MAKE IT A MATTER OF PRAYER
Dr. W. A. Criswell
1 Thessalonians
5:17
09-08-91
You are listening to the
services of the First Baptist Church in Dallas. This is the senior pastor bringing the message entitled Make It A Matter Of Prayer.
We're so grateful to God for
His heavenly watch-care over our pastor, who has just returned from a mission
to India, dedicating a marvelous hospital there in the name of the Lord, and for
the blessing of those Indian people.
And this is the beginning of a week of prayer for state missions—that
God will bless the response of our churches in creating fifteen hundred other
congregations, and helping bring the saving message of Christ to the expanding
population of our Lone Star State of Texas.
Out of the passage that you read
just now, from 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, is a little brief text of three
words, “Pray without ceasing.” Make
It A Matter Of Prayer.
This is the first letter in our Holy Bible that
Paul has written. From Corinth he
addressed it to the church at Thessalonica.
And in this first letter of the sainted Apostle, we find an insight into
his spiritual life: it is one of prayer.
In every chapter, and on every page of the letter, you will find his
appeal to the Lord.
In chapter one: “We give thanks to God always for you all…
.” A good southerner was the Apostle
Paul—did you catch that? “Always
thanking God for y’all.” “We
give thanks always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers.”
Next chapter: “For this cause also thank we God for you
without ceasing.” The next
chapter: “Night and day praying
exceedingly.” And turning the page: “Brethren, pray for us,” and again, “pray
without ceasing.”
In our text, does the Apostle
mean that we are always—through the hours of every day and night—to be found on
our knees? “Pray without ceasing.” Not at all! Even in the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of Luke—that tremendous
portrayal of the prayer life of our Lord—it begins with: “When the Lord ceased praying,” His
disciples came and asked that He teach them how to pray.
What the Apostle means is that,
in all of life, we are to make it a matter of prayer.
When you are weary in body and
soul
Cumbered with many a care
When work is claiming its
strength-taking toll
Make it a matter of prayer.
And when you're discouraged,
distraught or dismayed
Sinking almost in despair
Remember there's One who will
come to your aid,
If you'll make it a matter of
prayer.
And when you are lost
In this world's tangled maze
When life seems a hopeless
affair
Direction will come for all of
your ways
If you'll make it a matter of
prayer.
And could I also take from
Alfred Lord Tennyson—the poet laureate of England in this last century—one of
the most beautiful poems that he ever wrote.
... more things are wrought by
prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me day
and night.
For what are men better than
animals
That nourish a blind life
within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not
hands of prayer,
Both for themselves and for
those who call them friend?
For so the whole world round
earth is thus in every way
Bound by chains of gold about
the feet of God.
[from The
Passing of Arthur, Alfred Lord Tennyson]
Make it a
matter of prayer.
There are critics sarcastically
avowing that the appeal to prayer is an admission of insecurity, and
ineffectiveness, and disablement, and weakness. We admit it—cannot help but saying it! There is an innate congenital weakness, an incapacity, an
inability in us that we cannot obviate or disguise.
Do you remember Abraham when he
came to God and said, “Behold, I have taken upon me to speak unto thee—I, who
am but dust and ashes.” How can we
obviate the obvious? “I am made out of
dust.”
And Lord, there is an innate,
congenital, genetic weakness in me that I cannot deny—disease, and age, and
death, beside frustration and despair—it brings one to his knees. O God, I need Thy strong arm and Thy help
from heaven!
And again, how do we obviate
the vicissitudes and the fortunes of life that inevitably overwhelm us? All alike—you know, it's strange, when you
read the conclusion to the Lord's Sermon on the Mount, closing the seventh
chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. He said life is like one building a house in
the face of a storm and of a flood. The
foolish man, He says, builds his house on the sand. The wise man builds his house on the rock.
And we cannot help but think,
in reading that closing parable of our Lord, “Why didn't that wise man build
his house away from the flood and from the storm?” And the answer is obvious.
You don't build your house except in the path of the flood. All of us face those exigencies and
fortunes of life; and it brings us to our knees. “Lord, I'm not equal to the exigencies that overwhelm me. I need Your help.”
And we are encouraged to pray
by the living Word of the living God.
Jeremiah 33:3: “Call unto me,
and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things thou knowest not.” Or, in the beautiful passage of our Lord
that was the text of our so gifted pastor at the eight-fifteen o'clock hour—the
eleventh chapter of the book of Luke: “Ask and I'll answer; seek, and you'll
find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
For he that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him
that knocketh, the door shall be opened.”
That's
our Lord's promise from heaven.
And as though that were not
enough, He said in John 14:13—that incomparable comforting chapter—He
said: “Whatsoever ye shall ask in My
name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” “Ask”—He encourages us to make it a matter
of prayer.
