Lesson 13: Have You Heard--About Gossip? (2 Samuel 13-15)

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A church bulletin listed the sermon topic for the morning as “Gossip.” Immediately following was the hymn, “I Love to Tell the Story.” While that hymn concerns telling the story of the gospel, all too often God’s people love to tell someone else’s story. I think that, along with pride, gossip is the most widely tolerated and most destructive sin in the church.

We tolerate gossip because we’ve all been guilty of it. It’s easy to condemn people for sins you’ve never committed, but it’s not so easy to face up to sin which you have done and have encouraged others to do by listening to their gossip. So we tend to shrug it off. Or we spiritualize it: “I just wanted you to know so that you could pray.” But we need to own up to gossip as a serious sin that can destroy people.

To develop and protect proper relationships in the church, we must deal with the sin of gossip.

One of the tricky aspects of this subject is defining the term. Sometimes we fall into the sin of gossip because we’re fuzzy about what it is. Sometimes it involves a judgment call and we cross the line inadvertently. But if we would just deal with what we’re clear about, it would go a long way toward healing broken relationships and preventing further damage in the church.

What is gossip?

Webster defines gossip as either “a person who habitually reveals personal or sensational facts,” or as “a rumor or report of an intimate nature.” One of the biblical words used means “a whisperer” (Rom. 1:30, 2 Cor. 12:20) which points to the intimate nature of the material shared. Another word means “busybodies” (2 Thess. 3:11; 1 Tim. 5:13). Another word means to meddle in business which doesn’t pertain to you (1 Pet. 4:15). Another word comes from a verb meaning “to babble,” suggesting that gossip is empty, pointless talk, often not completely factual (1 Tim. 5:13). Another word, translated “malicious gossips” (1 Tim. 3:11, Titus 2:3) is the same word that is most often translated “devil.” It comes from a compound word meaning to throw something against someone. It ought to scare us to realize that when we gossip we enter into the very nature of the devil!

I’m going to boil all these nuances down by defining gossip as sharing information which damages another person’s reputation with those who have no need to know. It may be completely factual. More often, the one sharing it has not bothered to check out the facts, which get distorted for the sake of making it more interesting. If the one who is sharing the information knows that it is not completely true and his motive for sharing it is to damage the other person, it moves from gossip to slander. The Hebrew word most often translated “slander” means to give an evil report about someone. The Greek word means to speak against someone. James says that if we do that, we make ourselves the judge of both our brother and God’s law, usurping God’s rightful place (James 4:11, 12).

To help us understand how gossip and slander work, let’s look at a case study in 2 Samuel 13-15. Absalom was a young man who was deeply hurt by his father, King David. Absalom’s full sister, Tamar, had been raped by their half-brother, Amnon. David got angry, but he didn’t do anything about it. Absalom let his bitterness simmer for two years. Then he murdered Amnon in cold blood, and fled the country.

Three years went by and David longed for Absalom to come back, but he felt like he couldn’t do it. But Joab, David’s top general, used trickery to get the king to admit how badly he wanted to bring Absalom home. So David consented. But, to keep up the appearance of “justice,” he refused to see Absalom. Two more years went by with Absalom living in Jerusalem without seeing his father. Finally, Absalom couldn’t stand it any longer and forced the issue. The father and son met and David kissed Absalom. But by now, he was a bitter, rebellious young man.

Now watch what happens (read 2 Sam. 15:1-6). First Absalom organized a loyal following and took on a self-appointed role (15:1, “provided for himself”). Then he began to befriend those who had complaints. Gossips always look for those who have a complaint because they will readily listen to the damaging rumors. He took an interest in them by asking them where they were from. It was a superficial interest, because Absalom wasn’t concerned about them, but about furthering himself over his dad whom he was mad at. But they couldn’t discern that. They just felt like here was someone in government who cared. Gossips project that image: “You can trust me; I care for you and I understand what you’re going through in trying to deal with this impossible person.”

Absalom gave them personalized attention like they had never seen before. He put himself on their level by kissing them rather than letting them prostrate themselves. He was signaling, “I’m just a regular guy like you. I’m not royalty like the king. I know what it’s like to be a working man.” He made them feel that here was someone who cared for them and understood their problem. In the process, he subtly maligned the king (15:3) and suggested himself as the answer (15:4). He would give them the justice they now were having problems obtaining. (It makes you wonder if some modern politicians haven’t studied this text!)

That’s how it often happens in a local church. A person gets hurt over some incident. They feel like the church failed to meet their needs. They grow bitter, blaming the leadership for not caring about their problem. The hurt person intends to go talk to one of the leaders about things, but it doesn’t happen. Then, one day he runs into someone else from the church who seems caring and concerned. So he shares his complaint. The “caring” person replies, “Well, it doesn’t surprise me. You’re not the first to have this kind of problem with the leaders, you know.” “Really?” “Oh, yes, in fact I was just talking with another family who ran into the same brick wall.” [He goes on to describe that situation.] “Those pastors just don’t seem to care. We need some leaders who would care about the needs of good people like you.”

That’s gossip and slander in operation! The person who felt hurt had no business telling anyone about it except the one against whom he had the complaint. The gossip tested the waters by saying, “It doesn’t surprise me. There are others, you know,” implying that he had inside information he was willing to share. The hurt person took the bait by saying, “Really?” Then the gossip took up the offense, assumed the position of neutral judge (which the Lord had not assigned him) and shared more damaging gossip which he had no business sharing. Through it all he showed a concern for the hurt person by subtly contrasting himself with those insensitive leaders. Satan uses that scenario over and over to destroy churches and church leaders.

I want to deal with two questions: First, How can I deal with my own gossip? Second, How can I deal with gossip in others?

How can I deal with my own gossip?

1. See gossip as serious sin and confess it to God.

One of the main reasons we don’t deal with gossip is that we excuse it as no big deal. It’s not seen as a “bad” sin, like adultery or homosexuality or armed robbery (but see 1 Pet. 4:15). So we rationalize it and tolerate it. But we need to see the destructive power of our tongues and confess and forsake the sin of gossip.

Proverbs 18:21 states, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, ...” The Japanese have a proverb which says that though the tongue is only three inches long it can slay a man six feet high. Proverbs 16:27, 28 states, “A worthless man digs up evil, while his words are as a scorching fire. A perverse man spreads strife, and a slanderer separates intimate friends.” Gossip spreads contention and contaminates those who come in touch with it: “For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, contention quiets down. Like charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife. The words of a whisperer are like dainty morsels, and they go down into the innermost parts of the body” (Prov. 26:20-22).

Professional boxers need to be careful not to get into fist fights outside of the ring, because their hands are considered lethal weapons in a court of law. We need to see our tongues that way. James 1:26 says, “If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless.” The tongue, like an unbroken horse, needs to be bridled or restrained. James also says (3:2) that “the man who can claim that he never says the wrong thing can consider himself perfect, for if he can control his tongue he can control every other part of his personality!” (Phillips paraphrase). Until we see that our tongues are capable of terrible evil and confess our loose tongue as sin, we won’t conquer gossip.

2. Realize that you can’t conquer gossip in your strength.

James 3:7-8 asserts, “For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed, and has been tamed by the human race. But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison.” No one can tame the tongue! That shows the power of sin over fallen human nature. Jesus said that evil speech stems from our hearts, which are evil (Matt. 15:19). Until we realize the utter depravity of our hearts and cry out to God for His deliverance, we will never conquer the sin of gossip.

3. Yield your tongue to God as an instrument of righteousness.

Paul says (Rom. 6:12-13) that rather than let sin reign in our bodies, where we go on presenting the members of our bodies to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, we are to present ourselves to God as those alive from the dead and our members as instruments of righteousness to God. It is a choice of masters: Either we serve sin or we serve God.

Memorizing Scripture is a powerful weapon for overcoming sin. A verse that has helped me in the battle to control my tongue is Proverbs 12:18: “There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” The word picture is that my tongue can either be a sword or a scalpel. I can speak rashly and wound another person like sword thrusts; or, I can consider what I say and use my tongue as a scalpel to bring healing. That leads to the next step:

4. Make a commitment to build others in Christ, not to tear them down.

Ephesians 4:29 gives us this contrast: “Let no unwholesome [lit., “rotten”] word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Have you ever bit into a rotten piece of fruit? You want to spit it out of your mouth and rinse your mouth out. That’s how we ought to feel about speech that tears others down. When you say things behind someone’s back which tear them down or ruin their reputation, it’s rotten speech. It may even be true, but the person you’re sharing it with has no need to know.

By way of contrast we are to say things which build up others according to their need, that it may give grace to those who hear. That doesn’t mean that we paper over people’s faults or make them look good when they did us harm. Paul sometimes warned his readers of individuals, whom he named, who were causing problems for the church (1 Tim. 1:20; 2 Tim. 1:15; 4:14, 15). He told the church in Rome, “Keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them” (Rom. 16:17). So we aren’t to have a “Pollyanna Positive” view of people where we never say anything bad about anybody. But we need to make a commitment to build up others, not to tear them down, whether in our presence or not.

5. Fill your life with meaningful work.

In 1 Timothy 5:13-14, Paul talks about younger widows who were idle and went about from house to house as “gossips and busybodies, talking about things not proper to mention.” He instructs them to “get married, bear children, keep house, and give the enemy no occasion for reproach.”

Even though men are as prone to gossip as women, most of the New Testament injunctions against it are directed to women. In Titus 2:3-5 Paul writes that, among other things, older women are not to be malicious gossips so that they can teach younger women to love their husbands and children and to be workers at home. One requirement for deaconesses is that they not be malicious gossips (1 Tim. 3:11). Whether for men or women, it takes time to spread gossip, so if you want to avoid the problem, fill your life with meaningful work and service for the Lord.

6. Examine your motives for sharing information about another person.

Why do I need to share this with this person? Is it to make me look good and the other person look bad? Maybe I have a gripe about the other person, and I’m trying to win people to my side by running down the other guy. Perhaps I want to share information because it feels good to be in the know. Then others will look to me as one who always has the inside scoop. Perhaps the other person threatens me and I’m trying to put him down to make myself more secure. There are a lot of fleshly reasons for sharing something about another person behind his back.

