NO EXPIRATION DATE ON PRAYERS
Acts 10:4
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: HOW TO GET THE PROOF
1. A man went to his lawyer and told him, "My neighbor owes me $500 and he won’t pay up. What should I do?"
2. "Do you have any proof he owes you the money?" asked the lawyer. "Nope," replied the man.
3. "OK, then write him a letter asking him for the $5,000 he owes you," said the lawyer.
4. "But it's only $500," replied the man. "Precisely. That’s what he will reply and then you’ll have your proof!"
B. DEFINED: “Expiration Dates”
1. the date after which something (such as a credit card) is no longer in effect
2. the date after which a product’s (such as food) quality declines (spoils) or its effectiveness declines (like medicines, etc.).
3. Usually it’s a previously determined date after which something should no longer be used, either by law or by exceeding its shelf life.
C. DOES EVERYTHING EXPIRE?
1. All kinds of food items are subject to spoilage and should be thrown away if past their use by date or if their smell or color changes. Breads and other baked goods can spoil, but are less likely to become dangerous.
2. Almost all manufactured goods, prescription drugs, even wood & plastic decompose over a lengthy period of time. The sun’s radiation, heat, water, wear & tear take their toll as time marches on.
3. Humans too are good for up to 120 or so years, and we wear out. Eventually the sun, moon, and stars will all wear out.
4. EVERYTHING HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE ON IT – WITH ONE EXCEPTION – PRAYER! The title of this message is “No Expiration Date on Prayers.” Prayers don’t have a time limit on them; why not?
I. BECAUSE GOD KEEPS HIS PROMISES NO MATTER WHAT!
A. HE PROMISES TO ANSWER OUR PRAYERS
1. Ps. 91:15; “He will call on me, and I will answer him...”
2. Zech. 13:9; “They will call on my name and I will answer them.”
3. Lk. 11:9; “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
4. Jn. 15:7; “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
B. GOD ALWAYS KEEPS HIS WORD
1. God teaches that we must “keep [our] oath, even if it hurts” (Ps. 15:4; NIV 1984). God teaches this because that’s what He does.
2. Josh. 21:45 “Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.”
3. “For You have magnified Your Word above all Your name” Ps. 138:2. God is a promise-Keeper!
4. GOD ISN’T LIMITED BY TIME. Whether He answers in our lifetime or not, God will be faithful to answer our prayers, Acts 16:31. Often prayers are answered after the death of the pray-ers.
C. ILLUS.: ATHEIST SAVED AFTER DEATH
1. Howard Storm was a University professor at N. Kentucky U, an atheist, who believed that religion was a fantasy. He was touring Paris, France, when he had a perforated stomach and was rushed to a hospital, barely alive.
2. It was a weekend, and because they have social medicine, there were no surgeons on call at the hospital. He was put on life-support. He died and angels took him to hell, where he had violent encounters with hordes of demon spirits.
3. In a moment of relief, he remembered his former life. One scene came back to him, when he was a boy sitting on his grandmother’s lap. He remembered what she was saying to him, “If you ever get in trouble, call upon the name of Jesus.”
4. He looked up into the darkness of hell and began to whisper, “Jesus!” The demon hordes drew near, but when he said “Jesus” louder, they drew back. He continued until he was yelling with all his might, “Jeeesssuuusss!”
5. Suddenly a point of light appeared above him in the darkness. It grew into a beam of light shining on him, brighter & brighter until it blazed all around him. Jesus had come for him! Suddenly he woke up and found himself in the surgery suite being prepared for surgery. Storm became a great witness for Christ. [An Atheist Who Found Christ, Bettie Welch]
6. His grandmother’s prayer was answered long after she was dead! God is faithful!
II. BECAUSE OUR TIMING ISN’T ALWAYS GOD’S TIMING
Sometimes prayers aren’t answered quickly.
A. AT TIMES, CIRCUMSTANCES MUST DEVELOP
1. God promised Abraham that his descendants would possess the land of Canaan/ Palestine. The answer to this promise, God said, would be delayed for 400 years. Why? Because “the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure,” Gen. 15:16.
2. God would only evict the currents tenants when their guilt & sin became so serious that justice demanded they be judged. Then God would judge them, removing the wicked and putting righteous people the land.
B. AT TIMES, PEOPLE HAVE TO CHANGE
1. Joseph (Jacob’s son) was shown he would be a ruler, but he wasn’t ready for that position. He had to be tried, tested and humbled. After something like 17(?) years (Gen. 41:46) Joseph was finally ready to be the Prime Minister of Egypt.
2. Sometimes God is waiting on people to change to answer prayer. Sinners have to be convicted of their sins and become willing to change. Hard hearts must be broken; Winter must become Spring. God’s timing is often different from ours. God’s usually not early, but he’s never late!
