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  THE NECESSITY OF DAILY PRAYING AND READING THE BIBLE
  by Tim Conway
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Summary: Tim Conway emphasizes the necessity of daily prayer and Bible
reading for deepening one's relationship with God and achieving
spiritual maturity.

Duration: 1:14:36 Topics: "Daily Prayer", "Spiritual Growth"
Scripture References: Matthew 4:4

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the importance of prioritizing prayer and the
Word of God in the Christian life. It highlights the correlation between
spiritual health, maturity, and the time spent in communion with God
through prayer and meditation on Scripture. The speaker stresses the
need for deepening one's relationship with God, avoiding worldly
influences, and the transformative power of consistent prayer and
immersion in the Word.

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CONTENT
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So I want to address something tonight. This is not anything that
anybody has sent in, something that I feel like I just would like to
have us discuss and think about tonight. I think one of the pastoral
dilemmas, I just remember John MacArthur saying that he felt like one of
the most difficult aspects of pastoring was the fact that the people
that he's teaching don't always, in fact very often, are not living up
to the truth that he teaches.

And he described that as being one of the greatest frustrations of
pastoring. And as elders, you know we get together and we have elders
meetings and we're constantly evaluating the condition of the flock. And
we think about people, individuals, we have lists we oftentimes can go
down through either before or during the elders meetings where we hear
about people's lives.

There's all manner of channels of communication today. You've got all
sorts of people and voices and there's social media and things happen
and we're watching and seeking to shepherd the flock. We want holiness
and we want to see health in the church.

And honestly, there's regularly something that as pastors is grieving in
the church. And oftentimes it's the kinds of things that you just think,
or we think, it ought to be obvious that this isn't good. It is not
healthy Christianity.

And thinking about that, and thinking about sometimes the immaturity
that we see, I think one of the things that's really obvious is there's
a connection back to our walk with the Lord. There's a connection with
our closeness to Him. And there's a connection with the time that we
spend with Him.

And there's, you know, the truth is that as Christians, Scripture says
that we're not under law, we're under grace. That doesn't mean that
there aren't commandments. It doesn't mean that there isn't instruction.

It doesn't mean that we don't have epistle after epistle after epistle
of commandments and instruction and principles that are laid down in
Scripture for our life. But the thing is, I think it's safe to say this.
Maybe somebody else has said it exactly how I'm going to say it.

I don't know. But I think if we think about it, and if we were to say
something like, Christianity is not primarily a list of rules. It's
primarily about relationship.

And there may even be cliche sayings that are similar to that. I don't
know. And we don't want to press that so far that we miss the fact that
there are lots of commandments and instruction given to us in Scripture.

But can anybody think of a passage that might lend itself to the fact
that eternal life is far more about relationship than it is about rules?
Really a classic text that defines for us what eternal life is. Exactly.
There's a knowing of God that goes with that.

Now obviously, as we know God and as we fellowship with God, the desire,
like we looked at on Sunday, should be perfect as God is perfect,
merciful as God is merciful. It's the new man that's created really in
this image of God. Righteousness.

True righteousness. Holiness. And so really, even when we think about
the rules and the regulations, commandments, instruction, principles of
Scripture, they're all about conforming.

It's walking with God as we see Him and behold Him, there's a conforming
into His image. That's really what it's all about. It's communing with
Him, it's fellowshipping with Him, and it's us, as we do it, becoming
like Him.

You know what Scripture says? You want to be a fool? Hang around fools.
There is a reality that we want to avoid corrupt companionship or
communication. It corrupts good manners.

There is a reality that we have a tendency, by what we surround
ourselves with or who we surround ourselves with, we tend to become like
those who are around. You want to be wise? You walk with the wise. But
even more than that, there's a supernatural principle that the more
we're in the presence of God, like Moses, the more our face glows.

And that being the case, my wife and I were talking earlier today, and
we were talking about this very thing, about the Lord, communing with
the Lord is obviously the key to deepening, the deepening godliness and
the deepening maturity and the deepening Christ-likeness. There's no
question. My wife said, well, I'm going to jump on my soapbox here and
say that it comes back to Scripture and to prayer.

And I said something like, yeah, that's obvious. And she said, oh, I
don't know that it is. And I thought, you know what, it's obvious to me.

But I think she's right. I'm not sure that it's obvious to lots of
people. And maybe especially to young believers, it needs to be
emphasized.

Because maybe it's not so obvious as it ought to be. I watch some people
flounder in sin, sputter. I watch some people who make professions, and
somebody else comes along maybe five years later, they make a
profession, they outrun this guy that is five years older than they are
in the Lord.

