Jesus the Light 11: Prayer [part 2]
If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear -Ps.66:18
Hindrances to genuine prayer are numerous, but the root of each is one and the same. Isa.59:2: “Your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.” If one would pray in God’s will, he must live according to His will. Jn.15:7: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
If one is abiding in fellowship with the Lord Jesus by obeying His Word, he will ask according to God’s will and not his own. Self-willed people are neither abiding in Christ nor obedient to His Word. They therefore ask according to their own wishes, not from desires arising from communion with their Lord.
Ps.106:13-15 describes such people who forgot His ways. They did not wait for His counsel, but plunged headlong into repeated demands from the lusts of their hearts.
Their “prayer” was answered: “He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul” -Ps.106:15. Persisting in demanding our own will may be granted by the Lord; but it will be done so in His wrath and to our spiritual demise.
Prayer is not a technique to get things from God. It rather must be offered according to His will and for His glory, not from the unworthy motive of gaining for self. Such prayers are worthless words. James 4:2-4: “You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?”
Spiritual prostitution best describes “prayers” arising from our own selfish desires. It is what Israel did in the wilderness. It is what the church does through PC.
Only as we diligently seek to know and obey the Word of God will our prayers be ordered aright. It is from the Scriptures that we gain insight into the will of God. Only with such knowledge can we properly present our requests. Prov.28:9: “He who turns away his ear from listening to the law, even his prayer is an abomination.”
Simply put, if we will not listen to God’s Word, He will not hear ours. If we have no heart to know, obey, and then to pray in His will, He has no ear for our useless words. Zech.7:13: “‘And just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen,’ says the Lord of hosts.” “Prayer” such as that is an abomination.
Such are the “decrees” of PC. Monstrous folly has arisen from twisting Scriptures from their contexts to “support” the delusion of PC as if it were actually prayer. The KJV of Isaiah 45:11 has become a stronghold for this deception: “Ask Me of things to come concerning My sons, and concerning the work of My hands command ye Me.”
And thus deceived, demanding, and arrogant souls decree their destinies, confess their portions, possess their possessions, and command the Most High to bow to their decrees. What depraved wickedness.
Isa.45:9,10 asks these questions: “Shall the clay direct and dominate the potter? Shall the child question, guide, and reprove the parent?” God forbid; this could never be. But this is what PC presumes to do; it is not prayer; it is nothing more than proud presumption. Listen to the true sense of Isa.45:11 in the following translations:
NIV: “Concerning things to come, do you question me about my children, or give me orders about the work of my hands?” ESV: “Ask Me of things to come;will you command Me concerning My children and the work of My hands?’”
NET: “How dare you question Me about My children!How dare you tell Me what to do with the work of My own hands!”
No, PC is not prayer at all. Consider yourself rebuked. And there are many other deceptions surrounding our communion with the Most High in prayer.
Thinking that we will be heard by multiplying words over and over again is a delusion of stupidity. Jesus exposes this folly in Mt.6:7: “When you pray, do not keep on babbling like the pagans, because they think that by many words they will be heard.”
Here, the Lord Jesus rebukes the madness of our current practice of babbling in “tongues,” as if that multiplied noise actually qualifies as prayer: It is not.
In Accra, Ghana, a woman led in prayer points, saying the points in English, and then saying for 20 minutes: “O shuliO, baba ba; O shuliO baba, ba.” In New Karu, Abuja, the GO, Man of God, directed the prayer points understandably, followed by 30 minutes of: “Sum rabosk; sum rabbosk.” In Makurdi, for 30 minutes the only prayer coming from one self-appointed “Prophetess” was this: “breeet; breeet; breeet.”
Such things are not prayer at all; they are a form of insanity, of spiritual madness as the Apostle Paul clearly warns in 1 Cor.14:23: “So if the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues will they not say that you have lost your minds?” Yes, they will.
Likewise, a hypocrite’s expectation will perish along with his lengthy prayers. We cannot oppress and cheat men and expect the God of heaven to hear us [Mt.23:14].
We will not be heard if we regard others with contempt [Lk.18:9] or if we hold grudges against them. Mk.11:25,26: If we do not forgive men “neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions.”
Many prayers go unanswered because the man uttering them does not love his wife. He grants her no honor. He disregards her as God’s given helper. Her weakness as a woman is ignored and unreasonable demands are placed upon her. Rather than being cherished she is abused. It is wickedness and cancels any prayers arising from such men.
1 Pet.3:7: “You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.”
“So that your prayers will not be hindered:” Hindrances abound in this most holy work of prayer. All of them revolve around the hub of self – selfish desires, self-promotion, self-gain, self-comforts, self-righteousness. Self is a sickening thing.
The glory of God is a thing forgotten in the church’s mad pursuit of its own ends. Self-conceived decrees and commands dominate the words of these positively confessed “prayers.” But those are not biblical prayer at all. They are abominations.
Rather, we are to pray as Christ instructed us in Mt.6. We are to pray as Jesus Himself did in Jn.17. We are to pray as Paul did in Eph.1 and chapter 3; Phil.1; and Col.1. Do you want to know how to pray? Study these passages well, therein are Spirit inspired records of what real prayer is.
Thereby you will learn to pray in the will of God: for His interests and kingdom to advance, for the spiritual progress, growth, and maturity of your brethren. The purpose of your prayers will be for God to be glorified on earth as He is in heaven.
Your focus will become that all might abound in Christ’s love, purity, and truth that Christ’s transforming power will be effective in one and all. If we will begin to pray according to what is contained in these inspired portions of the Word of God, the entire church of Christ will be transformed. You will be as well.
Dear Listener, you can pray. Yes, you. Don’t be deceived into thinking that you require the prayers or need to pay money to some self-promoting “anointed Man of God” in order for God to hear. No. There is an open heaven above. Christ is there; He is your Advocate. Sympathy abounds from His heart for you in all your weakness. Therefore let us draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need –Heb.4:16. Copyright Steve Phillips 2019