Could we read together from Luke’s Gospel, chapter 11, from the beginning?
And it came about that while He was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.”
And He said to them, “When you pray, say:
‘Father, hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.’”
And He said to them, “Suppose one of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and from inside he shall answer and say, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been shut, and my children and I are in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything.’
I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
“And I say to you, ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened.
Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he?
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”
Lord, we want to praise You and worship You this morning, and we want to tell You that we rely solely upon Your Holy Spirit. Lord, we trust You for enabling us both to speak and to hear, Lord, and to do a work within us that would have some eternal effect upon us.
Lord, we have come to this conference not only to listen to some messages of interest, but Lord, we have come to be changed. We have come to leave this place as a different people.
Father, we pray that You will impress Your word upon our hearts and cause us to obey it. Lord, lead us into a new relationship with Yourself in prayer and intercession, because we ask this in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.
I want to go on to the next step in this little series. Now that is prayer and perseverance.
I think that it was important for us to understand that, before we can get into that quality called perseverance, it is essential that we really know how to pray in the Spirit—how to let the Holy Spirit really lead us into prayer and be our one and only source in our prayer life. This is the secret of being able to persevere.
I do think that this matter of being consistent is a problem for all of us. There may be a few who have some natural, strong-willed power, so that they can go on and go on and go on. But most of us realize that this is such a problem: to be consistent.
We can have a period where we really seek the Lord in prayer, and then suddenly we give up for any reason. Then we have a period where it is so difficult for us to get down to the work. So we really want and desire to know how we can get into that persevering prayer.
And this has something to do with prayer and the Holy Spirit. If you look up Ephesians 6, where it speaks about prayer and spiritual warfare—Ephesians 6:18:
With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.
Now, it is quite a challenge from the Lord that, in many places in the world, the Lord is speaking this incredible word: “At all times.” “Pray without ceasing.” “Always pray and not get tired.” This is really our problem. But nevertheless, the Lord is speaking like that: pray at all times, always, and never get tired.
Sometimes we really feel that we have a question to ask before the Lord, and we have to tell Him, “Lord, it is all right to tell us that we should always pray, but this is the most difficult thing that we can be confronted with, because we are so inconsistent.” It is such a problem.
But here we have a secret. In the Danish Bible, it is put, I think, very clearly: praying with all perseverance as you pray always in the Spirit.
Now, it is not so difficult for us to see that if we are praying in the Spirit, if we are coming into the Spirit as we pray, then we are able to go on and be consistent because we have all the support of the Holy Spirit. And, you know, we cannot wear out the Holy Spirit. He never gets tired.
He has such a power and such a consistency that we can never tire Him out. We have a reserve in God that has been supplying us with strength and power for centuries among His people, and He is as full as ever. How much we take from Him, it will not leave Him with less; He still has the same amount. Isn’t that incredible?
He is not like we are. He has that eternal, divine life that can never be worn out. So it is really important for us to see this: the matter of perseverance is not in the realm of natural power.
It is not a matter for some few who have, by nature, a very consistent character, and for a few who have a special calling to be persevering in prayer. It is for the rest of us, who are so feeble and so inconsistent and so unstable—and are, as we call it sometimes, elevator Christians. We go up and down, up and down, up and down. Sometimes we have a period on the top, and then we have a period on the bottom.
It is for all of us. Praying always in the Spirit, we have the possibility.
In Romans 12, we can see the connection. Romans 12:11:
Not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.
I do see a connection here, because very often I find that I lag behind in diligence. But the secret is being fervent in spirit. If I do allow the Holy Spirit to fill me every day, if I give Him that opportunity to fill my life, if I wait upon God in silent prayer, He will fill me.
And that gives me this being fervent in spirit, and then I will not lack in diligence. So it is really a secret when we speak of persevering. Look at verse 12:
Rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer.
It all has to do with being in the Spirit. Rejoicing, being filled with the Spirit—then we can be persevering. Now, here it is put in the New American Standard Bible, “devoted to prayer.” In the Danish Bible, we have the expression, “persevering in prayer.”
And we can look at 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 16:
Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit.
Now we have the connection: praying without ceasing has something to do with rejoicing always, in everything giving thanks, and not quenching the Spirit. Because if we quench the Spirit, we lose our consistency; we lose the possibility of persevering.
It is all in that secret of praying in the Spirit, letting the Holy Spirit be our one and only source in our prayer life.
And in 2 Thessalonians 3:5, we have a wonderful Scripture:
And may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ.