That kind of thing happens. People pass each other up. And I think if we
think about it, what is there to Scripture? What is there to prayer?
What can we find in Scripture itself that speaks to these things as far
as maturity, as far as promise, as far as where we will be spiritually
if we're applying these things to our lives? Look, here's the reality.

Let's think about every single individual in the room. There is a track
record. In other words, God keeps a book of remembrance.

From the time you profess to be a believer until this day, there is a
reality. There's a record about what your prayer life looks like. And
there's a reality to how much of your life you've devoted to Scripture,
to meditating therein, to memorizing, to being in the Word.

In the Word and prayer. And when we just think about the dynamics of
both of those things, we're speaking to the Lord. That's where we're
communing with Him.

That's where we talk to Him. That's where we worship in prayer. We
confess our sins in prayer.

There's supplication. We're asking for things. There's intercession.

We go and ask things for other people. Those are some essential
components. We're talking to Him.

We speak. That's what prayer is all about. Extremely biblical.

You know that. We're going to look at various texts in Scripture. The
Word.

That's where we go to hear Him speak. You see, when we have
communication with one another, we talk back and forth. Back and forth.

Back and forth. I was just thinking today about a certain situation. I
don't know how you are.

Maybe if you don't like to talk at all, maybe you're very comfortable if
you get in a conversation. That really isn't a conversation. It's
basically hearing the other person talk.

There's no exchange. You ever talk to somebody like that? They basically
dominate the whole thing. They want to talk the whole time.

But that's not the relationship that God wants with us. If there's a
healthy relationship, often when I do pre-marriage counseling, I want to
know about the communication. I'll typically ask a couple.

When you take a ride in the car for 20 minutes, give me a percentage of
time. Or if you sat down and had coffee with each other for an hour,
give me a percentage of the time that you talk and that you talk.
Because you can tell things.

You can tell things about the communication that's going to take place
or not take place when they get married. Typically, you would say 50-50.
That's pretty healthy.

That's pretty good. John MacArthur has very funny things to say about
how much women talk over against how much men talk. Typically, there's
probably something to that, that on average, women talk more than men.

But it's interesting. When I do pre-marriage counseling, it's
surprising. I do get a number of 50-50s.

Anyways, I say that because that is what the Scripture is all about. The
Scripture is us hearing from God. The prayer is us talking to God.

And that's the communication. We read in 1 John about fellowship.
Fellowship.

Brethren, I'll tell you this. There's no way that whatever kind of
experiences we may look for, there just simply is not going to be
fellowship unless there is this back and forth communication where we
speak in prayer. By the way, God desires that.

And then we go into the Word, and God desires that. There are texts,
probably they're coming to your mind, where we can prove both of those.
But here's the reality.

Each one of your lives, there is a testimony that could be brought out
if all the facts were known, if all the truth was known, if what God
knows was set on the table right now. And I had it right here. Here's
Pedro.

Here's James. Here's Mario. And okay, we're going to put these in.

And this basically is going to show you, we can go to the last six
months of their life, and we can see how much have they been in the
Word. How much of their life has been devoted to prayer. Scripture
actually said we should be devoted to prayer, or be constant in prayer.

Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from
the mouth of God. We put these in. We're going to look at our lives.

What would it say? And here's what I know, brethren. That those who have
been in the Word most, those who have been in prayer most, they likely
are the ones that are running fastest. In fact, you can almost guarantee
that.

Unless that time in prayer is just hypocritical, unless that time in the
Word is just for the sake of study and attaining knowledge that puffs
up. I mean, there are people that professionally study the Word. And
there are people that put on a good show.

I can think of Catholic priests, and they bury themselves away in a
monastery somewhere, and it's basically just a work of the flesh. But
I'm talking about somebody who's walking before the Lord, and pouring
themselves out in Scripture and in prayer. These are the people who are
going to make the greatest strides in Christianity.

These are the people that are going to outrun and surpass others. These
are the people that are going to overcome. These are the people that are
going to begin to resemble Christ all the more, because as they're in
His presence and they're beholding Him, that's transformational.

Communing back and forth. You can't get away from it. The reason the
Apostle Paul brings in that reality from the Old Testament, where Moses
would go into the presence of the Lord, and commune with Him, and come
out, and His face would glow.

The very reason he brings that imagery into the New Testament is because
there is a spiritual principle that he's wanting to drive home to you
and me in the New Testament church. And it's the same reality. That if
you spend time in the presence of God, something happens.

And I'm concerned at this point, that I have a feeling that those
individuals, or groups of individuals that produce the greatest sighs
and groans in the elders, in our elders' meetings, I suspect if we
brought out their record, and we stuck it in the machine, it'd be like,
no wonder. No wonder. He sleeps in late.

