Martin Luther is a great man.

He is best known, of course, as a Protestant Reformer. He did more to break the power of Rome and open up Europe to the Gospel than any other man. Without him, the emergence of Calvin, Knox, and the English Reformers is unthinkable.

He is also an evangelical theologian. After receiving his Master of Arts degree and Doctorate in Theology, Luther gave himself to the intense study of Scripture. From his reading, he found and popularized the doctrines we hold dear: "Sola Scritura, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, and Soli Deo Gloria". The Scripture alone is our standard. Salvation is by grace alone. Justification is through faith alone. And, To God, alone be the glory. Later men refined his views; but without Luther, they would have had nothing to refine.

He is also a prodigious writer. His books have been translated into English and bound in fifty-six fat volumes. And this doesn't include his sermons, which might double his literary output.

He is a brilliant linguist. Single-handedly, and under great duress, he translated the Bible into German. He did it so well, that the "Luther Bible" holds the same place in his language as the KJV does in our's.

Luther is a powerful preacher. Although enormously learned, he spoke with such plainness that ordinary people (many of whom were illiterate) "heard him gladly"--and "turned from their idols to serve the Living God".

Luther is an attractive conversationalist. "Given to hospitality", he entertained men from all over Europe. They came for his lectures and sermons, but stayed for his chit-chat, which some of them recorded and put into a book called "Martin Luther's Table Talks". By itself, this random collection of sayings, could be organized into textbooks on doctrine, Christian living, politics--or even a "how to tell a good joke".

Luther is a personal hero. Who can forget the scene at Worms? Amid the glittering display of royalty and clergy, stands a single, black-clad monk. Urged to recant his evangelical writings, he stands firm. Threatened with the fate of John Hus, he cannot be moved. Forced to answer for himself, he blurts out:

"Unless I am convinced by Scripture

and plain reason--I do not accept

the authority of popes and councils,

for they have contradicted each other--

my conscience is captive to the Word of God.

I cannot and I will not recant anything,

for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.

Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise.

God help me. Amen."

Martin Luther is a great man.

But he is something better than "great". Martin Luther is a good man. Standing behind his colossal achievements, we find a humble and pious Christian. This piety, of course, is a gift of God. But it's also a human responsibility. "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you" the Bible says. Luther took this duty seriously. He wrote and preached; debated and translated. But before he did any of these things, he prayed.

Thus, my talk today is on "The Devotional Life of Martin Luther".

On this subject, we needn't "piece anything together". No artifacts are called for; no second-hand reports are needed. For in the year 1535, Luther's barber, Peter Beskendorf, asked for himself: "Dr. Luther, how do you pray?"

Luther thought this was a question worth answering. And so, he went home, and wrote his barber a 40 page letter! Later published as a tract, it was called A Simple way to pray, for a Good Friend.

The good Doctor begins by limiting his subject. This is not a summary of the Bible's teaching on prayer; won't be a theology of personal devotion. But he answers the question directly. "Dr. Luther, how do you pray?" is what Herr Beskendorf wanted to know.

Luther obliged him, "Dear Peter...I give you the best I have. I tell you how I pray myself. May our Lord God grant you and everyone to do it better".

Good praying begins with a choice, a priority. Luther writes, "It is a good thing to let prayer be the first business in the morning and the last in the evening. Guard yourself against such false and deceitful thoughts that keep whispering: `Wait a while, In an hour or so I will pray. I must first finish this or that'. Thinking such thoughts, we get away from prayer into other things that will hold us and involve us till the prayer of the day comes to naught...We have to watch out so that we may not get weaned from prayer by fooling ourselves that a certain job is more urgent, which it really isn't--and finally we get sluggish, lazy, cold, and weary. But the devil is neither sluggish nor lazy around us".

In this paragraph, Luther makes two salient points: (1) prayer must be our top priority. Notice, he says, we "fool ourselves (into thinking) that a certain job is more urgent--which it really isn't! No job more urgent or important that praying. This is remarkable when you consider what Luther did and how he did it. He was a preacher, a writer, a translator, an advisor to kings, a farmer, a carpenter, a husband, and a father. No trivial pursuits for him! The whole of Christendom weighed him down. Yet nothing--not translating the Bible or preaching the Gospel--was more urgent than personal devotions. And don't think he did so to avoid work. Before he married, his bed stunk to the high heavens. You know why? Not because he was a slob! But because he worked so hard and long that he just collapsed into bed each night--and didn't notice that his sheets hadn't been changed for months!