Isn’t that wonderful? This is one of my favorite words, I tell you. That is marvelous. There is something called the steadfastness of Christ.
As I said last night, Paul is not saying that the love of Paul is constraining him. He is saying that the love of Christ is constraining him. And here it tells us that we ought to be directed by whom? By the Holy Spirit. He is our Director, and He will direct us into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ.
Oh, how wonderful it is to see that! In a way, it is none of my business, this matter of being persevering. There is the supply. This quality is in Christ. He endured. He persevered—not only in prayer, but all the way through.
When all the disciples left Him and forsook Him, and He was left all by Himself, He persevered. He endured the cross, even death on the cross, because He knew to draw on that source which was His heavenly Father.
So we have a steadfastness in Christ that we can draw from. We have such a wonderful supply that can make us consistent and persevering in prayer.
And I do think that what we need to learn is really to wait upon God as we come to Him for the purpose of prayer.
Sometimes, as I said last night, we are too quick to present to the Lord everything that needs to be covered in prayer. We ought to learn to be silent before Him and wait upon Him, and wait as long as we need in order to get into dealings with the Holy Spirit.
You know, it says in John 3 that everyone who is born of the Spirit is the person who can hear the sound of the wind. He does not know from where the wind is coming or where the wind is going, but he has this faculty, this ear in his heart, to be able to somehow discern the direction of the wind.
And the Lord Jesus is saying that it is like that for everyone who has been born again. He has that faculty to be able to hear the voice of the Lord, to be able to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. But he must be silent.
It is a small, silent voice; it is not a big thunderstorm. It is a silent wind blowing within, and the whole crux of the matter is to be silent so that we really can hear what the Holy Spirit is saying and be able to follow His directions.
Some Christians in the matter of prayer can be likened to a motorboat. When they get to prayer, they start the motor, the engine. And then sometimes it really sounds like good old fishing boats: “Tong, tong, tong, tong, tong, tong, tong, tong.” They can go on like that and never stop.
I do not think the Lord wants us to be like that in prayer. He wants us to be more like a sailing boat.
You know, a sailing boat can never get anywhere if it is not able to catch the wind. And all these skilled sailors have a certain way of finding out where the wind is blowing. They spit on their finger, and then they put it up in the air like that.
The wind can blow in many directions, and it can suddenly change and go in another direction. They must know the direction of the wind in order to be able to get the boat sailing. So when they find out, they act accordingly, and then the little boat is sailing beautifully without a sound.
Have you seen sailing boats? Every year we had a big sailing race around the island of Zealand, where Copenhagen is situated. The idea is for all these folks to get around the whole island and come first.
And sometimes they have just to lie still for a whole day because no wind is blowing. They cannot go anywhere. They are dependent on the wind.
And it is like that with us regarding this matter of prayer. We are so dependent on the Holy Spirit. But thank God, He is always flowing. There is always a wind. But the problem is that we are not silent, and we do not know how to wait upon the Lord. Sometimes it can take a whole long time.
So if you really want to get into prayer and intercession, there is one thing that we need to understand: we have got to have time. It is not a matter of ten minutes or fifteen minutes here and there. It will not work like that.
We have got to have time. Time is the most needed thing when we come to this matter of praying and interceding, because we must get silent before the Lord, and everything must be quiet within us so that we can hear the sound of the wind.
David, when he went into battle, once inquired of the Lord how he was to deal with the enemy. The Lord directed him and said, “As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees”—I think it is—“you hear this wind like footsteps, someone walking in a direction.”
So that is the Holy Spirit. As soon as you hear the footsteps, someone is walking, and you say, “Well, what is He doing?” You discover He is going that way, and you follow. And David got such a victory that day over the enemy.
It is so essential for us that we really learn to be silent and wait upon God.
The word “service,” to serve, is actually related to the word “wait.” Now, when we think about service, we think of taking action all the time. Serving the Lord is handing out tracts, witnessing, and doing all kinds of actions. Of course, that is included, but it all begins by being silent and waiting upon the Lord.
I think that is why in England they call a servant in a restaurant a waiter. Have you seen these distinguished restaurants? There are a few left. I must say that the art of serving in restaurants has become very bad nowadays. The servants are awful—not like in old times, when it was really something.
There are a few restaurants you can go into, and it is such a beautiful sight to watch these servants, these waiters. They stand back, and when you come in they step forward. They direct you to the table and ask you to sit down. They say, “How do you do?” and so on, and give you the menu card, where all the wonderful dishes and meals are listed.
