Strangers and Pilgrims on the Earth Part I
INTRODUCTION
So far in this series of booklets, the reader has been presented with evidence that mandates the Second Coming of Christ in the near future. You have also been presented with insight into just exactly what is going to happen. You’ve been told what can be known about what will happen during the Tribulation and shown just how terrible it will be. As was said in the Book of Amos (5:18), "it will be darkness and not light". Now you know that you’ve got something to be afraid of, especially if you’re one of the many Christians who aren’t ready. (Never assume that you are.) Through everything written, the necessity of being ready; that is to say, being spiritually prepared has been emphasized. Only being spiritually prepared will help you in the long run during the Tribulation. "He who dwelleth in the secret place of the (read "stays close to the") Most High will abide (read "survive") under the shadow (read "protection") of the Almighty….A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it (the wrath of God) shall not come near you". (Psalm 91: 1 & 7). Only those who are spiritually prepared will receive the Seal of the Living God (Revelation 7:2 & 3) and be immune to the plagues of God’s wrath during the Tribulation.
In the light of Revelation 3: 16 & 19, we have concluded that the Great Tribulation will be as much a great chastening of the Christians of the Church of Laodicea as it will be judgment on the sinful world. It logically follows that Christians who aren’t ready will suffer more than the unsaved, at least during the first two "Woes". They will be subject to both the wrath of God and the wrath of Satan via the Beast: "It was granted to him (the Beast) to make war with the saints and to overcome them" ( Revelation 13:7) This is the opposite of what Pre-Tribbers expect. [Here’s a question for readers who still believe in Pre-Tribulation Rapture: How can the Beast make war with the saints if they have all been raptured and taken to Heaven?] And of course, this is far from what is expected by Christians who don’t believe that there will be a Tribulation. But this point is supported by the words of Jesus in Luke 12: 47 & 48: "And that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few". Open your Bible and read the verses that precede this passage. By the context, Jesus is talking about something that will happen in connection with the Second Coming. He is saying that Christians who aren’t ready will suffer worse than the unsaved. You may not like this way of looking at this passage, but you’ve been warned! If you want to be ready, then get serious about preparing yourself. As has been said before in these booklets, if the Tribulation begins and you’re not ready, you’re going to be seriously hurting.
This also applies if you die before the Tribulation begins, or if you are one of the Christians who will die along with about 2/3 of the human race at the beginning (that is, within the first year) of the Tribulation. If that happens to you, and you aren’t ready, you will be in the unfortunate class of Christians who are saved "so as through fire" (I Corinthians 3:15). You’ll be saved, but you’ll be disqualified from all the rewards that go beyond mere salvation. You must realize that, as great and wonderful a gift as it is, salvation is just the ticket in the door to the Kingdom of Heaven. There are rewards that go beyond salvation that must be earned, and one of them is divine protection during the Tribulation. Look at what St. Paul said in I Corinthians 9: 24- 27: " Do you not know that those who run a race run all, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it." Let me interrupt the Scripture here to point out two things: First, this message was addressed to and only applies to Christians. Salvation isn’t the issue here. If you’re not a Christian, you aren’t even in the race. Second, the good news is, in this race we can all win the prize, if we really run the race! To continue, "And everyone who competes is temperant (self controlled) in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore, I run thus, not with uncertainty. Thus I fight, not as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified." Disqualified from what, may I ask? From the crown, which is to say, the rewards. Paul wasn’t worried about losing his salvation. See II Timothy 1:12.
Now compare what Paul says here with what he said in Philippians 3:12, "Not that I have already attained, or am already made perfect…" Paul, at the height of his ministry, wasn’t sure he was ready. If he wasn’t sure, how much less should we be sure? Paul wasn’t sure until just before his death. Then he expressed his assurance, as recorded in II Timothy 4: 7 & 8: "I have fought the fight, I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Finally there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that Day." It should be every Christian’s goal that when he is about to draw his last breath, that he can say what Paul said. If you can say that in truth and honesty, that is, with a clear conscience, you’re ready. Believe me, it’s my goal.
By the way, this issue of being ready applies no matter what you believe about when the Rapture takes place. If there is a Pre-Tribulation Rapture, and you aren’t ready, you will get left behind. This is something that Pre-Tribbers have been warning us about for years. If the Tribulation begins and you’re not ready, you’re in trouble deep. And that also holds true for Mid-Trib Rapture, [1] if that’s what happens.
What then must one do to prepare himself for the Tribulation? The Bible gives two sets of guidelines for preparation. One is what Jesus tells the Christians of the Church of Laodicea to do in Revelation 3: 18-20. The other one is the three Parables of Matthew 25. In the following chapters, we will examine both sets and present a program of action that every Christian should take. Entire congregations would do well to take it together where ever possible.
Remember that the Church of Laodicea is the lukewarm church that gets rejected by Christ at the beginning of the Tribulation. According to Revelation 7:3-8, only about 144, 000 Christians [2] will receive the Seal of the Living God and be protected from the plagues. These Christians are the overcomers of the Church of Laodicea, the totally committed Christians who aren’t lukewarm. They rise above the prevailing spiritual conditions in the Church and live lives of victorious obedient faith. Because the 144, 000 isn’t a precise number, there is still room for lukewarm Christians to repent and start being overcomers. Remember also that typical Laodicean Christians are proud and deceived. They believe that they have it all together as Christians when they’re really in deep spiritual trouble. All typical Laodicean Christians will to some extent manifest the problems of the overall Church in their Christian walk. Therefore, all Laodecian Christians must do what Jesus told them to do if they want to be ready.
There may be some value in understanding what you should do even if you don’t act on it. Revelation 7: 9-14, and Zechariah 13:9 suggest that during the Tribulation, at least the vast majority of the Laodicean Christians will realize how sinful they’ve been and repent en masse. If you know what’s required of you now, and don’t act on it, it will most likely make things worse for you at first. But at least you’ll know why, and you’ll know what to do about it. In the third major section of this booklet, I will present additional teaching on what to do if you find yourself in the Tribulation without being ready. Some of what will be said wouldn’t be relevant now. Some of it would be, but there would be little chance of it being applied. I’m sure that during the Tribulation it will be, and, again, it will be to your benefit to know about it.
In presenting all of these guidelines, there are a number of underlying Scriptural principles that constitute the foundation of the message. One of these is that there are many Biblical truths that are stated by implication rather than being stated directly. This is actually relevant to the entire "Jesus REALLY is coming soon. BE READY!!!" message. But it is particularly important to remember in this section. Why this is so, we can’t really say. But it can be noted that there are passages of Scripture that tell us that there is truth in the Bible that will only be found by those who really seek it. See, for example, Proverbs 2:1-5. Perhaps the best known case of implied meaning is in Cain’s famous question addressed to God in Genesis 4:9; "Am I my brother’s keeper?" God never answered the question, but we all know that His answer, for all men at all times, is emphatically "Yes!". As St. Paul said to Timothy, "Study therefore to show yourself approved unto God, a workman who needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing (interpreting) the Word of Truth". (II Timothy 2:15). Only by real study of the word will you find the implied meanings, but they are definitely there. If you want to really understand the Bible, you must be looking for the implied meanings.
There is one seldom taught but very serious Scriptural principle that will be emphasized: God is far more upset by the failure of Christians to do the righteous works that that they should do (like failing to be their brother’s keeper) than He is about the overt sins that they sometimes commit. Keep it in mind that this is implied more than stated, but it is definitely in the Bible. As you have probably heard, there are sins of commission and sins of omission. There are multiple Scripture references that show that God will punish sins of omission by Christians far more severely than sins of commission.
Let’s face it, you won’t get away with willful sins of commission either (see Hebrews 10:26-31). But the truth is that Christians generally do live more righteous lives than the unsaved. Not that they never commit serious sins, unfortunately. (I mean, name a serious sin and I’ll tell you about a Christian who committed it.) When they do, especially if it’s something that brings disgrace to the Lord’s Name, God’s chastening is likely to fall on them very quickly. Where serious, overt disobedience is concerned, God is rougher with Christians than He is with the unsaved. But for the everyday slip-ups that we all commit, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (I John 1:9). However, although some Christians may not accept this, the Bible makes it painfully clear that this promise doesn’t apply to long-term patterns of sins of omission. Especially if you never repent!
Jesus introduced this idea in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5: 13-16, and especially verse 13: "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men." The idea expressed here is rejection by Christ of Christians who don’t perform as He intends. As stated, He will reject the entire Church, except for the overcomers, at the beginning of the Tribulation. He expressed the same idea with a different verbal image in John 15: 2, 5 & 6: "Every branch in me that does not bear fruit He takes away.…I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit….if anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned". Understand this: if you aren’t saved, you’re not a "branch" in the sense used in this passage. See Romans 11:17-22. Nor are you the "salt of the earth".
Here I must also bring up another concept that underlies this message: You can take the Bible too literally, but you can’t take it too seriously. No intelligent, sane person would understand Jesus to mean that we should literally cut off our hands or put out our eyes, as He said in Matthew 5: 29 & 30. But we can safely understand Him to mean that we must be ruthless about getting rid of anything in our lives that causes us to sin. By the way, failing to do this is a common Laodicean sin of omission. Like the all the sin that too many Christians allow into their minds by way of their TV sets. Some misguided Christians definitely do take certain Scriptures too literally. For example, some Churches take Mark 16: 17 & 18 too literally. Their members handle venomous snakes and drink poison to demonstrate their faith. Sometimes this error costs them their lives. If this verse can be taken literally at all, it applies only when the poisoning or snakebite is accidental (or possibly attempted murder-I know of a case in point). See Acts 28: 3-6. We must be careful not to take the Bible literally when it is meant figuratively, (and vice versa) or only applies in some circumstances, and this isn’t always obvious, as in the case above. This is another reason why we have to be diligent in studying the Bible.
If the Bible repeatedly commands us to do something, and/or gives us a stern warning of grievous consequences if we fail to obey, we’re fools if we don’t take it seriously and act on it. Lip service won’t cut it. We seem to take it seriously that the unsaved will wind up in Hell (though perhaps not seriously enough). Therefore, we should also take it seriously when the Bible tells us that we’ll at least get severely chastised and maybe lose our salvation if we don’t perform as God intended.
By now, some of the readers are thinking that this is legalism. By no means! Legalism, properly defined, is the doctrine of earning salvation by works. The Bible says, quite clearly and unmistakably, "For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8 & 9: this passage is very well known among evangelicals). I fully and peacefully accept the belief that no one can earn his salvation by works. But there is another side to this issue, which is actually introduced in the following verse. (By the way, could you quote this verse if it wasn’t printed right here? Most Christians can’t.) "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). Too much is often made of the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith, as was noted by the great German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. [3] In his famous book, "The Cost of Discipleship", he coined the now-well-known term "cheap grace". He was referring to the concept of salvation by grace that is totally devoid and independent of works. This way of thinking conflicts with reasoning from what the Bible says in passages like James 2:20: "But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?" As we will see in what Jesus told the Laodicean Christians to do, their will be nothing cheap about being ready for the Great Tribulation. God means for us to walk in good works, and woe unto us (Three Great Woes, in fact) if we don’t.
