1. The Power of Christian Prayer Psalm 64:1
Text: “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.”
Ephesians 6:18.
“And He (Christ Jesus) spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint…Shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them?” I tell you that He will avenge them speedily…”
Luke 18:1; 7-8.
Good morning, constantly praying Christian! Why do you pray constantly? What is the motivation of your Spiritually
regenerate heart (entire essence) that you are found constantly, and
consistently, in reverent prayer to the Lord?
Is there a vital need you fulfil in this Christian exercise? What keeps you motivated to feel the need for
such constant exercise in fervent prayer?
Read on, beloved Christian Reader, and be once more assured,
in Psalm 64, of the Christian’s vital need for constant and instant prayer to
the Living Lord God.
Constantly praying Christians, are always necessarily
militantly serving Christians! Constant,
fervent, and public, clearly visible service to King Jesus Christ, immediately
brings with it a constant, malignant, Devil-inspired and directed, opposition
from the pit of Hell itself. Diabolical
enemies of the serving Christian’s soul, shall appear and break forth upon
him/her every time he/she begins a work or a service for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Merely a Scriptural fact!
“Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not
ignorant of his devices.” (2 Corinthians 2:11)
The apostle Paul, nearing the time of his cruel martyrdom,
exposed how much his sincere work for Christ’s Gospel brought with it,
evil-inspired enemies: “Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord
reward him according to his works: of whom be thou ware (beware) also; for he
hath greatly withstood our words.” (2
Timothy 4:14-15)
The Christian who is constantly seeking to serve his Master,
King Jesus Christ, is openly and fully assured of being constantly opposed by evil-inspired
enemies. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, in his
classical exposition of the Book of Psalms – The Treasury of David – which I am
here seeking to reintroduce to the 21st Century Christian church,
penned the following on Psalm 64:
“A
Psalm of David. His life was one of
conflict, and very seldom does he finish a Psalm without mentioning his
enemies; in this instance his thoughts are wholly occupied with prayer against
them.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of
David, page 278)
Many other Bible-believing Christian servants of Christ have
written of the constant rise of Spiritual enemies, when once they began a work
in the Gospel of Christ and Him Crucified for sinners.
Of Psalm 64, John Gill (1697-1771) writes: “This Psalm is
applied by R. Obadiah to Haman and Mordecai.
The enemy is Haman, the perfect man shot at is Mordecai.” (See the Book
of Esther for background to this event.)
On Psalm 64, Arthur Pridham(1869) concurs that it is: “A cry
of God’s elect when persecuted for righteousness sake.” (In Notes
and Reflections on the Psalms)
Genuine, Bible-believing, Spiritually regenerate Christians
now, in this increasingly apostate 21 Century, desperately need to revisit the
writings/teachings of Spiritual giants of former Centuries – if ‘the church’,
international and universal, is ever to regain any semblance of God-believing
and earnestly serving Protestantism and Bible belief.
Were the early Reformers in their graves
today, they would be writhing with holy anger!
How did the church worldwide ever permit Christ’s enemies
into their pulpits: Easy-believism; Modernism; Liberalism; False Ecumenism;
Sodomites in pulpits; Charismatic circuses; gross Arminian views concerning
mankind’s ‘free will’, and being ‘saved, then lost again’; ‘name it and claim
it’ Prosperity teachings; Romanism with its unbiblically authenticated rituals,
rites, and superstitious beliefs, etc. etc.?
All these are the enemies of true, Bible-believing faith.
Today, true born again hearts cry out to the Lord God in
prayer, as our spirits groan within us.
Verse
1. “Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer. We do not read that
Moses had spoken with his lips at the Red Sea, and yet the Lord said to him,
‘Why criest thou unto Me?’. Prayers
which are unheard on earth may be among the best heard in Heaven. It is our duty to note how constantly David
turns to prayer; it is his battle axe and weapon of war.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 278)
The 21st Century church worldwide really needs to
realise that precious souls are perishing all around us; the Devil and his
fallen angels are working tirelessly to cause chaos and wreak havoc in the
hearts and souls of mankind. This is a
WAR and we who truly belong to Christ Jesus have a bounden duty to wage a
militant war against the powers of selfishness and all evil. Are you and I actually FOR Christ, or AGAINST
Him? Christian, it is time for us to
choose.
“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you
this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods (small g!) which your fathers
served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites,
in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the
Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)
I pray that all readers professing the Name of the risen
Jesus Christ might right now concur with the answer given to Joshua when this
subject arose in his day: “And the
people answered and said, ‘God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve
other gods; for the Lord our God, He it is that brought us up and our fathers
out of the land of Egypt (the world), from the house of bondage and which did
those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we
went, and among all the people through whom we passed.” (Joshua 24:16-17)
In the New Testament we are instructed to pray for our
enemies, and those that despitefully use us, and we do. However, never let anyone dare to teach us
that we must pray for the enemies of the Lord God! We are on the Lord’s side in this great
Spiritual Battle against evil, and God’s enemies are our enemies too. We can never pray for evil and Christ-rejection
to prosper!
“For they speak against Thee wickedly, O God, and take Thy
Name in vain. Do not I hate them, O
Lord, that hate Thee? And am not I
grieved with those that rise up against Thee?”
I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.” (Psalm 139:20-22)
True Christian prayers are powerful prayers, because we pray
from Blood-bought hearts, and our prayers should always be aimed against the
workers of iniquity – spiritual and temporal.
Thought:
“Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the
enemy.” (Psalm 64:1) Christian soldiers
wield a battle-axe of constant powerful prayer.
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