Fervent Prayer: A Journey to Intimacy with God

And so, Hannah arose after they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, and Eli the Priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the tabernacle of the Lord, and Hannah was in bitterness of soul, and she prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish. [00:03:09]

Now, the New Testament tells us that the fervent, effectual prayer of a righteous man availeth much, but that man there is generic. That is, we could translate that to mean that the fervent, effectual prayer of a righteous person availeth much. It's not just male prayers that are efficacious. [00:04:28]

When people of old entered into conversations with God, like Jacob, they wrestled with God, they stayed at it all night, they were persistent, they were zealous, because their concerns that they brought before God came out of the depths of their own agony, out of the anguish of their situation, and so they cried out out of the depths of their heart to God. [00:05:51]

And it happened as she continued praying before the Lord that Eli watched her mouth. Now Hannah spoke in her heart. Only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard, and Eli therefore thought that she was drunk, and so Eli said to her, 'How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you.' [00:06:53]

But Hannah answered and said, 'No, my Lord, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine, nor intoxicating drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord. Do not consider your maidservant a wicked woman for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief I have spoken until now.' [00:07:24]

And her prayer was answered. It was a prayer that she didn't even utter audibly. It was a prayer that she lifted up silently. She moved her lips as she prayed, but she was addressing God who can hear the interior cry of her soul from her heart. [00:07:53]

And Dr. Jameson was considered by those of us of the younger generation as a bonafide authentic Christian saint. He had practiced medicine on a mission field, again, for decades, but now he had reached a place in his life where he had suffered from certain illnesses and he was infirm. [00:14:13]

His second career was that of the intercessor. He said, "I can still work eight hours a day," and so what Dr. Jameson did day in and day out eight hours every day was be on his knees. He's what we call a prayer warrior. [00:15:00]

Now, not everybody is called to the ministry of prayer like Dr. Jameson, and not everybody prays with the intensity and persistence of a Hannah, but every one of us has a capacity for growth in our prayer life, and one of the things that's -- that I find a little bit sad, is that we tend to look at prayer as a sacred duty, merely as a duty, and the quickest way I know to get people not to like something is to set it forth to them as an obligation, because then it becomes a burden, and we can lay guilt trips upon people and so on. [00:18:17]

But in reality, yes, prayer is a duty. I can't deny that it is a duty. We are called and commanded by Christ and the apostles to be constant in prayer. We have that mandate before us, but we already know it's our duty, and so I'm not going to spend time talking about our obligation to pray. What I want us to see is the opportunity that it brings to us. [00:19:05]

How sweet it is for our lives to be engaged -- to have the opportunity to come into the actual presence of God Himself and to speak to Him, and to speak to Him from the deepest level of our concerns and of our hearts. [00:19:40]

The one time we see them coming to Jesus and asking for a graduate course is what? "Lord, teach us how to pray." And I'm convinced the reason they asked that, or two reasons why they asked that, first of all because they didn't know how, and second of all, they saw that Jesus did know how. [00:21:07]