But further, these disciples knew not what to pray _for_. They did not know what they were to ask for in their petitions! Nor do we! We are “the sons of ignorance and night.” We do not know what is best for us! I often think that if God wished to be unkind to us, He has only to answer our prayers; for we ask Him for things that can only do us harm. The little child often begs for things that look nice, or are pleasant to the taste, but the mother, who knows the harm that would result if these things were given says “No.” We are like little children in our ignorance, and have often asked our Heavenly Father for things that would only injure us. We have all of us to make this confession of ignorance. We have all of us to acknowledge “We know not what to pray for.” We all need to go to Jesus with this request, “Lord, teach us to pray.” And He will teach us. He will tell us what to pray for. He will tell us what _He_ prayed for. He will tell us how He told out to His Father all His desires, but ended every prayer with these words, “Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done,” and He will give us the assurance that whatsoever we ask of the Father in His name after the Spirit of His prayers, the Father will give unto us. III. This request of the disciples is a confession that _the old prayers are no longer good enough_. “Lord, teach us to pray,” they said. Had, then, these disciples never prayed before? Yes, many a time, every day of their lives, and probably several times each day. I imagine that before Jesus called the twelve, they had been what the world would call “religious men.” In fact, we need not imagine it, we know it. Several of them had been disciples of John the Baptist before they became disciples of Jesus. The Jews were, we are told, particularly conscientious in the matter of prayer. Three times a day they withdrew for devotion. And these disciples were good Jews, strict Jews, punctilious in their regard for all points of ritual. We are justified, therefore, in saying that the disciples all through their lives had been attentive to the duty of prayer. What, then, is the explanation of this request “Lord teach us to pray?” Well, the explanation is simply this: _the old prayers no longer satisfied them_; even the prayers John the Baptist had taught them seemed strangely deficient or inappropriate. After living with Jesus, after hearing Him preach, after listening to His words about God, the old stereotyped prayers seemed to lose all their beauty and power. The disciples felt they could not pray them any longer. They had received from Jesus a new revelation of God, and this new revelation of God created the need for a new prayer. There is a familiar ballad the first line of which runs, “I cannot sing the old songs.” Some change has taken place in the singer’s feelings which makes the old song inappropriate, impossible. It was so with these disciples. They could not pray the old prayers, because their hearts were changed.