Then they step backwards and stand by the wall, serving you silently. You speak to your wife and have a good time, and then suddenly they know instinctively that now is the time. They go forward and say, “What can we serve you with?”—just at the time when you are ready for that.
Sometimes you see the chief waiter, the big inspector in charge of all the servants, standing in one corner of the restaurant. He is not here and there giving instructions; it is a beautiful sight. I am fascinated by it. But people can be so disciplined.
And this is what the Lord wants with us regarding prayer: that we are able to follow His directions. Wait upon the Lord, like sailboats that are driven only by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So, the Holy Spirit is the secret to perseverance in prayer. But this matter of persevering is not a matter of trying to persuade the Lord to do something that we so badly need and want Him to do. Neither is it an attempt to persuade Him to do something that He does not want to do.
Sometimes we really have that idea that we have to get hold of the Lord and wear Him out, so that at last He gets so sick of us that He says, “Oh, let them have it. I cannot stand it anymore. I get so tired of them.” This is not the idea. On the contrary.
Nobody would ever be able to be persevering in prayer until he has found what is the will of God. Because it is only when we are in the will of God that we have the support of the Holy Spirit. He will never enable us to do anything contradictory to the will of God.
So sometimes this matter of prayer becomes a mystery. We all think that when we have prayed through and through, and finally we have come to the place where we know what is the will of God, that is the end of the matter and everything is going to work out beautifully.
But that is where it all begins. When we have found the will of God, then it becomes the real matter of prayer—not until then. So let us really remember that it is not a matter of getting the Lord to do something that He does not want to do. It is to wait upon the Holy Spirit to reveal the will of God, and then we get into persevering prayer.
Well, the Lord could have done it otherwise. He is sovereign; truly He is. He has all power in heaven and on earth. But somehow He has chosen that the things He wants to do here on earth should be done through prayer.
That is why He is asking us, as we read in Luke 11, to pray like this: “Thy kingdom come.” And we could ask, “Will the kingdom not come anyway?”
Well, the kingdom will come, but I do believe that God is seeking for someone who will be willing to cooperate with Him in order that the kingdom may come on earth. It is already in heaven; this is no problem.
But down here, we ought to be aware of the fact that there still is an enemy who has some power and some possibility of frustrating and hindering the will of God from being dominant. That is why the Lord wants someone to pray and be persevering in prayer, because there are enemies that have to be defeated.
Before the kingdom can be manifested on earth, and before the will of God is done on earth, there is an enemy with some possibility of hindering—not in the long run, but for some time. In this age, this enemy still has some power. He is still regarded as the prince of this world. He still has this system of evil princes and evil spirits that can in some way hinder.
And they have got to be defeated. That is why we have to be persevering in prayer, because the will of God is not done on earth automatically as it is in heaven.
I do believe in this word in 2 Peter 3, verse 10:
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.
Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God?
Now, this little word, “hastening,” is very interesting and very meaningful. As I said before, in the long run, the will of God cannot be hindered, and the kingdom will come. But we have a certain influence on the time schedule.
We are able, as the Lord’s people, either to delay or to hasten the things of God. I do believe that is true. If we look in Scripture, we see that the people of God have always been able, either by obedience to hasten the purpose of God, or by disobedience to delay the process.
There is one instance in Judges 2 that has spoken very much to my own heart, especially on this matter of intercession. Judges 2:20:
So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He said, “Because this nation has transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers, and has not listened to My voice, I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, in order to test Israel by them, whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk in it as their fathers did or not.”
So the Lord allowed those nations to remain, not driving them out quickly; and He did not give them into the hand of Joshua.
Now these are the nations which the Lord left, to test Israel by them—that is, all who had not experienced any of the wars of Canaan—only in order that the generations of the sons of Israel might be taught war, those who had not experienced it formerly.
We see here that there was a delay in the conquering of Canaan because the people were disobedient and they did not listen to the voice of the Lord.
Then the Lord let those nations, those people, those enemies, stay in the land in order to test His people and in order to bring them up and teach them warfare.
But I do believe that some of the great enemies that are present in my country have been allowed to be there because the Lord is trying to wake up His church. He is trying really to stir up His church, and He is trying to teach them spiritual warfare.
So we see that the people of God have some influence on the time schedule. That is why this matter of perseverance in prayer is so important to us.
Let us turn to this Scripture, Luke’s Gospel, chapter 11, that we opened with, and look into this matter of persevering in prayer.
This is the Scripture that we are quoting all the time amongst the Lord’s people:
For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened.
