The primacy of prayer

1 Timothy 2:1-3 I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercessions
and thanksgiving be made for everyone for kings and all those in authority,
that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is
good, and pleases God our Saviour
Everything that the New Testament Church had we have today. We may not
have the degree of blessing upon our congregations that they were privileged
to receive, but we have the very same means of grace which they enjoyed.
Paul in our text is writing to Timothy about something which in his list of
priorities he puts first of all. It is important to divide our Christian lives up into
essentials and incidentals. The essentials are those things we experience with
the whole church throughout time and space: the Lord Christ with us, the
miraculous presence of the Word of God in our services, prayer, preaching,
baptism and the Lords Supper, praise in the heart and on the lips, leadership,
righteous and loving living, family life, discipleship, giving a reason for our hope
to any who asks us, an abundance of good works, and so on. Those are
Christian essentials. Then there are also the incidentals, and they are anything
that the New Testament church did not have. Machines, buildings, web sites,
para-church organisations and offices, musical instruments, publishing houses,
homes for those with learning disabilities, schools, magazines, shops,
seminaries, hymnbooks and so on. All such things, then, are Christian
incidentals. At their best they are fascinating bonuses, but they can also
become by-paths and snares.
Our priorities must always be to set before us what the New Testament puts
first. The Lord Jesus himself has told us to get our priorities right: Seek first
Gods kingdom, said Jesus (Matt.6:33). Dont waste your life. There are lots of
good things out there, even in the church. We have to choose between them.
Dont fritter away the resources of the congregation on activities that are not
all that strategic. My life is not a renewable resource; neither is yours. It is
linear not cyclical. Death is not a process; it is an event. We live our lives once,
and we either do it well, or we do it poorly. We cant return and do it again.
There is not another take on mistakes. Unless we prioritize, we will perish.
Paul is telling Timothy here, first things first: I urge you, then, first of all
What does he start with? Timothy and the church as praying people.
Prayer is a Christian essential. To justify that we can simply appeal to the New
Testament and the fact that the words pray or prayer are found in the New
Testament 163 times, whereas the word music, for example, is found just
once, in the parable of the Prodigal Son when the older brother returns home
and hears the sound of music. That is the solitary mention of music in the
King James Version. So music is incidental to Christianity. It is not a means of
grace. Prayer, on the other hand, is one of the essentials. Our calling is to
major in Biblical majors. If the word music occurs only once what does it
matter if your churchs music programme is the greatest in the world? So what?
What has that got to do with Christianity? We could say that prayer is 163
times more important, and it must be made obvious that a Christian
congregation considers it to be a priority.
It is in these verses which we have been read in your hearing (vv.1,2 & 8) that
Paul is referring to Timothy praying. So we have to address this theme now, if

only to give it the prominence that its place in the whole Bible requires. But
providence too is always reminding us of the importance of prayer. Something
occurred this week at a time I was thinking about this passage. I had an e-mail
from one of my family in the USA. It was an urgent request to me to stop what I
was doing and pray because something was alleged to have happened. I read
that a missionary family in Africa were driving along when their car was
stopped and surrounded by a group of Muslim men. After much pleading they
allowed them to start, but then a teenager was deliberately hurled in front of
the car and run over. The boy was killed and the missionary was promptly
arrested and charged with murder. He is now in jail awaiting trial, I was told. His
wife and three children, aged between 8 and 12, are filled with concern. The
letter ended, Please pray for Michael. That letter with its plea for prayer will
now be circling the globe. The desperate wife and bewildered children would
find enormous consolation in the fact that thousands of people in churches
everywhere are praying for this missionary and the family of the boy so
grievously killed, if this had actually happened. Three days later my niece had
looked into the case a little more thoroughly. She had approached a
distinguished Mission Board and had asked for more information, and was told
that this incident had not actually occurred. It was one of these Christian myths
that mischievous people circulate. She wrote to me and said, Sorry. Please
forget this. The immature perpetrators of this tall tale know that a plea for
prayer in such circumstances would not fall on barren soil. We cannot refuse a
request for prayer. Who knows when it will be our turn to ask the church for its
intercession?
Please pray, people say at times of real crisis, and even those people who
have long lived without God, to their surprise and guilt, find themselves saying
a prayer. This indestructible need to lift our voices up to God is a mark of mans
true condition he is created by God in his image. Conor Cruise OBrian is a
well-known elderly Irish journalist and politician. He has ceased going to church
for many years. But a few years ago his wife entered hospital for a serious
operation and he had to leave her there the night before the surgery and walk
out alone into the hospital car-park and drive home without her. He found
himself, he wryly acknowledged, outside the hospital in the darkness, praying
for her. He had kept God out of his thoughts for years. He had ceased praying,
but then, in spite of himself, his love for her and his fears of life without her
constrained him to pray.
All men pray in times of need. Men treat God like a lawyer: they go to him
when they are in trouble. The rich, the healthy, the happy seldom pray. But the
Christian is a man of prayer. When God told Ananias in Damascus how he
would know Saul of Tarsus the Lord said to him, Behold he is praying. The
Christian is conceived in prayer, continues in prayer, and his consummation will
also be prayer Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. How noble then is prayer.
Who would not be a man of prayer? What wise person what sane person
would continue to neglect it?
Paul here exhorts Timothy, as a matter of some importance, I urge, then, first
of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for
everyone. So let us begin by asking firstly why we should pray:1 Prayer is Good, and it Pleases God our Saviour. (v.3)