The only right reasons for sharing damaging information about a person behind his back are to seek to bring help to the person or to warn someone who could be damaged by this person. You must be very honest before the Lord in this, because it’s easy to play games! If a person is not directly involved in the problem and isn’t a part of the solution, and if they don’t need to be warned for their own protection, they don’t need to know details. If they ask questions, you can simply say, “Yes, there are some problems, but I’m not free to divulge details.”

7. Refuse to listen to those who want to spread gossip.

Proverbs 20:19 states, “He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets, therefore do not associate with a gossip.” If you listen to gossip, you’ll be tempted to pass it on. If you refuse to listen to it, you won’t have fuel for that fire. A gossip will contaminate you with damaging information which may hinder you from relationships which could help you grow in the Lord.

I read of one pastoral leader who once spent a year with a certain fellowship working with their pastoral team. Before meeting them he had heard good things about one of the leaders and wanted to pursue a friendship with him. He mentioned this to one of the other leaders who responded, “Oh, you’ll find he’s no good for personal things.” The first man said, “But I’ve heard so many good things about him.” “Sure. He’s a great speaker. But he’s really rigid and aloof. Nobody here tries to talk to him much anymore.”

Unfortunately, the first man listened to this unfavorable word. But during the year he was puzzled because it didn’t seem to add up. In the last few weeks he was there, he finally got to know the man and found him to be extremely helpful and personable. By this time, the one who had given the bad report was dropping out of the group. The man’s own problems had prevented him from having a good relationship with the other man. (Told by Gerry Rauch in “Pastoral Renewal,” 9/83, p. 13.)

You ask, How do I refuse to listen to someone who wants to spread gossip? That leads to the final question:

How can I deal with gossip in others?

It’s never easy because sometimes it sneaks up on you. But often a gossip will test your spirit before he gives you the information. If you seem interested, he will give you more. Sometimes he will create curiosity by dropping comments that indicate that he knows something that would interest you. If you take the bait, he tells you more.

Bill Gothard shares five questions to ask before you listen to an evil report. I find that often I can’t ask these before, but as a person starts to share something with me, I’m mulling the first one over in my mind, and I ask it as soon as I can.

1. What is your reason for telling me?

You’re asking the person their motive for sharing this information with you. Is it so that you can be involved in the solution? Why you and not someone else? If it’s none of your business, then tell the person, “I am not the one to talk to about this matter. You should go directly to the person involved.”

A few years ago, an elderly lady in our church didn’t like the fact that we started using the guitar in our worship services. She started calling other women in the church, trying to win them to her side, running me down in the process. But she made the mistake of calling the wife of one of our elders, who told her, “You have no business calling me or any other person. You need to talk to Steve.” Then this elder’s wife told me what was going on. I went to visit this lady and gently tried to tell her that if she had a problem, she should go directly to the one she had the problem with. Well, that was totally foreign to her mode of operation! The next time I called on her she snapped at me, “Have you come to bawl me out again?” But, to my knowledge, she stopped spreading dissension in the church.

2. Where did you get your information?

If a person refuses to identify the source of information, he is probably spreading an evil report. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he was open about his source of information: “I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you” (1 Cor. 1:11).

3. Have you gone to those directly involved?

Jesus was clear: If you have a problem with your brother, go directly to him and seek to clear it up (Matt. 18:15). If a person has not done this, he is not interested in helping restore an offender, but only in spreading gossip (unless he’s never been instructed in how to deal with such matters). You can say, “I can’t verify the things you’re saying. Before you talk to anyone else, you need to go directly to this person and talk to him about it. If you need help on how to do that, I’ll be glad to coach you. Then I’d like you to tell me how it went.”

4. Have you personally checked out all of the facts?

Often, gossip is based on hearsay or misinformation. Or the person spreading it has listened to only one side. Proverbs 18:17 (NIV) observes, “The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him.” By the time gossip travels down the line, it gets even more distorted. We are to speak truth with one another (Eph. 4:25). If you haven’t checked the facts, it’s only a rumor, not verified truth.

5. Can I quote you if I check this out?

A gossip doesn’t want to be quoted because he’s not sure of his facts and he doesn’t want to be involved in the solution.

Conclusion

A professor at Princeton University ran an experiment to test the velocity of gossip. He called six students to his office and in strict confidence informed them that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were planning to attend a certain university dance. Within a week this completely fictitious story had reached no less than 2,000 students. City officials phoned the university demanding to know why they had not been informed. Press agencies were frantically phoning for details. The professor observed, “That was a pleasant rumor--a slanderous one travels even faster.”

If we want to develop and protect loving relationships in this church, we’ve got to deal with the sin of gossip. First we need to confront it in our own lives. Then we’ve got to deal with gossip in others by refusing to listen to it and by gently correcting anyone who tries to spread gossip to us. Let’s love to tell the story of Jesus, but let’s hate to tell anyone else’s story unless it builds up the body of Christ.

Discussion Questions

How can you know when a good story about someone crosses the line into sinful gossip?
Are you listening to gossip if you read news articles about the sins of Christian leaders? Why/why not?
Is it gossip to seek the counsel of a third party before you go to the one with whom you have a problem?
Is it always wrong to share your negative impressions about a person to a third party? When might it be O.K.?

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, © The Lockman Foundation

Lesson 14: God’s Mighty Men (2 Samuel 23:8-39)

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When David Livingstone, the missionary pioneer, was working in Africa, some friends wrote: “We would like to send other men to you. Have you found a good road into your area yet?”

Livingstone wrote back: “If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all.” (In Reader’s Digest [8/89], p. 143.)

By way of contrast, a cartoon in Leadership (Summer, 1988, p. 81) poked fun at the low level of commitment required in many modern churches. It pictured a church building with a sign in front which read, “The LITE CHURCH: 24% fewer commitments, home of the 7.5% tithe, 15 minute sermons, 45 minute worship services; we have only 8 commandments--your choice. We use just 3 spiritual laws and have an 800 year millennium. Everything you’ve wanted in a church ... and less!”

As one pastor put it, “Ninety per cent of our parishes across the country require less commitment than the local Kiwanis club.” (Wayne Pohl, in Leadership, Winter, 1982, p. 95.)

Down through the ages, whenever God has done a significant work, He has done it through a band of committed people. God doesn’t work through the lukewarm, but only through those who are fervent in their love for Christ and His kingdom.

This was the case when David’s kingdom was established. Through David’s reign, the name of the Lord God of Israel was published far and abroad. But great as he was, David did not stand alone. Surrounding him were a band of mighty men who accomplished great feats of valor. They were committed to David and his kingdom. We read of them in 2 Samuel 23:8‑39.

If God is going to accomplish a great work among us, then He wants to raise up a band of mighty men in our midst who can do great exploits for God. In saying “mighty men,” I am not excluding mighty women, but I am emphasizing the need for strong men of faith. While the Bible teaches the equality of the sexes in personhood and in standing before God, it also teaches that God has ordained different roles for the sexes (1 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:8-15). The New Testament makes it clear that God desires men to be in spiritual leadership in the home and church. The church today‑‑this church‑‑needs a band of mighty men like these who surrounded David.

What characterized these men? A study of this text reveals that there were two salient marks of these mighty men: They were attracted to David’s person, and they were committed to his cause. Similarly,

The church needs mighty men who are attracted to the person of Christ and committed to the cause of Christ.

These two characteristics are related. It was the attraction to David’s person which motivated these men to commit themselves to David’s cause. Even so, it will be our attraction to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ which will motivate us to commit ourselves to His cause.

1. The church needs mighty men who are attracted to the person of Christ.

David’s men were not unwilling conscripts who grimly fulfilled their duty. They were willing volunteers who served out of devotion to David. The love these men had for David can be seen in the incident described in 23:13‑17. David was hiding from Saul in the cave of Adullam. The Philistines were in Bethlehem, David’s home town. David thought back to the cool, clear water which he used to drink from the well in Bethlehem as a boy. So, perhaps without thinking, he exclaimed, “Oh that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate!” (23:15).

It was certainly not a command. Probably David would not even have verbalized his desire if he had known that these men would risk their lives to fulfill it. But he mentioned his craving, and like lovers listening for a hint for a gift for their beloved, these three men slipped away and brought the precious gift to David.

David was so touched that he could not drink the water, but poured it out to the Lord (23:16‑17). He thus acknowledged the sacredness of the devotion of these men and his own deep appreciation for their love. David knew that these rugged warriors loved him enough to die for him. They undoubtedly shared a close bond of love.

Let’s see what sort of men were attracted to David:

A. The men who were attracted to David:

(1) They were men of diverse backgrounds. As you skim over this list, you will find a variety of obscure places from which these men originated. Some, such as Uriah the Hittite, were foreigners. None of them seem to have anything noteworthy regarding their families or home towns. There are a lot of hick towns mentioned. (Someone has defined a hick town as a place where you can park as long as you want to, but you don’t want to.)

But there was one thing which united these men‑‑they were all attracted to David. He was their hero and rallying point. In 2 Sam. 21:15‑17, David, who was getting older by this time, grew weary in battle and was almost killed. But Abishai, one of the mighty men, slew the giant who almost killed David. David’s men then told him that he would not go out to battle with them again, “that you may not extinguish the lamp of Israel.” They were men of diverse backgrounds, but they were all drawn together because of their attraction for the lamp of Israel.

Even so, though we in the church may be from various educational, economic, geographic, family, and even racial backgrounds, we can be a unified band because we are all attracted to the Light of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ. He has captured our hearts, and because we love Him, we love one another, no matter how different our backgrounds.

(2) They were men of difficult backgrounds. Note 1 Samuel 22:2. These were not Sunday School boys. They were men who were distressed under the reign of Saul. They were in debt. They were discontented. It was a motley crew which gathered unto David in the cave. They were men with problems, with things in their pasts to overcome. But David accepted them and trained them into his loyal, fighting troops.

