Prayers

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With God nothing is impossible and he has demonstrated that remarkable fact by a number of impossibilities done in real time, not in mythology or in dreams, but in everyday, tangible situations. Moses came to the Red Sea and hesitated and God drew back the water and he and the Israelites went across on dry land. And for those skeptics who said that it was only a narrow depth of water over some seaweed and so no big deal, then note the other amazing fact; the whole Egyptian army following the Israelites was drowned as they followed the Israelites across the water. Another amazing fact to consider; Joshua prolonged daylight for several hours so that Israel could complete the victory before the enemy could escape during darkness. Yet another impossibility; the prophet Elisha made an axe head float from the bottom to the top of the river so that he could retrieve it. Did I mention the impossible escape of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego who walked about in an burning furnace and came out untouched and did I allude to Daniel being shut up in a den of hungry man-eating lions and emerged without a scratch.

Maybe you are not so impressed with all those because, well, they all happened hundreds of years before Christ was born and perhaps the historical records were not all that clear. All right then let us look at the impossible things Jesus did during his ministry, we call them miracles and which of the forty or so we should submit for your examination. Maybe the first one when he turned water into wine, and where they were many witnesses, should convince you. Perhaps you would be more impressed when, after being dead and wrapped in burial clothes for four days Jesus resurrected Lazarus and returned him to his family; again before many witnesses. Or maybe you prefer where the witnesses are in the thousands. Well then what about when Jesus took two small fish and five small loaves and increased them and fed five thousand men, as well as children and women and there were twelve baskets full left over.

What if we move ahead and I submit to you the impossibilities done by Jesus' disciples and the indisputable facts as recorded in the Acts and the Epistles. What about Peter confronting the treacherous Ananias and Sapphire and pronouncing their death and their dying that same moment on the spot. What about the Apostle Paul bringing to life again one of his listeners who fell from a window of the tall building where he was preaching and died as a result and Paul bringing him back to life or of Paul's shadow touching the sick and causing immediate recovery. I could submit evidence of all these things happening on a regular basis to all the disciples as they laid the foundation of the early church.

Here is the most amazing thing. God has continued doing impossible things right up to this moment and will continue to do so for that is essentially what God is about. God is the master of impossibilities and that is one of the reasons man is so bamboozled by and frustrated with God. Whenever we think of impossible things we come up against a cognitive barrier, but with God there are no barriers. Think about this very carefully. God is enthroned in the Sanctum Santorum in Heaven and yet he is here, there and everywhere. That is impossible. He is God. Some nincompoops think that there is one God of the Old Testament (who is cruel and kill babies) and another God of the New Testament (who is loving and compassionate and blesses and forgives). However you dice it God is both God of the Old Testament and God of the New Testament and we need to understand that. He is God. Our misconception of God does not alter one whit any of his characteristics.

So why are so many people of faith disappointed with God? The answer is that so many people do not understand, in a profound and cerebral way, the awesomeness of God and his ability to apply eternal values to all situations.

Take for example a case that we have recorded in Scripture and related to the city of Nineveh; today it is situated in modern day Iraq. This context is nearly always referred to as Jonah and the whale. We know that Jonah, a minor prophet (there are twelve minor {writing} prophets recorded in the Old Testament) was sent to Nineveh to preach to that city in an effort by God to save them. Jonah, a passionate Jew with no love for the Ninevites, the dreaded enemy of Israel, was glad that God was about to punish them for their wickedness.

God told the city that if they did not repent he was going to wipe them out and further they had but a short time to respond. This was music to Jonah's ears and when he had finished preaching, he built a shelter on top of a hill so that he could watch and enjoy the spectacle of the city being wiped out.

Now here is the most amazing thing. The city took God seriously and repented in sackcloth and ashes and to Jonah's utter disappointment God saved the city. (History shows that much later Nineveh went back to her dirty ways and was wiped out, but that is a different story). Not only was Jonah disappointed, he was livid and so outraged that he complained bitterly to God. And here you see what I meant when I said that God applies eternal values.

God created man with the sole purpose that at some point man would be elevated to the next level for eternity. God cares nothing about your nationality and ethnicity and trivial rivalries, but only in the fact that he is forming a Kingdom of redeemed people from everywhere and he wants to convert as many as he can. This Jonah did not understand. God's values are eternal and everything is measured by or related to those values.

This is the reason for my previous statement that some believers are disappointed and frustrated with God and for my caption that God can always do what the believer requests but chooses not to. The truth is that if God did exactly as we wanted then for sure it would turn out to be for our detriment and could even result in our being eternally lost. It is our failure to understand this that is at the root of our ambivalence.

When we pray and put petitions before Almighty God, it is never a question if he can for his power is limitless. It is clear from sources available to man, i.e. the Bible and Divine revelation, that we are incapable of measuring God and nowhere is that more evident than in the sphere or realm of supernatural power. We just don’t know how powerful God is and because of this ignorance we restrict our ability to access that power and its use in the facilitation of assisting mankind. Demons, these supernatural entities that are the stuff of our nightmares, know different, for they were once in heaven and when they encountered Jesus, they humbled themselves and begged for mercy as per Mark chapter 5. This awesome power was amply manifested when even the clothing of the Apostle Paul was used to effect miraculous healing of the sick and crippled.

