Prayer Power continued Part 3

The garbled part of the first post on this subject, if I recall correctly, was about how fleshly or carnal so many elements in our churches are today. I was thinking of how much of the Christian music we hear these days is popular in style and how it is sung with a sort of worldly emotionality. In short it isn't spiritual, it's fleshly. The same tone is often heard in many contemporary sermons. The message is very good in many cases, but the tone is fleshly. The same message could be given in the Spirit and would have real power if it were. When we speak or sing or write in the Spirit God can work through us and touch the spirits of others for conviction or conversion or whatever He intends.

Paul called the Corinthians "carnal" althgouh he also clearly regarded them as true Christians. Some deny that a Christian can be carnal but surely it is clear that we can be. We are exhorted in scripture to "walk in the SPirit" and to "pray in the SPirit" and just the fact that we are commanded to do this means that it is possible not to although we are Christians. A Christian has the Holy Spirit indwelling but even so it is possible not to walk in the Spirit but in the flesh.

"The flesh profits nothing," if we are not doing all our Christian work in the spirit we are accomplishing nothing. Sermons can be preached in the flesh and accomplish nothing or very little while the same sermon could treansform lives if it were given in the Spirit. I have the strong impression that Charles Spurgeon's sermons wree delivered in the Spirit. He spent whole days in prayer over his sermons, trying out topic after topic until he was sure he had a topic that had come from Gode rather than from himself.
I'm praying for a great revival, but really for a great rising of the general level of our Christian life to reflect the power of God that is at our disposal if only we met the conditions to receive it. A lot more prayer, prayer by pastors for their sermons and for their hearers, prayer by congregations for their pastors and fellow Christians, protracted fervent prayerer is needed. torrey lays all this out very specifically. He has a theology that is not acceptable to many I most appreciate but still he does an excellent job of conveying just how we fail at prayer and what conditions we need to meet to succeed at it.

Perhaps yet more to come on this subject

R A Torrey on Prayer

Prayer for Power from God Part 2

It's all too easy to give up on hoping for a strengthening of the churches at this time. the signs are strong that we're right at the door of the very Last Days, and it's certainly true that it could be here any minute and there isn't even time to pray for revival. Well, if it comes it comes and I hope we're all ready, but that shouldn't be a reason not to do all we can possibly do to resist the evil we see lgrowing all around us and pray for the Church to be made a powerful spiritual force against it.

Isn't that why we're still here anyway? To be salt and light against the deterioration of this world into such evil? Unresisted thqat's always what is going to happen in this fallen world and the only power against it is God working through His people. If we are weak and scattered as we certainly are these days we aren't able to accomplish much against it. That's sad knowing that we have the power of God at our disposal if we woulde only seek HIm for it.

I hear lots of nice sermons by contemporary preachers but I have the strong sense that they are all in the flesh and what we need is messageds in the SPirit. The SPirit will convey our messages to the hearers in convicting and converting power. that's what revival is. I hear a lot of pop style "Christian "music on the radio and just find it hard to listen to. But even the old hyms are done pop style on the radio. It's all done in the flesh. The flesh avails nothing as scripture tells us.

Even if I don't know exactly what being in the SPIrit is or how to get to it it at least seems certain that we should be praying our hearts out that God would intervene to empower the churches and defeat the Great Reset and all the other evils that have bbeen overwhelming the US and the world.

Maybe more later.

The Power We Need from God Comes Through Prayer

All my recent reading -- actually listening -- has led me back to a great desire to see revival in the churches. Although I still think there may be conditions that aren't being met, I'm not as sure of that as I was before si because I'm more aware of just how little prayer is done by us Christiansx and how important prayer is to seeking antything from God. Prayer was Ravenhill's focus in his many exhorations to seek revival and since revival had not come as a result I began to think in terms of unmet conditions.

After learing the first part of a book by R. A Torrey I see how lacking in prayer we all are. I guess I can't say all beause I don't know, I can hope there are some out there who pray as fervently and at great length. I do doubt it though, it seems to be a mentality of an earlier era that we have lost.