In the same way, the Lord Jesus does not require that you solve all your problems before you come to Him. He accepts those in distress, debt, and discontent and molds them into a band of mighty men for His cause. In fact, those who are self‑sufficient and self‑satisfied will not be attracted to the Lord Jesus. But like these men, those who feel the pain and poverty of a life lived under the current ruler of this world will see the beauty of the anointed King in waiting, and they will gladly join themselves to Him.

These men, attracted to David, were from diverse and difficult backgrounds, but they were drawn to the person of David. What sort of person was this?

B. The person to whom they were attracted:

(1) A rejected person. When these men were drawn to David, he was a fugitive, running for his life from Saul. As such, David is a type of the Lord Jesus, who came unto His own people, but they did not receive Him. Following such a rejected Savior won’t make us popular with the ruler of this world and his followers. But still we must join the rejected King and share His reproach (Heb. 13:12-13).

But why follow a rejected David in the cave? Why follow a crucified, rejected Savior? He was also...

(2) An anointed person. Some men may have rejected David and followed Saul, but God had rejected Saul and anointed David. He was God’s choice. By allying themselves with David, these men became the enemies of Saul. By making David their captain, they declared themselves to be in rebellion against Saul. They were men who had exchanged masters and they now served a different kingdom, a kingdom yet to come, the kingdom of God’s anointed, David.

In the same way, we have submitted ourselves to the Lord Jesus as God’s anointed, His Messiah, His Christ. We believe that He is coming again to establish His kingdom. We willingly choose to become enemies of the domain of darkness and this present evil world system in order to further the kingdom of God’s anointed. He is our Captain!

So the first mark of a mighty man in the Lord’s church is that he is attracted to, captivated by, the person of the Lord Jesus. Men, may I ask you a very personal question? How is your love life‑‑not with your wife, but with Christ? Is your relationship with the Captain of our souls marked by duty or devotion? You’ve got to work at recovering that first love for Him as your first priority!

The attraction which these mighty men had for the person of David motivated them to commit themselves to the cause of David. Even so,...

2. The church needs mighty men who are committed to the cause of Christ.

In David’s day, there were enemies to be overthrown and kingdoms to be repulsed and conquered so that the people of God could dwell securely in the land, the worship of God could be established, and the name of God exalted among the heathen nations.

In our day, the powers of darkness must be repulsed and conquered, the people of God must learn to worship Him, and the name of God must be proclaimed to every tribe and tongue and nation. In other words, the Lord has not simply called us to sit around in a holy huddle. There is a cause‑‑the great cause of Christ‑‑the cause of world evangelization. Those who are attracted to the person of Christ must commit their lives to the cause of Christ. Consider with me...

A. The cause:

(1) It is a great cause. It is nothing less than the cause of God’s kingdom. There is no greater cause! Surely David’s mighty men realized that David’s kingdom was the center for God’s kingdom upon earth.

God’s kingdom is a kingdom which spans the ages. God had promised Abraham that He would establish a great nation from his descendants. He promised David that his house and kingdom would endure forever (2 Sam. 7:16). The kingdom of God goes back in history and extends forward in history. And we have the privilege of advancing His kingdom in our day.

It is also a kingdom which spans the nations. God chose Israel to be a light unto the Gentiles. Today the church is to proclaim His kingdom to the uttermost parts of the earth. There is simply no greater cause then the cause of Christ!

(2) It is a team cause. David, as great as he was, anointed of God, could not have accomplished God’s purpose alone. He needed his mighty men and the rest of his faithful troops to pull it off.

Even so, the Lord Jesus has not called us to be a bunch of isolated great people for His cause. It is a team effort. We are part of the Body, and every part is essential. True, not all of us can attain to the greatness of these mighty men. But we all are on the team, and we all have important tasks given to us by our Captain.

Because the cause is a great cause and because it is a team cause, every person must commit himself wholeheartedly to the cause. Note the commitment of these mighty men.

B. The commitment:

(1) A commitment which overcomes the odds with faith in God. Note 23:8, 9‑10, 11‑12, 18, 21 (a 7 1/2 foot giant, acc. to 1 Chron. 11:23). In every case these mighty men faced insuperable odds. But note 23:10, 12: “the Lord brought about a great victory.” These men weren’t considering the odds for victory; they were looking to the God of victory.

Let’s face it: the odds are against us when we serve Christ. The world has us outnumbered. We face situations which seem overwhelmingly against us. But there are always enough people sitting on the sidelines pointing out the size of the giants in the land. We need some mighty men whose commitment to the cause overcomes the odds with faith in the living God.

(2) A commitment which endures exhaustion. See 23:10. Eleazar was so tired he couldn’t open his hand after the battle was over. I don’t know how long it took Adino the Eznite to knock off 800 men on one occasion or how he did it (23:8), but you can be sure that he was exhausted when it was over.

You can count on being tired if you commit yourself to serve Christ‑‑not tired of serving, but tired in serving. But it is a great feeling to go to bed at night exhausted from serving the cause of Christ.

(3) A commitment which spurns the attitude of the crowd. Note 23:9-12. The Israelite warriors had fled. The people of God were in retreat. If you had taken a vote, it would have been a landslide in favor of surrender. But these mighty men ignored the majority and stood alone for God. The cowards returned to gather the spoils (23:10). They benefited from the courage of these men whom they would have called fools a few hours earlier.

If the church is going to go forward and conquer for Christ, it can’t be operated as a pure democracy. The majority often capitulates to the world. But God is looking for mighty men of commitment who spurn the attitude of the crowd, who take a stand for Christ, and win great victories for Him.

(4) A commitment which takes the initiative. These mighty men were not passive. They were not just on the defensive‑‑they were on the offensive as well. Note 23:20‑21. It’s impressive enough to kill a lion in a pit‑‑but to do it on a snowy day! Wow! Most of us would have been glad to leave well enough alone if we happened upon a lion in a pit on a snowy day. But this guy Benaiah went after the lion and killed it! He also went after this 7 1/2 foot Egyptian who had a spear: “May I borrow that please? Thank you. Zip!”

Do you know what is one of the greatest blights in Christendom today? Passive men! Chuck Swindoll once asked a Christian counselor what was the number one problem he faced in counseling Christian families. Without hesitation the counselor replied, “Passive males.”

Men, why is it that with many of you, your wife must take the initiative in spiritual things? Why is it that if the children are going to receive any spiritual training in the home, your wife must be the one to do it? We need mighty men in the church who will take the initiative in spiritual leadership. That does not mean barking commands at your family! It means setting the example in love for Christ and in serving your family and others.

(5) A commitment which risks life itself, if need be. These mighty men all risked their lives because of their commitment to David and his cause. During the early years of the Africa Inland Mission, more of their missionaries died from the harsh jungle conditions than Africans became Christians. The area became known as the white man’s graveyard. But still the missionaries came. But they began arriving with their belongings packed in coffins. The Africans were amazed with this determination. They said, “Surely only a message of great importance would inspire such actions!”

As a comfortable American Christian, it’s hard to relate to that kind of dedication. I don’t know whether you or I will ever have to face the possibility of risking our lives for the cause of Christ. But I do know this: if you have been a convenience Christian‑‑one who attends church when it’s convenient, who supports the cause of Christ financially when it’s convenient, who is willing to serve Christ when it’s convenient‑‑then you won’t risk your life for the cause of Christ if it ever comes to that.

Conclusion

God wants to raise up a band of mighty men who are attracted to the person of Christ and who are committed to His cause. Perhaps you’re thinking, “Where do I start?” If your heart has grown cold and complacent toward Christ, then start there. The Lord directed the church at Ephesus which had lost its first love to “remember from where you have fallen and repent and do the deeds you did at first” (Rev. 2:5). Remember what the Lord has done for you. Take the time to spend alone with Him in His Word each day. Work on your love life with Jesus. It is drudgery to labor without love.

But it is laziness to love without labor. So once you rekindle that first love for Him, then get off the bench and commit yourself to His cause in this church. “Do the deeds you did at first.” We need men to work with our youth, to work on repairing and maintaining our facilities, to lead Agape Families, to build other men in Christ, to be involved in missions. Commit your time, effort and money to the great cause of Christ as we seek to make Him known in this community. Let’s not be “the Lite Church, home of fewer commitments.” Christ loved us and gave Himself for us. With the hymn writer Isaac Watts, our response must be,

“Love so amazing so divine

Demands my life, my soul, my all.”

Discussion Questions

How would you advise a Christian who has lost his first love to recover genuine fervency for Christ?
Why do we see so much “convenience” Christianity in our day? How can we guard against this mentality? Do we demand enough as a church?
Why are men often spiritually passive in our culture? What can a wife do whose husband is spiritually passive?
Where is the balance between being so committed that you burn out versus being so laid back that you rust out?

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, © The Lockman Foundation

Hurongwa hwaMwari hwoRuponeso

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1 Johani 5:11-12 Uye uku ndiko kupupura kuti: Mwari akatipa upenyu husingaperi, uye upenyu uhu huri muMwanakomana wake. Uyo ane Mwanakomana ane hupenyu; uyo asina Mwanakomana waMwari haana upenyu.

Ndima iyi inotitaurira kuti Mwari akatipa hupenyu husingaperi, uye kuti upenyu uhu huri muMwanakomana wavo, Jesu Kristu. Namamwe mashoko, nzira yokugamuchira upenyu husingaperi kugamuchira Mwanakomana waMwari. Mubvunzo ndowekuti, Ko munhu anogamuchira sei Mwanakomana waMwari?

Dambudziko roMunhu

Kuparadzaniswa naMwari

Isaya 59:2 Asi zvakaipa zvenyu zvakakuparadzanisai naMwari wenyu; zvivi zvenyu zvakavanza chiso chake kwamuri kuti arege kunzwa.

VaRoma 5:8 Asi Mwari anoratidza rudo rwake kwatiri pakuti: Tichiri vatadzi, Kristu akatifira.

