Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/alphon_1/7648/laws.l15

Text File | 1992-10-28 | 10KB | 216 lines

THE LAWS OF THE KINGDOM                         Lecture 15.

                         THE LAW OF PRAYER
INTRODUCTION.

Matthew 7:7-11

I.  A Threefold Attitude.

     1. Ask what ye will.
     2. Seek the Master.
     3. Knock at the door.

1.    ASK. First, "Ask and it shall be given you." This is the
gift realm.  What is the first thing you think of when we speak of
gifts? Yes Christmas!!!  Here is a Christmas tree laden with
beautiful gifts - yours for the asking: salvation, healing,
wisdom, daily bread, finances, forgiveness, Baptism in the Holy
Spirit, many others.

     We may never grow out of the asking realm, but there is more!
Yet some not only fail to realise the more; they are still
learning lessons in the ask/receive realm.

2.    SEEK.  The second attitude of our trilogy is: Seeking.

A.   The seeking attitude reveals to you and to God your hunger
and seriousness to do business.  Our society has engendered a
"right-now" attitude that doesn't get results in Kingdom living.
We put in a coin and punch a button to get what we want.  God
doesn't deal in coins or button-pushing.  God is building toward
freedom; and freedom isn't "for free."

B.   Webster uses these strong verbs to define seeking: go in
search or...look for ... pursue ... aim at ... entreat.  Quite
different from merely asking, isn't it? There is a time to ask -
and a time to seek.  Some things we ask for - others we must seek
for.  Listen to some commands where we are specifically told to
seek:

     Matthew 6:33  Seek ye first the kingdom Of God ....

     Psalm 27:8 When thou saidest, Seek ye my face; my heart said
     unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.

How many of you see that you don't ask for the Kingdom, or for His
face.  You exert more than a request.  There are other treasures
that are set before us for the seeking:

3.    KNOCK.  Our third attitude of prayer is, "knock and it shall
be opened to you."

Knocking has to do with the right use of truth we have been given.
It doesn't seem to occur to many people that we are required to
confer with the Lord on what to do with what He has given us.  But
this is Jesus' recommendation for progression from plateau to
plateau.

II.  A Threefold Promise

     1. Ye shall receive   - This is satisfaction
     2. Ye shall find      -  This implies revelation 1 Cor.2:9
     3. It shall be opened -  This means acceptance

1. Asking Leads to Receiving

A.   There are one or two hazards in this receiving business.
Many of us have watched our children come down on Christmas
morning.  They see the tree - the gifts.
     a.   Some children will immediately become so wrapped up in
          the gifts that they forget the giver.

     b.   Others drop the gift and run to father or mother.  They
          may spot the new bicycle and say,"Oh, what a beauty!"
          Then without even touching it, hurry to express their
          thanks with a hug and kiss.  What joy this brings!

Two different attitudes are evident here.

B.   Some people live their entire Christian lives in the gift
realm asking and receiving.  Their needs are provided.  They feel
no further needs.  But God desires to create needs so that He may
reveal to us spiritual advances.  There is more for us than the
knowledge that He loves us and supplies our needs as we ask Him.

C.   Two reasons why a believer is not enjoying the abundant life
and the blessing made available to him are discussed in James,
chapter 4:He begins by saying -
     a.   ... yet ye have not, because ye ask not" (v.2)
     b.   "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss..."(v.3)

D.   James continues to talk about our asking "that ye may consume
it upon your lusts." Strong words but reducible to individual
motivation.  Let us paraphrase what He was saying, "You ask and do
not receive because you ask to satisfy your own lusts." He also
talks about humbling oneself before God - about God resisting the
proud submitting ourselves to Him - resisting the devil -
purifying our hearts.  This will help us to see how we can ask
amiss, with the result - no answer!

2.    Seeking Leads to Finding

BECOME A TREASURE HUNTER - Colossians 2:3 In whom [Christ] are hid
all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge .... You won't find
these hanging on a Christmas tree! Why didn't the Lord hang all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge where you could just run up
and grab them? Why does He require us to seek for them?

