1. Lesson One of the Book of Daniel, Introduction to the Book of Daniel

The Necessity of Prayer - Lesson I, Introduction

I suppose that the one great failing of the church is the failing to Pray. 

I usually think of myself as an average person from this world’s standpoint and usually fit into the averages of things that are announced from time to time.

I have an average intelligence, I received average grades in school, I have an average income, I live in an average town, I drive an average car.

I think unfortunately that I also fit into the average category of pray-er in the church but I am not satisfied with being average in prayer. 

I don’t pray like I ought to pray but I desire to pray more diligently and with the power of God evidenced in my praying. 

This is a worthy desire but I will not get there by myself. 

I need help to get there and I think that all Christians need help to get there. 

For getting there is very important and getting there is something that will please God for prayer takes faith and faith pleases God.

So that is why God gives us his word so that we will not be ignorant in this important venture of prayer. 

Depending upon the Lord’s help I am going to teach some things about prayer in the next few weeks in our Sunday School class.  

I am doing this for myself but if you wish to listen and learn something that will improve your prayer relationship with God you are welcome.

I don’t believe a person can learn too much about the important topic of talking to his or her Heavenly Father. 

So we will engage ourselves in this effort in hopes of bringing glory to the Father.

As it ought to be I will use the Bible as the main source but I am also going to use as an aid in our study the outline of a book named “The Necessity of Prayer” by an Englishman named Edmund M. Bounds who died in 1913. 

The following is written about him in the introduction of this book: 

Edward McKendree Bounds did not merely pray well that he might write well about prayer.  He prayed because the needs of the world were upon him. He prayed, for long years, upon subjects which the easy-going Christian rarely gives a thought, and for objects which men of less thought and faith are always ready to call impossible. From his solitary prayer-vigils, year by year, there arose teaching equaled by few men in modern Christian history. He wrote transcendently about prayer, because he was himself, transcendent (excellent or excelling) in its practice. 

As breathing is a physical reality to us so prayer was a reality for Bounds. He took the command, “Pray without ceasing” almost as literally as animate nature takes the law of the reflex nervous system, which controls our breathing.

               Be not afraid to pray; to pray is right;

Pray if thou canst with hope, but ever pray,

Though hope be weak or sick with long delay;

Pray in the darkness if there be no light;

And if for any wish thou dare not pray

Then pray to God to cast that wish away.

            Edward McKendree Bounds (1835–1913)

            Prayer is the easiest and hardest of all things; the simplest and the sublimest; the weakest and the most powerful; its results lie outside the range of human possibilities; they are limited only by the omnipotence of God.               Edward McKendree Bounds (1835–1913

            Prayer can do anything that God can do.

            Edward McKendree Bounds (1835–1913)

            Prayer is not learned in a classroom but in the closet. 

            Edward McKendree Bounds (1835–1913)

            The closet is not an asylum for the indolent and worthless Christian. It is not a nursery where none but babes belong. It is the battlefield of the church, its citadel, the scene of heroic and unearthly conflicts. The closet is the base of supplies for the Christian and the church. Cut off from it there is nothing left but retreat and disaster. The energy for work, the mastery over self, the deliverance from fear, all spiritual results and graces, are much advanced by prayer. The difference between the strength, the experience, the holiness of Christians is found in the contrast of their praying.   Edward McKendree Bounds (1835–1913)

            Prayer is a rare gift, not a popular, ready gift. Prayer is not the fruit of natural talents; it is the product of faith, of holiness, of deeply spiritual character. Men learn to pray as they learn to love. Perfection in simplicity, in humility, in faith—these form its chief ingredients. Novices in these graces are not adept in prayer. It cannot be seized upon by untrained hands; graduates in heaven’s highest school of art can alone touch its finest keys, raise its sweetest, highest notes. Fine material and fine finish are requisite. Master workmen are required, for mere journeymen cannot execute the work of prayer.

Edward McKendree Bounds (1835–1913)

            Perhaps little praying is worse than no praying. Little praying is a kind of make-believe, a salve for the conscience, a farce and a delusion.

Edward McKendree Bounds (1835–1913)              

I will use his subject order to teach these lessons.  They are:

A.       Prayer and Faith

B.       Prayer and Trust

C.       Prayer and Desire

D.       Prayer and Fervency

E.       Prayer and Importunity

F.       Prayer and Character and Conduct

G.       Prayer and Obedience

H.       Prayer and Vigilance

I.       Prayer and the Word of God

J.       Prayer and the House of God