Prayer MATTERS! An Email to Our Church

The following is an email I sent out to our Perry Baptist Church family yesterday (Monday). Only after writing it did I feel it might serve a broader purpose if posted on this site. May the God of all Power and Comfort raise up a strong prayer effort in his people everywhere against this sinful attack against the Lord of Life!

Dear Fellow Pilgrims:

The 14th Annual Life Chain will be held in Perry on Oct.4, 2009 from 2-3 p.m. Meet at our church parking lot at 1:45 p.m. for prayer together before standing along Rt 39 for prayer against evil, specifically the evil hearts of this nation that conceived the evil solution to slaughter babies! And pray as well for those who've suffered such degradations in their own bodies. 

IS YOUR PRAYER INSIGNIFICANT?

We must “speak up” against this slaughter of the helpless unborn! Don’t think that your standing on a street in a small town like Perry has no effect. “Despise not the day of small things,” God told Zechariah when it came to time to re-build the post-Babylonian destruction, seemingly insignificant temple (Zechariah 4:10). How could it compare to the awesome grandeur of Solomon's temple?

Compared to the man-power of much larger cities and Washington, D.C. mega-crowds, we in rural Perry may imagine we have little with which to fight. But that is simply NOT TRUE! Moses’ prayer saved the entire nation of Israel from destruction! (Ex. 32:9-14, esp. 14). Isaiah’s prayer brought on the destruction of the invading Assyrians to the tune of 185,000 men! (Isaiah 37) Prayer’s effect does not hinge on OUR numbers but on the ONE to whom we cry out! Listen to what the LORD told Isaiah right after he had prayed, “For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David” (Is. 37:35). Don't miss that. “I WILL DEFEND THIS CITY,” and “FOR MY OWN SAKE.” The key is not found in the voice of the one praying, but in the power of the God being prayed TO! Let us NOT allow Satan to tempt us to cease praying because we are not big names like Moses or Isaiah! That’s an evil ruse he uses all too frequently and, apparently, with too much success. Let us have faith in God and not faith in the evil one!

I would like to see every person in the church gathered together (IN FAITH) to stand along the road and simply call out to God quietly. Remember what God told the prophet Zechariah to tell Zerubbabel (the one building the temple), “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the LORD of hosts” (4:6). The LORD is telling us, "Do not despise the day of small things because victory or success have nothing to do with your position, but everything to do with my mighty power and effective Spirit!"

God stir us up and bless us all as we labor together for those who cannot defend themselves, and for God who gives to all men life and breath and everything else!

Pastor Dave

"Poor In Spirit" Necessary to Be Saved--Charles Hodge

Charles Hodge (1797-1878) was  a much loved professor of theology at Princeton, a warm, generous defender of the faith, most notably historic Calvinism. The following comes from his writings dated 3 March 1861. What DOES it mean to be "poor in spirit?"

This of course is not to be understood as something derogatory. Poor–spirited is a term of reproach. It expresses the absence of manly virtue, of courage, strength of conviction and of will.

The poor in spirit are these who are conscious of their spiritual poverty. They stand opposed to those who falsely assume and assert that they are rich and know not that they are wretched and miserable, and poor and blind and naked.

1.  A sense of ignorance and a willingness to be taught. . . It is only those who are sensible of their ignorance and of their insufficiency to discover truth and who are converted so as to be as little children, who have the Holy Ghost, who is the source of all true knowledge and one of the great blessings of the kingdom of God.

 2.  A sense of unworthiness, as opposed to a spirit of self–righteousness. It is a consciousness of guilt and ill–desert in the sight of God which leads the soul to cry, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. So long as a man thinks that the law of God does not condemn him who cherishes the persuasion that he has never done anything worthy of death, so long is he left in his delusion. But when he is made sensible of the enormity of his guilt, and when he trembles at the wrath of God and renounces his own righteousness, then he receives the righteousness of Christ and becomes rich indeed.

3.  A sense of pollution, as opposed to self–complacency or a disposition to admire our own excellence and to regard ourselves as attractive in the sight of others. To this is opposed a sense of vileness, which leads us to abhor ourselves and lay our mouths in the dust before God. To those who are thus poor in spirit, the Spirit comes and adorns them with all his heavenly grace.

4.  A sense of helplessness. This is opposed to the conceit of our own power to change our hearts, to subdue sin, to secure holiness of heart and life. Those who have this conceit God leaves to their own resources, either to perish in their delusion or to convince themselves of their utter impotence, because then they are endued with power from on high.

