No Expiration

Introduction:

An older couple are working together in their home office and the old man figures out that he needs a specific business document out of the office safe...

As he’s looking through numerous documents, he comes across their marriage license. Instantly, he is overcome with frustration when he realizes a missing detail.

“This is terrible! There’s no expiration date on our marriage license!”

The wife turns around from her work and reaches around her husband pointing at the last lines of the license.

“Sure it does, right here... ‘til death.’”

She continues: “Do you want to get out now or in a couple years?”

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.

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.

People, too, have a shelf life. We are good for up to 120 or so years, and we wear out.

Even our sun will burn out it… In about 5 billion years

How about water? Have you ever seen the expiration date on a bottle of water? Wouldn’t you know it! Water has been around since the creation of the world, and I wait 2 weeks too long to drink this!

Actually water doesn’t go bad. The FDA doesn’t require expiration dates on water bottles, but some companies choose to put them on anyway.

The expiration on the bottle is, actually, FOR the BOTTLE. Over time with heat chemicals from the plastic can leach into the bottle.

You know... There is something else that doesn’t expire… your PRAYER!

The title of this message is

“No Expiration” Prayers Don’t Go Bad

Sometimes we give up on the things we pray for too soon.

We don’t get the answer we hoped for in the time, we decided was... reasonable.

We think that God doesn’t care. God ALWAYS cares.

We think that we don’t have enough faith. INCREASE your faith.

We question: “Is God saying, ‘No’?” Did God SAY “No”?

YOU might even forget your prayers. GOD doesn’t forget.

Prayers don’t have a time limit on them;

Here’s why.

I. Because God Keeps His Promises

A. He promises to answer our prayers

Psalm 91:15 ESV

When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him.

Zechariah 13:9 (ESV)

...They will call upon my name, and I will answer them....

Luke 11:9 ESV

And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

B. God Always Keeps His Word

Psalm 15:4 NIV teaches us that one of the attributes of people who stand in God’s presence” is that they

“keep their oaths, even if it hurts”

Psalm 15:4 NIV

God makes the standard high, because we are supposed to be like Him...

and THAT’S how He is!

Joshua 21:45 ESV

Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.

God is a promise-Keeper!

GOD ISN’T LIMITED BY TIME.

Whether He answers in our lifetime or not, God will be faithful to answer our prayers, Many times prayers are answered after the death of the pray-ers.

ILLUS. The following story is told by Howard Storm Storm was a University professor at Northern Kentucky University, and… an atheist, who believed that religion was a fantasy. He is, by the way, now, an ordained minister.

He was touring Paris, France, when he had a perforated stomach and was rushed to a hospital, barely alive.

It was a weekend, and there were no surgeons on call at the hospital. He was put on life-support, and according to him, he died.

And angels took him to hell, where he had violent encounters with hordes of demon spirits.

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.”

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!”

He says that, “Suddenly a point of light appeared above me in the darkness. It grew into a beam of light shining on me, brighter & brighter until it blazed all around me. Jesus had come for me!”

Suddenly he woke up and found himself in the surgery suite being prepared for surgery.

Needless to say, Storm’s position on the existence of God and his need for a Savior was dramatically… changed.

Howard Storm’s grandmother was long gone on to Heaven, but that didn’t change God’s promise to answer her prayer.

God is faithful!

II. Because God’s Timing is Perfect

Sometimes as in the case of Howard Storm’s grandmother... prayers aren’t answered quickly.

A. Sometimes, circumstances must change

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:

“…for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction.”

Genesis 15:16 NLT

God would only evict the currents tenants when their guilt & sin became so serious that His justice demanded they be judged.

Then God would judge them, removing the wicked and putting righteous people the land.

B. Sometimes, people must change

Joseph (you know the guy with the coat of many colors… him.), hewas given a pair of dreams showing him that he would be a ruler.

But Joseph wasn’t ready for that position.

He had to be tried, and tested and... humbled.

After more than 17 years, Joseph was finally ready to be the Prime Minister of Egypt.

Sometimes the only thing standing in the way of your prayers being answered is… YOU.

God WANTS to answer your prayers, He’s just needs you to be ready to receive the answers.

Sometimes you have to change. Whatever that change may be.

Sinners have to be convicted of their sins and to turn from them. 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!

Ecclesiastes 3:11 ESV

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

ILLUS.: The Los Angeles Times featured an article entitled, “Nature Turns Massive Fire at Yellowstone to its 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.”

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.”

Perhaps a fire has been blazing in your life this year.

Have a lot of things, which you held dear, been burned-up?

It may be that God has delayed your answers so that your blessings can be multiplied.

You may be moving into a new season of productiveness in the Lord.

MOST… times God may is working mightily BEHIND the scenes, and we just. can’t. see. it.

Trust in the Lord!

III. Because God Stores-Up our Prayers

A. Our prayers become memorials

Revelation 5:8 ESV

And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

Revelation 8:3–4 ESV

And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.

As you have heard me say before, God loves to give us “visuals” because we do well with them.

So God commanded in the Old Testament that the priests were to burn incense at the prayer times (morning, afternoon, and evening) knowing that the visualization of the smoke rising upward would help us visualize our prayers going up to God.

Here, in the book of Revelation, we see the prayers of God’s people NOT ONLY being heard, but also being collected as a pleasing offering to the Lord Most High.

They have been saved to be… “replayed” before God. Sort of like God’s favorite playlist on His Cosmic Cell Phone.

In the book of Acts, there was a roman centurion, Cornelius by name, who loved God.

God had plans to bring the Apostle Peter to Cornelius to share with him the message of salvation through Jesus.

So God sends an angel to Cornelius. The interaction started out, like this:

Acts 10:3–4 ESV

About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, “Cornelius.” And he stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God.

All Cornelius’ prayers had been kept by God. God decided that they moment had arrived to answer Cornelius’ prayers.

B. God treasures our prayers

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 addressed at another time.

David remarked how God didn’t forget one of his tears,

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.

Psalm 56:8 NLT

In Malachi, God said he would remember the kind words said about Him by believers, by making a Malachi 3:16 (ESV)

“book of remembrance”

God is in the habit of remembering our prayers

All you mothers, and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers.. who pray for your families;

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!

Conclusion:

ILLUS. 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 ship. As this was half a century before the airplane.

While very close to the shore of a cannibal island the wind stopped completely, and the ship was slowly drifting toward land.

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.

"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.”

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.

While still engaged in prayer, there was a knock at his door.

"Who is there?" Taylor asked

The captain's voice responded,

"Are you still praying for wind?"

"Yes."

"Well," said the captain, "you'd better stop praying, for we have more wind than we can well manage."

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 supper.

THE RESPONSE

Let’s stir ourselves up to pray!

Earlier I read the account in Revelation 8:3-4 where the angel holds up the censer that held the prayers of the saints.

But that isn’t the end of the Passage.

Revelation 8:5 ESV

Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

Prayer. Singularly, prayer.

Prayer is the catalyst for thunder and rumblings, and lightning, and an earthquake.

Never. Never mistake praying as “JUST” praying

Once prayer has finished being offered, then God turns that instrument into a conduit of His power!

Prayer is all that’s needed for victory! All things are possible to us. You have the key in the door of Heaven, keep it there and turn it till the gate opens.

Let’s pray!