Torrey's book "Power in Prayer and Prayer in Power" is a very long book and I've only heard an hour or so of the seven hours it takes to finish it. Many other writers I've been reading emphasize the weakness of our churches these days and offer many analyses and remedies but nobody emphasizes prayere as Torrewy does, and he's very confincting. He gives many very inspiring examples.

Prayer is difficult, very difficult. When I hear the accounts of the great prayer warriors I am astonished at their perseverence. Even if I do manage a long period of prayer I find that th4e next time I try to prayer it won't come as that one did. Distractions are a typical part of the problem but even if you have the concentration and the fervor it is hard to keep it up for the long periods usually aswsociated with effective prayer, especially prayer for revival.

We must pray "in the spirit" and nobody ever quite defines how we bring that about. We have the Holy Spirit if we are born-again Christians but actually being "in the Spirit" ISW NOT A GUARANTEE. If we are told to "walk in the Spirit" oit is clear that it is possible to NOT walk in the SPireit. If we are told to prayer "in the Spirit" that makes it clear it is possible not to prayey in the SPirit. Although the Corinthians were Christians who had the indwelling SPirit of God {ai; mevertje;ess ta;ls tp tje, as
carma;
[ep[;e/ Ot os [pssob;e tp jave tje Jp;u S[orot amd uet act om tje f;esj/ Amd jpw tp get frp, tje pme tp tje ptjer os mpt at a;; c;ear/ We jear tjat Kpjm as
om tje S[orot
pm tje os;e pf {at,pst wjem je wrpte tje Bppl pf Reve;atopm sp we lmpw tjatjere os sicj a state as beomg om tje S[orot. bit O fomd ot ,ustofuomg jpw tp bromg ot abpit/ >br? >br? {erja[s O ;; cpmtomie tjos ;ater/

The One Thing Needful

You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.-- Jeremiah 29

The amazing thing is that God designed us to be able to communicate with Him. We blew it but He sent us the Messiah Jesus to restore what we lost and a lot more besides.

What is man that Thou art mindful of him? -- Somewhere in psalms
.
Thou hast made us for Thyself alone and our hearts are restless until we rest in Thee. Augustine ,br>
The chief end of man is to glorrify God and enjoy Him forever. -- Westminster Shorter Catechism ,br>
At Thy right hand are pleasures for evermore. -- Psalm 16:11

As the deer panteth after the water brooks, so longs my soul after Thee.

He that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him -- Hebrews 11:7


I am nothing, I have nothing, I desire nothing but Jesus Christ." This was the mantra as it were of fourteenth century Roman Catholic mystic Walter Hilton, and I like the brevity of this way of stating the essential mental set that takes us to the presence of God. It affirms both the command to deny ourselves and take up our cross and poverty of spirit. Hilton unfortunately had too many Romanisms to make him a trustworthy teacher but I nevertheless like this brief formula of his.

Finally a nod to John of the Cross' poem about the Dark Night of the soul. It's a treatise on the mystical path to God and it has nothing whatever to do with suffering which is how too many people take it. If there is any suffering at all involved in it, he probably disucseusses it in his commentary on his poem called "The Aescent of Mount Carmel" but just to read the poem itself certainly implies no suffering: "on a dark night," it starts out, "kindles in love with yearnings," -- does that sound l9ike suffering? No, the "dark night' he is talking about is the quieting of the senses that connect us to this physical world, and the clamorings of the self flife. When these are quieted, put under the blanket of dark night as it were, then the spirit can be freed to come into the presence of gOD.

r>
To be dead to myself and alive in Thee, empty of myself and full of Thee is my prayer. And I know I can't do this, I'm way too full of myself but hope that You might do it for me. Amen

Rape Victim and Abortion Continued Part 3

Maybe I got it said well enough but I keep thinking I didn't, it 't quite clear so here's another go at it. The problem with the supposed warm-hearted compassion to the woman who got pregnant from a rape is that it shows the basic cold-heartedness of the pro-choice position against the unborn baby. Tehy don't skip a b3eat when they say it's a clear case for an abortion, don't hesitate for a moment over the fact that they are talking about killing a human being. Even if they are willing to consider that moral questions kick in at some stage of a pregnancy there's no sense that they ever really see it as a human beintg. maybe a potential human being but in the rather distant sense that it really isn't a human being yet.

