Two chapters in the gospel of Luke, chapters 11 and 18, are dedicated to the principles of prayer, especially the principles that are most effective in the end time. They will give the basis for what we are approaching. We are facing a change; everything is going to change. I don’t know whether that prediction is confirmed to your heart, but it is to mine. I believe that I’m going to change physically, mentally, spiritually, economically—in every way.
We can claim things and believe for them for such a long time, and suddenly, we come to a lull. It’s like getting into the eye of a hurricane. (Do you know what a hurricane is? It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good!) As the hurricane comes, the center of it will be calm. We pass through battles that are like hurricanes; they blow hard against all of us. But as we come into what God is ready for us to have, it seems like a great calm comes over us, as though we are now ready to enter into a new phase of things that we have not been in heretofore. Things will change so drastically that those who have geared themselves to what has happened in the past will have to shift gears rapidly. Our whole thinking is going to change.
In this walk, we do not dare to be old wineskins. We will have to be flexible because the demands on us may be far greater than any of us can anticipate. But I have learned this principle: Whenever the Lord makes greater demands upon me, He intends for me to make greater demands upon Him. He does not intend that His demands upon me should be met in my ability or my reserves; He intends that they should be met by an appropriation of Himself. I make greater demands upon His provision, His promises, His fullness, so that I can walk in what He is demanding of me. Otherwise, when He makes demands upon me I would become exceedingly discouraged. It would be a thing that would overwhelm me. I would say, “Lord, I am not able; I can’t meet what You’re demanding of me. It’s too much; it’s beyond me. I’m doing my best now; how could I do any better?” But the Lord would whisper back, “You can do better if you just draw more of Me—more of My strength, more of My wisdom, more of the abilities that I can impart to you.”
The eleventh chapter of Luke is devoted to prayer. When Christ was in a certain place praying, His disciples came to Him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught His disciples.” So the Lord Jesus gave them the Lord’s prayer. I don’t think it was as much to teach them how to pray as to give them a guideline in their actual praying.
He is continually teaching us to pray. There are those who learn to pray because they sense in their spirits that they must become people of prayer; they believe it is necessary. Others learn because God constantly keeps them in hot water and they have to pray. I don’t want to be a person who prays because God continually makes me a desperate seeker; I want to be a man of prayer because I’m continually, aggressively seeking for the coming forth of the Kingdom of God—on earth as it is in heaven, just as His prayer taught us to pray.
At verse 5, the pattern of prayer that Jesus is teaching changes. And he said unto them, which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine is come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him; and he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee? I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. Luke 11:5–8.
To understand the truth in the following verses, you should know that the verbs are written in the Greek aorist tense, an action of the present extended into the future. The literal translation is … Ask, (and keep on asking) and it shall be given you; seek, (and keep on seeking) and ye shall find; knock, (keep on knocking) and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh (and keeps on asking) receiveth; and he that seeketh (and keeps on seeking) findeth; and to him that knocketh (and keeps on knocking) it shall be opened. Luke 11:9, 10.
Isn’t that beautiful? You cannot become weary in prayer, nor weary in well-doing. The work that God sets before you is to be a work that you never abandon; the prayer that He sets before you is a prayer that you never abandon. Years ago, I knew of an old holiness preacher, a man of prayer, who had some very decided ideas on the subject. He would say, “Folks, you just haven’t prayed, until you pray it through.” The Lord has taught us about violence in prayer and about persistence in going after what God has said He has given us. Don’t stop praying. You may say, “Well, I failed this last week or two,” but no failure, no mistake, no falling flat on your face is really valid in this walk. It is not a permanent, valid thing in your life. The Word speaks of victory for us, so last week’s defeat is not valid. The devil can’t make it stick unless you lie there on the battlefield—then he will grab a heel and drag you off and take you captive. Get up; that defeat doesn’t count. Though the righteous falls, the Lord upholds him with His hand (Psalm 37:24)
Don’t believe Satan. Don’t believe in defeat. There are people who walk along with God winning victory after victory, yet when they fall once, they accept it as total defeat. That is stupid. The problem is not where you slip and fall, the real problem is in your mental attitude about it afterwards. Watch some of those old prizefighters—they come into the ring really watching each other. One of them may not be looking at just the right moment and get knocked down, but he jumps up so fast that it looks as if he’s embarrassed! He doesn’t let the fall count; he wipes it out in a hurry! You should do that too. Get right up; go on. That knockdown is not a defeat; get up and go after it in the name of the Lord, because you’re going to win. Keep on praying; keep on seeking the face of the Lord.
This walk has seen casualities, but in nine times out of ten, the casualities come not by what has overtaken the individuals but in their attitudes toward it afterwards. Satan deals most effectively with attitudes, moods, feelings, and with seeming defeats. Those are the most effective tools the enemy has; those are the real problems.
