From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Now we come once more to a consideration of the 12th verse in the 12th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans: "Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer." Let me just remind you of the context: "Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another. Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer."

In other words, we are looking here at three of these separate injunctions which the Apostle gives at this point to these Roman Christians. And as most of you will remember, we are dealing with this second section, this last section in this chapter beginning at verse 9, where the Apostle is really dealing with our general relationship to other people. He's already dealt in the previous part with the way in which Christians regard and use the gifts that they are given severally by the Holy Spirit. There was the Christian functioning in the life of the church.

But now he's dealing more generally with our relationship to one another. The two great principles are those he lays down in verse 9: we must be governed by love, and we must hate evil and cleave to that which is good. That covers the whole of our conduct: people, everything else. Love to God, love to our neighbor, hatred of evil, being glued to that which is good. Then he tells us that in our brotherly love as Christians, we must be kindly affectioned one to another and in honor prefer one another.

Then when he came to look at us, we are confronted by this Christian life and living and our own functioning as Christians. He said don't be slothful in the matter of zeal. Don't be lethargic and slothful and half-hearted. But rather he tells us to rouse ourselves and to be fervent in the spirit, the Holy Spirit that is in us. Let the spirit within you, he says, blaze, let it burn. Let it be always at white heat, and above all realize that you are serving the Lord.

And now in the 12th verse, he's looking at and asking us to look at our total view of our lives in this world as Christian people. We began considering it last Friday night. We took up that first phrase, rejoicing in hope. And there we saw that that is something that is absolutely vital to our whole position. There is nothing so fatal to the Christian as to fail to realize the nature of his life in this world. Now as I said, the evangelists are often responsible for this.

They say, "Come to Jesus, you'll go walking down the streets of life, you'll never have any more troubles and problems." It isn't true. It isn't true. Though we are saved, we are still in this present world, and the sooner the better we realize that it is this present evil world. There's nothing in this world that makes us rejoice. The only way a Christian can rejoice is to rejoice in the light of that hope which is laid up for him, the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior.

The Christian rejoices only in that world which is to come, the great apocalypse which shall introduce the glorious kingdom of the Son of God. That's the thing to rejoice in, and we must keep our gaze fixed steadfastly upon that. There has been no greater travesty of the gospel than what was called at the beginning of this century the Social Gospel. There is still a good deal of it left, and that's what accounts for the state of the Christian Church so-called at the present time.

This foolish, optimistic picture of the church as an institution that's going to reform the world by preaching the gospel. It's a total contradiction of everything that is taught in the New Testament and indeed in the Old Testament as well. Very well, the antidote to that is to believe what the Bible teaches us about this present evil world. There's no hope for it. It's under judgment, and all who belong to it will be involved in the judgment. We rather are to set our affections on things that are above, not on things on the earth.

Rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Now this is of course basic and fundamental because if we don't understand that, we cannot possibly understand or put into practice this second injunction which we are now going to consider: patient in tribulation. Now there it is. I have reminded you several times that these injunctions were not laid down haphazardly by the Apostle. There's a very definite sequence here. He's got an order in his mind. And you see this is the thing that follows of necessity upon rejoicing in hope.

Here you are, you're a saved person, you're a Christian, you're delivered out of this present evil world, you've got your eye set on that hope. Now the question is, how are you going to live while you're left in this world? And the Apostle in his typical practical manner, this great authority on doctrine, this mighty genius, he descends to the practicalities always and he enables us to apply all this in order that we may live our lives as we are meant to live them as Christian people.

"Patient," he says, "in tribulation." Now to prove my point about his logical connection between these things and the ones that have gone before and the ones that follow, I would point out to you that he does here exactly the same thing as he's already done in the fifth chapter. There, he says, "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also."

The moment he mentions rejoicing in hope of the glory of God, he comes to tribulations. Not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed. You see, there is an inevitable connection between these things, and so each time they go together. Now tribulation. Patient in tribulation. What's tribulation?