He prioritizes everything else in his life above and beyond it. He'll
talk about prayer. She'll talk about being in the Word.

They talk a good talk. They can talk certain doctrines. But the reality
is, they're lazy.

They sleep in. They make other things a priority. They'll eat.

They don't live as though man doesn't live by bread alone. They live as
though man does live only by bread alone. And it's not a priority to be
in the Word.

The time that's in it doesn't go deep. There's no memorization. They
little know it.

It's little on their lips. It's little applied to their life. When you
look at their prayer life, it's these kind of quick little things, these
little deals.

Yes, it's there when there's crisis. Yes, it's there when there's need.
Yes, it's there when they're lonely and they want a spouse.

But other than that, they don't pray for other people. They're not
confessing. They're not just enjoying to be in the presence of God.

The prayer is little. It's far between. It's mechanical.

Brethren, how can you just say that? Is he just being judgmental? Well,
I can say it because of this, brethren. Because if we look at the Word,
there are promises about what's going to happen to the life of an
individual when we're devoting our lives to these two different things.
Just open your Bibles to Luke 6.12. This is the example of our Lord
Jesus Christ.

I want to deal with prayer first. In Luke 6.12, in these days, Jesus
went out to the mountain to pray. And all night, He continued in prayer
to God.

Brethren, let's just start right here. I know Christian men and women
who when we have weeks of prayer and fasting, they seriously fast. Or
they'll spend special seasons in prayer.

They'll miss other things in life for the sake of prayer. Jesus went the
whole night. This is crucial.

Look, the whole point about growing in this life, since we've restarted
Bible studies, what I've been trying to stress, you can find lots of
religions that are all built on rules. But this really is Christianity,
true religion. It is built on an ever-deepening relationship with God.

And you simply cannot get deep with God if all you're trying to do is
fit God into the little cracks and crevices of your life. You can't.
You'll never get deep with Him.

You know what? There's lots of good intention. Well, I hope to get in
the Word today. I hope to spend some time in quality prayer.

But you know what? You don't prioritize it. I know there are those who
do. And I'm talking about those who just simply try to fit God into the
cracks and the corners of their lives where it's not something that
takes the primary, the first place, other things do.

The life is not prioritized right. And so what happens is, though your
intention be ever so good, you're going to fit God in where it's
convenient, but then it never becomes convenient. And you know what you
end up? You end up cold.

You end up dry. You end up with no spiritual power to resist sin. And
you fall.

You fail. You flop. And you act worldly.

And it's noticeable, and the elders see it, and we talk in the meeting,
and we sigh, and we groan over the condition of people who embrace
worldliness or carnality or immaturity. And it's like, why? Brethren,
you can trace it right back to this kind of thing. The lives of those
who are walking close to the Lord, it's apparent.

It comes out. It doesn't mean that everything they do is always going to
be exactly what the elders would do, or that we would agree that that
life and every choice that they make... But I'll tell you this, that
life will be head and shoulders above the rest. There will be a marked
difference.

Just like there was a marked difference in Moses when he came down from
the mount. Now listen, you have to recognize that Paul is using that Old
Testament illustration because there is a reality in it for us if we're
spending time viewing the glory of the Lord. That reality is there.

And just like if you would have stood Moses next to the guy that hadn't
been up on the mountain, you'd see a big difference. And you see, it's
by degrees. It's kind of like the thermometer.

You know, you turn on the refrigerator and you stick your hand in there
and you don't feel it right off. But I'll tell you this, that brother,
that sister who are in the Word of God faithfully every single day and
they're setting aside some of the quality, best time in their day to
talk to the Lord and commune with the Lord, I can tell you this, just
like turning that refrigerator on, when you first turned it on, the
temperature inside and outside were the same. If you come back and you
check it one minute later, it doesn't feel a whole lot different.

But you know what? Come back a day or two later. This is how it is when
you come back a month later, six months later, twelve months later, and
you begin to look at the life of the person that is spending all this
quality time and suddenly you recognize there's a glow on that person's
life that the others don't have. The people who treat this with... well,
you know how they treat it.

I was going to say a word like disdain, but it's just ignored. It's just
not prioritized. Here is the Lord Jesus.

His bed's empty. The old evangelical Anglican John Berridge said all
decays begin in the closet. No heart thrives without much secret
converse with God.

And listen to this, nothing will make amends for the want of it. Listen,
here's the reality. Those brothers and sisters that have a time in their
day that's specifically dedicated to communing with the Lord, they have
to pass up other things.

You see, the people that don't have that, they don't pass those same
things up. They indulge. They don't prioritize right.