I never back off from a problem. Our young people seem to sense what I mean by this. Some of the older folks don’t always get it, but the young people will come and confess frankly when they disobey a scriptural injunction; they come to me continually to explain how a particular problem happened. They are quite open, because they know that I am not going to wipe them out over it. You may say, “Well, they’re just trying hard.” But there is more to it than that. They aren’t going to accept defeat as a way of life any more than I am; they refuse to become unbelievers because they happened to fall into something wrong. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. I John 2:1b. Get them on their feet, give them a good talking to; say, “Come on; let’s go on with the Lord. The longer you sit around and mull over it, the more time you lose. Don’t magnify your defeats. Magnify the Lord and the victory He has given you.”
This passage in Luke 11 is trying to teach you one thing: you are to start praying. Don’t stop praying, even if the Lord seems reluctant. Go to Him and say, “Lord, I’m disturbing You because I want some action.” Jesus said, “This is the way to pray: Suppose you go to a friend at night and say, ‘Someone came from a journey and I don’t have anything to set before him. I’m going to need three loaves of bread tonight.’ He replies, ‘Don’t bother me. My children are in bed asleep with me. I can’t get up and give anything to you.’
You would have to know a little bit about the Palestinian home before you could understand this passage. Most of the houses had flat roofs, and sometimes the family slept on the roof. They didn’t live the way we live. Sometimes the houses were actually divided, with livestock on one side and sleeping quarters on the other. The family usually slept together with the father in the middle. They didn’t have beds like ours; their beds were more like pallets made for sleeping on the floor. When the Lord said, “Arise, take up your bed and walk,” he wasn’t talking about a four-poster canopy bed! It was just a simple pallet that you could roll up, put on your back and take with you.
Just imagine, these people are sleeping and someone bangs at the door. You know what will happen. Soon the dog will be barking, the cows will be mooing, and all the children will wake up; everyone will be wide awake and facing a noisy, sleepless night. So this unwelcome neighbor knocks on the door and says, “Friend…” Who wants to hear a word like that! The father says, “Don’t bother me. My children are in bed with me. Go away; just disappear!” But the fellow keeps right on knocking. Finally the father gives up and says, “Well, you’re going to wake up the children anyway; I might as well get up and give you all the loaves of bread you want.”
Jesus said, “I tell you, he wouldn’t give it to him because he was a friend, but because of his importunity.” Just being a child of God may not mean that you get what you want, but if you are an importunate child of God, you’ll get what you want, your whole desire. God will open the door and give you many things. Go after them.
Let’s not accept any limitation as being valid. The promises of God are pointing to a better day, and we are going to walk in it by the grace of God. How do we do it? By insistence or persistence, by keeping after it—“I’m going to be blessed. I’m going to have an answer. Lord, I’m going to have an answer”—by praying without ceasing, crying unto the Lord, but not because we are trying to merit favor by our long speaking. “Lord, are You there? Come on, answer me, Lord. I’m looking for an answer. I want this to happen.”
Some people are content when God gives them promises and proceeds to work them out in time. But there are other people who say, “Come on; don’t give me a long-term deal. I want it now. I need a change now!” That is the kind of praying that I advocate. Ask, and keep on asking; seek, and keep on seeking; knock, and keep on knocking. For he that asks and keeps on asking is going to receive. He that seeks and keeps on seeking is going to find. He that knocks and keeps on knocking will have the door opened unto him. It’s time for us to make that change in the name of the Lord.
The Lord gave one more principle of prayer, just in case you might think that God is reluctant. And of which of you that is a father shall his son ask a loaf, and he give him a stone? or a fish, and he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he give him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? Luke 11:11–13. Mathew 7:11 reads, … how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? His promise is unlimited. God will give us anything we need, if we just ask Him. If we are willing to give our children these things, how much more will the Heavenly Father be willing to give us whatever we have need of!
Don’t be hesitant. You want to prophesy, you want gifts of the Spirit, you want God to meet you, you want blessings on your home—don’t you think those things are promised? “Perhaps,” you may say. “But I haven’t been able to walk in them.” Keep on praying; keep on seeking. You may say, “Well, maybe God is trying to work something out in my life by holding them back to get me to seek Him more earnestly.” Suppose you bypass that route and seek God earnestly anyway. Do you have to be beaten down before you seek God? Do you have to be deprived and in a corner before you seek Him? Why not ask and keep on asking beforehand? That’s all God is after anyway—to get you to seek with your whole heart, to get you to knock at the door. If you are willing to do that without any pressures, He is certainly not going to lay any unnecessary trouble upon you.
For example, if you have a son who is disobedient, you turn him over your knee and give him a good spanking. Then you have a son who will do what you tell him to do, and he will develop into a good man. Suppose you come to the boy and begin to put it to him, and he opens up to be obedient to do everything you tell him—he is an aggressive little boy, seeking the Lord, obedient to his father. Are you going to turn him over your knee and spank him now? No, the spanking is unnecessary. Why don’t you take a lesson from that? You wouldn’t spank your boy just because you wanted to. There would be no use in that. You spank him for disobedience, to get his attention, to teach him to discipline himself.
The Lord would be pleased if you gave Him attention and obedience and submission without ever being spanked. So, why don’t you ask and keep on asking; seek and keep on seeking; knock and keep on knocking. You could bypass many of the difficult dealings of the Lord by giving the Lord that persistent obedience, faith, and submission in the first place, without waiting until He disciplines you for it.