The commentators are very rightly interested in this word that is translated by tribulation. It means something that puts pressure to bear upon you, something that crushes. That's the original meaning of the word. A tribulum was used in crushing the corn in order to get flour. That is the word and it's a very picturesque word, and that is the word that is translated as tribulation. It means that things are pressing heavily upon you almost to the extent of crushing you.

Trials, troubles, and tribulations. These things happen to us in various ways. They may happen as the result of circumstances over which we have no control at all, but they just try us and put us into difficulties. They happen not only through circumstances but also sometimes through temptations and sometimes through persecutions. These are the things that are sent to try God's people and they come under this general heading of tribulation.

I needn't take time in elaborating these. You know the kind of thing that does tend to bring pressure to bear upon your spirit and upon your mind, upon your heart, the things that tend really to crush us and to flatten us and to get us right down. Tribulations. They can take many, many forms. Now then, the Apostle is aware of this. Indeed no man knew more about this sort of thing than the Apostle Paul.

He gives us in many places pictures of the kind of sufferings he had to endure. No man has ever had to endure more than this mighty apostle of God. You mustn't think of him as a man seated in a study with books all around him and there living this great wonderful intellectual life. It is the exact opposite. He was a traveler, he was an evangelist traveling on land, traveling by sea and undergoing shipwrecks, being maligned, being persecuted, being misrepresented.

Oh, you read about it in the Epistles to the Corinthians in particular. He several times gives us lists there, especially in the second Epistle in Chapter 4 and in Chapter 11 of these trials and tribulations which he had to suffer. He knew all about it and he knew that all Christian people in a measure have to endure the same kind of thing. So here now he tells us how to react to tribulations. First of all, get a right view of life in this world.

The Christian is never a man who says, "Isn't life wonderful?" Never. He sees through it. This is the victory that overcometh the world. The world is something to be overcome because of its evil. You've got to be right in your whole view. In other words, you've got to be right about this question of the hope. It's only then that you can proceed to argue like this. How am I to react to tribulations? Well, negatively, I must not be shaken by tribulation. I mustn't give way under tribulation. That's the negative aspect, but it's most important.

It's got to be emphasized. If I allow tribulations and trials to get me down, I have failed as a Christian. Must never give way to trials and tribulations. Never even be shaken by them. We must never grumble under them or complain at them. That's what we tend to do, isn't it? When we are tried and when these things come to us, we say, "Why should this happen to me? Is Christianity true after all?" Now if you react like that, you're doing the opposite of what the Apostle says here.

That's what nature does. It grumbles, it complains. It says, "I thought when I became a Christian that I'd never have any of this sort of thing anymore. But here it is happening to me." There were many people saying that in the first centuries. You'll find it dealt with in many of the New Testament Epistles. But it's all due to ignorance. Ignorance of this world. Ignorance of the fact that we are saved in hope. Saved in hope. We walk by faith, not by sight.

That's the whole teaching. We are strangers and pilgrims, journeymen and travelers passing through an evil world on the way to the glory that God has prepared for His people. So we mustn't grumble, we mustn't complain under it. We mustn't feel that it's unfair. We must never allow tribulation to do us any harm at all. It often has done Christian people great harm. There have been people who seemed wonderful Christians as long as everything was going well. The moment trials come, they collapse.

Oh, what poor Christians and what poor representatives of the Christian faith. Fair-weather Christians. They're poor people in any view of life, aren't they? They're poor people even in the natural realm, and looked at as natural people. Fair-weather friends. They're no use. That's why we call them that. It's become proverbial. Well, don't be fair-weather Christians, says the Apostle. Don't faint under testing and trial.

No, no. You must do the exact opposite. Well, what must you do? Well, here it is positively: patient. Patient in tribulations. I agree with those who say that the word patient is too weak a word. It's too negative a word. There's something positive about the word that the Apostle used. It carries the notion of endurance. Patient endurance. And that's a much stronger thing and it has a positive quality about it. And that is how you and I are to react to tribulations that are certain to come.