This is good, and pleases God our Saviour: your Saviour, Timothy, but mine
too. It is crucial that we begin with the God who has become our Saviour,
because when we speak about prayer we are not talking about any kind of
praying. For example, we are not thinking about the praying of the prophets of
Baal on Mount Carmel, chanting for hours, Baal, we cry to thee and cutting
themselves with knives to draw blood and his attention. The heavens were
silent. That sort of praying was not good and pleasing to God our Saviour. There
was also much empty religion at the time of Isaiah, and God said to the people
through his prophet, When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my
eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are
full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean (Isa. 1:15&15). Here were a
defiled people who had not been purified in the laver of regeneration. Their
guilt had not been taken away by the blood of the divinely appointed sacrifice.
They were violent, angry men and women whose hands needed to be washed
and made clean. There could be no acceptable praying before that had been
done. God himself says, even if you offer many prayers, I will not listenwash
and make you clean Until that had been done their praying was not good and
pleasing to God our Saviour.
It is futile marching the troops onto the parade ground and make them all
address God as their Saviour and then repeat the disciples prayer, Our Father
which art in heaven Such praying is not good and pleasing to God our
Saviour. To be their Father he must first become their Saviour. To be their
Saviour they must first see they are sinners and need him. Before we talk to
people about speaking to God we have to address them about why they dont
speak to him. What has he done that they ignore him so? Has he ceased
making goodness and mercy to follow them? Have they all been living on a
paupers diet in Cardboard City? If not, why is there alienation in their hearts?
Has that been dealt with? The Lord in his mercy has provided a means by which
sinners can we washed, and that is only through his Son Jesus Christ. We must
come to know him as God our Saviour.
Let me bring this home to you more personally and clearly. You must
acknowledge your very own sin, and you must also understand who the Lord
Jesus Christ is. Jesus of Nazareth lived among us as a human being, and at the
same time he was also the only begotten Son of the living God he was the
second person of the Trinity in human flesh. He came to live amongst us to
obey the will of God perfectly and to die on a cross, where he atoned for our
sinfulness by his redemption. To believe in him means to thrust ourselves upon
him. We must trust him. We must cling to him. We throw ourselves upon his
mercy and ask him to forgive us our sins, and we depend on him for
everything. Our prayers will be answered only when we go to God through the
Saviour. There is no other way at all. All else is a dead-end street. Have you
come to the point where you realise that everything else in which you have
trusted is inadequate, totally inadequate? You have been praying because you
wanted things. There has been no adoration, no worship and no praise. There
has only been a series of requests, and you have depended upon your own
worthiness to get what you want from God. Have you learned to plead the
worthiness of the name of Christ the Saviour? Only those who call God their
Saviour please him when they pray.

