the child and then the child physically dies and he gets up and he goes and eats. And Walter's point was that the unbeliever looks at that and says, "God did not answer the prayer." But remember, David says, "He cannot come to me, but I will go to him." So did God spare their life of the child? Yeah. Because the child went to heaven. So his prayer was answered. He was answered in a fuller way though than David maybe or we in our weakness might be able to perceive. Just like when Moses wants to go in the Promised Land, which is the other example Walter uses in this one sermon. He's like, "Moses wants to go in the Promised Land and then he dies. God takes him off the mountain, lets him see it, doesn't let him go and he dies." But he does go in the true Promised Land. He goes to heaven. So God actually does answer the prayer and in a more profound way than what he even asked for. Yeah, which is why I suppose God's word also is like there is a sin that leads to death and I don't ask you to pray for that. That like we would not pray for people who refuse to believe in Christ that they would be saved despite the fact that they reject Jesus. We can pray that they would repent. Because that would be the war against God's will. Yes, God wants all people to be saved, but the way that He's appointed for them to be saved is through His Son. So you should not pray that people would be saved even apart from Jesus because that's to pray against Jesus and He and the Father are one. You wrote down a couple other examples of this. Yeah. Okay, so I have the one about Elijah who prays that it would not reign and also the incense where he prays for God to answer with fire in his contest against the prophets of Bale. And the quote I had here from this is another quote from from people, but he says, "When praying for spiritual blessings necessary for our salvation, we should ask unconditionally. When praying for other gifts, we should ask that God grant them to us if it be His will." And then he says, "Note that certain instances of prayer belong to the realm of heroic faith and are not subject to general rule. There are extent heroic examples of prayers of certain men who were impelled by divine zeal. Those examples are not rashly to be imitated." So okay, first he says that we should pray unconditionally for spiritual blessings that are necessary for salvation. But you don't ask unconditionally, like God, if you want to forgive me, please forgive me. God has already said he wants to forgive the sins of the repentant. He's purchased forgiveness through his son. You don't ask conditionally for that. But other things in our life, we do pray conditionally for on the basis of God's will. That would be like the kind of daily bread we're going to receive, right? Because we, this is just the language Jesus also teaches in the Lord's Prayer, like where the petition will be done false, right? It's that book right before, "Give us this day our daily bread." But then he goes into these examples of heroic faith where there are times when people pray for things that fall under a realm that's not like a normal occurrence. So yeah, Elijah does pray that it wouldn't reign. Actually, the example that people use is this al-isha praying when the kids come out and mock him and say, "Go on up, you baldhead prophet." And he prays that God would bring judgment upon them and the bears, she bears come out of the woods and kill them all. It's clearly not an example where you should, like when you have enemies to be like, "God, I pray right now that you would send some bears out of the woods to kill them all because that's what Elijah prayed." I read one of the worst devotions I've written a long time on a site that will not be named about al-isha and the she bears. And it was like, it was classic radical Lutheran, like it's not about in any way, shape or form about like showing respect to your elders. And I was like, "Just come on." What was it about? I don't remember. What's the soft, ethno-be-and-spin on that? I don't even know. Something about how they didn't, something about the gospel. He wanted to do something gospel in the. And I know it's like this is about God's judgment over those who don't show respect to His messengers. That's the point. So you should show respect to God's messengers. But you're saying that's an example of. And bringing up heroic faith. Yeah. Where you do have these times where people pray very firmly on matters that are kind of under the realm of. How would I say it? It's not something that's specific to all people, but in this example of heroic faith they pray for it and God gives answer to it. But it's not encouragement to kind of just be like, "I'm going to ask for the same sort of thing." Does that make sense? Kind of. Yeah. I mean, I think about like. Even the people that ask for miracles of Jesus in the New Testament, almost all of them are commended when they are asked in great humility. Yes. They're like, "Lord, if you will, you can do this." Right? That's what the one guy says. Right. Or, "I'm not worthy for you to come under my roof, but say the word in your servant will be healed." Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table. All sorts of stuff like that. So I suppose if that's the attitude in which you approach it, then that would be the correct way to think about that type of heroic prayer. Not a heroic prayer that's like not humble in faith, but it's just kind of like. Yeah. Thinking that you have the same kind of like power, it's the thing that would interpret the prayer as the power itself and think that you have the same spiritual power or something as like, "Oh, so and so did this thing. I can do that thing too," which is like name and enclaiming theology. Right? Yeah. It's the same kind of constant. time, especially in the book of Acts, one like the Apostles perform a miracle. There are indicators in the text too that it is like a special example of the Holy Spirit at work in them to produce the miracle anyway that is not ordinary to all people at all times. So to act as though it is or if you just had that attitude, then these things would happen in your life, I think, as a faulty way of thinking about it. I guess just the way that again, like the way the prophets of Bale's stuff works, there is this special instance where Elijah is going to call down fire from heaven and God's going to answer. But that doesn't really mean that you can expect to build an altar and call down fire from heaven and that God's going to burn it up because there was a specific point and purpose in context in which that was necessary for the demonstration of who the true God is. But you should not hold God to a certain requirement when it comes to how He's going to. He was God's chosen prophet too. I know. There's a lot of reasons why. Do you want to do any more examples? Should we just keep moving on for a second? Yeah. One more would be that also sometimes God does things that He otherwise may not have done unless we asked. An example of that would be Elijah when he's surrounded by the Syrian army at Dosa and he prays that God would open the eyes of his servant to see the angel host and God does. Would that have happened? The guy would have seen that and been comforted by it. Elijah did not pray. I don't know, but Elijah did pray. That's an encouragement that God promises to intervene and do things and answer our prayers. Yeah, it's a very, I don't not going to pretend like it's not a difficult thing to explain. Like we said in the beginning of this particular section that there is mystery in it. It's a little bit like predestination where it's like the Bible says this. So I'm just going to say what the Bible says. I'm not going to try to be like, well, if this works, then this must also work. Do you get the point I'm trying to make? Yeah, I do. I think what's helpful then is this distinction between recognizing how God works. So when it comes to his ultimate will for every single individual, it's the salvation of their soul. So we pray for that. But he's also appointed means for how he gives it. So we should pray for it according to those means. And then daily bread, he's promised to provide for us what we need for this body and life so long as we are in this world. And we should pray for those things in accordance with the caveat that his will be done. However God wants to do it. And yet we can have confidence that we can ask for things and he will give them to us. And he'll actually hear us. Yeah. All right. I'm going to move on to the next one, which I already brought up before. And it's not so much a misunderstanding, but more of just like a sinful thing. Like some people use the prayer chain, prayer warrior language as an excuse for gossip, which was the Babylon B article title. I don't know. I mean, people know what they're doing. They know if they want information to legitimately pray to God on behalf of the person who's suffering or if they just kind of want to be in the end. And this is why sadly, perhaps people aren't necessarily always willing to share what they're suffering with for the sake of other people praying for them. They just don't want people knowing their business. You probably found this out as a pastor that just like some people don't want their name on the public prayers and some people do. Yeah. I like to encourage people to do it. But I understand sometimes their hesitancy. You know, if they're embarrassed about a particular thing that's happening, even if it's outside their control, they just don't want to pray to know about it. You go and I'm saying, yeah, I'm very sympathetic towards that idea of like, let's just say that they're struggling with a particular habitual sin. They don't, it would be, it would be inappropriate in the prayers to be like in for Tommy who can't stop doing this thing. Well, I mean, I just think even if the sin thing is one thing, but say it's not a sin, like this person's in the hospital because they've just fallen for like the sixth time and they're just like, I just don't want people knowing I keep falling because it's kind of embarrassing. But then I understand and they don't want to have their business spread around. But the scriptures oftentimes warn people against gossiping and breaking the eighth commandment. The one from Paul and first Timothy five is about widows in particular and younger widows. He says, refused to enroll younger widows for when their passions draw them away from Christ. They desire to marry and so incure condemnation for having a band in their former faith. Besides that, they learn to be idolers going about from house to house and not only idolers, but also gossip and busy bodies saying what they should not. And so the point of it is that, especially as a plight of this prayer thing is that we wouldn't be busy bodies going house to house just trying to melt people for information under the pious cloak that we're praying for them. Point five, moving on. God will respond to your prayer in a direct way immediately apart from the scriptures. Kind of a misconception about prayer that we handled a bit in the godly thing on my hard episode, but just that like, I'm going to speak to God like he's my buddy. And then God's going to speak back to me in the exact kind of way I spoke to him somehow and he's going to reveal to me all the secret knowledge. Yes. Well, I was just at this banquet for this pro life event, which was a great thing, but the speaker was like, I want you to pray to God right now and ask him how much money you can give. And first ask him for permission and then ask him how much you can give. And I want you to listen really hard to what he says. And one of my members was joking to me. And she was like, what did God's, you know, I don't