Maringe nendima yaVaRoma 5:8, Mwari vakaratidza rudo rwavo kuburikidza norufu rwoMwanakomana wavo. Chikonzero nei Kristu vakafira zvivi zvedu? Nokuti magwaro matsvene anotaura kuti vanhu vose vakatadza. Chitadzo, chivi, kanakuti chitema, kutaira, kushota kana kukundikana kusvika pakatarwa naMwari. Bhaibheri, shoko raMwari rinotaura kuti “...vose vakatadza uye vakasasvika pakubwinya (kutsvene kuzere) kwaMwari.” Namamwe Mashoko, zvivi zvedu zvinotiparadzanisa naMwari mutsvene, Mwari vakarurama uye vanotonga zvakarurama nokudaro Mwari vanofanira kutonga munhu mutadzi.

Habhakuki 1:13a Meso enyu akachena zvokuti haangatarisi zvakaipa; hamungatenderi zvakaipa.

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Kusakwana kwemabasa edu

Magwaro matsvene anotidzidzisa kuti hapana kunaka kwemunhu, kana kuzviita mutsvene kwemunhu, kana mabasa akanaka angaitwa nemunhu, kana zviito zvechinamato zvinogona kuita kuti munhu agamuchirwe naMwari kana kugonesa munhu kuti apinde denga. Munhu anozviti akanaka, munhu wechinamati, munhu akaipa pamwe nemunhu asina chinamati vose vane rimwe. Vose havana kukwana pakururama kwaMwari. Mushure mekukurukura pamusoro pevakadai mutsamba yaakanyorera vaRoma 1:18 kusvika vaRoma 3:8, muApostora Pauro anotaura kuti vose maJudha navaHedheni vari pasi pezvivi, vuye kuti “Hakuna akarurama, kunyange nomumwe” vaRoma 3:9-10. Kupamhidzira kushoko iri tinowana kutaura kwendima inotevera:

VaEfeso 2:8-9 Nokuti makaponeswa nenyasha, kubudikidza nokutenda, uye izvi hazvibvi kwamuri, chipo chaMwari, kwete nemabasa kuti parege kuva nomunhu anozvikudza.

Tito 3:5-7 Akatiponesa kwete nekuda kwezvinhu zvakarurama zvatakaita, asi nokuda kwetsitsi dzake. Akatiponesa kubudikidza nokuberekwa patsva nokuvandudzwa noMweya mutsvene, uyo waakadurura wakawanda kwazvo pamusoro pedu kubudikidza naJesu Kristu Muponesi wedu, kuitira kuti mushure mokunge tashayirwa mhosva nenyasha dzake, tive vadyi venhaka tiine tariro youpenyu husingaperi.

VaRoma 4:1-5 Zvino tichati Abhurahama, tateguru wedu panyama akawaneiko pazviri? Nokuti dai Abhurahama akashayirwa mhosva nemabasa angadai aine chinhu chokuzvirumbidza nacho, asi kwete pamberi paMwari. Ko rugwaro runoti kudiniko? Abhurahama akatenda Mwari uye kukanzi kwaari ndiko kururama. Zvino munhu kana achiita basa mubairo wake hautorwi sechipo chokungopiwa, asi somubairo wakamufanira. Asi kumunhu asingashandi asi achitenda Mwari uyo anoshayira mhosva munhu akaipa kutenda kwake kuchanzi kwaari ndiko kururama

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Zvisinei nokuti kunaka kwomunhu kwakadini hazvigoni kuenzaniswa naMwari. Mwari akarurama zvizere. Nokudaro Habhakuki 1:13 inotionesa kuti Mwari akarurama zvakakwana haagoni kuwadzana nani kana ani zvake ane kururama kusina kukwana. Kuti Mwari vatigamuchire tinofanira kunge takakwana saivo. Pamberi paMwari takashama, kunze kwaMwari hatina mubatsiri, uye tinoshaiwa tariro matiri. Hapana mararamiro akanaka atinogona kuita pachedu angagone kutipinza denga kana kutiwanisa upenyu husingaperi. Zvakadaro mhinduro ndeipi?

Mhinduro yaMwari

Mwari haazi mutsvene basi watisingagone kusvikira tomene nekururama kwedu, asi Mwari Rudo zvekare uye azere nenyasha pamwe ne tsitsi. Nokuda kwerudo rwake, nenyasha dzake Haana kutisiya tisina tariro nemhinduro.

VaRoma 5:8 Asi Mwari anoratidza rudo rwake kwatiri pakuti: Tichiri vatadzi, Kristu akatifira.

Aya ndiwo mashoko omufaro, namamwe mashoko nhau dzakanaka dzeBhaibheri, iro shoko reVhangeri nekumwe kutaura. Ishoko riripamusoro pchipo chaMwari, mwanakomana wavo amene akava munhu, akararama asina chivi, akafa rufu rwokuroverwa pamuchinjikwa achifira zvivi zvedu, akamutsva kubva muguva kuratidza pachena kuti aivaMwana waMwari, uye kuratidza kukosha kworufu rwake panzvimbo yedu

VaRoma 1:4 Uye akaratidzwa nesimba kubudikidza naMweya Mutsvene kuti ndiye Mwanakomana waMwari, nokumuka kwake kubva kuvakafa;

VaRoma 4:25 Akaiswa kurufu nokuda kwezvivi zvedu uye akamutswa kuvapenyu nokuda kwokushayirwa mhosva kwedu

2 VaKorinde 5:21 Mwari akaita kuti uyo akanga asina chivi ave chivi nokuda kwedu, kuitira kuti maari tive kururama kwaMwari

1 Petro 3:18 Nokuti Kristu akafira zvivi zvavose kamwe chete; akarurama nokuda kwavasakarurama, kuti akuuyisei kunaMwari. Akaurayiwa mumuviri asi akararamiswa noMweya.

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Tinogamuchira sei mwana waMwari?

Nokuda kwebasa rakapedzwa naJesu kristu pamuchinjikwa, Bhaibheri rinoti “Ane Mwanakomana ane hupenyu” Tinogona kugamuchira mwanakomana waMwari Jesu Kristu, saMuponesi nokutenda kwedu, tichivimba naye norufu rwake achifira zvivi zvedu.

Johane 1:12 Asi kuna vose vakamugamuchira, kuna avo vakatenda muzita rake, akavapa simba rokuti vave vana vaMwari.

Johani 3:16 Nokuti Mwari akada nyika nokudaro, kuti akapa Mwanakomana wake mumwe oga, kuti ani nani anotenda kwaari arege kufa asi ave noupenyu husingaperi. Nokuti Mwari haana kutuma Mwanakomana wake panyika kuti atonge nyika, asi kuti nyika iponeswe kubudikidza naye. Ani naani anotenda kwaari haatongwi, asi ani naani asingatendi atotongwa nokuti haana kutenda muzita roMwanakomana mumwe oga waMwari.

Izvi zvinoreva kuti mumwe no mumwe wedu anouya kunaMwari nenzira imwe: (1) chokutanga, semutadzi anonzvisisa kuipa kwake kwake, (2) chechipiri, mutadzi anonzwisisa kuti hapana mabasa angaitwa nemunhu anga muponesa, uye (3) chechitatu, kuvimba zvizere pana Kristu oga nokutenda maari bedzi kuti uponeswe.

Kana uchida kugamuchira uye nokuvimba naJesu Kristu so muponesi wako, ungada kuratidza kutenda kwako nomunamato uri nyore wokubvuma zvivi, wogamuchira kuregererwa uchiisa kutenda kwako munaKristu kuti akuponese.

Kana wavimba naKristu sokudaro, unofanira kudzidza zvoupenyu hutsva uhwu uye kuti ungaenderera mberi sei uchifamba nakristu. Unogona kutanga nokuverenga zvinyorwa zvinotevera zvinonzi “Ma ABC okukura muchiKristu”. Zvinyorwa izvi zvinokutora nhano imwe neimwe kupfuura nemuzvidzidzozvine hwaro hweshoko raMwari zvichikubatsira kuvaka nheyo yakasimba yokutenda kwako munaKristu

Book 1: Beginnings (Stories 1-52)

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These stories go from Creation to the Death of Moses. After the events of the ancient world, the main emphasis is on Abraham and Moses. Abraham and his family form the beginning of God’s new nation. Moses develops this nation and gives it an official start.

**List of stories**
1. Creation	27. Sold into Slavery
2. Adam and Eve	28. Judah
3. Fall	29. Joseph’s Rise to Power
4. Cain and Abel	30. Joseph’s Family Reunion
5. The Flood	31. The Birth of Moses
6. World after the Flood	32. Finding a Wife
7. Call of Abraham	33. Call of Moses
8. Melchizedek	34. Zipporah
9. The God Who Sees Me	35. Straw for Bricks
10. Promise of Isaac	36. Pharaoh’s Plagues
11. Bargaining with God	37. The Passover
12. Sodom and Gomorrah	38. Crossing the Red Sea
13. She's My Sister	39. What Is It?
14. God Hears	40. The Lord My Banner
15. Trial of Abraham	41. The Law
16. Beer-Sheba	42. The Golden Calf
17. Rebekah	43. The Tabernacle
18. Selling the Birthright	44. Unholy Fire
19. She’s My Sister II	45. Graves of the Craving
20. Well Digger	46. Spitting in Her Face
21. Stolen Blessing	47. Twelve Spies
22. Jacob’s Two Wives	48. Korah’s Rebellion
23. Speckled Spotted & Streaked	49. Speak to the Rock
24. Leaving Laban	50. Balaam’s Donkey
25. Two Camps	51. Balaam’s Prophecy
26. Dinah	52. The Death of Moses

Click Here To View Stories 1-52 (PDF)

Related Topics: Teaching the Bible

Book 2: Building a Nation (Stories 53-113)

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These stories go from Joshua to the Death of David. It starts with the exciting events surrounding Joshua and all the Judges. God then gives Samuel the job of introducing the kingdom. After the failure of king Saul, David builds the kingdom to world dominance.