He was a classic "Type-A personality", a real "workaholic". But nothing would take priority over prayer. (2) We are easily "weaned" from prayer. What an exquisite choice of words, "weaned"! When a baby is being weaned, he screams bloody murder for his mother's milk. But as time goes by, his interest becomes less and less until--at last--he wants it no more. The same can be said of prayer. If you miss personal devotions once a year, it hurts. But if you miss every other day, it's barely noticeable. We should never become "weaned" from prayer.

In short: until prayer is priority #1, you'll never pray well.

In the second place, good praying requires concentration. Luther writes, "A good and clever barber must have his thoughts, mind, and eyes concentrated upon the razor and the beard and not forget where he is in his stroke and shave. If he keeps talking or looking around or thinking of something else, he is likely to cut a man's mouth or nose--or even his throat! So anything that is to be done well ought to occupy the whole man with all his faculties and members. As the saying goes, `he who thinks of many things thinks of nothing and accomplishes no good'. How much more must prayer possess the heart exclusively if it is to be a good prayer!"

Luther believes that prayer involves "the whole man with all his faculties and members". By "members"--I think--he means body (but more on that later). And by "faculties" he means the soul, which includes mind, emotions, and will. To pray well, we must pray intelligently--for those things according to God's will. We must pray fervently--in bitter remorse for our sins and with exuberant praise for our Savior. We must pray submissively. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" is a mockery if you're not "willing to do His will". Here, as elsewhere, Christ set the standard. At Gethsemane, we find "the whole man with all of members and faculties" at prayer.

Thirdly, good praying is helped by the right posture. Luther was strongly opposed to praying in bed or in a chair. "Kneel down--he wrote--"or stand up with folded hands and eyes toward the sky".

This seems trifling, doesn't it? And so it is--until you think about it. Then you begin to admire Luther's wisdom. A chair or a bed is meant to relax you; to help you fall asleep. But in prayer, we shouldn't relax or drift off at all! Isaiah laments that so few will "stir themselves up and take hold of God". It was sleeping (instead of praying) that got the Apostles into such a fix. Philip Doddridge put it like this,

"Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve".

Insofar as "kneeling" or "standing with hands folded and eyes toward the sky" is concerned, they remind us of things, we're apt to forget. They remind us of God's greatness, "He sits upon the circle of the earth"; of our brokenness, as we "kneel before the LORD our Maker"; and our inability,

"Not what may hands have done,

can save my guilty soul".

This posture is not necessary, of course. One can pray as well in bed as he can on his knees. But, he can't pray as well sleepy as he can awake! Thus, find the posture that is most bracing and awakening to you--and use it!

In the fourth place, Luther advises against long-winded prayer, and urges brevity and frequency. "Watch out that you don't take too much upon yourself, lest your spirit get tired...The soul, if directed towards one single thing, and if it is really serious about it, can think more in one moment than the tongue can speak in ten hours and the pen can write in ten days."

On this point, Luther differs sharply from the Puritan/Methodist ideal. And, I think, rightly so. The latter advocated long prayers. The Puritan minister often prayed one hour in public! John Wesley wondered how a man could be a Christian if he didn't pray at least four hours a day! We should greatly admire the iron will these men exercised in their prayer lives. But we shouldn't feel guilty if we're unable to match them! Most prayers in the Bible are short. The "Model prayer" can be thoughtfully prayed in two minutes. The Lord's Intercessory prayer may have taken no more than five or ten minutes. At times He prayed "all night long". But not every night. And, He once chided His friends for being unable to "watch with Me for one hour". But again, the circumstances were exceptional. Indeed, long-winded praying is sometimes criticized. "Pray without ceasing". "Pray with the spirit and with the understanding". But don't worry about living up to the Puritan/Methodist ideal.

In prayer, it is quality, not quantity, that counts.

Fifthly, Luther pleads for an informed praying. Unless our prayers are according to God's will, they will not be answered. The trick to praying, therefore, is not "talking God into what you want", but learning what He wants--and then praying for it. The former kind of prayer, Luther called "rattling"--and brings to mind a baby's rattle. It does nothing but make noise! But how do we discover God's will? By reading the Bible. Luther began with the Ten Commandments; went on to the Lord's Prayer; and closed with the Apostles' Creed.