We then are being exhorted to pray. He tells us these two things, that firstly it
is good for us to pray, and secondly that it is pleasing to God for us to pray. It is
pleasing to him because it honours him as the Omnipotent Lord. When we
prostrate ourselves before him, and call on his great and holy name, and own
his immutability, his power, his goodness and his grace all that is pleasing to
God. It redounds to his glory. We acknowledge that we are insignificant and
utterly dependent upon him. He is the Author and the Fountain of every good
and perfect gift, and acknowledging that in prayer is pleasing to him because it
is true.
It is also good for us because God has appointed prayer for our blessing as a
means by which we grow. We learn things in the presence of the Lord that we
can learn nowhere else. For example, when prayer is answered we say, I love
the Lord because he heard my prayer. Think of George Muller, and how he
looked to God continually to supply all the needs of his hundreds of orphans. As
Mullers prayers were answered, he realised how powerful and faithful his
Saviour truly was. Prayer is good for us.
Men ask, Why should we pray if God is sovereign and works all things after the
counsel of his own will? One answer is what Paul says here, because it is
pleasing to God and good for us. That does not remove the difficulty, nor does
it answer the question. But whenever you bring together the Sovereignty of
God and the responsibility of man you are confronted with this mystery and
simply must do both these things, bow before the Sovereign to please him, and
do your duty because that is good for you. Now I want to address the question
how we should pray.
2. Prayer is composed of Requests, Prayers, Intercession and Thanksgiving.
(v.1)
Now this is not a complete catalogue of prayer. There is no worship or
adoration mentioned, and no confession of sin in this list. Prayer is also Davids
51st Psalm and Marys Magnificat. We certainly cannot say that we know the
precise nuance of each of the four words mentioned. It is as though Paul is
using all these terms to emphasise how big real praying is. Prayer is all of
these four terms, and much more, the apostle is telling Timothy.
i] Requests is the word with which the apostle begins. This is a specific term
that indicates an entreaty for some particular benefit or need. To pray in a
manner that pleases God we dont turn over on our pillows and mumble, Bless
them all, the long and the short and the tall, and then go to sleep. Christians
are always precise because they serve a precise God. There are particular
people to pray for. When we teach children about prayer we use our hand as an
aid. The thumb is closest to you. It therefore reminds you to pray for people
who are close to you. We pray for family members, for instance. We bring
before God a parent who is having trouble at work, perhaps a sister who feels
left out of things.
Your index finger is used to point. It therefore reminds you of people in
authority. We must pray for teachers, police, bus drivers, crossing guards. You
middle finger is highest. It reminds all of us to pray for presidents, prime
ministers, governors, councillors for all who are in high authority.

The ring finger is weakest, as all pianists know. It reminds us to pray for weak
people for people crushed by poverty or ignorance or sickness or cruel
governments. They can be found in our own schools or our own families.
Amongst them may be people Jesus calls the least of his brothers. He says that
they especially need our help and care. He even says that helping them counts
as helping him. Finally, there is the little finger. It comes last and reminds us, at
last, to pray for ourselves (A Sure Thing, Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., Bible Way
CRC Publications, Grand Rapids, 1986, p.212). Begin by focusing on specific
people within these groups. Ask for particular benefits for them.
ii] Prayers is the next word. This is a more general word and here it means
being conscious that we are bringing these specific requests right before God
for his help and his blessing upon these people. Think of the wretched publican
in the temple, his head cast down, beating his breast, conscious of his sin. How
does he pray? God be merciful to men who are sinners? No. God be merciful
to me the sinner. He brings himself to God for his help. He is specific. Its not
my father nor my mother but its me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. Or
think of Abraham pleading for the city of Sodom, and specifying fifty righteous
people, or forty-five, or forty, or thirty, or twenty, or ten righteous people. What
if the number is ten? Will God destroy the ten with the wicked, treating them all
alike? Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right? (Gen.
18:25). God assures him that he will not condemn the righteous alongside the
unrighteous, and Abraham is satisfied because he has been specific in
speaking intimately to God about thee things.
There was that great missionary to the South Seas Islands, John G.Paton, and
he was seriously ill with a fever. Living in the Mission House with his wife and
children was Kowia who had once been a cannibal chief. One of the other
missionaries, Mr Johnston was to die and then his wife, while John Paton was
drifting in and out of unconsciousness. You understand what cannibalism was.
Men were captured in battle and then kept alive until the fire was prepared and
ready, and then they were clubbed to death, their bodies cut up, roasted and
eaten. Kowia had been involved in this barbarism since coming of age. But
through the gospel of Jesus Christ he had become a new creation. All those old
sins had gone and now he loved the living God, and the Bible, and the people
of God. He too had contracted this virulent fever that had already killed the
others, yet he summoned enough energy to dry Patons brow and bathe his
lips. Above all he prayed, and Paton was never to forget his prayers. As he
came out of a semi-coma he could hear Kowia cry, O Lord Jesus, Mr Johnston is
dead; Thou hast taken him away from this land. The woman and Mr Paton are
very ill; I am sick, and Thy servants the Aneityumese are all sick and dying. O
Lord, our Father in Heaven, art Thou going to take away all Thy servants and
Thy worship from this dark land? What meanest thou to do, O Lord? The
Tannese hate Thee and Thy worship and Thy servants; but surely, O Lord, Thou
canst not forsake Tanna and leave our people to die in the darkness! O, make
the hearts of this people soft to Thy Word and sweet to Thy worship; teach
them to fear and love Jesus; and O, restore and spare dear Mr Paton that Tanna
may be saved. The former cannibal was bringing specific people right before
God.
iii] Intercessions is the next word. This refers to the urgency and boldness with
which these specific prayers are brought. Think of Christ Jesus in Gethsemane.