**List of stories**
53. Rahab	84 Annointing of Daid
54. Crossing Jordan	85 Goliath
55. Jericho	86. David Earns a Wife
56. Achan	87. Protecting David
57. Sun Standing Still	88. Three Arrows
58. Joshua's Farewell	89. Running from Saul
59. Job's Three Friends	90 Sparing Saul's Life
60. Othniel & Ehud	91. Abigail
61. Deborah & Barak	92. Sparing God's Anointed
62. Gideon's Fleece	93. Staying by the Stuff
63. Three Hundred Men	94. The Witch of Endor
64. King of Trees	95. Death of Saul & Jonathan
65. Jephthah's Vow	96. Joab & Abner
66. The Birth of Samson	97. David Made King
67. Strong & Sweet	98. David's Mighty Men
68. Foxes and a Jawbone	99. Moving the Ark
69. Samson & Delilah	100. Building an Empire
70. Grandson of Moses	101. Ammonites
71. Prelude to War	102. Bathsheba
72. Brides for Benjamin	103. Nathan's Story
73. Naomi & Ruth	104. Tamar
74. Boaz & Ruth	105. Absalom's Return
75. The Call of Samuel	106. Absalom's Revolt
76. Ark of God Captured	107. Absalom's Defeat
77. Ark of God Returned	108. David's Kingdom Restored
78. Ebenezer	109. Wise Woman of Abel
79. Saul Made King	110. Ethnic Cleansing
80. Peace for an Eye	111. Numbering of the People
81. Failing the Test	112. Transfer of Power
82. Jonathan's Victory	113. Death of David & Joab
83. Saul's Disobedience

Click Here To View Stories 53-113

Related Topics: Teaching the Bible

Book 3: Path Down to Captivity (Stories 114-161)

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This set of stories has a great beginning, but goes down to the destruction of all that Israel values. There are four main parts, the glory of Solomon, the two kingdoms going deeper into sin, the great prophets of Israel, and people going into captivity.

**List of stories**
114. Wisdom of Solomon	138. Elisha Crying
115. Building the Temple	139. Jehu
116. Queen of Sheba	140. Jezebel
117. Kingdom Divided	141. Athaliah
118. Jeroboam's Sin	142. Joash
119. The Old Prophet	143. Death of Elisha
120. Rehoboam & Jeroboam	144. Jonah & the Fish
121. Abijah & Asa	145. Jonah & the Vine
122. Elijah and the Widow	146. Thistle & the Cedar
123. Elijah on Mount Carmel	147. Uzziah
124. Elijah on Mt Horeb	148. Ahaz
125. The Wounded Prophet	149. Israel in Captivity
126. Naboth's Vineyard	150. Hezekiah
127. Jehoshaphat & Ahab	151. King of Assyria
128. Jehoshaphat's Victory	152. Fifteen Years
129. Captain of 50	153. Evil King Who Repented
130. Elijah in the Whirlwind	154. A Book is Found
131. Ditches of Water	155. Josiah's Reforms
132. Oil, Stew, Bread, and an Ax	156. Broken Pot
133. Shunammite Woman	157. Burning the Book
134. Naaman	158. Two Baskets of Figs
135. Gehazi	159 Jerusalem Under Siege
136. Blind Soldiers	160. A Well of Mud
137. Four Lepers	161. Going to Egypt

Click Here To View Stories 114-161 (PDF)

Related Topics: Teaching the Bible

Book 5: Work of the Holy Spirit (Stories 220-255)

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These stories basically surround the Book of Acts. It gives all the stories of Acts, but also includes the epistles written during the time frame of the Book of Acts. It ends with the last two chapters of Revelation.

**List of stories**
220. Coming of the Holy Spirit	248. 2nd Letter to Thessalonians
221. Crippled Man Healed	239. Mob in Corinth
222. Ananias & Sapphira	240. Riot at Ephesus
223. Apostles and Deacons	241. 1st Letter to Corinthians (1)
224. First Christian Martyr	242. 1st Letter to Corinthians (2)
225. Ministry of Philip	243. 2nd Letter to Corinthians (1)
226. Conversion of Saul	244. 2nd Letter to Corinthians (2)
227. Healing of Dorcas	245. Letter to Romans (1)
228. Cornelius, 1st Gentile	246. Letter to Romans (2)
229. Christians at Antioch	247. Going to Jerusalem
230. Jail Break	248. Riot in Jerusalem
231. First Missionary Journey	249. Plot to Kill
232. From Worship to Stoning	250. Felix, Festus, & Agrippa
233. Keeping Jewish Laws	251. Storm at Sea
234. Letter to the Galatians	252. Shipwreck & Rome
235. Singing in Jail	253. Philemon
236. Riots and Laughter	254. New Heaven & New Earth
237. 1st Letter to Thessalonians	255. New Jerusalem

Click Here To View Stories 220-255 (PDF)

Related Topics: Teaching the Bible

All the Stories of the Bible

This is a five book series that presents all the stories of the Bible, written in an easy to understand conversational style. Each story is presented in its simplest form and is accurate to Scripture.

* The stories are accurate to Scripture

* They are crafted so as to present only the simple understanding of the story.

* Small stories are grouped together with other events.

* Larger stories are broken into two or three units.

* Duplicate stores are blended so they only appear once.

* The stories are crafted into a "spoken" (conversational) style.

* A warning icon is placed on stories that may not be acceptable to children.

In recent years, there has been a dramatic change in how people approach learning. It is now clear they respond to a different type of teaching. Analytical logic no longer dominates teaching/learning. One aspect of this change is that people respond positively to listening and learning stories. It must be a part of the Christian educational process for adults as well as children.

Another major difference in our society is how few Bible stories people know. Bible stories were not emphasized in their homes. As children, they attended children’s programs where teachers were not taught how to tell Bible stories accurately and in an interesting way. As adults, they sat through sermons that only referred to Bible stories without telling them. Pastors simply said, “And of course, we know that story.”

BibleTelling is the rebirth of an old method of teaching the Bible. 75% of the Bible was written in a story format. 15% was written in some form of poetry. The goal of BibleTelling is to restore Bible stories to their proper place in Christian ministry.

Lesson 1: The Mother Who Gave Away Her Son (1 Samuel 1-2)

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Sometimes we mistakenly think that good Christians don’t have any problems. We come to church and see others smiling and looking happy, and we think that they must have it all together. We wonder why we have problems.

Some Bible teachers convey that if you will just learn the secret of the abundant Christian life, temptations will just glance off you without a struggle. Your Christian life will be effortless. If you are struggling, they teach, you’re not abiding in Christ. I once heard a well-known Bible teacher say that his devotional times were always rich and rewarding. After his message, I asked him if he never struggled or went through dry times with the Lord. He wagged his finger under my nose and said, “Young man, expect nothing from God and you’ll get it every time!” In other words, my dry devotional times were due to my lack of faith!

We’re going to look at a devout family that had problems. They worshiped God faithfully, yet even in the middle of the worship service, there were tensions. The wife got so upset that she couldn’t even participate in the worship service. She went out to the car and cried her eyes out and refused to come in and eat at the potluck supper. The husband tried the best he could to comfort her, but he really didn’t understand why she was crying. But underneath it all, the wife really was a godly woman and she has much to teach us about how to deal with our problems through prayer.

Their story is in 1 Samuel 1 & 2. Elkanah, the husband, had two wives, which was a major source of conflict in his family. Although in Old Testament times God tolerated polygamy, the Bible never portrays it in a good light. God’s original plan is for one man and one woman to be committed in marriage for life. Any violation of that plan, whether several wives at the same time or a succession of wives (or husbands) due to divorce, creates problems.

In Elkanah’s situation, the tension was increased because one of the wives had many children (a clear sign of God’s blessing in that culture), while the other wife had none. To complicate matters, Elkanah favored the wife without children over the wife who had all the children. This led to jealousy and rivalry between the two women. When they went to worship at the tabernacle, as they did faithfully each year at the appointed time, Elkanah tried to balance the rivalry by giving double portions of food to Hannah, the wife without children.

But this only made things worse because Peninnah, the wife with all the children, would say to Hannah, the barren one, “You’ve got the food, but I’ve got the children!” Hannah would cry and Elkanah would wring his hands and try to comfort her by saying, “Am I not better to you than ten sons?” (1:8). Hannah graciously would not answer that question! All she could think about was, “Why doesn’t God bless me with children? Why has He blessed this mean-spirited woman above me?”

So here you have this devout, “church-going” family with problems. Poor Elkanah never knew whether he would come home to an all-out civil war or to a temporary cease-fire. But on the best of days, there was just a tense truce. He always walked on tiptoe, ready to take cover, not knowing when another spark would set off another round of explosions.

Perhaps some of you relate to this family. But whether your problems are in the realm of family relationships or somewhere else, I know one thing for certain: Each one here has a set of problems. It goes with the turf of being human. And it is critical that we think biblically about our problems and learn to handle them as Hannah did. The first thing we need to see is that …

1. God graciously gives us problems.

Granted, some problems are of our own making. But whatever the immediate source, God is the ultimate sovereign over the problems we face. You cannot escape this conclusion in Hannah’s situation. The text repeats it twice so we won’t miss it: “The Lord had closed her womb” (1:5, 6). Hannah emphasizes it in her prayer: “The Lord kills … He brings down to Sheol … The Lord makes poor … He brings low …” (2:6-7). It wasn’t just an accident of nature that Hannah was not able to conceive children. If modern medicine had been available then, the doctors may have found a reason. But behind the medical reason was the clear action of God: “The Lord had closed her womb.”

Many don’t like to give God this much sovereignty. We don’t like to think that God gives us problems, so we say, “God allowed this problem, but He didn’t cause it.” If that helps you mentally to get God off the hook, I guess that’s okay. But even if God allows a natural disaster to kill all our children, as He did with Job, we need to join Job in affirming that we must not only accept good from God, but also adversity (Job 2:10). Otherwise, we will not properly submit to Him as the Sovereign Lord and we will not view Him as adequately powerful to deal with our situation; thus we will not trust Him as we should. We must recognize that our problems come from God’s gracious, loving hand.

But that’s the rub, isn’t it? How could a loving and good God allow a small child to die or a young mother to get cancer? How could He permit a godly missionary to be brutally murdered? How can He permit tragedies such as wars, earthquakes, famines, and floods, where thousands of people are killed? But if God is not sovereign over such tragedies (Job 1-2; Isa. 45:7; Exod. 4:11), then either Satan is of equal power with God (= dualism, with no guarantee that God will ever defeat Satan); or you have a nice God who wishes that He could eliminate such terrible suffering, but He can’t because He gave us free will. Free will, not God, is sovereign!

