CONTRARY TO POPULAR OPINION, the cultivation of a psychology of uncritical belief is not an unqualified good, and if carried too far it may be a positive evil. The whole world has been booby-trapped by the devil, and the deadliest trap of all is the religious one. Error never looks so innocent as when it is found in the sanctuary.
One field where harmless-looking but deadly traps appear in great profusion is the field of prayer. There are more sweet notions about prayer than could be contained in a large book, all of them wrong and all highly injurious to the souls of men.
I think of one such false notion that is found often in pleasant places consorting smilingly with other notions of unquestionable orthodoxy. It is that God always answers prayer.
This error appears among the saints as a kind of all-purpose philosophic therapy to prevent any disappointed Christian from suffering too great a shock when it becomes evident to him that his prayer expectations are not being fulfilled. It is explained that God always answers prayer, either by saying Yes or by saying No, or by substituting something else for the desired favor.
Now, it would be hard to invent a neater trick than this to save face for the petitioner whose requests have been rejected for non-obedience. Thus when a prayer is not answered he has but to smile brightly and explain, “God said No.” It is all so very comfortable. His wobbly faith is saved from confusion and his conscience is permitted to lie undisturbed. But I wonder if it is honest.
To receive an answer to prayer as the Bible uses the term and as Christians have understood it historically, two elements must be. present: (1) A clear-cut request made to God for a specific favor. (2) A clear-cut granting of that favor by God in answer to the request. There must be no semantic twisting, no changing of labels, no altering of the map during the journey to help the embarrassed tourist to find himself.
When we go to God with a request that He modify the existing situation for us, that is, that He answer prayer, there are two conditions that we must meet: (1) We must pray in the will of God and (2) we must be on what old-fashioned Christians often call “praying ground”; that is, we must be living lives pleasing to God.
It is futile to beg God to act contrary to His revealed purposes. To pray with confidence the petitioner must be certain that his request falls within the broad will of God for His people.
The second condition is also vitally important. God has not placed Himself under obligation to honor the requests of worldly, carnal or disobedient Christians. He hears and answers the prayers only of those who walk in His way. “Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (I John 3:21, 22; John 15:7).
God wants us to pray and He wants to answer our prayers, but He makes our use of prayer as a privilege to commingle with His use of prayer as a discipline. To receive answers to prayer we must meet God’s terms. If we neglect His commandments our petitions will not be honored. He will alter situations only at the request of obedient and humble souls.
The God-always-answers-prayer sophistry leaves the praying man without discipline. By the exercise of this bit of smooth casuistry he ignores the necessity to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world, and actually takes God’s flat refusal to answer his prayer as the very answer itself. Of course such a man will not grow in holiness; he will never learn how to wrestle and wait; he will never know correction; he will not hear the voice of God calling him forward; he will never arrive at the place where he is morally and spiritually fit to have his prayers answered. His wrong philosophy has ruined him.
That is why I turn aside to expose the bit of bad theology upon which his bad philosophy is founded. The man who accepts it never knows where he stands; he never knows whether or not he has true faith, for if his request is not granted he avoids the implication by the simple dodge of declaring that God switched the whole thing around and gave him something else. He will not allow himself to shoot at a target, so he cannot tell how good or how bad a marksman he is.
Of certain persons James says plainly: “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” From that brief sentence we may learn that God refuses some requests because they who make them are not morally worthy to receive the answer. But this means nothing to the one who has been seduced into the belief that God always answers prayer. When such a man asks and receives not he passes his hand over the hat and comes up with the answer in some other form. One thing he clings to with great tenacity: God never turns anyone away, but invariably grants every request.
The truth is that God always answers the prayer that accords with His will as revealed in the Scriptures, provided the one who prays is obedient and trustful. Further than this we dare not go.
Let’s do a little thinking about modern education — how it’s failed us and what alternatives we have.
So-called “modern” education was already failing students in Sayers’s time (1947), and it certainly is today. That’s why so many people, including Christians, misunderstand facts, or they’re swayed by specious arguments, or they have no idea how to properly express ideas in ways that are coherent and believable. Modern America is rife with the telltale signs of miseducation.
What is a classical education? Classical education advocate Susan Wise Bauer puts it this way: “Classical education depends on a three-part process of training the mind.