As has been said before in this series of booklets, our freedom in Christ is not freedom to sin, and that is true of both sins of omission and commission. Freedom in Christ means freedom from the power of sin. Freedom not to commit sins of omission. "Present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments (or we might read, "tools" - either way it has to do with works) of righteousness to God" (Romans 6:13). As you will see, being ready for the Tribulation is much more a matter of what you do than it is a matter of what you don’t do. However, there will probably be things you’ll have to stop doing. There may be things you’ll have to give up. But is anything the world has to offer worth going to hell? Neither is anything worth not being ready for the Tribulation.
I call this section of the message "Strangers and Pilgrims on the Earth", because that’s how the Bible tells us we should live [4] . It also says that that’s the what the Old Testament heroes considered themselves to be. [5] To understand this expression, we must define what the words "stranger" and "pilgrim" mean.
A stranger is a person who doesn’t belong in the place where he is. He’s from somewhere else. He doesn’t know the people there and they don’t know him. He doesn’t fit in where he is. His customs and habits are different. He may even speak a different language. And he doesn’t stay there long. If he does, he ceases to be a stranger. If a Christian is living a life of real obedience to God, he will be so different from most of the people around him that he’ll seem like a stranger to them. And he will plan on staying a stranger. The worst thing an unsaved person can truly say as an honest criticism of a Christian is, "I don’t see anything different about you". One of the most damning criticisms, in fact, that has been laid against modern Christians is that there is so little about them to distinguish them from the unsaved world. This lack of difference, this failure to be strangers, is an outward manifestation of our being lukewarm. We are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, living on earth. Therefore, we should be visibly different!
A pilgrim is a different sort of person. When an American thinks of a pilgrim, he usually thinks of the Puritans landing from the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock. But that’s a special meaning of the word. The more common definition of the word "pilgrim" is a person who is making a journey to a sacred place to worship there. The trip itself is an act of worship to God, and may involve extreme, and perhaps voluntary, hardship. We are pilgrims on our way to Heaven. We should exhibit the same kind of commitment to the purpose of our journey that a pilgrim does. There have been real-life pilgrims in the history of the Church who traveled from Europe to Jerusalem on their knees! Although this is extreme, and in fact by sound doctrine worthless, it can be viewed as a realistic metaphor for the level of commitment that the Bible calls Christians to make. As Jesus said, "If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me" (Luke 9:23). I submit to you that most present day Christians don’t know experientially what this verse means. At least in the western world, the practice of self indulgence as a way of life is so universal that most people are into it without being conscious of it, and that includes most Christians.
The idea of voluntary hardship is related to the idea of our being living sacrifices. We, as Christians, are called to be living sacrifices, as in Romans 12:2: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service". This reading, by the way, following the original KJV, is a better translation than most modern ones. The Greek word translated "reasonable" is
logikos, transliterated "logikos", and it means exactly what it sounds like, "logical". The word translated service, however, latriean, can be correctly rendered "spiritual service", as many modern translations do, because it is the Greek word for the work a priest does in a temple. Since our bodies are the true Temple of God, we should be living lives of perpetual service to God. But many Christians today are living worldly lives while they lie to themselves that they’re living for Jesus.We must note, however, what the word "sacrifice" really means. Contrary to popular belief, to sacrifice something in the Biblical sense doesn’t necessarily mean to totally give it up. Rather, it means to set it aside for holy use. When an animal was sacrificed in ancient Israel, in most cases the people who sacrificed it actually ate part of it, and part of it was eaten by the priests. Only certain parts of the animal were burned. See Deuteronomy 14: 22 & 23, and I Samuel 2: 12-17. [6] But the meal was an act of worship, prefiguring communion [7] . We should make our entire lives an act of worship. You don’t lose your life when you make yourself a living sacrifice: "For whoever desires to saves his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it", (Matthew 16:25). Set your life apart for holy use. Make a radical renunciation of the unholy.
Special Note: What Not To Do.
While I’m busy telling you what you should do to be ready for the Great Tribulation, there are also some things that I should tell you not to do. There are just a few specific things that Jesus tells Christians not to do if they want to be ready. But these things are so serious that if you go ahead and do them, it could cost you your salvation, if we take Jesus to mean what He said. The trouble is, some Christians do these things and think they’re being Godly in the process. Which is a specific way in which Laodicean Christians are deceived, in the sense of thinking they’ve got it all together as Christians when they’re really in big trouble.
Perhaps the most dangerous error of this type is addressed by Jesus in Matthew 7: 21-23: "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’.
Most people who have been Christian any length of time have heard this passage, and have a superficial understanding of what it means: not everyone who thinks he’s a Christian will make it into heaven, but only those who are really obedient. But seldom do Christians look at this passage in depth and discern exactly what is wrong with the Christians who don’t make it within the context of the passage. (The people who are rejected do regard themselves as truly Christian.) We find that the rejects have made two big errors. And unfortunately, the first error that damns them is the very thing that many Christians today equate with godliness: focusing on sign gifts. The second error is practicing lawlessness. That is to say, they’re the kind of Christians who think that freedom in Christ is freedom to sin. They think they can have the fullness of the Holy Spirit and still have their sins. Such Christians would probably never come out and say this with their mouths, but they say it with their lives.
It has been falsely (though it sounds good) said that "holiness is not so much the absence of sin as it is the presence of the Holy Spirit". You may not see it, but implicit in this statement is the idea that you can have the fullness of the Holy Spirit and still have willful, habitual sin in your life. And I’m convinced that many Christians have gotten the message. However, true holiness would be better defined as "both the presence of the Holy Spirit and the absence of sin." The Holy Spirit does not hang out with sin!
A large percentage of the people whom we would regard as true Christians today, at least in the United States, are either of the Pentecostal or Charismatic [8] variety or at least have strong leanings in that direction. The common problem of both groups, especially among the more extreme members, is that the Christians tend to follow the signs. That is to say, they make seeking signs a major aspect of their Christian lives. This is done by making a practice of going to Church Services, Revival Meetings, etc., where they expect sign gifts to be manifested. The Christians who do this also tend to make a point of going to see evangelists who have the manifestation of sign gifts as a major aspect of their ministries. Of course, many of them are convinced that they regularly manifest the sign gifts themselves, especially tongues.
In Mark 16:17, Jesus said that the signs will follow believers. I take this to mean, quite simply, that if a person is really being obedient to Christ, the signs will just happen. Mainly when they’re needed. Here I’d like to present a little rule of thumb for discerning between a miracle of God and a miracle that’s not of God: When a miracle occurs that’s from God, it is usually done to meet a need. Very rarely do we find miracles in the Bible that are just demonstrations of power. Even then, there is usually a reason for it that is discernable from the context. Generally, as in almost all of the miracles done by Jesus, [9] they are done to meet needs. Even when the need is to punish sin! (See II Kings 5: 20-27 and Acts 13:8-12.) So it is in Christian lives. Signs that are truly of God meet needs. Signs that don’t meet needs are more likely to be counterfeits; the devil can and does counterfeit sign gifts. Or they may not really be signs at all. That is to say, incidents that are not miracles are erroneously perceived as being such. This happens quite often.
Having said that, let’s look again at what the rejects said: They’d cast out demons. They’d prophesied. They’d worked miracles. All in the Name of Jesus. Or so they thought. Jesus seems to have thought different. From His standpoint, whatever they did had nothing to do with Him. All He saw was workers of lawlessness. All this reminds me very much of a man I know very well. I’ll call him R. G.: R. G. thinks he’s a prophet. He also has a "ministry" of casting out demons. (He once attempted to cast one out of me.) He thinks he’s really God’s man. And unfortunately he’s got some other people fooled into thinking it’s true. But he hasn’t held a regular job in years. Mostly, he lives by conning other Christians (assuming he is one) out of money or otherwise imposing on their charity. I have it on what I consider reliable authority, and have seen some material evidence, that he is married to three Christian women in three different cities. I’m not making this up! I also know that he has gotten criminally violent on several occasions, he gets drunk, and has been known to patronize prostitutes. In other words, he’s into serious lawlessness. He believes he’s above the law as a Christian because he’s a prophet. [10] He also has a bad habit of going to Bible Studies and other Church meetings and causing serious disruptions. This of course frequently gets him kicked out. Then he prophesies doom for the people who kick him out. If he was really a prophet of God, I’d be dead already. I’m one of the people who have kicked him out. And I’m convinced that R. G. really considers himself a Christian and thinks he’s going to heaven. Boy, is he in for a nasty surprise!
R. G. is a classic case of the kind of person Jesus was talking about. In fact, he’s an extreme case. But I’m convinced that he differs from many, too many, contemporary Christians in degree, not in kind. He exhibits an overall error that other Christians frequently practice to a lesser degree. He believes he’s a Spirit-filled Christian because of the sign gifts that he believes he manifests, while he is simultaneously living a sinful life in terms of day-to-day obedience. I remember a shocking incident when I was riding in a car with a young Christian couple who were discussing having spoken in tongues at a Church service, and getting drunk in a bar the night before - with no remorse for the latter. Again, they thought they were filled with the Holy Spirit because they spoke in tongues, but were otherwise living sinful lives. They didn’t know it, but at least at that time they were in big trouble. Yet typical Laodicean trouble. I’ve observed other cases, and other varieties and degrees, of the same basic kind of thing. Christians who live like that are in trouble deep.
I wish to affirm right now that I believe that all the gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the Bible are available to the Church today. Christians, like Harold Camping, who reject sign gifts out of hand are making a big mistake. They’re off the path in the opposite direction. (The Bible says you can go off both to the left and the right; see Joshua 1:7) But we are not supposed to live Christian lives that are focused on signs. As St. Paul told us in I Corinthians 13, we’re supposed to focus on love, which is the essence of true obedience. I dare say that R.G. doesn’t know what the word love, in the Biblical sense, means. And this is also a common problem among those who focus on sign gifts, though usually, again, to a lesser degree. The bottom line is, don’t think that you can be filled with the Holy Spirit and still be practicing willful, serious sin. And if you don’t want to be a reject when the Tribulation starts, don’t live a Christian life that’s focused on sign gifts. As I will show, you must focus on being a servant. A servant to God, and a servant to your fellow Christians (but not necessarily to the unsaved. See Section II, Chapter 3).
What to do:
In the first section, "LAODICEA REVISITED" we will go back to the Church of Laodicea and look at what Jesus told the Christians of that Church to do about their lukewarm condition. From what He said in Revelation 3:18, I will expound a line of teaching that I call "The Three Switches". These are three spiritual disciplines found together in several places in the Bible. If practiced diligently by an individual Christian, they will guarantee him a victorious life and an effective ministry. If practiced by a group acting in unity, The Three Switches could precipitate another Pentecost.
The second section, "THE MANDATES OF MATTHEW 25", will be an exposition of the three parables in that chapter. In the light of the context, following the great prophetic discourse of Matthew 24, we conclude that these parables are about being ready for the Second Coming. These Parables are all very well known, and are often the subject of teaching . But there are truths within them that are usually not correctly understood within the context of the entire Bible. There are some major do’s and don’ts hidden within them. Failing to obey them could keep a Christian from being ready even if he’s practicing The Three Switches. The key to understanding these Parables lies in correctly defining key terms in each one. In this booklet, they will be defined in strict Biblical terms.
