Free Prayer

I’ll read it one more time before we get into the first statement which is, it says this, evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice. So let me ask you a question as we get into the first statement which is this, is there a command in this verse? Do you see a command in this verse? It’s implied.

Whatever the implications are there are no direct commands in this verse and that’s actually my first point which is this. Psalm 55 17 is not a command. It is not a command. Now this is a statement spoken by David concerning his prayer but what you do not see here is a law to be followed. You do not see a command to be obeyed. You do not see a law to be followed.

And I’ll say this again but let me just remind us that if you live and if I live, if we live our Christian life in such a way that the only thing that urges us to movement in any way in any action or duty or activity or virtue, if the only thing that ever moves us toward that is a specific command, what you’re going to find is your Christian life is going to be anemic, very anemic, very anemic.

There’s no command in verse number 17. Now in scripture, and I’m just going to read the verses to you, in scripture there are many, many commands to pray, right? Unlike this verse where there is a direct command to pray. Luke 18 verse 1, if you’ll listen to these you can note down the references if you like. And he spake a parable unto them to this end that men ought always to pray and not to faint.

Now that might not be a command to us but it is a command to men and we are men even if you’re a lady, did you know you’re a man? You fall under mankind and so it’s a command for you that men ought always to pray and not to faint. Romans 12 verse 12 says this, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer. Ephesians 6, 8 says this, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching therein too with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.

Listen, this is just a few of them, I’m trying to give you a breadth of verses on prayer where God commands us to pray. Colossians 4 verse 2, continuing prayer and watching the same with thanksgiving. First Thessalonians 5, 17, pray without ceasing. First Timothy 2, 8, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. First Peter 4, 7, but the end of all things is at hand, be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer.

So there’s not a lack of verses in scripture that tell us to pray but in all of these verses and many many others we can go to in the scripture, let me ask you a question, is there a verse anywhere in which we are told when to pray as a matter of a command? Is there a verse? Verses I just read, we see pray, continuing instant, pray without ceasing and men aren’t always to pray, verses like that, but there’s no place in there where there’s a mention of when or how often we are to pray.

There’s just not, what’s that? Without ceasing, exactly, which either means we cannot engage ourselves in any other activity even sleep or else that doesn’t quite mean that in the literal sense that we could take it to mean. So what you will not find in scriptures, although you’ll find many commands to pray, you will not find a command when to pray or how often to pray. What you do find in scripture however is you find scriptures that describe when and how often various saints in scripture prayed as an example to us.

Now an example is different than a command. An example is different than a command. When it comes to how we use the bible examples do not equal commands. Listen to these examples. As I said we are commanded to pray but how often and when to pray is they’re not covered in the commands. But we do have a lot of examples, listen to these, about when and how frequently.

Psalm 86 verse 3, be merciful unto me, O Lord, for I cry unto thee daily. Psalm 88 verse 13 says this, but unto thee have I cried, O Lord, and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee. Psalm 63 verse 6, when I remember thee upon my bed and meditate on thee in the night watches. So we have daily, we have the psalmist praying in the morning, we have the psalmist praying at night.

Psalm 119 verse 62, at midnight will I rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgments. Midnight. Psalm 119 verse 47 and 48 say this, I have prevented the dawning of the morning. That is prevent doesn’t mean stop it from dawning, it means go before. I have prevented the dawning of the morning and cried. I hoped in thy word, mine eyes prevent the night watches that I might meditate in thy word.

Of course, you know the famous example of Daniel, especially when we read in the text, evening, morning, and at noon will I pray. Now when Daniel 6 says this, and when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house and his windows being opened in the bed in his chamber towards Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed. Now we’re going to come back to that in a minute, but notice three times a day and he prayed and gave thanks before his God as he did a four time.

So we’re familiar with the example of Daniel praying three times a day like we read in this psalm. Mark 1 verse 35 says this, and in the morning rising up a great while before day, not just the morning, but before the morning, he went out and departed into a solitary place and there prayed, speaking of our Lord. Luke 6 12 says this, also of our Lord, and it came to pass in those days that he went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God.

And then Acts 10 verse 9, on the morrow, as they went on their journey and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the house top to pray about the sixth hour, which is noon. Now if we took all of these examples that we have, and there’s others, but if we took all these examples and we made a composite, we kind of combined them together and we let all of those examples serve as commands, and that’s the danger.

