1 Samuel 16:7, "But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart."

One of the most important components of the victorious Christian life is prayer. A study into the lives of victorious Christians--no matter when they lived nor whether they were men or women, rich or poor, or what particular talent they happened to have--the one thing they held in common was that they were people of prayer.

These days prayer is very much an "in" thing. It used to be a thing that only Christians did. Now it doesn't seem to matter whether a person is a Christian or not, they will still claim that they pray. Not only that, they will claim that God answers their prayers.

There are all kinds of aids out there these days to help you with your prayer life. People are telling stories about how powerful prayer is. I have taken notice of this unusual interest in prayer and decided that I would dedicate a sermon to the subject of prayer. I have entitled it, "Who Prays and Why?"

About the matter of prayer being powerful, I hope I am not wrong when I say that I came to the conclusion that prayer is not powerful. God is powerful. Prayer is not to be an end in itself; it is to be a means to an end. It is the means by which we are able to reach out and touch a powerful God.

For this reason it is not necessary to learn some kind of prayer technique. It is said that there are different kinds of prayer, and maybe there are. But as far as true prayer is concerned, it would be better rather to say that people pray with different attitudes. It is the attitude that carries the prayer.

It would be accurate to say that, not only do we pray with different attitudes, we also pray for different things. It is believed that the more we pray, the better it is. I am sure there is something to that. On the other hand, I would rather pray right than pray a lot. I do believe it is possible to pray right and to pray wrong. When I say pray right and pray wrong, I am not talking about techniques or the words we use; I am talking about the attitudes we have when we pray. Our attitudes when we pray will affect what we expect from prayer, or you might say, our attitudes will affect what we expect will happen when we pray.

Our prayers are a great indicator of the kind of people we are. For this reason it is possible to look at what we are praying or not praying about and discover what kind of people we are.

There are a huge number of references to prayer given in the Bible. The computer concordance indicates there are 737 references to either prayer, pray, prayed, or praying. Of course, not all of these refer to praying to God. The old word "pray" means to request something from someone. So I could say, "I pray you, come over to my house for dinner tomorrow." Nevertheless, prayer is a major event in the Scriptures.

Let's think for a moment about who prays and why. Let's use people whose prayers are recorded in the Scripture as typical of certain types of people who pray. We will look at the kind of people they were. You won't have to be a Greek or Hebrew scholar to see yourselves in some of them. As an elderly gentleman I used to work for liked to say, "People is people and folks is folks."

The first person we will consider as having prayed is a person who didn't pray at all. You might wonder why we are using him as an example, but you will soon see. The person I am referring to is the pharaoh who was over all Egypt when Moses came to him and asked him to set the Hebrews free.

You remember what happened. The Hebrews had become the slaves of the Egyptian government and were engaged in all kinds of public works projects for which the pharaohs were famous. Moses approached the pharaoh and asked him to let the people go free, but the pharaoh refused. And so a chain of events was set in motion that would eventually leave his country in ruins. The Bible records them as the ten plagues of Egypt.

As the plagues began to happen, things began then to go from bad to worse. Several times the pharaoh requested that Moses pray for him and his people. Here is one instance in Exodus 10:16-17: "Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste; and he said, I have sinned against the LORD your God, and against you. Now therefore forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and entreat the LORD your God, that He may take away from me this death only."

Did you catch the gist of that? On the surface it appeared as though he had had a true change of heart. He even admitted he had done wrong. He confessed that he had sinned against God and against Moses. He sounded genuinely sorry, because he said "pray just this once." That sounded as though he were going to put the past behind him and turn over a new leaf.

When we read this story in Exodus, we see repeated references to the fact that it was the Lord who hardened Pharaoh's heart. I have thought about that many times, because it makes it look as though the Lord was setting him up and using him to make a point.