If anyone had no need to pray it was him. Here is the Lord Omnipotent
enfleshed so that winds and the waves obeyed him. Here is one who walked
every second of his life with God. Why did he need to spend so much of that
Passover night alone in prayer? And in such an agony of prayer, even unto
blood? There were no sins of his youth coming back on him in the Garden. He
wasnt trying to get over twenty years of neglect of God and man. The intensity
of his intercession wasnt an attempt to get through to an offended Father.
Rather it was that his vision was concentrated on what lay before him that next
day, the awesomeness of that unrepeatable task that no other would ever be
able to do again. Only by the strength of God could he get through it. This was
his very last submission, and his very last surrender, and his very last
obedience in his state of humiliation. He was entering upon uncharted territory
and he had to drag his human heart to Gods feet, with all his might, until his
sweat was blood, in the most awesome agony, pleading Could there be
another cup? If not, may Gods will be done.
In intercession there is urgency and boldness. Do we pray for the mortification
of sin in our hearts? For faith in God to believe that he is when we come to
him? For love to Jesus Christ? For love to our neighbour? For love to our false
friends? And to our enemies? For the complete cleansing of our hearts of all
hatred, and lust, and self-pity, and greed, and envy, and anger and such like? Is
there someone in this distinguished congregation who in the last twenty-four
hours went to God and interceded, and then stopped, and then went back, and
interceded again, and then stopped, and then returned crying for more love, for
more humility, more self-denial, more courage? For a clean heart? For a life
dead to the praise of men? Is there one woman here who prayed like that? Is
there one young person? Is there an officeholder who interceded like that? Men
and women, God is your witness. The darkness hideth not from him. When
your secret place of prayer is opened; when your labours are no longer; when
the Holy Spirit has finished his sanctifying work in you, how will it have been?
Have there been intercessions? What will be written in Gods book?
iv] Thanksgiving is the last word in the list. It is the most beautifully simple
way to come to God. We cant stop thanking him. At every meal, sitting down
with those we love, while green pastures and still waters have been our
experience for years, we come with gratitude to the Father. And at those other
times, when sorrows like sea billows roll, then too God has taught us in
everything to give thanks. The following letter was read this week from a
mother whose six year old girl has a malignant brain tumour. She says: We
come against many bumps in the road and I believe that the faith (that has
been many years of a process), which has brought me to the point at which my
family is now. I sit by my sweet little Ivana who just turned six. She is on her
first full day of a 48-week regimen of chemo drugs.
Just a short scenario has brought us to this point: she was diagnosed with a
malignant brain tumour in November 1998. It was so hard to receive this news
from my husband who had taken her to have the CAT scan that morningThis
is when faith steps in. It has been a whirlwind ever since, but each day God has
been our strength, along with prayers of family and friendsHis graciousness
to our family through brain surgery, radiation, and chemo with many weeks
ahead of us, has been a wonderful time to give him thanks for all his blessings.