Here’s what that would mean. Every single day we pray all night, we pray, and then during the day we pray before the morning, in the morning, at noon, and at night. That’s what that would mean if we took all of them as commands. But they’re not commands, they’re examples. So in review, what do we have? In scripture we have many commands to pray, but the Lord doesn’t tell us when and how often.

And to be honest with you, you have probably had that question in your mind, how often should you pray? And of course, preachers have never been lacking advice in this way. Well you should pray in the morning. Some preachers say you should pray at night. Some preachers say you should pray twice a day. Some preachers say pray three times a day. Some preachers talk about praying all night.

All we have in scripture are examples. Examples. But none of these verses that I just read to you, in none of them do we find a command of when or how often. We find examples of saints who prayed a certain amount of time. So we are commanded to pray, but not even in verse 17. We are commanded to pray, but we are not commanded when or how often.

So let’s look back at verse number 17. Evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice. I want you to think and meditate upon this question with me. If David is commanded to pray, fine, but he is not commanded in scripture that we know of to pray a certain amount of time or to pray three times a day, my question for you is this.

Why is he? If David is not commanded to pray three times a day, why is he doing it? You see verse 17, verse 17 is a single saint’s expression of his resolve that he will pray in fellowship with his God. Whether he has some great occasion or reason to pray or whether he doesn’t, because certainly he says he prayed three times a day. I don’t know if this was David’s whole life.

I have no idea of the details. Neither do any of us. Maybe there were times where he had great occasion to pray three times a day and there were probably some calm times in his life where there was no demand to pray for some pressing issue three times a day. But he prayed three times a day, evening, morning and at noon. You see David in this Psalm in verse 17 is doing something to fellowship with his God that is not explicitly commanded.

Yes he’s praying but he has chosen of his own accord, out of his own heart, how often to pray. That is his decision. He has made a decision to fellowship with his God even though that is not explicitly commanded. He is praying, he is praying indeed as God commanded but he is the one choosing how often And that is a free choice that comes out of his affection and his desire, affection to and desire to fellowship with God.

That’s why he’s praying three times a day. And you know that is all found in the phrase, look at verse 17 if you will, evening and morning and at noon will I pray. The will there is an expression of volition. He’s saying I have chosen to do this. I want to pray three times a day. And we know he’s not commanded to do it. You know when I was studying this that was very convicting to me.

That was convicting to me. You know why? Because whenever there is a problem, whenever there is a problem in me with lack of prayer, a failure in prayer, I don’t pray enough, right? That is a direct, that reflects directly upon my affection and my heart toward the Lord, my love for him. Because he doesn’t tell me how often. I could pray, listen, I’m just being transparent with you.

I could pray once a week and that wouldn’t violate scripture. There’s no verse that says that violates scripture so long as I pray. But what would that say about me? And what does it say about David when he’s saying without a command, Lord, I want to pray three times a day. I want to pray evening and morning and at noon. I don’t want to go long periods of time without fellowshiping with my God, whether I have some big need or not.

Right? See, you see, that is a function and a reflection of our affection toward the Lord, where our heart is with him. Brothers and sisters, we do ourselves a great harm by only doing things that God specifically and precisely commands. You see, the reason why there are commands in scripture and then, but often what you find is the exact method or frequency or how or when or in that kind of thing are not exactly told us.

For instance, there’s not a lot in the Bible to give you step by step guidance as to how to share the gospel as far as commands go. The Lord doesn’t say, thou shalt speak this verse and thou shalt speak that verse and then after that you should speak on this subject. He doesn’t do that. He tells us to witness, he gives us a command to witness and then he provides examples to know how to do it.

Right? There are many, many things in scripture that are like that and prayer is one of them. So I want to ask you, how’s your prayer life? No God hasn’t commanded you to pray three times a day, he hasn’t, but do you want to? Do you desire to? To pray this, what David’s praying, again, you can’t say, listen, because of the way this is worded, because of this truth, this is a free choice.

No one can look at the preacher and say, well, preacher, I don’t have time to do that. You can’t look at me because I didn’t tell you you had to do it. Right? I didn’t command you to do it. To do this, verse 17, if you follow this pattern in this example and your heart is drawn to God in this way and you do want to pray three times a day, yes, you will have to make a time investment.

Absolutely. You think David, you know, David, even at this point, David is in a bad place in his life, right? He’s, this is likely written based upon the content of Psalm 55 at a time when he’s running from Saul in that period of time, but David was leading people. David had a lot on his plate. Yes, there was a time investment. Yeah, it took, it took some discipline and it took a conscious decision to say, I will set time aside to talk to God and fellowship with him evening, morning and at noon.

