Well, take your Bibles open back up with me this morning to Luke chapter 11. And while you're turning there, I will read our hymn for the week. This hymn taken from Spurgeon's Hymnal number 981. This is another hymn by John Newton written in 1779. First line of the hymn is, Lord, I cannot let thee go. The title that John Newton gave the hymn was Holy Importunity. and we will talk about what that word means. That's another word for persistence. We're looking at this morning from Luke 11, five through eight, persistence in our prayers. But this hymn is a hymn of being persistent in prayer. John Newton wrote, Lord, I cannot let thee go till a blessing thou bestow. Do not turn away thy face. Mine's an urgent, pressing case. Dost thou ask me who I am? Ah, my Lord, thou knowest my name. yet the question gives a plea to support my suit with thee. Thou didst once to wretched behold in rebellion blindly bold, scorn thy grace, thy power defy, that poor rebel Lord was I. Once a sinner near despair sought thy mercy, seat by prayer. Mercy heard and set him free, Lord, that mercy came to me. Many days have passed since then, many changes I have seen, yet have been upheld till now. Who could hold me up but thou? Thou hast helped in every need, this emboldens me to plead. After so much mercy passed, canst Thou let me sink at last? No, I must maintain my hold, tis Thy goodness makes me bold. I can no denial take when I plead for Jesus' sake. As we're looking at persisting in prayer in verses 5 through 8 of Luke 11, it says, Then he said to them, Which of you has a friend? And we'll 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 answers and says, Do not bother me. The door has already been shut, and my children and I are in bed. I cannot rise up and give you anything. I tell you, even though he will not arise 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. There are actually two parables that Jesus gives to teach us about persistence in prayer and studying this this week, I have come to the conclusion that most of the time when we don't persist in prayer, we either have a notion that we're not supposed to ask God too many times for the same thing, or we really don't understand his character. and what His expectation is of us in prayer. One of those parables about being persistent is this one here in Luke 11. And we learn from this one and one we'll look at in Luke 18 next, that if we are not persistent in prayer, we are not persistent in prayer in order to persuade the Lord to answer. We don't pester Him until He answers, but we are to persist in our questions. And here's the truth. If we are not willing to persist, then what we're asking is not a true priority. Now, this is the conflict that comes in the study, and we're going to be looking at one of the chapters from R. A. Torrey as he explains this. When we think about persisting in prayer, we've always been told that God will answer us, yes, no, or wait. And the truth is that until you get a clear no from the Lord, and the desire is on your heart to ask Him for something, you should persist in asking. Too often, we give up. And if we give up, if we think, well, God, and we take kind of the idea of David in the Psalms, the heavens are as brass. It's all just bouncing back off the ceiling. God's not listening. God's not hearing me. Well, that's not true. If you're His child, He always hears you, and He is listening, and He wants you to come to Him. So if you don't persist, you are then communicating either a lack of faith, you're full of doubt and fear, or what you were asking was not really that important to you. It was a trivial matter if you don't persist in it. In Luke 18, verses 1-8, now He was telling them a parable to show them at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart, saying, In a certain city there was a certain judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. Now there was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, Give me justice from my opponent. And 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 is bothering me, I will give her justice, lest by continually coming, she wears me out. And the Lord said, hear what the unjust judge said. Now, will God not 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 quickly. However, when the son of man comes, will he find that faith on the earth? There was this faith to be persistent, and the point of these parables is not that the neighbor who would not help or the judge that was unjust. That's not an accurate picture of God in the picture. In the parable here, the picture is of those, the widow and of the neighbor who are persistent. Knowing if I persist, I will get an answer from the person I am asking. R. A. Torrey in his chapter six, always praying and not fainting, says in the former of these two parables, in the first that we looked at from Luke 11, Jesus sets forth the necessity of importunity. And that is just an old word for persistence. And we'll talk about more of what it means here in just a minute. But he says he sets forth the necessity of importunity in prayer in a startling way. He said the word rendered importunity means literally to be shameless or to have shamelessness. This is to be shameless in asking. It is I am coming to God and I'm asking and I'm