CarrotCruncher

This a thought provoking post from the Pyromaniacs site

What prayer is and isn't by Dan Phillips


The minefield that is prayer. I can't think of one specific doctrine, offhand, which is more tradition-laden, and buried under sentimentality, than that of prayer.For that very reason, it's a risky topic. Step in any direction, and you land on someone's toes. Worse, diverge from the "party line," and it's as if you're insulting Mom. Only a fool, or someone with nothing to lose, would knowingly poke a stick at that particular venerated bovine. (Say, why are you looking at me like that?)Christianoid notions. Common Christian coinage describes prayer as a conversation, declares that "there is power in prayer," makes prayer out to be the be-all and end-all of Christian living. Prayer is "the greatest power on earth," we're told. Is this Scriptural thinking?Think of Frank Peretti's Darknes books. I read one or two. I thought them imaginative and fast-moving, but neither great theology nor great literature.In his imagination, Peretti pulls the curtain aside on the spiritual battle that Scripture describes. He shows demons and angels alike in action, makes up their dialogue, fantasizes their attempts to ruin or protect human beings.

Here's what sticks in my mind. What do you suppose strikes terror into Peretti's demons? When does everything start to turn around, for the demons' defeat and the saints' victory? It's when the saints pray. Nothing scares fallen angels, apparently, like praying Christians.Now, it strikes me that all of this is backwards at worst, sideways at best.Biblical teaching. What is prayer, in the Bible? It's one thing, and one thing only: prayer is talking to God. Period. That's it. It might be talking in the form of praise, petition, confession, supplication, exclamation, or a host of other forms. It might be talking to God while happy (Psalm 43:4), sad (Psalm 42:9), mad (Psalm 10:15), hurried (Nehemiah 2:4), guilty (Psalm 51:1), busy and distracted (Nehemiah 4:9), or near death (Acts 7:59-60). But it all boils down to that one irreducible: prayer is what you say to God. No arguments so far? Great. Now fasten your seatbelts, and consider this:

Prayer is not a dialogue. Prayer is not a conversation. Prayer has no intrinsic power, whatever."What?! Heresy!"Show me from the Bible. In the Bible, what I say to God is prayer, what He says to me is revelation, it is prophecy. If I am a Christian, I talk to Him. If He talks directly to me, unmediated, I am a prophet, or a seer. And I'm neither; nor are you.Scripture constantly urges believers to pray, in both covenants (Psalm 32:6; 72:15; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; 1 Timothy 2:1f., etc.).By contrast, Scripture never urges believers to pray and then wait for God to speak back in that prayer, expecting (demanding?) that God engage us in conversation as a regular facet of normal Christian living. (I am using "conversation" in the strict sense: I speak, then God talks back, unmediated, verbally). Scripture never directs us to an Eastern-style emptying of the mind and listening in and to the silence, for an imaginary "still, small," never-promised "voice" of God.

Prayer, if you will, is depressing the button on the walkie-talkie, and talking. No more, no less. It has been described as a soldier in the field calling for supplies and reinforcements, and that's not bad. Prayer is you, talking.Now, if you want to hear God speak to you, go to His Word in faith, and He will (Proverbs 6:20-23; Hebrews 3:7ff.; 2 Peter 1:19-21, etc.).Not only is prayer not the be-all and end-all; in fact, sometimes it is positively wrong to pray.What? More heresy?Not if your Bible contains Proverbs 28:9, which reads "He who turns away his ear from listening to the law, Even his prayer is an abomination" (NAS). Such prayer is appalling to God. It (so to speak) turns His stomach, when someone turns a deaf ear to His voice in Scripture, but expects God to hear him rattling off his "honey-do" (or "Deity-do") list of requests.Nor is it heresy if your Bible still features the devastatingly wondrous first chapter of Isaiah, where we read in verse 15, "When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood." (Remind me sometime to tell you what I think of the National Day of Prayer. Or maybe you can guess.)

What does this mean? It means that sometimes, when someone says "I'll pray about that," the most Biblical response is, "Don't bother. You'll only make it worse." In such cases as these, the only appropriate prayer would be a prayer of broken, heartfelt repentance and confession (Psalms 32; 51; 1 John 1:9).Now, wonderful things can happen in response to prayer. When prayer is expressive of a relationship with God, and in accord with God's will as revealed in the Bible alone, prayer can accomplish much (James 5:16; 1 John 5:14). But of course, in these cases, the prayer itself is of no power, whatever. It is the God who hears prayer -- He is the powerful one.Think about it. When the bully is beating you up, and all you can choke out is "Dad!", what dooms your tormentor isn't the power of your word, your "prayer" -- it's the big, angry man who loves you, hears your voice, and comes running.So is it prayer per se that really strikes terror into demons' hearts in this spiritual battle of ours? I do read some detail about the armor of God, crafted in Heaven to equip us for that battle (Ephesians 6:10ff.). I do somewhere around there of prayer, and I do read of a weapon.But the weapon isn't prayer (Ephesians 6:18). That's just us talking to God.