He said evening, morning and at noon, will I pray? I’m going to do it. He shall hear my voice. Right? That is exactly what David is talking about here. It is a time investment. David had to make time and if our heart is drawn to, drawn to prayer in this way, it is something we’re going to have to make time for somehow, some way. Whether it’s three times a day, twice a day, whatever it is, more than three times a day, it’s something that we’re going to have to plan to do.

Another thing I wanted to say about this is that this kind of prayer is for me, another testimony, this kind of prayer that David is describing, this free choice, we might call it free prayer if you want to say it like that. In other words, not done in response to a command, but done as the heart’s response to God to fellowship with him. Right? This kind of prayer before I knew Christ, when I was a religious person, but I was not converted, this kind of prayer was utterly and totally foreign to me.

I had a prayer list. At that time I had a prayer list and I would literally set a timer. The kind of prayer that would be drawn, you’d be drawn to God just to, you hear him calling you and that’s, listen, if you’re a child of God and you have the spirit of God in you from time to time, you are going to hear God’s voice to you.

Just like when our Lord was on the earth with his disciples, there were times when he said, we need to come apart and pray. He heard the voice, literal voice of Christ say, we’re going to come apart, we’re going to pray. And so they went to pray. And so now you have the comforter with you who is the Holy Spirit in place of our Lord physically present.

He is with you. And from time to time, you ought to hear his voice saying, come apart, you need to pray. We need to pray. You need to talk to me. And you know what? You need to listen. When he does that. Before I knew Christ, I didn’t, I never heard that voice. I never, I did the minimum that the preacher at that time, pastor Craig, that the preacher told or suggested that I do so that I could say, you know, check the box.

The idea of hearing the Lord calling me to prayer, never heard of it. The idea of doing it freely without a strict command, never heard of it. The idea of verse 17 wouldn’t do it unless I was commanded to, unless somebody was going to ask. But I want to ask you, that is, I want to tell you something, that that’s kind of like what we mean when we say legalistic.

I know that’s a, that’s a flash point, is it not? But that’s kind of like what we’re talking about because the reverse of that is the Christian who hears the voice of the Lord and his heart is so after the Lord that he wants to pray. Even listen, even if he finds it hard to do. And I trust you all know what I’m talking about. You, every person in this room who has God in, who has God in them, every person in this room knows what it’s like to want to pray but find it difficult to do that same thing.

Can I get a nod? Yeah. You can’t, listen, you and I can’t wait till it’s easy. We have to push through and fight to do it. Our heart has to yearn after the Lord like David’s did. And that’s what will lead us to this free prayer. When we hear his voice and we answer and say, Lord, I will pray. The second statement I want to give you is this.

Praying with the voice is recommended in scripture. Praying with the voice is recommended in scripture. Notice what it says, evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my what? Voice, voice. Usage of the voice is mentioned many, many times in the Psalms. In fact, the word voice, not counting all the synonyms, the word voice by itself is 48 times in the Psalms, 48, 48 times.

And of those 48 times of the word voice in the Psalms, 21 of those are spoken in, are speaking of the voice of the psalmist praying. 21 times. Using your vocal cords, making an audible sound. You say, well, you just, you’re being a little picky, right? What I’m not saying is praying silently is wrong or some sort of error. I’m definitely not saying that. In fact, you remember Hannah, Samuel’s mother, she prayed silently and God answered it.

You remember in the temple with Eli, 1 Samuel 1 13 says this, now Hannah, she’s spoken her heart. She spake in her heart and only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. And God answered that prayer for a child. Okay. So it’s not that praying silently is unheard by God. It’s not that at all. But that doesn’t negate the fact that using the voice so it’s audible is recommended in scripture.

You do see it because praying out loud helps keep distractions from at a minimum because you’re having not only to think, but you’re having to speak and that occupies your mind enough that it just, it keeps your mind occupied enough so things aren’t as distracting. And this is just true. This is just a matter of practice. I’m telling you, it’s true. It’s real. Praying out loud forces you and me to structure our prayer and our words to God and it provides clarity to our feelings and to our desires, which are often very ambiguous.

How many of you have ever had, have ever been in prayer and kind of a silent prayer and you know, not listen, sometimes you pray and you ain’t got words, right? And that’s not what I’m talking about. You know, sometimes your heart cries out to God and you can’t put it into words. I’ve been there and I know what that’s like, but normally that’s not what it’s like.