Be careful here, because the Bible attributes the origin of evil to Satan, not to God. To the question, “Did God cause Satan to sin?” the answer is that in His inscrutable wisdom, God included Satan’s (and man’s) sin in His eternal plan. And yet both Satan and sinful people are fully responsible for their sin. Once Satan rebelled against God and caused the human race to rebel, God uses Satan and evil people to fulfill His ultimate purpose of being glorified (see The Westminster Confession of Faith, chap. V).

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28). That “working together for good” will not be accomplished until eternity. We may not understand in this life how God can possibly do it. But unless we hold to His absolute goodness, sovereignty and power, even over the forces of evil, we cannot believe that He will be able to work it all together for good.

So when we face problems, even though intermediately they may stem from human wickedness or from satanic forces, we must recognize that ultimately the problem comes from the Lord. Otherwise we will not seek and trust Him as we should. Problems are God’s gracious way of teaching us to seek Him in a deeper way than we ever have before. Peninnah did not seek God as Hannah did, because Peninnah didn’t have the need.

We also need to keep in mind that being godly does not exempt us from suffering. Of these two women, clearly Hannah was the more godly. Yet she was the one with the problem. “Whom the Lord loves, He disciplines” (Prov. 3:12; Heb. 12:6). Such discipline is not necessarily the direct result of some sin in our lives. Even Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered (Heb. 5:8). Our problems are God’s gracious way of training us to become like His Son. So, what should we do with our problems? Hannah’s problem led to Hannah’s prayer (1:10-11).

2. We should take our problems to God in prayer.

As Christians, we all believe in prayer. But in practice, prayer is not our natural first response. Consider some of the other ways, besides prayer, Hannah could have dealt with her problem.

She could have become angry at God and blamed Him for closing her womb: “God, this isn’t fair! Peninnah has provoked me, but I haven’t provoked her. I’ve come to Your tabernacle every year and offered sacrifices. Why haven’t You given me a son? See if I serve You anymore!” She could have blamed everyone else: “Elkanah, if you hadn’t married this other woman, I wouldn’t be having these problems!” Or, “Peninnah gets me so stressed out! It’s her fault!”

Hannah could have accused Peninnah of being unfaithful and spread the lie all over town, hoping that Elkanah would divorce Peninnah. Hannah could have issued an ultimatum: “Take your pick, Elkanah! One of us has to go!” She could have drowned in self-pity and become a bitter, disagreeable, woman.

Hannah could have gone to a Christian therapist, who would have said, “You’re crying all the time. You’re depressed. You have an eating disorder. It’s obvious that you’re sitting on a lot of anger and suffering from low self-esteem. You need to let out all of your rage toward God. Hannah, you’re co-dependent and you need to set some boundaries. You’re enabling your husband and this other woman to carry on. You can’t really love your husband until you learn to love yourself. You need to start looking out for your own needs for a change. Let’s get you started on Prozac.”

Don’t misunderstand: I’m not against Christian counselors who help people understand their problems from a biblical perspective. Nor am I suggesting that all you need to do to solve your problems is to pray. But there are many counselors who claim to be Christian but who are telling God’s people that prayer, Bible study, and trusting God “don’t work” in dealing with life’s problems. I’m saying that learning to lay hold of God in prayer as your refuge and strength is a very real help in times of trouble (Ps. 46:1).

Hannah poured out her soul to the Lord of hosts (1:11, 15) and the Lord met her need. “The Lord of hosts” is a common name for God in the Old Testament. But it’s significant that Hannah was the first to address God in prayer with this title. It emphasizes the fact that God is the sovereign of the universe who rules all the powers of heaven and earth, visible and invisible. If that’s who God is, then learning to come to Him in prayer is not just a nice, but impractical and impotent, thing to do when it comes to dealing with our problems. Prayer is our means of access to the all-sufficient God who alone can meet our needs!

Yes, we should seek godly counsel concerning our problems. Yes, we should get medical help if the problem is medically related. Yes, there may be some practical steps that will help resolve our problems. But prayer should permeate the whole process. Prayer isn’t just a tip of the hat to God before we get down to the real solutions. Prayer is laying hold of the living God who understands our deepest needs. Prayer is acknowledging that we are depending totally on Him. Prayer is the God-ordained way for believing people to deal with their problems.

By nature, we’re all self-sufficient. We think we can handle things by ourselves, with an occasional boost from God. So we keep Him tucked away in our back pocket for emergencies. But then God brings us up against something we can’t handle by ourselves. He wants us to draw near to Him, to learn to depend on Him in ways we never would if we didn’t have these problems. If we don’t learn to pray in our problems, we’re missing how God is seeking to work in our lives.

But we need to go deeper. Note that Hannah didn’t just pray, “Lord, give me a son.” So God gave her a son and she lived happily ever after. No, Hannah prayed something radical: “Lord of hosts, if you will give your maidservant a son, then I’ll give him to the Lord all the days of his life and a razor shall never come on his head” (1:11). That meant that she was dedicating her son to God as a Nazirite, one separated to serve God (Num. 6:1-21). This tells us that not only should we pray about our problems, but, also,

3. We should pray according to God’s purpose.

Hannah had a need and her prayer was directed to meet her need, to be sure. There is nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes. But if we stop there, we do not understand prayer. Jesus said that we are to pray for our daily bread (to meet our need), but even before that, we are to pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The purpose of prayer is not to solve all our problems so that we can live happy, trouble-free, self-centered lives. The purpose of prayer is to get God’s will done, to glorify Him.

To understand Hannah’s radical prayer to give her son back to God, we need to remember that she lived in a spiritually desperate time. It was the day of the judges, when every man in Israel did what was right in his own eyes. Word from the Lord was rare in those days, visions were infrequent (1 Sam. 3:1). Eli’s wicked sons, who were serving as priests, committed immorality with women at the door of the tabernacle (2:22)!

God wanted to raise up a man who would hear from Him and speak His word faithfully. Hannah understood that God’s purpose for His people was to raise up His Anointed as King (2:10). “Anointed” is the Hebrew word transliterated “Messiah.” Through Hannah’s prayer, God raised up her son Samuel as the first of the prophets. Samuel anointed David the King and from David came God’s true Anointed, Jesus Christ.

Hannah knew that God’s purpose for His people superceded her personal desire for a son. So, while she prayed for a son, she also prayed for God’s greater purpose and willingly yielded her son to meet that purpose. That’s how God wants us to pray—not just to meet our needs, but for His purpose to be fulfilled through the answers to our prayers.

For example, let’s say that, like Hannah, you are unable to have children and you’re praying for children. That’s fine. But how about praying, “Lord, if you give us children, we’ll do our best to instill in them a vision for those who have never heard the name of Jesus. We’ll yield them to You to serve as missionaries some day”? The old hymn, “O Zion Haste,” has a verse that goes,

Give of thy sons to bear the message glorious;
Give of thy wealth to speed them on their way;
Pour out thy soul for them in pray’r victorious;
And all thou spendest Jesus will repay.

Note 1 Sam. 2:21. It tells us that after Hannah gave her precious Samuel to serve God, He graciously gave her three more sons and two daughters. You can never give more to God than He gives back to you, in some form or another!

Or, perhaps you’re out of work and praying for a job. That’s legitimate. But, also, pray that when God gives you that job, you’ll be His ambassador there and you’ll give generously from each paycheck to further His work. Or, perhaps you’re sick and you’re praying for health. That’s fine. But, also, pray that when God restores your health, you’ll give of your time and energy to serve His church in some capacity. Perhaps you’re single and praying for a mate. A godly mate is a wonderful gift! But, also, pray that God will give you a mate, not just so you’ll be happy, but so that the two of you can serve God in some capacity.

I think you get the idea. But, remember, it’s always easier to make such promises to God than it is to carry them out. Can you imagine Hannah’s feelings when she had to leave her little boy (probably between three and five-years-old) at the tabernacle with Eli and return home childless again? God hadn’t given her the other children yet. What faith on Hannah’s part to keep her promise and give that much-wanted, much-loved little boy back to the Lord! So when God grants your prayer, don’t forget to be obedient in yielding the answer back to Him to fulfill His purposes!

Thus, God gives us problems so that we will pray in accordance with His purposes. The final result is:

4. God’s answers to our prayers should lead us to praise Him.

When God answered Hannah’s prayer and she kept her promise and gave Samuel back to the Lord, instead of being depressed about the loss of her son, Hannah breaks forth in a hymn of praise to God (2:1-10). Her psalm exalts God’s greatness and human weakness. The theme is that God works through the weak, not the strong. Note (2:6), “the Lord kills [He brings our problems] and makes alive [He delivers us].” And, (2:9), “For not by might shall a man prevail.” How do we prevail? By going to God in our absolute weakness and calling out to Him, so that the answer is clearly His doing. Then He gets all the praise.

If God was looking for a prophet, why didn’t He pick one of Peninnah’s sons? She had plenty to spare. Why did He close (rather than open) the womb of a woman from whom He wanted to produce His man? Because God doesn’t help the strong. He doesn’t help those who help themselves. God helps those who are helpless who call out to Him. That’s what grace means, that God showers His favor, not on those who deserve it, but on those who do not. By the way, the name Hannah, in Hebrew, means “grace.”

Our problem is not usually that we are too weak for God to work, but that we are too strong. We trust in ourselves; we think we can do it with just a boost from God. Sure, we ask God’s blessing, but then we use the latest methods that are guaranteed to work. Sure enough, the methods work and God gets a tip of the hat, but the methods get the glory. We tell others, “You’ve got to try this! It worked for me; it will work for you!” But where is the praise to God that comes from saying, “I was helpless and hopeless. I cried out to God and He delivered me! Glory to God alone!”