Prioritization is about what's first and then what comes after. It's
about what is most important in my life and I'm going to make sure that
happens even if the other things don't happen. And you know how it was
with Whitefield.

10 p.m. every evening. Didn't matter who he was speaking to. Very easy
to justify.

Oh, well, you know, I'm having a good conversation with Brother so-and-
so. Nope, no matter who he was speaking to. It was said though he was
speaking to the Queen of England, he would depart at 10 o'clock to speak
to the King of the Universe.

I mean, can you imagine the scene? I've often thought, maybe you've
heard me say this before, but I've thought that we talk about the empty
tomb and rightly so. He's risen. That's huge.

But I've often thought about the empty bed because that tells me
something about the prayer life. The empty bed. Jesus prioritized the
need He had for His Father and the love that He had for His Father over
and above sleep.

That's what happened there. You see, the problem is, brethren, we have
too many people, they're okay. They would rather hear of God.

They would rather hear about God. They would rather hear doctrine about
God. Sit in the preaching and listen rather than actually speaking to
God.

Brethren, what do we call that when a Christian has reluctance to dwell
in God's presence? What is that? Let's talk about peace. James is at
this text, I believe, in Philippians 4. Let's look there. Peace.

Scripture says that God will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is
stayed on Him. You see, this comes back to prayer life. That's
reiterated for us here in Philippians 4, 6, and 7. But you think about
this.

People who have anxiety all the time. People who can't rest. People who
are troubled.

People who are disturbed. Brethren, Scripture says if our mind is stayed
on Him, if God is being central, if God is the focus, if we're going to
Him, we're living in His presence, we're communing with Him, we're
setting aside time. Listen to this.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God
and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your
hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. It says in everything. Make sure
you see that.

One of the main reasons that certain people don't stay devoted to prayer
or constant in prayer as they ought is because they don't commune with
God about everything. Mueller said, back in those days, I believe they
had fountain pens and you had to fill them. And he said if there's
something in his life worth doing, it's worth communicating to God
about.

One of the reasons that people don't pray as they ought is because we
have a lot of people who are wired to pray only when the crisis comes.
Brethren, have you ever read in the Proverbs, the prayer of the upright
is God's delight. And you can take that reality over to the Song of
Solomon.

Just turn to the Song of Solomon. I mean, here we have a picture of
Christ and His church. Somebody read Song of Solomon 2.10. My Beloved
speaks and says to me, Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.

For behold, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. How about
verse 13? The fig tree ripens its figs and the vines are in blossom.
They give forth fragrance.

Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away. Hold my dove in the
clefts of the rock and the cranes of the cliff. Let me see your face.

Let me hear your voice. And so there you have a picture of Christ and
the church. Let me hear your voice.

Let me see your face. Look, you're totally... I've told this story
before, but I remember when I worked at Miller Curtin, I just had this
picture in my mind of one of the guys that worked there in the
engineering department getting married. And then coming to work with his
sleeping bag and sleeping under his desk every day.

I said, what are you doing? You're married. Go home, man. Go home to
your wife.

Go home and sleep in your bed at home. You would say the man's a fool to
bring his sleeping bag. He just got married.

His wife is at home waiting for him. He sleeps under his desk. You see,
that's what's happening when you get professing Christians that just
walk around and all their prayer is crisis praying.

Oh, I'm lonely. Give me a wife. Oh, I'm this, I'm that.

Give me, give me, give me, give me. It's like you're missing. You're
missing something.

It's like we have to go back to the starting point. If the prayer life
is just some duty and some drudgery, I'm afraid you're not partaking of
Christianity. I'm afraid you're partaking of something that is of your
own creation.

Because this eternal life that we're talking about is to know God and to
know His Christ. Somebody read Psalm 49. You have captivated my heart
with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace.

How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride. You've captivated me.
And of course, we could go on.

We could go over to chapter 5 and you know the picture there of Christ
coming to the door and He puts His hand to the latch and it's locked and
He calls for His bride and she delays. Why? She begins to think, my feet
are clean and I'm already in bed and if I get up... And it's kind of
like the Lord coming to us and calling us away in prayer. Brethren, I
recognize that there's a discipline in prayer.

But there's also going to be a real sweetness as well. And those who
walk in that sweetness and they're going to the Lord and they're
communing with the Lord, it's His delight. The prayer of the upright is
His delight.

He longs to see our face. There's peace. We saw that from Philippians 4.
There's peace.

How about this? Jeremiah 33.3 Somebody read that. "...call to Me and I
will answer you and will tell you great and hidden things..." You see
what that's saying? It's kind of like Moses. You know what happened to
Moses when he went into the tent of mating and that pillar came down and
settled right over the top? Or when he went up on Mount Sinai and God
descended? Moses was brought into the inner councils of God.

