God’s School of Prayer
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Welcome back to the podcast on this holiday week
00:00:06.960 | here in the States.
00:00:08.960 | Well, we go to school to learn.
00:00:10.760 | And when it comes to prayer,
00:00:12.000 | we sometimes need to be enrolled in the school of prayer,
00:00:15.000 | God's school of prayer.
00:00:17.920 | And that school of prayer is described for us
00:00:20.440 | in the Old Testament in a book we don't go to very often.
00:00:23.760 | It's the book of Zechariah.
00:00:25.940 | It's there that we find a key text
00:00:27.720 | in John Piper's understanding of how we learn to pray.
00:00:30.240 | Zechariah 13 verses eight and nine,
00:00:32.760 | a text never mentioned on this podcast until today.
00:00:36.960 | Here he is to explain the importance of this text
00:00:39.880 | is John Piper in a sermon he preached to his church
00:00:42.560 | in the final days of 2008,
00:00:45.000 | looking ahead to the new year of 2009.
00:00:48.740 | Here's Pastor John.
00:00:49.700 | - Okay, Zechariah.
00:00:52.220 | You know where that book is?
00:00:54.760 | Second from the last book of the Old Testament.
00:00:56.760 | If you go to the end of the Old Testament
00:00:58.960 | and flip back about four pages, you'll be there.
00:01:01.880 | Zechariah chapter 13 verses eight and nine.
00:01:05.440 | And we'll wrap it up here with this.
00:01:07.760 | What did I get hit with in Zechariah
00:01:11.400 | that gave this message the twist it's now getting?
00:01:14.360 | On prayer.
00:01:17.280 | I don't think I'd ever seen this before.
00:01:20.560 | (sighs)
00:01:22.560 | This is a couple of verses about God's school of prayer.
00:01:32.560 | If you're not praying the way you should,
00:01:38.160 | then probably he's gonna sign you up for this.
00:01:41.400 | So let's start at verse eight.
00:01:44.600 | In the whole land, declares the Lord,
00:01:49.320 | two thirds shall be cut off and perish,
00:01:52.160 | and one third shall be left alive.
00:01:54.200 | So stop there.
00:01:55.160 | Don't worry about when this happens in history right now.
00:01:57.640 | Just leave that one aside.
00:01:59.020 | Just look at how God works.
00:02:02.400 | So he takes the whole and two thirds of them perish.
00:02:07.400 | They get wiped out.
00:02:09.840 | And God saves a third.
00:02:12.340 | So you're in that third if you're a Christian.
00:02:14.720 | Just symbolically, you're in that third.
00:02:17.280 | So you're in that third.
00:02:18.320 | God's remnant, faithful, imperfect, weak, lousy prayers.
00:02:23.320 | He saved them.
00:02:24.800 | What's God's remedy for their weaknesses?
00:02:29.660 | Verse nine.
00:02:32.000 | What's his school of prayer?
00:02:35.040 | Verse nine.
00:02:36.320 | And I will put this third into the fire
00:02:42.800 | and refine them as one refines silver
00:02:46.320 | and test them as gold is tested.
00:02:48.200 | So now notice carefully what's happening
00:02:50.920 | 'cause this is surprising.
00:02:52.840 | In his great love, he rescues them from the hole
00:02:57.840 | and he includes them in his elect third,
00:03:01.240 | symbolically third.
00:03:03.260 | He's got a third and he loves them.
00:03:04.800 | He saved them.
00:03:05.640 | He didn't let them perish.
00:03:07.440 | And then he takes his loved ones,
00:03:09.240 | his cherished, the apples of his eye,
00:03:11.280 | and he puts them in the fire.
00:03:12.780 | Why?
00:03:16.080 | Now this is normal Christianity.
00:03:20.100 | Well, that's the Old Testament.
00:03:22.200 | He doesn't do that anymore.
00:03:23.320 | Listen to 1 Peter 4, 12.
00:03:25.560 | "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal
00:03:28.720 | "when it comes upon you to test you
00:03:30.520 | "as though something strange were happening to you."
00:03:32.480 | That's crystal clear.
00:03:33.600 | This is normal, not strange Christianity.
00:03:36.320 | God rescues us from hell and puts us in fire.
00:03:40.320 | Got that?
00:03:41.160 | That's normal Christianity.
00:03:42.840 | God rescues us from the flames of hell
00:03:44.760 | and puts us into refining flames.
00:03:47.640 | Why?
00:03:49.000 | Now, I don't want all the answers from all over the Bible.
00:03:51.280 | I just want the answer from verse nine
00:03:53.320 | and it's crystal clear and it's simple and narrow and small
00:03:56.880 | and big and huge and glorious.
00:03:58.640 | It's about prayer.
00:03:59.680 | So let's finish reading verse nine.
00:04:02.520 | "I will test them as gold is tested.
00:04:07.240 | "They will call upon my name and I will answer them."
00:04:12.240 | That's all.
00:04:15.640 | Nothing about getting their sex lives burned clean.
00:04:19.200 | Nothing about getting their money mismanagement burned clean.
