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When you pray, you expect an answer. Prayer is or should be a vitally important part of every Christian's life. It should involve talking to God, knowing that He hears and being confident that He will answer. What a fabulous opportunity and privilege it is to be able to know this most awesome being in the universe that we could talk to freely any time we want to and as many times as we want to, knowing that He pays close attention to what we actually have to say and that He will intervene in our lives to make a difference. I imagine that most, if not all of us realize that the bible contains conditions; conditions that go along with this privilege, conditions to having God listen to and respond to our prayers. How many of those conditions could you list if you were asked to write them down from the bible? What conditions does God give in order to listen to our prayers?

Let's turn to Matthew chapter 7, verse 7. As you read Jesus' words here in this passage, we could wonder, well how do conditions fit into what we're being told here about God's heart and approach toward our prayers? This is a familiar section of scripture to many of us. It says:

Matthew:7:7Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: Ask (Of course we ask principally by praying) and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.

Mr. Johnson led the opening songs this morning and it included that passage.

Verse 8: For everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds and to him who knocks it will be opened.

Verse 9: Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?

Verse 10: Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent?

Verse 11: If you then, being evil (meaning simple; we all still sin) know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

One thing that we can glean from these verses is that God, who is our heavenly Father very much, wants to listen and hear our prayers. I think it's safe to say that we can't fully grasp how pleased, how meaningful it is to God to listen to us communicate with Him and His desire to want to respond to us. A second thing we can draw from this passage of scripture is that the conditions that God clearly gives in the bible are not designed to make prayer more difficult. Now they're not there to make prayer harder for us to accomplish; they're not there so that God can kind of keep us at arms length and reserve answering if He really just doesn't want to.

Sometimes human beings do this, they use conditions in the wrong way; they use them as an ulterior motive to mask what really they're thinking and wanting. We can think probably of many examples of this but we'll draw one from the scriptures. This is about King Saul. You'll remember the account:

King Saul was very jealous of David, in fact he hated him. So Saul offered David the opportunity to marry one of his daughters and he said he'd be happy to do that, but there's a condition. That condition is you must go out and kill a certain number of the enemy and bring evidence to me that you killed them. The bible makes Saul's motives very clear because the scripture says what Saul had in mind was that David would be killed in the fight. Saul really didn't want David as a son-in-law, he wanted David dead. Saul's condition was intended to be a huge obstacle. God's not like that.

How then should we look at the conditions God lays down in order for us to receive answers to our prayers? Why would God give conditions? Why would they be a good thing for us? The answer is because these conditions lay out the spiritual realities or truths about how life works in the spiritual realm. The fact that God clearly explains to us His conditions should be viewed as a gift, a blessing, something positive. A blessing because it gives us information, an insight into God's thinking about what is important to Him, the spiritual realities and when we understand those things and come into harmony with them it gives us that much more confidence that our prayers will be heard and that He will answer them.

After all, don't we all want that kind of confidence, that assurance that when we do pray that God actually hears and responds? Don't we want that kind of relationship with Him? I'm sure we all do. That confidence is very important in order for us to be comfortable praying and asking and also having the kind of assurance that God will hear and answer and respond appropriately.

The bible gives us several conditions for answered prayer; more than one. But again we should never think of them as a negative. If we view God's conditions as for answering our prayers in a negative way, we end up seeing ourselves as sort of a spiritual juggler. You've probably seen a juggler on T.V. or in person. A juggler has a number of objects that he's continually tossing in the air, catching and re-tossing, not letting any of them fall to the ground. It takes a lot of skill and practice to keep all these objects in the air continuously. Sometimes if we're not careful we can feel like that, keeping all these conditions going in order for God to hear us. That's really not an accurate perception at all of what the scriptures have to say, in fact there's I think a better analogy for us to understand and to view God's conditions that gives us a clear and more accurate perception of how God thinks and it's also much more positive, it's very helpful. This is a personal analogy, it doesn't come from the scriptures directly, but I think it's one that is accurate. I'd like to think of each of these conditions as a gem; perhaps a pearl, a pearl of wisdom and truth and rather than the pearls being disconnected and isolated I'd like to think of them as pearls strung together on a string; a strand of pearls. They have something holding them together, unifying them and the string that's used to hold the pearls together is actually one of the conditions God gives the bottom line condition, the underlying condition that holds all the others together.