Right? And so, you know, sometimes you have feelings and you have desires in your heart that you can’t quite articulate. You don’t really even know what you’re asking. You don’t really even know what you want God to do. How many of you know what that’s like? Give me a little nod. Yeah. You don’t even, but by putting it to voice, you’re forcing yourself to actually articulate what do I want God to do instead of just saying, well, God, you know my heart.

No, that’s lazy prayer. We need to say, what do I want God to do? And send it through our mind and use our voice. Use our voice. Put into words exactly what we mean. I want to tell you something. It makes a difference. It is not the same. Another thing that’s not the same that’s also mentioned in the verses I read a minute ago. In fact, I’ll just go, I’ll just read it again.

Now, when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house and his windows being opened in his chamber towards Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day. That also makes a difference. It’s not magical. It’s not commanded. But it is an example, just like what we’ve been talking about, right? The prostrate position before God. It matters. I’m just telling you, what is recommended in the scripture is recommended on purpose.

And sometimes it has effects on our prayer life that we don’t really expect. Well, we think, well, you know, it’s the same difference. Well, you try what the Lord actually speaks here, praying with your voice, praying on your knees before God. You might find it’s different than you thought. Right? You also might find it’s a little bit harder to do because you can’t, because you have to find a quiet place to do it when nobody’s around.

Unless you want somebody to hear all the deep dark thoughts of your heart that you express to God. But that’s exactly what prayer is supposed to be. I think one reason that sometimes people have a hard time praying in public is because we don’t use our voice in private. Use our voice in prayer in private. Eventually it’ll make it easier to use your voice in public prayer, leading others in prayer.

The third statement I want you to see. The content of David’s prayer is absent. Look at verse 17 again. Evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice. Let me ask you a question from that verse. What is David praying about? What’s on his prayer list? You see anything? Nothing. Nothing is on the prayer list. None of the content of David’s prayer in this particular verse is mentioned.

Now there’s many other verses where the content is mentioned, the request is mentioned, even in this psalm. But in this verse it is not mentioned. And maybe that’s the whole point. Because prayer is, maybe the point is not what David is praying about, but the point is that he is in communion and communication with God. Not what he’s praying about, but the fact that he is praying and fellowshipping with God.

Because now we know how our minds work. The moment we start talking about what we pray about is the moment we get distracted from the fact of fellowship with God. We concentrate on the prayer request rather than the fellowship with the God of heaven. Have you ever prayed or when’s the last time that you prayed and you didn’t have a request? You had nothing to ask God for, but you prayed because you just wanted to fellowship with him.

You wanted to kneel before him and listen to his nudges and his words to you by his spirit through his word and you wanted to talk to him and tell him what you thought of him and tell him what you thought about what he’s doing and just sit before him and listen. Fellowship. Right? When’s the last time you’ve done that? Without an occasion. You see there is no occasion to prayer in this verse.

There’s no pressing cause, there’s no urgent need, there’s no obvious reason to pray. I wonder how many Christians don’t pray if they don’t have a reason. I don’t have anything to pray about. I don’t know what to pray about. If that’s your thought, what has happened is you have missed what is the purpose of prayer entirely. The purpose of prayer is not to tell God everything you want.

The purpose of prayer is to fellowship with your God. You see, even though there is no pressing cause, even though there is no urgent need, even though there is no obvious reason to pray in this verse, yet David prays and prays three times a day. Why? Because, because prayer is not just about making our needs and desires known. First and foremost, it is about fellowshipping and communicating with God in a way you can kind of describe or compare prayer to giving God a visit.

Stopping by His house to say hello. Right? Look if you would at a couple of places. Look at Mark chapter 1 and Luke chapter 6. We’re going to go to Luke first. Luke 6 verse 12. Luke 6 verse 12. Notice what it says here. You usually verse 12 is related to verse 13 by people. And I think there’s a reason to relate it. He prayed all night because the next day he was choosing his 12 apostles.

And that was a monumental decision. But the moment, listen, the moment you relate 12 and 13, you lose 12. So you think, well the reason, obviously the reason he’s praying is because he has a monumental decision. Right? That’s a natural kind of deduction. Look at Mark chapter 1. If you would look at verse 35. And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed into a solitary place and there prayed.

You read 36 and 37, there is no obvious occasion for his prayer and yet what do you find him doing? No occasion. No big decision to stay up all night and pray. No pressing needs out of the ordinary and yet what is he doing? He’s still fellowshipping with his father. You see it? So I want to ask you this question. Do we pray only when we have occasion?

