Rogate
THE VALUE OF PRAYER TIME
James 5:16-18

Do you know what the soul that turns in penitence to say “God be merciful to me, a sinner,” and the dying saint who whispers, “Lord, Jesus, receive my spirit” have in common? That’s right; they’re both praying. They are communing, giving and taking in fellowship with God through the channel called prayer. Normally God’s part of the conversation is not audible. Nevertheless, He puts the thoughts into our minds. Praying brings us a sense of adoration. and the humility that comes from submitting to God’s holy will. When we pray with confidence that God hears our petition, just knowing that already lightens the burden in some degree. But beyond such internal things, prayer is interaction with the real God. The Bible assures us that God seeks and enjoys this time of interaction with His creatures. He graciously invites us to take the first step whenever we like.

All men know that they ought to pray. Nowhere in the world is there any civilization that does not have a form of prayer. The Hindu bows before the most hideous images of the disfigured human form, thus confessing that since the Fall all is not right with us. The primitive tribesman bows down before rocks and trees, thus seeking the lost Garden of Eden. The sophisticated Greeks made gods in human form, emphasizing our rational, intellectual life, while the Egyptians’ gods were partly human, partly animal, confessing that we are a strange union of the physical and the spiritual, fully rational, yet having feelings that can break away from the guiding hand of reason. Is modern man an exception? Look at the late, unlamented Soviet Union. The Communists taught as their number one doctrine that all religion is mere deceit and demagoguery. But they called their young people together in a quiet hall where they read from the writings of Karl Marx, then proceeded to sing Communist hymns and confess their Communist creed. As if that were not enough, they lined up to visit the sepulcher of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, sort of like a pilgrimage wasn’t it? They processed through the streets carrying holy icons of Marx and Engels. They even spelled Revolution with a capital “R” to honor it the way we honor God in English. Perhaps they hated religion, but they had one.

Some may object by saying that God’s will is fixed and determined in eternity, therefore none of our words could possibly change His mind. Is that so? Could we make the same statement about your job? Could we say that God has fixed in eternity whether or not you’re going to get paid, so there’s no need to bother going to work? When we’re at war, can we say that God fixed in eternity who’s going to win, so it’s pointless to fight? That is confused reasoning. What God did determine in eternity was that he wanted us to pray, to hear what we had to say, and to be influenced by our attitude. We see this again and again in the Bible. God let’s bad things happen, but He loves to deliver us.

The Apostle James gives us a specific example in the prophet Elijah. he assures us that Elijah was flesh and blood, like us. He was no angel. He was fallen as we are, he had reason and feelings, desires and fears. He needed to eat just like everybody else. But notice he prayed that there would be no rain. Could you and I do that? Could we ask God to discipline a group that includes us for His glory, and for a warning to our fellow citizens’? Elijah thought there was no other way to call God’s people away from fertility religion, to let people know that they were dishonoring their God. Elijah prayed for hard and painful correction. The prophet himself went hungry. But he did not change his prayer until the correction was accomplished. Could we do that? Could we ask God to make the AIDS epidemic worse, to increase civil disorder and violence, to bring about another depression? Do we love our society enough to seek such correction for it? Even when we have to share the experience of being corrected, if we really want what is best for the glory of God and the good of man, then we must pray for what is best.

James speaks of fervent prayer. What does fervent mean? It means that your whole personality is involved with what you’re asking. Anyone can pray fervently. You don’t need to cry, you don’t need to have any ecstasy, not that those things would make a prayer unfervent, it just doesn’t matter. What matters is that you speak frankly with God, that you understand that you are interacting with Him, and that you believe He is listening. What makes fervent prayer hard is the gap between what we should be praying for and what we think we want. We have to he sufficiently committed to the kingdom of God to desire His victory over the enemies that are inside of us. In other words, we have to really want to get close to the King, even though he knows all about us. A fervent prayer doesn’t have to have words. C. S. Lewis claimed to be able to pray in pictures, that he would picture the conditions when his prayer was answered, and keep presenting those pictures to God. If you have difficulty with words, you might try that.

One more important thing that James tells us -- he says the effective prayers have to be said by a righteous man. Who is a righteous man? As we pointed out before, Elijah was no angel, but God answered him. He stopped the rain for three and a half years. We’re not angels either, but we can be reckoned as righteous because of the sacrifice of Jesus. As St. Paul tells us, He exchanged his holiness for our sinfulness. That means only the born again can pray. No one can pray to be born again, because you have to be born again first before you can be heard. The Holy Spirit sees to our regeneration through the Gospel and Holy Baptism. On the other hand, all the regenerate are righteous, therefore all of us can adore, request, intercede, confess, humbly submit, and give thanks, all in the name of our Sovereign Lord, Jesus. We may be too humble to think that God wants our company, but He tells us that He enjoys whatever time we spend with Him, letting, Him know how our day went, how we are getting along, how frustrated we are. He doesn’t mind when we come with a long shopping list of maladies. He even likes to hear from us when our backs are to the wall. He delights in delivering us. He enjoys the fellowship of the faithful, which because of the blood of Jesus, you and I are.

We need to adore, we need to confess, we need to request, to intercede, to submit, and to give thanks. In His own, inexplicable way, God needs it, too. That is the value of prayer time. AMEN.