know. She, whatever she said, like what did God say to you as it's kind of like a joke. And I was just like, Oh, I just said there, I just pray that everybody would give a bunch of money because I serve on the board for it. And I was like, we need people to be generous, but it is kind of a silly thing to expect to. He's a curious joke about the guy praying where he says, I really don't know what to do right now. And I'm going to open the Bible up and point and you just whatever word God guide me. And he opens it up and it points and it says, do this one out and hang themself. And then he's like, all right, very funny God. And he's like, he says, I'm going to do one more time. And then he goes to another spot and that reverse says you go do it. Go and do like what? So that's not how God communicates, right? He doesn't speak to us directly. We're not enthusiasts, which means that God speaks out of our hearts. He speaks to our hearts through his written word, which has the ability to interpret itself. So scripture and turpid scripture. The one passage ripped out of context is not how you're going to read the Bible. You have to read all of it together. And again, this is more about like what people do the whole like God will respond to your prayer and direct way immediately apart from the scripture. Part of the issue there is the idea that you really should be asking for extra biblical revelation over things that you that he's already either given an answer on, which is do what seems best to you in accordance with my commandments. Or I haven't given you an answer on that, so don't pry into it. That would be like theological questions. I understand the like I know we've all kind of prayed this way, but it's like Lord, help make this decision easier for me, or there's information or things that I haven't taken into consideration, help me realize those things and to decide accordingly and then bless my decision. Like some guys trying to think about you should go to seminary or not. And it's like, well, are there all these obstacles and barriers in the way? Have you been praying to God about it and all of a sudden these obstacles and barriers kind of get removed? You know, I don't know. Like you thought it would be a big financial strain, but then you learn that actually you can make it swing financially or you know, your spouse wasn't as interested in you going, but they have thought about it and they support you now and they tell you that they think it would be a good idea. Like those are all be things that you could, when you prayed to God to ask him for guidance and help, if those things happened afterward, that you could take those things to consideration as my point. All right. The next one is speaking of God speaking to your heart. This one is that prayer needs to be spontaneous or from the heart. And I wrote down both of those spontaneous, meaning like the only way to pray is when you have just like just sensation to do it, usually in the moment of need. And then the second one was that it has to come from the heart where it's like kind of just extemporaneous and thought of as you go as opposed to being a rote, written prayer, which is silly that that wouldn't be a right way to pray a rote prayer because Jesus gives the Lord's prayer. That doesn't mean you should pray that prayer not thinking about what you're praying, but how could that be wrong? I heard somebody the other day say that in certain churches, the argument is that you should not pray the text of the Lord's prayer, but that you should pray the ideas that come from the Lord's prayer. And I was like, that is the stupid thing. He didn't even say when you pray, pray the ideas of this prayer. He said when you pray, pray this prayer. The spontaneous thing. though it's just like, prayer is such a dis, it's part, it's one of the commandments. It's the second commandment using your name. So you have to discipline yourself to do it. And if you don't discipline yourself to do it when it's not spontaneous, you never will do it when it is spontaneous. And you won't know how when it's a time where it spontaneously comes upon you. This is why we practice with information kids. Right. It's part of the training and righteousness thing. You just need to be, you need to have training in it. So that when the moment comes where you do, you are going to pray and it wasn't part of your like set times, you have a vocabulary to use that's rich in doctrine. Like that's the point of us having the colloquial prayers and ancient prayers that other Christians have composed that have actual substance to them. This is that we would pray those and learn through them how to pray that way at other times we can also pray as well. And it not be like the babbling of the Gentiles. Yeah. Which you can be like, well, God will hear my prayer anywhere. He knows what I, he knows what I kind of mean. It's like, that's not a reason for you to be like not practice and actually talking to him. Which moves into the last one. You're the one that you wrote down, your favorite one. Don't you just talk to God? Yeah. Do you want to explain that a little bit? Well, that's again, it's kind of the same idea that if you pray a written prayer, anything that's pre-recorded that somehow nullifies it and makes it bad. So the right way to pray would be just always in an unpracticed way. That's what's better. Which is, I heard another good insight on this today. I was listening to somebody else talk about prayer and he was like, ask that person who thinks that way if when they go to church, if when they sing hymns, they don't do anything written down, they just have to spontaneously come up with some words to sing. They're up in hymns. Yeah. And he's like, that's never how it would work. And obviously the same thing applies here. Yeah, I find it when, like growing up, if I was at our church in the pastor was