A weapon that can stay consequences

My first thought when I wrote the title of this post was all the times that prayer did not change the consequences. Funny how our mind goes to the things that did not happen, yet we all wanted to happen. My biblical memory goes right to King David where he prayed that his child with Bethsheba would live – it did not.

This morning I found one and yet, even so, it was not so much a prayer, but God putting a hold on the punishment until David prayed. Very interesting. The positive outcome and the prayer answered were expected.  Even so, I believe that prayer has its place – while expected in the spiritual world, it is also a force in the physical. One may seem that this could be a violation of the order of things, but I am not too sure how God’s personal contact with these forces are present or part of the order. I may very well have the freedom to engage and change what might seem the order of nature. Who really knows that God will not answer an urgent cry to obviate what otherwise would be a great disaster? If it takes a fervent prayer, may I always be found lifting one up in the name of Jesus.

Then he built an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. The Lord answered his prayer, and the epidemic in Israel was stopped. – 2 Samuel 24:24 GNT

It is possible that sin accumulates against nations.

“Sins accumulate against nations. Generations lay up stores of transgressions to be visited upon their successors; hence this urgent prayer.” – Spurgeon

The psalmist figures that out.

Do not punish us for the sins of our ancestors.
    Have mercy on us now;
    we have lost all hope.
Help us, O God, and save us;
    rescue us and forgive our sins
    for the sake of your own honor. – Psalm 79:8-9 GNT

This is definitely an urgent prayer. Was it Josiah, even though a man of God, he could not avert the punishment God had planned because of the former sins of idolatry. There is a place where a nation can ask for forgiveness for past wrongs but God will decide if that is enough to change the consequences.

“O remember not our old sins, but have mercy upon us, and that soon; for we are come to great misery.” – Book of Common Prayer

Repentance is an important part of my prayer life.

For the sake of Your honour Lord becomes my greatest weapon in the armoury of my prayer life – it leads with repentance and follows with asking God for help. May the Lord find, in my life, the interest of His own glory.

“The ‘inner life with God’ does not mean only our private, individual prayer life. LIfe with God is cultivated by both public and private worship and prayer.” – Timothy Keller

Do my prayers reflect and are they affected?

“The Lord spoke to me again.”

“what I, the Sovereign Lord, am saying.”

“I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken. “

“I, the Lord, have spoken” – Ezekiel 30:1-2, 6, 12 GNT

These were key phrases that challenged me – if they are true, do they reflect in how I pray? If God speaks to me, am I praying to that end? If His word stands true and His ways are sovereign, does this represent how I pray or does the situation take over?

If I am praying fervently towards an end and am seeing no movement there, does that affect how I pray and continue to pray? The tendency is I get discouraged and give up.

“Protestants believe in the sufficiency of the Bible. That is, they believe that God’s Spirit speaks to us in his Word. Timothy Ward writes of ‘Scripture…as the means by which God extends his action, and therefore himself, into the world in order to act communicatively in relation to us.’ The Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin taught that the Spirit spoke ‘through Scripture itself’ rather than through ‘the increasingly authoritative ecclesiastical center in Rome.’ A strong Reformation view of the sufficiency of Scripture has a major shaping influence on the practice of prayer.” – Timothy Keller

Pray and blend in praise

I pray to God because He is worthy to be praised.

When I approach God to ask Him anything, it seems that I am reminded instantly of the blessings I already have from Him.

I call to the Lord,
    and he saves me from my enemies.
Praise the Lord! – 2 Samuel 22:4 GNT

I come to God knowing that He is to be feared, obeyed and to be submitted to – but love that I come knowing that He is worthy of thanks, that He gives joy when I come in obedience and submission. It is not the cry of a slave to a master, or one oppressed to an oppressor or even a request made to a stranger. It is in fact a cry from a child to their Father, one made in confidence and love because of His relationship to me as He has always treated me in the past.

So I come with praise blended in with my prayer.

