It Is Written

Effective Prayer

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: John Bradshaw

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Series Code: IIW

Program Code: IIW001471A


01:30 ♪[Theme music]♪
01:40 ♪[Theme music]♪
01:49 >>John Bradshaw: This is It Is Written. I'm John Bradshaw.
01:52 Thanks for joining me.
01:53 I'm in Moldova, a little country in Eastern Europe
01:57 sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine.
02:01 It's a quarter of the size of the state of Tennessee,
02:03 has the population of the state of Connecticut,
02:06 about three and a half million people.
02:09 ♪[Music]♪
02:14 For 50 years, Moldova was a Soviet socialist republic.
02:18 It was under communist rule as part of the Soviet Union.
02:23 But a remarkable thing happened,
02:24 the most significant political change of the 20th century.
02:29 And it affected the life of every person here.
02:36 ♪[Music]♪
02:46 ♪[Music]♪
02:54 As far as European communism went,
02:57 the winds of change really began to blow in the 1980s.
03:01 In Poland, the solidarity movement,
03:03 led by Lech Walesa, called for a series of strikes
03:06 which crippled that country's economy.
03:09 In Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Romania,
03:13 governments came under pressure to roll back
03:15 the oppressive restrictions of communism.
03:18 In previous times, the Soviet Union's response
03:20 would have been swift and severe.
03:23 But this time things would be different.
03:26 On November the tenth, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down.
03:31 It was a serpentine, 12-feet-tall,
03:33 100-mile-long barrier that separated West Germany
03:37 from communist East Germany.
03:40 East Germans celebrated,
03:42 and that falling domino set off a chain reaction
03:45 that led to the dissolution of communism in Eastern Europe.
03:49 And by the time the dust had settled,
03:51 the Soviet Union was no more.
03:56 But the story many people haven't heard
03:58 is how the fall of communism had less to do with
04:01 Lech Walesa and protest and more to do with prayer.
04:07 In 1982, in the city of Leipzig,
04:11 a Protestant pastor named Christian Fuhrer
04:13 began holding Monday evening prayer meetings in his church,
04:17 St. Nicholas Church.
04:19 Pastor Fuhrer conducted those prayer meetings
04:21 in spite of the East German government's strong opposition
04:25 to religious activities.
04:27 So the government pushed back,
04:29 saying they'd do whatever they had to to stop what had
04:33 morphed from simple prayer meeting to peaceful protests.
04:37 But on October the ninth, 1989,
04:40 eight thousand people gathered in the church,
04:43 and another seventy thousand people
04:45 massed in the streets outside.
04:48 In the end, the government let them protest.
04:52 The BBC later reported that East German officials said that they
04:56 were ready for anything at all, except candles and prayer.
05:02 ♪[Music]♪
05:08 Exactly one month after that historic night,
05:12 the wall came down.
05:14 And so too did a whole series of atheistic dictatorships.
05:18 ♪[Music]♪
05:30 So while there were certainly other factors involved,
05:32 it can't be denied that prayer
05:34 played an incredibly important role in bringing about
05:38 in East Germany and throughout Eastern Europe
05:41 an incredible change,
05:43 which not long before would have been completely unimaginable.
05:48 So what's the secret to effective prayer?
05:51 Can anyone learn to pray effectively?
05:54 Or do you have to be specially qualified
05:57 to get your prayers answered?
05:59 ♪[Music]♪
06:04 It seems to me a former Soviet socialist republic
06:07 is a pretty good place to ask,
06:09 and then try to answer those questions.
06:13 So what is prayer?
06:15 A dictionary will tell you that prayer is a petition to,
06:19 or communion with, God or another object.
06:23 Now, for the purpose of this discussion,
06:25 we'll limit ourselves to the idea of praying to God.
06:28 Someone once said that prayer is the opening up of the heart
06:32 to God as to a friend.
06:35 Now, God has asked that we pray.
06:38 And He's promised that He'll answer our prayers.
06:42 Now, listen to this: it's Second Chronicles 7, verse 14.
