Today we're going to be talking about, I want to talk about some issues in prayer, and I want to relate that to what we were talking about in our conference yesterday on outreach, evangelism, and sharing the gospel. But before we do that, let's pray, and then we'll start. Oh God, our Father, we give you Praise and thanks for the dawning of this new day, which reminds us of your words that brought light to be. You have said in your word over and over again that the light of your revelation of your own self and your intention and will is to us a great act of love, that we might know you and know what you would have us to do. We pray that Lord, the Holy Spirit, which you have bestowed upon all of your children, would also illuminate the words we're going to be contemplating in this hour, and that we would be led to understanding and obedience in them, and joy in knowing more truth and knowing you better. Thank you for the forgiveness of sins, which we know and have fully accomplished in the person and work of your Son, Jesus Christ. So to you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who is one God forever, we offer our praise and submit our hearts to your will. And in the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. When Jesus took leave of the eleven apostles at the Ascension, there was in what he was doing an entrusting of a whole superhuman task of taking the message of the gospel, the good news of salvation to the world. Go and make Christ worshipers of the nations. They were to begin in Jerusalem. He said, and that wasn't very far away from where they were. They probably could have looked down from where they were as Jesus was talking to them. And that was the city that lay at the foot of Mount Olivet. They could see it from where they were. And this is where the executioners of Jesus lived. And that was where they were to begin their task, in this very same place. With readiness to obey Christ, they knew that the audience of their proclamation, who they were going to talk to in Jerusalem, were ready to annihilate them. They had become criminals by this enterprise. And what did they have to preach? What was their message going to be? A crucified Messiah. shameful death, a death of a criminal, which was, as the Word of God says, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. Evidently, they had not consulted with Madison Avenue about how to market the gospel, because they were choosing all the wrong ways, as the world says, to do it, taking men from a place that were not very educated, and a message that to the culture was a shameful one. And they looked beyond Jerusalem, and they looked in what lay beyond that. Rome, the place of paganism, the headquarters of Babylon, the center of the world. They would be confronted by the strongest empire which they'd ever seen in the history of the world, and all of the weight of it would come against them as they sought to obey Christ to spread the gospel. It was almost irony to send such men into that task. I am fond of quoting from 2 Corinthians about the treasure in clay pots. That's the plan of God, to use imperfect containers for a perfect message, so that there will be no doubt about where the power comes from. It isn't the polished speech of the preacher, it isn't the advanced degrees he holds or the money they have, but it is boiled down to the power of God alone. There'd be no doubt when the gospel spreads that there was no reason, earthly reason, that any advancement should occur as a result of it. True, their number was augmented by eventually an academically trained and very respected teacher, Paul, But even he said, our message is nothing but Christ and him crucified. So to the apostles, suffering on account of the name of the Lord amidst the world's opposition was something they knew would happen. It was a given. So what did they do, these apostles, as Jesus ascended to heaven. And the scripture says they gazed into the skies and two messengers came. Why are you gazing here? You've got, well, I'm paraphrasing now, he will come back in the same way, but he's not here. You need to do what he says. And what did they do until the Holy Spirit came? They engaged in prayer together. They gathered as one. They knew that opposition was a given. Jesus had said it so many times. Opposition is the nature of things if you follow Christ. It's prominently behind every text of the New Testament. It is the background concept that is basically the steering mechanism theme of the Gospels, the Book of Acts, every epistle, and I'd say, most notably and most prominently, the Book of the Revelation. The author of the revelation, by the way, I'm saying the revelation because that's how you should, that's what you should call it. If anyone ever says revelations with an S, just let me know. I'll make sure there's a warrant out for them if they do that. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ. And it is a revelation of what it is his deeds would be as he, through his apostles, spread the gospel throughout the world. He, that is John, is in chains while he receives this testimony. He is being persecuted as he receives this testimony. It is for him and for the churches of Asia Minor and for all who would eventually call the name of Jesus and cast their cares upon him. As we move through the book, we see that there is some very real intersection with worldly, or churches of the world. We have seven churches in Asia Minor in chapters two and three. In chapter four, we are introduced to the scene in heaven with the elders and the creatures and the God on the throne. In chapter five, the Lamb of God takes the stage, and the Lamb of God is the one who is alone worthy to open the scroll, which is the history and title deed of the universe. Chapter six, he opens up these scrolls, the seals of the scroll, and the book kind of pauses at chapter seven where the six seals of the seven had been opened, and there's a space of time between the sixth and seventh seal, and God has given men a glimpse of what the whole of the people of God would look like. God knows the number, and it is an innumerable multitude to us. We are eventually and continually led by the words of John to be reminded of our Lord's victory, like the ascension scene is, like the resurrection is, and to be comforted in the true and unshakable triumph which we find in Revelation 11.15, and which Frederick Handel put in his work of the Messiah. The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. Remembering the context of Revelation is opposition to the gospel. At the end of chapter six, we have this seal opened, the sixth seal, the interlude of chapter seven, and then Revelation 8.1 introduces us to all the seals being opened, and now the seventh seal is going to be opened, and we're sitting there waiting for the seventh seal to be opened in the text, and I'll read it in a second, and the seventh seal is opened. Let's find out what happens. Turn in, if you would please, turn in Revelation chapter eight. I'll just read verses one through five. I'll say verse one, the revelation of Jesus Christ to John. When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And they saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets. Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense that he should offer it. with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel's hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth. And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake. What happens on the seventh seal? Boom, right away, no, a silence for half an hour. Silence of all creation before God, before this very terrible judgment is going to be poured out on that seventh seal. The Lord is in his holy temple, let the earth be silent before him. I think that's what is depicted here in Revelation chapter A, one through five. It's not part of the seals and it's not part of the trumpets, but there's something at the center, a little gem in the center of this that gives us some hint about the importance of prayer and the relation to evangelism that prayer has. We talked quite a bit yesterday about the various approaches and philosophies and thinking about reaching the community around your church and in your world. Sometimes it's important to understand also that nothing happens. really happens in our hearts without us praying about it. It is important, therefore, to know what it is that God has given to us as the benefits of prayer, I guess I'd call them, or the tenets about prayer that God has given His people. So we're gonna look at verses three through five of Revelation chapter eight. And I'll read those again. I'll take those in order. So we wanna look at three primary precepts or tenets, principles about prayer that are really evident in this text. First of all, in verse three, and I'll read that. Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. The subject of this small section from verses three through five is prayer and what prayer does. It is played out in the imagery of the vision that John had received, and some people make a real serious mistake here talking about, well, who are these saints that are praying? Is this... I'm going to tell a story, so I'm going to go over here and tell a story. When I was in eighth grade, I went to St. Patrick's grade school in Onalaska, Wisconsin, and I had gone through eight years of Catholic school, and I had been taught that that it was okay, if you needed something, to choose one of the saints that had been assigned certain things that were upsetting you. And I had lost my basketball shoes, and so my mother advised me to pray to Saint Anthony that the shoes would come back. And I remember thinking, he must be pretty busy if he is in charge of all the lost things. And then I began to think about that as I got older, of all this praying stuff that goes on. And I began to do some thinking about that and saying, you know, maybe we shouldn't pray to anyone but God. And that's really what the problem is with a lot of what we might object to certain groups of Christians that do such things. And a lot of Christians do. Actually, the majority of Christian churches in the world, if you can call the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic churches Christian, there are Christians in them, advocate praying to and invoking the saints. That's not the saints