How God Answers Prayer

Before we go to a time of prayer for our nation at this critical hour, because let's be honest and face it, friends, if God doesn't send us a heaven-sent revival, we are done for. It seems as if all hell has been let loose on this country, as if God has let down the hedge and evil is having its day. The only hope for this nation is a spiritual awakening, for we have become a violent, godless society and a lukewarm church.

Why, how long has it been since we've seen the power of God in a meeting? How we desperately need revival, friends. With our hearts admitting our lack and our need of a touch from heaven, I thought I'd give us a little lesson on prayer before we go to a time of prayer. And this lesson is about how God answers prayer.

And that's the title of my message this evening, How God Answers Prayer. My text can be found in Luke's Gospel. You can turn in your Bible there now, friends.

We will be in chapter 11 and in verses 11 through 13. Let me read us this important passage of scripture where Jesus was teaching his disciples how to pray. I remember the first time I saw a man pray.

I was 13 years old. A neighbor of ours was a pastor and he saw that I was being raised in a godless home and he took an interest in an awkward teenage boy and invited me over to his home to have breakfast with his family each morning. His wife would have homemade bread or muffins in the oven and he'd drink a cup of hot tea with some milk in it and that's what we would have for breakfast.

And this man did something peculiar before we ate. He asked us to bow our heads and he began to pray. Why? I'd never seen or heard anything like that before.

My parents never prayed. And this man began to pray eventually for my soul and he would eventually witness to me about the love of Jesus and he gave me my first Bible which I still have and cherish today. That man cared about my soul.

Do you, friend, have a burden for a lost person that you pray for on a regular basis so they won't go on to hell? Oh, friends, I will shrink at the judgment seat to learn the time lost and wasted that we could have given to prayer. Well, let's look at this brief but power-packed message on prayer. There are three principles of prayer I'd like to draw out from this passage from Luke chapter 11.

Here now is the Word of God and may the Spirit of the Lord be pleased to attend the reading of his holy word. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Let me pause here. Jesus relates prayer to a son asking a father for something needful.

The father has the sufficiency to deliver. He has a desire to help his son in need. There is a filial relationship here.

That's how we, friends, should approach God in prayer. Coming to him as a helpless beggar would come to a generous person. Or a child would come humbly and simply to his father with a request.

In this case, the boy is hungry and he needs nourishment. Would the father give him a stone? A stone has no nourishment, no value. In this first example, we see how God answers prayer as told by our Lord Jesus.

This first principle of prayer is number one, God will never give you in answer to prayer something that is worthless to you from his perspective. Look at the next prayer. Or if he asks a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? A snake is deadly.

I used to have to kill copperheads every year on my property in Tennessee. I would get into real battles with those venomous and deadly snakes. I'd have to pin them on the ground with a shovel on their neck and then lean on that shovel and cut off their head.

A snake is a dangerous creature you want to avoid. Prayer principle number two, God will never give you in answer to prayer something that is dangerous to you from his perspective. Here is a four-year-old boy who watches you cut apples in the kitchen with a sharp shiny knife and he reaches up to grab that knife because it's shiny and he wants it.

Would you give it to him and let him play with it? Of course not. Neither will God give you in answer to prayer a thing that is dangerous or potentially deadly to you from his perspective. Let's look at the third and final prayer principle.

Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? A scorpion may not kill you but it sure will make you ill. A friend of mine in Texas was bit by a scorpion and he had to lay in bed for several days before he recovered and regained his strength. So principle number three is God will never give you in answer to prayer something that is harmful to you from his perspective.

God will execute his plan in your life friend and bring you into a deeper relationship with him and answer to your prayers for your eternal good and for his glory. Well friends I hope this little lesson on prayer and how God answers prayer has been a help to you and encouragement to you as we now go to a time of prayer. Let us pray.