Prayer

“And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly” Mathew 6:5,6.

Dear young people I would like to share with you something very important in our Christian life. Prayer is the way we become friends with Jesus. There are many people who are afraid of living a Christian life; the guilty ones are the Christians. We as Christians give the impression that a Christian is the most boring period of life. Being a Christian is to carry a book full of forbidding things, “I can’t do this, I can’t do that, I can’t smoke, I can’t drink, I can’t dance, I can’t go to the movies. I can’t, I can’t, and I can’t.” There are people that ask themselves, what type of life is it, that I can’t do anything. I can’t eat anything, everything is bad and sinful. Sometimes we even give the impression that being a Christian is something so hard and horrible, that no one wants to be a Christian or a member of the S.D.A. Church Reform Movement (to be more specific).

Nevertheless, the Christian experience is a life of friendship with Jesus. A marvelous experience, Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life and life more abundant,” a life full of meaning and of happiness. There are people who think, to be a good Christian is a person who is sad, with his or her Bible held to the chest, singing and praying all the time. I tell you right now, that is not being a Christian.

The Christian participates in life, he or she exercises, and works honestly, grows, progresses, and makes money honestly. If the Christian finishes a master’s degree, he or she will study a Doctor’s degree. The Christian does not fear the experience of friendship with Jesus, they see it as beautiful. To have a friendship with Jesus we are to talk with Him and the vehicle to speak with Him is through prayer.

Nevertheless the text we read at the beginning talks to us of a danger; it says when you pray don’t be like the hypocrites. I would like to ask you, do you think that the hypocrites displease God? Be very careful how you answer, God loves the hypocrite; nevertheless, he is displeased with hypocrisy. We are to make a difference between the sinner and sin; the sinner is sacred to God. Jesus came to this earth and died for the sinner; Jesus even came together with sinners, and He ate with them and walked with them. The sinner is very valuable to Jesus; nevertheless, He does not approve sin and detests hypocrisy. I believe that you agree with me that Jesus doesn’t approve hypocrisy.
The beginning text says that many people when they pray are being hypocrites; if they are being hypocrites in prayer they are not coming closer to Jesus but are further from Him. This means that many people who are sincere do not know how to pray, and because they do not know how to pray, they become hypocrites in their prayer.

Let us apply some logic; if the prayer of a hypocrite furthers him or her from God it would be better not to pray; this is tragic. What is the condition of the prayer that makes one a hypocrite? The verse tells us “do not be like a hypocrite when you pray, do not use vain repetitions.” The hypocrisy of the prayer consists in repeating vain repetitions.
Now we will talk a little Greek. You may know that Matthew did not speak Spanish, Portuguese or English. Matthew spoke Greek, and when he wrote the gospel of Matthew in Greek, it was the language he spoke. In order for us to understand the Bible, it was necessary that men, who knew both the Greek language as well as English and Spanish, would translate the Bible from Greek, to English and Spanish. Translating the Bible from Greek to English is a difficult task, to translate from an abundant language to a language that is limited, like English. It is a poor language and limited. I will give you some examples.

In English you have only the word “love”. I express myself and say, “I love my daughter, I love my wife, I love God;” I say to a congregation, “I love you all.” Nevertheless in Greek it is different. When I express “I love my daughter”, it is one word; “I love my wife”, it is another word; “I love God”, is another word. The Greek language is rich; there are no limits like in English.

Another example is, “I am talking”. You may say the young man is talking. Then as you go walking there is a drunken man in the street and he is speaking foolish things and you may say the drunken man is talking. The young man is talking and now the drunken man is talking; in the English language everyone talks. You go to a house and there is a baby, it is 8 months old and begins to say baby words, you may say “look the baby is talking already”. When you go out on the porch and there is a parrot, it may know how to say a few words and you may say the parrot is talking. The English language is very limited; everyone talks, the young man talks, the drunken man talks, the baby talks and the parrot talks. In the Greek language it is different when a person knows what he or she is saying, that they think about what they are saying. That person in Greek is “laleando,” the verb is “Laleo”. When a person speaks without out any sense like the drunken man or the parrot which just repeats another’s words, then it is called “batologeo”. Now we can understand the verse better, “when you pray do not be like the hypocrites” do not “batologes”.

