Foundations of Fellowship-10
This entry had to wait a couple days, having been interrupted by the terrible news last Friday out of Aurora, Colorado. Why it had to wait is that, at least from my perspective, time was needed to recoil from the shock of yet another senseless act of violence in which families were bereaved of loved ones. Our prayers and thoughts of deepest sympathy go out to those friends and families of the victims.
As is always the case immediately following such events, people ask why? Many Christians would say that James Holmes acted according to his free will. That sounds reasonable to me in a sense: he did what he wanted to do with no apparent coercion or outside influence; and he should be thus held responsible for his actions. Of course that explanation begs the question of why anyone would want to do such a thing. Dr. Drew and other pop “experts” who have never met him were quick to diagnose Holmes as a “sick” person in need of treatment. Others, like Piers Morgan, immediately used the situation to push tighter gun laws. Such responses sicken me because they trivialize and cheapen the lives of the victims in the interest of promoting agendas which marginalize the glory of God and reality of sin. If it sells soap run with it.
This blog was to be about prayer, specifically as it relates to the will of God.
Now this is the confidence we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him (1 John 5:14-15).
When we talk about the will of God our meaning might go in one of two directions. First, we might be referring to the revealed moral will of God; that is, those things we ought to do or not do based upon the commands and prohibitions of God recorded in scripture. The other sense in which we speak of God’s will is in terms of His secret sovereign decree. That is the sense in which it is used in passages like James 4:15: Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”
Now in the 1 John prayer passage just cited it seems obvious for two reasons that the sovereign secret will of God is referred to. First, many times we pray for ourselves and others to operate within the parameters of God’s revealed moral will, and they do not. When I was in Bible college in the 1970′s I prayed a lot for my unsaved family members–and still do. An older Canadian pastor once assured me that those family members would be saved because it was God’s will. But two of those family members have since died, and as far as I know they were not saved, even though trusting Christ is what they ought to have done based on God’s word. My heart is heavy just thinking about this.
Which brings us to the secret sovereign will of God. I am convinced that is what John was referring to above. God does not answer prayer outside the bounds of His sovereign will for one simple reason: nothing can come to pass in God’s universe apart from His sovereign will. Scripture tells us that He works all things according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11). This means that somehow diseases, natural disasters, and the evil choices of human beings are under the umbrella of God’s will.
And what about man’s free will? James Holmes chose to do what he did, and for that reason he alone is responsible and should be punished. God did not choose that Holmes should go on the shooting rampage in that crowded theater–He simply allowed it to happen. If this is your line of reasoning my question is a simple one: could God have stopped Holmes from killing and wounding all those people? If your answer is yes then you must conclude that God chose to let it happen. It was His sovereign will to let it happen.
You will argue that God does not violate our free will. Excuse me, but there are many examples in scripture and daily life that prove that notion false. God often stops us from doing what we choose and want to do–and thank God for it. What puzzles all of us is why He doesn’t stop all of our evil sinful choices. And to that question we must all plead ignorance.
And don’t get all bent out of shape that I am reasoning thus. Don’t write this off as a theoretical exercise divorced from real life. Nothing could be more practical than relating the events of daily life, no matter how painful, to the truth of the word of God. I am not an unfeeling ogre. I know that when someone is experiencing agonizing pain you deal with the pain. Recently my daughter experienced a severe ear infection which resulted in unbearable pain. Of course what any feeling human being does at a time like this is try and find a way to relieve the agony. Just over a month ago I sat with a woman as she broke the news to her nine-year son that he would never see his daddy again, as he had been struck dead that morning with a stroke. The expression in those sad little eyes is forever burned into my mind.
But at some point that poor boy and all the rest of us must come to grips with the reality of the sovereign God of Scripture in the face of the pain and suffering that go with the territory of living in this fallen world. When it comes to evils committed against us and others hopefully we will have the spiritual maturity to say with Joseph that, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good (Genesis 50:20). The only other option is unbelief and rebellion against God.
God is completely sovereign and man is at the same time totally responsible. We see these two truths side-by-side in the case of Judas Iscariot:
The Son of Man goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born (Matthew 26:24).
And of the role of the Jewish leaders in the death of Christ Peter says this:
Being delivered up by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death (Acts 2:23).
For sheer wickedness all else pales in comparison with the betrayal and execution of our Lord and Savior. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him (Isaiah 53:10). And again: I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things (Isaiah 45:7).
But if all this is true, why even pray in the first place? The answer to this question is that we do not pray to bend the will of God to ours; but rather we pray to align ourselves with what God is doing. We pray for others because as fellow human beings we are supposed to care about their pain, and we are supposed to want to help them in their times of grief.