In the third section, "GOING THROUGH THE FIRE", we will deal with the most difficult of questions: What do you do if you find yourself in the Great Tribulation and you realize that you weren’t ready? As you have seen if you read my "THE GREAT TRIBULATION" booklet, this is something that I believe will happen to the vast majority of Christians, including even most of those who will have read this booklet. Therefore, this section contains information they will need to know. Some of what is said will probably be unpalatable to all but the most mature and committed Christians right now. But as has been said about other parts of this message, read it and remember it anyway, because the day may come soon when you will need to know it.
Many Christians have acknowledged in their teaching and preaching that Christians do need to be ready for the Second Coming. However, little if anything has been taught (to my knowledge) about exactly what to do if you want to be sure you’re ready. What will be said in this booklet is intended to fill up that lack. It will hold true regardless of what you believe about the Second Coming of Christ in terms of what will happen. It will hold true if you die before the Second Coming. As stated elsewhere, it has already been affirmed by several Christian leaders that what is said here is nothing but sound doctrine. Again, not being ready means you get saved "so as through fire" (I Corinthians 3:15). And if the Church does go through the Tribulation, it means that you don’t get the Seal of the Living God and you’re subject to God’s wrath. No divine protection.
I must admit this: I believe in what I said in the "BABEL RISING!" and "GREAT TRIBULATION" booklets, or I wouldn’t have written them. But they can nevertheless be considered as speculation to some extent. As far as the latter booklet is concerned, I’m sure that history will prove me wrong on some of the details, although I’m quite confident about the overall concept. But I don’t consider this booklet speculation at all. As stated in the "JESUS REALLY IS COMING SOON. BE READY!!!" booklet, I have a reputation as a Bible teacher for teaching sound doctrine. So I urge you to take this booklet seriously and apply it your life, not matter what you think of the other booklets. No matter what you believe (or don’t believe) about Second Coming prophecy, this booklet will show you how to be an overcomer.
Through all of this booklet, the reader will be called to what I have termed "radical obedience". This does not mean radical in the political sense; espousing extreme views and staging demonstrations. Rather, it means, first of all, taking the Bible more seriously than you have ever done before. As has been already said, you can take the Bible too literally, but you can’t take it too seriously. I have had a number of experiences in my Christian life that have shown me just how seriously the Word of God should be taken. Some of these experiences will be used to illustrate points that will be made in the following chapters. Secondly, "radical obedience" means obeying the Word, that is, all the do’s and don’ts, more diligently than you have ever done before. This is something that will cost you if you do it, but you won’t be ready if you don’t. If a financial advisor told you that you could make millions by following his investment plan, you’d probably be diligent in following it. So shouldn’t you be diligent about following the admonition of the Lord that will make you spiritually rich for all eternity? As it says in Hebrews 11:5, "He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him".
If you are a typical Laodicean Christian, you may think you have good reason to believe that you are living a spirit-filled, obedient and fruitful Christian life. Yet you may be in serious trouble. Remember that the Laodicean Christians erroneously think they’re spiritually rich. Remember also that the words "Behold, I stand at the door and knock…" (Revelation 3:20) were addressed to the Church, not to the unsaved. It is the Christians who really need to let Jesus come into their lives. In fact, the habit of misusing this verse as if it were addressed to the unsaved is evidence of how spiritually blind, and how ignorant of the Word too many Christians are. If you are going to obey the Word as never before, you are going to have to understand it as never before. So get your head into the Word, Psalm 1 style.
You have to get into prayer, too, if you at least want to escape God’s wrath during the Tribulation. As Jesus said, "Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man" (Luke 21:36). Note that this was addressed to Christians, implying that there will be Christians who will not escape. Also, that phrase "…stand before the Son of Man" is a reference to reigning with Christ. See Genesis 41:46. This also implies that there will be Christians who will not reign with Him. It will take an exceptionally good prayer life for you to be ready. As was previously stated, material preparation may help a little short term, but only being ready spiritually will help in the long term. The closer you are to God now, the better off you will be during the Great Tribulation. So start getting closer to the Lord now. There’s no way of knowing how soon it may be too late. So I’ll say it again: Jesus REALLY is coming soon. BE READY!!!
Part I
Laodicea Revisited
1. The Three Switches
We are going back Laodicea. In the "GREAT TRIBULATION" booklet, we talked about the Church of Laodicea and what is wrong with the Christians in that Church. We found out that they are proud and deceived. They think they’ve got it all together as Christians, and that they are spiritually rich, when in fact they are in deep spiritual trouble. Note, once again, that this is the state of the Church as a whole, but not necessarily that of any individual Christian. However, the majority of the Christians in any Church Age will to some extent, and in various ways manifest the overall problems (and strengths, if any) of the Church at large in their own Christian walk. So the Church of Laodicea is so deep in trouble that the Church as a whole faces violent, unconditional rejection by Christ. Yet as in all the seven letters, Jesus makes it clear that there will be overcomers in the Church of Laodicea. We have concluded that these are the totally committed Christians who live lives of real obedient faith and don’t get into the pervasive sins of this Church Age. They will be ready, and therefore they will receive the Seal of the Living God and be divinely protected from God’s wrath when the Tribulation begins. If you are not a Laodicean overcomer, you are not ready.
Remember that this is one of the two worst of the Seven Churches. The Christians of this Church have more to overcome than the Christians in most of the other Churches, except Smyrna. The difficulty in the Church of Smyrna came from outside, in the form of deadly persecution. As was said, the trouble in the Church of Laodicea comes from within. The influence of their fellow Christians and the Church as a whole is the Christians’ worst obstacle to being ready. There are four major problems with this Church. One is allowing division to run rampant between the Churches. The cause of most of this division is pride, the "I am (or "we are") right and everybody else is wrong" ego trip. Altogether too many Christians, as individuals and as groups, are on this ego trip. A second problem is flagrant compromise with the world, especially the embracing of the secular world of arts, entertainment and sports by the Church. It also includes buying into the secular, false ideal of tolerance, especially wherein it tolerates flagrant sin. Another failure is the tendency, even among ostensibly true believers, to reject belief in the authority of the Scriptures and put the words of men above the Word of God. A fourth is the failure of almost all Christians everywhere to practice the spiritual disciplines of the Christian faith that God demands of them. These failures include neglect of prayer and study of the Word, failure to really practice the love of Christ in relation to their fellow Christians, and failure to fully carry out the Great Commission.
Because of these problems, chastisement is coming on the Church as a whole, as implied in Revelation 3:19, in the form of the Great Tribulation. These problems are so pervasive in the Church that they make in nigh unto impossible for a Christian to be truly obedient. That’s why there will be so few overcomers. But, as in all the letters, Jesus gives them an admonition about what they should do. We are now going to look at what Jesus told them to do about their problems. Keep it in mind as you read this that there has been no time in the history of the Church in which it has been of more critical importance to Christians to be overcomers. We have the Great Tribulation coming down on us, soon, and we’re at least going into it, if not entirely through it. There can be nothing more foolish for a Christian than to not be concerned now about being ready. Not being ready for the Tribulation is like not being ready for death. If you don’t make an effort to be ready now, you may never get the chance.
In Revelation 3:18, Jesus gives the Christians of Laodicea a three-part prescription for treating their spiritual ills. From what He told them, we will draw the first three forms of action we must take if we truly want to be ready for the Great Tribulation. The amazing thing about this verse is that He tells them to buy from Him the things they need. There is only one other place in the Bible where the idea of buying something spiritual is found. It is in the foolish virgins having to buy oil in Matthew 25: 9 & 10. This is also in the context of being ready for the Second Coming. In both passages Jesus is making it clear that being ready, even being ready too late, will cost us something. I believe that in the case of the foolish virgins, their buying the oil and returning only to find themselves locked out of the wedding is a reference to ordinary Laodicean Christians repenting after the Tribulation starts, yet not receiving the Seal of the Living God. (As already shown, I believe that all the Christians who survive the Tribulation will be at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. [11] Remember that a Parable is not a description of a literal event.) The instructions given in Revelation 3:18 and the Parables of Matthew 25 are about things we must do now, if we don’t want to wind up being "foolish virgins". If we diligently follow His instructions, we’ll be overcomers.
This situation of being told to buy the things we need contrasts sharply with the fact that in other passages, such as Matthew 7: 7 & 8 and John 16: 24 we are told to simply ask for what we want or need. Jesus tells us in Matthew 6: 8, that the Father already knows what we need. In Ephesians 3:20, we are told that God "is able to do exceedingly abundantly, above all that we ask or expect". So why do we have to buy the things we need to be ready for the Second Coming?
The Lord’s telling us to "buy" the things we need is telling us something very important: Being ready is going to cost us something. It will take serious, conscious effort that will require us to make sacrifices. In fact, it may turn out to be very expensive for some Christians. There is no "cheap grace" in either of the two major passages about being ready, neither Revelation 3:18-20 nor Matthew 25. In both cases, as we will see, we are being told to give serious commitment to what can only be described as works. This is something that modern Evangelicals do not like to hear about, but if we want to be receive the Seal of the Living God, we must earn that reward with works. The New Testament shows that works have a bigger part in determining our eternal status than most contemporary Christians would believe. In the Parables of Matthew 25, what makes the difference between wise and foolish virgins, faithful and unfaithful servants, and between sheep and goats, is works. In Revelation 20:12, we find the dead being judged according to their works. This gives us the distinct impression that works even have something to do with salvation In the light of Ephesians 2: 8-10 and James 2:14-20, we have to conclude that although you can’t earn your salvation by works, you can lose it without them. Or at best, as in I Corinthians 3:15, without works you will be "saved as through fire". For those who are not overcomers when it starts, being "saved as through fire" means going into the Great Tribulation without divine protection. That will hurt!
We must, however, define just what we mean by works. We do not mean going through a bunch of religious rituals, like the Roman Catholics being saved by receiving the Seven Sacraments (actually, there is no such thing in the Bible). What we mean is doing the things that the Bible shows that God expects of us as Christians. Doing things that glorify God. Doing things that constitute real overt obedience. Doing things that are Biblically definable as real Christian ministry. [12] Doing things that are real service to God and our fellow Christians. [13] All of these things will require us to be servants. Being a servant is the very essence of what it means to be a Christian. As Jesus said (Matthew 20: 28) "the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve…" Any Christian who wants to be ready must acquire the attitude of a servant. [14]
As stated, in this passage Jesus gives the Christians of Laodicea three spiritual disciplines that I call The Three Switches. The idea is that if you turn all three switches on at the same time, the lights (spiritually) will come on real bright. Turning on switches requires deliberate, conscious effort. Especially if you are turning on all three at one time. As Jesus told us in Luke 12: 47, we’re in trouble if we don’t make a conscious effort to be ready. Again, if an individual diligently practices all three switches, they will guarantee him a victorious Christian life and an effective ministry. Not to mention that they will give him a good shot at being ready for the Second Coming. It must be noted that there is more required than that, as will be shown in the next section of this booklet. But you can’t be ready without practicing them. And I regret to say that very few Christians, relatively speaking, are practicing them the way they should.