Now then, how do we do this? What's the use of saying to us, "Be patient in tribulations, have patient endurance, be steadfast in tribulations"? How? Well, it works out like this. The first thing is, don't be surprised at them. I think that's what gets most people down. They never expected this to happen. They'd got a false view of salvation. A kind of romantic view that isn't realistic. They've got it not from the Bible, they've got it somewhere else.

They've got it perhaps from some psychological teaching masquerading under Christian terminology. But it's wrong. It's not true. The Bible is always realistic and you shouldn't be surprised therefore. Indeed, we can go so far as to say you shouldn't expect anything different in this world. You shouldn't expect anything better. If you are rejoicing in hope, it means you've got a true view of this world and you will know that this is a vale of woes.

It is an evil world. Now I'm testing you while I put it like this. I'm doing it quite deliberately. If you don't like this sort of emphasis, it's because you are not a Christian. This is one of the finest tests as to whether we're a Christian or not: the view we take of this present world. This shouldn't depress us because this is what the Bible teaches about it everywhere. Our Lord Himself said this just at the end of His life: "In the world ye shall have tribulations."

How would you like to evangelize with that? That's how our Lord puts it. In the world ye shall have tribulations. To me, that is the most glorious form of evangelism and I'm speaking from my experience. When I was a young man, I always disliked that kind of preacher or evangelist who seemed to be jovial and happy. "Come into this, it's marvelous." I knew it wasn't true. The man who always appealed to me was the man who told me the truth about life and about myself because I knew he was speaking the truth.

And then I discovered that he was also being scriptural. In the world ye shall have tribulations. Very well then, don't be surprised when you get them. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. You'll never be taken by surprise. If you expect much of this world, you're doomed to disappointment. If you expect nothing of it, well then you won't be disappointed when you get nothing or when you get evil. He that is down need fear no fall, as old John Bunyan puts it.

But listen to Peter saying the same thing. Peter in the first Epistle, the fourth chapter of the 12th verse, says this: "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you." You see, don't think it's strange. Don't think this is odd. If you understand the Christian gospel, the Christian message, says Peter, when you're tried, you won't think that some strange unexpected thing is happening to you. You'll have been ready for it. You'll have been expecting it.

Now, here is the great argument always of the New Testament. And of course, the book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible, is virtually exclusively devoted to that one theme. Look at it. The beasts arising, the persecutions and the trial, God's people almost crushed out of existence, hardly any of them left at all. You're prepared for it. It's all there. You see, this other idea that Christianity grows from century to century and it becomes larger and larger and that it's going to fill the whole world by some evolutionary process, it's a complete denial of the whole of the teaching of the New Testament.

Read the book of Revelation, and there you see it and you'll be ready for it. Indeed, you notice that argument in Hebrews 12. It's put very strongly. The argument there is even like this: Not only should you not be surprised if as a Christian you get trials and tribulations, you should really be surprised if you don't get them. You should not only be surprised, you should be rather worried. If everything is going well for you, if all men praise you, if you never get any persecution at all, well then it's about time you seriously questioned as to whether you're a Christian or not. It is the bastards who are not tried; the children are.

The servant is not greater than his Lord, and so on. You remember how Paul puts it to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:12: "Yea, and all that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." Woe unto you when all men speak well of you. That's the dangerous condition to be in. And indeed, these things are most important at the present time, aren't they? I can't imagine anything more terrible than to be popular at a time like this in the Christian church looking at it as an institution as a whole. That to me would be a most alarming thing.

Yea, and all that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Very well, there's the first part of it. Don't be surprised. Secondly, realize that what is happening to you is just the very thing that happened to your blessed Lord and Master and Savior. That's how the world treated Him. He was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. Look at His life. Look at the trials, look at the tribulations. It was the way the Master went; should not the servant tread it still?

He's prepared us for it. He says, "If they've hated me, they will hate you." Very well then, let us take that to heart and work it out like this: to endure these things means that we are indeed following in His steps. And it's a very great privilege. Take how Peter puts it again in the first Epistle and in the second chapter. He says, "Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief suffering wrongfully.