I have since come to the conclusion that what happened was that the Lord committed to staying with Pharaoh until something happened. When the Spirit of the Lord comes to a person in an important way, the person will not be the same as they were before. They will either get closer to God or they will, like Pharaoh, actually become hardened. It could be said that God was responsible for that like rain is responsible for making me wet. God does make it rain, and I suppose it could be said that God soaked me with water. But it was my choice to go out in the rain. I am glad God is persistent with us. He doesn't try just once to get us to repent. He will try repeatedly, mostly through natural means, to get us to change our ways and return to Him. When we resist Him, it is not uncommon for things to go from bad to worse for us, too.

Perhaps you have thought about this in relationship to why people who were raised in Christian homes leave the church. Listen to the words of Jesus in Luke 9:62: "And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." This is saying that you don't want to fool around with your conscience. It is more serious to have known the truth and reject it than not to have known it at all.

The Apostle Paul also speaks of this phenomena in Timothy 4:1-2: "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron."

When the Spirit of God has worked and is working in the heart, like in the case of Pharaoh, it actually becomes dangerous to refuse. We can all think of situations where a person who used to be a Christian turned out worse than a person who was never a Christian at all for the simple reason they trampled on their conscience.

In any case, Pharaoh represents one kind of person who prays (or in this case, a person who requests prayer). Pharaoh represents the person who is under tremendous conviction and asks God to do something for them just to stop whatever it is in their life that is upsetting the status quo. I believe there are, from time to time, genuine conversions that come out of the proverbial foxhole. But we might not want to do a study of how many people pray to God when they get into trouble, and then the minute things are back to normal, they ignore all that they have promised the Lord.

This is not to say we should not make promises when we are in trouble, but it is definitely to our advantage to follow through. In Deuteronomy 23:21, it says: "When thou shalt vow a vow unto the LORD thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it: for the LORD thy God will surely require it of thee; and it would be sin in thee." God does not take lightly the promises we make to Him.

Another group mentioned in Scripture who prayed was the Pharisees. Listen to this in Matthew 6:5-6: "And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

You may be thinking we were going to talk about the Pharisees. These texts are talking about the hypocrites. I wondered about that myself until I looked at Matthew 23, and there Jesus repeatedly says, "Pharisees, Hypocrites." It is obvious that He equated the Pharisees to hypocrites.

Jesus is the first one in the Bible to use the word "hypocrite." That word in the Greek language meant actor. An actor is someone who pretends to be someone they are not. It isn't hard to imagine what the problem is with this kind of attitude in prayer.

Some people will use prayer as a smoke screen. It makes them look as though they are very religious, when in their hearts they are not. I have often wondered if anyone knows when a person is being a hypocrite in their prayers. I believe their families know.

The hardest place of all to be a Christian is at home. People will often go to church and appear to be religious. They may even hold an office in the church. There they are, up front of everybody, saying something like, "Aren't we glad that we are part of the family of God?" And there sitting in the congregation are the spouse and children who are thinking, "Look who is talking. Who does he think he is kidding?"

This is why Jesus tells us that being up front and praying in public is no substitute for a personal devotional life. You can be an up-front Christian and be hypocrite; but if you spend time with Jesus alone in prayer on a regular basis, you may still have weaknesses to cope with, but your family will not see you as a hypocrite. That will be because, when you have a private time with God, you will not be two different people.

You might be thinking it would be better for you to not pray up front anymore, just in case. No, this is not the case. What would be better is that you add private time with God, and that will make the life you live in front of everyone consistent with your private life. By the way, the biggest beneficiaries of your time alone with God will be the members of your own family.

It is my personal conviction that we must be careful not to use prayer to try to manipulate each other. I believe this happens more often than we may think. It may not always be intentional, but somehow we get into it before we know it.

The tendency to manipulate each other using prayer is easier to recognize in the arena of the charismatics. You might hear them say they have a "word from the Lord." They may speak of what they call a "word of knowledge." They may maintain that the Lord told them to say such and such to you. They might even claim that the other day they were praying about some situation in your life and the Lord told them what you needed to do.

I don't know how you feel about this kind of involvement, but I am not comfortable with it. I am aware that according to Scripture God sent messengers with special messages for people. I believe He can still do that, and does. It is a function of what is called the gift of prophecy; but in this sense it has nothing to do with foretelling the future.