If Christians set themselves to really practice the Three Switches, it will bring them closer to God than they may have never thought possible. They will find themselves achieving a level of holiness in their lives that will have seemed unattainable. Although there will be problems still, they’ll have inner peace and joy that prior to doing so they only sang about and otherwise gave lip service to. There are many, many Christians living today, who, if required to be completely honest about what is going on in their lives, would admit to inner turmoil, dissatisfaction, and frustration. Yet, all the while, they hold to the collective idea that they’ve got it all together as Christians when the evidence of their own reason should tell them different. There’s an old saying, "When all else fails, try following the instructions". Christians who aren’t finding the peace and joy in their lives that Jesus promised aren’t following the instructions. If they start really doing so, they’ll start receiving what was promised.
As you will recall, Jesus tells them to buy three things: "gold tried in fire, white garments, and eye salve" (yes, even the eye salve, if the verse is read in the original Greek). Of course, all this is highly symbolic. It is necessary to look around in the Bible and see if we can find another passage with a threefold admonition which might be understood as a different expression of this. In fact there is such a passage and it’s very well known. The passage is II Chronicles 7:14; "If my people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray, and seek My Face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will here from Heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land." In understanding this verse as it applies to us, we can say with confidence that Christians are now the people who are "called by My (God’s) Name". We know this from Isaiah 65:15; "You will leave your name (the people of Israel, i.e. the Jews) as a curse to My chosen; for the Lord God will….call His servants by another name". That "another name" is "Christians", as in Acts 11:26; "….and the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch". So, as we will see, everything in the passage can be understood to apply to Christians. Even that part about "turn from their wicked ways". This verse has been much promoted among Christians in the United States in the last two decades as containing the solution to all of the social, political, and economic problems of the USA. But the fact that things haven’t gotten any better shows that it hasn’t really been obeyed. In fact, as I will show, it hasn’t even been really understood.
As will be shown, these three things constitute the most basic spiritual disciplines of the Christian life, to the point that it can be said that a Chnstian who isn’t practicing them isn’t worthy of the name. Yet if any Christian really wants to be spiritually rich, practicing them is how to get that way.
To give you a preview, The Three Switches are:
As you should realize, the Church in the present day, as a whole, is seriously negligent in the practice of all The Three Switches. In the next three chapters, we will go into some real detail about what practicing The Three Switches entails. Take this seriously. What follows is nothing but sound doctrine. Put it into practice in your life. You absolutely will not be ready if you don't.
In illustrating the effect of applying all Three Switches, I like to use the analogy of a ventriloquist and his "dummy". [15] If you watch a ventriloquist perform, you’ll notice that he always keeps one arm behind the dummy’s back. Well, it just so happens that the ventriloquist’s hand is actually inside the dummy’s back. Inside the dummy, just about where a human’s heart would be, there’s a handle. It may have little levers on it, that the ventriloquist operates to make the dummy’s mouth, eyes, arms, etc., move and give the illusion that the dummy is alive. Well, in relation to God, we are kind of like dummies. The difference is, that we can choose how much we allow God to get his hand on our hearts, which is to say, how much we let Him really have control of our lives. When we practice the Three Switches, we are allowing God to really get a good grip on the "handle" of our hearts. Then, when we move, in terms of taking action, it’s really Him moving us, and when we talk, it’ Him talking. But remember, we aren’t dummies. We have free will. How much God gets control of us is our decision. When we practice the Three Switches, we are enabling Him to take better control of our lives.
A word of warning. Don’t expect practicing the Three Switches to be easy. Satan gets scared at the very idea of Christians starting to do this, and as soon as he knows they are trying to, he attacks. Expect a battle. No victory that means anything is won without a fight. You will be in an uphill battle in trying to do this. But hang tough, and the victory will be yours.
2. Gold Tried in Fire
The first of the things He tells them to buy from Him is "gold tried in fire". We must note right now that in all three of these admonitions He is using highly figurative, symbolic language. So, of course, this is a case where we must do some digging to come up with what He means. "Gold tried in fire", in the Bible, is a metaphor for faith tested through suffering. So we read in I Peter 1: 7, "….your faith, being more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire…." and in Job 23: 10, "When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold". You will note that by the context of both verses, the suffering referred to is involuntary. That is, the person or people doing the suffering suffered against their wishes. In the light of Jesus’ instructions to "buy" the "gold tried in fire", we must conclude that the suffering He calls us to do is voluntary. Buying something is a deliberate act. We must suffer deliberately. The Bible forbids us to inflict physical injury on ourselves. [16] So what does He mean?
The answer is found in II Chronicles 7:14, if it is fully understood (and this is where those who have promoted this verse have frequently failed). As we know, it says; "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray…". Alright, everybody knows we’re supposed to pray. But what does the Lord mean by "humble themselves"? This is the first place where most of the promoters of this verse have been missing the point. This isn’t just about getting on your knees, or about your attitude in prayer. There is a more specific meaning. The key is found in Daniel chapter 10, verses 3 & 12. This is the story of Daniel’s three week fast, as we know from verse 3. Then, in verse 12, the angel refers to Daniel having set his heart to humble himself before God. This is the key. Both in II Chronicles 7: 14 and in Revelation 3:18, the Lord is calling us to prayer and fasting.
Fasting: A Required Discipline
As stated above, the fasting isn’t an option. The popular teaching that fasting is an option for a Christian is a lie of the devil. I used to teach and believe this myself, until the Lord impressed me from the Scriptures that it isn’t true. We’re falling short of full obedience if we don’t make fasting or doing something equivalent a regular part of our Christian lives. You’ll never have a full prayer life without it. Moreover, there’s power in fasting. There are answers to prayer that cannot be obtained any other way. See Matthew 17:21. When Christians unite in prayer and fasting, the effect can be pure dynamite.
Jesus expects Christians to fast. In the Sermon on the Mount, in the passage in which He gave the Lord’s Prayer, [17] He also taught about two other Christians ministries, giving alms [18] (Something most contemporary Christians don’t seem to have that much of a problem with – except maybe doing it the wrong way. See Section 2, chapter 3.) and fasting. By the context, we must understand that fasting is no more an option than prayer and the giving of alms. Again, in Luke 5:35, Jesus tells the people who question His ministry that the disciple will fast "when the Bridegrooom will be taken away from them". Clearly, He expected Christians to fast. The Book of Acts shows that the early Christians did, and that big things happened when they did. Acts 13:2 shows that St. Paul received his call to the ministry of taking the Gospel to the Gentiles while the Church of Antioch was engaged in prayer and fasting.
Teacher – Evangelist Derek Prince has written a book entitled "Shaping History Through Prayer & Fasting". [19] In it he lays out a doctrine of united prayer and fasting by Christians for the purpose of controlling the course of history! He also recounts experiences in which he saw the principle he teaches work. Since reading the book, I’ve seen it too. I know it’s valid. Frankly, I think that if the whole Christian world would unite in prayer according to the principles he expounds, we could actually bring about the Millenium without there having to be a Great Tribulation. However, I’m saying this only as a hypothetical possibility. For reasons discussed in the first and third booklets of this series, [20] I’m sure it won’t happen. The Bible prophesies the Great Tribulation, and I regret to say that I’m sure it will happen, and soon. That’s why I’m writing this. However, I believe that Christians could help themselves as groups to be ready if they read and applied what he says, and I think it may have great significance once the Tribulation has begun. I’ll say more about this in the third section, "Going Through The Fire".
For now, let it be understood that every Christian should make regular fasting a part of his or her prayer life.I regret to say, as is well known, that some Christians can’t fast. However, the Bible does offer alternatives that are acceptable to God. One of them is the practice known as "watching", that is, going without sleep in order to spend time in prayer. This is actually what Jesus did during His earthly ministry. There is no Biblical indication that He ever fasted again after the 40 days in the wilderness. But He was in the habit of spending long hours at night praying alone in the mountains. See Matthew 14:23, Mark 1:35, and Luke 6:12. A Christian who is diabetic, or has hypoglycemia or some other condition that prohibits fasting can do the same. It is also of value to abstain from any form of material indulgence for a period in order to devote oneself to pray, including, but not limited to, marital relations between husbands and wives in order to spend special time in prayer. See I Corinthians 7:5. Understand, though, that to have meaning, the extra time derived from whatever abstinence must be devoted to prayer. Fasting by itself has no value. Prayer and fasting does.
A word of warning: I do not advise long fasts. Anything more than two weeks can do serious harm to your health, especially if you are working hard. I keep my fasts to usually no more than two days at a time. Also, don’t drink alcohol, [21] not even in small amounts, while fasting. Its effect on you is much stronger and can be very dangerous when you are fasting. Finally, don’t end a fast by "pigging out". It is dangerous to your health, and can cause you to become ill. Start with juices, then light foods, and after your appetite has started to recover, then eat heavier foods. The longer you fast, the more important this is.
Just understand this: If you haven’t been making fasting or something equivalent a regular part of your prayer life, and you want to be ready for the Tribulation, then start doing it.
Neglect of Prayer
There is also a problem among Christians with simply praying. And a bigger problem than you would expect. Modern Christians talk a lot about prayer, but the truth is that they actually do very little of it. A Gallup Poll [22] taken some years ago in the United States showed that the average Christian prayed only three minutes a day and the average pastor only prayed seven minutes. Compare that with Jesus and His habit of spending long hours in prayer instead of sleeping. If He needed prayer that much, how much more do we? Again, the evangelist Morris Cerullo went on record some years ago saying that it is easier to get Christians to write big checks than it is to get them to really pray. I once knew a Christian singer who made a big show of singing about what happens when Christians pray. But I knew him well enough (we were next-door neighbors in a Christian residence for several years) to know that he hardly ever prayed! He died of cancer a few years ago, and that just when his singing career appeared to be really taking off. One must wonder if that hypocrisy wasn’t why God allowed his death. It just so happens that the untimely death of a Christian can be the ultimate chastening. It is what C. S. Lewis (I believe) called "a severe mercy". Cutting a Christian’s time on earth short so he won’t lose his salvation because of his sin - in this case sins of hypocrisy and omission!
In Luke 18:8, Jesus made a statement that appears to be a reference to the Laodicean problem of neglect of prayer: "…when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" This rhetorical question is definitely a reference to the idea that most Christians won’t be ready. That is to say, He was in an offhand way prophesying that the Church as a whole will be in poor condition spiritually when He comes. But the context is about prayer, following the famous Parable about the widow and the unjust judge. Jesus appears to have been wondering whether there would be any Christians who have the faith to really pray the way they should when the Tribulation begins. [23]
Unscriptural Prayer
As if the neglect of prayer weren’t bad enough, it just so happens that when Christians do pray, or we might say, when they do things they call praying, they are often not praying in a manner that is Scripturally definable as prayer. One of the things that the Bible warns us that will happen in the last days is that there will be many false teachers around. See II Timothy 4: 3 & 4. And that means a lot of false teaching. Unfortunately, this is happening in our time, and some of the worst of the false teaching is about prayer. People are being taught erroneous definitions of prayer. They are being taught erroneous ways of praying. They are being taught to do things that are contrary to Scripture and spiritually anywhere from simply useless to seriously dangerous, and yet believe that they’re praying.
One of the most common forms of this error is that various forms of transcendental meditation are being dressed up in Christian terms and taught as prayer. I’ve had several books that did this in my hands, and one was actually written several centuries ago [24] . We all know that the New Age movement and Eastern philosophy have invaded our society. What Christians are frequently unaware of is that some of the same ideas have invaded what is ostensibly Biblical Christianity, dressed up in Christian terms, and Christians are swallowing them whole. But transcendental meditation of any kind is dangerous. It opens you up to demonic influence, which can ruin your Christian life, and can lead to permanent mental disorders. Avoid anything called "prayer" that involves the emptying of your mind of all thought, the silent contemplation of some object or idea, even a verse of Scripture, or endlessly repeating the same word or words, silently or aloud. [25] Any such activity is not Biblical prayer and is in fact spiritually dangerous and to all practical purposes, sin!
