Posted on 01/01/2022 9:56:06 PM PST by Pilgrim's Progress
“My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee . . . Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding” (Proverbs 2:1, 3).
“Receive the word with meekness” (Ja 1:21). Receive the Bible as the Word of God, and not as the words of men (ITh 2:13). You have to do that, you have to have faith that it is the Word of God, or it will not have any power. He says, “incline, thine ear unto wisdom, and hide my commandments,” like David says in Ps119:11, “Hide them in your heart.” Memorize them, meditate on them so that you “incline,” that is, “to lean in, to listen.”
“But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward” (Jer 7:24 KJV).
“Incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding,” apply what you’ve learned, go to work at it.
“. . . criest after knowledge,” is getting into prayer. It’s like in James 5 where we are told to pray for wisdom. This is how God separates the adults from the children. He wants to see how bad we really want something. The Lord doesn’t give things easily. Salvation comes easy, it wasn’t easy for God to buy it, but it comes easy for us to have it. “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom 10:13, KJV). “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom 10:9).
But it’s not easy to live the Christian life. The Christian life is hard, it’s difficult. And it’s not easy to have victory over the flesh—it’s not easy to overcome sin and habits—It’s hard! How do we do it? Well, we listen, we apply, and we pray. And sometimes we have to cry. There was a time when the apostles had a demon-possessed individual to deal with, and they couldn’t cast out the devil. And then Jesus came along and cast it out. The disciples asked him why they couldn’t do it. He said, “This kind cometh not out except by prayer and fasting.”
Folks, sometimes when you pray about a thing and you haven’t got an answer, you just have to get serious. You have to show God that you really want it.
There is another story teaching about the woman that goes to the unjust judge and requires something of him. And because of her importunity [she just bugged him to death] he said, “Lady, I’m so sick of looking at you, you can have it!” I guess in some worldly, earthly sense, God just gets sick and tired of us constantly coming to Him and asking for things. I realize that we are not supposed to use ‘vain repetition,’ but that’s talking about how the heathen pray with beads and baubles and all that business, that’s not talking about going to God consistently and praying for the soul of someone to get saved, or for a child to be raised in the fear and admonition of the Lord. God, in a sense, should get tired of you constantly coming and saying, “Here I am again, Lord.” There was a guy, they say, that prayed so much that when he started his prayer he would say, “It’s me, Lord.” “It’s me again, Lord.” That’s the way it ought to be with us.
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