I am convinced that the Lord speaks to each of us through His Word. I also believe that He impresses our thoughts through the Holy Spirit. But I am not comfortable with the concept, "God told me this" or "God told me that."

What concerns me is that, if God is telling so many people everything they are giving Him the credit for telling them, He must not be a God of order and law but of confusion. There seems to be little harmony between what one person says God is telling them and what another person says God is telling them.

This is one reason it is more and more necessary to turn to the written Word of God for our instructions. I have long said that God would never tell one person something that was not in harmony with Scripture. But I am sorry to say it has become so bad these days that once in a while you will hear someone say, "I don't care what the Bible says, I know what God told me."

Here is something even more sensitive. I believe we ought to be careful about how we pray in public. As a minister of the gospel, I don't want to misrepresent the truth or to distort it in any way. Therefore, I am sensitive, as far as I am concerned, not to pray in front of the congregation what should be in fact a private prayer.

Before I enter the pulpit to preach, I must pray that God will anoint my heart and my lips, that He will open my mind so the truth may be fairly and accurately conveyed, in spite of the fact that I am a mere mortal and a sinner being saved by grace. This is why I do not say in my public prayer, "And so, Lord, let my words be Your words, may all that I say be only what You want me to say."

You might ask what could be wrong with that. Nothing, I suppose, except I think such a prayer could be a subconsious way of telling people that they had better listen to me, because everything I am going to say is right from God. Though I would surely hope this would be so, I do not want to set myself above the people in such a way that they will not listen critically and test all I say by a "thus saith the Lord."

When you listen to someone preach, remember the words of Scripture that say, "To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them." We could add, "...whether or not they say it is straight from the Lord or that He told them to say such and such." It seems to me we need to make a clear distinction between how we pray privately and how we pray publicly. One prayer is not better than the other or more important than the other. Rather, the latter is really dependent on the former. Neither are they to be the same kind of prayer; they are to be different. In private prayer, I am speaking for myself, and in public prayer, I am speaking for the entire congregation.

A description of another type of person who prays is found in Luke 18:10-14: "Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.' And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner.' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."

Notice before we continue that this text makes another reference to the prayers of the Pharisees. With the kind of attitude the Pharisee had, he really didn't need to pray. But on the other hand, I suppose a person could say there was nothing wrong with what he was saying. He was only giving thanks to God for all his blessings. He had a high sense of self-esteem, and his self-image was very healthy. (By the way, you might be interested to know that they have done studies of hardened criminals and discovered they typically have a very high sense of self-esteem). Another thought that comes to mind when we read the Pharisee's prayer is that we are only as good as the people we compare ourselves with.

There is a text that says, "For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise" (2 Corinthians 10:12). The point of this text is easy to grasp. When we want to make ourselves look good, we will usually compare ourselves with those whom we consider to be inferior. The Scripture says that that is not a good idea.

It is perfectly all right to compare ourselves with Jesus. The good part of that is, when we do this, two things happen: First, we are all on the same level in relationship to Him. As they say, the ground at the foot of the cross is level. And secondly, although comparing ourselves with Jesus will initially put us down, it is followed by His picking us up, just as the text says that those who humble themselves shall be exalted, and those who exalt themselves will be abased.

We have been long enough with the Pharisee's prayer. Let us move on and take a look at the prayer of the publican. You may be aware that the publicans were tax collectors. These days we would say they were working for the IRS. To be a publican was to be immediately associated with most everything bad. This wasn't necessarily true, however. The Scripture refers to two publicans who were good people. One was the Apostle Matthew, the one who wrote the first book of the New Testament, and the other was Zacchaeus, the short man who climbed up a tree to get a good view of Jesus and who then came down when Jesus invited Himself to his house for dinner.