A.   Seeking is an attitude - a strong desire.  In the seeking we
stretch ourselves - become spiritually mature.  Thus, we come into
a place whereby God can give us treasures from His Word that do
not injure us.  We must all learn certain disciplines before we
can venture very far into the realm of the spirit without danger
of causing damage to ourselves and others.  God is protecting His
children, as well as His treasures.  The Law of Spiritual Truth
brought us to these conclusions as well as giving us these words
from two teachers.

JESUS     I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot
          bear them now (John l6:12).

PAUL      And I, brethren, could not speak to you as unto
          spiritual, but as unto carnal,  even as babes in Christ
          (1 Corinthians 3:1).


B.   So we sit down with our Bible - God's truth.  We open it with
a seeking attitude and He responds.  This involves much more than
being a "finger-pointer." Some have based their "missionary call"
on a finger pointing at "The isles wait for thee." Off they go to
Tasmania.

C.   As it is with our attitude to prayer, which is "Keep on
asking, So it is with our attitude to seeking ... keep on seeking
... keep on That is what Jesus is teaching us.  You may is
frustration or spiritual intensity.  No, of these.  It is a
principle that is operative in every sphere of our lives.

D.   Someone has said, "You can have whatever you want if you want
it badly enough." Be it education - development of skills or the
arts money - or the spirituals.  There must be desire, goals,
expending of energy, and discipline.  God knows we need stretching
out and enlargements inside.  We need certain maturity lest the
very thing that God speaks to us becomes our undoing.  It is
better not to know the truth, than to know it and turn from it.

3.   Knocking Leads to Opening

What is it we usually connect with knocking? A door.  We go to God
and say, "God, won't you give me the opportunity to open doors in
your name.  Revelation 3:7.

A.   Ask/Receive.  Seek/Find.  Knock/Opened.  This is the Law of
the Father's Wisdom.  When one does not heed the first command, he
robs himself of many riches and blessings.  Failure to obey the
second command, results in lack of progress into the treasures
provided for us in Christ Jesus.

B.   If you do not understand and apply this portion of the
threesome, all Christian service will be done with a human/soulish
approach.  We are not built to stand that long pull.  Many
Christian workers start out with only a soulish desire and zeal.
Remember our "finger pointers"? Hundreds of casualties line the
battlefield because of failure to knock.

C.   How many of you know God doesn't always answer the door right
away? Jesus knew it and proceeds to explain further about the
Father's wisdom in handling our asking, seeking and knocking.

III. A Threefold encouragement.

     1.   Would a father give his son a stone for bread?
     2.   Would he give a serpent for a fish? Never.
     3.   Would your heavenly Father refuse to His children that
          which they cannot do without - Bread Holy Spirit?

Again, He paints pictures with words to illustrate His point.  His
examples are carefully chosen.  He takes three examples, for Luke
adds a third to the two Matthew gives.  Luke 11:9-13

The point is that in each the two things cited bear a  close
resemblance.

1.   A STONE FOR BREAD - The little round, limestone stones on the
seashore were exactly the shape and the colour of the little
loaves.  If a son asks bread, will his father mock him by offering
him a stone, which looks like bread but which is impossible to
eat?

2.   A SERPENT FOR FISH - If a son asks a fish, will his father
give him a serpent? Almost certainly, the serpent is and eel.
According to the Jewish food laws, an eel could not be eaten,
because an eel was an unclean fish.  LEV. 11:12 - "Whatsoever has
no fins or scales in the water that is an abomination unto you."
That regulation ruled out the eel as an article of diet.  Would a
father give his son a forbidden and useless thing to eat? Would a
father mock his son's hunger like that?

3.   A SCORPION FOR AN EGG -.If the son asks for an egg will his
father give him a scorpion? The scorpion is a dangerous little
animal.  In action it is rather like a small lobster, with claws
with which it clutches its victim.  Its sting is in its tail, and
it brings its tail up over its back to strike its victim.  The
sting can be exceedingly painful, and dangerously fatal at times.
When the scorpion is at rest its claws and tail are folded in.
There is a pale kind of scorpion, which when folded up would look
exactly like an egg.  If the son asks for an egg, will his father
mock him by handing him a biting scorpion?

Just the same as an earthly father would not give such terrible
things as a stone for bread, a serpent for fish, a scorpion for an
egg, neither will the heavenly Father bestow anything terrible to
His children.  It will be nothing but good.