Fourteen

In this world in which we live today there are many areas which cause the Christian deep concern. There are serious conflicts between nations, while many other countries are wracked by civil wars in which many thousands have been killed, and millions more have lost every possession and been stripped of all dignity.

We are confronted by the strong militant attitudes of many of the people who follow other religions, so that many Christians have been killed, or forced to flee for their lives as Christianity is under the most serious attack in many countries. So many of our fellow Christians are being detained, tortured, imprisoned, and killed in a wide variety of places, even though their only offense is their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

As Christians, we look back over the past 100 years and remember the strong emphasis which so many Christians and Churches placed on getting the gospel out to all people in the world. Also the many thousands of missionaries who have gone out to spread the message of the cross. The reports of great revivals, and the very impressive ingathering of precious souls in so any places. Yet, today, it seems as though there are far more people who remain unreached with the gospel than in previous generations.

Christianity finds that it is facing the most severe opposition from Islam on every front as Islam aggressively moves to extend its influence world-wide. In even so-called Christian countries more and more people are turning away from Christianity to embrace eastern religions.

With all of the resources and opportunities that Christians have today, all of the personnel, all of the multiplied efforts of Christians and Christian organizations, we cannot help but wonder what has gone wrong. Why is there so little evidence of real progress? What has caused so much failure? Who is to blame?

There are probably a wide variety of suggestions that are being offered in an attempt to find real answers to many of these urgent questions, and many of these answers that may help us to see why we are confronted with this situation.

The most effective way to discover meaningful answers will be revealed when we as Christians will go back and prayerfully examine the Word of God. This would be particularly effective if we began by reconsidering the challenge: “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 hear from heaven”(2 Chronicles 7: 14).

Who is to blame? To a very large extent, we Christians are! In this generation we have been so slow, and so reluctant, to genuinely humble ourselves. Our response reflects more of the attitude of the Laodicean Christians who were so proud of their standing - as recorded in Revelation 3, compared to the sincere attitude which we find in the Church that was filled with the Holy Spirit, as that is expressed in the Book of The Acts.

We are to blame! Because we have not prayed as urgently, as consistently, and as believingly as we ought to have been praying. We are to blame, because we are anything but desperate in urgently seeking the Lord's face, the Lord's will, the direction of the Lord's Word. Yes, it is also true that we are to blame, because we have been far more ready to condone and excuse our “wicked ways”, than to renounce and turn away from them.

It would not be at all surprising if many of those Christians who have been reading these studies may express concern about some of the statements that have just been made. This would include, “We are to blame because we have been far more ready to condone and excuse our “wicked ways”, than to renounce and turn away from them.” Is not such a strong assertion totally out of line with our commitment to press on to Christian perfection? And, therefore, is not such a strong assertion wholly unjustified? We are mature Christians who are seeking to faithfully serve the Lord, and therefore undeserving of having such serious charges being made against us!

But, then, let us take time to consider three men in particular who did wholly humble themselves, who did continue to pray most earnestly and urgently, seeking above all else the Lord's face.

This took place at the time when Nehemiah's heart was broken by the news that he had received of the destitute condition of his people who were at Jerusalem, as well as the decay and destruction that marked the condition of the city of Jerusalem.

Nehemiah prayed, “So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven”(Nehemiah 1: 4).

Every witness confirms the fact that Nehemiah was a man who lived very close to God, and for whom prayer was the most vital part of his daily close walk with the Lord. Nehemiah knew that, as he came bearing this great and deep heart-ache before the Lord in prayer, the first emphasis on his prayer must be on the honest confession of sin.

“That You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel” (verse 6). Then Nehemiah continued to pray, “Which we have sinned against You”! Did he not mean to pray, “Which they have sinned against You?” He meant exactly what he said, “Which we have sinned against You”! Then he went on in his prayer to confess, “Both my father's house and I have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against You.” (verses 6, 7).