So they get all morally outraged at the suggestion that she should not have an abortion because in their mindset three isn't really an argument on the other side at all, it's just a cold-hearte person who wants to make the raped woman miserable for some unfathomable reason. As wih most positions on the left it's all about the person, it' s always an ad hominem, it's not about arguments and reasons, you're just a good or a bad person and if you suggest that even in the case of rape an abortionisnt' warranted that's just you being a bad person because in their mindset the baby isn't a human being so there isn't any argument. . And I don't think they are even conscdious of the fact that this is their mindset.

There are rare situations where the baby must be sacrifced for the health of the mother and that could apply in the case of a rape that threatens her mental health, but for the most part these are all just made-up situations. Pro-choicers often talk about the unborn child as if it were nothing more than an alien growth in the woman, a parasite or the like. This is the attitude betrayed but the way abortion is considered to be the only reaosnable response to pregnancy caused by a rape. That the baby is a separate independent individual is not part of the mindset. If it were it would be possible to consider it as a being apart from the rapist. But they connect it to the rapist as if it were this aliena extension of him ande that's the end of it. Getting ride of it is getting rided of the painfujl memory of the rape. And I don't doubt that in some cases that's true, but I also know that no0t all cases are the same and that some women are capable orf regarding the child as a person in its own right.

Well, I may still not yave said quite what I meant but I think it's a little clearer.

So Heavenly Minded No Earthyly Good?

That's what we often hear when we spend more time seeking God as I've been doing for the last month and more. We take our attention off the disasters of the day in this world in order to lift our eyes to God and minimize worldly input and some think that's abandoning our calling to be salt and light.

Well, I don't thiknk so, I think the opposite. Besides my own personal need to renew my spiritual life I was motivated by knowing that the usual means being employed in the churches to deal with the current destructions of our lives by the lies we hear every day and the evil methods being used to deal with the pandemic and the like. For decades now things get worse instead of better. You'd have thought Nine Eleven would have empowered us against Islam but instead Islam has only grown in power against us. The same thing is happ-ening now as we are unable to deal with any of the lawlessness and destruction of daily life that has been happening to us. I do thiknk this is God's judgment against us and that is a major reason we have no power against it bbut at the same time there is no excuse for the weakness in the churches that really ought to be obvious but apparently isn't.

You can't fight these things in the flesh but that's what the Church is doing. We have no spiritual power. Christian leaders are doing a good job of identifying the problems but nobody in the Church is working on anything but a wordly and fleshnly leve. We do not have the power of God in much of anything we do. I think that is obvious but I'm not sure most others think so. As Tozer pointed out in his Pursuit of God the CDhurch is too content to operate without much input from God, assuming His input perhaps although there isn't a sign that it is actually with us.

Instead of praying for revival as some do, in their perfunctory prayer times, maybe as much as twenty minutes or so, we need Christians who devote hours to seeking God in Bible reading and prayer for His presence and guidance in our own lives and in the churches. I think if many did that the glib ton we so often hear in even the best discussions of the problems in this world and everything else would soon evaporate and we might actually start to see some power come down from heaven to lead us against the eviols of our time.


Deny yourselve, take up your cross and follow Me" said Jesus. Why do I have the impression there's hardly anyone in the churches who is even trying to do this? yle S Where is the Esther Church who comes to God for help in such a time as this? He's holding out His sceptre to us but we aren't there to receive it. I seem to see it lying in the dust at our feet. We have to search for Him with all our hearts He tells us, bur how many do much more than pray a little here and there for specific probglems and don't seek Him for His own sake.
You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart" He says in Jeremiah 29.

LATER: Just found this exhortation to prayer by J.C.Ryle.