Notice the self-concept the publican expressed in his prayer. You might think he was only telling it like it was, but this is not necessarily true. There were other options. He might have prayed the following kind of prayer: "Dear Lord, You know, God, the people are really on my case. They are trying to put me down all the time. I know that any of them would do what I do for a living if they were smart enough, but they didn't get the breaks that I got and so they are just jealous. Help me to hang in there, Lord, because I know that I am as good as any one of them. Amen."

This type of prayer was an option. But notice that was not the attitude of the publican. From the perspective of pop psychology he had a very low self-esteem. The way Jesus describes the man it even makes you think that he was loaded with guilt, which, to someone in this day and age, would be a symptom of dysfunction. How did that text read again? "And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner'."

Friends, what happens in this prayer is very important and we need to take the matter seriously, because it flies in the face of a lot of what is being taught these days. This poor publican doesn't sound like a person who was "up" on himself or that he had an attitude of loving himself first. Notice what Jesus said is the result of this type of attitude as far as God is concerned. "I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."

Did you get the full significance of what is said here? Today's movement to exalt ourselves, to love ourselves first, and to look out for number one is confronted head on by the words of Jesus. These words are not symbolic; neither do they have double meanings or hidden messages. The only way we can miss the point is to simply ignore what Jesus said. Ignore His words if we wish, but to ignore the words of Jesus is risky. To ignore the words of Jesus is equivalent to ignoring the law of gravity. You can do it if you wish, but there will be a price to pay.

There are those who say we need to do a lot of positive self-talk and to affirm ourselves every chance we get. However, Jesus said if we take that attitude into our prayers, we will be in for a big surprise. Remember, sin got its start from positive self-talk. Lucifer said, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High" (Isaiah 14:13-14).

It is a contradiction of terms, but in the life of the victorious Christian, the way up is down. Let me tell you a story I came across that illustrates that point.

A man was scuba diving in Florida in one of the numerous underground rivers. Somewhere into his dive he noticed that his air bubbles seemed to be floating down instead of up. Now, everyone knows that bubbles don't float down but always float up. Somehow this young man had lost his sense of balance and had become disoriented. He no longer had the ability to recognize up from down.

Even in his confusion he realized he was in trouble and had to get to the surface as quickly as possible. The problem he had to solve was which way should he go? He watched as his air bubbles floated downward. Experience had taught him that, when under water and you want to go up, you simply follow the bubbles. That was head knowledge. But the diver's feelings told him the surface was in the opposite direction and the bubble theory was mistaken this time. That was heart knowledge.

He knew he had to make a life and death decision. He had to decide if he was going to follow the rules and do what he knew to be right or to follow his feelings. To his credit, he decided to do what he knew to be right, and he followed the bubbles down, which was really up, and reached the surface safely.

This is where we are in this time of earth's history. The Bible tells us the way out. It tells us to be humble. But our culture has actually institutionalized pride and selfishness. These twin attitudes have always existed, but in our lifetime we have seen them rise to greater and greater prominence. It is now actually popular to be proud and selfish. This may be acceptable to man, but it is unacceptable with God. Jesus went so far as to say that the only way to be acceptable to God is to be humble and self-effacing.

Can't see the sense in that? The person who is proud and selfish doesn't need what God has to offer, inasmuch as they are pretty much their own gods.

Who prays? There are hundreds of examples in the Bible of men and women who prayed. They were all kinds of people, and they prayed in all kinds of circumstances for all kinds of things.

The victorious Christian life is a matter of prayer. But prayer is not about techniques or using certain words. Victorious living is in the final analysis about attitudes. It is possible to pray for all the right things but for all the wrong reasons. Because of this, we must first of all pray that the Lord Who alone can read what we are really like, will reveal to us what we really need most. Actually, what we need most is a change of attitude, and that can come only from a change of heart.

It is for this reason that God's invitation to us is always, "My son, my daughter, give Me your heart." This is why our main concern every day should be to make sure our heart is right with God.

I invite you to do a reality check on your prayers. Not so that you will stop praying, but rather so that by the grace of God you will pray better. We will all pray better as we allow God to change us. Let us begin by praying as David did, "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me."