You see what's being said? If you call on Me, there's secret things.
There's a special, hidden, secret revelation that God... You know what
happens? You begin to understand things about God that other people just
don't understand. And I think that's part of it.

I think that's part of it where sometimes you look at people and they're
walking on another plane. They're walking on a plane like they don't
really know God. Or they wouldn't do or say the things that they do or
say.

You look and you wonder... I'm saying this because I'm hoping that it
produces an appetite. The peace of God is to be found. Great and hidden
things are to be found.

There's also a closeness. Brethren, think with me here. What did James
say in James 4 about drawing close to God? If you draw close to Him,
what does it say? Draw near to Him, and He will draw near to you.

That's what James says. You see, it's this kind of thing where you draw
near to Him and He comes near to you. You say, what is that? I'm talking
about your spiritual senses pick Him up.

You say, isn't He near to all of us? Doesn't Scripture say somewhere
where He's not far from any of us? Yes. What does it mean for God to
draw near? Isn't He everywhere all the time? Yes. To draw near means
that your senses, your spiritual senses pick up His presence.

He gives you ears to hear His voice, eyes to see His Person, ability to
comprehend the hidden things and the secret things, and joy and love. We
read in Scripture about the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts.
This is something that the Spirit does.

Or we think about the Spirit bearing witness. Brethren, there is a
witness bearing. There is a love.

There is a presence. There is a joy. And I'll tell you this, when He
comes close, there's a fear and there's also something happens that you
want to protect.

You don't want to lose that. In other words, once that happens, you want
it to happen again, and again, and again. And if you really think that
if I go and do this thing that I'm about ready to do and I lose that,
then I don't want to go do what I'm about to go do.

Because I want that more than the thing I'm about to go and do. You see,
that's the thing. That's the thing that confounds me.

I watch some Christians go do things that I know that's got to be
grieving the Spirit. Why would they go do that? It's because they don't
value communion with God more than that. And the reason that I suspect
that they don't is because it's foreign to them to draw near to God and
have Him draw near to them.

They don't know that in its fullness to where it prevents them from
doing that thing that they do. Brethren, we're told to watch in prayer.
Watch.

Watch. Watch. You remember the Lord Jesus on the night that He was
betrayed and then only took the Lord's Supper.

He went out to the Garden of Gethsemane. And you remember, He told His
disciples, watch and pray. Watch and pray that you not fall into
temptation.

Brethren, what in the world was happening out there that night? The
devil was moving. The devil was seeking to sift Peter. The devil had
entered into Judas.

Jesus was under extreme turmoil. Things were happening in the spiritual
realm. And Jesus says to all of us, watch.

Watch. Watch. Why? We have an enemy that is moving.

We have an enemy that is seeking to devour. How do we watch? Brethren,
we watch in prayer. We watch in prayer.

Prayer makes us discerning. Prayer makes us sensitive to temptation. It
makes us sensitive to demonic activity.

It makes us sensitive to danger. That's why those two words go together.
Praying and watching.

They go together. Watch and pray. Scripture says watch and pray.

Or let's turn to Ephesians 6.18. Chapter 6 is about putting on the armor
of God. When you get down to verse 18, you come to all prayer. That's
how it is in the KJV.

I say it that way because that's how it is in Pilgrim's Progress as
well. All prayer. Does somebody read Ephesians 6.18? "...Praying at all
times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.

To that end, keep alert with all perseverance and any supplication for
all the saints." Did you hear that? How do you keep alert? How do you
persevere? Through prayer. That's how you keep alert. Isn't it
interesting? See, brethren, things happen when you talk to God.

When you talk to Him, there is something that happens spiritually. And
what this is a promise of is people who are sleeping in the church.
Write it down.

They're staying in bed. They're not getting up in the morning and
praying. They make purpose to pray in the evenings.

They're hanging out with their friends. They don't do it. Mark it down.

People who are not alert. People who are not awake. And people who
foolishly stumble into sin, stumble into worldliness, stumble into
carnality.

Brethren, if they're not watching, they're not watching. They're not
attentive. These things go hand in hand.

Also, you have confession. Brethren, if we confess our sins, He's
faithful and just to forgive them. Brethren, what you have to recognize
is this.

You can go to the Lord's Prayer. And it talks about... anybody cite the
Lord's Prayer to me? Somebody's got to have it memorized. Right there.

Right there. Forgive us our trespasses. This is Jesus teaching His
disciples to pray, not lost people.

Forgive us our trespasses. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and
just to forgive. Brethren, there are two kinds of forgiveness.

