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Help, Lord!
A Pocket Paper \\ from \\ The Donelson Fellowship \\ *______________*
*Robert J. Morgan \\ *March 19, 2000
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*Our current series *of sermons is entitled "God Will Make A Way," based on the story of the Children of Israel at the Red Sea.
You remember how they were trapped there in that desert near the shores of that vast lake.
They could go neither forward nor backward, and they faced two equally undesirable options.
They could either drown in the sea or they could be mowed down by the sword.
Their situation seemed hopeless.
But the story in Exodus 14 is given to show us that there are no hopeless situations where God is concerned, that He will always make a way when there seems to be no way.
He works in ways we cannot see.
With that in mind, we've been drawing out a sequence of rules from Exodus 14 for handling the discouraging times in our lives.
There are ten principles or rules here in Exodus 14 that can help us in any difficulty we ever encounter.
The first three, as we've already seen, are these:
{{{"
*Red Sea Rule #1:* When you find yourself in a tough place, recognize that God has either put you here or allowed you to be in this situation for reasons known for now perhaps only to Himself.
*Red Sea Rule #2:* Be more concerned for God's glory than for your own relief.
*Red Sea Rule #3:* Acknowledge your enemy, but keep your eyes on Christ.
}}}
Now today we're coming to…
*Red Sea Rule #4: Pray.*
Look at Exodus 14:10: /And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them.
So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord./
We aren't talking about our regular, daily prayer habits here, as important as those are.
We're talking about crisis-time prayers, prayers that demand importunity and unusual intensity.
Prayers for those life-threatening or soul-shattering times that engulf us.
Times when we /cry out/ to the Lord.
What can we learn here from Exodus 14 about such prayers?
*Urgent*
First, notice the urgency of the prayer that ascended to heaven, as evidenced by the verb: /So they were afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord./
I had a friend in college named Joy Thompson whose father had written a little book on prayer that was published by Back to the Bible.
My copy is underlined and tattered, but I still treasure it.
Here's something that Cameron V. Thompson said:
/There comes a time, in spite of our soft, modern ways, when we must be desperate in prayer, when we must wrestle, when we must be outspoken, shameless and importunate.
Many of the prayers recorded in Scripture are "cries," and the Hebrew and Greek words are very strong.
Despite opinions to the contrary, the Bible recognizes such a thing as storming heaven--"praying through."
The fervent prayer of a righteous man is mighty in its working./
/"O God, Thou must do as Thou has said!" is the cry of those who must have an answer, who cannot be denied.
It is not that we overcome the reluctance of God; rather that we take hold of His willingness, plowing through principalities and powers, inviting His almighty power into our desperate needs./
On various occasions in the past when I've been in Chicago I've visited the Old Pacific Garden Mission, the "grandfather" of all the rescue missions in America.
Until recently I didn't know how the Pacific Garden Mission got its start; but I've come across an old book that tells of its early days.
In the 1880s, the Pacific Beer Garden in Chicago was for sale.
Long regarded as the most notorious and murderous bar in the Midwest, it was nightly filled with alcohol, drugs, gambling, immorality, and the darkest figures of the underworld.
Imagine, then, how surprised Chicagoans were to wake up one morning in1880 and read that a sweet Christian couple, George and Sarah Clarke, had purchased the lease for the Pacific Beer Garden.
But Colonel Clarke and his wife knew what they were doing.
Promptly dropping the word /Beer,/ they added the word /Mission, /and launched a ministry to homeless alcoholics and downtrodden men and women.
Thus was born the now-world-famous ministry of the Pacific Garden Mission of Chicago--the "Old Lighthouse"--the second oldest rescue mission in the United States.
In the early years, Colonel and Mrs. Clarke bore the cost of the mission themselves, but as expenses grew and the ministry expanded their funds became low.
Eventually the day came when they could not pay the rent.
Attempts to secure the needed funds failed, and Colonel Clarke was told that he had only twenty-four hours to make the payment; otherwise he would lose his lease, and the Pacific Garden Mission would close.
Throughout the night, Colonel and Mrs. Clarke prayed, asking God to guide and to provide in His own way and time.
They reminded the Lord of the souls being saved each night, of the men and women whose lives were being salvaged.
They asked Him why they should find themselves in such straits while trying to do His work.
But, determining to trust and not question, they remained before the Throne of Grace in simple faith and in earnest pleading until the breaking of dawn.
When they emerged from their Morgan Park house that morning, they gasped.
What had happened to their front yard?
It was covered with something white, something that instantly reminded them of the manna of the Old Testament.
Looking closer, they discovered their lawn was filled with mushrooms of the very best quality.
It was quite mysterious because it wasn't the season for mushrooms.
Gathering the crop, the Clarkes carted the mushrooms down the street and sold them to the chefs at the Palmer House, the famed hotel just off Michigan Avenue, for a large price.
The receipts were enough to pay the rent with enough left over to meet other ministry expenses.
The Old Pacific Garden Mission carried on, its work undeterred.
Years later, "Mother" Clarke, commenting on the experience, said, "No mushrooms were ever seen there before--nor any since."
*Unfeigned*
The second thing we can say about the prayers of the Israelites by the Red Sea is that their prayer was unfeigned, sincere, and utterly earnest.
They weren't like the Pharisees who prayed beautifully worded prayers just to be seen and heard by their peers.
They weren't praying just because it was in their religious ritual to pray at that hour.
They were alarmed, frightened, and their outburst of prayer was real, raw, and earnest.
Listen to the way the men and women of the Bible prayed, and compare it to your own prayer life:
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/Elijah was a man just like us.
He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain for three and a half years.
/Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: /Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith./
Luke's Gospel says about Jesus: /And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground./
1 Peter 4:7 (NLT) says: /The end of the world is coming soon.
Therefore, be earnest and disciplined in your prayers./
Colossians 4:2 says: /Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving./
We're told in the same passage about a man named Epaphras, who /is always wrestling in prayer for you that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured./
The prophet Daniel wrote: /So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.
I prayed to the Lord my God./
When the Assyrian Emperor Sennacherib sent King Hezekiah a letter threatening the annihilation of the Jews, we're told /Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it.
Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord.
And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: "O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth….
/And he prayed down the victory.
}}}
The story of the Bible is the story of sincere men and women, moving the machinery of heaven and hell through their earnest praying.
There are times in our lives when only urgent, earnest prayer will do.
*United*
The third thing to notice about the prayer of the Israelites is that it is a united prayer.
The pronoun is plural: /.
So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord./
There's something about having another person or other people praying for us that intensifies prayer and sends it to heaven with greater velocity.
I was reading in a Gideon publication the other day about a young man, 19, named James Stegalls who was sent to Vietnam during the war.
Though he carried a small Gideon New Testament in his shirt pocket, he couldn't bring himself to read it.
His buddies were cut down around him, terror was building within him, and God seemed far away.
His twentieth birthday passed, then his twenty-first.
At last, he felt he couldn't go on.
On February 26, 1968, he prayed for it all to end, and his heart told him he would die before dusk.
Sure enough, his base came under attack that day and Jim heard a rocket coming straight toward him.
Three seconds to live, he told himself, then two, then…
A friend shoved him into a grease pit, and he waited for the rocket to explode, but there was only a surreal silence.
The fuse malfunctioned.
For five hours James knelt in that pit, and finally his quivering hand reached into his shirt pocket and took out his Testament.
Beginning with Matthew, he continued through the first 18 chapters.
"When I read Matthew 18:19-20," he said, "I somehow knew things would be all right."
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