A Wrong Motive For Prayer

Exodus 8:8 KJV Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Intreat the LORD, that he may take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the LORD.

I. INTRODUCTION—MOTIVES

A. General

Archibald Alexander—Men are more accountable for their motives than for anything else and primarily morality consists in the motives that are found in the affections.

F. D. Maurice—Acts are nothing except as they are fruits of a state, they indicate what a man is.

H. W. Beecher—God made man to go by motives, and he will not go without them, any more than a boat without steam, or a car without gas.

-We have to be careful of our motives!

B. Texas Bible College Days

I can hardly forget, although there are times I wish I could forget, what Brother Kelsey Griffin told us one day in class when he was speaking of the judgment seat of Christ. He was going through the varying degrees of fire that would try our works and he launched out with the thought that God was more concerned with our motives than with our success. He told us that men far too often look to the outward trappings of success in a man’s life and ministry and come to the conclusion that God must be in their efforts. But what troubled me so much was the next thing that he said, God is not moved by our successes but rather by our motives. There will come a time that He will test our motives to see if they are Spirit-driven or flesh-driven.

1 Corinthians 3:13 KJV Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.

1 Corinthians 4:5 KJV Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

-Our service to God has to be motivated by a proper motive. You may have poor motives and good service and have the ability to fool those who are around you. Some of the men in the Bible did this:

• Judas seemingly concerned with the poor and disdained the alabaster box being broken.

• Ananias and Sapphira led the early Church to believe they were giving all when they were only giving a portion.

• When the Lord was performing the miracles, He proved that there were some who were merely following because they wanted the bread or the healing but did not want His cross.

• Simon the sorcerer betrayed his motive when he tried to buy the gift of the Holy Ghost.

• Demas ultimately walked away because his motives were not righteous.

-We can have good service in the Kingdom of God and have poor motives directing us. If you try to serve the Lord with the wrong motive, in the long run it will come to nothing.

II. PHAROAH AND THE FROGS

-This particular text has been preached from in a dozen different ways. In years past, Brother Alan Oggs was known for his preaching of a sermon, in numerous places, “One More Night with the Frogs.” I heard him preach it one Sunday morning at Brother Wayne McClain’s in Pasadena, Texas around 1990 or so.

-The gist of Brother Oggs message is that people are willing to live with a lot of sinful and less than ideal situations in their lives. God can provide immediate deliverance for them but for some reason they choose to spend one more night with the frogs.

-I want to go in a bit different direction with this text and particularly concerning prayer and how we pray.

A. God’s Judgments

-It is amazing how that God uses various means of judgments throughout the Word of God to get people to return back to Him.

• He uses lions and lice.

• He can use famines and flies.

• He can use the sun or even caterpillars.

• He can use a steady beat of rain to overwhelm the mountains.

• He can take that same rain and use it to bog down the chariots of Sisera.

• He can use angels or dust to accomplish his will.

-So now we come to the place where that God is going to use a bunch of frogs to humble the great and mighty Pharoah.

-There is a lot of irony in God’s judgment of Egypt. One of their deities was a frog. On the graves of the Egyptians were frog-headed goddesses and they were worshiped. So God asks, “You love frogs? Good! I can give you frogs!”