Terry Virgo (from England) speaks on the subject of prayer, outlining vital lessons we can learn from the life and ministry of Elijah.
Formidable Power in Prayer from Covenant Life Church on Vimeo.
Formidable Power in Prayer
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Category Archives: Prayer
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Compassion and Prayer for the Lost
Romans 9 – Paul’s answer as to why most of Israel failed to recognize the Messiah (a huge issue) is that there is “an ‘Israel’ within ethnic Israel” and these, the true Israel, in fact did recognize Messiah. God’s word has not failed in any way at all. (Romans 9: 6)
What follows verse 6 is Paul’s explanation as to why this has ALWAYS been the case – using examples from Israel’s own history. Isaac was chosen, not Ishmael; Jacob was chosen, not Esau.. etc.
God’s choice stands and for this to be the case, it is not based on human works of any kind (foreseen or otherwise). Election is unconditional. God has freedom to have mercy on whom He will. That’s what Romans 9 is all about.
In Romans 10 Paul begins by speaking of Israel’s (unregenerate Israel) present standing with God.
v. 1 Brothers,my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. 2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
(1) Paul sincerely desires and prays for Israel’s salvation
An obvious question that arises from this statement is – If God has chosen only some, and this is fixed from all eternity …
(see also Rev 13:8 “and all who dwell on earth will worship it (the beast), everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain”, contrasted with Luke 10:20; Eph 1:4; Phil 4:3),
… why even pray?
Answer: Because God has His ENDS (His elect coming to faith in Christ) and achieves it through the use of MEANS, the prayers of the saints and preaching of the Gospel. God has predestined both those who will be His, and predestined that they come in through hearing and believing the Gospel. There is no contradiction whatsoever between election and evangelism/prayer for the unsaved.
(2) Israel possesses zeal without knowledge (accurate information).
But this lack of knowledge is not merely an innocent ignorance. It is willful, as it stems from them “seeking to establish their own righteousness” before God. In other words, they wish for righteousness before God in defiance of God’s revelation concerning how to achieve it. The reason they don’t believe is that they are trying to earn salvation by their own works, and being proud of their efforts, they refuse to receive salvation as a gift.
Lets remember though that verses 1 and 2 flow from the end of chapter 9 – instead of writing all of Israel off, Paul reveals both his sincere desire for them and his earnest prayer for them.
Prayer is always worthwhile. God’s secret counsel is not known to us (that is why it is secret) and so we can be encouraged by the fact that because something is laid on our heart, behind even this desire, is the God who planted that desire there, who waits to use it as a means to His end. More than that – We don’t know the mind of God in regard to the salvation of sinners, therefore, we should always pray for them..
“when we pray, God answers our prayers and saves those for whom He moves us to pray … God always ordains the means to some goal as well as the ends. So if He has ordained to save a certain individual through our prayers, it is as necessary that we pray for that individual as it is that the individual be saved. Indeed we must pray, since the individual will not be saved apart from the ordained intercession. This should encourage us to pray.
George Muller of Bristol, England, the founder of the great faith orphanages, was a man of outstanding prayer. In his youth he had two friends for whom he began to pray. He kept notes on his prayers, and his notes show that he prayed for them for more than sixty years. One of these men was converted just before Muller’s death at one of the last services Muller held. The other became a Christian within a year of Muller’s funeral. Toward the end of his life, but before his friends’ conversions, someone asked Muller why he was still praying for them after such a long time, since they had shown no response. He answered, “Do you think God would have kept me praying all these years if he did not intend to save them?” It was a point Paul would easily have understood.” (James Montgomery Boice; Romans Commentary, Volume 3, page 1152)
The Sovereignty of God and Prayer
By John Piper, from the Desiring God Website: www.desiringGod.org
I am often asked, “If you believe God works all things according to the counsel of his will (Ephesians 1:11) and that his knowledge of all things past, present, and future is infallible, then what is the point of praying that anything happen?” Usually this question is asked in relation to human decision: “If God has predestined some to be his sons and chosen them before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4,5), then what’s the point in praying for anyone’s conversion?”
The implicit argument here is that if prayer is to be possible at all man must have the power of self-determination. That is, all man’s decisions must ultimately belong to himself, not God. For otherwise he is determined by God and all his decisions are really fixed in God’s eternal counsel. Let’s examine the reasonableness of this argument by reflecting on the example cited above.
