Does Our Relationship With God Affect Our Prayers?

Tom: You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to him. Today our topic is prayer, and there’s a lot to talk about regarding prayer because it’s one of the most important parts of a person’s walk with the Lord. Prayer is first and foremost communion with the Lord, although many of us perhaps have employed it more as a needs or wish list that we bring before the Lord.

Now, Dave, before we get to our first question taken from your book In Defense of the Faith, I’d like to talk about prayer with regard to our personal relationship with the Lord. You said on one of our past programs on this subject that you talk to God. Now, how does that work?

Dave: How does that work?

Tom: Dave, I’m sure somebody, maybe they’re not a regular listener to the program and they’re just flipping through, turning the dial…

Dave: Sure.

Tom: And somebody starts talking about talking to God.

Dave: Yes. Well, obviously, God knows everything and certainly can hear if we address Him, or whether we address Him or not.

Tom: But somebody could be thinking, Wait, this guy’s got a lot of nerve. He talks to God? Does God talk back? What’s the deal?

Dave: Tom, he doesn’t hear the prayer of the wicked. We can call upon Him in vain. We can talk to ourselves thinking we are talking to God. He doesn’t have to—although He knows everything that everybody is saying and thinking and doing at all times, He doesn’t need to heed us if it’s not according to His will, and if we are not in a right relationship with Him.

Tom: Yes. I mean, you talk about communion, communication.

Dave: Jesus very clearly said, “You can’t come to the Father except in My name.” Come to the Father in the name of Jesus, and that would be for those who know Jesus. Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, as their Savior and Lord.

So, yes, Scripture tells us in Hebrews 10, “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, through a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having a high priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a pure heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.” The Word of God.

So there are conditions for coming before the Lord. We’ve quoted it in a past program, 1 John:3:22And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
See All...: “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” So it’s not just that anybody can just talk to God. He hears them, but he doesn’t hear them.

Tom: Right. The other side of that is for somebody who doesn’t really know the Lord, but the Word of God says, “If you seek after me with all your heart….” So he’s going to hear the prayer, the communication, of somebody who doesn’t know him, because they are wanting to know him. They are desiring to know him.

Dave: Absolutely. This is a promise: “You will seek for me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.” And that means what it says, but most people are not seeking for the true God. They want some God who will be their servant, a magic genie. Rub the bottle or rub the lamp, and He comes at your service. “What would you like?”

Prayer, as we have often said, for most people is a religious technique for getting their own way. They set their sights on what they want, spend the sweet hour of prayer trying to talk God into working it out for them. But that’s not prayer. That’s trying to take over from God, trying to run the universe. He has not turned His universe over to us to shuffle around as we please.

So, yes, Paul, as we mentioned last week, Paul said, “Pray without ceasing.” And I do pray without ceasing. I am talking to the Lord right now while I’m talking to you. But what a privilege it is. This is the Creator of the universe, and that blows my mind.

Tom: Dave, now, I’ve known you for a long time—20 some years. We have a personal relationship. That’s what I want to get into. You have a personal relationship with the Lord.

Dave: Yes, amen.

Tom: On this program you talk about your love for the Lord, and encouraging others to tell the Lord that you love Him and so on, but let me push this a little more. You talk about prayer as communion, relationship, communication, and really intimate. You say you are talking to me, but also in your heart and your mind in communication with the Lord often. Is this a one-way conversation?

Dave: Tom, the Lord has spoken to us in His Word. And yes, I could say that I just…

Tom: Can I stop you there just for a second?

Dave: Yes.

Tom: Sometimes on this program you say, “Oh, well, I can’t remember this and I can’t remember that. I’m getting older,” and so on. But, Dave, you have a facility for—you quote chapter and verse here, and your Bible is closed, and it’s over on the side of our table here. So when you say the Lord speaks through His Word, you don’t have to open up the book. There are verses there that God brings to heart and to mind, and He is communing with you. He is communicating with you without you having to turn it over to page such and such, or this chapter or verse or so on. That’s kind of what you are talking about, isn’t it?

Dave: Well, that’s why we need to know the Bible. If we know the Bible, then whatever the situation is that arises, we have a verse for it. We know what God’s Word says.