Christian Meditation
We might note at this time what Christian meditation is. We get a clue in Psalm 1: 2; "….and in His Law he meditates day and might". The blessed man meditates on the Law. As it applies to us, we can meditate on the whole Bible. But how do we do that? It isn’t chanting Scripture like a sutra, as one off-the-wall Christian group I’ve encountered does [26] . We find the answer in a Bible verse that is, like so many others, very well known and very little understood: Philippians 4: 8; (NKJV) "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things". You could undertake a very worthwhile Bible Study just getting into the Biblical meaning of the terms Paul uses here. But the key to the real intent of this verse, which has been overlooked by almost everyone who has ever taught on it, is in the meaning of the Greek word translated "meditate on" ("think" in the KJV). It is
logisthe, and whether you have ever heard this before or not, as used in this verse, it means "plan to acquire". Paul wasn’t telling us to engage in mindless contemplation. The terms he used are qualities of Christian character which he considered to exist in himself, and he was telling the Christians of Philippi to think about how to make them part of what they were as Christians. This idea is reinforced by what he says in verse 9: "The things which you learned, and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you". Christian meditation, therefore, is deep, serious thought about the meaning of the Scriptures and how to apply them to our lives. As Bill Gothard [27] teaches, quite correctly I might add, this is something we should all make a constant practice of doing.Praying to the wrong person
Then there’s the problem of praying to the wrong person. As Christians, it is alright in the course of prayer to address our words to God the Father, to the Lord Jesus Christ, and even to the Holy Spirit. But there is no Biblical justification or admonition for addressing our prayers to anyone else. To do so is idolatry. Yet the veneration of, and with it praying to, Mary, other saints, and even angels, is gaining increasing popularity in our Churches. Even among Protestants. I once worshipped regularly in a certain mainline Evangelical Church. It happened at one time that a book called "Uncommon Prayer" (a play on the title "Book of Common Prayer) was promoted in our Church. This happened because the author, an Episcopal clergyman, was a close friend of the associate pastor. Well, I bought a copy and was shocked to find in it, in addition to other serious errors, a passage that advocated prayer to the Virgin Mary! That book should have been called "Unscriptural Prayer".
Contrary to what Catholics, and some other "Christians" would have us believe, there is nothing special about Mary beyond her being the mother of the man Jesus of Nazareth. She is not "the mother of God". She is not "the Queen of Heaven". Being the mother of Jesus was a tremendous blessing in itself. But as far as her eternal status in Heaven, Jesus Himself gave us some light on that subject in Luke 11: 27 & 28; "And it happened as He spoke these things that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts that nursed You’. But He said, ‘More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and do it’". See also Matthew 12:47-50.
Special Note:
Lord willing, within the next year or so I’ll put together a book on the Cult of Mary. But understand right now that the veneration of Mary is the most blatant and probably the most seriously satanic form of idolatry ever practiced by Christians.Let me tell you a little history. Do you know where the veneration of Mary began? Ephesus! What is special in the Bible about Ephesus that might be related to the veneration of Mary? See Acts 19: 34 & 35. Ephesus was the headquarters of the cult of Artemis-Diana; [28] the biggest single pagan religion of that day. You may not be aware of it, but there is real power in pagan religions. But it is demonic power. That’s what Paul was referring to, specifically, in Ephesians 6:12; "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, [29] against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places". It’s not a coincidence that this verse is in the Epistle to the Ephesians! There was a real spiritual power behind the cult of Artemis-Diana. In fact, it had previously identifiably manifested itself in a number of other ancient pagan religions. That power is part of Satan’s kingdom. When Christianity took over Ephesus, that spiritual power found itself out in the cold. So it took an "if we can’t beat them, let’s join them" attitude toward Christianity and started manifesting itself disguised as Mary. (This particular "power" always has manifested itself in the female gender.) That’s where the whole thing comes from. Including all the visions and miracles. So if you are praying to "Mary", you can find out who you’re really praying to in Acts 19:34 & 35. If you want to have a prayer, literally, of being ready for the Great Tribulation, praying to "Mary", or any of the other Saints, is an absolute No!-No!
If you want to pray effectively and righteously, then always address your prayers to God, be it the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. And no one else! Not even angels (Colossians 2:18).
What is Prayer?
Which bring us to the question, just exactly what is true, Biblical Christian prayer? Is it simply, as some teach, that prayer is simply talking to God? If this was a proper definition, then almost any verbal expression made toward God could be considered prayer. Even shaking your fist toward heaven and cursing! No, this definition is so shallow and general that it is effectively false teaching, no matter how many good ministries use it. Contrary to popular opinion, there is only one truly Biblical definition of prayer: Prayer is making petitions to God, expecting Him to grant the petition. As Jesus said in Matthew 7:7 & 8, "Ask, and it will be given unto you, seek, and you will find, knock, and it will be opened. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." Again, in John 16:24, He said, "Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive that your joy may be full". Not to make a constant practice of making petitions to God is actually a sin of omission. Not to expect to receive is the sin of unbelief.
Believe it or not, even praise and giving thanks are not properly definable as Biblical prayer. Although they should always accompany prayer, if all you do is praise God and give thanks, you aren’t really praying. I once sat through an hour-long prayer meeting during which the whole group (except me) did nothing but thank and praise God. Spiritually, there was nothing wrong with doing that. But I hope that none of the others expected any specific answers to their prayers. They never really prayed! In passages like Philippians 4:6 and I Timothy 2:1, thanksgiving is treated as an activity related to, but nevertheless distinct from prayer. If what you are saying isn’t asking God for or to do something, you aren’t praying
If you read passages like the two above, you will see that there are several other word used in the sense of prayer, particularly "supplication" and "intercession". This is not redundancy. There are actually four basic Greek words that are found in the Bible having to do with prayer. Each one refers to a different category of petition. All four types of prayer are illustrated in the Lord’s Prayer. Transliterating them (spelling Greek words with English letters) to make them pronounceable, here is what they are:
1.Proseukos: Usually translated "prayer". This is the name for petitions that have to do with God’s Kingdom and God’s Will. "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done…"
2. De'esis: Usually translated "supplication". This is prayer for our material needs. "Give us this day our daily bread".
3.Enteuxis: Usually translated "intercession". This is prayer for spiritual needs, including but not limited to prayer for the needs of others. "Forgive our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us".
Special note:
This tells us a secret about what we should pray for. Our focus in prayer should always be primarily on spiritual needs, rather than material needs.4.Hikateria: Also translated "supplication". This is prayer for what might be called favors or blessings from God. "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil".
One of the biggest errors in modern teaching on prayer is to belittle or flat out reject the petitioning aspect. There is teaching that implies that making petitions to God is somehow spiritually shallow and/or immature It is said, and not incorrectly, that it is wrong to think of God as a big vending machine in the sky. It is a fact that there is false teaching around, such as the "name it and claim it" nonsense, that portrays God that way. But to reject the petitioning aspect of prayer because of it is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Consider the verse quoted on the previous page from John 16. Consider to whom Jesus said that, and where and when. He was talking to His disciples in the Upper Room, the night before He went to the Cross. This was some of the last teaching He ever gave them while He was on earth. He was not telling them something that was shallow or spiritually immature. Remember; he was talking to men who could already heal the sick and cast out demons. [30] He was telling them something that would be at the very core and foundation of their Christian lives and ministry. He was telling about something that they could not be effective and victorious without. He was telling them the secret of power!
Why Pray?
Which brings us to the topic of why we should pray. The foremost and most serious reason is that God told us to! Anything He tells us to do is for our good. As will be repeated elsewhere, almost everything that happened in the Bible of any significance was an answer to prayer, from the Exodus right through to Pentecost and beyond. It has been noted by many Christian leaders that no ministry is really effective unless it is supported by prayer. Why is this so? Jesus gave us a clue in the Book of Luke, chapter 12, verse 32; "Do not fear, little flock (Note: this is probably a specific reference to the 12 Apostles, truly a "little flock"), for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom". To understand what He meant by that, we must understand the meaning of the Greek word for "kingdom". It is
basiliean, and it can mean two specific things: a: the realm that a king reigns over, or, b: the authority with which he reigns. In this verse, Jesus was using meaning b. God was giving them His authority to reign. As it says in I Peter 2:10, we are "a royal priesthood", or, as in Revelation 1:6, "and (Jesus) has made us kings and priests to His God and Father". So we are kings. We exercise our kingship in prayer. I am a citizen of the United States of America and the City of New York. I have rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. Yet I cannot go to the Mayor of New York or the President of the United States with a petition and expect either of them to grant it. I’d probably have to be a close friend of whichever, and the petition would have to be in accord with whichever’s personal agenda. Even then there is no guarantee that I’d get what I asked.Yet I can approach the Creator of the Universe with a petition and I can expect Him to grant it. I am His friend. In fact, I’m His son! However, to be completely Scriptural, I must admit that my petition must be in accord with His agenda; that is to say, with His will (I John 5: 14 & 15). But given that condition, He has bound Himself to grant my petitions. I myself have trouble comprehending just how enormous a privilege and power that is. Christians can move God into action. Moreover, there is Biblical reason to believe that, beyond what is needed to keep His plan of salvation on track, God won’t move in any situation unless Christians ask Him to. Have you ever read any of those "sword and sorcery" novels that are so popular these days? Have you read about those imaginary sorcerers and all the powers they supposedly have? Let me tell you this: An obedient Christian who knows how to pray according to God’s will has more potential power than one of those sorcerers. Remember what Elijah did: "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he earnestly prayed that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit: (James 5:17 & 18). This passage tells us, by implication, that every Christian, prayer-wise, is a potential Elijah. When Christians unite in prayer, the potential effect is even greater.
"Reporting the Fire"
There’s a story I like to tell that is a parable of the difference this can make. In my early years in New York City (late 1960’s) I often would hang out in the huge Staten Island Ferry terminal near my apartment on Staten Island. One afternoon, as I was hanging out there, I noticed a small fire burning in one of the "racks", the huge, fence-like, wooden structures that guide the ferry boats into the docks. I knew that some years before another fire had started in the racks, which wasn’t noticed at first, and the whole ferry terminal had burned down. So I figured that something had to be done about this fire. However, I had no authority to take any action myself, neither to use the fire fighting equipment in the terminal, nor to go out onto the "rack". But there was one thing I could do. I could go into the dock office and report the fire, and that I did.
Now it just so happened that only about twenty feet from where the fire was burning, the U.S.S. Firefighter was docked. At the time it was the most powerful fireboat in the world. It could pump twenty thousand gallons of water a minute through the water cannons on its decks, with enough force to knock down a brick wall. But the crew was in their station ashore, and they didn’t know about the fire until I reported it. Then, being notified by the dock office, they went aboard the fireboat, started the pumps, and put out the fire in less than a minute. What to me was a problem impossible to solve in my own authority was a very small thing to the fireboat.