Yes, the greater majority of Christians today would have felt fully justified in praying, “Which they have sinned against You!” If that is true then they are ignoring the Word of the Lord, “Humble themselves!” To genuinely humble yourself is to really take the time and make the effort necessary to see how deeply you yourself are identified with all aspects of the problem, and with all those who are caught up in the problem.

Nehemiah was humbly and honestly admitting, The only way I can discover God's answer for this desperate situation is to honestly declare that I am as much a part of this situation as anyone else. He knew that God would immediately identify his pharisaic attitude if he suggested that, I am not guilty, but they are guilty!

He prayed, “I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. And I prayed to the LORD my God, and made confession, . . .We have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled” (Daniel 9: 3, 4, 5). Notice, not they! “We have sinned!” “We have done wickedly!” Daniel humbled himself, and confessed, turning from his “wicked ways!”

Can I - who, when compared to either Nehemiah or Daniel, are clearly seen to have nothing to boast about because I am nothing - can I, dare I, claim, or even pretend, that there is nothing whatsoever in my life that God is not fully justified in describing as my “wicked ways”? We are not talking about the open, obvious, degrading “wickedness” and sins of the unsaved. Rather, we are speaking about the far less obvious and hidden “wickedness” of the spirit that is more subtle, more insidious, and more dangerous than the other.

The nation of Israel had asked Samuel to give them a king, and the Lord, while identifying this request as rejecting Him as their King, instructed Samuel to give the nation what they were demanding, and anoint Saul a their first king. Samuel then proceeded to inform the people of Israel in the strongest terms the tragic significance and the extreme consequences of their insistence that they be given a king (see I Samuel 12: 6 - 8).

On hearing Samuel's strong statement, they pleaded with him, “Pray for your servants to the LORD your God, that we may not die” (verse 19).

Samuel's response to this request is so crucial, “Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you” (verse 23). Samuel identified one of the most insidious sins of the spirit: for him to cease to pray for the people of Israel would be for him “to sin against the Lord.”

What then do we make of those who protest, Do not assign to us who are mature Christians “wicked ways”? Especially as we have just seen Samuel clearly identify one of the most common of the modern “wicked ways!” Yes, not only Samuel, but the Lord Himself identifies this as one of the “wicked ways” that He calls His people to turn away from. It is the failure to really persevere in believing prayer for all of those whom the Lord has instructed us to pray for.

Take one example that the Lord does include in this specific requirement: “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” (Matthew 9: 37, 38). The harvest fields have always been in desperate need of more laborers, so that the call to pray that “the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” has always been a most urgent one.

Have we been consistently faithful in continually and urgently praying to the Lord of the harvest to send out more, and yet many more, laborers into the harvest fields? This is His command, it is not our option. Have we honored Him? Have we honored His will and His Word, by faithfully and sacrificially applying ourselves in devoted obedience?

If we have failed to obey His Word in this matter that was, and is, of the utmost importance to Him, dare we even begin to suggest that that is not a “wicked way” for us to respond to His Word of command?

b. The Whole Concentration of our lives should be on the priority that was the central focus of the life of the Lord Jesus Himself.

John Wesley reminds us of a most vital fact: “God never does anything, except in answer to prayer!” This agrees completely with Paul's statement, “We are God's fellow workers”(1 Corinthians 3: 9). We look at the desperate need of the multiplied millions who make up the “harvest fields” today. As we do so the words of the Lord Jesus come back to challenge us, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost!”(Luke 19: 10). Then, His command, “Pray the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into His harvest.”

We have been enlisted by the Lord Jesus to serve as “good soldiers” for Him, under His orders, to reveal His glory. Therefore as a part of His team He calls on us to: “Pray!” If we are true to His call, every day of our lives should provide the strongest proof possible that we really are on the Lord's side. Our love for Him and our loyalty to His will will be demonstrated in our willing and complete identification with this cause which is closest to His heart: the salvation of every person for whom He died!

“Or how can one enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.” (Matthew 12: 29, 30).