06:46 Solomon has just dedicated the temple to God.
06:49 It's in the tenth century B.C.
06:51 And God spoke to Solomon and said this:
06:55 “If My people, which are called by My name,
06:57 shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face,
07:02 and turn from their wicked ways;
07:05 then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin,
07:08 and will heal their land.”
07:11 The Sovereign of the universe says,
07:13 “I will answer your prayers.”
07:17 And you notice He makes it nice and simple.
07:19 There are very few conditions involved.
07:21 God simply says that if you come to Him humbly,
07:24 and if you turn away from sin,
07:26 He will hear and answer your prayers.
07:31 Now, over in the New Testament,
07:32 we read this in First John, chapter 5, verses 14 and 15:
07:38 “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him,
07:41 that if we ask anything according to His will,
07:44 He hears us.
07:45 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask,
07:48 we know that we have the petitions
07:50 that we have asked of Him.”
07:52 John, the man who wrote the gospel of John
07:54 and the Book of Revelation,
07:56 a man who spent three and a half years
07:58 as one of Jesus' closest friends, says that if you pray,
08:02 you can know that God hears you,
08:05 and in knowing that He hears you,
08:07 you can be confident that He will grant your petitions.
08:11 Now, that has to be one of the most remarkable things
08:14 ever written.
08:16 So, how do you go about praying in a way
08:20 that you can be certain your prayers will be answered?
08:23 Tell you that in just a moment.
08:25 ♪[Music]♪
08:33 >>Announcer: Planning for your financial future
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09:01 >>John: There is power in the Word of God,
09:03 and power available to you through the promises of God.
09:08 God wants you to experience that power, and so do I.
09:11 I'd like you to have today's free offer,
09:13 “Promises of Power,” new from It Is Written.
09:16 To receive “Promises of Power,”
09:18 call 800-253-3000
09:21 800-253-3000
09:23 Visit ItIsWritten.com
09:25 or write to the address on your screen,
09:27 and be sure you receive “Promises of Power.”
09:32 ♪[Music]♪
09:37 >>John: This is It Is Written. Thanks for joining me.
09:40 The first prayer in the Bible
09:41 appears in the third chapter of Genesis.
09:44 The last prayer in the Bible is in Revelation,
09:47 chapter 22, in the second last verse of the Bible,
09:50 where John rights, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
09:54 God wants us to pray.
09:57 He wants to communicate with us.
09:59 So how do you pray effectively?
10:01 What's the secret?
10:03 I've come to Orheiul Vechi,
10:05 a fascinating place about an hour from Chisinau,
10:08 the capital of Moldova.
10:09 Until 1991, Moldova was a communist land,
10:13 part of the Soviet Union.
10:15 Most people don't know how significant a part prayer played
10:19 in bringing about the end of communism.
10:22 And this historic little place
10:25 gives us an opportunity to reflect on prayer.
10:29 They say the medieval town was built here around 700 years ago.
10:34 Mongol invaders came through a little after that.
10:36 And then there was a time of peace under kings
10:39 such as Alexander the Kind and Stephen the Great.
10:43 There was a palace here at one time.
10:45 Governors lived here.
10:46 There was a mosque and a minaret from which
10:49 the call to prayer was made.
10:51 Ruins of an old Christian church can be seen.
10:54 And today, there's still a monastery here.
10:57 The cave monastery goes back hundreds of years.
11:02 It can't have been easy to build.
11:05 Monasteries are places of reflection.
11:08 Some have been built in the unlikeliest of settings.
11:11 In most every monastery,
11:13 prayer is high on the list of priorities.
11:17 Here at Orheiul Vechi,
11:19 the monastery is run by the Eastern Orthodox Church.
11:23 Monks actually used to stay in these little cells,
11:27 once upon a time.
11:28 Considering that the temperatures here can be
11:30 absolutely frigid, that's really something.
11:34 It's not unusual for monks, or others who live in a monastery,
11:38 to withdraw from the world and give themselves over to working,
11:42 to reading the Bible, and to prayer.
