From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: I don't know what's going on in your life. I don't know what's going on in your family. You know and God knows and God cares. And maybe you've thrown in the towel on a specific prayer need in your life. The need is still there, but you say, well, God's not answering, so I just quit. The Lord values persistence. It's always too early to quit. Pick up the towel, keep praying, keep trusting, keep preparing, know that God is a God who answers prayer.

Larry Nobles: Thank you for joining us today on From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schrive, who will offer you some profound and practical advice when the news is devastating in your life. That's the name of today's lesson from the six message series Watch and Pray. Now, we don't like to think about it very often, but you and I can get a phone call or a text or an email that shatters our life. And the question is, what do we do when that happens? When the news is devastating? Pastor Jeff concludes this message that he began last time and it'll bring peace to your soul, encourage for you to face your challenges with him in your heart and mind.

Now, you can hear part one from last time when you go online to fromhisheart.org, click the listen link and the message is entitled When the News is Devastating. And you can also download a free MP3 of the broadcast and share that with a friend who may need to hear this lesson today. That's it fromhisheart.org. Now though, open your Bible to the book of Nehemiah. Here again is Pastor Jeff to share what to do when the news is devastating.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Well, Nehemiah, in the book of Nehemiah, one of the great great men of the Old Testament, then the secret to his greatness was his prayer life. So, what do we learn from the prayer life of Nehemiah? Imperative number one, we need to care about what God cares about. We need to walk with God in such a way that the things that are on his heart become things on our heart. And so when Nehemiah, who is 444 445 BC, when he gets news, how's it going in Jerusalem? They say that's not good. It's really bad. And when he hears about the city being just broken down and the people in such disarray, it just breaks his heart.

Hey, do you care about the things that God cares about? Second imperative, we need to take our burdens to the Lord in prayer. So, Nehemiah, he is broken, he is mourning, he is crying, and he takes his burden to the Lord. And here is a guy who's very effective in prayer. What makes a person effective in prayer? Well, let me just mention six things that he did in his prayer and effective prayer. What does it have? Number one, it has a proper perspective. It keeps things in proper perspective. So, he comes before the Lord and he calls the Lord, oh, Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God.

You're the God of heaven. You're the God who spoke the worlds into existence. You're the God who is great and awesome. Lord, I have this great big problem, but my great big problem compared to you is a pimple on a flea because you're the great and awesome God. You're the God who can do anything. We need to keep proper perspective when we pray. Oh, we come before the Lord and we have this this big issue and we're like, oh, I don't know how this is going to ever work out. And this this problem is so great, it's so big.

That's like the the old joke that, you know, the the woman says to the other woman they're talking about a friend and well, the the doctor said they can't do anything. All it's left is to pray. Oh, no, has it come to that? That that's all you have left is prayer. Prayer is not to be your last resort. It's a first stop on the road to help and you're praying to the God who can do anything. And the God who can do anything is the God who loves you. So, we keep a proper perspective. Do you remember in Mark chapter nine when Jesus is on the Mount of Transfiguration, the guy with the demon-possessed boy, he goes to the disciples, the the nine guys that were there and Jesus is up with Peter and James and John and they he said cast out the demon.

They couldn't cast it out and they come to Jesus and Jesus asks questions and he said, how long has it been like that? And he said, oh, since he was a young child. And he said, Jesus, if you can do anything, please help us. And Jesus said, if you can What what is this if stuff? All things are possible to him who believes. And the man said, I do believe. Help my unbelief. Hey, when we come before the Lord, we're not saying, well, Lord, if you can do anything here, well, the Lord says I can do anything in any situation.

I'm the God of all flesh. Behold the God of all flesh, is there anything too difficult for God? The answer is no. So, effective prayer has a proper perspective. God is the great and awesome God, the God who spoke the worlds into existence. Secondly, effective prayer spends time in confession of sin. In confession of sin. So, he starts off his prayer, let your ear now be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayers of your servant, which I am praying before you now day and night on behalf of the sons of Israel, your servants confessing the sins of the sons of Israel, which we have sinned against you.