In the rest of the sermon today I'd like to review some of the conditions that God gives in order for Him to listen to our prayers and then answer them. Each condition obviously could be a sermon in itself but for the sake of time today we'll just cover them rather quickly. What I'd like to do too is to spend even more time talking about the string, the string that holds the pearls together; the underlying condition to answered prayer. This is a condition that when it is placed in our life, it goes a long way toward fulfilling all the other conditions. Let's review some of those conditions today; these pearls of truth that God give us. I don't know that there's any particular order that we must follow but we'll begin in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6. Let's go to the book of Hebrews. Here we're told that if we want to want God to pay attention to us, if we want Him to listen to us, if we want any sort of a meaningful relationship with Him, we must have faith. We must have confidence in God. We have to believe and know that God exists. We have to believe that He's the kind of God that He describes Himself to be in the bible and that we must believe that He will fulfill all of His promises.

Hebrews:11:6But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God (one of the most important ways we go to God is through prayer) must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

I like the way the New Living translation renders this verse, it says: It's impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to Him must believe that there is a God and He rewards those who sincerely seek Him. It's very clear.

Every one of us at some point in our lives must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that God does exist. We can't just assume that, we have to prove it because there are events in our lives that are going to occur that are going to shake us down to that very foundation and if we've not proven that, our foundation is going to crumble. Our church literature can be very helpful in this regard as far as proving. We have an excellent booklet entitled "Life's Ultimate Question: Does God Exist?" It's free. You can pick one up today in fact if you like. Good publication, good booklet, well thought out, very helpful, good place to start.

What kind of a God is it that we believe in? What kind of a God do we pray to? First of all He's a God of incredible power. All we have to do on a clear night is to look at the stars and the moon and realize that's only a small glimpse of the entire universe that God created simply by commanding it to come into being. Who could we talk to? Who could we connect with that would have that kind of power that the Creator God has? Not just power, He also has perfect knowledge, understanding, wisdom. He's powerful but also a wise God. We could add to that, that everything God does is motivated by one primary motivation and that is outgoing concern for His people. He's motivated by love and His character is perfect and it's also consistent. This is a God who wants to hear from us. This is a God who makes astounding decisions in regard to our lives. He's a God who wants us to trust Him. He's a God who takes care of us and is concerned for us and we can leave our concerns and worries and problems in His hands trusting that He knows the best solution. We can have confidence that He has the power to do whatever needs to be done in any situation and the wisdom to know how to do it and when to do it. He has the character that's phenomenal and will always do what's good for us in the long run.

Let's go to I Chronicles chapter 5, verse 20. We'll see an example here that God's recorded and preserved for us because it teaches us; I think it makes very clear; it's an interesting context but it's a very clear example of the point that God listens when people sincerely cry out for help.

At this point several of the tribes of Israel had gone to war against their enemies and one of their enemies was identified as the Hagrites.

I Chronicles 5:20 And they (referring to the Israelites) were helped against them (referring to their enemies) and the Hagrites were delivered into their hand and all who were with them, for they (the Israelites) cried out to God in the battle. (They were fighting, they were in the middle of this battle, a life and death situation and they're crying out to God. Notice that God did not prevent the problem from occurring, could have, didn't. He allowed the trial, the life and death situation to present itself to see what they would do and when they cried out, they prayed. There's a lesson there for us that God is not always going to prevent those difficulties, isolate us from those problems but when we cry out to Him when we are in the middle of them, He will hear us. The rest of the verse goes on to say:) He (God) heeded their prayers because they put their trust in Him.