11:49 You don't see a monastic life
11:51 modeled or recommended in the Bible.
11:54 Now, it's true there were times that people came aside
11:57 for periods of spiritual devotion.
11:59 But they were connected to active ministry for others.
12:03 The six weeks or so that Jesus spent in the wilderness
12:06 after his baptism were immediately prior to
12:09 the beginning of his active earthly ministry.
12:13 In Mark 6 and verse 31, Jesus said to his disciples,
12:18 “Come apart by yourselves into a deserted place
12:21 and rest a while.”
12:23 Jesus could see they needed rest.
12:25 They needed time with him
12:27 to be strengthened for the ministry he called them to.
12:31 Does God hear prayers prayed in a monastery any more clearly
12:35 than he hears prayers prayed in the middle of a bustling city?
12:38 Does God hear the prayers of a monk or a priest or a minister
12:41 any more clearly than he hears the prayers
12:43 of a construction worker or a taxi driver?
12:47 Absolutely not.
12:50 The key to successful prayer is...to pray.
12:55 Whoever you are,
12:57 wherever you are,
12:58 whatever you are:
13:00 if you'll pray, God will hear your prayers.
13:05 Now, there's a common mistake that far too many people make
13:09 when it comes to prayer,
13:10 and that is thinking that prayer is all about getting.
13:15 Now, it's true, when you come to God in prayer,
13:17 it's okay to do your fair share of asking.
13:20 But prayer is so much more
13:22 than coming to God with a shopping list.
13:25 Prayer is communion.
13:27 It's communication.
13:29 It's spending time in God's presence
13:31 so that you and God are on the same wavelength,
13:33 so that God's thoughts become your thoughts,
13:37 and so that you are strengthened to live a Christian life
13:40 in the very center of the will of God.
13:44 I got an email a couple of days ago
13:46 from somebody asking about a difficult temptation
13:49 he was facing.
13:50 As a matter of fact,
13:51 he said it was beating him and he was feeling crushed,
13:55 and he couldn't get the victory over a certain sin.
13:58 And in that email he said,
14:01 “But I don't read my Bible, and I don't pray.”
14:05 Well, ladies and gentlemen, there it is.
14:08 He wasn't praying.
14:09 So of course he was being defeated.
14:12 If he had prayed,
14:13 well, he might not have got that shiny red truck
14:16 that he was wanting, for example,
14:18 but he would have been strengthened to meet the trials
14:21 that were coming into his life.
14:23 Prayer would have made the difference.
14:28 Now, while it's a good thing to pray in a peaceful place,
14:30 it's good to get away from it all,
14:32 it's good to be someplace that you're not going to be bothered,
14:35 what you need to know is how you can pray wherever you are
14:38 and still be heard by God.
14:40 There's no special place that you must pray
14:43 in order to be heard.
14:44 You can pray anywhere at all and anytime.
14:52 Prayer is where your desires become molded
14:55 to the will of God.
14:57 In fact, prayer is more about you trying to find out
14:59 what God's will is on something,
15:02 rather than trying to bend God to suit your will.
15:06 And prayer is not a get-out-of-jail-free card.
15:10 You can pray all you want, but your dog might still die
15:12 and you might still lose your job.
15:15 But if you pray,
15:16 you'll be strengthened to meet the trials life brings your way.
15:20 So how's your prayer life?
15:22 God is waiting to hear and answer your prayers.
15:26 I'll be back with more in just a moment.
15:27 ♪[Music]♪
15:34 ♪[Music]♪
15:37 Today I'd like to ask you to help It Is Written
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16:05 ♪[Music]♪
16:06 >>Announcer: In Matthew 4:4, the Word of God says,
16:08 “It is written,
16:09 ‘Man shall not live by bead alone,
16:11 but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
16:15 “Every Word” is a one-minute, Bible-based daily devotional
16:19 presented by Pastor John Bradshaw,
16:20 and designed especially for busy people like you.