So when they think they have power in themselves to accomplish any good work in the Church, God leaves them to try. It is only those who are poor in spirit whom He helps.

5.  Poverty of spirit is a sense of wretchedness, i.e., of the utter incompetence of the world to fill the desires of the soul. Those who think themselves rich because possessed of this world’s sources of happiness, and desire nothing more, God leaves in their contentment. But those who are sensible of their poverty, who hunger and thirst after God, He fills with Himself.

Time, Stress, and the Sabbath!

One of the best explanations of the principle of Sabbath is found in the works of Rabbi Heschel. If you’re a Gentile, or a protestant, you may be tempted to skip over this article. Don’t! You may be surprised. Please read the following slowly; take it in. Note that this is all Heschel’s with the exception of the headings which are my own.

One of the most distinguished words in the Bible is the word kadosh, holy; a word which more than any other is representative of the mystery and majesty of the divine. Now what was the first holy object in the history of the world? Was it a mountain? Was it an altar? . . .

God Declared TIME Holy, Not a Location

It is, indeed, a unique occasion at which the distinguished word kadosh is used for the first time: in the Book of Genesis at the end of the story of creation. How extremely significant is the fact that it is applied to time: "And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy." There is no reference in the record of creation to any object in space that would be endowed with the quality of holiness.

This is a radical departure from accustomed religious thinking. The mythical mind would expect that, after heaven and earth have been established, God would create a holy place--a holy mountain or a holy spring--whereupon a sanctuary is to be established. Yet it seems as if to the Bible it is holiness in time, the Sabbath, which comes first.

TIME Declared “Holy” From the Beginning

When history began, there was only one holiness in the world, holiness in time. When at Sinai the word of God was about to be voiced, a call for holiness in man was proclaimed: "Thou shalt be unto me a holy people." It was only after the people had succumbed to the temptation of worshipping a thing, a golden calf, that the erection of a Tabernacle, of holiness in space, was commanded. The sanctity of time came first, the sanctity of man came second, and the sanctity of space last [emphasis mine]. Time was hallowed by God; space, the Tabernacle, was consecrated by Moses.

While the festivals celebrate events that happened in time, the date of the month assigned for each festival in the calendar is determined by the life in nature. . . . In contrast, the Sabbath is entirely independent of the month and unrelated to the moon. Its date is not determined by any event in nature, such as the new moon, but by the act of creation. Thus the essence of the Sabbath is completely detached from the world of space [emphasis mine].

In Summary

The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation, from the world of creation to the creation of the world.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Ph.D. (1907-1972), born in Warsaw and educated in Poland and Germany, was Professor of Ethics and Mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Among his books are Man Is Not Alone, God in Search of Man, The Earth is the Lord's, and Israel: Echo of Eternity.

Chambers on Honest Teaching

Worker for God—and I speak this to myself as well as to you—what do you fasten your mind on when you listen to a preacher, when you read a book? When Jesus Christ said “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,” He did not stop there, He went on to say, “. . . and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Oh, I wish I had time, I would kindle you by telling you of some folks I know who have lifted themselves out of the very gutter of ignominy and ignorance by sheer grind in the secular callings of life. Would to God we had the same stick-to-it energy in God’s line! Many a lad have I known in Scotland who has worked hard day and night to attain a scholarship in secular callings, and are we to be behind them? This word of the Apostle Paul’s is used in that connection— “take heed,”  concentrate, stick at it, fix the mind on it.  Give heed to reading, be careful of your self-preparation. God grant that we may be approved unto God by what we build in. When Paul mentions the matter of conversation, he says,  “See that your speech is edifying” —good building-up stuff, not sanctimonious talk, but real solid stuff that makes people stronger in the Word of God, stronger in character, stronger in practical life.

Chambers, Oswald. Workmen of God : The Cure for Souls. Hants UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1996, c1937.

A Word to Christian Workers

 
Like so many other churches, we have just kicked off our Fall programs - AWANA, Rally Day for Sunday School, and soon, Released Time classes for kids after school. Programs are not an end unto themselves; they are only as good as the truth taught and the leaders that lead them. The name, AWANA, refers to "Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed." So, what does that mean? It is based on 2 Timothy 2:15. The following comes from the Scotsman, Oswald Chambers (1874-1917), who was converted under the ministry of C. H. Spurgeon in London. He is best known for the devotional My Utmost For His Highest. 

Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth.  (2 Timothy 2:15, RV)

FIRST, "Rivet" God's Truth into Your Heart

How can a man or woman become a workman approved unto God? Read 1 Timothy 4:16 —“Take heed to thyself, and to thy teaching." If you forget everything else, do not forget that verse. The word “heed” occurs again in Acts 3:5  and  20:28. It means to concentrate, to screw your mind down, fix it, limit it, curb it, confine it, rivet it on yourself and on your teaching. It is a strong word, a powerful word, a word that grips, a rousing word. That is what we have to do if we are going to be workmen approved unto God.

Next, Intentionally Put Yourself into an Apprenticeship Role with Godly Leaders. To be a good leader, you have to be a good follower. Hear Chambers,

But I want you to notice first of all who is talking and who he is talking to. It is the Apostle Paul talking to Timothy, or writing to Timothy, or sending a message to Timothy. Paul’s method was that of apprenticeship, that is always God’s method of training workers. In the old days when artists used to have apprentices, they used to put the boy in charge of mixing paints and in between doing this he would watch the artist paint, and slowly bit by bit, doing the hard work and watching the master work, he would learn to “take heed.” That was Paul’s method. Timothy had a good mother and a godly grandmother, and he was trained spiritually in this apprentice style. If you are going to be a worker for the cure of souls, God will bring you under masters and teachers. That is the method God always uses. He does not use anyone who is undisciplined. Thank God for every worker who was ever placed under apprenticeship!

Please notice, Timothy's mother and grandmother didn't just school Timothy in the facts! No, they taught him GOD! Oh, how many Preachers and Sunday School teachers limit their students to mere knowledge of facts instead of promoting the "fear of the Lord," love for Christ, delight in his law, etc. These are the kinds of teaching which should fill our time at church and home. God help us.

Have We Lost CHRIST in Christianity?

Dear Fellow Believers:

Our Lord calls us to “love God with all of our mind . . .” The following excerpt is intended to do just that—promote our pondering on a subject that might make us question our Christian assumptions.


It comes from a book by Mike Yaconelli entitled, Dangerous Wonder: The Adventure of Childlike Faith. The following is only a short portion from his chapter on Wild Abandon, based on Jesus’ call to “lose our life for his sake,” or abandon ourselves to follow Christ. Yaconelli writes: 

Let’s look at children again. 

Little children start their lives unrule-ly, without rules, oblivious to society’s prescribed laws, which, according to the rule makers of our society, exist for children’s and everyone’s good. Eventually children are socialized. Domesticated. They learn how to behave, how to conform to the cultural “norms” for the greater good of society. Children are told that learning the rules, becoming responsible and orderly, and discovering the boundaries of a civilized world are what growing up is all about.

But is it?

Or, in the process of socializing our children to follow the rules, do we rob them of the discernment needed to know when to follow rules and when to break them? Have we robbed our children (including those of us who have grown out of childhood) of the childlike intuition that caused us to know in our hearts how to recognize the Rule Maker? Christianity is the wild religion that has always been more concerned about following Jesus than following the rules of Jesus.

Remember when you said yes to Jesus that first time? You didn’t know all the rules, but you knew Jesus. Sadly, the church immediately stepped in and told us we needed to know more than Jesus; we needed to know the rules of the Christian faith, otherwise we might end up in confusion and spiritual anarchy. The church is always worried we might make a mistake!

Mistakes are the guaranteed consequence of wild abandon. Mistakes are signs of growth. That is why the Old and New Testament are full of people who made mistakes. The church should be the one place in our culture where mistakes are not only expected but welcomed.

Every time the disciples started establishing rules—no children near Jesus; don’t let the crowd touch Jesus; don’t talk to Samaritan women; don’t let people waste expensive perfumes—Jesus told them to knock it off, and His rebuke was usually followed by a lecture that said, “You still don’t get it! We are not substituting religious rules with our rules. We are substituting religious rules with Me!” Jesus kept saying “Follow Me,” not “follow My rules.” So most of us have spent our Christian lives learning what we can’t do instead of celebrating what we can do in Jesus (pp. 52-53). 

Celebrate Jesus, rejoice in Him, not just in an extension of what he has done for you.
 

Service For God is NO Sacrifice

In the 1800's David Livingston was a famous missionary to Africa, giving up a lucrative vocation as a British doctor to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1857, he was asked to speak at Cambridge University on the subject of the sacrifices he'd made in his life. Here is a snippet from that speech:

For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought!  It is emphatically no sacrifice.  Say rather it is a privilege.  Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink, but let this only be for a moment.  All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us.  I never made a sacrifice.         

DAVID LIVINGSTONE (1813-1873)