How to Pray… He’s Still My Brother!

After battling against Benjamin, the children of Israel are now praying for Benjamin. What can we learn from their prayer? Tune In and remember to to PRESS. 

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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. Welcome to the Press Podcast. We are going to dive into Judges chapter 21 today.

And if you did not listen to the last episode, you may not understand this particular passage today because they are directly related. So I would encourage you either go back and listen to the previous episode or at least read Judges 19 and 20 before getting to 21. And I just offer that as a tip for the future, that context is important.

So you may need to look at scriptures in their entirety. We can't often just take a verse and understand all of the context. It's written in place where it is for a reason.

There are a few verses you can maybe do that with, like a proverb or something like that, where they're not directly connected. But as a practice, when studying your Bible, I submit to you that you must look at the context of the scripture. So if you haven't heard the previous podcast, as I stated, or read Judges 19 and 20 recently, you need to do so.

In Judges 21, there is a brief prayer. The children of Israel are praying because they had to fight their brethren, the Benjaminites. And even in fighting their brethren, there are certain things that they're still concerned with.

Now, I will say that this chapter concludes with what I see as a great summary of the mindset of much of the people in the book of Judges. Judges seems to be quite a bit of lawlessness at times. You see very extreme stories in Judges, but Judges 21, 25 says, In those days, there was no king in Israel.

Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. They did not have to have a physical king. God wanted to rule over them.

But when they're not listening to God or a king, they're just doing what they want to do. And so you see that a lot in the book of Judges. You see how bad humanity can be and some of the destruction that comes as a result of decisions that are not like God or actions that are against God.

But in Judges 21, the Bible says, Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpah, saying, There shall not any of us give his daughter unto Benjamin to wife. So they decided nobody's going to marry any of the Benjamites. And the people came to the house of God and abode there till even before God and lifted up their voices and wept sore.

This is not Benjamin. This is the brethren of Benjamin. This is the rest of the Israelites.

They're sad now for Benjamin because they said, Benjamin, you can't marry any of our daughters. We have taken a vow. You will not be allowed to marry anybody.

But the problem with that is they don't want Benjamin destroyed. So they pray and say, O Lord God of Israel, why is this come to pass in Israel that there should be today one tribe lacking in Israel? God, our brethren are going to be extinct. If they can't have children, how will they continue? Lord, how can a tribe, how can a piece of us be missing? That is their prayer.

I find this prayer interesting, not because of the response or the strategy they used to then find Benjamin suitable wives. That strategy is very, very different than anything that we would think of today or allow today. And again, I believe that's why the book of Judges ends saying that there was no king.

So every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Their solution to this prayer is interesting, but they never got an answer from the Lord either. They just moved forward and figured it out.

What I do like about this prayer and I want to take from it today is that in spite of all Benjamin did, in spite of the way they had to fight him, in spite of Benjamin being so vile, Benjamin was still their family. When they went to fight their family, they didn't want to destroy their family. They wanted to teach their family a lesson.

There is a difference. Family shouldn't look to make you extinct. Family should hope for your recovery.

Families should be looking for your recovery even before you are. That's what you see here. They're looking for Benjamin's rebound.

They know something about Benjamin. Maybe we don't know. Maybe Benjamin wasn't always like this.

Maybe Benjamin used to be different. They didn't see this coming in Benjamin. So they're thinking we're not going to throw out Benjamin because Benjamin has made this error.

We fought them. That's over. This fight is not meant to last for generations.

We want our brother to survive. They wept. They mourned because this was their brother.

The Bible says they wept sore. They lifted their voices. They're crying.

They're not happy. I don't know if you have ever had a victory you couldn't be happy you got because of who you had to fight and what it cost you to fight them. But this is where they are.

What an amazing approach to caring about one another. That we care about one another's survival. That even if I don't agree with you, even if I have to oppose you, it does not mean I hate you.

I want you to have a future. They weren't fighting or keeping Benjamin in the past and in their mistakes. They're fighting now or pleading with God rather that Benjamin still have a future.

We have to be able to let things go. We have to be able to let our brethren move on. We have to care that they move on.

And us caring for one another is perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can give to one another and one of the greatest demonstrations of Christians today. Because we know that the Bible says in John 13 35 by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another. That word have means to hold in hand in the sense of wearing to possess it to own it.

Love is something they were not willing to let go because of Benjamin's faults. As I stated there's a lot for us to learn here just from this prayer. Not so much from the topic of it as we don't nowadays find wives for everybody the way they did or feel it's our obligation to give somebody a wife.

But the ideal of being responsible for my brother's future, for equipping my brother to have a future and letting my brother let go of the past, that is something we need to master even today. In our churches, in our families there's some things we need to let go and look forward and not just look forward but pray them forward. Pray they move on.

Pray they be strengthened. Pray they change. Pray they get what they need from the Lord.

Today I pray that we'll love each other right in spite of faults, in spite of failures, in spite of mistakes. One thing about being family is you get to see the best and worst of your people. You know them.

Family can trigger you better than anybody else. Family can get on your nerves. Family can remember how you really were before you got all spiritual.

Family knows you but family is supposed to let you grow. They are those that God has assigned to your mistakes, to be part of them, to cover them, to help you learn from them, sometimes to rebuke them, fight them but not to keep you stuck. My prayer today is that you remember they're still your brother.

They're still your sister. They're still your family. Don't let their lowest points be how you define them but let the fact that they've been assigned to your life in the place they are set in be something that catapults you or propels you to pray for them, to love them beyond how they've shown love.

And as you're praying for their change and praying for their future, I pray for you that you remember that 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.