C. ILLUS.: GOD’S UNUSUAL WAYS
“No one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end” Eccles. 3:11.
1. The Los Angeles Times featured an article entitled, “Nature Turns Massive Fire at Yellowstone to it Benefit.” “Five years after devastating wild-fires burned about 1.2 million acres in the greater Yellowstone area, researchers are finding long-term beneficial effects, including a vigorous recovery of most plants and steady and growing populations of large animals. The forest is going to be reestablished. In many cases the seedling density is greater than the original stand density.”
2. It continued, “In many burned-over areas where mature lodgepole pines once stood...the number of established seedlings is eight times as large as the original number of trees. Many lodgepole seeds require fire to open.” [George Wood]
3. Maybe last year a fire blazed in your life and burned up a lot of things. If so, that may release a new season of productiveness in the Lord. God may be doing something and we don’t see the reasons why. Trust in the Lord!
III. BECAUSE GOD STORES-UP OUR PRAYERS
A. OUR PRAYERS BECOME MEMORIALS
1. The fact that Revelation 5:8 says there were 24 elders, each having a bowl "filled" with incense, and that in 8:3-4, a mighty angel holds a sensor with "much incense" -- both referring to prayers of the saints -- indicates that a great quantity had been stored up and was now being offered before God.
2. This is not unlike when an angel appeared to Cornelius, the Centurion, in Acts 10:4; “Cornelius stared at him in fear. “What is it, Lord?” he asked. The angel answered, “Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God,” NKJV. The Greek word translated “memorial” is mnemosunon.
3. It’s used of the woman who anointed Jesus for burial, where Jesus said that what she had done would be “spoken of IN MEMORY of her,” Mt. 26:13; Mk. 14:9, NASB.
4. In Acts 10:4, all Cornelius’ prayers had been kept by God. God decided that they moment had arrived to answer Cornelius’ prayers.
B. OUR PRAYERS ARE TREASURED UP BEFORE GOD
1. The beautiful truth communicated is that our prayers are never lost or forgotten. If they must be delayed, they are carefully stored up by God to be remembered at another time. David remarked how God didn’t forget one of his tears, “You number and record my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle--are they not in Your book?” Ps. 56:8 Amp.
2. In Malachi, God said he would remember the kind words said about Him by believers, by making a “book of remembrance” Mal. 3:16.
3. God is in the habit of remembering: each of our tears, our kind words, and our prayers. They are laid up as a memorial before him.
4. All you mothers, who pray for your children; not one of your prayers will be lost! Even if you die without seeing your prayers answered, your prayers will live on and continue to have effect until each one of them is fulfilled! Acts 16:31, “you will be saved, and your household”/family.
5. Herodotus, Aristophanes, Thucydides, Plutarch, & others, said it was a part of a sacrifice which was burned on the altar together with the frankincense -- that its fragrance might ascend to heaven and commend the offerer to God's remembrance.
6. This is graphically pictured in Rev. 5:8, “...the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.” See Rev. 8:3-4.
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION
1. Hudson Taylor was a man of great faith in God, as well as a great missionary. When he first went to China, it was in a sailing vessel.
2. Very close to the shore of a cannibal island the breeze stopped completely, and the ship was slowly drifting toward the island.
3. The cannibals of the island lined up on the shore with their axes and mallets, eagerly anticipating a feast. The captain came to Mr. Taylor and asked him to pray for the help of God.
4. "I will," said Taylor, "provided you set your sail to catch the breeze." The captain said, “If I do that, in front of my men, I’ll make myself a laughing stock by unfurling sails in a dead calm.”
5. Taylor said, "I’ll not undertake to pray for the vessel unless you will prepare the sails." And it was done. The missionary went to his room to pray.
6. While still engaged in prayer, there was a knock at his door. "Who is there?" The captain's voice responded, "Are you still praying for wind?" "Yes."
7. "Well," said the captain, "you'd better stop praying, for we have more wind than we can well manage."
8. And, sure enough, when but a hundred yards from shore, a strong wind struck the sails of the boat, so that the inhabitants of the island were cheated out of their human prey. Source: Signs of the Times
B. THE CALL
1. Let’s stir ourselves up to pray!
2. In Revelation 8:3-4 you’ll find that the great angel who stood before God with the golden censer in his hand, full of the prayers of the saints, held it up and the smoke went up to God.
3. But, after a while, when the incense was all burnt out, he took that golden censer and he filled it with coals from off the altar, and then you notice what he did—he emptied the golden censer out upon the earth, and there were voices and thunders and lightning and earthquakes.
4. Meaning of the passage? Once prayer has finished being offered, then God turns that instrument into a distributor of His power! The effects are voices and thunders and lightning and earthquakes.
5. All that’s needed for victory is that we pray! All things are possible to us! You have the key in the door of Heaven, keep it there and turn it till the gate shall open. Let’s pray, Church!