Tom: Yes, God brings it to heart and mind, but He won’t do that out of a vacuum. I mean, maybe miraculously He might, but you don’t depend on that.

Dave: As far as God…a two-way conversation—no, it’s not a two way conversation. Although we do know in our heart certain things about God which would tell us that I am not one of these persons that says, “Oh, yes, God told me this, and God told me that.” He has told me more in His Word than I can ferret out and study as conscientiously as I ought to, and I need to spend my time on that. We don’t expect God to give us our marching orders every day when we get out of bed, a neon sign in the sky or an audible voice.

On the other hand, there are times in our lives when God definitely guides us. Now, I’ve been in touch with people who just would absolutely say, “Impossible. God only speaks through His Word.” Well, then—I’ve even had people tell me that who are missionaries to Africa or to somewhere around the world. And I ask them, “Well, how did you become a missionary to Africa? Did you find a verse in the Bible that told you that you were supposed to go to Africa or exactly where?” No, God guides us. He guides us through circumstances. He guides us through our conscience. We trust him, and however he does it, he does it.

And of course, I see it, as I have mentioned, on airplanes all the time. I am not even asking him, “Lord, who do you want me to sit next to?” But it’s amazing what happens. So He guides us even when we don’t know He’s guiding us if we are willing to be led of the Lord. But as far as God speaking, I could say I, on some rare occasions, have had God really definitely speak to me to do something, and it has proven to be true, to be His Word.

Tom: Now, what He said to you—this is very subjective. You wouldn’t make a doctrine out of it, right?

Dave: Oh, absolutely not. I don’t remember—have I ever told the incident at the Bible smugglers conference in Sweden?

Tom: Well, you’ve told me, but…

Dave: But I don’t think I have on this program. We were facing a terrible—I’m over there with my family—we were facing a terrible financial situation because I had just sold a convalescent hospital. And we stop in Copenhagen to get our mail from American Express, and there’s a letter from the bank saying that all the payments, checks from this so-called buyer had bounced, and they sent them back for collection and accounts are closed. We are 7000 miles away on one-way tickets, and I don’t have the means of getting back there and so forth. I am in a church one Sunday in Sweden, and I don’t speak a word of Swedish, but the Lord—I definitely know he was speaking to me through that scripture in Matthew 6, where he says, “Don’t be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the nations [the Gentiles] seek. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Tom: Yes, so He brought the Word, quickened the Word in your heart, a verse that you knew.

Dave: That’s right. So I went back to where we were staying. We were actually sleeping in the rec room in a kind of a hostel under the ping-pong tables in our sleeping bags, Ruth and I, and actually at this time three children, because we had sent our eldest daughter off to Israel to study Hebrew. And I said to Ruth, “God has really been speaking to my heart through that verse,” and I quoted, “Don’t be anxious, saying, What shall we eat,” and so forth.

And see, I had been telling our children, “Look,” there was kind of a cafeteria there, “we’re running out of money, and you’ve got to get the cheapest thing on the menu. And don’t buy any drinks, we can’t afford it.” The Lord really spoke to my heart and said, “You’re going to destroy their faith. I have guided your life and cared for you.”

So I said to Ruth, “Look, the Lord really spoke to my heart from this scripture: ‘…take no thought. Don’t be anxious, saying, What shall we eat…’ and so forth, and we’ve got to let the kids go and get (this was a Sunday) a good Sunday dinner. Order anything they want on the menu.”

She looked at me kind of strange and said, “Well how are we going to pay for this? I mean, this is getting desperate now.”

I said, “I don’t know, but the Lord told me that from this verse, from this scripture,” and I quote it, “Don’t be anxious, saying, What shall we eat or drink….” And just then a young man walks up to me and hands me—I wouldn’t have a clue who he was—hands me an airgram. You’re not supposed to put anything in an airgram, but there was something inside it…

Tom: It’s real thin paper, right?

Dave: Yes, absolutely. You don’t mail anything inside an airgram. It was addressed to Dave Hunt. There was no address, nothing. It was hand delivered. And I took it from him, and I opened the thing, and he’s gone. What do you know, there was more than enough Swedish krona in there in cash for the kids all to have a good Sunday dinner and then some! And I read these words carefully printed in English: “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” And it was signed “King Jesus.” Now, I know Jesus didn’t sign it, but somebody signed it in his name, and this is too much to be a coincidence, Tom. And the Lord did guide us and took care of us financially.

