Sword & Trowel 2016: Issue 1 Metropolitan Tabernacle Sunday Services 11.00am (teaching service)
and 6.30pm (evangelistic service) – sign language interpreting at all public services, and simultaneous interpretation into Spanish, Chinese, Korean and French.
Children’s Sunday Schools and Teenagers’ Bible Classes at the Tabernacle (and at Surrey Gardens Memorial Hall, Surrey Square Mission,
East Dulwich Tabernacle, and Minet Road Branch) 3.00pm. College Classes and Young Adults’ Doctrine Class 3.15pm.
Main Prayer Meeting, Monday 7.30pm. Bible Study, Wednesday 7.30pm.
Deaf Fellowship Meetings, weeknight meetings for the young, and other ministries are posted on the Tabernacle website:
www.MetropolitanTabernacle.org
relationship with God, and into my responses to his promptings. In the Scripture, God calls me to
prayer, and I must respond. He prom- ises blessing if I do so. Certainly, he stirs my heart and gives the desire – but I may still fail to pray. Is it God’s fault? Has he left out some vital ‘link’ in his prompting of me? No, it is my fault, and in not praying I shall forfeit blessing. We may, according to God’s Word, truly prevail upon him. He evidently took account of our prayers before the foundation of the world. He is pleased to hear us pray, and undertakes to respond. It is ever true – ‘Ye have not because ye ask not.’ Let us never slip into fatalism by a misunderstanding of God’s fore- ordination. Fervour will be kindled when we have a solid hope that God will take account of our cries, and is persuadable by his people, according to his own secret and mysterious will. We must take at face value the words of Christ, and also those given to John:– ‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek,
page 14 Remedies for Problems in Prayer
and ye shall fi nd; knock, and it shall be opened unto you’ (Matthew 7.7). ‘And this is the confi dence that we
have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us’ (1 John 5.14).
WHY DO WE NEED TO ASK IN PRAYER?
Problems in prayer are often eased when we refl ect on the purposes that lie behind asking prayer.
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We are called to ask in prayer because prayer establishes God’s
sovereignty, might and majesty. The simple fact that we have to ask God for all our blessings, and then give thanks for them, reinforces in our minds that God is our governor and provider, and that we need his guidance, permission and provision in everything. If we did not have to pray, this vital awareness would surely drop out of our minds, and so prayer keeps us under God’s authority.
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