On the one hand, you have a legal forgiveness. Justification. We're
counted righteous.

But brethren, there's a relational forgiveness. Say, what do you mean?
There's that kind of forgiveness where David has sinned and you get
Psalm 51. Can anybody think about what Psalm 51 is all about? He
confesses his sins.

There's a place for the Christian to say, Father, forgive me. There's a
place for Christian to Christian, a husband and wife that are
Christians, to say, forgive me. You see, that's not a legal declaration
of righteousness.

That's a relational forgiving so that any grieving of the Spirit, any
grief that was there, any separation that was there, brethren, you know
how it is when we're living our Christian life. Sin comes in. Some
callousness can come in.

But if we're communicating regularly with the Lord, you know what? It's
very difficult to continue a prayer life with the Lord if you've got
some outstanding sin there. And having appointed times in your day where
you go, or a main time where you go in prayer. Brethren, I know
oftentimes, one of the things that I do when I go before the Lord in
prayer is there's a searching.

I don't want to just run into His presence. It's like, I don't want to
be a hypocrite. There's a place to do inventory.

Is everything okay? Am I harboring anything? And there's a place for
confession to start right off. A place for repentance. That is so
healthy.

Those who play at prayer or just stick it in the cracks or just pray
when there's some crisis, you're not doing that. And so there's not this
constant, short account keeping with God. Many of you have heard, I've
told this repeatedly, I like this, I've come across this, where one of
Spurgeon's deacons was watching Spurgeon.

They were both walking kind of parallel on two sides of a street there
in London. And he was watching Spurgeon. Spurgeon stopped dead in his
tracks, hung his head for a few moments.

I don't know if it got into minutes or not. But he just stopped on the
other side and he watched him. And then Spurgeon raised his head and
went on walking.

And the deacon crossed the street and went over and said, everything
okay? And he said, something came between me and my Savior and I needed
to deal with it immediately. And it's that keeping of short accounts. If
we're not praying... Brethren, I would say this, battles are won,
miracles are done through praying.

I mean, think about the places in Scripture where they prayed. Think
about the fact that we're told that mountains can be moved or trees can
be plucked up and mountains and trees can be cast away. Think about
that.

Hezekiah. Think about in Hezekiah's day. He is faced by probably the
strongest ruler on the face of the earth in Sennacherib.

He comes against Jerusalem. And Hezekiah prayed. And God heard his
prayer.

We could go on and on through the victories that have been won. James
likes to tell the story about the king there that was up against
incredible odds. And they prayed.

We don't know what to do. We're looking to You. Which king was that?
Jehoshaphat.

That's all through Scripture. Lord, help! And we get help. You can be
certain, brethren, that it's the praying people that are going to see
these kinds of things happen.

What are we told? Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. Isn't that
interesting? James says that to us. In other words, Elijah was just like
us.

And what did Elijah do? He prayed and it didn't rain for how long? Three
and a half years. Then he prayed and it rained. Brethren, the people
that experience manifestations of power, they're not prayerless people
typically.

You want the quick path to powerlessness in your life? Don't pray. Just
don't pray. So we can go through all these things.

You're brought into the secret place? Watch. When we pray, there's an
alertness. There's a perseverance.

When we confess, the relationship is restored. God delights that we
should do this. In the communing, in the talking with Him like Moses,
there is this God-likeness that begins to be worked into the fabric of
our being.

We see miracles. Battles are won. There's a closeness.

He draws close to us. There's a communing. There's a sweetness in all of
this.

Now let's transition over and talk about the Word of God. And I want to
go through some texts very quickly here that have to do with Scripture.
The first one that jumps out at me is Psalm 119.11. Why don't somebody
look there and read that.

Somebody else, since most of you are going to be turning there, somebody
else can turn to 1 John 2.14. I think that's an amazingly helpful
passage as well. Now we're coming to the other side. It's not just that
we speak to Him.

We need to hear His voice. And if we do, I just want to go through a
number of advantages, a number of blessings, a number of absolutely
critical and necessary ways in which this is our life. This helps us to
be what we're supposed to be.

To be Christians as Christians ought to be. Somebody read Psalm 119.11.
That's a classic text. Brethren, when we go to the Word, we store up the
Word in our heart that we might not sin against Him.

I suspect that where we see sin, those in the church that walk most
carnally, I believe that based on a text like this, you can find
correlations between how much time is spent in the Word. Do we play at
reading our Bibles, or are we serious? I have a feeling that if we could
go back to the DVD of your life, I have a feeling that there is a direct
correlation between the people who have read the book of Hosea end to
end and the purity in your life. You say, what are you talking about,
Hosea? I'm talking about the minor prophets, which is probably a portion
of Scripture that if people have not read their Bible cover to cover,
it's probably an area that people have passed over.

