How to Pray: The Team Approach

Sometimes what you are praying for does not affect just you! Sometimes there is a spouse, child or loved one who needs to hear from God too. In this story about the parents of Samson, we learn how to pray and support one another even when we have different needs so that we all can win!

#prayer 

#prayers 

#pray 

#christianprayer 

#howtopray  

#biblestudy 

#biblestudyforbeginners 

#biblestudyforteens 

#Christian

#pentecostal 

#apostolic 

#press 

#pressmovement

Follow us on Facebook or Instagram or enjoy our blogs and even more episodes at www.presstopray.com!

Transcript

Press means to apply force. When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through.

And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us. Greetings to everybody out there. So glad to be with you one more time.

It is a blessed day, and I'm grateful for what the Lord is doing, has done, and will do. As we're jumping into the study for today, Judges chapter 13, we get to look at the prayers of a man named Manoah. Manoah is the father of Samson.

And at this point, when we meet Manoah, Israel has been doing evil for many years once again. Have you on the word again? It seems that every time we look at them, they're doing something evil. But just as always, God has a plan to get them out.

He loves his children, he's faithful to his children, but he does allow them to be punished, to have consequences for what they've done. So they have been delivered into the hand of the Philistines for the last 40 years. But God has a plan and his plan's name is Samson.

But the plan involves his parents, Manoah and Manoah's wife. The Bible does not name Manoah's wife, but she is key to this story nonetheless. For it is to her that an angel comes in chapter 13, verse 3. The angel says to her, Behold now thou art barren, and barest not, but thou shalt conceive and bear a son.

Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing. For lo, thou shalt conceive and bear a son, and no razor shall come on his head. For the child shall be a Nazarene unto God from the womb, and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistine.

So this woman hears this great news as she goes to her husband and she says, A man of God came to me and his countenance was like an angel of God and I asked not him from whence he came nor his name, but he told me I'm gonna have a child and he told me not to drink wine or strong drink and don't eat any unclean thing and my child's gonna be a Nazarene to God from the womb. This is great news. This is a miracle.

God is going to open my womb. When Manoah hears this he begins to pray and the irony of his prayer is that he began to ask for exactly what she just told him because he's asking, God let this man come again and teach us what we should do until the child that shall be born. What? She just told you the child's gonna be a Nazarene.

Don't cut his hair. And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah. God did not say, Manoah, I just told your wife, just listen to her.

The Lord heard Manoah when he said, please come teach us, tell us what we need to do. And the angel of the Lord came again unto the woman, the Bible says. This is very interesting to me because there's different feelings about what women's role should be when it comes to churches, when it comes to God, when it comes to the home, and I do believe because the Bible tells us too that the husband is the head of the wife, that we are to serve one another, that he is to love me as Christ loved the church, and there are ways and manners which the scriptures have declared that I should serve him and that I am committed to serving him in, and likewise I believe my husband is committed to me.

But in many scenarios the woman can be treated as if she's secondary. In this passage particularly, you see that both times that the angel comes to talk to them, he actually comes to the woman first. And as we look at this text, it seems that she has a better understanding of how God is trying to function for them than her husband actually does.

It's not negating that the husband is important or that God can speak to men, but I am saying that God can talk to whomever he wants. It doesn't just have to be a man. It doesn't just have to be a woman.

It doesn't have to be just a child. God can literally talk to whomever he wants. And so though it's Manoah's prayer, the Bible says that God came again to the woman first and she went and found her husband because he was not there with her.

The Bible says that Manoah rose and went after his wife and came to the man and said, "'Art thou the man that speaketh unto the woman?" Kind of abstract there. Did you talk to this woman? Not my wife, the woman. And he said, "'I am.' And Manoah said, "'Now let thy words come to pass.

How shall we order the child and how shall we do unto him?' This is Manoah's second prayer within this chapter. Though he's talking to an angel, he's talking to the angel as a representative of God and he's making an inquiry of him. So he's asking of God, "'What do you want from us with this child? How do we handle him?' He said, "'Of all that I've said unto the woman, let her beware.