not ashamed to ask and I am not ashamed to keep asking. Now, when we do this with a friend and we ask them the first time and they don't do it and we have to go to them a second time, we feel bad that we have to go back to them again, unless we're married and that's called nagging, right? We go when we don't want to because we're ashamed or we don't want to ask again or it's something that we think is a trouble to them. We're supposed to go to God in prayer and be persistent and to be shameless in that persistence. He says here, the word rendered opportunity means literally shamelessness, as if Jesus would have understood that God would have us draw nigh to him with a determination to obtain the things we seek that will not be put to shame by any seeming refusal or delay on God's part. God delights in the holy boldness that will not take no for an answer. I admit, I got into this and thought, well, wait a minute. If God says no, I mean, that should be pretty clear, but yet if we're believing and asking, and we're believing that we're asking according to His will, even if God says no at that point, our faith should not take that no as an answer. We should keep asking until our will has been changed. And that's why when we pray, we pray, and this is Christ in the garden. If there's any way to take this cup from me, and you know the answer, No, there's no way. So what did Jesus do? He asked again. And the answer was no again. And so he asked a third time. Now, what did he say each time? Nevertheless, not what I want, not my will, but your will be done. In other words, I'm gonna pray and ask this because this is what I want. This is what I desire. I want my desires to be in line with what you want for me. So I'm going to ask in faith. And if you say no, I'm gonna keep asking until you change what I want. to you conform me to your will, not my will." Torrey says, it's an expression of great faith and nothing pleases God more than faith. God does not always let us get things at our first effort. He would train us and make us strong men by compelling us to work hard for the best things. So also He does not always give us what we ask in answer to the first prayer. He would train us and make us strong men of prayer by compelling us to pray hard for the best things. He makes us pray through. Spurgeon says, on matters promised by God in His word, we may come again and again knocking at the Lord's door until He awakes and gives us the loaves that we seek for our hungry and fainting friend. Oh, for more holy boldness. Oh, for more assured confidence. We long to be heard and answered. We cannot be satisfied to pray unless we perceive that prayer is effective in the courts above. That is our real goal in prayer, to know not only that we are spending time with God, but that he is hearing us and that he's answering us. Can we have assurance that God hears us? That's proven when He answers. That's the great thing about answered prayer. If you wonder if God hears you, look back through your life and you name me one answered prayer. Just one. And you know what that proves? God was listening and He heard you. And you know there's more than just one, don't you? He hears us and He answers us. But we have to trust that He's listening even when He doesn't answer immediately. Have you noticed that God is never on our timetable? Never. Now, He is never early and He is never late. We are always thinking it's more serious or less serious than it is. And part of praying and being persistent in prayer is slowing down to match God's timing. To learn to wait, to persist through the no until we get the yes or our will is changed. Psalm 130, verse 2 says, Oh Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications." When we study David in prayer in the Psalms, we understand that persistence, and the word that's used for persistence or importunity here, also refers to a tenacious insistence. It is a bold, tenacious insistence. It won't let go. This is Jacob wrestling with God. I'm not going to let go until I get a blessing. How is it that we can be bold like this when we don't immediately have an answer from the Lord? I mean, we think that we go boldly and when we go boldly, we immediately get an answer. And yes, I was bold and I got an answer. God came through. But when we go boldly and God doesn't answer, how do we maintain that boldness? Well, first, God tells us to ask, to seek, and to knock. That'll be the next portion. In fact, that's next week in verses nine through 13. Ask, seek, and knock. And these are present active imperatives. You remember that from grammar school, don't you? Grammar class? Present active imperatives. That means we're to be presently actively doing it and continue presently actively doing it. Secondly, he backs that up by telling us, pray without ceasing. If we are to ask, seek, and knock as a present active imperative, continuing to do it, and we're to pray without ceasing, then that means don't stop. Don't stop. Third, He tells us in at least these two parables mentioned to be persistent. Fourth, He has provided for us what we need to come before His throne with boldness. That is, He's given us confidence, He tells us in Hebrews 4.16. He gives us confidence to come with boldness before the throne of grace. That tells