And what more could I say of
Philippians chapter four, the last chapter of Philippians, verse six: “Be
anxious for nothing—careful for nothing, burdened for nothing, in despair about
nothing—but in everything by prayer and thanksgiving let your requests be made
known unto God”—encouraged to pray by the Scriptures, God's holy and
infallible Word.
And we are encouraged to pray
by the example of God's servants in Holy Scripture. “Abraham stood yet before the Lord,” when the angel announced to
him he was sent to destroy Sodom; and in that city was his nephew Lot, and
Lot's family. And in the face of that
destruction, “Abraham stood yet before the Lord.” “If there were fifty righteous, would you spare it? Forty-five? Forty? Thirty? Twenty?
Ten?” Do you know, I think God
would have answered it had Abraham said, “If there's none but two righteous,
Lot and his wife?” God would have said,
“Yes.”
We're encouraged to pray by the
example of these saints of God. At the
river of Jabbok, Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord all night long. And the angel touched him and thereafter he
hobbled on his thigh. It was a
remembrance of that night of desperate prayer. And God changed his name from Jacob to Israel. And Jacob changed the name of Jabbok to
Peniel: “For I have seen the face of God.”
What an incomparable experience!
And the Lord God said to Moses,
“Stand aside, let My wrath burn against these people, and I'll destroy them out
of My sight.” They were down there at
the base of the mountain naked, and dancing around a golden calf. And Moses stood yet before the Lord and
cried, saying: “O Lord God, if You will
forgive their sins—” and in the Bible there is a long black dash. He never finished it. Goodness!
His heart broke, and he couldn't speak.
“O God, if Thou wilt forgive
their sins—and if not, blot my name out of the book which Thou has written in
heaven.” And for Moses' sake, He
spared those evil…
Hannah: “O God, give me a child—my barren womb and
my desolate life—O God, give me a child!”
And that was the beginning of the era of the prophets and of the kings.
And Elijah cried on Mount
Carmel, “Lord, these prophets of Baal, hundreds of them, Lord God, this altar I
have built in Thy name, and this sacrifice made for Thy sake. O God, send the fire! Send the fire!” And God sent fire down from heaven and burned up the water around
the altar, of the trench, burned up the sacrifice, burned up the wood, burned
up the stones. The prayer-answering
God!
And Hezekiah said: “O God, look! Look!” And he brought
before the Lord God in the house of Jehovah the letter of Sennacherib, the king
of Assyria, threatening to destroy the nation—carry them away into
captivity. Hezekiah brought the letter
before God and said: “O God, look! Look!
Look! We cast ourselves upon
Thy mercies! Please, God, from
heaven…”
And the Lord God sent Isaiah to
him and said, “This night will be one of deliverance for My people.” And that night the angel of death passed
over the army of Assyria that was surrounding the holy city of Jerusalem. And they counted 185,000 dead corpses in
the morning. And the king went back to
Nineveh in defeat and frustration.
That's God!
Could I follow through one of
the things in the life of good king Hezekiah?
Isaiah said to him: “Thou shalt
die and not live. Set your house in
order.” And as Isaiah left with that
tragic message of death, Hezekiah turned his face to the wall; and he wept
before God; and he prayed to the Lord.
And God said to Isaiah: “You turn around and go back, and you tell
Hezekiah I have seen his tears; I have heard his prayers, and I'm adding
fifteen wonderful years to his life.”
Make it a matter of prayer!
So, the king said to Daniel and
to all of the wise men of Babylon:
“Because you can't tell me my dream or its meaning, all of you face
death.” And Daniel went to the three Hebrew
children and read to them the ordinance of death. And they prayed; and God gave to Daniel the king's dream and its
meaning.
And time would fail me to speak
of the prayer-answering God in the days of this dispensation—the days of
grace—the church, and those apostles praying for it in Jerusalem.
The church gathered, praying
for Peter, as the next morning he faced death at the hands of Herod Agrippa I;
or the sweet company of saints that met Paul at the edge of the sea. And he, in the Bible, I'm just quoting: “He prayed with them all.”
And what more could I say of
our Lord in heaven? The great fourth
chapter of Hebrews ends: “For we have not an high priest who cannot be
touched with the feeling of our needs, and necessities, and infirmities, and
weaknesses. For He was tried in all points
as we are, though without sin.
Wherefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace”—you're invited and
encouraged to come—“come boldly to the throne of grace, that you obtain mercy,
and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16).
“Wherefore
he is able to save to the uttermost those who come unto God by him, seeing he
ever liveth to make intercession for us” (Hebrews 7:25). He prays for us in heaven—our Lord.