His technique: "Out of each commandment I make a garland of four twisted strands. That is, I take each commandment first as a teaching, which is what it actually is, and I reflect upon what our Lord God so earnestly requires of me here. Secondly, I make out of it a reason for thanksgiving. Thirdly, a confession, and fourthly, a prayer petition".

He then illustrates with the Seventh Commandment, "Thou shalt not steal".

"First, I learn here that I shall not take my neighbors's property nor possess it against his will, neither secretly nor openly; that I shall not be unfaithful or false in my bargaining, my service and work lest what I gain should belong to me only as a thief; but I shall earn my bread with the sweat of my brow and shall eat my own bread with all those who are faithful. At the same time I shall help my neighbor so that his property is not taken away from him through such actions as mentioned above...

"Secondly, I thank God for His faithfulness and goodness in that He has given me and all the world such a good teaching and through it protection and shelter. For unless He protects us, not one penny nor one bite of bread would remain in the house...

"Thirdly, I confess my sin and ungratefulness, there where I have wronged someone and cheated him or where during my life, I was unfaithful in keeping my word...

Fourthly, I ask that God would give me grace so that I and all the world might learn His commandment and think about it and improve. I pray that there would be less stealing, robbing, exploiting, embezzling and injustice. I also pray that such evils may soon end when the Day of Judgment comes. This is the goal to which the prayers of all Christians and of all creation are directed (Romans 8:22)".

Could you follow the sequence? Teaching, thanksgiving, confession, petition.

He gives another sample, this time from the first article of the Apostles' Creed: "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth."

"First of all...this teaches you in a few words what you are, where you come from, where heaven and earth come from. You are God's creature. This means by yourself and in yourself, you are nothing--you can do nothing, know nothing...Therefore, everything you are, you know, and everything you are able to do is God's work, His creation, as you confess here with your mouth. This is why you have nothing to boast about before God, except that you are nothing and that He is your creator and He is able to annihilate you at any time...

"Secondly, one should give thanks here that through God's goodness we have been created out of nothing and we are kept alive daily out of nothing...

"Thirdly, one should confess and be sorry about our unbelief and ungratefulness, because we have not thought about them nor easily recognized them. So we have actually done worse than the animals who have no reason...

"Fourthly, we should pray for the right and certain faith so that in the future we can seriously believe in the dear God and hold Him up as our Creator, as this article teaches..."

The sequence is repeated: teaching; thanksgiving; confession; petition.

Here, I should point out that Luther used the Ten Commandments, Lord's Prayer, and Apostles' Creed as examples. Elsewhere he urged the use of the whole Bible to aid our devotions. Most Scriptures--if you think about them a bit--will yield a teaching, a thanksgiving, a confession, and a petition. These Scriptures, of course, are "according to His will"--therefore, when we pray them, we can expect Him "to hear us".

In the sixth place, Luther advises us to listen while we pray. Not to ourselves, but to God, who speaks to us in sacred meditation. "It often happens that I lose myself in such rich thoughts in one petition of the Lord's prayer and then I let all other six petitions go. When such rich good thoughts come, one should let the other prayers go and give room to these thoughts, listen to them in silence and by no means suppress them. For here, the Holy Spirit Himself is preaching, and one word of His sermon is better than thousands of our own prayers. Therefore, I have often learned more in one prayer than I could have obtained from much reading and thinking...I repeat again what I said above when I talked to you about the Lord's prayer: if the Holy Spirit should come when these thoughts are in your mind and begin to preach to your heart, giving you rich and enlightened thoughts, then give Him the honor, let your preconceived ideas go, be quiet and listen to Him who can talk better than you; and note what He proclaims...as David says, `Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law'".

Luther thinks of prayer, therefore, not as a monologue, but as a conversation. God speaks to us in prayer--not audibly, of course--but by bringing His word to our remembrance. Thus we must pray, not only with our mouths, but with our ears as well. "Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth".

Lastly, Martin Luther counsels patience, faith, and hope in our prayers. He likens the prayer life to an athletic event. There is no quick pay-off. Practice and endurance are needed. But, when we "keep on seeking, we shall find, keep on asking, we shall receive, keep on knocking, it shall be opened to us". He closes his letter with these words: "The Spirit will and must grant this, if your heart is conformed to God's Word".

The words of Luther are not the words of God. He was an uninspired man--and liable to mistakes. Yet he was a great man; a wise man; a good man--and eminently, a man of prayer. God has given him to us, and urges us to...

"Mark those who so walk,

as you have them for

an example".