For what glory is it if when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? But if when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow His steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. Who when He was reviled, reviled not again. When He suffered, He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously."

What a privilege it is. And you remember how the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews puts it there in that great 12th chapter again: "Seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses." He's been talking about those heroes of the faith of the Old Testament times in the 11th chapter. Look at what they had to endure. Look at the suffering. Look at the misunderstanding. Look at them, they were often standing alone with everybody against them.

Look at Moses, look at Abraham and all these men. Look at Noah standing alone, look at Lot with everybody as it were. All these men. Now here, you see, we're encompassed with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, let us run with patience, patient endurance, the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and the finisher of our faith. That's it. Look what happened to Him.

Consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin. He did. You haven't been called to do that. What a privilege it is. We belong to the same company as the saints, martyrs, apostles, prophets, and above all to our blessed Lord Himself. This is the way to face tribulation. You see, you're applying the doctrine all along.

It isn't a feeling. It's that you're working out this great doctrine that has already been set before us in the earlier chapters. But in addition to that, be patient in tribulation. What's that mean? Well, it means allow tribulation to teach you things which nothing but tribulation will probably ever teach you. We're all recalcitrant children. We all need to be taught a lot. There are rough angles about all of us even as Christians, and there's a process that we have to go through to get rid of these.

Be patient while the process is taking place, says the Apostle here. And it's the teaching of the New Testament right the way through. We need to be taught. So be patient. Let tribulation teach you things. About what? Well, first and foremost about yourself. Is there anything that has ever taught us so much about ourselves as trials and troubles and tribulations? You see, when things are going well, we don't think. We take them for granted and we feel that we are all right.

The moment tribulation comes, you're humbled. You discover your weaknesses. You discover your pride. You discover your self-seeking. You discover the rebellious spirit that is in you. You may not have known that it was there. You may have thought that your faith was well-nigh perfect. Trials come and you find yourself feeling a grudge against God. And you see what a poor Christian you've always been. It wasn't brought out while things were going well. The trial brings it out.

And so you learn a great deal about yourself. Well, says the Apostle, let tribulations do you good in that way. Let them teach you. You need it. You need to understand these things more and more. They'll teach you about yourself, they'll teach you about others. They'll teach you what to expect from others. They'll teach you to take a right view of others. Nothing does that so well as conduct and behavior.

Things are not what they appear to be and people often are not what they appear to be. But you learn and you'll get experience, as he says. Patience worketh experience, and experience teaches us. Experience is a wonderful teacher. But you see, they'll teach you, tribulation will teach you about other people in another way also: it'll teach you to sympathize. You know, the people who are most sympathetic to those who are ill are those who've been ill themselves.

A man who's never known illness is not very sympathetic towards people who are ill. He doesn't know. I've seen many such a man, and I've known an illness or an operation do such a man great good. It's introduced a new note into him, a note of sympathy and of understanding. It's tragic, isn't it, that it takes tribulation to teach us these lessons? But that's the sort of people we are. That's what sin has done to us.

We are saved, but we are not perfect. There's a good deal of the old nature that has to be sloughed off, and tribulation is a wonderful medicament for doing that. So it'll teach us to bear with other people in their trials and troubles. It'll teach us to bear one another's burdens and have a word of sympathy and of understanding for others as they're passing through the like experience. And as I say, it'll teach us about the world as it is.

Now the effect of all this is that it's a great process of education. Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth. Sometimes He does it directly. Sometimes He just permits it. Sometimes He allows the devil to do things to us as He allowed the devil to do them to Job. And the latter end of Job, you remember, was better than his first beginning. He learned a lot, poor old Job. Look how he struggled, look how he disliked it and how he fought.

But oh, he comes out all right at the end. God has been dealing with him. And so if we are only wise and allow tribulation to deal with us, if we're only patient under the treatment, we shall find that we will come well out of it. In other words, we'll have the experience of the man who wrote the 119th Psalm. This is how he puts it: "Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according unto thy word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I have believed thy commandments. Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy word."