us that most of our misunderstanding about the need to be tenacious in our prayers is actually rooted in a misunderstanding of God and His character, of God's willingness to hear us and His eagerness to answer when we pray. Too often we think that God is withholding things from us. In fact, it's rooted in a belief that God's not fair. God's not fair because I'm asking and He said to ask and I asked and He didn't give it to me. Well, at the first point, we have to understand our perspective there is wrong. We don't just go to God to get. Prayer is worship and communion and fellowship. It's relationship with God. And as we do ask, and as He does answer, we understand it's in His time. But in order for His timetable to be met, He expects us to be persistent, and He gives us the confidence in the Spirit to be bold in that persistence. You understand the Holy Spirit is not just interceding for us. The Holy Spirit is teaching us how to pray. And the trouble is we don't persist because we don't spend enough time in prayer. Prayer has become a quick duty. Just do it and do it quickly. Now, there's nothing wrong with powerful short prayers. I love this. This virgin said this too. The proof of power in prayer is seen in a short public prayer. but the power for that short public prayer is grown and developed in long times of secret prayer. We don't have to come and pray many words to make the point, but we do need to be persistent and consistent and take time in our prayers. We have to remember, God wants us to pray. Think about that statement for a minute. God desires for us to pray. It's what He wants. He commands us to pray. He invites us to pray. He teaches us to pray. Jesus models for us how to pray. And we follow that example where Jesus did ask three times in the garden that the cup be removed from Him, praying that the Father's will would be done. If He can ask more than once, how much more should we ask until we have confirmed to our souls what is or is not God's will for us? Ask until we're sure. Why? Because if we're not sure, we're doubting. And we're supposed to ask in faith. 1 John 5, 13, These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us whenever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. Torrey goes on, he says, There is no more blessed training in prayer than that that comes through being compelled to ask again and again and again, even though a long period of years before one obtains that which he seeks from God. Did you hear what he said? He didn't say days. He didn't say weeks. He didn't say months. Are you willing to pray and to ask in persistence and to pray for years? Do you have loved ones that are lost? You should pray until they're saved or Jesus comes back. Don't stop. Years. The desires that God has put in your heart, He's put them there. Pray that He would fulfill them or change your heart. And that might take years. Torrey says, many people call it submission to the will of God when God does not grant them their request at the first or second asking, and they say, well, perhaps it's not God's will. He says there are people who sometimes they will ask once or twice, they don't get the answer, and so they just think, well, that's not what God wants for me, so they stop. And they think that's submission to God's will. No, it's not. Do you know how we know that's not submission to God's will? Because God commands us to persist in prayer. Not to pray and give up. Not to pray and quit. Torrey says, as a rule, this is not some submission, but spiritual laziness. We do not call it submission to the will of God when we give up after one or two efforts to obtain things by action. We call it a lack of strength of character. We should be careful about what we ask from God, but when we do begin to pray for a thing, we should never give up praying for it until we get it or until God makes it very clear and very definite to us that it is not His will to give it. We have to ask in faith and we have to accept the answer by faith, not due to doubting or uncertainty. God is not unclear in the way He communicates with us. Can you imagine the idea that the God who created us and the God who created communication and the God who communes with us in our times of prayer, do you think or can you fathom in your mind an idea that that God would have trouble communicating to us? The trouble is not in God's communication. It's in our reception of what He says. Torrey gives George Mueller as an example. If you don't know who George Mueller is, we've got a book about him. You need to read it. You need to know who George Mueller is and what he did for the Lord. He was a man of prayer. He was a man who never told his needs. He ran multiple orphanages and ministries, never told anybody what he needed. He only told God because he said God was the only one who needed to know because God was the one who was going to provide. And throughout his ministry and his service, miracle upon miracle of answered prayer and provision for that ministry. One night they had the orphanage out of food, no food to feed the children dinner. And he went to his room and prayed. And he said, I'm only going to take it to the Lord. Lord, you promised to take care of widows and orphans. We don't have any food. That's a need. Would you