May I now be forgiven to take a
leaf out of my own life? God answers
prayer—the prayer-answering God, our Lord in heaven, making it a matter of
prayer. When I was a teenager, I was
called to be pastor of the White Mound Baptist Church in Coryell County, a
country church, beautiful with columns, white columns out in front of it, and a
very, very, very large, large, large churchyard, surrounded by a white fence;
and by the side of the church a large tabernacle, an open tabernacle. And I'm speaking now of sixty-five
years ago. In the summertime, when the
crops were laid by, the greatest event of the year was the annual summer
revival meeting, and I was to conduct it under that open tabernacle.
When the time came for the
evening service to begin, the people of the county flooded in by the uncounted
numbers. They came by horseback; they
came by buggy; they came by wagon; they came by foot—a throng of them. And when I looked at that throng gathering
under that big tabernacle for their annual revival meeting, my heart failed
within me. I was frightened to death
to preach to that throng—O God!
The singer was Fred Swank. Were you in his church? The singer was Fred Swank. Never had but one church in his life, and
that was over there in Fort Worth—Fred Swank.
I told him that I was just dying inside of my heart; that great throng
from the ends of the county, and I was a teenager—O God!
He said, “You come with
me.” There is a parsonage there in the
corner of that churchyard, and I followed Fred Swank to that parsonage. And in the back were steps leading up to
the kitchen door. And he said to me,
“You sit down there on those steps.”
And he opened his Bible to 1 Peter chapter 5, verses 6 and 7: “Humble
yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due
season: Casting
all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”
Then he said, “You come now and
kneel down here by my side.” And he put
his arm around me, and he prayed for me, that God would bless me, and help me,
and stand by me in this hour of the great revival.
Sweet people, if I may be forgiven
a little side of egotism—you should have been there that night. You could have heard me five miles as I
preached up and down the aisles of that tabernacle, and outside and inside. And the Lord came down, our souls to grace,
and mercy filled the glory seat. God
answers prayer! Make it a matter of
prayer!
I have time, just one other:
this age of grace in which we live—a few days ago there was a large group of
preachers asking me questions. And they
said, “What is the greatest service in which you ever took part in your
life? What is the greatest service you
ever had in your life?” Then they
suggested some: “Was it that time when the Baptist General Convention Evangelism
Conference was held in Fort Worth in the Will Rogers Coliseum, and you preached
on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and that man up there on the back row of the
top-most balcony began to shout? And he
came down the balcony, and down the steps, and down through the throng and up
on the platform shouting?” (Were
you there that night? You’re too
young—too young—just a boy.) They said
to me, “We were there. And I never
felt anything like that in my life!
Was that the greatest experience you've ever had in a service?”
And another one said, “You know
that address that you made at the Southern Baptist Convention, ‘Whether We Live
or Die,’ that turned our convention into a Bible-believing commitment to
God. Was that your greatest
experience?” And they said several
suggestions. I said, “No, let me tell you the greatest
experience I ever had in my life.”
The great George W. Truett—pastor of this sweet
church for forty-seven years—Dr. Truett died in July 1944. And they called me as pastor of the
congregation to follow him in September—just a month in between.
And the first day of October
was the first Sunday in October. And
after having been called as pastor of the church, I stood here and preached my
first sermon. And the title of that
sermon was Make It a Matter of Prayer.
And when I got through preaching, I knelt down right here, on the
side of the pulpit, and began to pray.
Dr. Truett was a very austere
and dignified man. That was the first
time the church had ever seen a man kneel in prayer in this pulpit. And when I knelt to pray—there was three
thousand people jammed into this sanctuary—they burst into tears. Have you ever heard three thousand people
crying? I had never heard a sound like
that in all of my life—three thousand people, weeping unashamedly before the
Lord.
And when the service
was done, Bob Coleman—the assistant to Dr. Truett for forty years—as we walked
out the door together, he put his arm around me and he said, “Young man, this
is your anniversary.”
The
first Sunday in October before we moved here to Dallas: “This is your
anniversary,” he said. “For we've never
seen, and we've never felt, and we've never experienced a thing like this in
our lives.”
Make
it a matter of prayer. God bows down
His ear from heaven to hear His people when they pray. And that is our appeal to you who have
listened to this service on television.
Make it a matter of prayer. Ask
God to come into your house and heart and home.
And
if you don't know how to accept Jesus as your Savior, there's a number on the
screen. Call it. And there will be a consecrated man or woman
to guide you into the kingdom of God.
And
if you will answer with your heart and open your heart to the Lord, I'll meet
you in heaven in a glorious and triumphant day. And to the great throng in the sanctuary this hour, in the
balcony round, the throng on this lower floor, down those steps or down this
aisle.
“Pastor,
this is God's day for me, and I'm answering with my life.” On the first note of the first stanza, come,
while we stand and while we sing.
“I'm giving my heart to Jesus,”
or “I'm coming into the fellowship of this dear church,” or “I'm answering the
call of God in my heart. But I'm on the
way, I'm on the way.”
