Sermon Central
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What Makes Satan Tremble?
Contributed by Ray Ellis on Nov 17, 2003 (message contributor)
Summary: A recent Gallop Poll stated that 90% of Americans say they pray. Americans pray five minutes a week and the prayers are usually about some crisis in life. What makes the Devil tremble and shutter is prayer that connects with God the Creator of the Univer
“What Makes Satan Tremble?”
A recent Gallop Poll stated that 90% of Americans say they pray. Americans pray five minutes a week and the prayers are usually about some crisis in life.
Often the prayer is a memorized prayer. My first prayer was a prayer before meals: “God is Great God is good, now we thank Him for our food.” Another prayer I memorized was: “For all we eat, for all we wear we thank You God.”
I didn’t memorize this one but some pray, before meals: “Rub-a-dub dub, thanks for the grub. Yeah, God! Let’s eat.”
What makes the Devil tremble and shutter is prayer that connects with God the Creator of the Universe. Someone has written:
Satan laughs at our words
Mocks at our toil
But trembles when we pray.
What makes Satan tremble and shutter, Christians on their knees in prayer.
James 2:18-19 comparing faith and good works: “But someone will say, ‘You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God, Good! Even the demons believe that – and shutter.” Another word for “shutter” is “tremble” with fear and respect.
Ritual prayers from the head and not the heart don’t connect with God. Jesus taught that what we need is a relationship with God not a ritual. Matthew 6:5-6: “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
Billy Graham told the true meaning of prayer when he said: “Prayer is a simple two-way conversation between you and God. It is not the body’s posture but the heart’s attitude that counts when we pray. Prayer is not our using of God; it is more often puts is in a position where God can use us.”
In Matthew 6:5-15 Jesus answers several questions.
I. What is Prayer?
Prayer is communicating with God the Creator of the Universe. Jesus said, this is how you are to pray: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name, your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:9-10)
Prayer is a two way communication. God listens when we pray and we listen to God speak through His Word. God is interested in listening to our prayer. The Psalmist prayed out in Psalm 8, “O Lord, our Lord how majestic is your name in all the earth. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.” (Verses 1, 3-5)
God did not create humanity and abandon people to wander and drift through life on their own. God created us and is interested in guiding and directing us from birth to death. Through prayer we stay in touch with our creator.
When you pray Jesus said, “Pray our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” Our prayer is not like the prayer of a little boy who prayed: “Dear Harold in heaven.” His mother asked him, why did you pray, “Dear Harold?” Because in the Lord’s Prayer it says, “Our Father in heaven, Harold be your name.”
In prayer we are talking with God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Whether you pray “Dear God, Dear Father, Dear Lord, Dear Jesus,” you are addressing God.
What a privilege it is to pray. Think of it, God your creator, Awesome God, loves you and want to hear from you.
On August 20th, 1977, Voyager II, the interplanetary probe launched to observe and transmit to earth data about the outer planetary system, set off from earth traveling faster than the speed of a bullet (ninety thousand miles per hour). On August 28th, 1989 it reached planet Neptune, 2,700 million miles from the earth. Voyager II then left the solar system. It will not come within one light year of any star for 958,000 years. In our galaxy there are one hundred million stars like our sun. Our galaxy is one of a hundred million galaxies.
When you pray you not praying to an idol, sun god or moon god or rain god or harvest god? Prayer to idols is a one way communication.
For some prayer is nothing but self-talk. The Pharisee went into the temple and prayed: “I thank God that I am not like that poor publican sinner.” He was praying to himself.
