Hear God as He says, "You have not because you ask not." Both church and ministers are asking why is the church growth so slow and why are we making so little headway against sin, against unbelief and against false teachings? The answer is the same, "You have not because you ask not."

I.   What Is Prayer?

        Prayer is a channel of strength and a stimulus to growth. Prayer is drawing in the breath of God that provides for our vitality. A prayer, in its simplest definition, is merely a wish turned heavenward. Prayer is the key that unlocks all the storehouses of God's infinite grace and power. All that God is, and all that He has, is at the disposal of prayer. Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, unuttered or expressed; the motion of a hidden fire that trembles in the breast.

        "Prayer is not an argument with God to persuade him to move things our way, but an exercise by which we are enabled by His Spirit to move ourselves his way." -- Leonard Ravenhill

        Prayer is talking to God. Prayer and Bible reading go together. Prayer is talking to God and Bible reading is God talking to us. Prayer is a Christlike virtue. I do not know of any virtue, love, compassion, purity, holiness, liberality, more Christlike than the virtue of prayer. When one prays, he is Christlike.

        What a blessed privilege is ours that we actually have the ability and the right (not based upon what we are, but who we are in Christ) to come to the God of everything and speak to him personally! The very thought of it greatly move me.

        One has said; "Whenever people come to me all excited about having met someone of renown, I'm tempted to say,"I can top that: I talked to God this morning!" How? Through prayer! Yet the privilege and honor of prayer is used so little, and how poorly we approach it when we do use it.

        J. B. Coats wrote a beautiful song titled "Where Could I Go?" The last line says "Where could I go but to the Lord?" I count it a privilege that we can come to God himself, not only in praise and thanksgiving and adoration, but come with our petitions and supplications as well.

II.   Why Don't We Pray?

        One has said, "Prayer is the most believed in, least practiced activity in the world." Almost a hundred years ago one said, "This is not a praying age." Why don't we pray more? Jesus said, "Men ought always to pray, and not to faint."

        Let me mention three reasons why I believe we don't pray more.

1. Praying is hard work. There is a world of difference between praying and saying a prayer. A lady asked me once if I would come to a meeting they were having and "say a little prayer"? Maybe that is our main problem. We say a prayer instead of praying. Don't teach your child to say a prayer, teach him or her to pray. I don't recommend that bedtime prayer, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." They'll learn it, repeat it and jump into bed and it won't mean a thing to them.

           I read a story of a man who lived alone in a little hut in a great forest. He felt it his duty to pray before meals and merely repeated some prayers he had learned as a boy. One day he decided to keep count by putting a walnut in a glass jar every time he said a prayer. This went on year after year until there was a long row of jars completely filled. As their number increased, he became more and more self-satisfied.

           Then he had a dream. Jesus stood before him and asked, "What is the meaning of all these containers filled with nuts?" The man replied, "Each nut stands for a prayer." "Take a hammer and crack the nuts one by one,"said Jesus. The man did as he was told and found that the kernel of each had dried up. When he had cracked all the nuts, nothing remained but a pile of empty shells. Then Jesus said, "Your prayers too are empty. You speak the words you have been taught, but you heart is not in them. Prayers are meaningful only when they come from the heart, not just from the lips!"

           There is a terrible joke about a television news team that was taping at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall. Every day they saw the same elderly man praying, morning, noon, and night beside that famous structure. On their last day they got curious and asked him, "What is it you pray for so fervently?" The old man thought for a moment and said, "I pray for health, for happiness, and for peace in my land." "I see," said the reporter. "You don't look that healthy. Are you happy?" "Not really," said the man. "And your homeland is in turmoil. Do you really believe your prayers are heard?" The man nodded and replied, "Sometimes it's like talking to a wall." Mature Christians can acknowledge that sometimes prayer is like talking to a wall. Sometimes we pray with great pain and anguish. We need an answer. We need it now. But no answer comes -- at least o answer that satisfies us, and we ask, "Where is God? Does He care?"

           Yes, God cares and He always hears the prayer of his people.

   Psalm 4:3 (KJV)
   ³But know that the LORD hath set apart him that is godly for himself: the LORD will hear when I call unto him.

   Psalm 17:6 (KJV)
   ⁶I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech.

   Psalm 10:17 (KJV)
   ¹⁷LORD, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear:

   1 Peter 3:12 (KJV)
   ¹²For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.

           Dr. Leslie Weatherhead said, "I have always found prayer difficult." William Adam Brown in his book The Life of Prayer in a World of Science said, "This book has been written by one who believes that prayer is the heart of all vital religion, yet who in his own experience has often found it hard to pray."

           Fred L. Fisher said, "Prayer is not as easy road to a comfortable life. We do not mean to imply that the New Testament teaches that man may cast all his burdens and difficulties on the shoulder of God and go away without further thought or effort, expecting to receive ready-made solutions of life's problems. Much more is involved than this."




2. The devil fights those who pray. Here is the prime reason why you find it so hard to spend time in prayer. You know your needs of prayer. You want to pray, but somehow you do not pray. The devil uses every method in the world to distract you from prayer. Telephones, radios, motorcars, housework, children -- all of these things are used to turn people from the place of prayer.

           The devil has proven himself successful in defeating Christians in the warfare of prayer. It is easier to get people to give money than it is to pray. It is far easier to get people to do physical labor than it is to pray. Because of the devil's awful power and work, perhaps the hardest thing in the world to get a man to do is to pray.

           I believe that the devil stands and looks at the church today and laughs in his sleeve when he sees how its members depend upon their own scheming and powers of organization and skillfully devised machinery."Ha, ha," he laughs, "You may have your YMCAs,your YWCAs, your WCTUs, YPSCEs and BYPUs, your Boy Scouts, your costly church edifices, your thousand dollar church organs, your brilliant university bred preachers, your high priced choirs, your gifted sopranoes, altos, tenors and basses, your wonderful quartets, your immense men's Bible classes, yes, and your Bible conferences, your Bible institutes and your special evangelistic services; it does not in the least trouble me, if you will only leave out the power of the Lord God Almighty sought and obtained by the earnest, persistent, believing prayer that will not take 'no' for and answer."




3. We depend upon organizations to get the work done. About 1923 Dr. R. A. Torney said this about organization without God's power. "As I said, we do not live in a praying age. We live in an age of hustle and bustle, of man's efforts and man's determination, of man's confidence in himself and in his own power to achieve things, an age of human organization, human machinery, human push, human scheming and human achievement -- which in the things of God means no real achievement at all. I think it would be perfectly safe to say that the church was never in all its history so fully and so skillfully and so thoroughly and so perfectly organized as it is today. Our machinery is wonderful. It is just perfect. But alas, it is machinery without power."

           These words from another re worth quoting. "But tragically we live in a day when the program of the church is exaulted and the prayer meeting forgotten. Everywhere men look for new methods, new techniques, new presentations. Organization is on the throne. But the inspiration is lacking and the spirit of conviction does not fall upon men. Designs, project, plans, promotions crowd our calendars; but we have forgotten that it is in quietness and in confidence we find strength. Our preaching is powerless because it is prayerless. Our lives are not saintly because they are not saturated with supplication. Our churches are not living fellowships, vibrant with the joy and assurance of eternity; and a great part of the reason is that we have lost the holy art of "being still and knowing that God is God." And the result? Our generation passes by and they hear not the word of the Saviour. Here is the agony and the delema of the church today."