“The strong man,” Satan, holds captive those multiplied millions of precious souls for whom the Lord Jesus died on the Cross of Calvary. Before any of those precious souls can be set free, the loyal soldiers of the Lord Jesus must effectively “bind the strong man!” But how? By prayer! In exactly the same way that the Lord Jesus did, by living the life of constant prayer and intercession. We must continue to learn from Him, as we are transfigured into His image and likeness. Those who are in His likeness live the life of urgent and persistent, believing prayer.

Whenever we fail to genuinely identify with Him in the place of prayer and intercession, we are failing to “gather with Him”, which means that instead of bringing to Him the lost ones for whom He died, we are scattering them to the wolves of the world and to the evil whims of the one who continues to hold them in degrading bondage.

We wrestle “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6: 13).

“Wrestle!” Be prepared to fight an all-out battle! We must be willing to accept the fact that as soon as we take to ourselves the responsibility of being the true and loyal soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we will be personally involved in costly warfare that will require true faithfulnes and real sacrifice from us. To be on the Lord's side is to be committed to the life of constantly invading the enemy's territory. And the enemy is going to do his utmost to repel us on every front.

The Lord Jesus knew that this was the kind of all-out conflict that He Himself must face when He came to this earth to seek and to save the lost. He was fully aware of the fact that if He was going to be able to bring salvation to even one person He had to face the most vicious and determined enemy. He also knew that every such battle could not be fought without being willing, personally, to pay a very high price. He was willing to pay that price! Are we?

“First, bind the strong man!” But, how? The strong man is a desperately determined enemy who is willing to use any and every vile trick and strategy against us so as to make our efforts futile.

How? “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints”(Ephesians 6: 18).

At the time of the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus, a man brought his son to Jesus. He said to the Lord Jesus, “So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him”(Matthew 17: 16). “Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?”

How often do we put the Lord Jesus in the position where our obvious failures to meet the urgent needs of our generation compel Him to say to us, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?” Or, have we become so spiritually insensitive that we are quick to deny that the failures of our generation are our failures? That is the slick trick of the carnal Christian who is not seeking the glory of the Lord Jesus. “Well, it is not really our fault!”

The disciples had the wisdom to see that the Lord Jesus would not let them get away with such an unworthy attitude. After the Lord Jesus had “rebuked the demon, and it came out of him” (verse 18), “the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, Why could we not cast it out?”(verse 19). They acknowledged that they had failed to do what He had called and equipped them to do; that it was their failure. That is the only wise attitude to have in the face of such obvious futility.

While the disciples were down in the valley busily occupied with the attention of the crowd, their Lord was in the place of prayer! They had failed to share the battle field with Him who had called them to be soldiers. Therefore they suffered humiliating, public defeat!

The Lord Jesus said, “Come to me!” “Take My yoke upon you!” “Learn from Me!” That is the way for you to press on to perfection! That is the way you will be transfigured so as to become transparent earthen vessels. That is the only way you will ever become good soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ. But, somehow, something went wrong!

The disciples were compelled to admit their failure, their futility, their powerlessness. “Why could we not cast it out?” He could! They could not.

At least they were honest, even though the undeniable evidence left them with no choice but to be honest. But, what about us today? Are we ready to admit our failure and our futility? Or will we still attempt to justify ourselves by pointing to all of those other things which we try to convince ourselves still support our claim to be all that we profess to be?

When the Lord Jesus saw the evidence of the failure of His disciples, He said, “O faithless and perverse generation!” When the Lord Jesus sees the evidence of the desperate condition of the people who are all around us in our world today, the appalling need of the multiplied millions who are still utterly enslaved in sin, what is He saying? Do we refuse to listen to Him as He evaluates the undeniable evidence that is so obvious to Him that it breaks His heart?

Or, will we, like Nehemiah and Daniel, be honest, and confess, “We have sinned”? Sinned against the Lord Himself in not praying in the way that He has commanded us to pray! Are we today going to prove to be less honest than the disciples who readily admitted their failure and futility in the face of the great need of that man and his son?