When we have a reason? You know sometimes when we get a little slack in our prayers, the Lord gives us occasion. Because the occasion will drive us to him in prayer. And that’s fine and good. That is a method that God uses to get his people to come back to him in prayer. To come back to prayer. He uses occasions. Something to pray about. Some choice to be made.

A decision. Some urgent need. Some trouble. Something like that. He allows it to come into life. Indeed sends it in their life because he knows that when they are faced with that thing, they are going to turn to God. And that is good and that is right and we should and the Lord does not tire of it ever. But without that, we should still be seeking him in prayer.

We should still be fellowshipping even if we have everything in our life is perfect. We have nothing to ask him for. Because he is our father and we should fellowship with him. Do you pray only when you have occasion? Or do you pray out of a heart that wants to fellowship with your father? With your Lord? With your Savior? The last statement I want to give you is this.

We need, and remember we just talked about how often to pray. Praying even when you don’t have occasion. So the last statement is this. We need the fellowship with the Lord throughout the day. He says evening and morning and at noon. That follows the timeline of the Hebrew day which started at sundown, went into the morning and then into the daytime of the next day. That’s why it is in that order.

Evening and morning and at noon. You see when you get up, but I am going to relate it as it is related as we live. We don’t view it like that at all. After this is over you still have several hours of you can do whatever when you get home. It’s the end of your day. But actually in scripture and in the Hebrew mind it was the beginning of the day.

But for us when we get up in the morning we need to pray. You can go to bed a saint and wake up a sinner. Is that not true? You can go to bed high spiritually and wake up a carnal mess. Am I telling the truth or not? There is no guarantee that because you prayed at night that the next morning you’re going to be spiritually minded because you won’t be.

I don’t know something about sleep takes it all away. Takes it all away. You can go to bed a spiritual wake up carnal. How you are before bed has little effect on how you are in the morning. For this reason we need to pray in the morning. Evening, morning and at noon. And then after the morning maybe you pray but then you go to work. Or whether you work outside or at home or you go out to the grocery store.

Whatever you got to do as we go out into the world we deal with the muck and the mire of the world during the first part of the day. The day part of this verse. And when we go out into the world we hear cursing and we hear gossip and we hear slander. During the day we’re faced with temptations that we do not experience nearly as much at home.

Temptations of the flesh. Temptations of anger. Temptations of the tongue. Temptations of the heart. They’re everywhere. And they constantly are before us to pull us away from the Lord. To get our mind on carnal things instead of spiritual things. To tempt us little by little. Get us to sin a little bit at a time and then a little more and then a little more. And sometimes it’s just natural things.

Like you hit your thumb with a hammer. That’s not wrong. You might think it’s wrong. But it’s not wrong. But that’ll create some unusual carnal tendencies in a man. Right? In other words, our feet get dirty in this walk of life. And it is expected. You remember when Jesus washed his disciples feet and Peter said, no wash my hands and my head too. And Jesus said this.

He said, he that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet. In other words, you’re walking in this world, it gets dirty. Here’s the point. You and I need to fellowship with God during the day. And then the evening before we head to bed, we need to fellowship with our God just like we fellowship where we should fellowship with our family when we return from them.

Return to them from work. You see, we need this fellowship with the Lord because again, we’re not talking about prayer lists. Prayer lists are good and right and fine and I use them. But that’s not what we’re talking about. Even if there is no list, we need fellowship with him, to walk with him, speak to him and communicate with him. We need this fellowship with the Lord because we really do need him at every moment of the day.

And that’s what evening and morning and noon indicate. We need his, his, this fellowship to walk in a way that he wants us to walk and then the way that he calls us to walk. We cannot do it in our own strength. But even then, this evening, morning and at noon is not just, Lord, it’s not this, Lord, I pray for strength to walk in the way that you’ve called me to walk.

That’s fine, but that’s not what I’m talking about. This is not just a prayer for strength. Here we are going back to lists, right? And requests, occasions to pray. No. Because this is deriving God’s strength, not just because we ask him, but we derive God’s strength because we fellowship with him. Not because we ask him for it, but because of our nearness to him in fellowship through prayer.

So that going to God, going to God, going, you know, say, well, how am I supposed to do that? I can’t answer that for you. But I want to tell you this, if you have a heart and you want to fellowship with God three times a day, you can do it. It’s possible. If you don’t know how to do it, you can say this, Lord, help me find time.