Daily Devotional For Monday, October 7, 2024

Well, your weekend has come and gone and now for most of you, you are either back to work or school or both. We are making our way through Jesus’ Sermon On The Mount. Today, we are in Matthew 6:5-8:

“When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. (6) But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. (7) “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. (8) So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him” (NASB).

We now come to Jesus talking to us about prayer. There are basically two theological extremes out there about prayer:

1. First is the Calvinistic view that God is sovereign. In this view, God will always work according to His perfect will regardless of how we pray. In this view, God will never violate His holiness, righteousness, will and purpose. This means prayer is seen simply as a way of lining up with God regarding what He has already determined to do.
2. Second, is the Arminian view that God’s actions pertaining to us are determined largely on the basis of our prayers. This view says prayer is beseeching God to do what He otherwise would not do.

So, which one is right? Well, both views are and this is the tension we find in Scripture. The Bible is unequivocal about God’s absolute sovereignty. But it is equally unequivocal in declaring that within His sovereignty God calls on His people to beseech Him in prayer—to implore His help in guidance, provision, protection, mercy, forgiveness, and countless other needs. This means as His children we do not have to understand HOW prayer works, but instead we are to understand THAT prayer works. Jesus in the passage above and in The Lord’s Prayer that follows in Matthew 6:9-13, we see both views completely.

Jesus is on a wonderful “soapbox” here – dealing with our hypocrisy and in Matthew 6:5-8, our hypocrisy when it comes to prayer. We see from early on in Genesis that prayer is important. God spoke to Abraham to be His covenant people and of all people, the Jews should have known and seen the importance of how to pray. But like with everything in the Old Testament, they even found a way to corrupt, abuse, misuse, pervert and adulterate prayer. By the time of Jesus, most Jews were absolutely confused on how to pray.

New Testament scholar William Barclay writes this:

“NO nation ever had a higher ideal of prayer than the Jews had; and no religion ever ranked prayer higher in the scale of priorities than the Jews did. ‘Great is prayer,’ said the Rabbis, ‘greater than all good works.’ One of the loveliest things that was ever said about family worship is the Rabbinic saying: ‘He who prays within his house surrounds it with a wall that is stronger than iron.’ The only regret of the Rabbis was that it was not possible to pray all day long. But certain faults had crept into the Jewish habits of prayer. 

It is to be noted that these faults are by no means peculiar to Jewish ideas of prayer; they can and do occur anywhere. And it is to be noted that they could only occur in a community where prayer was taken with the greatest seriousness. They are not the faults of neglect; they are the faults of misguided devotion. Here are some of those corruptions he lists: (1) Prayer had become formalized. There were two things Jews were commanded to prescribe to every day.

The first was the Shema, which consists of three short passages of Scripture—Deuteronomy 6:4–9, 11:13–21; Numbers 15:37–41. Shema is the imperative of the Hebrew word for to hear, and the Shema takes its name from the verse which was the essence and center of the whole matter: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.’ The full Shema had to be recited by every Jew every morning and every evening. It had to be said as early as possible. It had to be said as soon as the light was strong enough to distinguish between blue and white. In any event, it had to be said before the third hour, that is, 9 am; and in the evening it had to be said before 9 pm. If the last possible moment for the saying of the Shema had come, no matter where a man found himself, at home, in the street, at work or in the synagogue, he must stop and say it.

There were many who loved the Shema, and who repeated it with reverence and adoration and love; but inevitably there were still more who gabbled their way through it and went their way. The Shema had every chance of becoming a vain repetition, which was mumbled like some incantation. We Christians are but ill-qualified to criticize, for everything that has been said about formally gabbling through the Shema can be said about grace before meals in many families.

The second thing which every Jew had to repeat daily was called the Shemonēh ’esreh, which means the Eighteen. It consisted of eighteen prayers, and was, and still is, an essential part of the synagogue service. In time the prayers became nineteen, but the old name remains. Most of these prayers are quite short, and nearly all of them are very lovely. The law was that Jews must recite it three times a day—once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once in the evening. The same thing happened again. Devout Jews prayed it with loving devotion; but there were many to whom this series of lovely prayers became a garbled formula. There was even a summary supplied which might be prayed, if there was not the time to repeat the whole eighteen or they could not all be remembered. The repetition of the Shemonēh ’esreh became nothing more than a superstitious incantation. Again, we Christians are ill-qualified to criticize, for there are many occasions when we do precisely the same with the prayer which Christ taught us to pray” (Source: William Baclary, The Daily Study Bible Series, “Matthew,” Vol. 1, pp. 220-221).

The problem with using formalized prayers is that they can create an attitude of devotion, or indifference or pride. In Jesus’ days, the religious leaders made sure the people saw and heard them praying these formalized prayers, enunciating every word perfectly and loudly. The religious leaders had developed prescribed prayers for certain occasions that were to be prayed and there were set times when one was to pray or when one was in a certain place during the day. These rules turned prayer into a ritual and a regulation rather than accentuated a personal relationship to God. Not all Jews fell into this trap. 

We read in the Book of Daniel, how the prophet Daniel followed these rules but in order to keep his heart open to God. Read Daniel 6:10, “Now when Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house (now in his roof chamber he had windows open toward Jerusalem); and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God, as he had been doing previously” (NASB).