But God in His essence is not a human being, and we have to accept what He tells us about His ways and character–even when His truth cuts against our fleshly human notions of fairness and right-ness.
James says the intense prayer of the righteous is very powerful HCSB – much of the book of James is exhortaion to action. The action of living righteous lives, the action of prayer, the action of actively believing and living for the Lord. It seems a good illustration for what prayer should be. We all know or should know that our prayer should be directed in a way that is in keeping with the spread of Gods kingdom and not a kind of name it and claim it, I’m speaking a milllion dollars into my wallet in the name of …. you get it. It really does seem as though, at least in James, we are to pray with some expectation of receiving some kind of answer. I wonder some times if our timidity, sense of embarassment, and fear of ridicule keep us from a boldness in prayer, sharing and acting in faith. I think of the exhortaion in James, that if someone is sick to call together the elders to anoint him with oil and pray for him and also to confess your sins one to another.
From our perspective prayer changes things. So does the proclamation of the gospel. Look at the example of Jonah. He preaches an eight-word sermon: “Yet forty days and Ninevah shall be destroyed.” But the whole city repents and the city is spared. Spurgeon once said that when he prayed he was a Calvinist–it all depends on God. But when he preached he was an Arminian–it all depends on him. God uses secondary means to accomplish His purpose, and I believe those means include our labor of love for Him. A strange thing happened last night not long after I wrote this entry. I got a call from a friend who had some really tragic news. I can’t share it here but it involved a friend in Idaho I was close to who is no longer with us. I believe there is a good chance this person is in a place of eternal torment as I write. I had opportunities to share the gospel with this person and did not use that opportunity to the full. These experiences are tough, but to me if I don’t believe God is in sovereign control, who can I lean on at a time like this?
I pray because it pleases God to be prayed to. I have so precious few definitive ways to please God that submitting my will to Him in prayer is always my fallback position when I’m in need of fellowship with Him. I pray for others because it works. There was a time when I refused to honor Him with my prayers, but I knew others were praying for me daily. I felt like a twitching fish on a hook, I could not escape because God was honoring those prayers and ignoring my will to leave Him. So now when someone requests prayer or I see a need, I pray in order to live up to those who prayed for me.
Jim, I think of the same when I think of all who have prayed for me. Your comments reminded me what a great gift it is to be able to enter boldly the Holy of Holies and make our requests.
You guys, I thank God that all these years later you trust Jesus and want to serve Him. Who would have ever thought that 40+ years later we would be interacting this way? When we look back across the decades we remember those who once seemed to love Christ but who today either deny Him outright or are walking in rebellion against Him. Have you ever wondered why that flame still burns in your heart? There is nothing really special about any of us; or maybe I should just speak for me. I am not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to smarts. I am not rich, handsome, powerful, or athletic. Never was, and never will be. I know for a fact that the only reason I love the Lord, His word, and His people today is that He has kept me in His hand. His grace is the only reason for this; and His sovereignty is the only reason it is me and not someone else. I know it sounds like a broken record, and you guys no doubt get sick of me harping on it. But I have siblings, friends, and colleagues who in my mind would be better material as disciples of Christ. Why is it me–the middle child and ne’er do well in my family–who wants to cling to Jesus and serve Him? Why is it me who can find no meaning in existence apart from Him? The bottom-line is the sovereign grace of God. When I see you guys coming in here and bearing witness to what the Lord is doing in your lives it brings me me great joy and encouragement. My life of late has been filled with things that should bring me great sadness and hopelessness. But instead I am driven back to the one who works all things by the counsel of His will.
Pete, it is kind of funny, with all of the wrestling, sweat, lockeroom, and I guess hard core maleness I have seen in you and your writing over the years when you show your tender side it gets me all teared up. I feel the same about you two. I would like to some day though confess the monumental failings I have expeirenced over the last 35 years in a marathon discussion because it is amazing that I am drawn back to the Lord through all the ups and downs. If we are faithless he is faithful. I was thinking this morning about David and some of the patriarchs and the years and years they waited for God to DO SOMETHING! Abraham, Moses, Job etc. That is the most wonderful thing to me about the Word is the encouragement I draw from the many stories of God’s dealing with screw ups, and how he refers to them as mighty men, men after his own heart, righteous because the believe him! I do wish more folks would pipe in so I dont feel like I’m hogging your blogosphere! Oh and I did get your books and I’m going back and rereading them. I will let you know what I think but with my ADHD it takes me a few times of reveiwing things to make up my mind of what I think I read!