What is an impossible situation to us can be a very small thing to God. But you have to "report it". In prayer. Like the fireboat near the fire, "He is not far from any one of us". But He has given us the Kingdom, the authority to rule, and therefore He won’t act unless we do. In prayer! [31] I believe that during the Great Tribulation, Christians will unite in "reporting the fire" as they have never done since Pentecost.
The Power of United Prayer: a case history
In the mid-‘70’s, Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his "Unification Church" were on the rise in New York City. But this was at the peak of the "Born Again" movement that followed the "Jesus Movement", and there were many on-fire Christians in the New York area who opposed him. This opposition reached its climax when Moon planned a huge rally at Yankee Stadium. His plan and expectation was that the rally would be so successful that it would give him effective spiritual dominance over the New York area. The rally was the most aggressively promoted event in the history of the City. So much so that it produced an outcry of protest even from the secular realm, which is usually rather jaded to such things in New York. Posters advertising the rally were everywhere. You couldn’t go anywhere in the City without being offered free tickets to the rally. Moon clearly intended to overflow the Stadium. But there were many Christians, including yours truly, who didn’t like what he was doing.
We organized an ad hoc group called "Christians United For Jesus As Lord" to oppose the Moonies in general and the rally in particular. We held seminars to teach people how to witness to Moonies. We planned a big effort to oppose them right at the rally. We mapped out the area and planned to have people at every entrance and approach to the Stadium handing out specially made anti-Moon tracts. The tracts contrasted the claims of Rev. Moon unfavorably with the teachings of Jesus. These tracts were deliberately designed to resemble the literature the Moonies were handing out. This made it easier to get the people coming to the rally to take and read them. [32] Expecting the Stadium to be overflowed with people, we planned a counter-concert with Christian groups in a park across the street from the Stadium. But more significantly, we got over 2000 Christians to commit themselves to supporting the effort in prayer.
One more thing: We briefly discussed the idea of doing something to physically disrupt the rally. But a message was given by prophetic utterance that we could give ourselves a bad name if we did that and that we should leave physical disruption of the rally to the Lord. The message was heeded, and the idea was dropped. And, wow, did the Lord do some physical disruption.
The rally was scheduled to begin about 7:00 PM. But at about 5:00 PM a thunderstorm came over the city and soaked the stadium. Then it cleared off in time to allow us to do our thing at the Stadium. It didn’t interfere with our effort at all. But it really did some damage to Rev. Moon’s plans. Instead of the 50,000+ people he wanted, he got a crowd of only about 15,000, only 1/3 of the Stadium capacity. Many of them were people who had been bussed in from outside the area, so they had no choice about showing up. Some of them were us, Christians who had gone inside to pray, again including yours truly. I want to mention one uncanny sensation I had while I participated in our effort to oppose the rally at the stadium: I had this strange but very concrete sensation that I was in the middle of a spiritual battle and that God was right there fighting along with us. And I don’t mean that it was something I thought. It was something I very tangibly felt.
The poor attendance, however, was only the beginning of what God had in store for the Moonies. They were so desperate to fill the Stadium that they told the Stadium guards to let in anybody who wanted to come in, whether or not they had tickets. And that included street gangs from the South Bronx. They didn’t like the Moonies any better than we did, but they had a different way of showing it. Meanwhile, the Moonies had been bossing the Stadium guards around in a rather disrespectful manner, (I saw incidents of this happening) and the guards resented it. So when the gangs began mugging and beating Moonies and throwing smoke bombs into the Stadium and doing other acts of vandalism and disruption, the guards ignored it. [33] The rally ended with the police coming in like an army and clearing the place out. Meanwhile, our counter-concert in the park across the street went smoothly up to the very end. But then a group of us had a toe-to-toe confrontation with a gang that had been tampering with our sound equipment. There stood a number of Christian leaders neatly dressed in suits and ties, (again, including yours truly-I had left the Stadium when I saw what the gangs were doing.) confronting barehanded a gang armed with clubs, knives and chains. For a few moments the situation was very tense. But then the gang just suddenly turned and walked away with no violence having occurred. A few minutes later the police swept through the park in force, and the crisis was over. I understand that several Moonies got killed that night, but only one Christian was hurt, and that not seriously. I have been told by people who later left the Unification Church that Rev. Moon considers that rally his crucifixion. He has never tried anything like that in the New York area again [34] .
Unfortunately, after the Rally was over, the Christian opposition movement fell apart. There was no follow-through. I’m convinced that if there had been, the Unification Church would probably no longer exist. Failure to follow up on our victory allowed the benefits to fade away. It is because I’ve seen things like this event that I’m sure that the Church could literally take over the world for Christ if we would get serious about it and if we would really unite for that purpose. But I don’t expect it to happen, and, again, our failure to do so is one of the reasons why the Tribulation will happen.
Praying according to God’s will
So, assuming you do pray, either individually or as part of a group (and you should do both), how do you pray? We’ve said that prayer is making petitions to God, but that on the other hand God isn’t a great vending machine in the sky waiting to meet our every wish. We’ve said that you must pray according to His will. In order to pray effectively we must define what this means.
We must first briefly define what God’s will is. Some people think of God’s will as some cosmic blue-print that God has for our individual lives, and think that we must somehow figure out what it is in order to be obedient and pray obediently. This is not the case. God’s will is more a matter of how we live in terms of day to day obedience to His commandments, rather than a specific agenda that we must follow. However, if God does have something special that He wants you to do, and sometimes He does, He has ways of letting you know. When it comes to prayer, praying according to God’s will is more a matter of the attitude with which we pray, and whether our petitions are in accordance with the Scripture, than whether He wants any particular thing done. His will is revealed in His word. Anything in the Bible that constitutes a prayer, a prophecy, a promise, or a commandment can be understood as an expression of His will. [35] We must learn to base our prayers on these passages. And there are certain other conditions that must be met for our prayers to be effective.
First and foremost, we must not pray self-centered prayers. [36] If God answers a prayer like that in the affirmative, you may be sorry He did. God sometimes answers such prayers as a chastisement. But you should be seeking God’s glory and kingdom in your prayers. That’s why the Lord’s Prayer starts with the words, "Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven." This is not meant to be words we mindlessly recite. This is meant to be the attitude and underlying purpose of all our prayers. Second to seeking God’s kingdom and glory in our prayers, we should be seeking the good of other people, especially our fellow Christians. That’s why all the earthly petitions in the Lord’s prayer are for "us" instead of "me". Of course, we should be praying for the salvation of all men as well. See I Timothy 2:1-4. God answers our prayers for others more quickly than He does our prayers for ourselves. That’s part of the reasons why I’ve said in another place that we should make intercession the biggest part of our prayer life. [37]
I am sure you are familiar with Matthew 7:12; "Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets". That’s the Golden Rule, one of the best known teachings of Jesus. But what has usually been missed is the significance of the context. It follows immediately on His famous "Ask and you shall receive…" teaching. Why did He drop it in there? It is because He is telling us something about getting out prayers answered. It is related to the famous principle of sowing and reaping [38] He is telling us that the good we pray for others will come back to us. What we sow in prayer for others, we reap in blessing for ourselves. In short, it’s for our own good that we pray for others. In other words, if you don’t make praying for others a major part of your prayer life, don’t be surprised if God seems to turn a deaf ear to your prayers for yourself.
Here I want to insert something that I’ve discovered from Bible study over the years: pure altruism isn’t in the Bible. That is, the idea of doing good simply because it is good is not really a Scriptural idea. Most people would do good for that reason once in a while, but it is doubtful that many would make a career out of it. God promises rewards. See Matthew 10: 41 & 42. Rewards for the righteous, and rewards, in the form of punishment, for the wicked. The word "reward" occurs over 60 times in the Bible, plus many equivalent expressions. The Bible shows that when Jesus went to the Cross, He did it with the knowledge that there was something in it for Him; "….who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross…." (Hebrews 12:2). This kind of thinking may shock you, but it is what the Bible really says. Therefore, contrary to what some Christians may think, there is nothing wrong with having the expectation of reward in mind when you do something righteous. In fact, it is a great motivator. God doesn’t expect anybody to serve Him for nothing. See I Corinthians 9:7-10. And that counts in both this life and the next. See Mark 10: 29 & 30. There are great rewards to be gained by having a good prayer life. But only if you make a priority of praying for others. By the way, expect this to be a battle. Satan hates it, and he will try very hard to stop you. Don’t let him do it.
Knowing what to pray
This brings us to the question of knowing exactly what to pray for. The normal human tendency is to focus on material needs, problems with relationships, and any other difficulties one may be experiencing. But the Biblical pattern, especially in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament as well, is focusing on spiritual issues. Thus the only material request in the Lord’s Prayer is "Give us this day our daily bread." Even this may be understood spiritually, but it does apply materially, in that it acknowledges our dependence on God. But the other prayers quoted in the New Testament, and the Old, notably in the Book of Psalms [39] tend to focus on spiritual issues.
Some of the best examples of this are in the prayers of St. Paul. In several of his Epistles, he tells the Christians in the Churches he is writing to that he is praying for them. Then he proceeds to tell them what he is praying for. In these passages, we can find some excellent guidelines for the kind of petitions we should be bringing before the Lord on behalf of our fellow Christians. One of the best examples of this is found in the Epistle to the Colossians, chapter 1, and verses 9-12.
In this passage, Paul presents several concrete petitions concerning Christian life and growth. As you can see, there is nothing material stated or suggested. But implied in the petitions, and the words that follow them, are reasons for the requests. This is an important aspect of effective prayer. You qualify your requests. You define your terms, and you give reasons for why you are making the petition. Mature prayer is a very intellectual activity. It involves the full use of your mind. No simplistic "giv’me, giv’me" That’s why St. Paul also says, in I Corinthians 14: 15; "I will pray with the spirit and I will also pray with the understanding." He was not talking about two independent activities. Although the NKJV, from which this is quoted, doesn’t capitalize the word "spirit", I believe in should be capitalized. I believe that Paul meant that he would pray in the Spirit with his understanding. Rather than yammering in meaningless tongues, he allowed the Holy Spirit to guide his thoughts as he prayed. Which he obviously also did as he wrote! This is what we must learn to do. It would be a good idea to begin a prayer time by asking the Lord to guide your thoughts as you pray.
But you still need some intellectual guidance for what you pray, and the best place to find that guidance is in the Word; in passages like the one quoted above. Now let’s take a close look at what Paul says in the passage above. Notice first of all that he says he does not cease to pray for them. What is implied is that he keeps bringing the same petitions to the Lord again and again. There is a false teaching that says that if you pray for something, you should pray for it just once and leave it at that, because if you have faith God will answer the prayer even with that one petition. The Bible doesn’t support that idea at all. In fact, I consider it a serious lie of the devil. Both in the Parable of the widow and the unjust judge in Luke 18, and in the story of Daniel’s 3-week fast in Daniel 10, we have illustrations of persisting in prayer until the answer comes. In the case of prayers like the one Paul is praying, the answer is something which in practice would be granted continuously in the lives of the Christians he’s praying for. Therefore, the petition should be made continuously. Contrary to what some have taught, this is not vain repetition, as in Matthew 6:7. Vain repetition is when you say the same thing over again and again in the same prayer session. Like saying the Rosary. Or, as I’ve seen in prayer meetings, Christians getting all stirred up emotionally and ranting the same words over and over again. They think they’re praying in the Spirit. The truth is, they’re sinning!