The Greek word means, not to repeat without thinking, don’t do like the parrot does, don’t do like the drunken man does, don’t just talk the talk, don’t express what you don’t feel, don’t say things just to say them. Think about what you will talk about, do not “batologes”!

I have never been there when you pray in the morning or in the evening, nevertheless you may pray every day when you rise up and before going to sleep. Even though I have not been there when you pray in the morning and in the evening, I will tell you how you pray, something similar to the following: “Dear Father who art in heaven (some may add) Holy be Thy name. (This is at night) I give you thanks for the day you gave me, I give you thanks for your care and protection, forgive my sins (some may add) by word, thought or act, give me a good night rest, in the name of… Amen”

When you eat, the prayer is better learned, “Dear Father in Heaven (we do not even add) Holy be Thy name (because we are hungry). Bless this food (some may add), bless the hands that prepared it, in the name of Jesus, Amen” If I take a parrot and teach the prayer “Dear Father who art in Heaven” the parrot may learn it after some time. Do you think that will save the parrot? What the Lord is telling us here, when you pray do not be like the hypocrite, don’t do what the parrot does don’t “Batologes”. When you rise up in the morning and pray “Dear Father in heaven, thank you for a good night rest (you may have passed the whole night with colic, bothered by it) nevertheless you say, thank you Lord for a good night rest (you may have had nightmares the whole night) you say, thank you Lord for the good night of rest (you may have a mattress with the springs coming out and they hurt your back) nevertheless you pray thank you Lord for the good night of rest.

Do you see who are you deceiving, when you pray for the good night of rest you have had? If you have not slept well the entire night, what good night are you talking to God about? Who are you deceiving? You do not want to deceive anybody; the problem is you have learned to “Bataloges,” you have learned the prayer of the parrot. The Word of God calls me a hypocrite!

The tragedy is we don’t know how to pray and that is why we are all lost in this world all alone. Young People, the Spirit of Prophecy tells us the definition of prayer. “Prayer is the act of opening the heart to God as to a friend.” To pray means to talk to a friend; what do friends talk about? Do they always talk about the same things? How are you? Good, and how are you? Good also. The next day the same thing, is that how friends talk to each other? No, friends sit down and talk about basketball, soccer, about the girlfriend, work, or the opposite if you are a girl. I ask myself, why don’t you talk about the same things to God? Oh Brother, that is heresy, first we need to take this to the committee of the church, how will I tell God what I talk with my friends? You tell your friends what you like and don’t like, why don’t you tell God the same things? You know why? Because your friend is your friend but God is not your friend.

God is all Sovereign who is in heaven, someone has placed it in your head that when you come close to God you feel like a small ant with much carefulness, you come like a worm before God. Why are you unworthy of God? The Spirit of Prophecy tells us, “Prayer is the act of opening the heart as to a friend.”

What do you talk with your Friend about? Just holiness, sanctification, forgiveness, repentance and consecration; why don’t you try talking to God about lunch, about the girl, about the game, about the boy, the test, the lack of money, the hair, the fashion, the music? Why would you only speak about spiritual things to God? God wants to come into our life, but we say, no Lord, stay way up there in heaven. You are only for the spiritual things. In my daily life I don’t have need of you and all alone we live a lonely life. We need Jesus in our daily life here on earth, when the darkness comes at night and I am afraid, when my father is very sick and I am concerned of losing him, when a moment in my life there is sadness and I can’t cry. I want someone next to me in these moments of my life.

The worst enemy in our life is formalism; we live our Christian life in formalism, and I want to tell you, young people, to be a Christian is life, you can fall in love, you can play, and you can drive, go and climb a mountain, run. A Christian is not a strange animal, a Christian has flesh and we go through happy moments and sad moments. Nevertheless formalism is our worst enemy in the spiritual life.

I would like to describe what it means to be a hypocrite in prayer. A young girl of 12 years old (Mary) begins to fall in love with a young boy (Peter); he is 14 years old. The father tells Mary, you can’t fall in love with the boy. In this life it seems that the things that are forbidden are the most attractive. Mary is behind a tree kissing Peter. The mother sees them together and she calls Mary into the house and tells her, wait until father comes home, I will tell him what you where doing. The father comes home late that evening. In the morning at 5:30 a.m. before going to work he walks into Mary’s room, wakes her up and begins to give her a sermon, I TOLD YOU… an advice, Father’s, when you get angry and furious, go out and hit a tree or a bottle, to let go of the anger. Later when you feel better, come back and sit with your daughter. When you scream and get furious it only leaves the family sad. The father tells Mary, if I see you with that young man again you will see what will happen, then the father walks out the door.