So they didn't just ask, they really believed that God would provide a solution and God did. Faith, trust, confidence made the difference in this situation and faith will make a difference in our prayers as well. It's good for us I think from time to time to examine ourselves, to take a good hard cold look at ourselves and ask ourselves the question, how much real confidence do I honestly have in God? Do I really trust Him?

For example in the New Testament God tells us exactly how He wants us to face our problems and trials. He tells us: "Cast all your cares upon Him for He cares for you." We read that many times. Again I like the way the New Living translation renders it, it says: "Give all your worries and cares to God for He cares about what happens to you." That is very encouraging. He cares about what happens to you. If our trials or concerns in life overwhelm us to the point that we stop praying, do we need more faith? I think that becomes a rhetorical question doesn't it? That's a good time for us to draw closer to God and grow in the area of faith. We have to have faith in God's character and God's promises. We have to expect an answer when we pray.

A second condition for answered prayer is obedience; obedience to God and to all of God's instructions. That's made very clear in the letter in the book ofI John chapter 3, verse 22. We'll turn there. This scripture is written from a very positive perspective and a positive emphasis showing why God does answer our prayers and understanding this verse also helps us to grasp one reason why there are some prayers that God does not answer.

I John:3:22After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized. And whatever we ask (again in prayer) we receive from Him (or we could say whatever we ask that God knows is truly good for us, we receive from Him. Notice the point the second half of the verse) because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.

Receiving answers to our prayers requires that we be obedient.

This is written to give us encouragement; to help us, to encourage us with the knowledge that God's very willing to listen and to answer our prayers and a converted person will want to obey God and will want to please God and that person will want to put out a lot of effort to accomplish that. It doesn't mean that we have to be perfect, we never will be as humans and we all still do sin from time to time. It does though require that we have a sensitive conscience; one that's troubled when we disobey or displease God and requires that we follow up by applying ourselves. When we discover and learn that part of our life is off the track, that we quickly get it back on track; that we're sensitive to what God expects of us. It requires conscious effort on our parts in order for us to learn to please God. (Undistinguishable) that's what God thinks about and what He expects of us and that should be our approach.

Let's go next to Proverbs chapter 15, verse 29. The point we're making is reinforced here about the importance of us obeying God, of being obedient.

Proverbs:15:29The LORD is far from the wicked: but he heareth the prayer of the righteous. The Lord is far from the wicked, but He hears the prayer of the righteous.

What's the goal of a righteous person? He or she would want to put God first in their lives in every area of life. Nothing should become more important than our relationship with God. Anything else in life should be in second place. One way we can apply this proverb, apply this principle is to be growing spiritually so we get to the place that our relationship with God is more important than any of the things we ask for. The truly important part is our relationship with God. Our requests are important of course and God does want to hear from us. He wants to know what we're concerned about. We've seen that already, but God should come first in our lives and the opportunity and privilege of communicating with the Creator. Our relationship with Him needs to be the highest priority of our lives. If we pray fervently and regularly, only when we need or want something from God, then our needs or wants become more important than our relationship with God and we're not putting God first. We're allowing other things to be first in our lives.

Another condition for answered prayers is found in I John chapter 5, verse 14. We're told here and instructed to ask things that are according to God's will. Now that sounds good and it is, but I think we need to be sure we understand the point. How do we ask according to God's will? First of all I John:5:14Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. says:

I John:5:14Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee. Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

Verse 15: And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

That becomes very important.

Again these are scriptures that are intended to encourage us. Conditions given, yes for design in a very positive way. A converted mind wants God's will; seriously wants God's will and knowing God's will is important. It's our responsibility to learn that. Knowing God's will is always the best way and the wisest way. How do we learn God's will? Well principally by reading the bible and studying the bible, that's how we learn how God thinks and what God's will is. Another part of praying according to God's will is the willingness to accept God's will; accepting God's decision when we ask for something. When we pray we should be following Jesus' example. From His prayer the night before He was crucified when He surrendered His will to God's will, in essence He said: "Here's what I really want you to do, but in the final analysis Father I want your will to be done, not mine." When we're willing to sacrifice our own will in order to please and serve God, we'll accept whatever answer God gives us whether it's yes or whether it's yes, but not right now, or whether it's no, but I have something better for you. Be confident that God's will is what really is best in our lives.

