Now, we're going to read a portion that has become very, very famous, and it's in 1 Chronicles chapter 4. I fear that it became famous for all the wrong reasons. We live in a day when people like novelty, and so when a preacher had a An outline of some messages and prayer that he wanted to preach, but he had that outline for many years. It was discovered by those who know how to push in the publishing business, and it became one of the bestsellers of Christian bestsellers of the century. It is, of course, the prayer of Jabez, and it spawned a whole industry, really. I wish I had been the preacher, to be quite honest. We would have no building fund problems, I could tell you, if that had been the case. But I wasn't. As I say, this is now a little portion of a couple of verses that most people have heard about, even if they couldn't find where it is in the Bible. So it's 1 Chronicles chapter 4, verse 9 and verse 10. And Jabez was more honorable than his brethren. And his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bear him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, O that thou wouldst bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldst keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me. And God granted him that which he requested." Amen. The Lord will add His blessing to the reading of His Word for His name's sake. There's very, very little known about Jabez. The Jews have various mythological information. Well, I suppose that's a contradiction in terms. They have myths that masquerade as information, but most of them are so far-fetched that you can dismiss them without much added thought. As I say, there's very little known about the man except for his successful praying. And you know, when you come to think of it, when you have been centuries dead and gone, and your name's long forgotten, And all that you ever thought important in life has been buried under the dust of the years. Wouldn't it be a wonderful testimony that you'd still be known as a man who could get through to God? A person who could pray and of whom it was said God granted him that which he requested. In many ways, this is not one of the great prayers of Scripture. And I say that not condescendingly, but simply that there's not enough detail. Say, you could not compare this with the Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter 6. You could never compare it with the high priestly prayer of Christ in John 17. Or with the great outpouring of the heart of Paul in Ephesians 1 or again in Ephesians 3. So compared to other great prayers, there isn't nearly as much here to expound. There isn't really the depth that would lead us and teach us the mighty, mighty truths, the theological and practical truths of prayer that you would get in many other places. I think, by the way, that's one of the reasons this became famous. For example, there are expositions of the prayers of Paul. A.W. Pink has a book on the prayers of Paul. If you've never read it, I would certainly recommend it to you. And while I think there are other people who expound at times better than Pink, yet that's a wonderful book. And I think that it says a lot for the Christian church. When The prayer of Jabez ran into millions and by comparison a few handfuls of people have read the exposition of the mighty prayers either of the Savior or of His apostles. It says a lot about the shallowness of the day in which we live. But while this isn't one of the truly great prayers of Scripture in that we are not given a lot of theological detail Nonetheless, it is important enough for God to include it in His Word. When you think of the great men of Scripture who prayed, undoubtedly, and yet we do not have anything of what they prayed. You can see that there's some importance that the Lord is attaching to this prayer when He deliberately includes it in His Word. And I think You know, when I say, A, that it's not one of the great prayers of Scripture because of the lack of detail given, but yet it's important enough to be here, isn't that again something that we can be grateful for? The devil would like us to believe that unless you can pray with the theological insight of an Apostle Paul, unless you can pray with the mighty oratory of an Apollos, then it's not really much worth your while praying. But the more you look at this, you're struck by the ordinariness of it. This is a prayer that's rooted in the very mundane things of everyday life. This is the prayer of a very ordinary man in many ways. A man with whom you and I, with whom we can relate. So, as you look at this ordinary prayer from a man I take to be a very ordinary man, I trust that you'll see something in it that will be of help to you, not only tonight, but in the days to come, in your own prayer life, and in your own Christian life generally. Think first of the person here, Jabez. As you can gather from verse 9, his name means sorrowful. His mother called him Jabez because she brought him forth in sorrow. Now the Scripture tells us that every child is brought forth in pain and sorrow. Now I don't know if this is speaking of the mother's sorrow because she had a particularly difficult delivery of this child. I don't know if that's the reason. If that was the reason, it must have been something really horrific, because normally the joy, as the Scripture says, of seeing the man-child will make the sorrow soon go away. In this case it didn't. And when he came to be circumcised, she gave him the name Jabez, sorrowful. And that's what he was hung with for the rest of his life. He could never forget the sorrow. Of course, it may not have been that kind of sorrow. It may well have been sorrow in the family. It may have been that he was born in a hard time. It could have been that he was born in a time when the enemies of God had swept him to the country, when there were many of their people taken captive, when the outlook was very bleak. It could have been any of those things because we really have little idea as to the particular