16:23 Look for Every Word on selected networks,
16:26 or watch it online every day on our website,
16:29 ItIsWritten.com
16:31 Receive a daily spiritual boost.
16:33 Watch “Every Word.”
16:34 You'll be glad you did.
16:36 Here's a sample.
16:39 ♪[Theme music]♪
16:44 Joseph: sold as a slave by his own brothers
16:47 and taken off to a foreign country,
16:49 where's propositioned by his master's wife.
16:51 To betray his master's trust
16:53 and to sin against God would have been disastrous.
16:55 But to spurn this woman, well, we know how that turned out.
16:59 But when Potiphar's wife was turning up the heat,
17:02 Genesis 39, verse 8 speaks of Joseph when it says,
17:06 “But he refused.”
17:08 Three simple words that could change,
17:09 or maybe even save, your life.
17:12 Temptation comes at us every day it attacks us,
17:14 and often when we're weak or where we're weak.
17:17 But as challenging as temptation can be, think of Joseph.
17:21 “But he refused.”
17:22 He could have acquiesced, but he refused.
17:24 He could have fallen, but he refused.
17:27 Temptation offers you a choice.
17:28 Let it be said of you, “But he or she refused.”
17:31 And let God's Spirit keep you in the will of God.
17:34 I'm John Bradshaw for It Is Written.
17:36 Let's live today by every word.
17:39 ♪[Music]♪
17:44 >>John: Thanks for joining me today on It Is Written.
17:47 People come to monasteries like this one in Moldova to pray.
17:52 Prayer is fundamental to the Christian experience.
17:55 In fact, you cannot really call yourself a genuine believer
17:58 in God without habitual, personal prayer.
18:02 Prayer is where your mind meets with the mind of God.
18:07 Prayer is like breathing the air God breathes.
18:10 It's like downloading God's thoughts into your own.
18:14 Now, remember Psalm 66, verse 18, which says,
18:17 “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear.”
18:21 Now, that does not mean that God
18:23 doesn't hear the prayers of sinners.
18:24 If that were true, none of us would be heard.
18:27 But what it does mean is that if we choose to cling to sin,
18:31 and refuse to surrender it to God,
18:34 we're really telling God that we're just not serious about
18:38 his will being done in our life.
18:41 As John Bunyan, who wrote “The Pilgrim's Progress,” said,
18:44 “In prayer a heart without words is better
18:49 than words without a heart.”
18:53 Consider the Lord's Prayer with me.
18:55 It's the model prayer given in the Bible.
18:58 The disciples came to Jesus in Matthew, chapter 6,
19:01 and they said, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
19:05 And what prompted them to make that request was what Jesus
19:08 had been talking about immediately prior to this.
19:12 Jesus warned them against praying like the hypocrites,
19:15 who prayed so that other people
19:17 would see their religious devotion.
19:20 Now that word, hypocrites, is translated from a word
19:23 that means an actor.
19:26 Insincere prayers, just acting the part,
19:29 aren't getting anyone anywhere.
19:32 He went on to say in Matthew 6, verse 6,
19:34 “But you, when you pray, go into your room,
19:37 and when you have shut your door,
19:39 pray to your Father who is in the secret place;
19:42 and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”
19:46 Private prayer should be private.
19:49 When you're pouring out your heart to God
19:50 about what's nearest to you,
19:52 you want to have a place to go to pray that's your own space.
19:56 That's important.
19:57 And notice that Jesus in that passage suggested
19:59 that God will answer your prayers.
20:02 You find that thought expressed all the way through the Bible.
20:05 In the next verse,
20:06 Jesus said there's no place in prayer
20:09 for what He referred to as vain repetition.
20:12 That's saying the same prayer over and over and over again.
20:17 You see, when it comes to prayer,
20:20 what God wants us to know is that prayer
20:22 is a meeting of minds and hearts.
20:26 God wants to hear what's on your heart.
20:29 He wants to hear from you in communication
20:31 about what's important to you.
20:34 Simply regurgitating a learned prayer
20:37 doesn't really constitute true prayer.
