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
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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.

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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.