On the other hand, one thing I know to be true from experience is that if you have an urgent, honest need, you may be able to pray a ten-second prayer and get your petition granted instantly. It has happened to me more than once.
The first thing Paul asks for is that Christians be filled with the knowledge of God’s will, and he says, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. I can’t think of anything that present day Christians need more of. If a Christian is in that state, continuously, he’s far more likely to be ready than the average Christian. If you’ve read my essay, "Report on the Stupider Effect", you know that I see lack of wisdom as being a major ongoing problem among Christians. Do pray for wisdom, understanding, and knowledge of God’s will, for yourself and every other Christian you pray for. See James 1:5.
Then he prays that they would walk worthy of the Lord. He is praying that Christians will behave in a way that will bring glory to God. The Lord Jesus Christ died to give us the gift of eternal life. We should live in such a way as to effectively deserve the salvation He has given us. Of course, we can’t really deserve it, no one does. But we should for all that put forth an effort to live up to the standard of deserving it. If we do, it will be pleasing to God, and that will contribute to our getting our prayers answered otherwise. See I John 3:22. Every Christian’s life will be a testimony for or against Jesus. If you want to please God, your life had better be a testimony for Him. So pray that you and other Christians will have the grace to live that way.
Then he prays that the Lord will give us strength. He wants us to be able to have patience and to exhibit the Christian quality of longsuffering (this is putting up with annoyances or persecution without getting upset about such things) and have joy in the process. That’s a contradiction to the world’s way. To be putting up with all kinds of unpleasantness and far from getting upset and cursing and swearing, to actually be joyful in the midst of it. This requires a kind of repentance that simply renounces being angry or upset and chooses to be joyful, but it takes the fullness of the Holy Spirit to do it. See Ephesians 3:16. By the way, that’s another prayer. Do pray for the Lord to strengthen yourself and your fellow Christians by the Spirit.
Finally, he in so many words says that he prays that we’ll be thankful. As he suggests in the rest of that verse, we have a lot to be thankful for, over and above the individual, day to day blessings we receive. Take a look at what God has done for us as described in Ephesians 1 & 2. Although, as I said, giving thanks isn’t prayer, it should always accompany prayer, and more than that, should be a constant habit of our Christian lives. A Christian who isn’t into being thankful is a defeated Christians! It actually uplifts you when you give thanks and praise to the Lord! So do pray that God will also give this grace to yourself and other Christians. Never utter a prayer that isn’t accompanied by some kind of thanksgiving.
I hope from this that you get the idea. Look through the Bible for all the prayers. Do some study to get into the depth of what the prayer is really about. Then rephrase those prayers as your own petitions, for whoever you see as needing whatever particular prayer. Prayers of this kind are guaranteed to be 100% in accordance with God’s will and they produce results.
A Special Spiritual Exercise:
Here’s something that I highly recommend as an exercise in learning to pray in accordance with Scripture that will also produce some significant improvement in your walk with the Lord if you do it in sincerity. Try praying through Psalm 119. This Psalm, the longest in the Bible, is a prayer by a person who really wants to be obedient to God. If you really want to be obedient to God, and prosper in your walk with the Lord generally, praying this Psalm will help you. I don’t mean for you to do it all at once. The Psalm is 176 verses long, but it’s broken up into 22 sections of 8 verses each. What I recommend is that as part of your prayer time, you read through one section each day for 22 days. After reading through it, go through it again and pray it. But as you do, rephrase it (but don’t take too much liberty, that is, don’t make it say something it doesn’t say) to make it your own prayer. Do this faithfully, and watch what happens to your walk with the Lord.
Praying with your Understanding
Perhaps the most import prayer in the Bible is the Pastoral Prayer of Jesus in John 17. Although we know that Jesus did a lot of praying, this is the only prayer He prayed of any length wherein we know what He prayed. There is much that can be learned from studying this prayer, both in what Jesus said and in how He says it. For now, I wish to consider the "how" of the prayer. If you read it, and especially if you do so aloud, you may be struck by how different it sounds from the prayers you usually here in Churches. This is not a prayer filled with many pious platitudes and phrases. Neither is there any evidence of the ranting, raving prayers that are often heard in some Churches. Rather, we have a structured, organized series of petitions, interspersed with supporting and qualifying statements. Jesus is praying with His understanding in this prayer!
In verses 6-8, He tells the Father about the work He has accomplished in ministering to His disciples. Then in verse 9, He tells the Father that He is praying specifically for them and no one else, precisely targeting His petition. Then in verse 10, He gives the Father some specific reason why the petition should be granted: "...all Mine are Yours and Yours are Mine..." This pattern of being very precise in His petitions, plus stating the underlying circumstances and giving concrete reason why the petition should be granted is found all through this prayer. And it is an excellent example of how we should put our prayers together.
God wants us to pray, but He wants us to use our brains when we do it. Christians often pray with their mouths in gear and their brains in neutral. But, as it says in Ecclesiastes 5:2 "Do not be rash with your mouth, nor utter anything hastily before God. For God is in heaven and you on earth; therefore let your words be few." Think through what you are going to pray. Then present your petition simply and straightforwardly. If possible, give God a reason why He should answer your prayer. If you use a theological term, define it, as you pray. Overall, think of it as being like presenting a proposal to your boss. You know you could defeat your purpose if you talk carelessly or too much.
Have you ever heard someone praying in a Church, particularly for someone to be healed, and they were yelling out their prayer as if they felt that they had to wake God up to do the healing? And all the while they where laying one hand on the poor sick person, hard enough to nearly break his neck, and were reaching skyward with the other as if they thought they could grab God’s hand and pull Him down. I’ve got news for you. There’s no real faith in a prayer like that. Jesus yelled loud when He told Lazarus to come out of the tomb, (Lazarus had to hear him through solid rock) but He didn’t yell His prayer to the Father. See John 11: 41-43. Or consider another powerful prayer of faith, the one Elijah prayed on Mt. Carmel when he called down fire from Heaven. See I Kings 18:36 & 37. The priests of Baal had been praying all day without an answer. The praying Christians I describe above remind me of those priests. Now look at Elijah’s prayer. There’s nothing to suggest that he did any more than perhaps mildly raise his voice. Do you know how long it took him to pray that prayer. Read it aloud and time yourself. It takes about 30 seconds. Notice one thing: he does give God a reason why He should answer the prayer; a reason that is in accord with God’s "agenda". Elijah was praying with his understanding! And the fire fell on the altar. So when you pray, do so with your brains, not with your glands. Real faith has much more to do with reason than it does with emotion.
Prayer and Forgiveness
There is another major requirement for having an effective prayer life, as well as a victorious Christian life generally, that is for some reason seldom taught. But the basic idea was presented by Jesus in two separate passages in which He taught about prayer. The first example is in Matthew 6:14 & 15, and the second in Mark 11:22 & 23. In both passages, He expresses the same basic idea: If we don’t forgive others, God won’t forgive us. This idea is reflected in the famous petition in the Lord’s Prayer, "Forgive our debts, as we also forgive our debtors". This is the only petition in the Prayer to which a qualification is attached. We are being told something very important. First of all, the Lord is telling us that if we don’t forgive, we won’t get our prayers answered. Unforgiveness is sin. See John 9: 31. But that is only part of the problem. The other part is what is going to happen to us if we don’t forgive.
In Matthew 18, Jesus presents the most complete teaching on the subject of forgiveness, in the sense of our forgiving others, in the entire Bible. In looking at this chapter, [40] we must take note of one serious fact: He was talking about two kinds of forgiveness. One is forgiveness to the offenders face, and the other is forgiveness from the heart. He puts conditions on forgiveness to the face, but demands unconditional forgiveness from the heart.
In verses 15-17, Jesus talks about forgiveness to the face. It is noteworthy that He effectively tells us to do this only if the person (particularly another Christian) repents. On the other hand, He tells us to have nothing more to do with a Christian who wrongs you and won’t admit it and apologize (and make restitution if required). The reason is very simple: to forgive to the face when there is no repentance is to effectively excuse, that is to say, condone, the wrong. Remember that God is stricter with Christians than He is with unbelievers. Never forgive a person who has wronged you to his or her face if they haven’t apologized, at least. To do so is to encourage them to continue to practice the relevant kind of sin.
But having said that, in response to Peter’s question in verse 21, Jesus gave the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. The significant thing is what happens at the end, in verses 34 & 35. The Unforgiving Servant is put into the hands of certain men. Different translations render the key Greek word,
basanistaiV in different ways, but there is only one correct translation: torturers! Then Jesus went on to say that what the Master did to the Unforgiving Servant, the Father would do to each of us if we didn’t forgive others from our hearts. This doesn’t mean that we’ll be locked up in a prison somewhere and be tortured. Neither does this refer to going to hell. Jesus is saying that if we don’t forgive unconditionally from within, we’ll be tortured from within. That means we must automatically forgive all wrongs that are done to us or that in any way effect us. We must never allow anger, bitterness, resentment, or grudges to have place in our lives. If we do, we’ll be tortured. This really happens. Let me tell you a true story to illustrate what I mean.Years ago, I held a night-time job in a Christian ministry that included doing over-the-phone counseling. Soon after I began that job, I made the acquaintance, over the phone, with a woman named Sarah. (That is her real first name.) Sarah was a middle age Christian woman, who by the way was a widow. Sarah would call me around 3 or 4 in the morning, almost every night, and she’d be crying and asking for prayer, which of course she got. Sarah seemed to love the Lord. She wrote beautiful Christian poetry that praised God. But her life was a living hell. She couldn’t get along with her relatives. She couldn’t find a Church where she was happy. And she had a host of other problems. She was a hypochondriac. She had real health problems that should have healed but wouldn't. She suffered frightening hallucinations (or she was seeing real demons, which I consider a possibility) and when she tried to sleep, she had terrible nightmares. That’s why she would call at 3 AM.
Of course, I prayed with her and did my best to give her words of comfort. But as time went by, I also worked at finding out what was wrong. After all, to my thinking (still) this shouldn’t be happening to a Christian. It took a long time of gently prying to finally find out was wrong, but I did. Sarah, it turned out, had never forgiven anyone for anything in her life. She didn’t even know she was supposed to. She was living with a burden of anger bitterness, resentment, you name it, that would have crushed her to death if it had been bricks. Just as Jesus said, she was in the hands of the torturers, and they were busy!
It took another long time to convince her that she needed to forgive. Then, starting with little things, I got her to work at forgiving people for things they had done to her, and to gradually work up to big things. In the middle of the process, I had to help her through a setback when a friend hurt her emotionally. But we both stayed with it, and the day came when she was free. And what a change! She had significantly improved her relationships with her relatives. She had found a Church where she was happy. The hypochondria had disappeared. Her real physical problems had healed, and she had a big overall improvement in her health. The hallucinations and nightmares had stopped. She was able to go to bed and get a good night’s sleep. She still called me at 3 AM once in a while, but no more than once a week. Her life had been transformed. She’d make a point of getting up to call me so that we could praise the Lord together for the change that had taken place in her life. Just learning to forgive had worked a miracle in her life.