I and my father's house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments nor the statues nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses. He puts himself with the people. He confesses his own sin. Now, listen, when you pray, when I pray, if we're not coming before the Lord and saying with David some 139 verses 23 and 24, search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there be any evil way, wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

We need to come before the Lord and say, Lord, convict me. If there's a sin in my heart, convict me. I don't want to have this sin in my heart because as David said in Psalm 66 verse 18, if I regard and hide sin in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. He won't answer my prayer if I am holding on to sin. I have to get all the sin out of the shadows and under his blood so it can be washed whiter than snow. And if we confess our sins, 1 John 1:9, he's faithful and he's just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

I don't care what you've done, you can be forgiven for that. And as a Christian, you know, you get fouled up in sin, you can come before the Lord and confess your sin to him and he will forgive you. Psalm 86 verse five says, for you, Lord, are good and ready to forgive and abundant in loving kindness to all who call upon you. God will forgive you and effective prayer deals with sin. There's confession of sin. Thirdly, effective prayer incorporates the word of God. If you want to pray with power and effectiveness, pray God's word back to him.

See, the Bible says in Acts chapter six verse four, the apostles said, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Prayer and the word go together. So, many of us when we sit down to pray, our mind wanders. We sit down to pray. We shoot all our prayer bullets after about 30 seconds and we just run out of things to pray. Well, the more time you spend in the word of God, the more you incorporate the word of God in your prayer, the more things you have to pray over.

And so watch what Nehemiah does. He says in verse eight, remember the word which you commanded your servant Moses saying, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples. But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though those of you who have been scattered were in the most remote part of the heavens, I will gather them from there and will bring them to the place where I have chosen to cause my name to dwell. They are your servants and your people whom you redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand.

He quotes from the law of Moses. He quotes from Deuteronomy chapter 30. He's reminding God of what he said. Really important. Listen, God loves his word. And he loves it when we pray his word back to him. God loves it when we say, Lord, this is what you promised. This is what you said. I am standing on your word. As we talked earlier, Acts chapter 10 verse 15, what God is cleansed no longer consider unholy. When when you do something and you feel so guilt-ridden over it, you come to the word, you confess it and you say, Lord, I'm standing on your word.

You said you would forgive me of that. David, after he committed such terrible horrible sin with Bathsheba and then killed her husband Uriah the Hittite, he declares in Psalm 32 verse five, Lord, you forgave. I acknowledged my sin to you and my iniquity I did not hide. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin. I don't have to live guilty because you have declared that it is forgiven and I stand on that. So, Nehemiah was standing on the word. He said, hey, Lord, you said that if we sin against you, that this is what would happen, we would go into captivity.

And guess what? That's what happened. But you also said if we would turn again to you that you would restore us. And that's what happened. 70 years of captivity. They came back in five 38 BC as King Cyrus let the Jews go back to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel, those 50,000. That was fulfillment of God's promise. Okay, you can go back. They didn't all go back. And what did you go back to? You went back to a city that didn't have walls. That's a that's a big deal. You don't have walls. What kind of city you're going you're going to have if you don't have walls?

How can you defend yourself if you don't have walls? Well, the answer is you can't. And if that's God's city that doesn't have walls, all the cities had walls. You had to have walls to have a city. But this is the city of the great king. What a reproach. What what what a laughingstock your city is. That's the city of God. God doesn't want his city to be a laughingstock. It's a serious situation. Nehemiah sees it and says, Lord, you promised that you would do this. You know, we we have that expression. It so really popular when I was in college and we've kind of changed it now, but the expression name it and claim it.

Well, what is it that you want from God? Well, just name it and claim it. And now we have it we call it the word of faith. You can create your own reality. You just you just stand in faith that God is going to do X, whatever X that you want that to be. Well, that's not biblical. You don't name it and then claim it. God names it. And when God names it, then you claim it and you remind God, God, this is what you said. This is what you said was the promise and so I'm standing on your promise, Lord, because you have declared that.

God names it and then you can claim it. That's what Nehemiah is doing here. He's claiming the word of God. He's using the word in his prayer.

Larry Nobles: You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schrive and he'll return in just a moment to conclude the lesson when the news is devastating. It's from his new six lesson series Watch and Pray. Whatever you're facing today, prayer is never your last resort. It ought to be the first thing you do. You have a heavenly Father who invites you to come to him and trust him with every need. In a world filled with uncertainty and brokenness and overwhelming challenges, fervent focused prayer is truly the order of the day. And this series can help you grow closer to the Lord and learn his power in your life.