A friend wondered if we might be angry at God. My husband and I talked about

this and we both agreed this did not apply. Maybe frustration because of all the
office visits and everyday radiation for six weeks. But anger? No. God does all
things well. Psalm 23 has always been my comfort since I was a little girl. It was
the first passage I memorised. It has been a promise all these years that God is
always our Gentle Shepherd. Only God can give the peace that passes
understanding. My own strength is empty. I have given my life to God. He
gladly took over to work out all his purposes and plans.
There is this extraordinary possibility that God gives to his people, that in the
midst of the worst possible scenario, one of our own dear children having a
brain tumour, I am not plaintive, nor self-pitying, nor bitter with the Lord, but
enabled to acknowledge, this has been a wonderful time to give him thanks
for all his blessings. And so the apostle is urging Timothy to encourage his
church to become a praying congregation with all the texture of a life of
devotion evident.
So let me announce this: on Tuesday night at 7.30 we will hold a Prayer
Meeting and invite the whole congregation to be present that requests,
prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for everyone. But you say,
Pastor, we have that meeting for prayer every single week. Sure we do, but
this passage in the New Testament is our rationale for the gathering as a stated
church service, and lest you grow weary during the church intimations and your
eyes become glazed over when I announce the Tuesday prayer meeting I want
to say that fifty people met last Tuesday for prayer, and urge you all to join us
in two days time. The only able-bodied persons who may not attend are those
who will spend 7.30 to 9.00 in requests, prayers, intercessions and
thanksgiving at home.
But let me turn this exhortation in another way. Prayer is a public means of
grace. Timothy was to lead the Ephesian church in its Lords Day devotions.
This was part of his call to serve the apostle and the people of God. He must
indicate he possessed a gift of prayer as that which the Lord Jesus Christ is
pleased to furnish all those true servants of his whom he calls to be his
ministers. A man called Ebenezer Porter of Andover recounts how once in the
last century a ministerial candidate had just preached in the presence of
ministers, and a number of them had been impressed by his talents and
evident ability. One older minister, however, was not so easily satisfied. I want
to know, he said to a friend, can he pray down the Holy Spirit.
One praying man cries to you, Stop! Pause! Consider! Where are we? What are
we doing? Praying to kill? No. Praying to God! The great God, the maker of all
worlds, the judge of all men! What reverence! What simplicity! What sincerity!
What truth in the inward parts is demanded! How real we must be! How hearty!
Prayer to God is the noblest exercise, the loftiest effort of man, the most real
thing! Shall we not discard forever accursed praying that kills, and do the real
thing, the mightiest thing prayerful praying, bringing the mightiest force on
earth to bear on heaven and earth and draw on Gods exhaustless and open
treasure for the need and beggary of man. Pray! The apostle tells Timothy.
And then, thirdly, the apostle says that
iii] Prayer is to be Made For Everybody, including Kings and All in Authority.