Or places like Leviticus. Or places like 2 Chronicles. I would imagine
that the people in this room that have read Leviticus, 2 Chronicles, and
Hosea, it's very likely that there is a pattern.

And I'm not going to ask for any show of hands, but people who take the
Word seriously. For me as a young believer, to know that there was even
part of the Bible that I had not read yet. Something God had actually
spoken to me, and I hadn't read it yet.

I mean the thought of that was unbearable. I want to hear His voice. I
want to know that.

And when you store up that Word, there's a direct correlation to sin.
That's what Scripture says. Think with me.

All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. When I store up the
Word in my heart, substitute that. If sin is falling short of the glory
of God, I store up His Word in my heart that I might not fall short of
the glory of God.

You see, if life, as the old Westminster Confession says, what's the
main purpose of man? If indeed the purpose of man is to glorify God,
then it's not to spend my life falling short of His glory. And I guess
what baffles me is sometimes young Christians who are doing things that
just don't seem to be a reflection of the glory of God. Some of the
things that some Christians do, I'm quite certain that if they just had
the experience that Isaiah had, and they walked out of the temple having
seen the Lord in that year that King Uzziah died, high and lifted up in
His train, filled the temple, and there's seraphim.

You come walking out of there, I doubt Isaiah ran off and did some of
the things that sometimes young people, young professing believers do.
Brethren, did somebody turn to 1 John 2.14? Okay, now don't worry about
the fathers. It's the young men.

This is what I want you to hear. Listen to this. Wow! Think about all
those connections right there.

Strength. The Word of God abides in them. They've overcome the evil one.

Brethren, Matthew 4. Jesus. Temptation. Face to face with the devil
himself.

In fact, that's where he says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. He had the sword of the
Spirit. And where was it? I'll tell you this, it wasn't in a book.

It was in his brain. Mark that. Well, that doesn't mean that he never
read from the scroll.

Obviously, he grew in wisdom and favor. We see that in Luke. He grew in
wisdom.

How did he grow? Obviously, being taught. Obviously, reading. But you
see where his sword was? The sword of the Spirit, the Word of God was no
longer in a book.

It was in his brain. It was in his thoughts. How do you get there? By
spending hours and hours and hours in the Word of God.

By soaking it up. By meditating on it. By letting it course through your
brain and renew that mind.

And your mind begins to be impacted by it. Listen, if your brains are
being exposed to worldly music and worldly garbage on the Internet, and
trash on the Internet, and you're surrounding yourselves either through
the TV, through movies, through the Internet, through actual companions,
you're surrounding yourself with worldly, ungodly people and influences,
it's no wonder that your life is not going to be in the same place as
the life of the person who lives in that Word. Here's what Jesus said.

He says this in John 5. You search the Scriptures. Because in there, you
think you're going to find eternal life. But He said, those Scriptures
speak of Me.

And you may remember on the road to Emmaus, He went through all the Old
Testament Scriptures and He basically showed those two guys Himself all
through the Law and the Prophets. All through the Old Testament. The
Scriptures speak of Him.

You see, that's where we see Him. What happens is, that if all you do is
pray, if all you do is talk to Him, you have no idea who you're talking
to. It's when we go to Scripture, we see who our God is.

We see His character. We get a feel for His person. It's in Scripture
that we get a feel for the person.

It's like you go to Scripture and He speaks to you and He says, this is
who I am. And now that greatly impacts when you answer back in prayer,
how you approach Him. What else can we say? Psalm 37.31 This may be
similar.

I mean, the idea in Psalm 119 is the fact that we not sin. We're not
going to fall short of the glory of God. Here at Psalm 37.31, the idea
is that our steps don't slip.

Somebody want to read it? The law of His God is in His heart. His steps
do not slip. Yeah, and then probably one that I believe I've memorized
as a young Christian was Psalm 1. Psalm 1, the first three verses.

Somebody want to look that one up? "...My sin is a man who walks not in
the company of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in
the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on
His law he meditates day and night." Notice that. In His law, He
meditates day and night.

It's like praying. Pray without ceasing. Devoted times, dedicated times,
are good.

Discipline. Get those in your life. Go back to them.

But don't ever think you're limited to them. We should be letting that
Word course through our minds day and night. Drift off to sleep thinking
about Scripture.

Wake up, think about Scripture. Listen, you think about what you expose
yourself to. Anybody think of any verses that kind of make that
connection? About what you see or what you hear? What you're exposed to?
"...That company ruins good morals." That could be one.

