Prayer: Drawing Near to God

^{Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones}
I should like to call your attention this morning to some four of the verses which we have read just now in the 10th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Let me read them again from verse 19 to verse 22,:

“having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his flesh, and having an high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
Heb 10:19-22

Now these words were written, as you remember, as indeed was the whole epistle to a number of Christian people who were in a condition of discouragement and indeed of despondency.
They were, as the title to the Epistle reminds us, Jews, Hebrews, who had been brought up in the old Jewish religion but who having heard the gospel had believed it and had become Christians. And for a while it's clear that they were very happy in their new life, but for a variety of reasons, mainly persecution. They were now in a very unhappy state and very troubled, not only about what was happening to them, but even troubled about the faith itself.
And it's quite clear from the context and what one can read between the lines here and there, that a number of them were even beginning to look back to the old religion and something to go back to the old temple worship. And the result of all this was that they were utterly cast down, they were dejected and they were in trouble. And this, of course, was affecting the whole of their life.
That's why this man writes his letter to them, to show them the error of their ways, to explain the discouragement and despondency to them and to show them the way of return and of restoration to a full enjoyment of the Christian life. Now, I say that this trouble on their part affected the whole of their lives. And in particular, of course, it affected their prayer life.
And for the Christian, nothing is more important than prayer. This is the teaching of the whole of the Bible. And our Lord himself summed it up in a well-known phrase when he said that men should always pray and not faint.
The alternative to praying is fainting. Life in this world is not easy. New Testament has never promised us an easy life. It's the cults that promise that. The Bible has warned us to expect tribulation in this world and trials, even such as our Lord himself experienced. And the only way in which the Christian can live successfully and triumphantly and happily is by means of prayer, contact with God and knowing God's blessing, so that nothing is more important for the Christian than to know exactly how to pray.
Well, now these people obviously have gotten to difficulties of their prayer life. And that's why in this portion that we are looking at this morning, this man deals in particular with the way to pray. You see, if we begin to go wrong in our doctrine, everything is going to be affected and particularly our life of prayer.
And it seems to me that many of us need a little help and instruction, even as these people did, with regard to this all important and central matter. I wonder what our experiences are with regard to prayer. As a lot of very foolish talk, it seems to me about prayer at the present time.
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..we have need of instruction in this matter of prayer. Do you remember our Lord's disciples one afternoon, they went to him and they said, Lord, teach us how to pray. They said, John the Baptist used to teach his disciples how to pray. Teach us how to pray! You see, they'd see him rising a great while before dawn and going up into a mountain to pray. They'd seen him sometimes spend a whole night in prayer.
They couldn't do this. And they couldn't understand it, so they asked for instruction. Now that's right. That's something I can understand. Prayer is very difficult. And this notion that it's simple and easy is quite unscriptural, and indeed I suggest quite false to true Christian experience. So I'd put it to you like this. Have you realised the difficulties in the way of prayer? Now I'm not talking about just getting on your knees and repeating or reciting the Lord's prayer. That's not difficult, but is it real prayer? And we realise the difficulties in connection with prayer. I'm putting it like that for this reason. I think I'll be able to show you that if we haven't realised the difficulties in the matter of praying, the probability is we've never prayed at all.
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_{(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.)}

The whole sermon can be found on the MLJ YouTube channel, here.