And then he goes on actually to make a statement to this effect: "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes." And this has been the testimony of God's people throughout the centuries: nothing has done them more good than their trials. The last war did it again, some of those German Christians in the things they had to suffer even before the war in concentration camps and so on. They were purified and were purged.

They thanked God for it because this was the method by which they were brought to an understanding of the real nature of the Christian life and above all to their knowledge of God. And again, the 12th chapter of Hebrews puts it very well. It says none of this chastening is pleasant or enjoyable at the time, but afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness in them that have been exercised thereby. Painful at the moment, but oh, you're much better for it afterward.

You remember the picture, the gymnasium. Let Him put you through it, the man running the gymnasium. Let him pummel you and your muscles will be aching and you'll feel terrible, but afterward you find you're stronger than you've ever been. Afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness. And so, you see, the Apostle James is even able to put it like this: "Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into divers trials or tribulations."

Count it all joy. Why? Well, because he says you must know that this is the way in which your faith is being truly tested. That's the precise argument which he uses. "Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations," now it should be tribulations, "knowing this: that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work." Peter again, listen to this in his first Epistle, first chapter, is reminding them of the great hope of the resurrection, "wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold trials."

Why? "That the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." Wonderful. So we go on to the final step in this little bit of argumentation which is this: trials and tribulations, in addition to doing all this, are the very things that make us think more of heaven and of the glory that awaits us. You see, it's because of our imperfection.

When things are going well and no trials and problems, we live for this world, don't we? And some even would teach that you get the whole of your salvation in this world. Scripture doesn't say that. You only get an installment, first fruit. You only get an earnest of the inheritance. But they seem to think we've got everything here. They never think of the world to come. That's gone out, isn't it, even of evangelical preaching and teaching?

All been so subjective, turning inward. But you see the New Testament is always talking about that and looking up there. And there's nothing that makes a man do that so much as tribulation. The world is too much with us, but when the world shows its teeth and you really begin to see what it is, it makes you look up there. It drives you to it. That's how the Apostle again puts it, at the end of the fourth chapter of the second Epistle to the Corinthians: "Our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

The light affliction, this trouble and tribulation, it produces for us, actually creates for us in the way I've been showing you, a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Very well, be patient in tribulation and it'll do you the world of good.

You'll even thank God for it. You will say, whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and He evidently loves me, and you'll thank Him for all that He's taught you through allowing you to pass through a period of trial and of tribulation. It all works for your good. All things work together for good to them that love God. Do you know that? Have you experienced that? You're but a child, a tyro in the Christian life if you don't.

Thank God that He knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows what's good for us. The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet shall be the flower. Be patient in tribulation. Very well, that brings us to the last injunction in this verse, which is this: "continuing instant in prayer." And you see the connection? I had to end the previous one by saying it reminds you of the world to come and that reminds you of Him. And that, of course, therefore leads up at once to this whole question of prayer.

Continuing instant in prayer. Now here is something again that is emphasized right the way through the whole of the New Testament. It's amazing to notice the frequency with which this very point is made. You remember our Lord said that men should always pray and not faint, as He puts it. You remember how the Apostle Paul at the end of the Epistle to the Ephesians when he's been dealing with the whole armor of God, he ends like that.

He puts it like this in verse 18 of Chapter 6: "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints," and so on. This is the universal note. 1 Thessalonians 5:17: "Pray without ceasing." Never stop praying, never quit praying. Here it is, universal injunction. And again I would demonstrate to you this inevitable connection of all these statements: hope, tribulation, prayer.

Look at it again in the eighth chapter, we've already seen it there. We are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. He's been dealing with the tribulation, he comes to the hope. Then having dealt with this, if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what to pray for as we ought. You see, these things always go together and it's a very good way of testing ourselves to know whether they always do go together in our experiences.

