Aug 17, 2022
Author: Pastor Gordon Cook
August 17, 2022
“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is
good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in
showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve
the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, constant in
prayer.”
Romans 12:9-12
The question that I want to ask and answer, at least from a
superficial perspective because we don’t have a lot of time, the
question why pray should be the easiest question to answer if we have a
true understanding of God, a true understanding of the devil, a true
understanding of Christ, and even of ourselves. But I want to answer
that simple question by using a series of superlatives—four
superlatives. I could have more but I have four. We don’t just have
good reasons for praying, we don’t just have great reasons for praying,
but we have the greatest reasons for praying.
Why pray? 1) We
are going to talk to the greatest of persons. There should be no
question in our minds who is the greatest, God and God alone. When the
question is asked who is the greatest president, who is the greatest
football player, or hockey player people can debate that. There is
never a consensus in those terms. But when you think of this question,
who is the greatest person it is Jehovah God! He’s called the King of
kings, the Lord of lords! Over and over again you have that one word
that tells the story. He’s called the Almighty 60 times I think in the
scriptures beginning in Genesis right through to Revelation He’s call
God Almighty! He’s Almighty over the devil, He’s Almighty over history.
He’s Almighty over every principality, good, evil, angels, demons,
archangels. Why pray? 2) We’re going to engage in the greatest of
battles. This is why we can say this is one of the greatest of
activities—why, because we are engaged in the greatest of battles—the
forces of unbelief, a devil and a supernatural world of evil. Remember
what Paul says in Ephesians 6. He describes the Christian in terms of a
soldier image and he’s dressed in the amour of God and he mentions the
shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit but he ends with these
words: “praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and
supplication.” He knows we’re going to engage with this devil in
battle. To wage battle against these evil forces we have to make good
use of prayer. Why pray? 3) We’re going to exercise the greatest of
graces. What’s the greatest of graces—love. We are to come with faith.
We can’t come to the throne of grace without faith. Remember what the
writer of the Hebrews said—he who comes to God must believe that He is
but we must also exercise love. Love is the greatest of graces—1
Corinthians 13. Going back to Romans 12 where Paul is giving a
discourse on love he starts off with that love is without hypocrisy.
Remember we considered that? That’s the leading feature I argued
for love in this portion of the word of God. He follows up with a
number of imperatives, injunctions, and exhortations. I think there are
about 12 of them. If you go to verse 12 it says be constant in prayer.
So, what he is saying is that this is another manifestation of love
when we pray for one another. Why pray? 4) We’re going to deal with
the greatest of problems—sin. Sin, not the devil put us in the awful
state of condemnation. Sin, not the devil put us in the state of death.
Sin, not the devil put us in a state of depravity, and the state of
inability. Thankfully Christ rescued us from sin’s guilt, power, and
condemnation but not from its presence, at least not in its totality.
Sin follows us everywhere and plagues every relationship. There’s
always the danger that we can downplay the seriousness of sin. We
simply don’t confess it and don’t seek forgiveness. We can’t forget
brethren that sin is our greatest problem. Also, we have a joyful
realization that we can be forgiven. First John says “If we confess our
sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins…”
BACK