To get these six lessons in total on USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs or MP3 download and learn how to pray effectively, go to fromhisheart.org or simply call 866-40 Bible. That's 866-40 Bible to make that gift of any amount. Thank you for helping us teach more people how to discover the life-changing truth that prayer works. Your support can transform a hardened heart, softening it to be receptive to the Holy Spirit. Thank you for helping share that life-changing truth. Now, let's conclude the lesson when the news is devastating.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Fourthly, effective prayer asks for big things. Big things. Verse 11. Oh, Lord, I beseech you, I entreat you, I'm begging you, may your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and may the prayer of your servants who delight to revere your name. Others in Jerusalem were praying this no doubt too. And make your servants successful today and grant him to compassion before this man. Now, I was the cupbearer to the king. He tells us what his job was. Grant me compassion before this man. Who is this man? Artaxerxes. Artaxerxes, who's now in his 20th year as king.

And Nehemiah knows if I get to go to Jerusalem to lead a a project to rebuild the wall that's been torn down for 142 years. A long time. If I go there, it's going to be because God works in this guy's heart. That's the only way this will happen. The king has to let me go. I I I serve at the pleasure of the king and I'm cupbearer to the king. I can't just fill in a requisition to be off for uh I need to be off for a year to go to Jerusalem. That wouldn't work.

That doesn't work like that, right? You You uh you have a job with the king, but you're like his you're his servant, you're his slave so to speak. You do what he says. And so he needs something big from God. He needs God to work in that guy's heart to get that guy to say it's okay, Nehemiah, for you to go. Now, to complicate the matter, this same king Artaxerxes in the beginning of his reign they had appealed to him, the enemies of Jerusalem had said, hey, these these people are trying to rebuild the city king and what are they going to do?

They're going to revolt against you. So, Artaxerxes had made a decree they can't rebuild the city. That was 20 years previous. So, here is Nehemiah. It's been 20 years. He's got to get King Artaxerxes to take what he had decreed 20 years earlier and reverse it so that Nehemiah could go back and rebuild the wall. That's a big ask. That is not going to happen apart from God working in the situation. There's a poem that I've liked for a long long time. Says this, you're coming to a king, large petitions with you bring. For his grace and power are such no one can ever ask too much.

And so we come before the Lord. If it's something that uh this is in the heart of God that God's put in my heart, this is a burden that God has given me. And I I know that it's not coming from me because it 's not self-focused and it's not self-centered. It's for the kingdom of God. So, God, that you would open doors. God, that you would uh change the king's heart. The king's heart, the Bible says Proverbs 21 1, the king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he wishes.

And see, Nehemiah had access to all these scriptures because he's living in 445 BC. And so all the things that David wrote, the law of Moses, all that stuff is written down. So, he can read all that. He can read the book of Proverbs. He he has access to those things. So, he's praying God's word, God, that you would do this and he's asking for big things. You know, we need to ask God for big things like how about revival that would hit America? Our nation is in such a uh state of turmoil and such a tipping point.

Which way are we going to go? And there's such a tremendous divide. How are we going to come together? We can't come together unless God does a miracle in the hearts and lives of people. And how is that going to happen when you and I get serious about walking with God, when we get serious about praying, when we start praying for big things, then we see big things take place because God loves to answer God-sized prayers. When you pray these little piddly prayers, there's nothing wrong with little prayers. I I lost my car keys. I can't find them.

Where did they go? Should I pray about that? Yeah, you can pray about that. But that that's obviously not on par with uh Lord bring an end to abortion. You know, I mean, there there are levels of of prayer. And so we say, well, you know, uh some people will say, well, don't bother God with your car keys because he's got bigger fish to fry. God is the king of the universe. There are no big fish with God, right? And so you can pray about everything. You can pray about car keys. But when it comes to we need God to do something that only God can do.

That's where God gets the glory. Finding your car keys. Well, somebody else might be able to do that and we can pray about those things, but when God does something, when he moves the heart of the king as in Nehemiah's case, then people say, God answered prayer. Effective prayer asks for big things. Fifthly, effective prayer doesn't give up. Doesn't give up. He said that he had been praying since November, December, since he heard the news. And then he says in chapter two, and it came about in the month Nisan in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes.