Conclusion

Hannah didn’t learn how to deal with her problems in this way from the religious establishment of her day. Eli, the priest, didn’t even recognize what Hannah was doing when she prayed. He thought she was drunk (1:13-14)! Eli’s sons were worse than he was. They didn’t even know the Lord (2:12). They were in the ministry for what they could get out of it in terms of material compensation (2:13-17) and sensual pleasure (2:22). Eli was too passive to confront their sin.

Today, we’ve got all sorts of seminars telling pastors how to have successful churches and telling Christians how to find happiness and success. But what we all desperately need is to learn how to come to God in prayer in our helplessness, so that He gets all the glory and praise when He delivers us. God is still looking for men and women like Hannah: People with problems, who will take their problems to God in prayer according to His purpose so that He gets the praise. We need to apply this both to our personal problems and to our problems as a church. This mother who gave away her son teaches us:

God gives us problems so that we will pray according to His purpose, resulting in praise to Him.

Hannah was just one woman out of thousands in Israel in her day. Yet the whole nation was blessed because this godly woman had a problem and prayed according to God’s purpose, unto His praise. Everyone benefited from Samuel’s ministry. Our nation desperately needs a godly remnant that will stand against the tide of even the religious establishment as people of prayer. Where do you start? What is your problem? Start there!

Discussion Questions

How can God be good and yet give us problems (Exod. 4:11; 1 Sam. 2:6-7; Job 1 & 2; Ps. 119:67-68, 71, 75; Isa. 45:7)?
How can we know whether to live with a problem or to pray for deliverance (2 Cor. 12:7-10)?
How do we find the right balance between prayer and proper methods?
How do we know whether a method is right or wrong?

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation

Lesson 2: The Man Who Bargained With God (Genesis 18:16-33)

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One of the interesting things about traveling in a foreign country is the opportunity to bargain for goods in the marketplace. In America you know that if the price tag says $19.95, you’re going to pay $19.95, so you don’t bother to dicker about the price. But in Mexico, there’s a chance that the merchant is willing to haggle over the price. If you’re good enough at the game (which I’m not), you might only pay $10 instead of $20. You can get some good deals if you’re good at bargaining.

But can you imagine being bold enough to bargain with God? When you’re bargaining with a merchant, you hold the money and he holds the merchandise. You each have something the other person wants, so you have some bargaining power. But when it comes to God, He holds everything. Who could imagine bargaining with the God of the universe? Yet, surprisingly, the first instance of intercessory prayer found in the Bible shows Abraham bargaining with God!

At first you may think Abraham to be a bit brash to do such a thing. But as you examine the story, you discover that God was actually encouraging Abraham in this venture of prayer. God took the initiative by revealing His purpose to Abraham, His friend, who was moved to pray, based on what he knew of God’s character, for a city that teetered on the brink of judgment. The lesson is:

The knowledge of God’s purpose and God’s person should move us to pray for a world under judgment.

I want you to know that I’m doing this series on prayer as much for myself as I am for you. I need to be encouraged to pray more faithfully than I do. I struggle with prayer. It gets squeezed out of my busy schedule. Frankly, I find it tedious to pray through a list of things that God already knows about and for which I’ve already asked Him repeatedly.

And yet prayer is absolutely essential to a walk with God. We cannot make progress in the Christian life without growing in prayer. Wherever in church history or at present you see a genuine work of God, you can be assured that beneath it is a solid foundation of prayer. So I’m praying that God would use this study of some of the Old Testament saints and their prayers to stimulate us to be people of prayer.

Abraham was sitting at his tent door in the heat of the day when he looked up and saw three normal-looking men. In accordance with his custom, Abraham showered these men with hospitality. As he learned before the day was over, he was entertaining angels without knowing it (Heb. 13:2). I believe that one of the three was Jesus Christ in a preincarnate appearance (“the Lord,” 18:17, 19, 20, 22, 26, 27).

These men told Abraham that at this time next year, the long-awaited promise of Sarah bearing a son would be fulfilled. Then, as the men rose to go, they cast an ominous glance toward Sodom, where Abraham’s nephew, Lot, was living. As Abraham walked a short distance with his guests, the Lord spoke, probably to the two angels, but deliberately so that Abraham could overhear, and asked, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” That got Abraham’s attention!

Then He rehearsed the covenant promises He had made with Abraham (18:18-19). Speaking directly to Abraham, the Lord said that the outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah’s sin was very great, and (using human language) that He was going down to investigate the situation. Abraham picked up on God’s purpose and, based on his understanding of God’s justice, appealed to God to spare Sodom if there were but 50 righteous people there. From there Abraham bargained God down to sparing Sodom if only ten righteous people could be found there. The story reveals three lessons on prayer:

1. Prayer must be based on a knowledge of God’s purpose.

Prayer is not to get our will done, but to get God’s will done. To be effective, prayer must be in accordance with His will. If we want to be successful in prayer, we must grow in our knowledge of God’s purpose. Okay, but how do we do that?

A. God reveals His purpose to His friends.

Abraham was known as the friend of God (2 Chron. 20:7; Isa. 41:8; James 2:23). Verse 19 literally reads, “For I have known him ....” H. C. Leupold translates it, “For I acknowledge him to be my intimate friend” (Exposition of Genesis [Baker], 1:544). The Lord shares His secrets with His friends. Psalm 25:14 states, “The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He will make them know His covenant.” The Lord Jesus told His disciples, “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15).

We see this principle in everyday life. If a person shares the intimate details of his life with just anyone, we rightly say that he is a bit strange. We share the secrets of our lives only with friends who have earned our trust. In the same way, God only reveals His will to those who are trustworthy, who won’t abuse the privilege. So if you want to know God’s purpose so that you can pray accordingly, you’ve got to live obediently in the fear of God so that you’re worthy of His trust.

To the pagans living in the surrounding towns, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was an unfortunate natural disaster. If it had happened in our day, there would be footage on the evening news, along with explanations from geologists about how this sort of thing occurs. But no one on the news would say, “This event was the judgment of a holy God on a people whose iniquity was filled up” (Gen. 15:16), unless it was just to ridicule such a crazy religious fanatic. The world cannot appreciate God’s purpose.

But Abraham knew that Sodom’s destruction was not a natural disaster. It was the direct judgment of a holy God on a people who had spurned Him. He knew that it was a warning for people of all time that, while God is patient, He will certainly judge all sin. Abraham could rightly interpret the events of his world because he knew the purpose of God because he was the friend of God. If you want that kind of insight into our modern world, you’ve got to take the time to grow as God’s friend.

B. God’s purpose is to bless all nations through Abraham’s seed, but not to save all from judgment.

God rehearses His covenant with Abraham (see Gen. 12:3) as the reason for sharing with him His purpose in judging Sodom. God’s purpose is that all nations would be blessed through Abraham, especially through the Savior, Jesus Christ, who would be Abraham’s descendant. But if that is God’s purpose, why would He destroy the people of Sodom and Gomorrah? Why, in Moses’ day, would He command the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites? How can His purpose of blessing be fulfilled if people are destroyed?

God is showing Abraham (and us) that though He will have some from every tribe and tongue and nation bowing before His throne, it is not His purpose to save every person from judgment. It would violate the holiness and justice of God if everyone were someday saved, in spite of and apart from their response to the Savior. The Bible clearly teaches that God will be vindicated and glorified, not only in the salvation of His elect, but also in the damnation of sinners who have proudly spurned God.

The subject of God’s eternal judgment is not popular in our day. A few evangelical theologians are arguing that sinners will be annihilated rather than suffer forever in the lake of fire. But, in addition to being unbiblical, such thinking grossly underestimates the infinite holiness of God and it grossly overestimates the goodness of man, which is as filthy rags in God’s sight.

In his sermon, “The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners” (The Works of Jonathan Edwards [Banner of Truth], 2:668-679), Jonathan Edwards argues that since God is an infinitely perfect and holy being, any sin against Him is an infinitely horrible offense that justly deserves infinite punishment. He shows how all sinners tend to have too high a view of themselves and too low a view of the infinite perfection and holiness of God. By the end of the sermon, he has powerfully shown that none are deserving of heaven and that God would be perfectly just in damning us all to hell. But, in His mercy, He has made a way through Christ to save all who put their trust in Him.

Note that Abraham began his encounter with the Lord with an over-inflated view of the people of Sodom. He figured that there must be at least 50 righteous people living there. But as he proceeded, he grew less and less sure of his figures. Finally he whittled his most hopeful number down to ten. As it was, there was only one barely righteous man in the whole city.

As you grow closer to God in prayer, He reveals to you both His own holiness and the horrible sinfulness of the human race. You begin to see that there is none righteous, not even one. If the Lord should count iniquities, none could stand before Him. So you begin to pray that God would mercifully call out from this sinful world a people for His own glory. As you realize that God sees every sin in every nation and city, even as He saw the sin of Sodom, you cry out for His mercy on our land, that He would not enter into judgment with us. And you recognize that when He does enter into judgment, it is always based on His complete knowledge. The Judge of all the earth always deals justly.

Thus God reveals His purpose to His friends. His purpose is to bless some from every nation through Abraham’s seed, but not to save all from judgment. Thirdly,

C. God’s purpose is handed down through the families of His elect.

Verse 19: “For I have chosen him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice; in order that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.” Notice the interplay between God’s sovereign, gracious covenant with Abraham and the requirement for Abraham so that God’s covenant promises would be fulfilled. There is always this tension between God’s sovereign purposes and our responsibility to bring about those purposes.

The point here is that the family is essential in God’s purpose of blessing all nations through Christ, the seed of Abraham. Parents whom God has chosen and called to salvation are responsible to teach their children to live according to God’s ways, including the importance of prayer. If we’re not praying often with our children and showing them how to take all things to God in prayer, especially prayer for missions, we’re not being faithful to hand off our understanding of God’s purpose to the next generation as He has commanded us.

To sum up, to pray according to God’s purpose is to pray that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It is to pray for nations and individuals, that God would graciously withhold His judgment until a people be raised up that will give praise to Him because they have experienced His blessing through Abraham’s descendant, Jesus Christ. It requires training our children to follow the Lord so that they will grow up to be the channel of God’s blessings to others as they learn to pray. We cannot pray as we ought until we grasp God’s great purpose of glorifying Himself in human history through the salvation of His elect and the judgment of sinners.