I regret to say that Sarah is far from being the only Christian I’ve met who had problems that derived from unforgiveness. I regret to say that this is one of the most pervasive and most destructive spiritual problems in the whole human race, and Christians are not immune. I couldn’t begin to tell you how much evil has begun as unforgiveness. You’ve heard of cases wherein seemingly normal people got guns, went to public places, and shot upwards of a dozen or more people. From the details I’ve heard in a few such cases, I know that the cause of these tragedies is often unforgiveness. The perpetrators had allowed anger and resentments to build up inside themselves until the buildup reached the point where they exploded. This happens even among Christians. What makes it even worse is that once a person is bound up in unforgiveness, he or she will start to perceive things that other people do as sin and/or as personally injurious when no real wrong has been done; the evil is only in the perception. And this evil misperception only aggravates the problem. But I warn you that any Christian who allows unforgiveness to have place in his life will, as the Bible says, make shipwreck of his faith. I’ve known Christians who knew they had an unforgiveness problem and who refused to repent! If you realize that you have such a problem, you must make your No. 1 priority to get free of it. If you don’t, your life may become a living hell. You will not get your prayers answered. You are also likely to do real harm, emotionally and spiritually, if not physically, to others. You will answer to God for that, too. Above all, if the Tribulation begins, and you have an unforgiveness problem, you absolutely will not be ready. Repent!
Don’t Get Mad At God
Related to practicing forgiveness is the issue of getting angry with God when things don’t go the way you want them to. There has been error preached on this point to the effect that it’s okay to get mad at God. There was even a book published some years ago, not a Christian book, Thank God, that said we have to forgive God when bad things happen to us. As good as that sounds, what is beneath it, in terms of ideas, is the idea that God can do wrong, that He really is to blame for bad things that happen to us. A good Biblical example of the right attitude toward this whole thing is in the Book of Job, chapter 1, verses 20-22; "Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshipped. And he said; ‘Naked came I from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord’. In all this Job did not sin nor charge the Lord with wrongdoing."
If Job had really understood what was going on, he would have said, "The Lord gave, and Satan has taken away".
Now what if Job had gotten angry with God? What if he had cursed God, as his wife told him to (Job 2:9)? He would have been foolish, as he called her in the next verse. He said, in effect, that they should accept whatever God did, whether good or bad. The Bible indicates that he was righteous in saying so.
God has given us some wonderful promises in the Bible. A few of my favorites are in Romans 8:28, 31,& 37: "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose…..What then shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?…Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us."
Do you believe in these promises? So you may say, but if you get angry with God, no you don’t!
Again, if you are angry with God, you are charging Him with wrongdoing. That happens to be a serious sin, namely blasphemy (which means "speaking evil of …"). If you do that when you are having troubles, you are actually putting up a wall between yourself and God that keeps Him from helping you. You are allowing Satan to really have control of your life. So if you are angry with God, you must acknowledge that as sin and repent before God can help you. Refusing to do so will result in things getting worse. Being angry with God can make a disaster of your Christian life. If on the other hand you decide to trust and thank God, He will bring good out of every situation, just as He did for Job..
What I have found, as is said in essence in James 5:13, is that we should turn to God in all circum-stances. When things are going great, it’s time to praise the Lord. When things are bad, it’s time to seek the Lord’s help. When things are just so-so, it’s time to draw closer to God. But if you want your prayers answered, if you want the Lord’s help, and if you want to be ready for the Great Tribulation, NEVER ! NEVER! NEVER GET MAD AT GOD!
Above all, take the time to pray. And if you’re a beginner, don’t be afraid of doing something wrong. Prayer is something that takes growth and study to be good at it, just like anything else. There are many reasons why prayers don’t get answered. But the biggest is not praying. As Jesus said, "Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man". [41]
3. White Garments
The next thing Jesus told the Christians of Laodicea to buy from Him was "white garments that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed". This is a direct reference to the problem of nakedness in verse 17. As was stated in section 1, chapter 2 of booklet No. 3, nakedness is a Biblical metaphor for being guilty of unconfessed, unrepented sin. Especially the sin of idolatry. We have already said enough about what that idolatry is. What we must look at now is what the "white garments" represent. In doing so, we must also look at an equivalent term in Revelation 19:8. There it says that at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb the Bride will be dressed in "fine linen, clean and bright". The angel goes on to say that "the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints". Uh! Oh! Works again! As stated, such is the way that the words "linen" and "white" in reference to garments are used in the Bible that we can safely say that the two terms mean the same thing. Therefore, we can understand that Jesus is saying that we must earn our divine protection during the Tribulation by specific works that we must do.
However, there is more than one way, even in the Book of Revelation, of looking at the term "white garments". To teach the whole counsel of God on this issue, we must take the position that both ways of looking at the term apply. The other of looking at the term is found in Revelation 7: 14, in the words, "washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb". Here the phrase is obviously about repentance. It is of course talking about the Christians who aren’t ready waking up to their failure and repenting during the Tribulation. But as it applies now to the issue of being ready, it means that a Christian must change his ways of thinking about the life he is living in the here and now. A Christian must get into serious agreeing with God. This is what the word "confession" really means in the Bible. It is the Greek word ‘
omologeo, (transliterated "homologeo"; there is no letter ‘h’ in Greek) and it really means "say the same thing". When we "confess our sins" we say the same thing about them that God says. Which means we don’t try to excuse or justify them, let alone deny them.So we conclude that to satisfy the terms of this admonition, we must first truly repent of the sins we are committing, and then we had better get busy doing the righteous things we are omitting.
Here I want to insert a conclusion I came to years ago as a result of comparing what the Scriptures say with what I saw going on in the world and in the lives of Christians: The world around us is far more evil is than most Christians realize. More than that, most Christians are far more sinful than they realize. I cannot quote in what document, but I’ve been told on good authority that Martin Luther said much the same thing. You have to really start getting close to God – closer than most Christians are – to start seeing the world, and yourself, as God sees it and you. It has been said that the greatest saints where the people who were most aware of their own sin. As Paul said, (at the height of his ministry) "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells" (Romans 7:18, NKJV). But modern Christians tend to be blissfully unaware of even their most serious sins.
In II Chronicles 7:14, as part of the threefold program of qualification for God’s mercy, the people of Israel had to turn from their wicked ways. As it applies to us, Christians must turn from their wicked ways. Not the junkies and the prostitutes. Not the perverse entertainers. Not the leaders of organized crime. Not the atheistic scientists and school teachers. Not the dishonest business men. Not the corrupt politicians. The Christians must turn from their wicked ways. Before they can turn, they must however, understand what it is they must turn from. This is the part of this message which I have found gets the most direct opposition from Christians when I teach it. Even if they don’t agree with the rest of it, they usually don’t take a stand against it. They frequently do against what I will say now. I believe the reason they do is because it is about the failure of which contemporary Christians are most flagrantly guilty.
As stated previously, the sin that "nakedness" most specifically refers to is the sin of idolatry. We find this idea expressed most clearly in Ezekiel 23, where it is related to the act of harlotry. You should be aware that idolatry is equated spiritually in the Scripture with harlotry and adultery. Although God forbade idolatry from the First Commandment onward, we know that throughout the history of ancient Israel, they were constantly getting involved in it. It became so bad that first of all, the ten northern tribes (the Kingdom of Israel) were taken away, permanently, and then the southern kingdom (The Kingdom of Judah) went into captivity in Babylon for 70 years. As students of the inter-Testament period know, after the Israelites came back from they did shun the worship of idols. But they got into the spiritual equivalent by exalting themselves with their "holier-than-thou" phariseeism, which Jesus denounced. They set their own ideas above the Word of God. This too is idolatry.
Now as it applies to the Church, it is regrettably true that since at least the time of Paul the Church has in every time and place to some extent gotten into idolatry. Again, what was true of the nation of Israel in the Old Testament tends to be true of the Church. It began, historically, with Gentile Christians continuing to practice some of the Greco-Roman paganism while trying to be Christian at the same time. Paul’s warnings about eating food sacrificed to idols in I Corinthians 10 are speaking to this problem. But he says something more about it in II Corinthians 6:14-18, which constitutes one of the most important teachings about obedience in the entire Bible. Unfortunately, most of the Christians living today, and many entire congregations, are to some extent violating this teaching, and that violation is one of the biggest reasons why the Church is going through the Tribulation.
Hence we read:
14. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness.
15. And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?
Many people have posed the question, directly or indirectly, as to where we should draw the line in relation to Christians being separate from the world. God draws the line in this passage. The key phrase is the words "Do not touch what is unclean". If fully understood, this says all that needs to be said. So we must understand what it says. And there is much here to understand.
First, we should look at verse 14, the part about being "unequally yoked". There are two ways of looking at that, the first being that Christians shouldn’t get married to non-Christians. This is well understood and fortunately widely accepted. There is many a tearful tale that has been told of the sad consequences of violating this rule. However, we should keep it in mind that this prohibition extends far beyond marriage. The idea of being "yoked" has to do with working together, in any context. Therefore, this lays down a much broader standard for separation from the world than most Christians would accept.
Before I go further with this, I want to state another principle that should be recognized by all Christians, but which it seems somehow is not. The principle is this: All the Do’s and Don’ts in the Bible are there for our good. The fact that this isn’t recognized the way it should be is manifested in the fact that the cry of "legalism!" goes up almost every time some teacher or preacher starts laying down rules about how Christians are supposed to behave. People generally, even Christians, tend to look at all the laws in the Bible as fences that keep them from being free. But they really are fences to keep us out of trouble. The "Don’ts" are God’s warning signs about areas of spiritual danger. The "Do’s" are God telling us how to get ourselves blessed. As David said when talking about the God’s Laws in Psalm 19:11, "Moreover, by them Your servant is warned, And in keeping them there is great reward". As far as they apply to us, this is true of every commandment and admonition in the Bible.
What is often thought of as legalism is often really wisdom! If Christians would obey God the way they should, it would often save them a lot of grief. For example, many Christians have a problem with the New Testament prohibition of divorce and remarriage. Some years ago, as I was preparing to teach on this subject, I happened to open a tabloid newspaper to an advice column like the "Dear Abby" columns, but this one was, I think, "Dear Meg". It was a full page feature. There were 10 letters on the page. Of the ten, seven were from people who had problems that were the result of divorce and remarriage. It appeared that in every case the only way out of the problem was another divorce. There isn’t a commandment in the Bible that was intended to bring unhappiness. Rather, they are intended to bring joy and peace! No matter what you do, and no matter what happens to you, the results of obedience will be, long term, better than the results of disobedience. Remember this the next time you decide to rationalize why you want to go against the Word of God. Disobedience may bring gratification short-term, but it will bring pain and sorrow long-term.
I might note that two of the other 3 letters were from people who had problems that were clearly the result of their own sin. In the tenth, it appeared that the problem was caused by a misunderstanding. That kind of problem is usually easy to solve if a person obeys God in dealing with it. If we apply this specific case to the whole of human troubles, we find 90% of all human problems being directly caused by sin. And it’s usually at least partly the sin of the person who has the problem. The problems that Christians face are no exception.
On the other hand, obedience, even when it doesn’t seem to make sense, can lead to rewards, even in the here and now. Remember the problem Joseph had with Potiphar’s wife in the Book of Exodus? If he’d given in to her, he might have had a nice, pleasant time of it. The Bible never says that there’s no pleasure in sin. But we’d probably never have heard of him. Being obedient brought him trouble and hardship, shor