More of God Than the Usual Preaching Brings

At my age I don't have much time less to recover what seem to me to be many lost years of the Christian life, but I'm very grateful to God that whatever time I have left He's allowed me to find the focus I most need. Yes it comes from the "mysticss" and I have to try not to be bitter that the Protestant churches discourage this trend among God's people. They should be encouraging and developing it in a Protestant context. most of the mystics are roman Catholics though not all, and the Romanist errors do rear their ugly heads here and there in the writings of these lovers of God. But at the same time God seems to work to preserve them from their worst dangers, steer them around them, give them reasons to avoid them in some cases.

A W Tozer knew the importance of the mystical traditions but few others do.His books "The Pursuit of GBod" and "The Christian Book of Mystical Verse" probably hold the most of his emphasis. I'd also recommend any teacher who knows that the Song of Solomon is a spiritual work that has nothing to do with earthly love but the love between God and Hisw Church. If they hold that view they aren't going to mislead their listeners as much as the others do. Spurgeon is one.

These passionate lovers of God make the attitude and tone of most of today's Protestant preachers sound tinny and false, worldly and fleshly, which they probably are. Their lack of protracted prayer and seeking God is noticeable. THEIR CONGREGATIONS SOMETIMES ACT LIKE FANS AT A FOOTBALL GAME INSTEAD OF SPIRITUAL FOLLOWERS OF cHRIST. tHEIR PERFUNCTORY PRYERS IN THE NAME OF jESUS, AND GIVINGSX ALL THE GLORY TO GOD JUST SOUND FALSE IN THE LIGHT OF THE GENUINE DEEP GIVING OF GLORY TO gOD SO INTENSELY FELT BY THESE "MYSTICS>" aND ALA MYSTIC IN THIS SENSE REALLY IS IS SOMEONE WHOSED LOVE OF gOD LEADS HIM OR HERE INTO LONG PERIODS OF SEEKING hIM IN PRAYER AND WORSHIP aLTHOUGH i THINK PEOPLE WITH SUCH A BENT ARE LIKEL Although I think often poeople with some bent toward a genuine closeness to God are attracted to the charismatic movement these days, that is a sad misdirection of their desires, a counterfeit that can only seduce them into a deeper carnality rather than the spiritual life they eek.

Here is Brother Lawrence, a lovely old simple "mystic" I just redisocovered in audio bform online.

Rape Victim Continued

The idea that it is cold-hearted to oppopse abortion in the case of rape is just part of the prevailing cultural mindset, and that mindset comes out of what is in itself a cold-blooded mentality built on the theory of evolution. If we are nothing but the product of millions of years of mindless evolution oif physical matter then any softhearted feelings we may have are just adaptations to further our survival or wellbeing. There is no objective morality and no objective basis for either supporting or opposing abortion, it's all a subjective matter to be decided ultimately in terms of its utility for the furtherance of the human race. Actually you'd think the murder of millions of our future generations would show that it has no evolutionary utility at all but they'll figure out how it must have, since of course it must have. Oh well no, I suppose sometimes it goes wrong and we could go extinct? Even aftger all these millions of years of getting to our current complex condition?

Anyway how the rape victim feels about the pregnancy that ensued is not all that predictable as they seem to think it must be. Women are designed -- oh dear, yes desligned -- to love babies. It's this pernicious culture that makes us all into mindless products of physical animal evolution that renders such feelings arbitrary. And we can be easily enough trained out of them. As we are easily enough persuaded that the fetus is not a human being.

the Nazis committed their muders on the basis of eugenic principles that defined the dispensable people as genetically inferior. That came out of evolutionary theory just as Margaret Sanger's eugenics did, but we don't like to think that these days.

Rape Victim and Abortion

You are considered to be cold and unfeeling if you would oppose abortion even for the victim of rape. It is assmed that such a pregnancy would only be a horrible experience for the girl, or woman. Why? Why couldn't she see it as a victim like herself? Why couldn't she sympathize with it for that reason, even bond with it for that reason? Isn't that as likely a possibility as that she'd feel nothing but repugnance at being so unfairly imposed upon? Th4e real cold-blooded attitude is the prevailikng one in today's culture, that dehumanizes the baby in the womb. If you see it as an innocent human being you may have an entirely different set of feelings toward it. I could write a long post about this but my computer only tolerates a small post these days.