2. Prayer must proceed according to the knowledge of God’s person.

Being the friend of God, Abraham knew God, including His character and attributes. This knowledge drew him on in prayer, to the point where he was bold enough to bargain with God.

A. God’s grace encourages us to draw near in prayer.

At first glance, it seems as if Abraham was taking the initiative with God. But a more careful look reveals that the Lord took the initiative with Abraham. He first broached the subject (18:17-21), He then waited for Abraham’s appeal after the two angels left (18:22), He drew Abraham on from 50 on down to ten (18:24-32), and then He chose when to end the conversation (18:33).

The picture here is that of God as a delighted parent, holding up his infant and then letting go and stepping back a pace, so that the child has to take a step toward the parent. Then the happy parent says, “Good, good!” and repeats the process until the little one learns to take steps on his own.

Abraham’s prayer wasn’t perfect. He was concerned that if God struck down the righteous along with the wicked, He would look bad in the eyes of the world. Abraham erred, in that God’s temporal judgment sometimes falls on both the righteous and the wicked (Luke 13:1-5). The Judge of all the earth always does right, no matter how it may seem to sinful men. But even though Abraham’s prayer wasn’t perfect, God was graciously nudging him along. In the same way, His grace encourages us to come before His throne, knowing that He will receive us as our loving Heavenly Father, even if our prayers aren’t perfect.

B. God’s holiness and power check us from irreverence in prayer.

Even though God graciously receives us as His children, we dare not come irreverently or brashly before His throne. He is the holy God who judges all sin. He is the powerful God who can easily call down fire and brimstone to wipe out a sinful city. Thus while we, as His children, can come confidently before His throne, like Abraham, we need to keep in mind that we are but dust and ashes (18:27), while He is the living God who spoke the universe into existence.

True humility—seeing ourselves as absolutely destitute and seeing God as all-sufficient—is the foundation for all true prayer. We don’t come to God as competent people who just need a little help. We dare not command God what to do, as those in the “name it and claim it” heresy brashly do! We come with an awareness of our frailty and desperate need and with reverence for God’s awesome power and holiness, yet with the confidence that because He is gracious, He will hear our prayers.

C. God’s mercy and justice give balance to our prayers.

Abraham was aware that God is both merciful, in that He will spare even the wicked on behalf of a few righteous, but He is also just. He sees and will judge all sins, even those done behind closed doors, in every sinful city in the world. This knowledge of God’s person tempered Abraham’s prayer. Some fault Abraham for stopping at ten, saying that he stopped asking before God stopped giving. But I think that Abraham sensed that he was at the limit at ten. If he went beyond there, he no longer would be pleading according to God’s will. God answered Abraham by rescuing Lot and his family, even though He destroyed Sodom. Abraham’s prayer was balanced by his understanding of God’s mercy and justice.

We err when we think that prayer is a way to make everyone happy. People will say to me, “So-and-so is in the hospital; please pray for them.” The assumption is that I should pray that he will get well. But is that God’s purpose? Perhaps the person or a loved one has been running from God and this illness or accident is God’s way of getting his attention. Maybe God is graciously trying to teach some other lesson. His purpose is not that we get instant deliverance from suffering, but that He may be glorified. An understanding of God’s mercy and justice will lead me to pray that God would graciously use this situation to glorify Himself, perhaps by bringing someone to salvation or into submission to Jesus Christ.

We’ve seen that prayer must be based on the knowledge of God’s purpose. It must proceed according to the knowledge of God’s person. Finally,

3. Prayer must be on behalf of a world under judgment.

A few years earlier (Gen. 14), Abraham had rescued his nephew Lot along with the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah after they had been taken captive by some warring kings. He had returned all their goods to them. It would have been easy here for Abraham to see himself as better than those ungrateful, sinful pagans and to say, “They should have learned their lesson! They deserve God’s judgment!” But there is no hint of such an attitude. Abraham humbly prayed as a sinner on behalf of other sinners, that they might be spared from God’s righteous, but terrible, judgment.

That’s how we should pray. It’s easy out of pride to look down on sinners who are suffering God’s judgment and think, “It serves them right! If they didn’t practice immorality, they wouldn’t get AIDS! If they wouldn’t use drugs and if they’d just go out and get a job, there wouldn’t be all those drive-by shootings in the ghetto!” I’m not suggesting that people aren’t responsible for their sin and its consequences. I am saying that apart from God’s grace, we all would be under His judgment. We who know Christ are fellow-sinners who have been called out from our sin by God’s mercy. We should have compassion on other sinners by praying that they, too, might experience God’s grace in Christ.

Conclusion

In 1872, D. L. Moody made a trip to England for rest, with no intention of preaching. While he was in London, a pastor spotted Moody and asked him to preach for him the next Sunday and Moody agreed. On Sunday morning the church seemed indifferent to his message.

But when he spoke that evening, the response was completely changed. After the sermon, Moody asked those who wished to become Christians to stand, and hundreds stood up. Moody thought that they must have misunderstood him, so he asked them to sit down and he repeated the invitation more clearly, asking all who wanted to become Christians to step into the inquiry room. So many people crowded into the room that extra chairs had to be brought in. Moody was amazed, thinking that they still did not understand. So he asked all of those who were in earnest to meet the pastor there the following night.

The next day, Moody sailed across the Irish Sea, but he no sooner reached Dublin than the pastor sent an urgent message for him to return, because more inquirers came Monday night than had been present on Sunday! Moody returned and preached for ten days, during which 400 people made professions of faith and joined that church.

Moody sensed that someone had been praying for this church. He began asking and finally was led to a bedridden girl, Marianne Adlard. She lay twisted and distorted by her suffering, but she spent many hours daily in prayer. She had been asking God to send revival to her church, which she never could attend because of her illness. She had read of Moody’s work in Chicago, and she specifically asked God to bring this man to her church to preach.

When her older sister returned from that lifeless morning service and told Marianne that a man named Moody from Chicago had preached, she spent the afternoon in prayer until the Lord gave her assurance that He would bring revival. Marianne Adlard prayed daily for D. L. Moody as long as he lived (taken from Lyle Dorsett, A Passion for Souls [Moody Press], pp. 161-162; and D. Edmond Hiebert, “The Significance of Christian Intercession,” Bibliotheca Sacra [Jan.-Mar., 1992, pp.20-21).

I don’t understand why or how God works out His eternal plan in cooperation with the prayers of His saints, but He does! Knowing God’s purpose, to call out a people for Himself from every nation; and, knowing God’s person, that He is both merciful and just; we who have experienced His mercy have the privilege of praying for a lost world. Someday we will have the joy of meeting in heaven those who were delivered from God’s judgment through our prayers! What could be more joyous than that!

Discussion Questions

If God is going to accomplish His sovereign plan anyway, why do we need to pray? Can our prayers have any real impact?
If it is not God’s purpose to save everyone, why does the Bible say that He is not willing for any to perish?
How can we pray for the salvation of the lost since we don’t know if they are elect?
How can we know if a catastrophe is God’s temporal judgment or just a “natural disaster”?
Chew on Matt. 11:20-30 in light of God’s sovereignty and our responsibility. If God knew that Sodom would have responded to miracles, why didn’t He send Abraham to do some?

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation

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Lesson 13: Have You Heard--About Gossip? (2 Samuel 13-15)

What is gossip?

How can I deal with my own gossip?

1. See gossip as serious sin and confess it to God.

2. Realize that you can’t conquer gossip in your strength.

3. Yield your tongue to God as an instrument of righteousness.

4. Make a commitment to build others in Christ, not to tear them down.

5. Fill your life with meaningful work.

6. Examine your motives for sharing information about another person.

7. Refuse to listen to those who want to spread gossip.

How can I deal with gossip in others?

1. What is your reason for telling me?

2. Where did you get your information?

3. Have you gone to those directly involved?

4. Have you personally checked out all of the facts?

5. Can I quote you if I check this out?

Conclusion

Discussion Questions

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Lesson 14: God’s Mighty Men (2 Samuel 23:8-39)

1. The church needs mighty men who are attracted to the person of Christ.

A. The men who were attracted to David:

B. The person to whom they were attracted:

2. The church needs mighty men who are committed to the cause of Christ.

A. The cause:

B. The commitment:

Conclusion

Discussion Questions

From the series: David PREVIOUS PAGE

Hurongwa hwaMwari hwoRuponeso

Dambudziko roMunhu

Kuparadzaniswa naMwari

Kusakwana kwemabasa edu

Mhinduro yaMwari

Tinogamuchira sei mwana waMwari?

From the series: All the Stories of the Bible PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

Book 1: Beginnings (Stories 1-52)

Click Here To View Stories 1-52 (PDF)

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Book 2: Building a Nation (Stories 53-113)

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Book 3: Path Down to Captivity (Stories 114-161)

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From the series: All the Stories of the Bible PREVIOUS PAGE

Book 5: Work of the Holy Spirit (Stories 220-255)

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All the Stories of the Bible

From the series: Old Testament Lessons on Prayer PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

Lesson 1: The Mother Who Gave Away Her Son (1 Samuel 1-2)

1. God graciously gives us problems.

2. We should take our problems to God in prayer.

3. We should pray according to God’s purpose.

4. God’s answers to our prayers should lead us to praise Him.

Conclusion

Discussion Questions

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From the series: Old Testament Lessons on Prayer PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

Lesson 2: The Man Who Bargained With God (Genesis 18:16-33)

1. Prayer must be based on a knowledge of God’s purpose.

A. God reveals His purpose to His friends.

B. God’s purpose is to bless all nations through Abraham’s seed, but not to save all from judgment.

C. God’s purpose is handed down through the families of His elect.

2. Prayer must proceed according to the knowledge of God’s person.

A. God’s grace encourages us to draw near in prayer.

B. God’s holiness and power check us from irreverence in prayer.

C. God’s mercy and justice give balance to our prayers.

3. Prayer must be on behalf of a world under judgment.

Conclusion

Discussion Questions

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