The early years of school are spent in absorbing facts, systematically laying the foundations for advanced study.
In the middle grades, students learn to think through arguments.
In high school . . . they learn to express themselves.”
Classical education uses natural developmental stages to train students to discern between true and false facts, understand good and bad arguments, and develop the ability to turn their thoughts into intelligent words. What more could we hope for our kids? It’s the kind of education that prepares men and women for all areas of life. Plumbers, engineers, executives, housewives all will have to sort out facts and arguments and make themselves understood.
Classical education also trains young minds to think holistically about life. Most modern education is compartmentalized. Classical education teaches that astronomy is related to economics is related to philosophy. Truth in this model forms a rational whole, which is at the heart of a coherent worldview.
Now, while Classical education doesn’t have to be Christian, much of it is Christian. And when the classical approach is mixed with Christianity, the result is powerful. Children become men and women who have taken a Christian worldview to heart.
If you have children or grandchildren, let me encourage you to seriously consider classical education. More and more communities have classical schools. Modern education has been failing students and society for decades. We need — and in classical education we have — a better alternative.
Aug 23, 2011 Chuck Colson – Two Minute Warning
You’ve probably got a young child who knows exactly how many miles it is to the planet Mars or that Jupiter has 64 moons. How does he know that? He knows that because young children have an enormous ability to memorize facts. Parents and teachers recognized that as far back as the late Roman empire.
They also saw how what we would today call middle school, they begin to put facts together into arguments and then the process becomes argument. And teenagers have always tried to understand who they are by attempting to express themselves in the same way, it’s part of growing up It’s the process God has built into each of us.
Ancient teachers observed and then built an educational system around human nature. They called it the trivium grama dialectic and rhetoric and it’s making a comeback in the classical and Christian education movement and none too soon because our kids are really struggling.
Test scores are down. Students lack even basic command of history. Reading comprehension is dismal and careful argumentation is an absolutely lost art. Listen to the teenagers and you’ll understand.
Modern education fails students because it mixes up the natural order of learning. We want third graders to express themselves when they ought to be memorizing the multiplication tables and rules of grammar. Then we wait until high school to teach foreign languages when students have lost the desire to memorize. And we allow students of any age to spout opinions on any and every topic without caring whether or not they’re arguments make any sense.Where’d we go wrong?
Writing in the spring issue of the Wilson quarterly, historian Daniel Walker How made the connection between classical education and virtue. Really important. He explained the rise of moral relativism undermined the role of classics in American education ever since the Middle ages. He wrote, a classical education had represented a synthesis of reason and virtue. Citing scholar Karl Richard, How proposes that it was a consequence of declining confidence in human reason and virtue that dimished respect for the ancient writers and and the heroes they celebrate. Moral relativism undercut trust in the standards the classical authors have long embodied. A classical education may therefore provide our younger generations a path back from moral relativism.
1 Peter 3:15 – But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.
Why do you believe in God? Ans. That is easy. He has revealed himself trillions of times. Let me ask you a question? Why is there something rather than nothing? … Since there is something rather than nothing, that necessitates the miraculous! How has God revealed himself? Through Creation Rom 1:18– General Revelation – to everyone, everywhere, at all times. Consider this, if you see a painting, you KNOW that requires a painter, a watch, a watchmaker, a creation, a creator. That is clear logic. To deny that is delusional and an example of a depraved, immoral, and rebellious mind. Time permitting, go through more various proofs for God.
Why do you believe the Bible? Ans. First a question – Who can predict the future? NO ONE!
The only thing in all the world that does so with pinpoint accuracy scores of times is the Bible. We know that men penned the Bible so how do you account for prophecy? The only answer can be that someone outside our time/space dimension had to have authored it. Someone who knows the end from the beginning and is ultimately eternal. GOD! Prophecy is God’s sacred seal on his message to us and it is his unique fingerprint proving beyond doubt that scripture is absolutely unique in all the world. A scripture explaining this is 2 Peter 1:20-21 Above all you must understand that no prophecy of scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Have some examples such as Tyre or Jesus.
Scriptures that help seal up both of those questions of God and the Bible:
Rev. 23:13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
Isa. 46:9-10 I am God and there is no other; I am God and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning.
Isa. 44:6-8 “This is what the Lord says – Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and lay out before me what has happened since I established my ancient people, and what is yet to come – yes, let him foretell what will come. Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell in long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No there is no other rock; I know not one.