Our words are without intrinsic power. I don't think that us talking, per se, scares demons. In fact, I'm pretty sure that sometimes it cracks them up.The weapon is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17). God's Word sent Satan running from our Lord (Matthew 4). It will do the same for us.Now, there are some words with power (Psalm 33:6, 9; Jeremiah 23:29; Hebrews 4:12)! Read, them, study them, believe them, embrace them, glory in them, live them -- and use them in prayer.That would result in some quaking, shaking, and glory.

In the Christian faith there exist some big questions, questions like:

# How can a God of love allow floods, tsunamis and earthquakes?
# How is it possible for unbelievers to do good things?
# Shouldn't Christians devote all their energy to Christian things and not be involved in art, science or politics?

It is, therefore, a big claim that they are, in part at least, answered by a single Christian doctrine called, "Common Grace".
So how does "common grace" apply to these three big questions? Common Grace has two purposes - to restrain and to promote. There are three basic areas in which it is normally helpful to consider its application.

Judgment
When Adam and Eve sinned, the penalty was death. But the penalty was not carried out immediately. They were banished from the garden, there were other curses upon them (and us) and they had a life after, different from the one before (Genesis 3). But they did not die immediately. They had time to reflect and repent.

If we were all "zapped" the moment we first committed a sin, there would not be a human race. This restraining of God's wrath is an act of grace - God's common grace. We get a life we don't deserve before we get the judgment and wrath, which we do deserve.

Part of the curse as a result of the fall was a curse on the earth. As a consequence, there would be floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis (Luke 21:11). The fact that these don't occur more frequently and more universally is a result of God's grace. We deserve to live in a world surrounded by these things but by God's grace we don't experience them as much as we might. He gives us what we don't deserve - God's common grace.

When we hear of "natural disasters" like these we should;
# recognise that we all deserve to experience such things
# praise God for his grace
# pray for those involved
# pray that we might learn humility that leads to repentance.

Common grace restrains the wrath of God we all deserve until a future judgment and promotes a life where there is opportunity to repent and give God the glory he deserves.

Sin
The Bible is very clear when it describes the state of men and women's hearts. The heart is deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9) and full of sin, from birth (even conceived in sin). Yet when we look at the world, there are a couple of concerns that we might have with the Bible's assessment of man. Although we see a world in which there is clearly sin, it isn't as bad as it might be. In other words the extremes of the sinful nature don't appear that often, they are so rare that society in general is outraged when they do.

There are not that many Hitlers, Jack the Rippers, Attila the Huns etc, yes there are people whose sin becomes famously obvious in its extreme but not that many live down your street. Yes, we are most definitely all sinners, however, if sin was to have complete free reign in the world, the world would be pretty unbearable for all of us, some people might say it would be Hell (although technically that's something else even worse). Just like God, in his grace, holds back his wrath at our sin, so also God restrains sin in the world. Again we don't get the really sinful world we deserve; God in his grace restrains sin - God's common grace.

The Bible clearly indicates that God is long suffering with men (2 Peter 3:9) before he hands them over to their sins (Romans 1:24).When we hear of the extremes of sin in our society we should:
# recognise that we are all sinners before a Holy God, even though some sins are more socially acceptable in man's eyes
# praise God for his grace in restraining sin
# pray that the outrage that people feel when confronted with the extremes of sin would lead to repentance.

Good in the world
Not only does God, to a certain extent, restrain sin, He also promotes good in the world. Society, even a sinful one, can only function because of good in the world. Many things that we take for granted, even a mother's love, is as a result of man's continuing knowledge of the good part of "the knowledge of good and evil" that Adam and Eve knew.

The fact that a sinful human judge can dispense anything like justice (Luke 18:6), that men and women can show compassion, mercy and love or any good thing, is because of God's grace - God's common grace. These good things that men do are in no way "good works" sufficient to achieve any redeeming of our fallen character before a Holy God.Any society that has any kind of functional stability, and all human societies are corrupted by sin, can only exist because of man's ability to carry out what some theologians call "civil righteousness". Were it not for God's common grace contending with men to restrain sin and prompting good, the world in which we live would be even worse.