00:04:23.800 | Nothing about getting their power struggles
00:04:25.600 | and relational mess ups fixed.
00:04:28.520 | Just, "Then they'll call on me and I'll answer."
00:04:35.480 | God puts us in the fire to awaken earnest prayer.
00:04:38.640 | Please, this is a plea now.
00:04:42.240 | I'm pleading with you.
00:04:43.640 | This verse is in the Bible to help this plea
00:04:50.200 | that I'm about to make to you come true.
00:04:52.200 | This verse is in the Bible so that the plea
00:04:54.840 | that I'm about to make to you will come true.
00:04:57.400 | I can't make it come true.
00:04:58.480 | This verse, by God's grace, with his power,
00:05:01.040 | can make this come true.
00:05:01.960 | I plead with you not to be among the number
00:05:06.560 | who gets sent to this school,
00:05:08.820 | which is designed to awaken prayer
00:05:11.720 | and the school becomes the very reason you abandon prayer.
00:05:16.480 | Thousands go to this school and turn on prayer.
00:05:24.200 | If he treats me like this,
00:05:28.280 | I'm not gonna ask him for anything
00:05:31.100 | because I asked him to keep me out of this
00:05:33.760 | and he didn't do it.
00:05:34.760 | And the very school designed to produce depth,
00:05:41.120 | trust, God-focused, man-diminishing, worshipful prayer
00:05:46.200 | is turned on its head and the school is hated.
00:05:55.180 | And I'm pleading with you.
00:05:58.920 | This verse is in the Bible to help that not happen.
00:06:03.920 | That's why it's here.
00:06:05.980 | So that when you look around you
00:06:07.220 | and the flames are burning and you wonder,
00:06:09.580 | God, what's up?
00:06:11.460 | This is up.
00:06:12.860 | This is up.
00:06:15.220 | Don't teach him how to teach.
00:06:20.880 | Submit.
00:06:21.720 | Let me close with a quote from John Calvin.
00:06:25.580 | I read Calvin on this text
00:06:28.200 | because next year is his 500th birthday.
00:06:30.760 | So I'm poking around in Calvin a lot these days.
00:06:33.460 | This is what he said and it's more true today
00:06:39.560 | than it was when he wrote it.
00:06:41.060 | "It is therefore necessary that we should be subject
00:06:47.520 | "from first to last to the scourges of God."
00:06:52.660 | Scourges of God, the fire.
00:06:56.800 | "In order that we may from the heart call on him.
00:07:01.380 | "For our hearts are enfeebled by prosperity
00:07:07.760 | "so that we cannot make an effort to pray."
00:07:15.360 | If that's not the American church, I don't know what is.
00:07:21.040 | "We are enfeebled by prosperity
00:07:24.480 | "so that we can scarcely make the effort to pray
00:07:29.280 | "because so many other good things,
00:07:31.680 | "prosperous things, right things,
00:07:34.300 | "fill our powerless lives."
00:07:38.760 | So would you resolve with me
00:07:44.000 | that this simply will not happen to you in 2009?
00:07:51.320 | This meaning our hearts are enfeebled by prosperity
00:07:56.320 | so that we cannot make the effort to pray.
00:08:00.520 | Would you resolve with me, that's not gonna happen.
00:08:05.480 | I'm not gonna let that happen.
00:08:07.700 | Whatever it takes.
00:08:08.960 | I'm not gonna be enfeebled by my prosperity.
00:08:12.860 | I will put in place whatever it takes.
00:08:20.720 | And may the Lord be gentle with us in the fires of 2009
00:08:25.720 | because they will come.
00:08:30.440 | I hope you don't turn on him when they come.
00:08:35.560 | - Sobering.
00:08:37.800 | This clip was taken from John Piper's sermon
00:08:39.760 | on December 28th, 2008, as you heard
00:08:42.280 | nearing the end of the year
00:08:43.360 | and looking ahead to the new year of 2009.
00:08:46.600 | The sermon is titled,
00:08:47.600 | "Put in the Fire for the Sake of Prayer."
00:08:50.360 | It's available online in its entirety at DesiringGod.org.
00:08:55.240 | If you have a sermon clip to share, email me.
00:08:57.520 | Give me your name, hometown, the sermon title,
00:09:00.320 | the timestamp of where the clip happens in the audio,
00:09:02.280 | and make a note of what stands out to you.
00:09:04.480 | Put the word clip in the subject line of an email
00:09:06.320 | and send it to me at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:09:09.520 | That's an email address, AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:09:13.140 | Well, we've been working through Bible questions,
00:09:17.820 | tough Bible questions from the first two chapters
00:09:20.500 | of 2 Thessalonians.
00:09:21.740 | The third one is up next time on Friday.
00:09:24.540 | I'm your host, Tony Rehnke,
00:09:25.380 | and we are rejoined in studio with Pastor John for that.
00:09:27.380 | We'll see you in a couple of days.
00:09:29.080 | (upbeat music)
00:09:31.660 | (upbeat music)
00:09:34.240 | [BLANK_AUDIO]