20:40 I'll give you a case in point.
20:42 In my life I must have prayed the Lord's Prayer,
20:44 oh, thousands of times.
20:47 Because as a child we were taught to pray that prayer
20:50 over and over and over, and again and again and again.
20:53 But think about it.
20:55 You'd be far better off praying that prayer once,
20:58 and thinking about it, and reflecting on it,
21:03 really getting something out of the experience,
21:05 than you would saying that prayer a hundred times
21:09 without giving it any thought.
21:11 And then Jesus said in Matthew 6, verse 9,
21:14 “In this manner, therefore, pray:
21:17 Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.”
21:21 Now, who are you praying to?
21:22 You're praying to your Father.
21:25 And that ought to give you confidence and assurance.
21:29 And involved in that little phrase Jesus taught
21:31 was the idea of praise.
21:35 You're to praise God when you pray.
21:38 Praise Him for who He is, for what He is,
21:41 for what He's done, for what He means to you.
21:45 Just that can keep you busy praying for quite a while.
21:50 Verse 10: “Your kingdom come.
21:52 Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
21:56 We're to pray for the coming of God's kingdom,
21:59 the setting up of His eternal kingdom when Jesus returns.
22:03 You see, prayer focuses your mind on the important things
22:07 on the big picture.
22:09 And notice we're to pray that God's will is done.
22:14 Now, you and I both know that we don't always see our prayers
22:18 answered the way we wish they were.
22:20 And maybe that's because God knows
22:22 you don't really need a raise right now.
22:25 Or you can actually get by
22:26 without fine weather this weekend.
22:29 And that's fine.
22:30 But what about when your child doesn't recover from cancer,
22:33 or Dad doesn't come back from the hospital?
22:36 What then?
22:38 Well, the fact is, that's life.
22:41 That's life in this sinful world.
22:44 Now, it's not God's will that children should suffer
22:46 or that parents should die.
22:48 That's not God's will at all.
22:50 But what is God's will is that you're saved
22:53 into His eternal kingdom,
22:54 that you spend eternity with God.
22:57 And people who spend eternity with God are people
22:59 who've learned to say, like Job said,
23:02 “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”
23:06 Now, we don't always get what we want.
23:08 Our prayers aren't always answered the way we wish.
23:12 But we can trust God anyway, and say, “Thy will be done.”
23:19 Matthew 6:11: “Give us this day our daily bread.”
23:24 God wants us to ask Him for what we need and for what we want.
23:27 But we need to remember, God's not Santa Claus.
23:31 He knows what's best for us in every situation
23:34 as He considers the big picture.
23:36 But He does want us to pray big prayers.
23:40 John Knox, the great Scottish reformer,
23:42 didn't just pray for the salvation of a family member
23:44 or a neighbor.
23:46 He prayed to God and said,
23:47 “Give me Scotland or I die.”
23:49 He prayed for the salvation of a country.
23:53 In Second Kings, chapter 13, a king came to the prophet Elisha.
23:57 Elisha said to him, “Strike the ground,”
24:00 which the king did, three times.
24:03 Elisha was upset.
24:04 He said, “If you had pounded on the ground five or six times,
24:08 God would have given you complete deliverance from Syria.
24:12 But you only pounded on the ground three times.”
24:14 You see, God understood the king's timidity
24:17 in striking the ground as an expression of a lack of faith.
24:21 God wanted to do more for the king.
24:24 And often God wants to do more for you.
24:27 Pray big prayers.
24:28 Now, if you're praying for a bigger house and a nicer car,
24:33 well, you want to be careful about that.
24:35 Sometimes that might be appropriate,
24:36 but far too often it's just greed or ego.
24:41 But do pray big prayers, really big prayers,
24:44 and know that God is big enough to answer them.
24:48 In verse 12, the model prayer goes on:
24:51 “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
24:55 First, it's important to pray for forgiveness.
25:00 If you've sinned against God
25:01 and you have, then confess that sin.
25:05 John wrote directly about this in First John 1, verse 9:
25:08 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us
25:12 our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
25:16 There's your assurance right there that God
25:19 will forgive your sins.
