ON PRAYER (4)
“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven…” — Matthew 6:9
It is my personal opinion, but not without some justification I fear, that most Christians if and when they do pray seldom pause to think of what it means really to pray. We fail to consider the fact that we are coming into the presence not only of a benevolent Father Who devotes Himself to all our care and upbringing—as well as our eternal destiny—but Who is also our heavenly Father and the Lord of glory.
Prayer is conversation with God. That is an awesome and incredible thing. If we even begin to sense it, it should change the way we pray. And if it is anything less than that, it is probably not prayer at all. Scripture affords us a number of illustrations of what it is like to really “come before the Lord.”
Perhaps the most telling is Isaiah’s account of “seeing” the Lord.
In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple…Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.” —Isa. 6:1, 5-7
Awe and wonder were accompanied by a profound sense of humiliation: “I am undone…”
When the prophet Jeremiah was confronted by “the Word of the Lord,” he, too was “cut down to size” as it were and cried, “Ah, Lord God! I cannot speak: for I am a child.” (Jer. 1:(4)-6)
Ezekiel gives a vivid, if incomprehensible, description of his encounter with God and concludes by saying, “This was the appearance of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard the voice of one that spake. And He said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee [Ezek. 1:28-2:1].”
Daniel recounts an experience in prayer in the tenth chapter of his prophecy when God revealed Himself and communed with him. “And when He had spoken such words unto me, I set my face toward the ground, and I became dumb. And, behold, one like the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips: then I opened my mouth, and spake, and said unto him that stood before me, O my Lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have retained no strength. For how can the servant of this my lord talk with this my lord? for as for me, neither is there breath left in me. [Dan. 10:15-15].”
Granted, these are exceptional incidents and extraordinary encounters with God, but they are also remarkable insights as to what it means to really “come before the Lord.” And we are reminded by the Holy Spirit in the epistle to the Hebrews that even the high priest could not enter the holy of holies “without blood, which he offered for himself,and for the errors of the people [Heb. 9:7].” We are authorized to come before “our Father Who is in heaven” because “Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us [Heb. 9:11-12].” Prayer is an inestimable privilege purchased for us by the sacrifice of “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God,” and as such have access to one who is “our Father,” but, our heavenly Father.” Before Him Isaiah was “undone;” Jeremiah was rendered speechless; Ezekiel fell on his face, and Daniel was left breathless! Even the high priest entered His presence with a measure of fear and trembling.
Let us, then, pause as we enter the throne room and reflect upon Who it is before whom we have come!
“Lord, teach us to pray!”
"Pastor" Frasier
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