The month Nisan is March, April. He'd been praying for months, night and day praying, fasting, praying. And he kept praying, he kept praying, and he kept praying. And then all of the sudden, boom, it happened. King Artaxerxes says to him, why are you sad? You have sadness of heart. What is going on in your life? And Nehemiah said, I was very afraid cuz you didn't you you couldn't be sad in front of the king. You know, you take your sadness somewhere else. You be joyful in front of the king. If you're sad in front of the king, that's an insult to the king.

And he became afraid because that king can kill you. And so Nehemiah prayed and he asked God, what do I say? And he said, well, why shouldn't I be sad when this is what's going on in my homeland and my uh my ancestors are in this state of turmoil and there's no wall. And the king says, well, what what is it that you would like? He said, I I want you to let me go. And inspect the situation and rebuild the wall. And he kept praying and he kept praying and he kept praying. Effective prayer doesn't give up.

In Genesis chapter 32, you have the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord, wrestling with the Lord Jesus Christ. And uh the Lord it's kind of a strange passage where he it's a picture of what we do. We wrestle with the Lord. Who who's going to win? Am I going to get my way or is he going to get his way? And as the Bible says, we we wrestle not against flesh and blood and and internally there's a battle between the flesh and the spirit. So, Jacob is wrestling with the Lord and at at the break of dawn, the Lord says, let me go for the dawn is breaking.

And Jacob says to the Lord, I will not let you go unless you bless me. That's how we need to pray. I'm going to keep praying, Lord, and I sense that this is from you and so you've given me this burden. I'm going to keep praying for that wayward son, that wayward daughter. I'm going to keep praying for this situation. I'm going to keep praying for breakthrough and I'm not going to quit. The old phrase is so true. You can tell the the the size of a Christian by what it takes to stop him. We keep praying.

God loves persistence. We keep praying and we keep praying and we keep trusting and we don't give up. And then lastly, effective prayer is prepared for God to answer. The Bible says the horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the Lord. And we're prepared for God to give an answer. So, as we're praying, we're also planning, we're also preparing. Nehemiah was preparing. How long is this going to take? And and just get this. So, the walls have been down for 142 years. The walls around Jerusalem are about two and a half miles in circumference.

They're about 30 ft high. That's what they're supposed to be. They're all broken down. To do that job is just it's like one of those things it's like climbing Mount Everest. I just can't do that. That's just going to be way too much. How am I going to do that? Nehemiah completed the job in 52 days. 2 and 1/2 miles, 30 to 40 ft high. Cuz he said the good hand of my God was upon me. He knew how long it was going to take. The king says, how long do you need to be gone?

He said, I gave him a definite time. He said, well, what do you need? He said, I was able to tell him, I need letters from you and I need a letter from the guy that has your uh you know, that runs the timber there so I can get the the wood that I need. He had all this planned out. The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the Lord. Unless the Lord lets it uh go, unless he works in the king's heart, it's not going to go. But when the door is open, then are you prepared for?

Listen, as we close out today, I don't know what's going on in your life. I don't know what's going on in your family. You know and God knows and God cares. And maybe you've thrown in the towel on a specific prayer need in your life. The need is still there, but you say, well, God's not answering, so I just quit. The Lord values persistence. It's always too early to quit. Pick up the towel, keep praying, keep trusting, keep preparing, know that God is a God who answers prayer.

Larry Nobles: He does answer prayer. And we've seen today how important it is not to give up when the news is devastating. I hope that these have been reassuring insights for you today on From His Heart. If you'd like to get a copy of today's message When the News is devastating, then you can go to fromhisheart.org, click the listen link and then download a free MP3 of this broadcast as well as get the entire series from Pastor Jeff called Watch and Pray. It's available in multiple formats for your gift of any amount. Again, go to fromhisheart.org or call 866-40 Bible.

You can get the entire unedited messages on CDs, an immediate MP3 download and also on a USB flash drive. God bless you and thank you for helping us. We can't put into words how thankful we are for your consideration for a gift this month. It's gifts that will truly matter as we invest in the lives and hearts and eternities of people around the world. Would you pray and listen to see if God is asking you to help us this month to make your gift today and get the series Watch and Pray, call 866-40 Bible or go to fromhisheart.org.

Thank you for joining us today. I'm Larry Nobles and we trust that you'll be here tomorrow for the next lesson in the Watch and Pray series. It's called Because You Have Prayed. That's next time here on From His Heart.