Open the windows, says Paul, and look out to the uttermost parts of the
earth. Let prayer be commensurate with the terms of the Great Commission.
Get out of your little creek and pray for every kind of person. That is what the
exhortation means. There is a data base advertised for sale which has on it the
names and address of everyone on the electoral rolls of the British Isles. Your
name is on it and mine. You can buy it quite inexpensively and put it on your
computer programme and bring up on screen everyones name in the United
Kingdom. I am saying that it is not the calling of the church to spend its years
reading out that list of 50 million people and saying to God, We pray for soand-so. We pray for so-and-so. We pray for so-and-so. You have told us to pray
for everyone. The words are meaningless. Such a task is folly because it is
insincere. That list is just one little country. There are today more than six
thousand million inhabitants of the world. I am saying that God has not told his
people they have a responsibility to try to find out who each one is and then
say a prayer for them.
There are, however, people outside the confines of the kingdom of God whom
providence has brought to our attention, some utterly evil people, others
broken because of evil, insignificant folk and others who are in the headlines
each day, and we may not instinctively think of any such people as subjects for
our praying. Yet there is none alive now for whom is unsuitable. For every kind
of person pray that is the directive here.
The apostle then selects one class of people to illustrate this principle, and tells
us to pray for kings and all those in authority. There was not a single Christian
ruler in the world when he wrote this, and there have been very few since. We
recently sat around the table talking and one of my sons-in-law asked, If you
could meet a world leader today, which one would you like to meet? That was
a conversation-stopper. In the silence we thought of Europe, and of North
America, South America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. There are so few
people in leadership in the countries of the world whom one has any desire to
meet. Then my wife said, Nelson Mandella, and I thought also of the brave
elected lady who should be leading Burma, but is under continual house-arrest
from the military junta who have put themselves in power by the gun and tank.
There are some others one would covet meeting, but not many, and perhaps
that is due in part to the fact that we pray so little for kings. Where are the
leaders who will remind their people that there is more to national success than
economic growth, or that mans greed creates spiritual malfunction? Our
representatives refuse to acknowledge what Christians know to be true. Small
wonder that we have no deisre to meet them.
J.C.Ryle has a sermon entitled For Kings which is based on this text (The
Upper Room, p.456ff, Banner of Truth), and though it is locked into the Great
Britain of a century ago, it has stirring exhortations to pray for kings and those
in authority. Ryle says, Consider in whose hands the government of the world
lay at the time when the Epistle to Timothy was written. Think what a monster
of iniquity wore the imperial purple at Rome Nero whose very name is a
proverb. Think of such rulers of provinces as Felix and Festus, Herod Agrippa
and Gallio. Think of the ecclesiastical heads of the Jewish Church Annas and
Caiaphas. Yet these were the men for whom St. Paul says Christians were to
pray! Their personal characters might be bad. But they were persons ordained

by God to keep some outward order in this sin-burdened world. As such, for
their office sake, they were to be prayed for (p.549).
In the Old Testament they were not neglecting that duty. Jeremiah told the
exiles to pray for Babylons peace and prosperity (Jer.29:7). The edict of Cyrus,
which ordered the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple, included a request to the
Jews to pray for the well-being of the king and his sons (Ezr.6:10). The apostle
Paul appeared before kings. He had appealed to Caesar for freedom to teach,
evangelise and worship with congregations of the Lord Jesus Christ. He had
done this as the representative Christian that throughout the Roman Empire
followers of the Lord Jesus might obtain that legal right from Emperor. That was
the next stage in the spread of the gospel. Think of how crucial that would be
today in vast areas of the world like the Middle East and China, to have the
right to gather and evangelise. Pray for kings! Think of Kosovo, and think of
East Timor and pray for kings!
But Paul is careful to add, and all those in authority. Most Third World states
are run by the IMF, the World Bank and assorted transnational corporations. For
the most part they are run badly. Most of those countries have constitutions
which are impeccably progressive, so that they might have been written by
Liberty, Amnesty International and Charter 88, yet in their interiors those in
authority can be drug barons whose death squads socially cleanse all those
they dislike. Or consider the source of authority in Europe today. Increasingly it
lies in Strasbourg, and in unelected bureaucrats, and its threat is the evil of
banality.
Pray for all kinds of people in authority. Joe Bayly, who died in 1986, and was a
writer and editor, tells of driving his two sons to school early on in the
Watergate affair. One of the boys was a teenager and the other a pre-teen. The
news on the car radio was all about the White House tapes and the possible
impeachment of the President. The boys were already developing a cynicism
about politicians, and so before Joe opened the door of the car to let them out
he said, Boys, lets pray together He prayed for what was happening in
Washington and asked God to bring truth to light, to make corruption come to
the surface, to judge the guilty and protect the innocent. Later on he wrote
this, Looking back, I was glad that I had a part an infinitesimal part, but a
part in the resolution of Watergate, by turning to a Judge greater than the
Senate or the Federal Court. We know that out of Watergate came Chuck
Colsons conversion and the spread of the gospel in prisons. You, maybe a
penniless students or an unwell pensioner, with no political clout at all, pray for
kings!
What are we to pray for when we bring them to God? We must begin by
remembering what the duty of governments is. They might quite properly do all
kinds of things, and the bishops and the denominations in the World Council of
Churches would like governments to do a lot more. There are, however, only
three things they are compelled to do (governments have to choose between
essentials and incidentals just like a congregation). The more of the optional
things they do the more likely they are to neglect the three essentials. So what
are those three? They are external defence, internal order and the maintenance
of honest currency. Those three things must be done by government because
nobody else can do them. If these are neglected, as hyperactive governments

