Ephesians 4:4-6, One Spirit, continual prayer to keep us as the right type of people, part 2.

Wednesday November 4, 2020

 

The ministry of the Holy Spirit in prayer, like everything God does for us, is concerned with making us people of a certain type.

 

In Christianity, we are all to be of the greatest type of humanity: the new humanity which is the life of Christ.

 

If God gives us all the things we want, makes our life comfortable and leisurely, and we don’t possess the type of inner heart where the Christ resides at home, we will live impoverished, contemptible lives.

 

The life is the life of Christ. There is nothing in all of the history of the billions of men that is like the death of a Galilean as a Jewish state criminal and the confession that depicts this executed man as a preexistent divine figure who becomes a man and humbles Himself to a slave’s death. Yet, it is the Christology of the church. Paul said of Him, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus … who did not regard equality with God a thing to be maintained, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, being made in the likeness of men.”

Material prosperity was often enjoyed in Israel, and during many of these times, Israel’s heart was sick.

 

During the reign of Jeroboam II of Israel (Northern Kingdom 782-753 B.C.) God’s compassion allowed the kingdom to expand and prosper, however, hearts were not changed.

 

2KI 14:27

He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.

 

Amos was a prophet during this time as was Hosea in the North, and Isaiah, Micah whose ministries were in the South.

 

AMO 2:6-8

Thus says the Lord,

 

"For three transgressions of Israel and for four

I will not revoke its punishment,

Because they sell the righteous for money

And the needy for a pair of sandals.

7 "These who pant after the very dust of the earth on the head of the helpless

Also turn aside the way of the humble;

And a man and his father resort to the same girl

In order to profane My holy name.

8 "And on garments taken as pledges they stretch out beside every altar,

And in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.

 

The prophet condemns four kinds of crimes.

 

Bribing judges to condemn the innocent.

Oppress the quiet people of the land.

Shameless immorality.

Drunkenness, even in the sanctuary.

 

The first is unjust treatment, or condemnation of the innocent in their administration of justice. Selling the righteous for silver, i.e., for money, refers to the judges, who were bribed to punish a man as guilty of the crime of which he was accused, when he was really righteous in a judicial, not in a moral sense, or innocent of any punishable crime. The sandals refer to the smallest thing. If a debtor couldn’t pay for a pair of shoes, he was not forgiven.

 

The second crime is the thirst to oppress the quiet of the land. The desire is to see dust on their heads, i.e. to make them so miserable that they scatter dust on their heads.

 

The third crime is a shameless immorality. The example given is a father and a son taking the same prostitute.

 

The fourth, defiling the sanctuary through drinking carousals.

 

In fact, these four are fair descriptions of the type of life the Corinthians had fallen into, and who rejoiced in it assuming that the grace of God allowed it.

 

The garments in vs. 8 refer to people so poor that they had to pawn their upper garment; a large square garment that at night served as a bedspread. This was to be returned to him at night, but in AMO 2:8, not only did the lenders not give it back, they laid upon them at the altar, during sacrificial feasts.

 

DEU 24:13

When the sun goes down you shall surely return the pledge to him, that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you; and it will be righteousness for you before the Lord your God.

 

A certain type of person will be tempted in one or all of these, but will fight the good fight of faith against self. Pray continually in the Holy Spirit.

 

JER 8:10

“Therefore I will give their wives to others,

Their fields to new owners;

Because from the least even to the greatest

Everyone is greedy for gain;

From the prophet even to the priest

Everyone practices deceit.

 

MAT 15:11

"Not what enters into the mouth defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man."

 

MAR 7:20-23

"That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man."

 

JER 8:11-12

And they heal the brokenness of the daughter of My people superficially,

Saying, 'Peace, peace,'

But there is no peace.

12 Were they ashamed because of the abomination they had done?

They certainly were not ashamed,

And they did not know how to blush;”

 

JER 8:18-22

My sorrow is beyond healing [Jeremiah],

My heart is faint within me! 19 Behold, listen!

The cry of the daughter of my people from a distant land:

"Is the Lord not in Zion?

Is her King not within her?"

"Why have they provoked Me with their graven images, with foreign idols?"

20 "Harvest is past, summer is ended,

And we are not saved."

21 For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken;

I mourn, dismay has taken hold of me. 22 Is there no balm in Gilead?

Is there no physician there?

Why then has not the health of the daughter of my people been restored?