Another condition for God to pay close attention to our prayers and respond to them is that we must do everything in our power to maintain right relationships with other people. It becomes very important. That's important to God that we learn to deal with people and handle them in an appropriate and Christian fashion. Let's look at one example of this principle and application of it in Matthew chapter 6, verse 14. It follows what's called the Lord's Prayer. We understand that it's an example prayer that Jesus gave to each of us to teach us how to pray. Each day we're to be asking God in prayer to forgive our sins. Notice what it says; notice that this condition is in place.

Matthew:6:14For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

When we forgive others then God hears our prayers and He gives us a wonderful gift that we could never ever earn and that's the gift of forgiveness. We can get up from our knees confident that something is changed; that something has happened; that Christ's sacrifice has been applied to our sins and once again we stand up spiritually clean before God. But notice Verse 15, the next verse:

Verse 15: But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

That's kind of sobering isn't it? Refusing to forgive another individual is in essence to mistreat him. In the process, somebody's prayers get short-circuited and they're ours if we don't forgive someone the way they've treated us we end up short-circuiting our prayers. Notice another application of this principle in I Peter chapter 3, verse 7. I always find this scripture to be powerful, meaningful, effective, pointed. It's an example involving a marriage relationship, our marriage relationships. God's concerned about how we treat other people, very concerned but He monitors how we treat our mate. That's why is says:

I Peter 3:7 Likewise you husbands, dwell with them (meaning your wives) with understanding, (in other words treat them in an understanding way) giving honor to the wife, as the weaker (meaning physically weaker) vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life, (but notice that last phrase) that your prayers may not be hindered.

The bible version renders that last part of that verse this way: Honor your wives so that nothing will interfere with your prayers. Again the New Living translation I think is the most clear, most effective. It says: If you don't treat her as you should, your prayers will not be heard. Wow! That gets very sobering for people, all of us that are married, that our prayers may not even be heard if we don't treat our mate in a Christian way. Is that clear enough? Do we see the point that we can do things that actually stop our prayers from being heard? There are other scriptures that we could turn to, to make a similar point but what we're emphasizing here is that if we're not doing our part to promote human relationships and peace, if we're not doing our part to heal damaged relationships, it adversely affects our prayers and our relationship with God.

The bible contains several other conditions for answered prayers. We won't take time to explore or discuss them in detail. Each one of them is certainly very important and meaningful. Some of the other ones include praying in Jesus name, having unselfish prayers, in other words having right motives, being sincere and fervent, being persistent, not just asking once and being thankful. All these conditions are like the pearls of truth that I referred to earlier in this analogy. If you like to study the subject of the conditions for answered prayer more thoroughly you may want to dig out your Good News magazine back in January/February of 2006. In that issue there was an article entitled "The Privilege and Power of Prayer." It's also available on the church web-site by the same title.

We'd like to look at one more condition today. It's the one that I likened earlier to the string that holds all the pearls together, that ties them together, common thread running through them. It's an underlining condition for God to take our prayers seriously and then to act on our behalf. I think it would be impossible to overemphasize how very concerned God is that we understand this condition and that we need it, that we comply with it. Let's go to Psalm 34. This underlying condition to answered prayer is actually an attitude, a particular frame of mind, it's the matter of the heart and we see throughout the scriptures repeatedly that God is very much in tune with attitude, what's going on in the man's heart. The bible emphasizes that God always looks on the heart. He's very concerned not only with our behavior but He's also concerned about our heart, the condition of our heart, the hearts of His children. He reads that.

Psalm:34:17The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles. The righteous cry out, (meaning in prayer) and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. (The word trouble reminds us again that living a godly life, a Christian life is not easy, it's probably one of the most challenging lives that there is to live; that we all have troubles but God promises to deliver us every single time).

Here in verse 18 we see an attitude that is the underlying fundamental condition for answered prayers. It says:

Verse 18: The Lord is near (He's comfortable with, He's close to) those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.

