Prayers Changes Things; James 4:3

James 4:3 ^NASB “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend {it} on your pleasures.”

Matthew 7:7 ^NASB “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. [8] “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” In these verses we have present active imperatives. The present imperative means that this is to be a standard operating procedure.

The doctrine of prayer

1) Prayer is the grace provision of the royal priesthood whereby the church age believer has access and the privilege to communicate directly with God. That never before happened in history. In the Old Testament they did not have direct access to God, they had to go through a priesthood. But once Jesus Christ came and paid the penalty for our sins on the cross it opened the door of access to God. Every believer in the church age is a priest and we have direct access to God, we don’t have to go through some human intermediary.

2) The purpose of the communication is first to acknowledge our sins, and that restores our fellowship with the Lord. Secondly it is to express adoration and praise to God. There is an element of worship to prayer. Many of the psalms are praise psalms, there is no petition there it is just an expression of praise to God for who he is and what he has done in our lives and the way He has answered prayer. It is for giving thanks to God for what He has done, interceding for others, and conveying our own personal needs, petitions, and conducting intimate conversation with God. The elements of prayer can be categorized by the acronym CATS. C = Confession; A = Adoration, which is our praise and worship towards God; T = Thanks, expressing our thanks and gratitude to the Lord for all he has done; S = Supplication, which is our intercession for others and our petitions for our own personal needs. All of this makes up prayer and any one of these can comprise a prayer.

Why is it important to have confession here? Why is it important if we have forgiveness at the cross? At salvation we have forgiveness for all pre-salvation sins. This also provides the basis for all other forgiveness. But five minutes after we are saved we say something or think something that is a sin; that is a violation of God’s character. So even though that has been paid for by the cross (1 John 1:7) something still happens that affects our relationship with God. It doesn’t destroy the relationship but it hinders the rapport. But forgiveness in the Christian life is what takes place in 1 John 1:9. That is why 1 John 1:7 precedes 1 John 1:9. Confession means to admit or acknowledge guilt, that you have done something. Forgiveness applies to those sins that we have admitted; cleansing from all unrighteousness applies to all the other sins that we either forgot we committed or we committed out of ignorance and didn’t know they were sins. At that point the slate is wiped clean and we are restored to a position back in fellowship with the Lord where we are in a position of potential spiritual growth. Just because we are back in fellowship doesn’t mean that we are going to grow. We have to take in the Word of God and in the power of the filling of the Holy Spirit apply the Word of God, and as we learn the Word of God that is when spiritual growth takes place. So we see that forgiveness functions in two realms: At the cross—pre-salvation sins, and this lays the basis for post-salvation forgiveness which results from confession.

There are a couple of verses that are really important which some people overlook. Psalm 66:18 ^NASB “If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear.” The word translated “regard” is the Hebrew ra’a which means to see or to look. It is in the qal perfect and it means to see, to observe, to discern. So the psalmist is saying, If I look, if I see, if I observe iniquity/wickedness somewhere. And it is stated as “in my heart,” the noun leb plus the preposition bi which means in. Leb refers to the innermost part of the thinking of the soul. Here it is looking at the whole life, so we could correct the translation here: “If I observe iniquity in my life [mental, verbal, overt sins] the result is that Yahweh will not hear.” The word to hear is best translated simply as to listen. There is no fellowship there. So there is a clear statement in this verse that sin impacts the prayer life of the believer.

There are a couple of passages in the New Testament that also deal with this, aside from 1 John 1:9 and they deal with it in more of a metaphorical framework, figurative speech. One is 1 Timothy 2:8 ^NASB “Therefore I want the men [ANER/ a)nhr = males in the congregation] in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension.” What does lifting up holy hands mean? First of all, the word here translated “holy” is not the word HAGIOS [a(gioj] which is the normal word for holy, it is the word HOSIOS [o(siwj] which as to do with that which has been cleansed. In the ancient world they didn’t bow their heads and close their eyes like we do. When they prayed they held up their hands, opened their eyes and looked to heaven. That is the standard posture that Jews took when they prayed. That was the cultural way in which they prayed, so the interpretation here needs to take into account the historical and cultural context. So when Paul says, “lifting up holy hands,” he is referring to hands that have been cleansed. Then James 4:8 ^NASB “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” He is picking up on this same metaphor of cleansing the hands. This draws on the picture that is painted for us in the imagery from the priesthood in the temple and tabernacle of the Old Testament, that whenever the priest would go into the tabernacle or the temple, before he went into the holy place where he met with God he would first have to come to the golden laver that was outside. There he had to wash his hands and his feet, because the feet represented going places he shouldn’t and the hands represented doing things he shouldn’t. In other words, it represented sin and therefore he had to wash his hands and his feet every single time before he could have access to God. It is a picture of confession. The Septuagint [LXX] translates that word “cleansing” by the Greek word KATHARIZO [kaqarizw] which is the same word that is used in 1 John 1:9 for cleansing. Both these New Testament verses picture the fact that before there can be access to God in prayer there has to be confession. It is very important that the believer go through the process of having a prayer confession prior to stating his petitions to God to makes sure he is in fellowship.