"...Put a limit to wholeness." Perhaps. Perhaps. How about one that
talks about just guarding the heart? Anybody think of a text that says
anything like that? "...Out of it flow the issues of life." It's the
idea that you guard.

Listen, if you watch something before you go to bed, it's going to
impact how you think as you're going off to sleep. It's going to impact
your dreams. What we fill ourselves with, what we fill our thoughts
with, what we fill our minds with, we're to be renewing the mind.

And listen, Scripture, think about what Scripture says. It's active.
It's living.

These are just pages in ink by themselves. But the truths contained as
they come through the eyeball and they get processed in the thoughts,
there's life. There's action.

There's movement. There's power. There's a living Word in this book.

The Spirit of God makes this alive. And when we bring that in, it has
distinct and definite impact on us. Anyway, who is reading Psalm 1? Pick
up where you left off and keep going all the way to the end of 3. "...He
is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its
season, and its leaf does not wither.

In all that He does, He prospers." Notice that. This man who meditates
on the Word night and day, the law of God just fills his life, his
heart, his mind. It's directly linked to the man who prospers, who's
fruitful.

I think of another one. Anybody think of a text that talks about God
saying to this man, I will look? Look it up, brother. Quote it for us.

Isaiah 66 To him, but to this one I will look, to him who is humble, and
contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My Word." Who trembles at My
Word. I guarantee that that's somebody who actually is in the Word,
meditates on the Word, understands the Word, takes the Word serious, and
is concerned to live it out. God says, that's the man to whom I will
look.

That's a look from God. Doesn't He look everywhere? Again, it's a
special, it's unique, it's a look of blessing, it's a look of help, it's
a look that you want. For God to say He's going to look at you is all
good.

It's the look of everything that you want. If you could see things the
way God sees them, and the way He sees them is the right way to see
them. But if you just think about these verses, a prayer life, our life
in the Word.

Man does not live by bread alone. The Christian lives by the words that
come out of God's mouth. This has to be priority.

If our Lord Jesus Christ says man does not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, you have to be thinking,
is our spiritual life more or less important than our physical life? How
much do we eat physically versus how much we eat spiritually? I mean,
again, brethren, there's a reality. Everyone in this room has a reality
about how much they're in the Word. There's a reality about our prayer
life.

Look, I know that there is a way that we might wish it was. Or there's a
way that we portray it to other people. But the truth is there's a way
that it actually is.

And that's what counts. That's what really matters. These two aspects of
the Christian life, prayer and the Word, it's our communication.

It's the essential links to walking with our God and with His Christ.
It's the essential links in knowing Him. It's the essential links in
closeness to Him.

It's the essential links in growth. He is our good. He is our growth.

It's nearness to Him that is going to produce everything good that we
need to have produced. Separation from Him is never healthy. Closeness
to Him, being attached to Him, being united to Him, fellowshipping with
Him, communing with Him, that is where our life is.

These two channels are the lifelines to Christ. They're the lifelines to
our God. And look, if you are not prioritizing, if this is sloppy, if
it's being pressed in the corner, I'll tell you this, you will never go
deep with God.

And you will never become what you could become. And you will stay
fairly immature, fairly carnal to the degree that you neglect these
things. There is a direct correlation between your spiritual health and
what I'm talking about here.

A direct correlation. And you can't get away from it. And there's no
substitutes for it.

Anybody want to add anything or any questions? James, do you want to say
anything about that? Did you mention Job 23? No. 12, I have not departed
from the commandment of His lips. I have treasured the words of His
mouth more than my portion of food.

I was even thinking of Psalm 63. David said, I've meditated on You in
the watches of the night. It's like David's laying in his bed meditating
on the Lord.

Right. Anything else? Did George Mueller read the Bible four times a
year? Was that what it was? No, I actually think he only read it once a
year. But he lived to be almost 100 years old, and so it was very
consistent.

That's what I think I remember. Someone commented about him and said he
read it four times every year. Anybody know? I mean, that's good.

If you can do it, that's great. Okay, let's pray. Father, I pray that
You would give us all ears to hear.

Lord, draw Your people into Your presence. Draw us by Your kindness.
Draw us with Your love.

Draw us, Lord. Father, in our natural state, we have no appetite for any
of this. We have no desire for any of this.

Lord, if we do have, to the degree that we have it, it's from You. You
give us the spiritual health to desire these things. I pray, Lord,
incline us.

Draw us, Lord. As it says there in the Song of Solomon and the King
James Version, draw us and we will run after You. Lord, please, draw us.

We pray in Christ's name, Amen.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/PGxKQcs0zvs.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/tim-conway/the-necessity-of-daily-praying-and-reading-the-bible/
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