Verse 18 might remind us of the words in Psalm 51; typically the psalm we sing at the close of Passover service each year from Psalm 51 that says the sacrifices of God are a broken heart, a broken spirit rather; a broken and contrite heart, these O God you will not despise. A person with a broken or contrite heart and spirit is a person with a tender heart toward God. A person has so much respect and honor and love and fear of God that he or she would be devastated to realize that they're sinning, feels very deeply and crushed to have let down God. He's crushed by the fact that he's disappointed the Creator; he has a humble and repentant attitude and goes to God in prayer with a right attitude, a right heart.

Matthew Henry's commentary on verse 18 says this: Quote. "It's the character of the righteous whose prayers God will hear. That they are humbled for sin, emptied of self (in other words they're not self centered) they're low in their own eyes and have no confidence in their own merit (spiritually speaking) but only in God." End of quote.

This doesn't mean that Christians should go around with long faces all the time. It doesn't mean that we should feel worthless and mumble that as we walk around. A humble person is simply realistic; realistic about himself and understanding how small we are in relationship in comparison with God. Let's turn next to Isaiah 57, verse 15. It's important for us to read I think a couple scriptures to help emphasize this point; the importance of a humble attitude and a frame of mind in order for our prayers to be heard and for God to respond; this is very important. We all want to perfect the art of prayer. We all want to understand; we want reassurance. It would be helpful I often thought if there were a little light that when we were making contact with God it glowed green and when we weren't making contact it just kind of went out or went red. That would be helpful wouldn't it? Well, don't expect such light, if you see one come and talk to me because we have a problem, but I think you see the point, we all want to make that connection but sometimes I wonder if we're really making that connection. We see from scripture that if our attitude is a certain way, we've made the connection.

Isaiah:57:15For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy.

A Majestic and moving description of God, the High and Lofty One, Exalted God who lives forever.

But what kind of person is it, this High and Exalted God is willing to be close to, that He's comfortable with, that He makes a connection with? The verse continues:

"I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit,

Many bible helps summarize a contrite and humble attitude as one that comes from being aware of how spiritually inadequate and unworthy we are apart from God. How insignificant we are compared to God. How helpless we are without Him and without His intervention in our lives. How dependent in a very healthy way dependent upon God. It's an attitude that's not stubborn, vain or proud. It doesn't look down on other people with contempt. It's important to understand that this quality of humility is a spiritual gift that comes from God and it can be developed over time with God's help. We need to ask for humility, pray for humility and then do our part to monitor our own behavior, our own attitudes. The last part of Isaiah:57:15For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. tells us that God wants to and plans to do for people who have this humble attitude. Notice what it says in the last part of that verse:

to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."

The New Living translation says: I refresh the humble and I give new courage to those with repentant hearts.

Here's a promise that God will encourage and lift us up when we go to Him with a right attitude, with an acceptable attitude, a humble and repentant attitude. Let's go next to Isaiah 66, verse 1. This is a familiar scripture to us, I'm glad that it is; it's very important but it similarly talks about those with whom God is close to, those He's comfortable with, those who He would sit down with as it were and enjoy their company.

Isaiah:66:1Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? Thus says the Lord: "Heaven is My throne and earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest?

Verse 2: For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist," says the Lord. "But to this one (To this person, this kind of people.) I look: (Another translation say to this I pay attention to, I look attentively to, I'm please with) On him who is poor (That's not a financial term, we're talking about poor in spirit, meaning humble) and of a contrite spirit (One translation says not proud, not stubborn) and who trembles at My word."

A humble person will highly value God's word. He's teachable, eager to learn what God wants of us and how God wants us to live. I mentioned earlier that this humble attitude is like the string that holds all these pearls together. I say that because a humble and repentant person is one who once he has that attitude he meets all the other conditions for answered prayer. He has faith and trust in God. A humble person will be eager to comply with being obedient. The humble person will value the condition of praying according to God's will; no conflict there. The humble person will be motivated to meet the condition of reconciling with other people when there's a strained relationship. I believe humility is what leads a person to do his part to meet all the other conditions that God lays down for answered prayer. I'm not saying it will happen automatically or necessarily easily; it takes effort of course; it takes discipline, it takes effort, it takes God's help. I'm simply saying that the attitude and behavior that move God to intervene in our lives flow from this vital trait of being properly humble of humility.