When the Christian asks for something from God, however improbable and abstruse it is within God’s power to grant it. The question was asked and rhetorically answered, “Is there anything too hard for God to do?” Fools talk about the impossibility of the sun standing still as mentioned in Joshua 10:12 or the virgin birth of Jesus or his bodily resurrection from the grave and joke-Christians run around wringing their hands and contorting their minds and coming up with all kinds of weird and sometimes far-fetched quasi-scientific explanations all because they are unaware of the magnitude of the awesome power of God.

The Bible understands the mighty power of God and puts it like this, “For he spake, and it was done, he commanded, and it stood fast” (Psalm 33:9). The Centurion understood this and he said, “..but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed” (Matthew 8:8) and Christ so spoke, and the Centurion’s son at home was healed the very same minute. The Centurion, unlike so many, got the message.

So we need to bring a very tempered and mature outlook and expectation when we are petitioning God. Jesus said this, "And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do" and most believers comfort themselves with this and completely forget or omit the latter half of the same verse that goes, "…that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (John 14:13). Too many of us ask gratuitously because we have ego problems and want to show off and boast and here is how James puts it, "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts" (James 4:3). How many of us ask ourselves, how, what we are asking for, will this glorify Christ and promote God's kingdom?

It is this inability or reluctance to separate what we like and may enjoy with what is God's will for us that lie at the root of our problems.

Whenever anyone wants God to do something, whatever it is, the underlying motive is the main reason why they are successful or not. We do ourselves great harm when we think we know better than God the eternal consequences of our request. It is amazing how mankind does not make allowances for his lack of eternal foresight and cede to Almighty God his wise counsel in these matters. It makes no difference if you think your request may be helpful to many or you are being unselfish the truth of the matter is that you just do not know the eternal consequences of your request and God most certainly does.

I am reminded of a story Jesus told in Luke chapter 13 about Lazarus and Dives. You will recall that Dives was rich, lived rich and died rich and on his death went to hell, whereas Lazarus lived poor, fed off scraps from the rich man's table and died poor and was taken to Abraham's bosom. Dives in hell was suffering torment too terrible to bear and after making a request to Abraham to send Lazarus to cool his tongue with water, a request denied, Dives made the most amazing, selfless request.

Now let us say that Abraham had given his answer to Dives like this, "No, I won't do that. Sorry" and refused to give an explanation. The skeptics everywhere would jump all over Abraham; he is hardhearted and mean, he has no love for his fellow man, he has no compassion, what a wicked man to deny helping others, how did he get to heaven with an attitude like this, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The real reason that Abraham denied the request would have been lost in the abundance of self-entertaining chatter - it wouldn't work.

Abraham did not need to explain because he had no duty or obligation to give answers to someone who messed up his life and was now facing the consequences. But Abraham did explain. Abraham, with divine authority in rejecting Dives' request to send Lazarus back to warn his living brethren said, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead" (Luke 16:31). Sending someone from the dead to warn the living dead still, even today, does not work. People who are dead in trespasses and sins need to be converted and conversion never takes place because we know the facts, but rather we are quickened, made alive and transformed when we believe and accept the gospel and commit ourselves to God through baptism of the Holy Spirit.

If God knows something does not work, and of course the "if" is unnecessary here except for an academic purpose, then when we pray for it, no matter how earnest and fervent our prayers then God will deny that request. Does anyone seriously believe that if the atheist ask the Christians to pray that an amputated leg or arm grows back and it does that the atheist will, as one, confess that "God is God" as C. S. Lewis puts it and be converted. The answer is a resounding no.

People whose minds are bent and their hearts frozen against God and are unwilling to exercise faith in pursuit of their salvation cannot be helped by theatrics. Remember how they rejoiced that they had found the "missing link" with the discovery of "Ida" found in Germany in 2009 and claim it was the "holy grail" of evolution; only it proved not to be. This was preceded by "missing link Mahgarita " and "missing link Lucy " and any number of missing links all turning out to be pure wishful thinking.

So it should not be a surprise to see that God does not respond to prayers of the theatrical kind, by people who want drama, stunts, rabbits-out-of-a-hat and divine acrobatics sorts of things. They should instead go the places where they can have their fantasies fulfilled; they are called cinemas, circuses and theaters. Jesus showed us very clearly that these sorts of requests will always meet with disapproval and rejection as in the case when some Jews asked for a sign and he responded, "And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign from heaven, tempting him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation" (Mark 8:11-12)..

I conclude with a quote from the noted preacher Charles Finney. "Said a man to me, only the other day--I hold to this--that whatever occurs to me and mine will work for my good. If any loss befalls me, do I not know it shall be in some way for my gain? I know it must be. If one of my horses dies, it is all best. God will make it up in some spiritual good. Another man said to me--If I set my heart upon accomplishing any object, make efforts for it, and succeed, it is well; and if I do not succeed, then it is well. I know the failure must be better than the success, else God would have given me the success. Do I not know that He will give me the best thing? It does not follow that He was displeased with me for making the efforts which He saw it best to frustrate." (Sermon, June 7, 1874)

Remember that God can always do what the believer requests but chooses not to and every time that will be to our eternal good

Enough said.

Books by this author you may wish to read.

THINGS EVERY CHRISTIAN SHOULD KNOW (e-book)
Volume 1 – Five tough facts to be faced
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004YX5NSI

STAND UP TO THE DEVIL (e-book)
Volume 1 – You must first identify him
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005BQVLSS

BASTARD: A STORY OF REDEMPTION(e-book fiction)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006OF3SD6

ONE MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT ON GOD’S CLOCK (Hard copy)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002X78D16

ONE MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT ON GOD’S CLOCK (e-book)
http://tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-60799-630-9

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