They should. They're inevitably linked up together. In other words, the teaching is this: Why should we pray without ceasing? Why should we be instant in prayer? Well, our Lord's answer is clearly in Luke 18:1: that praying is the only alternative to fainting. Men should always pray and not faint. If you want to avoid fainting, keep on praying. It's the only way to keep on your feet in a world like this because the world is as it is, governed by the devil.

Keep on praying. Be instant in prayer. Never stop doing it. Now again I must ask a question. These things are very practical. Do you realize your need of prayer to that extent? If not, why not? Are we praying without ceasing? Are we instant in prayer? This is the universal teaching of the New Testament. Is it true of us? If it isn't, I ask why not? Is it because we are lazy? Or is it because we are spiritually dead and are not aware of the conflict? Is it due to spiritual ignorance?

Have we got a wrong view of the Christian life? You see, this is depicted by the great saints as a fight, the fight of faith, the Apostle calls it. "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high or in heavenly places." A tremendous conflict. And these are the people who pray and pray constantly. If we don't, it's because we're ignorant or else we are slothful or else we are foolishly self-confident.

We think we can do it. We've got a wrong view of regeneration and think we can now do everything. And it's entirely due to our ignorance which always leads of course to self-confidence. Very well, what does he mean then by being instant in prayer? What is this prayer process which he's talking about? Well, let me hurriedly say what it isn't. It isn't some psychological treatment. There is nothing more unspiritual and more unscriptural than the way in which many people use prayer as just a method of psychological treatment.

What they mean by prayer is you think beautiful thoughts, positive thinking, they sometimes call it. It's got nothing to do with prayer at all. That's a man talking to himself, and if you're talking to yourself, you're not praying because praying means that you're talking to God. Not psychological thinking or autosuggestion. Neither does he mean that we just do it as a duty. You know some of the Buddhists and others they have their prayer wheels and they think like the Pharisees they shall be heard for their much praying, by which is meant the number of hours they put into it.

And there are people who count their beads. That's mechanical, that's not it at all. That's the very reverse. This is entirely spiritual. What does he mean? Well, he means prayer as approaching the throne of grace. Prayer means going into the presence of God. Prayer means having a personal communion with God, drawing nigh unto God. That's what prayer means. And that's what he's talking about here. Be instant in prayer, always keep in touch with Him.

Why is this essential? Oh, I can only give you some headings, work them out for yourselves. Why should you be instant in prayer? Well, one good reason is this: When you turn to Him in prayer, you have the great comfort of knowing that He's there, that you're not alone. You know children, they do that sort of thing, don't they? If you're walking with a child in the dark and the child is frightened, he'll talk more than usual.

Why's he doing it for? Just to assure himself that you're still there with him. And it gives him wonderful comfort. And we're all children. And if prayer does nothing else, it's a wonderful thing that. It lets you know that He's there. Take that hymn we were singing just now, "O Jesus, I have promised." He says, "I shall not fear the battle if Thou art by my side, nor wander from the pathway if Thou wilt be my guide." Talk to Him. Make sure that He's there.

It's a wonderful thing, that's prayer. It's talking to God, it's having communion with God, and you remind yourself you're not alone. It's a wonderful thing, isn't it, in a time of trouble to be able to talk to the right kind of person? In a sense the conversation may make no difference, but it does make a tremendous difference to you because you're able to talk to this other person. Talk to God. Keep on talking to God. Be instant in prayer.

Then I say, it works out in both those ways: you know that He's there by your side and you're able to talk to Him. And that in turn reminds you of His protecting care and His protecting power. I need Thee every hour, stay Thou nearby. Temptations lose their power when Thou art nigh. So you talk to Him. You go to Him and you realize that He's there with you. I fear no foe with Thee at hand to bless.

Oh, listen to another one. "Oh, let me feel Thee near me. The world is very near. I see the sights that dazzle, the tempting sounds I hear. My foes are ever near me, around me and within. But Jesus, draw Thou nearer and shield my soul from sin. Oh, let me hear Thee speaking in accents clear and still, beyond and above the storm of passion and all my self-will and everything else." These are the prayers of the saints, and this is what prayer means.