Before we conclude today I'd like for us to quickly review two fascinating examples from the bible to demonstrate the degree which God responds to a right attitude, a humble attitude, a repentant attitude. These examples are so striking that I think it's important for us to be reminded of them in this context.

The first one comes in II Chronicles 33, verse 10. It's the account of one of Judah's kings, King Manasseh, a very evil king; in fact he was one of the worst in the nation of Judah's history. He went so far as to burn his own sons in sacrifice to a false god. The bible tells us that God was furious, He was furious at all the sins and abominations of King Manasseh.

II Chronicles 33:10 And the Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they would not listen.

Verse 11: Therefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the army of the King of Assyria, who took Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze fetters and carried him off to Babylon.

Notice especially verse 12:

Verse 12: Now when he was in affliction, he implored the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers,

Verse 13: and prayed to Him; and He (Referring to God) received his entreaty and heard his supplication and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.

What's the point there? What's the lesson? It's not that we can expect God to undo all the consequences for our sins. We can do whatever we want and somehow God's going to straighten it all out. I think that's a wrong conclusion. The point is that God does and will respond to a certain attitude. In this case King Manasseh had a humble attitude, a repentant and humble attitude and God responded to him. God could very easily have said, are you kidding, after all these years of flagrant sin and you expect Me now to bail you out? He didn't say that. As soon as his attitude turned around, God responded and it shows how much in tune God is to attitude.

The second example is I Kings, chapter 21, verse 25. In this case we're reading about one of the Kings of Israel. This is Ahab. We remember Ahab because he married Jezebel.

The prophet Elijah had just shocked Ahab with the news of the punishment that God has planned for Ahab because of his terrible sins. You almost get the feeling in reading this section that Elijah is a little delighted that he can deliver this kind of message to Ahab, this wicked King. You can almost see a little bit of a smile on Elijah's face as he walks out and he delivers this message because God addresses a little bit to Elijah in this.

I Kings: 21:25 But there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the Lord because Jezebel stirred him up,

Verse 26: For he behaved very abominably (Try saying that first thing in the morning 10 times) in following idols, according to all that the Amorites had done, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.

Verse 27: So it was when Ahab heard these words, (The words of Elijah regarding this is what God is going do to you) that he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his body, and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about mourning.

Now starting in verse 28 we see that God not only noticed and pointed out and responded to Ahab's attitude of humility and repentance, but God also pointed it out to Elijah. He wanted to be sure that Elijah saw there was a change of heart and therefore that precipitated God's change in plan.

Verse 28: And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying:

Verse 29: "See (Meaning do you see) how Ahab has bumbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the calamity in his days; but in the days of his son I will bring the calamity on his house."

Brethren there are two remarkable examples of two very wicked, evil men and we see how God saw their change of heart, saw them repent, saw them humble themselves and then responded to that attitude. Once again, God responded dramatically in a very positive way when Ahab changed his attitude.

Now why do we read the accounts of these two Kings? What's the point? God took note of these two men who were wicked and unconverted, men who humbled themselves and finally got their attitudes right. What does that say about what God would do for us? We're trying to please and obey Him and we make mistakes along the way but if our attitude gets right and we humble ourselves, think how quickly, think how effectively God would change His approach and show favor and help to us. How much more would He take note of His children who are trying to please Him but simply stumble and fall from time to time? When we pray and conduct our lives in a humble way, God will take note of that, He will respond to that. He'll come to our aid and answer our prayers.

Brethren I hope that we can value and take advantage of this priceless opportunity we have of talking to God any time, any place. Let's go to Him in confidence paying careful attention to the conditions that God lays down and especially to this underlying condition of humility, it's very important for us.