The Words of God Shall be Fulfilled

People have always challenged God’s Word since the very beginning of time. In Genesis 3, Satan asked Eve in the Garden of Eden, “Has God really said you would die if you disobeyed Him? You won’t die”.  Adam and Eve did die.   In the 1700’s professed atheist Voltaire said “Within 3 decades, The Bible will be extinct".  Jesus said “heaven and earth will pass away, but my word shall never pass away.” I just read that Bible sales are estimated between 2.5 billion up to 6 billion in the 20^th century.

“For God hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.”

(Revelation 17:17) KJV

In Mark 13, Jesus told his disciples as they were walking out of the Temple in Jerusalem, "Do you see all these great buildings. Not one stone will be left on another." To the disciples this Temple was permanent.

In their minds nothing could bring down these walls. "Look, teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!"

The smallest stones in that structure weighed 2 to 3 tons. Many of them weighed 50 tons. The largest existing stone, part of the Wailing Wall, is over 39 feet long in length and nearly 10 feet high, weighing hundreds of tons! The stones were so immense that neither mortar nor any other binding material was used between the stones. Their stability was achieved by the amazing weight of the stones. The walls towered over Jerusalem, over 400 feet high in one area. Inside the four walls was 45 acres of bedrock mountain shaved flat and during Jesus' day a quarter of a million people could fit comfortably within the structure. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s seating capacity was equal to the people who could fit inside this temple.

 You can then understand the disciples’ surprise when Jesus said that this massive building would be leveled to the ground.  Forty years later, in 70 AD the Temple was destroyed by Rome.

“Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.”

(Luke 21:33) KJV

History has taught me that it is a waste of a person’s time to listen to Satan’s suggestions that God’s words will not come true. May we find comfort and meaning in knowing that every single word of God will be fulfilled. No other book or person has ever been proven so trustworthy. If God said it…that settles it!

Al Yoder

11/29/2011

Behold He is Praying

Yesterday a sister in Christ called to ask for prayer as she went to help someone who was very much in need of assistance. When we arrived home, there was a message on our answering machine that God had heard our prayers…”things had gone very well”.  I am amazed at how often we as Christians talk about praying for each other, and at how seldom we just get right to it and pray.

A businessman friend of mine pauses before starting a floor covering installation to pray for God to equip him & his employee with wisdom and expertise, so they may bless their customer with quality workmanship. It reminds me to do that in my vocation as well.

Do we really believe that God pays attention when we call out to him for his wisdom and help with our everyday activities? Does the Bible give us any insight as to whether Jesus cares whether we pray or not? I’m reading through the book of Acts and chapter nine makes it very clear that Jesus is very aware of those who pray from the heart.

And there was a certain disciple in Damascus named Ananias. And the Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias! And he said, Behold me, Lord. And the Lord (Jesus) said to him, Arise and go into the street which is called Straight and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus.

For behold, he is praying,

(Acts 9:10,11) MKJV

George Muller, as a young man was a thief a liar and a gambler. He stole government money from his father when he was 10, and at age 14 he was playing cards and drinking with his friends while his mother was dying.  His father sent him to the University of Halle, where a fellow student invited George to a prayer meeting. There he saw a man on his knees praying. When Muller went home, he knelt by his bed and asked God to bless him wherever he went and to forgive him of his sins. Muller promptly gave up his stealing, lying, and gambling and wished to become a missionary. He began to visit the churches and began preaching. In his lifetime he housed and fed over 10,000 orphans, gave away over 285,000 Bibles and more than 1,459,000 New Testaments. His ministry took in $2,718,844 without soliciting people for money or ever going into debt. Muller believed that God wanted him to pray and trust Him for the finances needed.

Before Muller was saved, he had five close friends. He began praying for their salvation. After many months, one of them came to the Lord. Ten years later, two others were converted. It took 25 years before the fourth man was saved. Muller persevered in prayer until his death for the fifth friend, and throughout those 52 years he never gave up hoping that he would accept Christ! His faith was rewarded, for soon after Muller's funeral the last one was saved.

God did see Muller praying there on his knees in 1825, and what a difference that made on so many other peoples lives for good. God still sees people who humbly cry out to him in prayer. Jesus still sees when people pray today.  Behold…Sarah is praying!…Behold Dennis is praying! …Behold (your name here) is praying! Sometimes we see an immediate response from God. At other times it may be many years before we see a response from God, but Jesus always responds to a genuine prayer!