The Nation Can't be Saved by Political Means

Recently I heard Sean Hannity say how simple it looks to him what we need to do to save the nation, and he went on to list the conservative policies he believes would do it. I agree, those policie4s would save the nation if they were vigorously put into practice by a majority of elected oficials. Mark Levin is another conservative who knows what would save the country. And there are others of course. Get the right people into office who will put the right policies into effect and that will do it. Quite right.

But the signs of the times are clear. It isn't happening, it isn't going to happen, and those who are so sure of what needs to happen and are right about what needs to happen don't seem to have a clue why it isn't going to happen.

It isn't going to happen because the nation is under god's judmgnet and all the policies that are now being denacted are only deepening the judgment against us. The policies alone won't save us, we are under judgment because we are in violation o God's Law. Only rolling back the violations would give us the foundations for saving the country and the forces working against that are loud and aggressive and the foces who would oppose them are weak and confused. The Left is violently in favor of abortion, of murdering our next generation of citizens in the womb, they are calling it a right, fulfilling the description in Isaiah of those who put evil for good and good for evil. And that's just one of the violations that need to be rolled back.

So the people who need to g3et into office where they might do some good aren't going to get into office or if they do they aren't going to be able to do what needs to be done to rol back god's judgment if they even had the foresight to realize that is what does need to be done which sadly isn't likely to be the case.

A fasting and praying Church is the only hope and that isn't happening either. g

The True Christian Life Found in Some of the "Mystics" as Tozer Knew. This is Fenelon.

A brief You Tube video about A W Tozer mentioned that it was Tozer's discovering of a book by Francois Fenelon that most affected the course of his life, that he cherished this book to the extent of never letting anyone borrow it. He was already well versed in the "Higher Life" writers such as Andrew Murray and Wesley and so on, but Fenelon took him to a new height, or a new depth of pursuing God Himself. From that book he went on to read the many other mystical writers that are so often these days and in Tozer's time as well despised by the Protestant leaders. I never understood this since it was those mysics who first turned me toward Christianity as I was reading my way through all the religions during my fortuies. What I found in them is what Tozer also apparently found, the love of God magnified in a way we hardly ever find it in today's churches. There are some elements in some of the mystic writers that have to be dismissed as belonging to the heresy of Roman Catholicism, but there are others whose writings are purse and biblical . Fenelon is clearly one of those. I had heard about it during my reading binge but I never actually read him so this is a discovery for me. I'm so Glad I was able to find a You Tube reading of some of his writings. This is the Christian life. It's sad that it is so neglectedd and even despised.

A Prayer for More Prayer, For a Spiritually Stronger Church

If pastors, an anybody else too of course, spent a lot more time in prayer, a LOT more time in prayer, payer for their congregations, prayer for their sermons, prayer that God would deepen the spiritual life of the church, or any such prayers, just lots lots more of them, hourse every week, I suspect we'd start to see revivals in churches, and that deepening of spiritual life in individuals, and more convicting sermons and a general livening of the whole Christian Church. Hours more, hours and hours more. This is my own prayer. Amen.

Apology

Listening to the previous two posts through the "read aloud" function reveals that there are lengthy sections of total gibberish and all I can say is I'm so very sorry for that. I can't see well enough to correct the problem beyond a word or two if I concentrate hard on it, which is of course why I created all that gibberish in the first place. And I was trying SO hard to position my fingers. I suppose it's time to give up, it's just hard to make thqat decision as long as I can see at least vaguely.

Abortion Ponderings

Since abortion is in the news right now, because of the leak of a potential ruling by the Supreme Court thqat would throw Roe v Wadd to the states, some of the usual opinions are heard here and there. One is that it's hypocritical to be pro life and yet support the death penalty. I always feel obliged to answer this one because it's so wrongheaded. There is nothing contradictory about the concern to defend INNOCESNT life while at the same time believing that the criminally guilty should be punishable by death. Capital crimes are capital crimes, that's what the death panalty is for. The only rational argument against the death p3enalty is the unfortunate fact that too many innocent people are wrongly convicted of capital crimes. I condsier that to be a reasonble argument against the death penalty in such a judicial system, but as a principle, no, there are cro,es tjat deserve deatj/ Ommpcemt imbprm baboes dp mpt deserve death.