 

Such a somber passage, and one that bears its warning to us as well, for we are not guaranteed the experience of the life of Christ with all its virtue and love and joy and peace, and we must care for it, protect it, and through prayer, always seek the Father’s counsel and strength, and in humility and patience, wait for Him to show us the way in which He will bring it to pass, and follow that way with all our hearts and minds and strength. It is the most important journey and the most important thing in the world.

 

Christ instructed His disciples, and so us, to keep on praying, even for the same thing. Not because the Father forgets or needs pestering, but so that we will not lose heart.

 

This parable of the nagging widow and the parable of the nagging friend in Luk 11 are designed to encourage us to pray at all times, meaning, consistently daily.

 

In our day, fainting in prayer will often come, not from any direct doubt of God’s goodness, but from the belief that God has decreed all things and has retired from any direct and current involvement, and allowed His world and people to be regulated by decreed laws inherent in the things themselves. The sun rises and sets. Seasons repeat. People die of the same diseases. While we don’t pray for the sun not to come up, we pray for life-threatening diseases to be healed, and practically always, they are not.

 

It is argued, and with much plausibility, that every future event, every occurrence of any kind that may in any way affect us, is already as certain as the death of the man with the incurable disease.

 

Some will resolve to thinking a lack of prayer and just accepting whatever happens is more spiritual. This is a very good lie.

 

Do we have any instance shown to us in the scripture where prayer from a man altered the course of God’s doing?

 

EXO 32:11 … 14

Moses entreated the Lord his God, and said, "O Lord, why doth Thine anger burn against Thy people … So the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.

 

God will not overrule the self-determined choices of people. If a person refuses to believe, prayer cannot give them faith.

 

There are many mysteries, for just like in predestination, we encounter the same paradox of free-will of man and sovereign will of God. We are told that the Father will do what we ask. If what we ask is against His will then He will not, but if our desire is proper though our petition is not, God’s love and omnipotence can do amazing things. The question for us is if we will believe He is at work, and in believing He is at work, have comfort and joy even though we have yet seen its fulfillment. And as we continue praying for it, we will come to see the error of the petition but the purity of the desire and the petition itself will change.

 

A lack of prayer is sometimes wrongly justified by a limited understanding of the divine decree, resigning oneself to the predesigned history of God. Sounds right, but then, why are we so often called to pray and encouraged to pray? To request interference in a natural result is deemed by some as puzzling.

 

But even mankind manipulates things and even manipulates existing laws. We invent cures for diseases. We chemically change substances. We move things from here to there. We don’t change the laws of nature, but we manipulate them. Imagine what God can do and not at all have to alter His good pleasure or outcome. We can certainly imagine that God includes some of the prayers of the saints, or in fact, even all of them in His program for humanity and its victorious outcome.

 

Our doctrinal problems arise on this subject when we imagine God to be chronological as we are. We imagine Him in time when He is not. There is no way for us to understand being outside of time than perhaps to imagine that God sees everything: past, present, future - as now.

 

We must not let this human logic, born from the inability of the finite mind to understand the divine decree to any depth, to stop us from taking hold of our birthright to pray to our Father who is in heaven; whose name is sanctified. The benefits of prayer are endless; including the care of our own weak faith for spiritual growth, the impact prayer will have in God’s action in our families and communities and churches, the impact on our loved ones and neighbors, and its impact on our government and nation.

 

Some even suggest that it is impious and blasphemous to ask God to allow our wills to influence His, but it is obvious that God did include this very thing.

 

We can faint in prayer and become formal or rote/mechanical. This only further fuels our disinterest in prayer due to the slender results. It isn’t long before we become remiss, hardly ever praying, and when doing so, only formal at best.

 

That there may be reason for not answering some prayers we cannot but admit. We are aware, usually later on, that we asked for something unreasonable and outside of God’s will. Still however, even here, there is a desire in us that God desires to fulfill, but in His way - and then we’re back to the time factor again.

 

Prayer can be insincere, or only formal without care, and perhaps God’s even answers these, but we were not looking for an answer at all, just praying out of formality. One writer puts it:

 

“Angels are at our gates, but because their wings are folded and we have not traced their descent from heaven, we do not notice them nor invite them to abide with us.” [Dods]

 

By ceasing to pray, and therefore ceasing to look for and anticipate the answer with joy, we lose a thousand of God’s gifts not recognizing the very thing we need is brought within our reach. We see the change of circumstances, not the fresh opportunity; we feel the disappointment, and fail to see the hand of God giving us humility; we recognize the bitterness and sorrow, but do not recognize the heavenly mind and abandonment of worldly ambitions which they enfold.