1. “Why pray for anyone’s conversion if God has chosen before the foundation of the world who will be his sons?” A person in need of conversion is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1); he is “enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:17; John 8:34); “the god of this world has blinded his mind that he might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (II Corinthians. 4:4); his heart is hardened against God (Ephesians 4:18) so that he is hostile to God and in rebellion against God’s will (Romans 8:7).
Now I would like to turn the question back to my questioner: If you insist that this man must have the power of ultimate self-determination, what is the point of praying for him? What do you want God to do for Him? You can’t ask that God overcome the man’s rebellion, for rebellion is precisely what the man is now choosing, so that would mean God overcame his choice and took away his power of self-determination. But how can God save this man unless he act so as to change the man’s heart from hard hostility to tender trust?
Will you pray that God enlighten his mind so that he truly see the beauty of Christ and believe? If you pray this, you are in effect asking God no longer to leave the determination of the man’s will in his own power. You are asking God to do something within the man’s mind (or heart) so that he will surely see and believe. That is, you are conceding that the ultimate determination of the man’s decision to trust Christ is God’s, not merely his.
What I am saying is that it is not the doctrine of God’s sovereignty which thwarts prayer for the conversion of sinners. On the contrary, it is the unbiblical notion of self-determination which would consistently put an end to all prayers for the lost. Prayer is a request that God do something. But the only thing God can do to save a lost sinner is to overcome his resistance to God. If you insist that he retain his self-determination, then you are insisting that he remain without Christ. For “no one can come to Christ unless it is given him from the Father” (John 6:65,44).
Only the person who rejects human self-determination can consistently pray for God to save the lost. My prayer for unbelievers is that God will do for them what He did for Lydia: He opened her heart so that she gave heed to what Paul said (Acts 16:14). I will pray that God, who once said, “Let there be light!”, will by that same creative power “shine in their hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (II Corinthians 4:6). I will pray that He will “take out their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). I will pray that they be born not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God (John 1:13). And with all my praying I will try to “be kind and to teach and correct with gentleness and patience, if perhaps God may grant them repentance and freedom from Satan’s snare” (II Timothy 2:24-26).
In short, I do not ask God to sit back and wait for my neighbor to decide to change. I do not suggest to God that He keep his distance lest his beauty become irresistible and violate my neighbor’s power of self-determination. No! I pray that he ravish my unbelieving neighbor with his beauty, that he unshackle the enslaved will, that he make the dead alive and that he suffer no resistance to stop him lest my neighbor perish.
2. If someone now says, “O.K., granted that a person’s conversion is ultimately determined by God’ I still don’t see the point of your prayer. If God chose before the foundation of the world who would be converted, what function does your prayer have?” My answer is that it has a function like that of preaching: How shall the lost believe in whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach unless they are sent (Romans 10:14f.)? Belief in Christ is a gift of God (John 6:65; II Timothy 2:25; Ephesians 2:8), but God has ordained that the means by which men believe on Jesus is through the preaching of men. It is simply naive to say that if no one spread the gospel all those predestined to be sons of God (Ephesians 1:5) would be converted anyway. The reason this is naive is because it overlooks the fact that the preaching of the gospel is just as predestined as is the believing of the gospel: Paul was set apart for his preaching ministry before he was born (Galatians 1:15), as was Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5). Therefore, to ask, “If we don’t evangelize, will the elect be saved?” is like asking, “If there is no predestination, will the predestined be saved?” God knows those who are his and he will raise up messengers to win them. If someone refuses to be a part of that plan, because he dislikes the idea of being tampered with before he was born, then he will be the loser, not God and not the elect. “You will certainly carry out God’s purpose however you act but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John.” (Problem of Pain chapter 7, Anthology, p 910, cf. p 80)
Prayer is like preaching in that it is a human act also. It is a human act that God has ordained and which he delights in because it reflects the dependence of his creatures upon Him. He has promised to respond to prayer, and his response is just as contingent upon our prayer as our prayer is in accordance with his will. “And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (I John 5:14). When we don’t know how to pray according to God’s will but desire it earnestly, “the Spirit of God intercedes for us according to the will of God” (Romans 8:27).
In other words, just as God will see to it that His Word is proclaimed as a means to saving the elect, so He will see to it that all those prayers are prayed which He has promised to respond to. I think Paul’s words in Romans 15:18 would apply equally well to his preaching and his praying ministry: “I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles.” Even our prayers are a gift from the one who “works in us that which is pleasing in his sight” (Hebrews 13:21). Oh, how grateful we should be that He has chosen us to be employed in this high service! How eager we should be to spend much time in prayer!