On the dark horse podcast another question came up today: the sirtuation of the rape victim who gets pregnant. Should she be condemned to carry the rapitis's baby to birth? Drat, I meant to see if I could find a statistic on how many rapes issue in prengnancy but I forgot. Anyway I certainly agree that it is a serious burden on the rape victim on top of the rape itself, but if I'm consistent the preservation of an innocent life has to be the first consideration. I do't se any way around this. the only solution I see has to be that special care should be taken for the comfort and support of the woman. The churchews that provide Crisis Pregnancy Centers probably already focus on this special need but if not they should. Perhaps a convicted rapist would work to pay for the care of the woman and child while in prison. There are possible wsays to help mitigate the prolem that hneedf to be thought about.

Bret Weinstein brought of an interesting issue with respect to the rape situation. From his evolutionary point of view he figures that the rapist's gen3es might possible contribute to an increase in the birth of rapists because of hos he thinks of genes as related to behavioral possibilities in the offspring.

I found this interesting because from my Christian point of view behavioral characteristocs are veru ;ole;u tp be omjerotecdd becaise
tje soms pf tje fatjers
ARE omjeroted/ {rpbab;u mpt tjrpigj tje gemes bit tjrpigj wjatever s[orotia; [atjwau we a;; omjerote tje som pf aAdam as well as the soms pf tje fatjers om pir pwm [erspa; amcestru/ bit we a;; omjerot everulomd pf som frp, pir amcestprs becaise we are a fa;;em race amd tjere os mp argi,emt O cam fomd om amu pf tjos tp lo;; a babu becaise ot ,ogjt omjerot tje [rp[emsotu pf a ra[ost fatjer/ Raose tje babu as a Cjrostoam . get ot saved. tirm ot awau frp, sicj somfik; ex[ressopms/ Ot os foftu [ercemt ;ole;u tp be a gor; amuwau/

A Lot of Us are LIving a Subnormal Christian Life

The point of a spiritual renewal project such as I've been pursuing is to get the world and the flesh out of your life and receive exhorations and encouragement to a stricter Christian life. Soaking up good Christian teaching, books, sermons, long sessions listening to the Bible, prayer and even fasting when possible, staing away from the usual worldly input, it all helps.

Read the scriptures. How clear it is that we don't possess the spiritual power that should be ours. I guess some think this tepid level of spiritual life is all we're promised but that's not how I read it. "Rivers of living water" says Jesus, those who believe in Him will experience. Don't tell me the Church in general has this spiritual experience. Don't tell me even the best preachers and teachers have anything like it. They may have a fair amount of success at winning converts but it looks pretty feeble compared to the scripture if you ask me.

I want that living water. I want the spiritual power that implies of being able to represent God Himself to the unsaved so that God influences them instead of me. One thing I've been learning over this last month is how much of my life is mired in fleshly attempts to live the Christian life. I picked teachers to read who are stronge on that message, how fleshly and worldly today's church is.

Do we really "walk in the Spirit" if we don't even really know how to identify His presence in our lives? Isn't it too often simply assumed that we are walking in the Spirit because we know we have the Holy Spirit if we are believers, so we don't need any personal experience or evidence of it beyond that basic recognition. These writers I'm reading think otherwise. Tozer, Murray, Nee, Lloyd-Jones. >bri
>br? Dp we deny ourselves. die to ourselve Dp we lmpw pir p;d ,am. pir f;esj. os cricofoed wotj Cjrost amd dp we lmpw jpw tp act pm tjat Mpt veru we;; ot wpi;d see,/ We [reacj om tje f;esj amd assi,e tje S[orot os tjere. amd Je [rpbab;u os. bit mpt om tje [pwer we meed. we wrote b;pgs om tje f;esj amd jp[e Je giodes sp,e pf ot a;tjpigj we dpm t lmpw of Je os pr mpt fpr sire/

Just a hint at what I've been hearing and thinking about for now.