Prayer Begins 29th April

Ge 3:8-10 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

There was open communication between God and His creatures – fellowship. We cannot know what form it took as the W.O.G. states no man has seen God at any time – but here Adam and Eve knew both His Presence and His Voice – close, intimate, comforting – as with Elijah and Moses a still small voice not condemning or accusing – But they had entered into sin and now they knew the holiness of God –

Before they had been the same, the same image, holy before Him – but sin separated, and brought with it all sorts of consequences. The ground was cursed and Adam had to work it to gain a living, child bearing was edged with pain – the relationship between man and woman was changed from undefined equality to specific roles – what consequence that has proved to be!! The purity of sexuality was distorted and with that came shame, guilt, embarrassment –

Human nature was distorted - broken. From the tranquillity of the garden chaos was loosed! Cain murders his brother – Lamech takes a second wife denying monogamy and then kills a young man for offending him – more than just the murder, he then justifies it as though it were acceptable practice – the infant society begins to establish the pattern for all history. Generations are born and reproduce – man spreads across the earth.

But the greatest loss to mankind was the communication with God they had had in the garden, the knowledge of His Presence and the clarity of His Voice. ( I wonder if that is not revival – mysterious and supernatural but the Presence of God and the knowledge of His voice – however that may be) But man was separated from God and as they reproduced they were learning and gaining knowledge apart from Him – these probably didn’t even know anything about “God”

But at the fall God had made a promise – when He confronted Satan the serpent and Adam and Eve – there were curses and judgement – but there was also hope and promise : --

Ge 3:15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”

The promise that one day through the seed from Eve there would come one to defeat Satan. So that seed had to be carried from Eve – the seed of godliness, though deep and hidden and at times it seems dormant for generations that seed was being passed from generation to generation – remembering that these men lived for hundreds of years and had many children – cities were built, metal was made, music and great progress in society – right down Cains line.

God had given Eve a son to replace the one she had lost to murder, Seth = appointed – from Seth, Enosh was born – God had appointed Seth to carry the seed and now Enosh ---

Ge 4:25-26 And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, “For God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed.” And as for Seth, to him also a son was born; and he named him Enosh. Then men began to call on the name of the Lord.

Here is the first prayer and the first call to public worship or acknowledgment of God. The seed planted by God beginning to spring to life – 100’s of years silent then the seed cries out!!

There is a principle of first mention in the bible – there are things here that are important to us and powerful – this is the recorded beginning of voluntary, unsolicited worship and seeking after God – the first crying out, the first prayer and the first assembly – this is plural “then men began to call on the name of the Lord” – so there is at least two and possibly more and they had agreement – they had gathered together.

God had not spoken to man for 100’s of years – from the garden and Adam’s expulsion man had been separated – they went along happily learning, growing and prospering under the knowledge of good and evil – they progressed but sin abounded – lying in wait for them constantly, sin prevailed – so with the knowledge of good – the building and developing of cities and society – so the knowledge of evil made sure human depravity also prospered.

God always has a people – chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world – the seed remained just as promised – a seed of godliness that was able to see God in creation, that was able to hold onto the stories handed down from Adam and Eve. – Thrust out of the garden, ashamed and sorry – seeing the consequences of their actions as one son killed the other – Adam and Eve must have talked often of life in Eden and the Presence and Voice of God.

I can imagine Eve talking with Seth about what it was like and how God had been there – Seth had never seen God nor heard His voice, Seth had not even seen Eden – but his mother and father’s stories remained in his heart. The seed was there and over the years (100’s) as he saw society growing Seth knew a disturbance in his heart – a discerning of evil and sin – but without the experience of anything different (never in Eden)to judge it by – he didn’t understand.

But the knowledge of God was in his heart – man had been made in God’s image so there was the natural desire for communication with the Divine, with the Creator – it was inherent in mankind – it was a natural deep instinct of the soul – it must be, it is a part of spiritual reality – it was only through the fall that in dying we will die – in dying spiritually this part was robbed by sin, guilt and shame causing man to run and hide – the image suppressed, but remaining still --

and as he observed the falling of mankind there arose within him a cry for God – it was deep within, and that cry, that hunger soon found other like minded – or similar hearted people – without their knowing it, God drew them together – there is never, nor has ever been a time when things are beyond God’s providential purposes – as one began to cry out to know this God of Adam – so others were discovered. ( Every revival has seen this drawing together of pray-ers)

They joined and began to pray and worship and seek for the God of creation – the God of the Garden of Eden – men began to call upon the Lord – the first prayer was motivated by the implanted seed and a hunger for God fuelled by the state of humanity – the falling depravity of mankind. There was anguish in their hearts over the state of the world and it drove them, compelled them to prayer.