Lord, Pour out Your Spirit
“Pray daily for a great outpouring of the Spirit on the Church and on the world. This is the grand need of the day – it is the thing that we need far more than money, machinery, and men. The “company of preachers” in Christendom is far greater than it was in the days of Paul; but the actual spiritual work done in the earth, in proportion to the means used, is undoubtedly far less. We need more of the presence of the Holy Spirit, more in the pulpit, and more in the congregation, more in the pastoral visit, and more in the school. Where He is, there will be life, health, growth, and fruitfulness. Where He is not, all will be dead, tame, formal, sleepy, and cold. Then let everyone who desires to see an increase of pure and undefiled religion, pray daily for more of the presence of the Holy Spirit in every branch of the visible Church of Christ.” – J.C. Ryle
“The question of gifts is entirely within the sovereignty of the Spirit and that because of that we should always be open, in mind and in heart, to anything that the Spirit of God may choose to do in His sovereignty.” – Martin Lloyd Jones
“When the Holy Spirit is poured out in a day of power the result is bound to affect whole communities and even nations. Conviction of sin, an anxiety to possess the Word of God, and dependence upon those truths which glorify God in man’s salvation, are inevitable consequences.” – Ian Murray
A Simple Prayer Plan
There are two ditches on the side of the road of Christian life. One ditch is lawlessness (antinomianism), and on the other side, the ditch of a harsh and hostile legalism that binds spiritual chains around us. Both of these extremes should be avoided always. Yet there is a road to walk if progress in sanctification is to be made, and as the saying goes, to fail to plan is to plan to fail.
Prayer Plan: No one wishes for something introduced only with good intentions, to then become a yoke of slavery on the neck. We must always remember that a failure to hold to a plan strictly does not mean our relationship with God is severed our soured in some way. Our performance is not the basis of our standing before God. The gospel of Christ is. Justification is by grace alone through faith alone in the Person and work of Christ alone.
Having said stressed that and made that very clear, it has to be said that it is very much a good thing to have a plan for prayer.
I read the following article by Mike Riccardi at the Cripplegate website and thought some excellent points were made:
In his classic, Desiring God, John Piper diagnoses that a main hindrance to prayer is our lack of planning. He tells us,
Unless I’m badly mistaken, one of the main reasons so many of God’s children don’t have a significant life of prayer is not so much that we don’t want to, but that we don’t plan to. If you want to take a four-week vacation, you don’t just get up one summer morning and say, “Hey, let’s go today!” You won’t have anything ready. You won’t know where to go. Nothing has been planned.
But that is how many of us treat prayer. We get up day after day and realize that significant times of prayer should be a part of our life, but nothing’s ever ready. We don’t know where to go. Nothing has been planned. No time. No place. No procedure.
And we all know that the opposite of planning is not a wonderful flow of deep, spontaneous experiences in prayer. The opposite of planning is the rut. If you don’t plan a vacation, you will probably stay home and watch TV. The natural, unplanned flow of spiritual life sinks to the lowest ebb of vitality. There is a race to be run and a fight to be fought. If you want renewal in your life of prayer, you must plan to see it.
If you’re despairing about your prayer life…
When Restraints are Lifted
This round up regarding the riots in London and other English cities strikes fear into the heart. When God sometimes allows His restraints on human nature to be lifted, its amazing to see just how depraved fallen man really is.
Its a time to pray.
At times like this, it makes us think about what it is we CAN ask God for. For those who believe God will never intrude upon free will, what is it you can ask God to do? Is He powerless to stop or restrain sin? Are His hands tied because man is the one REALLY in control?
No, a thousand times, “no!”
Our God is the Sovereign King and at times like this, we ask that in His great mercy, His hand of restraint would be upon the cities, and that a measure of peace and order would prevail. We serve a God who can do this.
Yet we also recognize, that for God to judge a nation, He is more than capable of lifting all restraints on sin and allowing man to do what is in his heart. As Romans 1 makes clear, God can give man completely over to the sin in his heart. When He does, this itself is God’s judgment.
We pray that in His mercy, He would not lift all restraints on our sin…
Genesis 20: 6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her.”
1 Timothy 2:1 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.
Lets pray!