How we go around and encourage one another, and we say, “Brother and sister, he who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks, to him it shall be opened.” But in fact, there is not such a thing in the Scripture—not literally in that way.
The literal meaning in the Greek language is slightly different. And I would so have loved it if these translators had put it in as it really is. It literally goes like this, and it is confirmed by the Amplified New Testament:
Keep on asking, and you shall receive.
Seek and keep on seeking, and you shall find.
Knock and keep on knocking, and it shall be opened.
And this is very essential, because it gives you an explanation why you do not get when you ask, and why you do not find when you seek: because you do not keep on asking. You only ask once, and then you claim the promise and say, “Lord, now give.” Nothing happens, and some people really come into doubt whether the Lord is a prayer-answering God or not. “Why does He not fulfill the promise?”
Well, it is essential to see that the Lord never said that we should ask and then receive. He did say that we should keep on asking, and then we should receive. It is very clear in this illustration, this parable that the Lord is using here, that this is the way He meant it.
Now suppose we take that parable and change it a little bit, as I understand how we often deal with this matter. It would go like this: There is a man who has a friend coming to visit him, and he has nothing to put before him. So he goes to his neighbor, a friend of his, and he knocks on the door.
His friend, lying in bed, says, “Oh, I have gone to bed, and all my kids are sleeping. Do not disturb us.” And this friend says, “Oh, excuse me. I did not know that you were in bed. Oh, I am so sorry. I will come back tomorrow.”
This is how we really think that it is all about. We pray once, and then we say, “Well, I will come back some other time, when You have some time for me, when You are awake.”
This is not what the Lord is saying. He says if this friend has a need—something has happened in the midnight—the friend goes to his friend and knocks at the door. The man inside says, “Oh, I am in bed. Do not bother me. I was just about to fall asleep, and all my children are sleeping, and my wife, and so on.”
Then the man outside says, “If you are not going to get out of that bed, I just tell you that I will perform a real old-fashioned Indian war dance around your house. I will take stones and throw them at the windows, and I will scream and yell until all your children, your wife, and yourself cannot sleep.”
This is really the idea. Look, he will go on and go on and go on and go on until something happens.
It is essential first to see that we do not have a Father in heaven who is asleep and unwilling. This is not what the parable is telling us. But it does tell us that the Lord expects us to understand that prayer has something to do with going on and keeping on until we have got the things that we are praying for.
It is not true that we only have to pray once and then say, “Thank You, Lord,” and leave it there. We must learn to go on and pray until we have got the answer. This is the whole idea behind the matter of prayer. We have got to have an answer.
As I said the other day, there is a saying that it is better to have one bird in your hand than ten on the roof. We must get something in our hands. The process of prayer never ends until we have got something in our hands—if it is something we can have in our hands. But you understand what I mean.
We need to be persevering in prayer. And that is why I said that, for me, it looks as if we have got to pray until we have got the whole matter finished.
But it is not that we go on in the same way in prayer. There are different stages, or steps, in prayer.
There is the initial stage, which I call the seeking prayer, where we begin to call upon the Lord and inquire of the Lord in order to find His will. If it is something we inquire of the Lord and ask for, and we realize by the Holy Spirit that it is not according to His will, then we can give up praying. We need not go on.
But if He reveals to us, “This is certainly of My will,” then we should never stop and say, “That is wonderful. Thank You, Lord,” and then stop. No, then we come to the second stage, what I call the prayer of claiming. Then we go in to claim it and lay hold on it with thanksgiving.
Then the third stage is that we go on reminding the Lord until we have got it, because He said, “You shall pray believing that you already have received the thing that you asked for.” That is the prayer of faith.
We can never believe that we are going to get anything that we are not praying according to the will of God, can we? So that is the prayer of faith. And then He goes on and says, “Then it shall be given unto you.” There is a period of time.
So what are we going to do in that period? We do not get the answer very often in the same moment that we pray the prayer of faith. That is what I call the stage of reminding prayer.
When we get up in the morning, we say, “Oh Lord, thank You. Just remember, just remember, just remember.” This is what the watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem have been taught. They know it is the will of God that the city of Jerusalem shall be made what the Lord wants it to be on earth. They know it is the will of God, so they go on reminding Him day and night.
Not that He has a bad memory, as someone has told us, but that He uses that kind of prayer to work out some wonderful things in the hearts of His people.
So we can go to Luke 18 and read another parable on this matter of prayer and perseverance.
Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart, saying, “In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. There was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, ‘Give me legal protection from my opponent.’”
