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"THE MIRACLE OF PRAYER"

JOSHUA 10:6-15

Once again this week I was asked a question that I've been asked perhaps hundreds of times. "Pastor, does it really do any good to pray?" It was not a flippant question. It was a serious question that came from a troubled and grieving heart.

"Does it really matter if I pray? Does God ever truly act in response to my prayers? Can I really believe that the God of the universe listens to me?" Hasn't that question troubled the mind of every one of us at some point?

Oh, in a setting like this we could certainly pile up a lot of evidence from our personal testimonies that indeed god does respond to prayer. Many of us have stories from our own lives where the only answer is that God must have intervened.

And yet we could also pile up a good bit of evidence that would seem to say to us, "Sometimes it just doesn't matter how long or hard you pray, God doesn't respond."

The question is valid and it is real: "Does God really hear my prayer?" Now the Bible has a rather resounding answer to that question. But how do we take obvious connections that the Bible presents to us between prayer and God's actions, and reconcile that with what we often experience? Namely, that it's often difficult for us to connect our prayers with the direct action or intervention of God in our lives.

Well I think that this story from chapter 10 of Joshua can speak meaningfully to us about these questions.

We heard in the story how these five Amorite kings were planning to march up to Gibeon and work them over for joining in a treaty with Israel. That's in fact what they did.

So the people of Gibeon plead their case with Joshua, "You've got to come and help us, we are your servants by treaty, we're now allies." There was really no decision to make. Joshua had to go.

So Israel made the long march, uphill, to the vicinity of Gibeon. On the way the Lord spoke to Joshua and said, "Listen you have nothing to fear. I have already given this enemy into your hand." Now that's a basis for confidence.

So after an all-night march, the Israelite army engaged the armies of the Amorites in battle. And just as the Lord had promised they began to defeat them and beat them back, forcing them into retreat.

And to top it off the writer says a hailstorm broke out and beat down huge hailstones on the Amorites and in fact more of them died from getting beaned with hailstones than by the swords of the Israelites.

But it was during this battle, that one of the most amazing things in all the Bible happens as a result of Joshua's prayer. See, Joshua had learned the lesson well that when God gives you a mission you'd better see it through. So in order to finish their job of driving back the Amorites, Joshua prayed an incredible prayer.

He prayed to the Lord in the presence of all Israel that the sun and moon would stand still in the sky until the nation had taken care of its enemies. He prayed for time to stop. He asked the Lord to suspend the law's of nature. And the writer of Joshua says with his mouth hanging open, "It actually happened!" The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day."

Now admittedly, this stretches the limits for our modern minds. Given what we understand about how the universe works, how could this possibly happen? But once again, what the Bible is more interested in than "how" is "why."

We tend to get bogged down with the "how's" of this kind of reported miracle, but the narrator of our story isn't primarily concerned with how it all happened. What amazes him is not the fact that the sun stood still (or from our modern perspective that the earth stood still). What amazes the writer of our story is that God, the sovereign God of the universe listened to the prayer of a man!

How the sun stood still is not the point of this story. God's intervention is the point of this story. The message is that God will do amazing and even miraculous things in order to accomplish his purposes.

But you see this amazing incident did not happen in a vacuum. Joshua didn't wake up one day and say, "I think I'll find out if God answers prayer or not, so sun stand still." No this entire episode is deeply rooted in a covenant relationship that God and Joshua shared.

This prayer was deeply rooted in the sacred promises that God had made to Israel and that Israel had made to God. The command of God was very clear to go and take possession of the land that God was giving them.

And the promise that went along with that command was equally clear, "I will give the land and its people into your hands, I will be with you wherever you go."

Joshua understands that this is who God is and that's why he has the audacity to come before God and make such a senseless request. And yet, God honored the prayer and granted the request.

The writer says, "There has never been a day like it before a since" and you assume he's talking about he sun standing still. But he says instead, "A day when the Lord listened to a man. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel."

This is the consistent witness of scripture. God takes us very seriously. God listens to us. And sometimes God even changes his mind as a result of our prayers. It is amazing, isn't it? It's utterly amazing that the God of the universe would listen to men and women who cry out to him in faith.

The lord listened to Moses. At a time when God was ready to wipe out the children of Israel because of their disobedience, Moses interceded on their behalf and pleaded with God for mercy, and God relented from wiping them out.

In Psalm 91 the Lord says of his servant: "When he calls to me, I will answer him." Whoever heard of a God like that? It ought to take our breath away to realize that the God who is seated on high stoops down and bends his ear to lips made of dust.

Now I don't use the word miracle lightly. I believe I have seen a few miracles, but they are special and rare. This was clearly a miracle, a setting aside of the natural order of things - a direct intervention of the hand of God.