Al Yoder

11/15/2011

Struggling and Striving in Prayer

Does “pray without ceasing” mean a kind of lifestyle in which we honor God, but not specifically or deliberately?  Does it mean a kind of acknowledgement of God in which we call Him Lord and say that our lives are lived as a constant prayer, or does it rather mean that our lives are soaked in prayer of all types, both silent, breathed prayers, deliberate prayers, heartfelt groanings to the Lord, and shared prayer times with brothers and sister?  I think it is definitely the latter.

I’m concerned that the notion that some have of what it means to pray without ceasing is a kind of cop-out.  It is a way of saying that, though we don’t pray nearly as often or as much as we ought to, we really are praying all of the time because we are Christian people and our whole lives are really a prayer.  I believe there is some truth to the notion that our whole lives become prayerful as the Holy Spirit fills every part of us and permeates all that we do.  But I don’t believe that this becomes an auto-pilot situation.  It is harmful, I believe, to think that there is a place in our Christian lives in which we are automatically pleasing God, that we need no longer deliberately seek Him, study the scriptures to get to know Him better, worship Him, and pray fervently for all that we depend on Him for, which is everything. 

I don’t think deliberate, thoughtful prayer time is for beginners, and then the mature saints move into an automatic kind of life which is always blessed by God without seeking Him in prayer and supplication.  Why don’t I believe this?  Because the Biblical witness runs counter to it. 

Jas 5:16  Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

What is fervent prayer?  I think it is more than just a lifestyle prayer.  I believe it is more than just a silent, thankful heart expressing itself throughout the day, though that is a good attitude.  Fervency is actively intentional.  Praying for one another is actively intentional.  It is something to strive toward. 

Col 4:12  Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.

Is struggling in prayer an experience we have regularly?  It is if we realize how much we need Jesus, and how incapable of living life without Him we truly are. 

Rom 15:30  I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf,

Again, Paul calls the saints to strive together with Him in prayer.  Our prayer life is to be active.  It is even a struggle sometimes.   Good things come  through the type of prayer that the Bible calls struggling or striving in prayer.  This is something we do when the Spirit of God directs our hearts in prayer to Him in intense ways.  It may be for others or it may be for ourselves.   Recall the way that Paul described His prayer for his thorn in the flesh:

2Co 12:8  Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.

Though the thorn was not removed, the Lord revealed Himself clearly to Paul about the nature and outcome of his thorn.  His prayer was answered in a clear way that gave Paul peace in his struggle.   Do we want our prayers answered in this clear, Christ-glorifying way?  Then we should plead, strive, and struggle in prayer. 

It is the same old tune you’ve heard many times before: we need to pray more.  But just because we’ve heard it many, many times already doesn’t make it any less valid.  I’m as prone as the next person to tiring of hearing the same thing over and over again.  But there is not one of us who has made it to such a place in our lives where there is not more of a need for prayer each and every day.  We have an enemy who would love to disrupt our praying.  He would love for us to be content with trivial and transient praying that we like to refer to as “prayer without ceasing.”  He would love for us to dismiss the old-fashioned notion of deliberate times of prayer in which we seek God and lay our hearts before Him in total surrender.  He would love for us to think of a prayer closet and regular time spent in it as a quaint notion favored only by Puritans and really old people.   But remember, it wasn’t old Mr. White Hair that recommended our spending solitary time with the Lord.  It was Christ Himself.  And Jesus modeled a deliberate, regular prayer habit for us.  If anyone could say that he was so connected to God that he didn’t need to spend actual special time in prayer, it would surely be Jesus, right?  Yet we read over and over of Him taking time away from others to seek the Lord in prayer (Matt. 14:23, Mark 14:35, Luke 9:18, Luke 9:28, Luke 11:1, to name a few.)  Do we need more deliberate, intentional prayer than Jesus, or less? 

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”  What does that say for those who feel like their hunger has been nicely sated, that their thirst has been well and truly slaked, thank you very much?  As long as we live on this earth, we will never have the total and complete connection with the Lord that we will one day enjoy if we are His children.  So how could we not live our lives thirsting for more and more of Him?  If nothing else, our prayer times should be a time of hungering and desiring Him, yearning to draw nearer, struggling that we could leave the corruption that clings so closely to us and be forever separated from sin and totally united to Him.  And we long to see our loved ones living for Him as well, so we struggle in prayer for their souls.  We struggle and strive in our prayers.  We are filled with the precious Holy Spirit as we long for Him, as we ask God for Him, so our prayer time is a sweet time of fellowship as well, but we will still experience the struggle to pray as we ought.  To pray without ceasing is not a small thing.  To pray without ceasing is not the lame thing that it too often becomes in our casual conversation.  It is a lifestyle, true.  But it is an active striving with sweet rewards as we long for the Lord and are blessed by Him as we come to Him more and more.