But those are rare experiences, now and then as we need them in our lives. But some people—God is always talking to them all the time. No, I do not expect that. He guides us quietly. But most of all, He wants us to be faithful to Him and to study His Word rather than expecting some audible voice from heaven.

Tom: Dave, I remember we got a letter, we get hundreds of letters, but some stand out. I remember this guy wrote to us and said, “Well, I never do anything except I’m led of the Holy Spirit.” He said, “For example, when I go to work every day, I drive under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I come to a stop light or a stop sign, and I stay there until I get direction. I know how to get to work, but sometimes the Holy Spirit has me go left, sometimes he has me go right, and so on.” And I am thinking, Come on now! First of all, he’s probably not a good witness, because I don’t think he gets to work every day on time. But that’s not the way of the Lord.

Dave: No, that’s—I don’t know the person so I am not judging his heart, but there are some people who just want to make it miraculous. But God doesn’t do things always miraculously. Very much he is in the ordinary. And He guides our steps whether we know it or not if we will allow Him to. So if I am seeking the true God, not a God of my own making or my own idea, “God as you understand him to be,” you know, as Alcoholics Anonymous would say…

Tom: The 12 Steps, right.

Dave: Or masonry would say, “You can’t say who the true God is.” And if you are a Mason out there listening, and you know that’s true, and you have to take an oath before you even get inside the door, or as soon as you get inside the door, never to tell anyone what goes on, not even your wife. That’s not biblical. You can’t stand up in the lodge and tell people the one and only true God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Jesus Christ is the only true Savior of sinners. They will throw you out, I guarantee you. Now if you can’t do that, then there is something wrong in there. But we must want to know Him, the true God, not just some higher power.

Tom: Dave, we are going to get to our first question. And again, if you’ve just joined us or if this is your first time listening to the program, we are taking our questions from Dave Hunt’s book In Defense of the Faith. Gary will tell you a little bit later in the program how you can order the book.

Dave: These are not questions I made up; these are questions that were asked me.

Tom: Right, and some of them are terrific questions. The reason I like them, Dave, is because, not just to go out and have an argument, but it really presses you to understand what you believe and why you believe it, and you can, as it says in 1 Peter:3:15But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
See All..., have an answer for those who basically have a question for you.

Dave: Yes, we are supposed to.

Tom: Yes, telling them the “reason for the hope that you have within you.” So first question: “In his famous ‘Lord’s Prayer,’ Jesus prayed, ‘and lead us not into temptation’ (Matthew:16:13When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
See All...). Yet we are told that He was in fact ‘led up of the [Holy] Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil’ (Matthew:4:1Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
See All...). So even His own prayer wasn’t answered! How can you explain this?”

Dave: Tom, it’s almost ingenious in its misunderstanding. I think I recall that comes out of an atheist’s file that I have. Well, first of all, they misunderstand it. “The Lord’s Prayer”—that’s a misnomer.

Tom: You say atheist. Then that’s a misnomer for many, many, many Christians.

Dave: Well, yes, a lot of people call it the Lord’s Prayer. The Apostles’ Creed—it was not the apostles’ creed. The apostles never heard of it. The Catholic Church came up with it some years later and named it that.

But the Lord’s Prayer is—we will get to it, Lord willing, if the Lord spares us and the Rapture doesn’t occur. When we get to John 17, that is the Lord’s prayer. He is praying to His Father.

But in Matthew 6, what they call the Lord’s Prayer—“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,…” etc.—the disciples come to Him and say, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

He doesn’t say, “Well, there’s this fantastic prayer back there in the Old Testament that was prayed by a man named Jabez, and if you just recite this over and over and over, it’s going to bring great blessing in your life.” I wonder why the Lord didn’t say that. That’s (as you know) something very popular today.