Another fallacy that came into how Jews prayed was having long, wordy prayers. They believed the longer the prayer, the more esteem the words and language used in prayer, the more effective the prayer would be. Jesus in Mark 12:38-40 warned about such prayers:

“In His teaching He was saying: `Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes, and like respectful greetings in the market places, (39) and chief seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets, (40) who devour widows’ houses, and for appearance’s sake offer long prayers; these will receive greater condemnation’” (NASB).

Pastor and author John MacArthur writes this:

“A long prayer, of course, is not necessarily an insincere prayer. But a long public prayer lends itself to pretense, repetition, rote, and many other such dangers. The fault is in praying “for appearance’s sake,” to impress others with our religiosity. Ancient rabbis maintained that the longer the prayer, the more likely it would be heard and heeded by God. Verbosity was confused with meaning, and length was confused with sincerity.” (Source: John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, “Matthew,” p. 363).

Another thing Jesus condemns in prayer is us using meaningless repetitive patterns as pagan religions did. We can see this in the competition between Elijah and the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18: 26-29:

“So they prepared one of the bulls and placed it on the altar. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning until noontime, shouting, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no reply of any kind. Then they danced, hobbling around the altar they had made. (27) About noontime Elijah began mocking them. “You’ll have to shout louder,” he scoffed, “for surely he is a god! Perhaps he is daydreaming, or is relieving himself. Or maybe he is away on a trip, or is asleep and needs to be wakened!” (28) So they shouted louder, and following their normal custom, they cut themselves with knives and swords until the blood gushed out. (29) They raved all afternoon until the time of the evening sacrifice, but still there was no sound, no reply, no response” (NLT).

Jesus condemns piling on a list of adjectives to God’s name thinking this will impress God and get Him to answer your prayer. Worst, was praying in such a way to be seen by others rather than by God. In each and every abuse described above for prayer, Jesus calls such people “hypocrites.” People who pretend to be something they are not. People who choose role play in prayer rather than unroll prayer out as if it was an object to use at one’s discretion. The religious leaders prayed in the same way they did everything – to be seen by others. 

One of the dangers we have to be aware of is that one danger to our faith is becoming more religious before God, rather than more relational to God. This is one temptation the devil uses on us when we pray – to appear more religious, righteous and rigorous through prayer rather than seeing it as cultivating a deeper and more personal relationship to God the Father. We are very susceptible to pride creeping in when we pray. We are very vulnerable to sin when we pray.

New Testament scholar and author Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes this:

“We tend to think of sin as we see it in rags and in the gutters of life. We look at a drunkard, poor fellow, and we say, there is sin. But that is not the essence of sin. To have a real picture and a true understanding of sin, you must look at some great saint, some unusually devout and devoted man, look at him there on his knees in the very presence of God. Even there self is intruding itself, and the temptation is for him to think about himself, to think pleasantly and pleasurably about himself and to really be worshiping himself rather than God. That, not the other, is the true picture of sin. The other is sin, of course, but there you do not see it at its acme, you do not see it in its essence. Or to put it in another form, if you really want to understand something about the nature of satan and his activities, the thing to do is not to go to the dregs or the gutters of life. If you really want to know something about satan, go away to that wilderness where our Lord spent forty days and forty nights. That’s the true picture of satan, where you see him tempting the very Son of God” (Source: Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, Vol. 2, pp. 22-23).

We will look at this more in depth on Tuesday. As we wrap up, Jesus condemned seven attitudes in prayer:  formalized prayers, prescribed prayers for certain occasions, mandatory times to pray, connecting prayer to certain locations or places, long prayers, repetition of certain words in prayer, and praying to be seen. New Testament scholar Bruce B. Barton writes this:

“The point really wasn’t a choice between public and private prayer but between heartfelt and hypocritical prayer. We must learn to pray in private so that we might eventually lead others in effective prayer in public. When asked to pray in public, focus on addressing God, not on how you’re coming across to others” (Bruce B. Barton, The Life Application Bible Commentary, “Matthew,” p. 112).

Questions To Consider

1. Do Jesus’ words question the appropriateness of all public prayer? Can public prayer draw attention to God without drawing attention to the one praying? 
2. When it comes to prayer, do you feel or ever act as if using certain repetitious words/titles for God, or being in a certain place such as church makes your prayer more effective and powerful?
3. Jesus did not totally practice “closet” prayer. Jesus prayed both privately (Matt. 14:23) and publicly (Matt. 14:18-19). When you pray in public, do you focus on addressing God or does your awareness that others are listening to you, cause you to pray differently? Why or why not?
4. It has been said that the reason so many Christians are afraid to pray publicly is because they do not consistently pray privately? Do you agree or disagree with this and why?
5. What do you think is the one of the biggest challenges in praying and why?

Scripture To Meditate On: 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray without ceasing” (NASB).

Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus, first I need to make prayer a priority in my life. Second, I need to make my prayer more about You and less about myself. Please forgive me for taking my relationship to You for granted. Lord, help me to pray to You each and every day, not as a ritual to do but as a way to build my relationship to You. Help me to accept however You choose to answer my prayers. I love You Jesus. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”

I love you Southside!--Pastor Kelly