please take care of these widows and orphans? While he was praying, a knock came at the door and a bread delivery truck that had too much of a load and didn't want to have to take it back said, can you use all of this food we've got in the back of this truck? God answered the prayer. When you realize, and George Mueller noted, when you realize that that delivery truck would have had to turn and to start heading that way before Mueller had ever begun praying, God knew. He answers before we ask. We have to trust that that's true even if we have not received it yet. You understand, God had answered that prayer even though it hadn't arrived yet at Mueller's doorstep. Mueller could have gone on praying thinking it hadn't been answered. He persisted until there was a knock at the door and the food was provided. George Mueller wrote this, he prayed for two men daily. He was praying for their salvation, two men that he knew. He prayed for them daily for over 60 years. One of these men was finally converted just before Mueller died. during the last service that he held before he passed away. And the other was converted within a year after his death. Torrey says, one of the great needs of the present day is men and women who will not only start out to pray for things, but pray on and on and on until they obtain that which they seek from the Lord. Faith does not give up. Thinking about this, every once in a while I go searching for a proof text. I have a thought and I think, you know what? Faith doesn't give up. Can I prove that with the Bible? Well, yes. 1 Corinthians 13, 13. But now abide faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love. Now we always make that verse about love, but that verse mentions two of the things that abide. Faith and hope abide along with love. And that word abide means to remain, to stay, to last, to persist, to continue. If you're walking in the Spirit, faith will remain, stay, last, persist, and continue. In other words, it won't give up. Hope will remain, stay, last, persist, and continue. Love will remain, stay, last, persist, and continue. At times when we do fail to persist, that is truly a lack of faith. Now, we like to rebuke the word-faith teachers who tell you that you need to believe and do all of these things so that you might be healed and live a healthy life and a rich life. And if you don't live a healthy, rich life, then you don't have enough faith. The reality is, most of the time, we don't have enough faith. And here's where the word-faith teachers get it wrong. God's answer is not based on the fact that we have or don't have faith. We are supposed to believe, and as we believe, He answers that. But God will never look at us and say, I'm not going to answer you because you don't believe enough. He's going to grow our faith. He's not going to leave us there. We know we don't have enough faith. Now, we also know that as He grows our faith, He answers according to our faith. In truth, we see that prayers that are often answered are answered according to the faith behind them. This is Matthew 9, 27 through 29. As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, Have mercy on us, Son of David. And when He entered the house, the blind men came up to Him, and Jesus said to them, Do you believe that I am able to do this? Now, that's always funny to me that they said, Help us! Have mercy on us. And Jesus said, Do you really think I can? Another time a man came and asked to be healed and Jesus asked him, do you really want to be made well? You see, there has to be the want to, there has to be the desire, there has to be the faith, the belief that you need to be made well and that Jesus is the one who can make you well. Do you believe I'm able to do this? They said to him, yes, Lord. Then he touched their eyes saying, it shall be done to you according to your faith. Spurgeon says, faith is not saying, I know that I have it. When you really do not have it, that would be telling yourself a lie. Faith is not believing fanatically, but faith is believing the truth. Pastor mentored me, he said, there is a fine line between faith and foolishness, between faith and fanaticism. This is what Spurgeon is saying. There are times when we keep asking and we know we shouldn't. God has already said no, and He's changed our wants, and yet we still revert back. You say, do we really revert back? Y'all, we put off the old man when we were saved. We keep going to try to put that corpse back on every day. Put him off. Keep moving forward in faith. Spurgeon says, "...the right spirit in which to approach the throne of grace is that of unstaggering confidence." Who shall doubt the King? Who dares to question His Imperial Word? Shame on us if we are unbelieving before the throne of the King of heaven and earth. With our God before us in all His glory, sitting on the throne of grace, will our hearts dare to say that we mistrust Him? Shall we imagine either that He cannot or will not keep His promise? Banished be such blasphemous thoughts. In the introduction to Torrey's book, How to Pray, he wrote this to begin the study. He is the most holy of all kings. His throne is a great white throne, unspotted and clear as crystal. The stars are not pure in his sight, how much less man that is a worm. With