God is giving us the test of how we can tell the only true God from all other claims. PROPHECY
How does one become a “born again” Christian and join the family of God? Simply put – 6 words: CREATION FALL REDEMPTION – BELIEVE REPENT ASK = salvation
I call this the Story of Reality – God’s word to us in his Special Revelation – Genesis to Revelation
I put out this story in 111 word. Modify how you wish, but keep it short and simple so that anyone can remember and tell the story and explain the process of salvation.
THE STORY OF REALITY
In the beginning God
Created The heaves and the earth – Out of Nothing
For Man – Made in his image
And for God’s glory and our pleasure
God gave us free will to choose With one restriction, don’t eat from a tree
We chose badly / consequently Man fell and sin entered the world
All men are now Under a Death Sentence
God works his rescue plan through Jesus, The Scriptures, and the Cross
God Judges Believers and non-believers
God determines Everyone’s Destiny
Our life Quest is Truth, and to live in truth
Jesus is the Truth He offers salvation – eternal life
Our part is Believe, repent, ask him to be LORD
Simply put – Creation – Fall – Redemption Our Part – Believe / Repent / Ask = Salvation
Once that is done, you are forever sealed with God’s Holy Spirit and NOTHING can change that
Once that is done, the first action point of obedience, seemingly without exception in the New Testament, was to get baptized. This was like putting your personal, public, blood oath, seal and signature to an official legal document, announcing you made an irrevocable, covenantal promise to be a follower of Christ through the act of baptism. This act was the public ceremony that showed you were an official member of the family of God with all the rights, privileges, and blessings thereof, such as brotherhood fellowship and the Lord’s supper.
A verse that strengthens this act is Matt 10:32-33 “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.
Another proof for God. Creation is a physical proof for God, but the idea of perfection is a metaphysical proof. Everyone will tell you they are NOT perfect. But no one seems to grasp the full ramifications of that statement. In order for anyone to make such a statement of comparison, they must first have a concept of perfection to compare it to.
If you were to dig into what a person was trying to tell you by that statement, it would most likely center in on not being perfect in character. That directly translates into a lack of moral perfection that the Bible calls our sin nature.
The Bible succinctly gives a list of moral characteristics in the 10 Commandments which includes lying, stealing, adultery, coveting, blasphemy which everyone intuitively knows is wrong by their own built in morality meter, called a conscience.
Here is the test: Ask someone if they consider themselves a good person. Most people will answer, yes. Then ask them if they are perfect. They now answer, no. What is it they are in fact admitting to? Much of it will have to do with those moral qualities of the 10 Commandments.
Ask them if they have ever lied, stolen, lusted, or used God’s name in vain? That is at the core of their own self-evaluation and admission. If there is no God, then there is no basis for feeling ANY guilt, remorse, or judgement over those issues.
Once again this is strong proof there is a God and the Bible is his authoritive word. When we admit we are not perfect, we in fact are comparing ourselves to the Biblical God, who is in fact is the one and only model of perfection and we intuitively truly know this. All people everywhere, at all times have demonstrated the propensity to worship something outside of themselves.
From Romans 6 – Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means
What have we been doing for a 100 or so years?
We are supposed to have been freed from sin which would also include silence? (Knowing the good we ought to do and not doing it is sin)
From Romans 6 – What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?
Should we not be ashamed of our silence?
From Romans 6 – Those things result in death.
Might we also say millions of babies have died as a result of our silence?
When are the leaders of the church going to start pushing back against the moral decline of this country and quit being silent for a tax exemption or out of fearing man more than God Almighty?
If there is no place for disobeying the government, that government has been made God. Christ must be the final Lord and not Caesar and not society.
Have we denied what we say we believe by our silence?
Has our preaching of the gospel caused a change in culture, which effective preaching should?
Francis Schaefer’s Christian Manifesto talked mostly about true spirituality. True spirituality means that Christ is the Lord of all our life and not just our religious life. And if we think there is a difference in these things we are denying our Lord his proper place, and regardless of how many butterflies we have in our stomach we are poor spiritually. True spirituality means that Jesus is the Lord of all of life and that includes standing for freedom and many of the other things that are founders stood for.
The LIE of separation of church and state must be smashed.