It was the nurturing of the seed that would eventually bring forth The Seed – it had to be carried a pure strain – this was the beginning of a godly line – Seth – Enosh – Cainan – Mahalalel – Jared – Enoch – but there are things we need to see even here as this all began. What made them pray, why would they pray? --- Something deep within them made them understand that if they did this thing, spoke to the invisible, silent God there would be change!

Heb 11:5-6 By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Jud 14-15 Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

For Enoch to have had faith means he must have known grace – and by this grace of God he was fully aware of the wickedness and depravity of all mankind --- he was aware of their blasphemy and lack of the F.O.G. there was no reverence, man was ungodly – by grace through faith Enoch prophesied! So we can see that even then, in Seth, a people were called and they had been given grace and by that, faith – having not seen God they believed.

So when they began to pray they believed that there was HOPE for God to intervene in the freefall of humanity into sin – they had an expectation that their prayer would bring change! This same grace and faith caused them to worship and exalt Him as God, the public expression of believers began – they were establishing – by God Himself a godly line, and inheritance we can trace right down to Christ.

Ge 5:21-24 Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Methuselah. After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.

Enoch from the line of Seth pleased God and God took him – a holy man, a righteous man, a man of prayer and intercession – after him Methuselah – Lamech and from Lamech came Noah –

Ge 6:9 This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God.

The power of those prayers flowed right down to Noah who was a perfect man in his generations – Noah walked with God. --- I find it interesting as we look at this first group of men to call upon the name of God and this first prayer and it’s wonderful flow-on affect – that none of these men tried to raise up a political solution, they didn’t try to take control even though they knew from the faith of grace the very heart of God towards this ungodliness.

They didn’t try to make a plan or find a formula or a means to bring about the change that compelled them to pray – they simply began to worship God and call upon His Name – they began public declaration of God – they became church without agenda! Just searching for God to know and honour Him – the deepest expression of the soul of man crying out for God – the God of their father Adam – the God of Eden – the Presence and the Voice!!

They were motivated by the inner seed of Grace and the inherent understanding of God’s mercy – they were motivated by the state of the world and it’s abandonment of Godliness – they were shocked and repelled by the depravity and sinfulness of mankind and having not seen God they believed that the only solution was a turning away – repentance – but they knew instinctively that it could only be by the Presence and the Voice of God.

This PRAYER – calling upon the Name of the Lord – awakened them to God, to a SPIRITUAL reality – it awakened in them the DESIRE for God and it can come no other way but by PRAYER – it changed their whole perspective from carnal and natural to spiritual.

How can they know me without prayer for I am spirit and I am truth, and they who worship me must worship in spirit and truth, it is a spiritual thing not a natural thing. It is supernatural it is beyond this temporal world it is eternal.

Prayer touches the invisible, prayer reaches to heaven, prayer ascends to the very throne room of God, without prayer we cannot know him. We can know all learning and all knowledge without prayer we do not touch God.

Prayer is responding to the divine influence of grace and establishing faith, hallelujah!

God has put into the very heart of man the desire for communication with the Divine, there is within us, the need, the BELIEF that the Invisible and silent God hears our prayer –

There is within us this longing for the Divine and with that – this most wonderful thing, there is a knowledge of holiness – by God’s grace and through the faith He has already given us, those called in Christ before the foundation of the world – there is a longing for holiness and righteousness and the F.O.G. – for reverence and wonder and awe. If we will stand before Him as these first men did – without a presupposed agenda of what He wants with the church ---

If we can stand in the innocence and naivety of these the first group of worshippers – we might just know the same calling of our hearts, the same longing, the same compelling into prayer –

God is absent in Presence and Voice and the world is descending.

But He has put into the heart of those whom He has called In Christ from before the foundation of the world, a hunger to know Him – to know His Presence and His Voice – but we have replaced that deepest of desires with any amount of things – programs and structures and even bible study and learning – ever learning buy never coming to the knowledge of the truth.

It’s time for us to call upon the Name of the Lord for His own Names sake and for the state of this nation.