“Jonathan Edwards treatments of the nature of spiritual experience are unequalled. His work, ‘Religious Affections’ and his sermon, ‘A Divine and Supernatural Light,’ for example, describe in detail the sense on the heart that is the essence of a spiritual encounter with God. Yet Edwards speaks very little about methodology, that is, how to meditate and pray.” – Timothy Keller

Answering prayer

There was a time when King Saul tried to commit genocide and wipe out the Gibeonites. From what I could tell, they did not fight back, nor did they complain directly to anyone about their case. It would also seem that they may very have committed their lives into God’s hand for it was God who sustained and protected them from the beginning of their relationship with Israel.

Whatever was the case, God had their back and because restitution had never taken place, God took it upon Himself to set the situation right. One to acknowledge it and secondly to have some sort of reimbursement take place. To get King David’s attention, there was a famine in the land for three years and so in David’s prayer walk, he decided to check out whether this was because of a sin Israel had committed.

Sure enough it was – unjustified murder and the breaking of a covenant set up with God and the Gibeonites was the cause.

I love that God speaks for them. I love that they were rewarded with honour for leaving everything in God’s hands. I love that they actually became judges in their own case and a blank slate was given to them to write their demands on. Remember in Job how God would not forgive his friends unless Job prayed for them? The prayers of the poor and despised matter.

During David’s reign there was a severe famine which lasted for three full years. So David consulted the Lord about it, and the Lord said, “Saul and his family are guilty of murder; he put the people of Gibeon to death.” So David summoned the people of Gibeon and said to them, “What can I do for you? I want to make up for the wrong that was done to you, so that you will bless the Lord’s people.” Then they buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan in the grave of Saul’s father Kish, in Zela in the territory of Benjamin, doing all that the king had commanded. And after that, God answered their prayers for the country. – 2 Smuel 21: 1, 3, 14 GNT

“Packer’s exposition of the Lord’s Prayer is perhaps the most accessable and concise contemporary one available.” Timothy Keller: Packer, J. I. – Listening to Pray: The Lord’s Prayer

Wisdom

Here is a story that grabbed my attention. There is no direct correlation to prayer but I think there are issues here that I could consider as to what happens when I do not pray – and it is not all bad. At the end of the day, what God wants to happen, happens. I think He would prefer an invitation from me to participate.

Sheba passed through the territory of all the tribes of Israel and came to the city of Abel Beth Maacah, and all the members of the clan of Bikri[a] assembled and followed him into the city. Joab’s men heard that Sheba was there, and so they went and besieged the city. They built ramps of earth against the outer wall and also began to dig under the wall to make it fall down. There was a wise woman in the city who shouted from the wall, “Listen! Listen! Tell Joab to come here; I want to speak with him.” Joab went, and she asked, “Are you Joab?”

“Yes, I am,” he answered.

“Listen to me, sir,” she said.

“I’m listening,” he answered.

She said, “Long ago they used to say, ‘Go and get your answer in the city of Abel’—and that’s just what they did. Ours is a great city, one of the most peaceful and loyal in Israel. Why are you trying to destroy it? Do you want to ruin what belongs to the Lord?”

“Never!” Joab answered. “I will never ruin or destroy your city! That is not our plan. A man named Sheba son of Bikri, who is from the hill country of Ephraim, started a rebellion against King David. Hand over this one man, and I will withdraw from the city.”

“We will throw his head over the wall to you,” she said. Then she went to the people of the city with her plan, and they cut off Sheba’s head and threw it over the wall to Joab. He blew the trumpet as a signal for his men to leave the city, and they went back home. And Joab returned to Jerusalem to the king. – 2 Samuel 20:14-22 GNT

Joab has just murdered his cousin because he had lost his position as commander to him. So he was not in a “spiritual” mood when he approached the city where Sheba was hiding in. That is the first thing I noted. Here is the second thing – they had already built a ramp to the city wall and were now digging against the wall in order to topple it. Does it not seem odd that Joab is working hard for nothing? First of all, why not tell the town why he is there and what he wants? Secondly, if you have a ramp, why do you need to topple the wall? So finally, God has enough and sends a woman to end the day.

My takeaway is simple enough – without prayer, without communion with God, without a right relationship with God, I am going to be working twice as hard as I need to. What is worse – people who follow me see me working is such an inefficient manner that I loose respect as a leader.

A gentle reminder that with prayer comes wisdom.