Mary is sad, she is not even hungry for breakfast, she has a test at school. She takes a look at the test and doesn’t even know where to start, she can only think about Peter, she didn’t even study. There is the problem with falling in love at an early age; there is no emotional balance. You can’t concentrate on the studies in school. Mary comes back home and the mother asks, how did it go in school and in the test? Mary says, not too good. The mother now explodes and begins to give her another sermon, I AM HERE Sacrificing MYSELF FOR YOU… NOW YOU WILL GO AND WASH THE CLOTHES BY HAND.

At 5:00p.m., Mary hears a whistle from behind the house. There is Peter. She goes to the back of the house behind the trees to hide with Peter, which is another problem. Why do they need to hide if what they are doing is good? Peter tells her words of love and hugs her and kisses her. Why does a 12-year-old girl fall in love? Does she want to marry? No, she only wants to kiss, that is the problem. There are no serious plans.

Mary and Peter are together and suddenly the father comes and begins to rebuke Mary, go inside the house. And to Peter he tells him, I do not want to see you again with my daughter. Father goes inside the house and gives another sermon to Mary; she is not hungry for dinner. She goes to her room and she is ready to lie down in her bed, and go to sleep. Then she remembers to pray, but she doesn’t want to pray. Nevertheless her conscience is talking to her and she can’t go to sleep without praying. She makes an effort and prays, “Dear Father in heaven, Holy be thy name, thank you very much for the beautiful day you have given me.” (what beautiful day?) Why does she pray like that? She has been taught that way.

I would like you to understand one thing; hypocrisy hurts a lot, and when somebody is a hypocrite with you it hurts. If you discover one day that somebody you love is being a hypocrite with you that even hurts more. Imagine, Jesus loves Mary; He died for her and she is being a hypocrite with the one that loves her. Imagine how Jesus feels. Mary should say, Lord I am sad, this was the worst day. My father screamed at me this morning and did not let me speak, he just left the room. I went to school sad, you saw my mom when I came home; she gave me another sermon. I am sad, please forgive me Lord; I really don’t want to pray. I will just go to sleep and tomorrow I will speak more with you.
This is a true prayer. You are opening the heart to Jesus as a true friend.

Remember, young people, Jesus is your friend. We need to spend time with him. How can I spend a 1/2 hour or one hour speaking with Jesus? The secret is to talk to Jesus as I talk with my friend. Your prayer shouldn’t only be, Lord I ask you, bless me, keep me, heal me, give me. It is not only asking; talk to him about your breakfast you didn’t like, the granola, about your friend going through a difficult moment, about your mother going through an operation, about your boyfriend, about the teacher, the exam, tell Him about everything. Talk to Jesus and you will see how you spend a 1/2 hour or even one hour praying.

To pray is the greatest privilege, to talk with the king of the Universe. Young man, young lady come to him as you are, tell Him what you feel. The Christian life is a life of friendship with Jesus. Pray without ceasing.

There are people that say if you don’t pray kneeling down it is a sin; may the Lord forgive those people. If you are in the street walking, pray; if you wake up in the middle of the night and you want to talk to Jesus, do it. God is not as worried with your position as He is with your HEART. I try to personally pray kneeling down; don’t let the position be a stumbling block for you not to pray. As your relationship with Jesus grows, also your love to Him will grow, your respect, your admiration and your reverence will also grow. By yourself you will have the desire to pray kneeling down before God Almighty. Pray in a natural way. Do not wait too long.

There is a story about a Vietnam soldier who died with a paper in his hands that read, “Oh God, I have never talked with you, but today I see my friends are all dead. For the first time I want to talk with you. He finished by saying how unfortunate it is that it is too late.

Young man, young girl, today tell the Lord to enter into your life. Tell Him, I want to be your friend, without formalism. The Lord is able to lead your life. Tell Him something natural, not like the parrot, something from a friend to a friend. I am praying for you.
Amen.

Joshua Martinez
American Union Youth Leader