“For a while he was unwilling; but afterward he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, lest by continually coming she wear me out.’”
And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge said; now, shall not God bring about justice for His elect, who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them speedily.”
“However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”
It is really true that this kind of faith is not the kind of saving faith. This is the kind of persevering faith.
And I imagine, when the Son of Man comes, how will the Son of Man be able to see that His people have faith? Only in one way: by their perseverance. Endurance is the token of faith being there.
So here we have this parable. The amazing thing is the way that this widow is dealing with that unrighteous judge. Different expressions are used when you read it in the Amplified New Testament. It says, “Lest she give me intolerable annoyance.” In other words, she irritates him in a terrible way.
Or it says, “Wear me out by her continual coming,” or, “At last she may come and assail me.” Then comes the real Greek word here: “and strike me under the eye.” I have been told that this word describes two hands on the throat. Strong words.
Well, is it not true in our society today that this is the kind of people who get their things done?
Let me go back to my experience in the telephone company. I left, by the way, eight years ago to go into another communication firm, where I try to get communication on the vertical level between heaven and earth.
But I have had many experiences that have really illustrated many things. I was in an office where we dealt with several big firms and their telephone exchanges, and they applied for installation of various things. Sometimes the different cases piled up on my desk.
We were told by our boss that we had to deal with them in the right order, in the order in which they had come in. We were never allowed really to let someone come before others who had applied earlier.
But there were some people who really knew how to get their things done as quickly as possible. I remember one businessman. When he applied for the installation of a telephone exchange, he called me every day at twelve o’clock sharp.
He knew I would not be away because that was just in my lunch period, when I sat with my little lunch bag on the desk. He knew I would be there. Or if I was not there—because sometimes I escaped—he would call back later on.
He would talk to me about this thing that he needed to get done, and he went on for such a long time that at last I took him out from the bottom of the pile and put it upon my desk. I did the whole thing and sent it on to the department that was to do the real work.
And do you know what he did? He got hold of that foreman who was to install the plant, and he bribed him, sending him bottles of liquor and big boxes of cigars and everything. He got his thing done way ahead of anybody else.
Well, it is true: if we are not that kind of people, we will not get anything done today. This is a principle, because the Lord here is showing us that we must be persevering. We must go on. We must, in some way, be aggressive until we get it.
There is an explanation why it is like that. It is not that we have an unrighteous judge in heaven. Thank God, He is the righteous Father. It is not that we have an unwilling God.
But it is that we have a God who is the greatest Teacher and the greatest Understander of human nature and the hearts of His people. Do you have the word “pedagogue”? The teacher—one who really understands how to bring up people, to teach them.
There are two reasons why we have to be persevering in prayer. The first one, as I touched on earlier, is that there are, in this age, in the heavenlies, some enemies who are able, to some extent, to hinder the will of God from being accomplished.
The whole principle is illustrated by Daniel praying for three weeks. But after praying his first prayer, we learn that it was heard in heaven. His little prayer telegram came up in heaven, and there it was put before the Father. It was heard.
The Father said to one of His angels, “Now you go down and bring him the answer.” When the angel came down into the heavenlies, there was a prince of Persia that withstood him, as we heard the other day, and was able to hinder him from going further.
Then this angel had to call for a bigger one, the archangel Michael, to come. The angel who was the messenger, bringing down the answer to the little prayer telegram, said to Michael, “Michael, would you please take over?”
And Michael did so. He confronted this prince of Persia and withstood him so that the angel could go on, and finally reach down and come to Daniel.
It is very simple. It is like that. There is some resistance in the air. There are evil forces and powers that have some way of hindering and frustrating the will of God from being accomplished.
And think of it: if Daniel had been an average modern Christian, he would just have prayed once and then he would have forgotten about it. Nothing would have happened.
The prayer of Daniel, and the fasting that he added to it—partial fasting, at least—was the thing that made it possible for the answer to penetrate enemy activity and finally reach down to earth.
This is why we have got to see that we must be persevering in prayer, because there are enemies that we have to deal with. The Lord has to deal with them, and He deals with them as long as we pray. They have to be defeated.
It is like in the picture of Moses and Joshua. Joshua was in the valley with all the warriors fighting the enemy. But Moses went up to the top of the hill with Aaron and Hur. Together they were there, and as long as Moses held up the rod of God, Joshua and the warriors got victory over the enemy. But as soon as he lowered it, it was the opposite.
Then Aaron and Hur helped him, supporting his hands so that he should not get tired. This is really the thing. Persevering prayer is important if the battle is going to be won down in the valley.