praying, X-Corday from the heart and it wasn't written down, I found it way more distracting because it was always like all over the place. And I was more like judging the guy for what he was thinking and how he was trying to communicate his thoughts. I was thinking more about that than it was about what we were actually praying for. I found that to be more of a distraction than someone who just wrote down what we were going to pray for that day and then collectively offered those prayers with the people to God. Yeah. I think it also stems from a misunderstanding about the great privilege of prayer, which is ironic because the people who are like, I talk to God like I'm talking to my buddy, they make it sound like I've been given this special access, which there is a special access. But the question is, should we think of it in that kind of like, should it lack this seriousness or should we think of it more like you have an audience with the King, with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? And are you going to show up to like the Oval Office and be like, hey Donald, how's it going? Have a good day today. Me too. Hey, is your feet up on his desk? Yeah, I know. You're not going to do that. You should approach the Lord in humility. And that's why, you know, the prayers in the Scriptures, even our Father who art in heaven, it's not like that is a casual, like the things that Jesus teaches us to ask for that God's will be done, His kingdom come, His name be hallowed. All those things have a lot more weight to them than just like, I don't know, how's it going? I'm having a good day, you know, you're having a good day. That seems to be exactly what Jesus is talking about when he says that you shouldn't heap up the empty phrases. That seems like a meaningful dumb stuff. Yeah. This is where I wrote down the Abba Father phrase that people try to like, I don't know, translate into some kind of like daddy phrase where it's like super weirdly kind of feminine. I don't know, kinky if this is the right word. The same kind of thing is like Jesus is like the hymns that make it out like Jesus is my boyfriend, like God holds my hand kind of thing. Yeah. It's the same problem here where it's not taking the it's turning the relationship into something that it's not supposed to be. Isn't like calling God Father enduring enough that we have to try to find like some English equivalent for what an enduring term like Abba would be. But I can guarantee that Abba did not have the same baggage that daddy has today. So maybe we just avoid it. Do you want to do concluding thoughts? We're out about an hour. Sure. Well, one is like I guess we could just kind of go through very quickly why we pray at all. And the large catacasem Luther's introduction to Lord's Prayer is really good on this. And he talks about because first because of the command, right, that God tells us to do it. And God says, but secondly because of the promise, right, that he's promised that he's promised to hear our prayers. Those prayers said in faith, he wants us to pray. He will answer us and give us what we need. And third, Luther says is because he's given us the very things to ask for so that we can be certain of what we need. This would be like the Lord's Prayer. We have the substance. We know what God's will is for our life is so that we would go to heaven. We would live holy lives here on earth according to his commandments. So we pray for things on the basis of that. And prayer then becomes an exercise of our faith, right? And it's good for us to do this. And we should not turn prayer into some kind of weapon against God as if God's our enemy, which sometimes the prayer warrior stuff and sometimes the, let's storm the gate stuff kind of gives that impression. But nor should we think of prayer as a completely meaningless thing that doesn't do anything. No, that's not true, right? You have all these examples in the Bible of people praying and asking God for things in faith and the Lord giving them to them and won't God give us good things too. Yeah. Any time someone's like the thought of praying and what it means and what it does is a thing that gives me anxiety. You're kind of like what you probably have the wrong understanding of it. Just like I said about predestination, it should not be something that gives you grief. Which would be something when you, when you understood rather that comforts you. And that's what prayer is. And yet there is the recognition that sometimes it does not because of the thing itself, but because of our abuse of it. I was pointing that to you out, out to you the other day that when you do private confession, the first thing that you confess is that your prayers have filtered, right? And you haven't been praying as much. And every Christian can say the same thing. I know I haven't prayed enough. I think we just focus on the second table of the law because it seems more real to us to be breaking those particular commandments. But it's like when you think about your sins on Sunday morning, you don't, you got to throw not praying in that mix and probably for a lot of people too, probably just not even trying to make the habit of doing it. And the answer is, oh, I'm a poor bad person. So God forgive me. It's okay. Receive God's forgiveness and now start setting up a time to pray and try to make it a regular habit that way when these moments of great trial and suffering come upon you in your life, you were practiced in prayer. Yeah. And ironically, the confession of sin also functions as a prayer to ask God for forgiveness, which he answers. And when you pray it in church in that way, he answers it immediately through the voice of the pastor who forgives you your sins. Absolutely. Well, great. I think that's enough for today. Thank you for listening. This is the Dittimiz podcast. 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