A Prayer for Gospel Snobs and Scribes, Like Me
And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” Mark 7:5-8
Scotty Smith writes out a prayer – one that I am praying myself:
“Dear Jesus, we tremble at the thought of you speaking these words to us. What could be more sobering and painful than to hear you say, “You talk about me a lot—using multiple Scriptures and well crafted theological language. You’re quick to recognize and correct false teaching, and you’re quite zealous to apply what you know to others. But your heart is far from me.”
It would be one thing to garner such a rebuke for mimicking the worse Pharisees and the Galatian Judaizers (Gal. 2:11-21)—putting people under the yoke of performance-based spirituality, and failing to acknowledge your work as the sole and sufficient basis for our salvation. But it would be an altogether different thing to be chided for being a gospel snob and scribe. Have mercy on us, Jesus, have mercy on me.
Forgive us when our love for the truth of the gospel and the doctrines of grace is more obvious than our love for you… as impossible as that may seem.
Forgive us when we enjoy exposing legalistic, pragmatic and moralistic teaching more than we crave spending time with you in fellowship and prayer.
Forgive us when we invest great energy in defending the imputation of your righteousness but have very little concern for the impartation of your transforming life.
Forgive us when we are quick to tell people what obedience is not, but fail to demonstrate what the obedience of faith actually is.
Forgive us when we call ourselves “recovering Pharisees” or “recovering legalists,” but in reality, we’re not really recovering from anything.
Forgive us when talk more about “getting the gospel” than we’re actually “gotten” by the gospel.
Forgive us for being just as arrogant about grace theology as we were obnoxious about legalistic theology.
Forgive us when our multiplied uses of the word “gospel” in our conversations does not translate into multiplied evidences of the power of the gospel in our lives.
Forgive us when we don’t use our gospel freedom to serve one another in love, but rather use it to put our consciences to sleep.
Forgive us for creating gospel-fraternities and gospel-posses which taste to outsiders like ingrown tribes or “clubish” elitism.
Forgive us for having a PhD in the indicatives yet only a kindergarten certificate in the imperatives of the gospel.
Forgive us when our passion for the gospel does not translate into a passion for holiness and world evangelism, and caring for widows and orphans.
Lord Jesus, with convicted and humbled hearts, we ask you to change us, by your grace and for your glory. So very Amen, we pray, in your magnificent and merciful name.”
Please continue to pray
Jim, with his 15 year old daughter Alisa
Jim Maestri is a very dear friend of mine. It is actually amazing that he is alive. He is only 43 but has already had six heart attacks, his issues being genetic – Jim’s father died before he (Jim) was even born, from the very same thing.
I was out in Brazil on the recent trip (returning just yesterday) and was informed while I was out there that Jim was going into hospital for the sixth time this year. My heart sank. Yet a few days later, I was told that his heart actually stopped beating for 15 minutes. Though he revived, doctors were very concerned that a vast amount of brain damage had occured. Jim’s survival prospects were around 20%.
Then more issues emerged – his liver was not functioning – his readings were “completely off the charts” in terms of the seriousness of the issue and that for him to survive, doctors said he would need a liver transplant. Yet because Jim was far too unstable, heart wise, even this was not considered a wise course of action.
Of course – I prayed.. and many others did. Much of my time in Brazil was spent trying to get updates on Jim’s condition over the internet. He was constantly on my heart and mind.
Then I was told the doctors were stunned by the liver function returning – that they had NEVER seen such a dramtic turn around.
This was so encouraging, of course.
Late last night I received an update from Jim’s sister, Cathy. Apparantly, she is an agnostic, but wrote the following:
I know this sounds crazy, but this afternoon they took jim off sedatives and off the vent to see if he could breathe on his own for an hour or so. not only did he wake up, within half an hour he was speaking (very weakly), insulting me, correcting me, demanding stuff (mainly pepsi) and trying to make the nurses laugh.
This evening he’s complaining of chest pain and trouble breathing (now that all the drugs are wearing off, he’s probably feeling what must be cracked ribs from CPR and the coughing fits that would appear to have blown out his hernia.) What’s more, he’s afraid to go to sleep for fear he won’t wake up. The nurse just gave him some morphine and a third popsicle, and I promised to stay the night.
He’s still pretty darn ill — i have to assume they’d still categorize him as critical — but today has been absolutely mind-blowing.
Thanks for all your thoughts and concern and prayers and e-mail. We both REALLY appreciate it!
Cathy
Please keep my friend Jim in your prayers. There is nothing too hard for the Lord.