Unlike some people I know, i don't call it a miracle when the front parking space at Hy-Vee is open. Miracles are special and rare and we shouldn't use the word carelessly.

But friends, I think this story means to impress us with the miracle of prayer. Not so much the fact that the sun stood still, but the fact that God takes us seriously and he listens to us when we cry out to him.

Whether you choose to believe that or not to believe that makes all the difference in the world for your spiritual health. It makes all the difference in the world for the hope and peace that you experience in a difficult world.

But you may say, "Well I want to believe that. I really do want to believe that God hears me and responds to me when I pray, but there have too many times when God seems to have gone silent.

"Or there has been one critical time when I didn't hear God answer. What about that? Where is this God who listens in those times?"

Fair question. I think there's an answer in this text. You see the miracle of prayer is rooted in the promises that God has already made. Joshua knew what God had promised. Joshua knew clearly what God was committed to do.

And it was out of that understanding of and submission to God's plan and will that he made this unbelievable request. Joshua saw a direct answer to his prayer in part because he prayed squarely within the bounds of God's revealed will. This is a hard lesson for us. But it seems to me that so often when we pray, we make requests of God that come from the arena of our will and our understanding of what is good and right.

It seems absolutely good and right to us that a loved one should be delivered from cancer. How could God not be for that? But you see that is a judgement of things from a human perspective.

Our physical lives are obviously a high priority to us. We don't really know anything else, so we want to hold on to what we know. But has God promised us anywhere in his word, the deliverance of every believer from every physical calamity in this world?

No. In fact, Jesus promised us just the opposite. "In this world," he said, "you will have tribulation." Now it's right for us to express our earnest desire to God. But our constant task as his children is to learn to live in total surrender to his will.

I'm going out on a bit of a limb here, but here's what I believe. If we feel that God is not answering our prayers, if we feel that God is not listening to us, it's probably because we have lost sight of his will and all we can see is our will.

When we lose sight of his mission, his ultimate purpose in the world, that's when it's easy to begin to doubt the miracle of prayer. God does listen to us and he does intervene in our lives, but his intervention is always for the purpose of accomplishing his ultimate will.

A few days ago I took my little boys to the store with me. We went into the Super Target and if you've been there you know that Super Target has stuff that boys need.

Now being the experienced father that I am, before we went into the store I explained our mission very clearly to the boys. I told them, "We are going in there for this one purpose and this one purpose only."

And, being the experienced father that I am, I knew my little speech would have absolutely no impact on the outcome. You know what happened, don't you?

The three of us went marching through the store on a mission. But along the way we began to pass some other things that looked very attractive and very necessary to the boys. And so right there in the middle of super target, the boys started offering up their prayers.

"Oh, dad can't we please get this. We need to have this. Our lives won't complete without this. Everybody we know gets to have this, surely you don't want us to be deprived."

Now what they were asking for seemed totally reasonable to them. In their limited understanding of reality, there was no good reason why my granting their request would not be a good thing.

But you see, their "prayers" were outside of the mission. Even though what they wanted was technically within the means of the father, what they wanted was outside of the will and purpose of the father.

You see the connection, don't you? We offer up so many prayers to God. But how many of our prayers really come out of the covenant promise that God has made to us?

How much time have we really spent getting to know the heartbeat of God so that we ask in accordance with his will? On the other hand, how many of our prayers are nothing more than pious expressions of our own selfish will?

This circles back around to the message a few weeks ago, "Whose side is God on?" Do I pray trying to get God on my side, or do I pray out of a desire to get my life aligned with what God is doing?

Am I determined to have him do what I want when I want it, or am I willing to submit myself to his sovereignty and his plan?

Folks, when we pray God listens to us. We are in a serious and real dialogue with the God of the universe. But we need to remember that we do not serve a God who just sits in heaven casually deciding whether or not to dispense goodies to his children.

We serve a God with a mission. We serve a God who has invited us into a covenant relationship as he leads us toward the perfect rule and reign of Christ over all things.

His purpose is to redeem all things for his glory. So the miracle of prayer is that God is and will be absolutely faithful to his promise. As we learn to pray inside the mission and will of God, we will discover amazing things happening in this world as a result of our prayers. But as long as we insist on praying out of our own will and mission, we will be frustrated and doubtful in our praying.

It is utterly amazing. When you pray, God turns his ear toward you. When you pray, God hears you and he responds to your prayer. Without exception, he responds to your prayer.

If you're having trouble seeing that, perhaps the critical question is, "Am I really praying with an attitude of surrender to his plan? Am I praying within an increasing understanding of his will and purpose in this world?"

Or, do I just want what I want? And if God doesn't come through on my terms I'm going to be mad at him?

Does the Lord listen to you? The Bible makes that answer very clear. Yes he does. Perhaps the real question is, "Do you listen to him?"