that are being talked about here, although probably some of them would be in this number. These saints are the saints from the fifth seal. The fifth seal, when it was broken, there was a loud clamor, if you remember, and they persecuted under the altar, crying out, how long? Will you not avenge our blood, O Lord? And it wasn't very long, because this is the answer to that prayer. What you find with the angel in verses three through five doing is answering, by God's will and God's power, the prayers that were offered. Prayer should occupy a place in the center of our understanding of our faith and our devotional life. If you go to church on Sunday, your pastor knows. The elders know if you're here and worshiping with the rest of the body on the Lord's Day. The treasurer of the church may know if you support the ministry with your resources. The rest of the community may know if you volunteer and do works of charity, but only you know the character of prayer in your life. And so it is with a kind of earnest urging that I urge you to do a good evaluation of how center is it in your life that prayer is your go-to when you are facing a challenge, when you are discouraged. Prayer is not something that came cheap. Prayer is a cavalry-bought privilege for Christians alone. No one else has really heard until they come in the name and in the person of Christ, but we could not come in any way at all except it be through Jesus. It's a great sin to neglect a privilege like this, and it's price. that thing that bought it for us, our privilege to offer prayer as a nation of those who offer their prayers and priests, who enter into the holy place, is the blood of Christ itself. Appreciating that, I think, you can say a prayerless Christian is no Christian. It's enough of a tragedy to squander the riches of Christ through idleness of witness of the gospel, through lack of service to a callous heart, to neglect the needs of others. But to never pray as a Christian means you rightfully urge to examine whether truly you are serving Christ with an integrity and a faith that is truly saving. Habitual neglect of the means of grace, especially when it has to do with the great first three prayers of the Lord's Prayer, hallowing God's name, his kingdom come, and his will be done, is something that I think I've noticed that in most churches I've been to, we want to pray that God would be praised, we want to pray that his kingdom would come, we want to pray that his will would be done, but we'd rather pray about sciatica and ingrown toenails and other things. Now, can we pray for those things? Yes. But what kind of people are we if we neglect the prayer for the advancement of God's kingdom, when that's exactly what the prayers are in this passage, this marvelous passage of victory, and the exaltation of the salvation won for us by Christ? A certain denomination's catechism has a helpful memory statement about what prayer is. It is an offering up of our desires unto God for the things agreeable to his will in the name of Christ with confession of sins and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies. If your desires do not include the things that Jesus taught us to pray about, then it's time to go to school and learn how to pray better. I truly believe that it is not always, it might be something for, if we had a institute of prayer or a school of prayer as the, now his name is Scottish, I remember. He wrote that. Anyway, it would be a good idea. You may be taught how to do various things in the Christian life, but how much time has anyone taken to teach you to pray? Or how much time have you taken to teach your kids to pray? I love to, a family in my church back in Wisconsin that I pastored, I love to be there when they put the kids to bed. Because mom and dad didn't pray. They had the kids pray. I couldn't believe that an eight-year-old could pray as deeply and passionately as this little girl named Lucy did. I was humbled by that. Prayer, it's that first thing of the Christian life. It's the first thing about all we do. The scripture knows no such thing as a prayerless person who is God's person. We come to God in Christ, we're taught how to pray, and it is by prayer that we come to him. It's the tool that is used by the people of God to receive all that God would give and have God change us. so we might deep love and deep devotion be changed by him. We come to the creator as a creature, we come as a sinner before the just God, we come as a child before the father. We need to be taught well how to do this, and we need to practice it. So, We, first of all, have been given a great privilege of prayer. But secondly, this passage tells us of how we are promised great assistance in prayer. The church that I attend in Sioux Falls has recently, and when you do something new in a church that has not been done before, we're going to have this kind of meeting, we're going to have a prayer meeting every other week. You're kind of supposed to have a prayer meeting, right? Good churches have prayer meetings. So we're going to have a prayer meeting. And they've started doing this, and I began to pray about the prayer meeting, that it would be