There is someone who is in the heavenlies, united in prayer, lifting up the rod of God, which is the authority of God over the enemy.
But that is one thing. There is another thing: the reason why the Lord allows us to have this period of time where the answer is not coming is that He wants to bring us up. He wants to teach us something.
If you go to Mark 11, you will see that very clearly. Mark 11:20:
And as they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots.
Now, you know the story. One morning, the Lord went out of the city. He came by a fig tree, and He was hungry. Because there was no fruit, He cursed the fig tree. In that very moment, nothing happened. Peter and the other disciples must have been astonished, and maybe they talked to one another and said, “Why is the Lord cursing the fig tree?” It was still there, the leaves were green, and nothing really happened.
Now here in verse 20, as they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Being reminded, Peter said to Him, “Rabbi, behold, the fig tree which You cursed has withered.”
Now he was amazed. But something had happened. Please notice that there was a period of time here—from the moment that the Lord Jesus cursed the fig tree until it withered, there was a time lapse.
And Jesus answered, saying to them, “Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it shall be granted him.
Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they shall be granted you.”
There is a time lapse. We do not get the fig tree withered in the same moment, always, when we speak to it. We do not get the answer, even when we pray the prayer of faith, immediately. There is some time, and it shall be granted you.
And we can wonder and say, “Why is that necessary, Lord? When we pray according to Your will, why do You not give it to us right away? It is Your will. Why the delay? Why is there a time?”
Well, one of the reasons is the one we have just seen, and the other one comes here. Please notice verse 25:
And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also Who is in heaven may forgive you your transgressions.
Do you see the connection? The Lord is the great Teacher, and He uses prayer as a means to educate and cleanse us and bring us up.
So when you pray a prayer of faith and you expect an answer, the Lord is reasoning with Himself, and He is saying, “Well, I will just wait for a little while. I will just see: how is his heart condition? How is he doing? How about his relationship to his brothers and sisters? How about his relationship to his wife or her husband?”
Then the Lord starts that fine work in our lives. That is why, very often, when I pray for a specific thing, knowing that it is the will of God, strange things happen. The Lord begins to deal with me.
Because there is no way we can get into the promise except by being brought into the will of God. The Lord is searching our hearts to bring us up, to cleanse us, to purge us, to fill us up.
This is really something far greater than just getting the things that you are interested to have, or the needs that you have. It is something much bigger. Oh, how wonderful it is to know this Lord, who so much desires to form His Son within us, to make us grow in Christ, to cleanse us from anything that hinders us.
Now, suppose that the Lord would give us right away anything we asked for. Take your own situation. If you are a father or mother, and your little son comes to you and says, “Daddy, I want ten dollars.” “Oh yes, of course. Here is ten dollars.”
Then he comes half an hour later: “Daddy, I want a hundred dollars.” “Oh yes, go on, suit yourself. Here is a hundred dollars.” “Daddy, I want a bicycle.” “Yes, of course. Here is the bicycle.” The loving father will go broke in a short while.
But another thing: he will spoil his son. Because that little boy of yours is not able to administer so much blessing at one time.
So, you know, it is really true that in order to receive the blessings of the Lord, we have to be built up. Otherwise, they will spoil us. It really takes more than we think to be partakers of His riches, His gifts, and His blessings. We need to be built up.
Sometimes we do see that the gifts of God can lead us astray from Himself. Look at the prodigal son. He came in; he had an inheritance, but he could not wait to get that inheritance in the hour that his father had appointed. He wanted that inheritance.
And I do not think that the father said to him, “All right, son, you get your way at the first request.” I do think there was a battle going on, and the father tried to make that son understand, “It is not the time. You are not mature. You cannot administer a big amount of money,” or whatever it was.
But he insisted, and finally—and this is what happens too in our lives—if we insist and insist and will not really listen, the Lord will give us our way, and we will have to be taught in another way.
So he went out and used it all, and he ended up in a miserable condition because he was not able to administer these things.
Oh, how the Lord wants to deal with us! And prayer is, I would say, the real—if there is any shortcut—then prayer would be the way that we are brought up faster and grow faster than anything else in our spiritual life.
Because God is working in us, and as we pray and become persevering in prayer, He is dealing with us in a wonderful way.
So, brothers and sisters, let us not give up. Do not give up praying for your unsaved relatives. Do not ever stop. Go on and pray.
Not only for their salvation, but for your sake, because the Lord may need to deal with you, to educate you, and to bring you up. May His name be glorified in us and through us. Amen.