Help by prayer

"Help by prayer" - Psalm 107:28 Prayer and deliverance are found in the one who prays. It is a reminder of God's faithfulness and mercy when His people turn to Him in difficult times. The book of Psalms is the prayer book of the Bible. When God's people are in trouble, it is the desert that comes to the day of distress, ("appears" as a reaction to danger, shortness of breath, distress refers to "exhaustion" (diminishing the width).

I. Human suffering.

A. There are times when we find ourselves in trouble and anguish.

1. The power of prayer.

2. The act of crying out to the Lord in difficult times is a "maximum expression of faith and trust," in His ability to intervene and bring about positive change in our circumstances.

3. God is attentive to the "prayers" of His people.

4. The verse is based on the image of God leading His people out of their troubles and leading us to safe places so that we do not perish.

5. (Genesis 32:26) Jacob asks for help.

6. The angel with admirable pleasure, pleasing him, asks Jacob to let Him go.

7. In doing so, He honored Jacob's faith and prayer, while testing his steadfastness.

8. Jacob persists in his holy importunity: I will not leave you, unless you bless me.

9. In begging for this blessing, he confesses his inferiority, even though he seemed to have superiority in the fight.

10. The angel imposes a kind of decoration and perpetual mark of honor on him by changing his name.

11. (Exodus 32:31-32) The plea of intercession. (Moses)

12. He makes no excuse, but the same thing he had said to the people by way of conviction he says to God by way of confession: "You have committed a great sin."

13. He does not come to present defense, but to seek reconciliation.

14. And if not, remove me now from Your book that You have written; that is, "If they are to be cut off, cut me also with them; if all Israel shall perish, let me also perish with them"; I live for them and I don't want to outlive them in the promised land.

15. (1 Kings 3:7-9) He recognizes his own inadequacy in fulfilling the great commission entrusted to him.

16. He appeals to two reasons to give greater force to his request for wisdom: A) That his office required it, since he was David's successor on the throne. B) That he needed it urgently because he was so young: "I am young and I do not know how to behave" (9), "Who will be competent to judge this "Your people" so great?

17. Ask God to give him wisdom (9) "Give therefore to Your servant a wise heart to judge Your people.

18. (Psalm 51:1-2) David's supplication for help.

19. Have mercy on me, O God.

20. David instantly appeals to God's mercy, before he even mentions his sin.

21. I dare not say "my" God, because this would be presumption.

22. I have lost You because of my sin, I have distanced myself from You by following the enemy "and therefore I am not clean."

23. I dare not approach Thee but stand at a distance and lift my voice with emotion and contrition of heart and cry out and say, "Have mercy on me, O God."

24. "According to the crowd."

25. Men are terrified at the multitude of their sins, but here is consolation: our God has a multitude of mercies.

26. Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness.

27. Lord, wash me, wash me, and wash me again, until the last stain is gone and "there is no trace” of my defilement.

28. (Luke 23:42) Help, means of a dying soul.

29. "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom."

30. This is the prayer of a dying sinner to a dying Savior.

31. It was a great honor to Christ that this man made this request of Him.

32. And it was a great joy for the thief to pray in that way.

33. (Acts 16:30) The plea for salvation (the jailer of Philippi).

34. Faced with the extraordinary phenomena he was witnessing, and seeing in these men something sublime that differentiated them from the other prisoners he had known, who now at their feet as if asking forgiveness for what he had done to them and addresses them with the greatest respect: "Gentlemen, and he asks as something in which the soul is at stake: What do I have to do to be saved?”

35. By this he shows: a) That he knows the importance of salvation; b) "that he knows that something must be done" and c) that he is willing to comply with what is demanded of him, no matter how hard and difficult it may be.

36. (2 Corinthians 12:8-9) The plea for deliverance (Paul).

37. The apostle prayed earnestly to the Lord to remove such a thorn from him.

38. This suggests that Paul regarded it as an obstacle to the efficacy (usefulness, effectiveness) of his apostolic labor.

39. But the Lord, in spite of the insistence with which he asked Him, did not remove the thorn, but said to him, (9) "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is shown to be perfect" in weakness." Amen