do because they have taken on too many other tasks, then it is the poor, the
weak and the old who always suffer most. Look at the state of Russia today as
an example of that, and how the life of the church has been affected by it. The
congregation becomes burdened by its ministry of mercy. The Roman Empire
was destroyed not so much by external invasion as by internal inflation and the
steady infiltration of its frontiers by the barbarians. It is the state, not bands of
vigilantes, who must punish evildoers, and reward well-doers. Pray that Caesar
will perform that which he is Gods appointed servant to do (Romans 13:1ff).
J.C. Ryle says that we are to consider three enormous difficulties kings have:
the temptations that surround them, the countless knots they have to untie,
and the immense responsibility of a kings office. So pray for them.
However, the church must always remember the word of Christ, My kingdom
is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would its servants
fight (John 18:36). The pulpit must never find itself in the pocket of the King.
Brave Knox before the Queen, and courageous Latimer before the King are the
two models to be held up before us. Mary, Queen of Scots, is reputed to have
said, I fear the prayers of John Knox more than an army of 20,000 men.
Fearless disaffiliation of the kingdom of God from Caesars kingdom must be
maintained. The life of the church depends upon it. It is fascinating to read of
the response of the Dutch churches to the German invasion of their nation in
1940. They had prayed for their own leaders and for Hitler, and now the
unthinkable had occurred, Germany had bombed their way into a swift
conquest of the Netherlands.
The oppression began on Friday May 10, 1940, and on the Sunday the Spirit of
God stirred the hearts of preachers throughout Holland to speak words of
comfort to the people. One pastor preached about the confrontation between
Esther and Haman and he mentioned that Haman, while looking for ways to get
Mordecai killed, dug his own grave. Suddenly he stopped preaching and he said
to the congregation, Lets sing about that, and announced Psalm 7 and the
final two verses
He made a pit, and digged it deep,
Another there to take;
And he is fallen in the ditch
Which he himself did make.
On his own head shall be returned
The mischief he hath wrought;
The violence that he hath done
Shall on his crown be brought.
And through those devastating Maydays and throughout the five years of Nazi
oppression Dutch Christians did not cease to pray for those in authority, that
they might be saved, that their evil designs might be thwarted, and that they
might fall into the ditch which they themselves had dug for others.
But let us end positively and read a few sentences of Ryle: It is easy to
criticise and find fault with the conduct of kings, and write furious articles
against them in newspapers, or make violent speeches about them on

platforms. Any fool can rip and rend a costly garment, but not every man can
cut out and make one. To expect perfection in kings, prime ministers, or rulers
of any kind, is senseless and unreasonable. We should exhibit more wisdom if
we prayed for them more, and criticised less (p.461).
What then is the end of our praying? What expectations do we have for our
own lives as Christians in this world? You will see how essentially modest they
are. Paul says that the end of our intercession for all men is living
4. Peaceful and Quiet Lives, in All Godliness and Holiness. (v.2).
Consider how important to Old Testament Christians were years of peace. A
psalmist exhorts us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, They shall prosper that
love thee.Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. Think
of the silent years in the life of incarnate God in Nazareth. The Lord Jesus lived
a peaceful and quiet life in that carpenters home. There is this possibility in
the life of a Christian, of doing everything with all his might to the glory of God,
being steadfast, unmovable and always abounding in the work of the Lord, and
at the same time living a peaceful and quiet life. Anna L. Waring (1820-1910)
sings,
I would not have the restless will
That hurries to and from,
Seeking for some great thing to do,
Or secret thing to know;
I would be treated as a child,
And guided where I go.
I ask Thee for the daily strength,
To none that ask denied,
A mind to blend with outward life,
While keeping at Thy side,
Content to fill a little space,
If Thou be glorified.
The foundation of such contentment is the high view Christians have of the
vocations God has given to them. Even in eating and drinking the Christian can
quietly glorify God. Tyndale said that if we look externally, there is a difference
between washing dishes and preaching the word of God; but as touching
pleasing God, none at all. Williams Perkins agrees, saying, The action of a
shepherd in keeping sheep is as good a work before God as is the action of a
judge in giving sentence, or a magistrate in ruling, or a minister in preaching.
So the Christian believes that every task had its own intrinsic value and he
integrates every vocation into his life of devotion. In every task he performs he
considers the possibility of glorifying God and expressing his love for his
neighbour in that work. Latimer could say, This is a wonderful thing, that the
Saviour of the world, and the King above all kings, was not ashamed to labour,
yes and to use so simple an occupation. In this he sanctified all manner of
occupations. Perkins again said that Christians can serve God in any kind of