Nor did the Lord say, “I’ll give you a formula, and if you recite this, you will always get what you want.” In fact, he did not give us something that we were to pray by rote, just mere repetition. He said, “After this manner pray ye.” So this is a pattern for prayer. “After this manner pray ye.” He’s not praying it. That would be altogether wrong, because part of that prayer is not only “…lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil…forgive us our sins….” Jesus was without sin. So please, everyone out there, understand, look it up in the Bible, search the Scriptures: the so-called Lord’s Prayer is not the Lord’s prayer. He never prayed it; it would not be appropriate for Him to pray it.

So now this person is mistaken from the beginning. He says, “Well, the Lord prays, ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ and then He gets led into temptation by the Holy Spirit.” Well, that was not the Lord’s Prayer. I think that should take care of that. And furthermore, it doesn’t mean that if we pray “lead us not into temptation” that we would therefore be immune from temptation.

Tom: That’s a difficult one, Dave.

Dave: Well, see, it’s showing humility. You see, some people—I think of a song…I’m trying to think of it now. It’s a chorus. I really have liked it and sang it with gusto with hippies, particularly hippie Christians: “I’ve been to the river and I’ve been baptized…” (How does that go?) “And I’m glad, and Satan is so mad he lost a soul that he thought he had…” And, you know, it is almost like they’re thumbing their nose at Satan, and they are just confident: “He can’t touch me.”

No, this is a prayer of humility. As Paul said, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”

So a person is saying, “Not my will be done, Lord, but thine be done.” If you want to, whatever trials and difficulties—because that’s really what it means. God does not tempt people with evil. The scripture very clearly says—James says, “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he anyone.” He’s never trying to trap us or to lead us into sin, but it’s testing.

And when it says that Jesus was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted—that’s not the best translation. I’m sorry, King James, but I use the King James—what it really means is to be tested. He’s not tempted to do anything. He tells His disciples when we get a little farther on here in John 14, he says, “…the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me.”

In other words, when temptation, we would call it, arose, Jesus didn’t just hang on and grit his teeth and, “Oh, I’m going to resist it—this sin, I’m not going to do it….” No, there is nothing in him that was attracted to sin or to evil. But he was being tested like gold is tested in the fire, and he did no sin, the Scripture says. He knew no sin, there was no sin. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, although they complained and said, “This man receiveth sinners.” So he could be with sinners, but he was totally separate from them. He was absolutely without sin.

So, “lead us not into temptation....” Tom, it’s an expression of humility. “Lord, I’m totally dependent upon you. And I’m not boasting and saying, ‘Hey, I can handle it.’ Please don’t let it happen to me, but if it’s Your will, I’m going to trust You for it.”

“Deliver us from evil” goes right along with that.

Tom: Yes. Now, Dave, do you have any objection when churches, they would have us all stand and repeat the Lord’s Prayer? That’s how they’re going to name it. Aside from that part, is that rote praying? You see, the reason I’m asking (and we’ve only got a couple of minutes left), growing up Roman Catholic, that’s all I had was rote prayer. And there were—I can think of some times when I did commune with the Lord, or tried to—think I was doing it, thought I was doing it—but most of my prayers were out of a prayer book, or prayers I learned like the Apostles’ Creed.

Dave: Right, right. Tom, I don’t like rote prayer. I don’t believe in rote prayer. Prayer should come from my heart. On the other hand, when you recite the Lord’s Prayer, you are quoting Scripture, so we can hardly complain about that. I’m not going to complain about that. But the problem is that many people—this is the only prayer they pray. Or they think that this is a prayer. It’s good, you’re expressing something, but a Christian certainly ought to outgrow repeating this by rote.

Tom: And again, it’s personal relationship. Pick somebody—your best friend. Would you keep going to them with something that you had written down and wanted to repeat over and over and over again? It just doesn’t quite gel.

Dave: Very good, Tom, that’s a good illustration. We’re supposed to be in communion with our Lord in a beautiful, wonderful love relationship, and you don’t just recite something over and over and over. Nevertheless, it was a good question, but based on misunderstanding on the part of this person. We trust our Lord and “after this manner pray ye…” And repeat it if you want, but don’t let that be the only prayer you pray. Get to know Him personally. As Paul said, “O, that I might know him….” Now, Paul knew Him, but he wanted to know Him better. That should be the passion of every Christian’s heart.