circumstances, the dates in which Jabez was born and flourished. So, all we know is his name was Sorrowful. And yet this is the man who's held out before us as the man of peculiarly successful praying. A man whose testimony comes out from the shade into the sunlight. from the storm into the great calm of blessing. You see, very often in life, the storm precedes the sunshine. When you're in the storm, you think it's never going to end. When you're in the darkness, and everything around you seems to be a cause for pain and suffering and sorrow, it seems there's no way out. But you look at Jabez, he starts off sorrowful. He ends up joyful. Weeping may endure for a night. Joy cometh in the morning." William Cowper, as the Americans like to call him, Cooper, actually, as his name in English is supposed to be pronounced. Why they spelled it C-O-W for Cooper, I don't know. But anyway, be that as it may, one of England's most moving poets, and hymn writers, and because of the deep journey that he himself had to take into sorrow and suffering. William Cowper wrote, the path of sorrow and that path alone leads to the place where sorrow is unknown. Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. That's not a reason to give up. That's a reason to look up because God answers prayer. You think of this man's character. We're told that he was more honorable than his brethren. You could take that honorable in many ways. It may mean that he was wealthier. It may mean that he was promoted to honor. He sat in the gate. He became a ruler of his people. He became a foundation of a great branch of his family. It could mean all of those things. But I think that you could certainly look at it in a much more spiritual light. He was more honorable than the brethren. In other words, his character was developed despite his circumstances. I think that there is implicit in that little statement, there is some information that there was no high standard of godliness among his brethren at that particular time. He stood out in distinction from them. Now the easiest thing in the world for anybody, and for a Christian, is just to be one of the crowd, to go along with the crowd, to accept the norms of the day, to reflect the mores of the day in which they live. This man was honorable despite his circumstances and despite the influence that came from his surroundings. Perhaps the secret of that is that he was a man of God's Word. Now why do I say that? I mentioned a few minutes ago some of the stories that the Jews have concerning this man, and most of them you can completely discount. But one that I think has a strong flavor of truth to it is the fact that he was known as a great lover of God's law. And I say that because back in chapter 2, verse 55, of 1 Chronicles. We read, "...the families of the scribes which dwell at Jabez." Now, when you remember that this is a name, this is a personal name, here it becomes a place name. At least, I'm going to take it as a place name. Take the translations that here stands. Because, again, the Jews and the Syriac translations have another way of dealing with that, that we're not going to get into tonight. But when you take it, this is basically a person's name. There's only one Jabez in all the Bible. It would appear the logical conclusion that this man had a town named after him. It was called for him. And that town was a place for the scribes. It was a place, and remember the scribes were given over to the copying and the writing and the studying of God's Law, of God's Word. So the association that the Jews have made historically between Jabez and the Law of God is not really fanciful. I think that it is one that is well established from this verse of Scripture in chapter 2, in verse 55. The idea then is that this man was honorable because he was a man of God's Word. I think he was honorable because he was a man of holiness. The honor, despite what his brethren were, and then as you see him going on to pray, what he was praying for, what he was desiring, show that this is a man of personal holiness. And, of course, you learn that he was undoubtedly a man of prayer. Now this is the person we're dealing with. And I tell you, This is the man who is known as a successful intercessor, a successful seeker after God. Let's make this clear. No matter how times change, no matter how circumstances change, when you boil it all down, there's ultimately only one kind of person ever amounts to anything in the work of God. an honorable man or an honorable woman, a person who has a testimony independent of the circumstances and the surroundings of the world and the age in which they live, a person who's not enslaved to the times in which they're serving, but is willing to be separated unto his God. That's always the mark of a man or a woman who's going to do business with God and count for something in the work of God. And that's the mark of a church that's going to do something for God and be worth anything in the cause of Christ. This country is cursed with churches that are little clones of business successes. That's what they're setting out to be. God help us when this country has better run businesses than churches and churches are trying to be like businesses. And it's all the success mold. How can we succeed? How can we use psychology? How can we use the seals technique? How can we inveigle people into the pew? And as one famous fundamental Baptist did, how can we slip one under the belt and get people to say, yes, I'd like to be saved before they know what they're saying. Pray the prayer and get them saved before they know it. I mean, this is crazy. This is absolute, it's so crazy, it's blasphemous. But it's what passed us for Christianity in this day. We need as individuals and as a church to be willing to be separated unto God and take our stand no matter what is going on around about us and no matter what the cost may be. I think that certainly is one of the great things. about Jabez. We need to be people of the Word. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom. You will never pray effectively. You will never live effectively. You will never serve effectively. Unless, like John Wesley, you're a man or a woman of one book. That doesn't say you can't read another book. Can't get help from another book. But it means this is your chief study. It means this is your chief love. It means that this is the standard by which you judge every other book. This is God's book. And this is your manna from heaven. A man or a woman of the book. That's the great crying need of the hour. The level of ignorance of scripture among professing Christians today is truly alarming. Preachers get away with preaching the greatest load of rubbish, and people sit goggle-eyed. I've had people come to me. I've mentioned this before. I mentioned it because it's so clear an example, and I therefore don't need much explanation. But we had a very, very sincere man who used to visit us here, and he's still a lover of this church and all its ministries, a good man. But he came to me one day with eyes like saucers because he had been watching Channel 16 or whatever it is now. And he asked me, did you see that? Well, it so happened. I think it must have been the night of Monday Night Football or something. And I was relaxing. And when it came to the adverts, of course, flip over and Joan I couldn't have been Monday Night Football because she wouldn't have given off to me because she wouldn't watch American football. But not going to that. It's not tough enough for Joan. She likes rugby. But whatever it was, I flipped over in the adverts and I saw this guy and he said, did you see that? He was completely bowled away with it. This was wonderful. And what you had was a false prophet. A liar or a lunatic. or any mixture thereof. But there he was up there, and he was so serious, he said, I died, and I went to heaven, and I saw the Lord Jesus up there on the throne, and I talked with him, and this is what he told me. Well, then the next sentence, give it all away, for he told him the date that he was coming back. Remember saying the brother who was so taken up with this. I said, you know, it's a lie from start to finish. An absolute, complete, and total lie. And when that date next year comes, you'll know he's a liar and a false prophet, for I'm telling you now, I don't know what date the Lord's coming back, but I'm willing to say, take everything, he'll not come back on that date. And of course, neither he did. Now, you see, that man was sincere. The man who came to me, he was sincere. and godly, no doubt, a good man, but with such an ignorance of that book that he could be swayed by an obvious fake. We need to be a people of the book, a people of genuine holiness, and a people who are given to prayer. That's the man we're dealing with here. Think of his passion, and I'll be very brief here. His passion for the Lord, he called on the God of Israel. I think the obvious idea is that in the land where they were being attacked by enemies, when These enemies were bringing in their false gods and their false religions. When in all probability many Israelites were bowing to them, as for example in the days of Gideon, before he rose up and broke down the altar of Baal, this man called on the God of Israel. He had a passion for the God of Israel. No compromise. And it seems to me that He entered seriously into his covenant engagement with God. This prayer, O that thou wouldst bless me indeed, could be translated in terms of a vow. If thou wilt bless me indeed, then there is the inference, I will consecrate myself and follow you fully. But there is the idea here of a man entering into a vow. He had a passion for God. And of course, he had a passion for spiritual reality. Oh, that thou wouldst bless me indeed. Now, in this day and age, that's a prayer that we could very, very well raise right to the front rank and say, let's keep that before us. According to the Charismatics, we've been living in revival for the last 30 or 40 or 50 years in America. Revival! We've had it. You've had the Brownsville revival. You've had the laughing revival. The church up the street here had nine months of revival. Of course, when you see what passes for revival, I mean, did people feel blessed? Yes, they did. But he says, bless me indeed. I want not temporary blessing, not apparent blessing, not look-alike blessing. I want the real thing. That's why I'm here. Men and women, that's the vision on which this church was founded. That's the burden for which this church was born. The real thing. And I'd be a bigot and go the whole way and say, if we can't have the real thing, I'd rather have nothing at all. I don't want to live in a fool's paradise. I don't want to live with lookalike blessing. I want the real thing. That's what this man wanted. Spiritual reality. I wonder, as we come to the prayer meeting tonight, is that our passion? Or are we willing to put up with the mediocre? Are we willing to put up with just limping along? Are we willing to put up with a little apparent blessing but makes no real difference? Or are we willing to get before God and leave ourselves open to Him and to Him alone to cry for blessing? Indeed, the real thing. I was telling the folk in Toronto that when I was back in Northern Ireland, I was given a book. It's actually an updated version of a book that was written in 1986, if my memory's right, by a university professor, professor of sociology at Aberdeen University in Scotland. Used to be an associate professor in the Queen's University, Belfast. The writer, Professor Steve Bruce, is perhaps the leading social scientist in the world on the subject of evangelical Christianity, Bible-believing Christianity, especially fundamentalism in its social and political aspects, how these intersect. He has done a very close study, both in the United Kingdom and here in the United States of various aspects of his subject. He's a professing infidel, a professing agnostic. I say professing because I believe