calling, though it be but to sweep the house or keep sheep. It is that

conviction which lies at the basis of the Christian living a peaceful and quiet
life. The simplest actions, such as a man loving his wife and children, eating
and drinking at the family table, Mondays washing and changing the sheets
become acts of obedience and are of great account in Gods eyes. All of life is
the Lords. In every activity we may confidently expect the presence and
blessing of God. We live our vocation by faithful obedience to God our Saviour,
not in our prayers alone, but in common tasks we spend our days trusting and
loving the Son of God.
Prayer for peace and quiet is the essential foundation for the spread of the
gospel. Think of how Paul benefited when some Roman official would intervene
on his behalf. For example, in Ephesus there had been a great disturbance
about the Way (Acts 19:23ff). Didnt the Christians cry to God at that time?
Surely they did. We know that the city clerk was aroused and used his authority
in quelling the riot. Then unobtrusively the preachers could carry on their work
of building up believers in the faith. Christians desire an ordered society for the
sake of all its citizens, but especially because then we can fulfil our God-given
responsibilities without hindrance.
These have been great years for quiet and peace in the United Kingdom. God
has heard our prayers for peaceful and quiet lives. We have been able to
establish theological training colleges and seminaries, launch publishing
houses, put up church buildings in new towns, open up web-sites, home-school
our children or begin Christian schools. We have built a Christian Book Shop.
We can preach in most places in the open air, and give out tracts, and meet as
Christian Unions in universities. We can awaken the country to the wickedness
of the killing of the unborn. I have been with a delegation to the Houses of
Parliament to talk about some of these privileges being sustained. All these are
great freedoms allowing us to live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and
holiness. But all is not perfect, and Caesar must always be watched or he will
take our freedoms from us. The closure of the Christian school in east London
because the state has criminalised corporal punishment in every single school,
even when the parents give their unanimous approval, is a grievous matter. I
have no doubt that other such intrusions into our living peaceful and quiet lives
are ahead of us in the next century. Surely the signs indicate we will meet more
fierce opposition than ever before.
In the rest of the world things are very different. Many states are fiercely
antagonistic to Christianity, especially in the Islamic controlled nations. The
World Mission Digest has calculated that 119 million Christians have been
martyred during this century. Almost all are unknown to us, but they are known
to God. The sufferings of followers of the Lord Jesus are not likely to be
sympathetically and widely reported in the Western world. All of us, but
especially church leaders, need to become acquainted with Paul Marshalls
book, Their Blood Cries Out: the Untold Story of Persecution Against Christians
in the Modern World.
Sometimes one inwardly hesitates when one urges people to believe upon the
Lord Jesus Christ because of the weight of the cross that they will have to bear
following him. Yet we are convinced that there is no rest apart from him. Faith
in Christ changes everything in a persons life. Consider a house purchase:

someone may say to you that you can buy a new home whenever you want,
and that the only thing you have to do is take out a mortgage and sign the
papers. It is a very simple thing to sit down at a desk and sign a document, but
what you have done then will change the rest of your life. Similarly, but on a
measurelessly deeper level, and in a way that will affect all aspects of your
experience, you faith will change your life when you come for rest to the Lord
Jesus Christ.
You will begin a living relationship with him which will be proved and tested
through may years. You may know times of barrenness and estrangment. You
will know times of joy unspeakable. You can drift from him when things go
smoothly but then the Lord arranges times so that we flee to Christ with new
intensity. Above all God gives us peaceful and quiet lives and so enables us to
live in all godliness and holiness.
17th October 1999 GEOFF THOMAS