Who really is to blame? The Lord entrusted this battle to the soldiers whom He Himself enlisted in His army - that is, to us! He has fully provided every resource that we could possibly need to ensure that His loyal soldiers would always “be led in triumph!” Always “more than conquerors!”

“He who is not with Me is against Me!” Who is on the Lord's side? So many of us so quickly and so boldly answer, We are! But, what evidence can we produce to validate our claim that we are still on the Lord's side? That we are still His loyal and obedient soldiers?

There is only one way, we will demonstrate to Him in the most practical and personal way that we are neither faithless nor perverse, by living in His power and effectiveness. Instead of failure, there will be victory! Victory won in the place of “prayer and fasting!” “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14: 15).

“He who does not gather with Me, scatters abroad!” The Lord Jesus is emphasizing a most crucial fact. When the results of our lives and our service do not match the results of His life and service, we are being exposed to be instruments that are actually opposing and thwarting His purposes of gathering in those He came to save.

Again, we hear that unwelcome challenge, “turn from their wicked ways!” If the evidence, as it is to be seen and evaluated by the Lord Jesus, clearly reveals that the truth is that we are not gathering with Him, then it obviously demonstrates to Him, and it should demonstrate the true situation to us, if we are honest enough to admit it, that we are not “gathering with Him”.

Why is it that so many Christians today are so determined to resist the fact that our failure to be identified with the Lord Jesus in gathering in the lost has this inevitable effect? That it is effectively being used against Him, to oppose and defeat His plans and purposes! What is that if it is not “wicked”?

Yes, we do hear the loud protests. But, we are Christians! Christians who are pressing on to perfection. We are seeking to be transfigured into His image and likeness. It is far too harsh to apply such a strict and narrow interpretation of His Word to us!

Yet, is it not this very One who image and likeness we claim to desire to bear who states so emphatically, “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down. . . Therefore by their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7: 19, 20).

“Then He showed me: Behold the Lord stood on a wall made with a plumb line, with a plumb line in His hand. And the LORD said to me, Amos, what do you see? And I said, A plumb line. Then the Lord said; Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of My people” (Amos 7: 7, 8).

The purpose of the plumb line is to measure whether the wall was “true” to the line that the builder intended. When the Lord set the plumb line in the midst of His people it was, and is, to measure how “true” to His Word and His will His people were, and are.

What plumb line would the Lord use to see how true to His will we are, especially in this matter of prayer, as well as in all other areas? He uses the same standard as that which we claim we have made as our goal: “The image and likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ!” There is no other way to accurately measure whether we are actually measuring up to His will, or not.

For the earthen vessel to be genuinely transparent, everything about the earthen vessel must be brought into true alignment with God's plumb line - which is the Lord Jesus Himself. This must include whether God finds in us the same response to His will that He finds in the Lord Jesus. This fact is obviously applicable to our response to the command of the Lord Jesus concerning praying to the Lord of the harvest that He will send laborers into His harvest.

Does God find that our response to His Word in this area matched the sincerity of attitude and the depth of genuine concern that is found in the Lord Jesus, especially as He continually gave Himself to intercession, praying that He would be able to “draw all people to Myself” (John 12: 32)?

“Learn from Me!” When we sincerely seek to do so, what we quickly learn is that when our commitment to pray is measured against the commitment of the Lord Jesus to pray something vital is lacking. Whenever that is done we discover that we always fall woefully short.

“How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?”(Romans 8: 14, 15). And, how shall they be sent if we fail to urgently “pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest?”

“Transparent earthen vessels” - revealing the fact that God “shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”(2 Corinthians 4: 6). The genuine transparent earthen vessel always seeks to identify with the emphasis of the praying of the Lord Jesus who has called him into His service as His loyal soldier. He continues to demonstrate the strong urgency and deep concern of the Lord Jesus as He prays.

“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 hear from heaven” (2 Chronicles 7: 14).