honoring to God in it. Because the thing is that you cannot, without the great assistance and intercessors that God is and talks about in his word, any kind of work in prayer will not reach the mark. Verses three and four talk about the great assistance we do have in prayer. Listen to what three and four says. at the last part of 3.4, that he should offer, that is, the angel should offer it, the incense, with all the prayers of the saints upon the golden altar, which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense and the prayers of the saints ascended before God from the angel's hand. There is a lot of ink that has been spilled trying to identify what altar this is. And what they ought to do is try to spend more time identifying what the incense actually is. What it really is, is an understanding that all prayers are perfected by the intercessors, the Holy Spirit and Jesus, who are our intercessors in prayer. When we offer God prayer in our heart or as a body or in a large assembly, we can count on the perfect intercession ministry of both the Holy Spirit, from Romans 8, 26, and 27, and the Lord Jesus Christ, the risen Lord Jesus Christ, and ascended Lord Jesus Christ in Romans 8, 34. Both of them, many hymns, actually, of the faith identify these two intercessors, these two assistants in prayer. No prayer is made on earth alone. This is from a hymn by James Montgomery. The Holy Spirit pleads, and Jesus on the eternal throne for sinner intercedes. Now, if we've been asked when we were very young or first came to Christ or first made profession of faith, what you need to do now is pick out those who will help you to pray. Who would you have? Well, God hasn't left that up to our choice. He has made this decision already for us. He has even said in his word that he himself will be the help we have and need for our prayer itself. So can prayer be offered in the power of human beings? Not really. We must understand that there is there is a grand mystery that occurs, one that is real and one that is true, that the words we pray, even if they're wrong, even if they are spoken without knowledge, are perfected because Christ is our intercessor. That there's no pressure on us to word the prayer right so that we'll get what we want. You remember the prophets of Baal and Elijah having that little debate, more than a debate actually, I suppose, where the prophets of Baal, they believed that Baal would not grant any prayers unless they got everything right in the procedure. God is a really complicated God. He will only grant prayers that are filled out in triplicate on a, on a form signed and sealed and goes right through the bureaucracy or whatever they have. He is not willing to grant prayers unless they're perfect. Elijah does what he is supposed to do. He builds the altar. He sets the animal on the altar. He prays before the altar. And it is not he that consumes, but God who sends the fire to consume the sacrifice. We have a God who is and glorifies himself in the works of his saints and in his son. He calls them to them and he works in their life so that he may glorify themselves. when we pray as a sinner saved by grace, as one who doesn't deserve this assistance we receive, but know that we have it because God has promised it in his word that the prayers we offer in the name of Christ are prayers which are answered. But yet, how could you leave neglected such a marvelous assistance for your soul, a privilege won by the blood of Christ? That's because we come now to the part of this passage that really is the closer, and that's verse 5. God's people are given a great privilege. They have a privilege of being heard. They have a great assistance in prayer, that is, that God himself intercedes. The Lord Jesus Christ in his ascended body does intercede for us. The Holy Spirit is called the spirit of intercession. Finally, people are guaranteed great answers to prayer. In verse 5, we read this. Now, my tendency is to misuse a word a lot. The word is guarantee. It's really not something we can do as people. I cannot guarantee anything unless I'm in charge of the future, right? I can't say I guarantee that. I will indemnify against failure all of the future acts of a certain endeavor. We cannot tell the future. Is it only God who can guarantee that a certain thing will or will not happen? And when we use the word guarantee, let's be mindful of the slight abuse that does sometimes happen. We assume we can know the future. James chapter four, 13 through 17. Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. Yet you do not know what your life will be tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that. But as it is, you boast in your arrogance, and such boasting is evil. Therefore, the one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin. When I was fairly new to Presbyterian and Reformed language, you know, you have to learn the Reformed language if you didn't grow up in it, I got an email from somebody somewhere along that line, probably it was the mid-90s, I think, and they said a bunch of things, and then at the end, there were two letters at the end of the sentence, DV. Michael, whose name's not David Van Riper, that can't be it. So I actually wrote him back. I said, what does DV mean? We didn't have a real good internet back then. You could just look things up like that. And he answered, it's Deo Voluntum, the Lord willing. That is a practice we often use. Other people use it, too. I'm not saying that they don't. Sometimes, though, a practice can be repeated, so often we lose track of the meaning behind it. It's just something we say at the end. Yeah, the Lord wills. I've traveled and visited as an uninvited guest to certain Muslim countries. Well, I was with a bunch of friends when I did it, so it wasn't like I went by myself. We had helicopters and other things, so we could get in uninvited, it was okay. The words in Arabic, the word willing, come out of their mouth almost as much as they breathe. It means nothing after a while. It does not really mean what they think it does. It means they're supposed to say this. They're supposed to say, sticking in that DB at the end of a statement about the future, that's an important profession of dependence and reliance upon God. And because it was new to me in the mid-90s, I used it quite a bit. Ah, this is great. I can say something, and I don't have to guarantee it. I can say God does that. And then I started to understand something that just inserting DV without really contemplating that, perhaps I should talk less about what I thought would happen in the future. Perhaps I should really truly leave that up to God and leave that obvious precept of biblical teaching that God's will does come to pass a given. And I did what a lot of people new to the Reformed faith does. I excoriated other people. You've got to say, God wills after that. You can't say that. You commit a sin when you do that. For about a very unpleasant year or so, I was one of those people that knew other people's sin really well. And I was brought up short by my roommate. who always brings me up short because she's not afraid of me and she's smarter than me. And she said, you know, you're really kind of obnoxious with that. And so I've been banned from saying the Lord wills in front of my wife because I already know that, you know. And that's because she's smarter than me. Some folks are able to make a statement about the future, and with all this in mind, and without having to telegraph their humility, it's really why we do this. We should speak in this way that it is God's will, certainly, but this answer in verse five is a guarantee, not from a pastor, or an officer of the church, or an opinion of a man, but it is the very word of God. The thing being depicted here is that the judgment of the enemies of God and of the gospel and of God's people will be brought to justice. It is said, it will be done. It does not need ratification. It doesn't need to be voted on or amended. It doesn't need to be reaffirmed or sealed with a wax seal. If God has said it, then we can say to those who suffer in persecution, in problems with finances, in relationships, in their life, in anything, we can say that the true and perfect justice of God will be meted out because he has promised to do so. Matthew Henry writes this. The prayers that were thus accepted in heaven produced great changes on the earth and returned to them. These were the answers God gave to the prayers of the saints." And skeptically you reply, yeah, but the answers surely were tokens, just tokens of God's anger against the world. They were going to happen anyway. Remember that when we are pleading with God that he would vindicate his name and his cause, that he would be worshiped, that he would avenge himself against his enemy, glorify himself through his saints, his kingdom, and such answers are a carrying out of God's will, which is no small thing. And such answers really present themselves as a magnificent, dramatic, and sometimes noisy way, like thunder, and earthquake, and lightnings, and et cetera. Sometimes they occur without our notice. In any case, what is paramount is that the fifth seal prayers of the persecuted who are those who carry the name of Christ, the gospel of Christ to the world, they shall be avenged, they shall have justice. Praise the Lamb who was slain and lives forever. Praise the one on the throne. Remember Proverbs 15.8, the prayer of the upright pleases him. Our God is the prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God. So a short review. God's people are given great privilege of prayer, they're given great assistance in prayer, and they're given great answers in prayer. Come boldly then to the throne of grace with me as I pray to end our message. Sovereign Lord, as you have promised. You have shown us who you are. You have told us of the salvation you have accomplished, you have purposed, and you have maintained in your children. We pray that we might be brought to greater understanding, greater zeal to pray for your kingdom in this world. And the next. May we be renewed to our own courage and commitment, our own zeal to cry out for the glory of your name in this world. in this world in which at the appointed time, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that the Lord is Jesus. And we pray in his name, amen.