what lowliness should you draw near to him? Familiarity there may be, but let it not be unhallowed. Boldness there should be, but let it not be impertinent. You understand that we can be lowly and bold at the same time? We can be humble and persistent at the same time? You are still on earth, and He is in heaven. You are a worm of the dust, and He the everlasting. Before the mountains were brought forth, He was God, and if all created things should pass away, yet He would still be the same. I am afraid we do not bow as we should before the eternal majesty. Let us ask the Spirit of God to put us in a right frame, that every one of our prayers may be a reverential approach to the infinite majesty above. I am convinced that the church in the West, the church in America, is a prayerless church because we don't know who God is. We don't know who we're coming before to ask these things. We think that God is a genie in the bottle or a spiritual ATM, and if we just have the right code, we can get whatever we want from Him. We fail to realize His infinite majesty. and to think in all of his glory and all of his might and all of his holiness, he desires to spend time with you daily in fellowship and communion. That's David saying, what is man that thou art mindful of him? And here's the truth behind that question. The truth is not, how can God be aware of us as a worm? It's an amazing thought. God is aware. and wants to commune with us. Now, that should blow our minds, not because of who He is, but because of who we are. You see, persistence in prayer teaches us the magnitude of our sinfulness. Because many times what gets in the way to the answers to those prayers is our doubting, our fear, our confusion, our lack of faith, our unwillingness to deny ourselves, to take up our cross and to follow Him. And sometimes it's just apathy and spiritual laziness. It's that we ask and we don't get an answer, and so we sigh, that must not be God's will, and we give up. And yet Jesus in two separate parables It says, make a pest of yourself when you pray. Now, if somebody really wants to fellowship with you and you come talk to them, is that really pestering them? No, not really. Remember when you pray who God is. Remember what He's taught us about prayer, and remember that He wants us to pray and to persist in that prayer. Pray until God answers or changes your mind. And after that, by the way, keep praying. Rejoice in the answer. If the answer was wait, Thank You, Lord, for growing me and giving me patience and causing me to wait on You and push through. If the answer's no, thank Him for making it clear because He only gives you what's best. And if the answer's yes, thank Him that He's conformed your will to His and you asked according to His will and He could give you what you asked. In all three scenarios, it's not about what you want. It's about the one whom you went to to get what you wanted. So often we make an idol of what we want. Instead, we need to go to God and understand whatever we want, whatever we need, it's only coming from one place. It's only coming from Him. And if it doesn't come from Him, we're not going to get it. You can't work around God. Sometimes I think that's what persistence in prayer teaches us. You can't work around God. Don't believe me? Ask Sarah Hagar in Israel. You can't work around God. So persist in your prayers. Have holy importunity. Have a tenacious boldness. Grab on to God in prayer and don't let go. And when you do that, you will be tempted to stop and to let go. When you are tempted to stop and let go, just remind yourself the prayers he's answered before. and expect an answer again, because He promises. He is listening, He will hear, and He will answer. Let's pray together. Father, we do pray that You would teach us to persist, not just to pray, but to pray persistently. Not only coming to You with needs and wants, supplication and intercession, praying for ourselves and for others, but to persist in our prayers of praise, of adoration. We can never adequately praise you. We can never completely express your majesty or your goodness or your glory or any of your attributes, your character, your nature, your love, your grace, your mercy, your holiness. So I pray that by your spirit you would enable us and motivate us to persist in our prayers. To come to love our time of fellowship with you and to miss it when we are not praying. Teach us to pray without ceasing, to commune, to be aware of your presence and of our dependence upon you. Father, we do ask of David, what is man, that you're mindful of him. And the Son of Man, that you even pay attention to us. And yet you tell us that you want us to come and to ask and to pray and to seek and to knock. As we do this, we get to grow in our walk with you. And that's the goal. Not to have things, not to get the answers, but to be able to spend time with you. Father, I pray that you would forgive us where our lack of persistence proves that we do not feel the need to spend time with you, that we don't have the desire to spend more time with you. Forgive us that apathy, that complacency, that rebellion, and equip us by your Spirit. to intercede, to pray, to adore you, and to persist in that communion. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.