When a government negates the law of God it abrogates its authority.
At a certain point it is not only the privilege but it is the duty of the Christian to disobey the government. That’s what the founding fathers did when they founded this country, and that’s what the early church did.
Should we be repentant for the silence of the last 80 or so years?
Someone says, ‘My life is so busy I don’t have time to do anything more than a couple hours Sunday morning. God’s purpose for us is worship, so I am so blessed to have all my needs met by meeting with the best worship team in the area on Sunday mornings.” Would you have anything to say and if so, what?
My answer: I believe our main focus should be to know Christ, who He really is, and to make Him and His truths known to others; then help others do the same. If I spend most of my time singing songs to God, how is that making Christ known to those who would rarely, if ever, walk though the doors of my auditorium?
Ron’s answer: Worship is best described in the summary of the 10 Commandments by Jesus to love the Lord our God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and with all our strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. That is true worship. Therefore worship is a way of life and it’s not something one just does on a Sunday morning. That is far too narrow of an understanding of worship that is a reflection of every day of our lives.
The psalms are known as the hymnbook of the Bible. Working through the Psalms one will find that worship is connected to every part of one’s life and never isolated into one place of worship. Psalm 121 is known as the travelers Psalm and it deals with experiencing God’s strength and presence through all of the ups and downs of life and obviously it includes far more than a Sunday morning or a Sabbath.
The daily picture as noted in Luke 9:23, to come after Jesus we have to take up the cross daily and follow him.That is worship.
Check out John chapter 13- 17 discourse of Jesus before the crucifixion. The Chapters give us an expansive picture of the life of disciples. The picture is clear that it is way beyond Sunday morning. It involves humility, loving one another, love demonstrated by obedience, abiding in the vine, allowing his word to be rooted in us, experiencing friendship with the Lord, experiencing the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and on the list goes with the concepts for a true life of a disciple and genuine worship.
Jesus ultimately brings it Together in the high priestly prayer of John 17 in which Jesus prays for himself, the disciples and all of us who would believe on the message. Belief is demonstrated in actions.
These chapters drive home genuine worship involving the Trinity and the community of faith, which goes beyond a Sunday morning window.
James says we shouldn’t doubt and if we do we shouldn’t expect to receive anything from the Lord. How does that all work?
Ron’s answer: Without doubt we can expect to receive wisdom from God. We can be assured that God will give us needed wisdom to somehow find joy when facing many trials, which in turn help us grow and mature as we persevere through them.
My answer: The point was asking for wisdom. We can be assured that we will receive wisdom. But, unfortunately, the context of this section would probably indicate that we may receive most of our wisdom as a result of trials. Also, we have no choice as to what trials we may receive nor do we know what they will be.
Here are a few highlights from an article in the Christian Post, “Dinner Churches and how the coronavirus is shaking up the traditional model”
The problem with most churches is that our living rooms look nothing like the front porch.
What are known as “nones” are those who have no particular religious affiliation. “Dones” are those who are burned out on or “done” with church.
Dinner Church feels like this is a group of people who say, ‘Hey, let’s break bread together and sit down together and share these mealtimes, share God’s Word together, pray together, and do some work together.’ And that’s all it is,” he explained. We’re not there for any other ulterior purpose but to simply be present with one another and be present with Jesus.
To give people an aesthetic of worship that is so removed from their Monday through Saturday is not doing them any good service. It’s teaching them that in order to connect with God, in order to grow as a Christ follower, you need to pretend that you don’t live in 2020 anymore. And I don’t think that kind of formation as disciples is going to have lifelong transformation,” he said.
The entire church came on Sunday expecting to see a great show, were fine to leave a little money in the plate and then come back next week to do it all over again. “That’s cancer, full-on cancer,” he reiterated, “because church is supposed to be a missional expression of Christ in their community, their neighborhood and in their city. Anything shy of that is different from the Christianity that Christ laid out.”
Thus, only one out of a hundred Christians know how to reach the secular lost person, introduce them to Jesus, and get their life on a meaningful spiritual flow, he noted. And it’s in the absence of being on the front lines of Gospel mission that consumer-cancer starts to grow.
“Christianity is not the issue.” “Churchianity is the issue,” he stressed. Expecting everybody to sit in rows and hear a message from a stage is a huge sociological oversight.”