You're aware of these difficulties outside you, inside you, and you know that you're weak, so you speak to Him and ask Him to be with you and to deliver you. "O Lamb of God," I quoted this verse Sunday morning recently, let me repeat it, it's such a glorious statement. "O Lamb of God, still keep me close to Thy wounded side. 'Tis only there in peace and safety I can abide. What foes and snares surround me, what fears and lusts within. The grace that sought and found me alone can keep me clean."

Now prayer is going to Him for these reasons and feeling you want to keep near to Him. It's instinctive in the child. And that's why we should be praying without ceasing. And as we do so, we shall be receiving strength from Him. You must ask Him for it. James puts it like this, he says, "Why are you people in trouble?" And he gives them the answer quite simply and quite plainly. "You lust and have not, you kill and desire to have and cannot obtain, you fight and war yet you have not." Why? "Because you ask not."

You've got to ask for these things. Grace is not something that's given to you in a packet. It's not something put into a machine and you put your coin in and get it. No, it's a personal relationship, and you've got to go on asking. You're not given everything in one great donation and then you just go drawing on that. No, you keep on going to the giver. "You ask and you receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it on your lusts."

So you ask Him and you go to Him and you'll receive strength from Him. The Apostle says, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. In nothing be anxious, but in all things with prayer and supplication and thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. And the peace of God that passeth all understanding shall keep your heart and mind in Christ Jesus." Now this is the essence of prayer.

It isn't just taking your mechanical list and ticking them off as you put up request after request. Oh, there's such a lot of mechanical prayer today and people think it's wonderful. That's the Buddhist type of prayer. This is intimate personal communion desiring the person for these reasons and you know that in Him all fullness dwells. So that you can say with another writer of hymns, "From Thee the overflowing spring, our souls shall drink a fresh supply, while such as trust their native strength shall melt away and droop and die." That's good old Isaac Watts.

That's why you pray. "From Thee the overflowing spring, our souls shall drink a fresh supply while such as trust their native strength shall melt away and droop and die." Or as another puts it, "Strong in the Lord, strong in the strength which God supplies through His eternal Son. Strong in the Lord of hosts and in His mighty power, who in the strength of Jesus trusts is more than conqueror. To keep your armor bright, attend with constant care, still walking in your captain's sight and watching unto prayer."

Here it is, my dear friends. We are saved. We no longer belong to this world, but we're still in it. We're left here. We are strangers and pilgrims. We are traveling through it. And it's all against us, against everything that belongs to God. How can we go through? That's the way. You'll get your tribulation. In the world ye shall have tribulations, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

And as He has overcome it, He will enable us to overcome also. And in Him we shall be more than conquerors. What shall, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, you'll remember the list he puts up, trial, famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. Keep in touch with Him. Get the wonderful feeling as often as you can.

Be instant, always. Make sure that He is there. Speak to Him and He'll speak to you. You'll feel His presence, you'll feel His strength, and He'll give you strength and you'll be able to say with the great Apostle, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. Be instant in prayer. Men should always pray and not faint."

O Lord our God, we do indeed thank Thee that we can come unto Thee. We thank Thee, O Lord, that the name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous runneth into it and is safe. Oh, cover our defenseless heads with the shadow of Thy wing. Let us know this glorious protecting guardian care. Forgive us, O Lord, that we are so foolish as to walk so much in our own strength and we are thus buffeted and defeated and become faint and weary and grumble and complain.

Give us the grace to understand these things and above all to be instant in prayer. Thou art a God who art ready to hear us. Thou hast given us this great assurance. And in our weakness, we bless Thy name we have a great high priest who has been touched with a feeling of our infirmity, tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin. And therefore we bless Thy name we can come boldly unto the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. We offer our unworthy humble prayers in and through Him, Thy dear Son our blessed Lord and Savior and our great high priest. Amen.

And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now this night throughout the remainder of this our short uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage and until we shall see Him as He is, we shall be made like Him, we shall be glorified, and we shall spend our eternity with Him in the glory everlasting. Amen.