The Bible clearly demonstrates that there are some blessings that God pours out on all people, the righteous and the unrighteous. He causes the sun and the rain to nurture and feed the crops of all nations. He also gives gifts generally within the world, he stimulates different men and women with interest and ability in worthy tasks of cultivating the arts and sciences. These are things that can occupy people's time and energies and yet benefit society and the civilisation of the human race as a whole.

God therefore prompts good and gives good things generally to mankind. He doesn't give us the full force of living in a world of our own desires. Once again we don't get the world we deserve - God's common grace.

It would be easy to get this doctrine out of proportion and I have only picked on three of the more obvious aspects of its outworking in the world. It is important that we reflect on the goodness of God, not just in his salvation of his people but also in his continuing care and provision for mankind in general. This grace is not incompatible with the idea that, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Romans 1:18).

Theologians have always distinguished between "saving grace" or "special grace" and "common grace". Saving grace is that act of God by which we are saved, something unique to God's church - his "called out" people. Common grace doesn't save but it does exist in creation and the people of the world in general.

We have to be careful here and typically in theology we need to take care not to be confused by the words. Many of us have been taught that grace means, "God's Riches At Christ's Expense" – and this is true when we talk about saving grace. The definition that works for both common grace and saving grace is, "when God freely gives us what we don't deserve".
Also the word "common" doesn't mean that it is found in equal measure in all cases. (Just like "common sense" at times appears an incredibly rare thing.)
So, by God's common grace the judgment of God is delayed, giving repentance a chance. The effects of sin in the world are moderated, and good things provided and promoted to give society some semblance of order.

Many people will not recognise God's grace in granting time for repentance, in holding back our sinful extremes and in promoting good things in the world.
Do we?- Tim Fisher

At one point early in Julius Caesar's political career, feelings ran so high against him that he thought it best to leave Rome. He sailed for the Aegean island of Rhodes, but en route the ship was attacked by pirates and Caesar was captured. The pirates demanded a ransom of 12,000 gold pieces, and Caesar's staff was sent away to arrange the payment. Caesar spent almost 40 days with his captors, jokingly telling the pirates on several occasions that he would someday capture and crucify them to a man. The kidnappers were greatly amused, but when the ransom was paid and Caesar was freed, the first thing he did was gather a fleet and pursue the pirates. The were captured and crucified ... to a man! Such was the Romans' attitude toward crucifixion. It was to be reserved for the worst of criminals, a means of showing extreme contempt for the condemned. The suffering and humiliation of a Roman crucifixion were unequaled.

A medical doctor provides a physical description:

The cross is placed on the ground and the exhausted man is quickly thrown backwards with his shoulders against the wood. The legionnaire feels for the depression at the front of the wrist. He drives a heavy, square wrought-iron nail through the wrist and deep into the wood. Quickly he moves to the other side and repeats the action, being careful not to pull the arms too tightly, but to allow some flex and movement. The cross is then lifted into place. The left foot is pressed backward against the right foot, and with both feet extended, toes down, a nail is driven through the arch of each, leaving the knees flexed. The victim is now crucified. As he slowly sags down with more weight on the nails in the wrists, excruciating, fiery pain shoots along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain--the nails in the wrists are putting pressure on the median nerves. As he pushes himself upward to avoid this stretching torment, he places the full weight on the nail through his feet. Again he feels the searing agony of the nail tearing through the nerves between the bones of his feet. As the arms fatigue, cramps sweep through the muscles, knotting them in deep, relentless, throbbing pain. With these cramps comes the inability to push himself upward to breathe. Air can be drawn into the lungs but not exhaled. He fights to raise himself in order to get even one small breath. Finally carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs and in the blood stream, and the cramps partially subside. Spasmodically he is able to push himself upward to exhale and bring in life-giving oxygen. Hours of this limitless pain, cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, searing pain as tissue is torn from his lacerated back as he moves up and down against the rough timber. Then another agony begins: a deep, crushing pain deep in the chest as the pericardium slowly fills with serum and begins to compress the heart.

It is now almost over--the loss of tissue fluids has reached a critical level--the compressed heart is struggling to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood into the tissues--the tortured lungs are making a frantic effort to gasp in small gulps of air. He can feel the chill of death creeping through is tissues. . .Finally he can allow his body to die.

All this the Bible records with the simple words, "And they crucified Him."