Matthew 6:5, 6 ^NASB “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees {what is done} in secret will reward you.” In other words, prayer is not some overt spiritual exercise. We are to pray but it is to be a matter of privacy between the believer and God. This does not rule out public prayer but when you pray in public but public prayer should be confined to the purpose for which is was designed.

a) We pray to confess our sins.

b) We don’t pray to be spiritual, we pray because we are spiritual.

c) Prayer demands concentration and thought.

d) Prayer should be the highest priority in our life after learning Bible doctrine. Prayer is our communication with God, it is not some afterthought tacked on to the spiritual life.

e) As believers our prayers fail because we fail in our spiritual lives.

3) The mandates for prayer. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 ^NASB “pray without ceasing.” The verb there is PROSEUCHOMAI [proseuxomai] in the present middle imperative. The present imperative means that this stresses that this mandate is standard operating procedure in the spiritual life. PROSEUCHOMAI is the standard for prayer. It means to pray, to entreat, to request or to ask. The middle voice is really a deponent middle, it has the form of a middle voice but it is active in meaning. That means we are to pray. It is our volition that is addressed in the imperative. We are to pray continuously. Colossians 4:2 ^NASB “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with {an attitude of} thanksgiving;” This is emphasizing the fact that our gratitude to God is often a barometer of our spiritual life. The more we grow, the more knowledge of doctrine that we have, the more we realize all that God has done and provided for us, the more gratitude there should be in our lives for everything that we have. Gratitude is the gauge to your spiritual growth. The verb there, “Devote yourselves,” is PROSKARTEREO [proskarterew], a present active imperative which means it is standard operating procedure to devote yourself to something, to keep on doing it, to persist in it, to make it a habit pattern in your life. This is exemplified in the early church, as seen in Acts 2:42 ^NASB “They were continually devoting themselves [proskarterew], to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” What we learn in this verse is the priorities of the believers in the early church.

We have to ask a question that is raised in these verses in James. James says, You do not have because you do not ask. The implication there is that there are certain things that God is standing by to give us but He is waiting for us to ask. That brings into play the word “contingency.” That word is almost a nasty word to some people, but God has built contingencies into His plan. Another word is “flexibility.” Remember, God is omniscient. This means that God knows all the knowable. He knows all the actual and all the possible or potential. God is omnipotent, which means that God is all-powerful and is powerful enough to bring about everything that he intends. So between His omniscience and His omnipotence God was able to structure a plan that includes within it a certain degree of flexibility and contingency. God has certain contingent blessings in time for us. They are contingent, it is part of the flexibility that God has built into that plan for our lives and they are dependent on whether or not we pray. Prayer truly does change things.

In Exodus 32 we are looking at a situation where the Israelites had been freed, they had come to Mount Sinai, and while Moses was up on the mountain they convinced Aaron to build the golden calf which they worshipped, and the result is all of the carnality that takes place. God decides that He is going to destroy the people because they have violated His will and have rejected Him. Look at how this is handled by Moses. Exodus 32:9 ^NASB “The LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. [10] Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.” Notice how Moses handles this in verse 11. “Then Moses entreated the LORD his God, and said, ‘O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?” “Entreated” is the piel of the verb chalah, and in the piel which is the intensive stem it means to mollify, to appease, to entreat the favour of someone. Here it has the idea of inducing God to show favour toward Israel instead of wrath and chastisement. Notice the terminology here. He entreats “the LORD his God,” and whenever you see the Lord spelled in small caps that is always a translation of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, YHWH. This emphasizes God’s special covenant relationship with Israel. So there is a specific reason why this name is emphasized here. Moses here wants to remind God just by the use of His name of His covenant promise. Notice how he argues [presents a case] with God in the presentation of his position. Moses logically presents his case for why God should change His mind and should not destroy the nation Israel. [12] “Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘With evil {intent} He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about {doing} harm to Your people.” He is saying: Lord, think about what this would do to your reputation among men. If you destroy Israel then people will think that they can’t trust you. Then look at his second argument. [13] Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit {it} forever.’” He reminds the Lord of the doctrine that is established in the Abrahamic covenant. It is a reminder that God has made a covenant promise to Abraham that He would raise up a people through whom He would bless the entire human race. “Israel” is the name that God gave to Jacob when he renewed the Abrahamic covenant with him. So all through this we see that Moses is paying particular attention to the very words he uses in his prayer so that everything he is saying is crafted to remind God of His promise in Genesis to Abraham and his descendants. The result: [14] “So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.”

What we should recognize here is that when it says God changed His mind that in the character of God, God is immutable, i.e. He does not change. This is primarily directed at His character. God’s character never changes, he is always faithful to His promises. If Moses had not petitioned God to change God would have destroyed everyone except Moses and he would have raised up the nation Israel through Moses. Moses is still a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So God would not have violated His covenant by so doing. So the fact that God changed His mind affects His relationship and goes back to the idea that God has built into His plan a certain amount of flexibility, depending on whether or not we pray. Prayer actually changes things.