Basically, what I already told your wife, that's what I want you to do. She may not eat of anything that cometh off the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing. All that I command her, let her observe.'" I do believe that God is showing us here how important it is for a husband and wife to be on the same page to him.

Because God had already told his wife. She knew what to do. She had told him what the Lord had said.

But he needed to hear it for himself. And that's okay. There are times in your life you just have to know for yourself what God is saying.

He is willing to talk to you. It is okay not to just take somebody else's word as the direction for your life. Manoah needed to know it for himself.

And God saw no problem with that. He didn't make up any new information. He still came to the wife first.

He still came to tell her what he was saying. But he was willing to talk to Manoah about it. And so Manoah asked him again, "'I pray thee, let us detain thee until we shall have made ready a kid for thee.' And the angel of the Lord said unto Manoah, "'Though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread.

If thou wilt offer a burnt offering, thou must offer it unto the Lord.' For Manoah knew not that he was an angel of the Lord." So Manoah didn't really know who he was talking to. He didn't understand what was happening. His wife actually had a better grasp on that.

And Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord, "'What is thy name, that when thy sayings come to pass, we may do thee honor?' And the angel of the Lord said unto him, "'Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is a secret?' See, his wife knew better. She actually did not ask his name. And she made a point of telling her husband, I didn't ask his name.

But Manoah is looking to honor him. Manoah is looking to do a sacrifice. Manoah is missing the point.

He's missing who is behind the message. That's why it's such a great thing to have two people working together. Because there's things in this passage that she seems to get that her husband does not.

That does not make her husband a bad person by any stretch. But I do believe this is why the Bible says that two are better than one. When we do marriage the right way, we end up stronger together than we were apart.

And you can see the picture in this passage of what that means, looking at Manoah and his wife. You can see how the Lord could come to her so easily, but Manoah would have questions. You can see how she knew how to interact with this angel.

And she heard everything he said, but she knew to include her husband. And she knew her husband would need to ask God himself. She was there though, supporting, standing by him.

And the Bible says we know she was there because in verse 19 it says, and Manoah and his wife looked on as Manoah took the kid with a meat offering and offered it on a rock to the Lord. She was still there. She wasn't off somewhere like, I tried to tell you.

No, she was supporting the process her husband needed to go through in order to walk out the word of the Lord. Because at the end of the day, this word involved both of them. And though she could take it just because it was said to her, he needed to hear it for himself.

But God wasn't calling just her or just him. He was calling them to have and raise this child and give him back to the Lord. And it would take them to raise him in the admonition of God.

It would take them to teach him the way that he should go. God was willing to deal with both parties where they were because he knew what they needed. As I said, his wife in this passage seems to have a better grasp on what God is doing, but that doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter in terms of the team still one, because it is the team to whom the Lord bear a son in verse 24 and called his name Samson. And the child grew and the Lord blessed him. And the spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshchel.

God did exactly what Samson, what the Lord wanted to do. He had to deal with both of his parents to get him. And he had to talk to both of them to get them on the same page.

And that was fine. Today, I'm praying for all the teams out there, all the marriages, all of the unions that God has ordained. I'm praying that we don't get lost in being different from one another because we're still necessary to the team and we're both necessary to what God is trying to do.

I pray that we allow each other to each go through our different processes of getting what we need from God so that we can move forward. I pray that we all see the promise of God together and that we see it grow and we see it blessed. I pray that we press together because prayer reaches every single situation.

Join the movement. Join the community. Like, share, and subscribe to this podcast.

Visit us at PressToPray.com or find us on Instagram or Facebook. Did you know that when you are quiet, your voice is missing to God's ears? I know some of us have prayed and were wondering how long should I pray about this? Why should I pray if God already knows? How will I know God is answering? And what do I do when I feel like God's not listening? But God is listening for your voice. It's too quiet in this world for the troubles we have.

You have to raise your voice and God wants to hear from you. It's Too Quiet, a book about prayer, is designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith. Visit PressToPray.com

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.