that he's no more an agnostic than I am. But nonetheless, that's his position. Unlike most academics, he's willing to be honest when he deals with Christians. And he has shown a great respect for Bible believers. He does not talk down to them or seek to mock them. He has shown a great respect for them. He has had a particular interest in Dr. Paisley's ministry and in the ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church. And again, has shown a great deal of respect for what he has found there. He takes great delight in debunking the usually accepted lies about the free church from a purely scientific point of view. He loves to debunk those. So I got this book, and without going into its details at all, he said one thing that really struck me. This is not coming from a Christian, mind you, but it hit home very hard. Pointing out that churches are declining all over Europe. And even in Ulster, the free church has declined in numbers a little from 1991 to 2001. He was pointing out it was a very small decline, and it was in proportion nowhere near what other churches were suffering. But, he made this statement. He's talking about the church spreading overseas. And he said, the truth is that in Ulster, there is very little prospect of the church expanding and establishing many more new churches. There is very little prospect. I think he said the prospects are bleak unless there is a great revival of religion. That sounds strange coming from a so-called agnostic social scientist. Unless there is a great revival of religion, the prospects are bleak. You know, that's not only true of Northern Ireland, and it is true of there, but it's true of this country as well. According to all the opinion polls, even from Christian organizations, The great church growth movement that you read about is a figment of the imagination. In reality, almost the only thing that is happening is that you have a shuffling of people from here to here to here to here, and you have really the same pool being broken up in different ways, just a reshuffling of the same people. But as for any great outward work of reaching out and bringing in the tens of thousands and the millions of the unconverted in this nation, it is just not happening. Men and women, we've got to take that to heart. God is saving by the million in other places. The Church of Christ is extending and expanding. But in Europe, to a much greater degree than here, unfortunately, but in Europe and in America and in Canada, Canada being much, much more like Europe than it is like the United States in this respect, you find the prospects bleak indeed. We need a passion for real movings of God. It's time to quit playing and start praying. It's time to stop sleeping and start really supplicating and getting through to God. Think of his prayer. I'll give you an outline, but I'll not preach it, for time is gone. But basically, he prayed for four things. He prayed for grace. Lord, bless me. Favor me. Bless me. I need grace. You can run with that in a thousand different directions. Then he prayed for growth. Enlarge my coast. And then he prayed for guidance. That your hand would be with me. And then he prayed for guardianship. Keep me from evil. that it grieved me not. And that could just as easily be translated. Keep me from evil, that I be not sorrowful. Keep me from evil, that I don't live up to my name Jabez. I don't know what sorrow started out his life, but I like how he ends here. What really grieved his heart was sin. What really grieved him was evil. Not just calamity, but evil. The evil one. That which would drive him from his God and rob him of the blessing. He says, keep me from that. Keep me from that. So here's the fourfold prayer. Could we not make this a prayer for a faith-free Presbyterian church? Would this not always be in place, in order, as a fundamental petition coming from this congregation. We need grace. We need growth. We certainly need growth. Growth in grace. Growth in spiritual maturity. Growth in love for Christ. Growth in likeness to Christ. Growth in a love for souls. Growth in our labors. Growth in our success in the work of God. Growth in our numbers. Growth in our churches. We need growth. The free church urgently needs that. Grace and growth and guidance. God's hand with us. God's hand upon us. God's hand directing, withholding, pushing, pulling back. God's hand empowering. If He leads us, He'll never lead us wrong. And then keep me. Be our guardian. Be our guard. Stand with us. Keep us. That was His prayer. And the prize that He obtained was this. God granted Him that which He requested. God answers prayer. I trust tonight that the Lord will take Jabez, this obscure character, from an unknown period of Israel's history, whose brief prayer is here recorded for us. I trust that the Lord will take this character and his prayer, write them upon our heart, and indeed give us a similar testimony, a similar seeking after God with the passion that he had. And let us see those four things pursued and obtained. May we be able to say, may it be marked in heaven of this prayer meeting, of this church's prayer life, of your prayer life and of mine, God grant it. that which He requested. If God does that, then all is well. But beware, beware of reaching the place. It's something that I live in constant dread of, I'll be honest, for myself and for the Church. Beware that you ever arrive at the place where prayer becomes a meaningless exercise, where you say a whole lot of words, but you expect really nothing in return, and you're not disappointed, for you get nothing after all. It's very easy to reach that place. We pray out of guilt. We say the words. We go through the motions. But at the end of the day, what have you got? Many of the old missionaries used to keep a log of their praying, and they'd put a date when it was asked, and a date when it was answered. I think that would call the bluff of an awful lot of Christians. We need to get through to God. We need to have God's answer.