25:20 That's settled.
25:21 Don't doubt that.
25:23 But notice that caveat “as we forgive our debtors.”
25:27 So how's that working out for you?
25:29 If you harbor unforgiveness toward others,
25:31 you're essentially begging God not to forgive you.
25:35 Pretty simple.
25:37 Verse 13: “And lead us not into temptation,
25:41 but deliver us from evil.
25:43 For thine is the kingdom,
25:45 and the power,
25:45 and the glory,
25:46 for ever, Amen.”
25:49 Your battle with sin, your temptations,
25:52 your struggles, that's all material for prayer.
25:56 Talk to God about it.
25:57 Appeal to God.
25:59 Wrestle with God.
26:01 Paul prayed about healing three times,
26:03 and then God told him to pray about that no more.
26:06 But as the great man of faith George Muller said,
26:09 “The great point [of prayer] is never to give up
26:13 until the answer comes.” Amen.
26:16 So today, little Moldova is a free country.
26:21 You could create a politics for that.
26:24 Or you could recognize that God on His throne
26:28 hears the prayers of those who pray.
26:32 Pastor Christian Fuhrer said,
26:34 “Without the church,
26:36 it would have been like all other revolutions before:
26:40 bloody and unsuccessful.”
26:42 He could have said, without prayer.
26:47 What would your life be like without prayer?
26:50 Or should I be asking,
26:52 what would your life be like with prayer?
26:55 Take time to pray.
26:56 God is waiting to hear from you.
27:00 ♪[Music]♪
27:06 There is power in the Word of God,
27:08 and power available to you through the promises of God.
27:13 God wants you to experience that power, and so do I.
27:16 I'd like you to have today's free offer,
27:18 “Promises of Power,”
27:19 new from It Is Written.
27:21 To receive “Promises of Power,”
27:23 call 800-253-3000
27:26 800-253-3000
27:28 Visit ItIsWritten.com
27:30 or write to the address on your screen,
27:32 and be sure you receive “Promises of Power.”
27:37 Thank you for remembering that It Is Written
27:39 is a faith-based ministry, and it's your support
27:42 that makes it possible for us to share God's good news
27:45 with the entire world.
27:48 Your tax-deductible gift
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27:50 or through our website,
27:53 itiswritten.com
27:55 Thank you for your continued prayerful support.
27:58 Our toll-free number is 800-253-3000
28:01 800-253-3000
28:03 Our web address is itiswritten.com
28:07 ♪[Music]♪
28:13 Let's pray together now.
28:15 Our Father in Heaven,
28:16 we thank you today for the privilege of prayer.
28:20 I thank you that you are a prayer-answering God,
28:23 and that you are willing, eager to do in answer to prayer
28:27 those things that you have placed on our heart.
28:30 Father, right now I know there's someone needing a miracle.
28:33 This man, this woman, this young person,
28:36 needs to see you intervene in a powerful way.
28:41 We are praying for this.
28:43 We know that Jesus has said,
28:45 “Ask and it shall be given,”
28:47 and we are asking.
28:49 He said, “Seek and you will find.”
28:50 We are seeking through prayer.
28:53 So Lord, grant our heart's need.
28:56 Grant what you know would be best for us
28:58 in the plan of salvation and in the overall flow of eternity.
29:03 And Father, I'm praying right now for that one
29:05 who needs to give his or her heart to you.
29:08 I pray for surrender.
29:09 I pray for conversion.
29:10 I pray for salvation in so many lives.
29:15 So we praise you and honor you,
29:16 and again we thank you that you hear us,
29:20 and that you act in our behalf.
29:22 And we pray in Jesus' name,
29:24 Amen.
29:26 Thank you so much for joining me today.
29:27 I'm looking forward to seeing you again next time.
29:30 Until then, remember:
29:31 It Is Written.
29:33 Man shall not live by bread alone,
29:35 but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
29:39 ♪[Theme music]♪


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Revised 2017-08-03