A Call to Prayer Diminished
June, 2013
Divine moments are when God, in His infinite wisdom, desire and power, leads men to accomplish His purposes. Jonathan Edwards received many literary works of John Erskine that they communicated back and forth about. But when he received 'Memorial', it birthed within him to write, 'A Call to United, Extraordinary Prayer' that quickened many to the serious need of real, prevailing prayer. There has been many 'call's to prayer' over the years in the church that was sincerely set forth to bring the church back to this great source of power before the throne of God. And it is the tragedy learned, that when God's people stop praying; and God's house stops being the 'House of Prayer' that sin abounds, hell advances, and souls are assaulted. Let 'A Call to Prayer' not be diminished, but advance in depth, fire and passion and zeal for our Lord's kingdom to advance and Satan's kingdom to be put under the heel of Christ.
"The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" - Jame 5:16
As God has stirred my heart in the importance and power in prayer, I have reached out numerous times with my own 'Calls to Pray'. Being naive, and oblivious to many ways of the church, pastors and Christians I did not know what results would follow. Would it not be gloirous to issue 'a call to pray' as Lampier did in the 1850's and see scores across the nation responding in calling out to God for mercy, salvation and forgiveness? Would it not be glorious to see churches on their knees and faces crying out to God to, 'do it again Lord, do it again' and see the winds and responses of revival in our land? The purpose of a 'call to prayer' is because their is a cloud arising, the size of a man's hand; but not for rain, but for evil, sin, wrath and judgment. I began a work many years ago, entitled, 'The Continuance of Evil' that shows this multiplying affect of wicked men. And we can record and see over the years, and last decades the demise of our nation, churches and homes because we did not respond to this growing assualt of evil against us. Found at the very crux of it all is the absence of prevailing prayer for God's mercy in such times of wrath.
And when such times come, there have been numerous movings of God to draw us back to our first love. He is ever great in His faithfulness to us. He has provided numerous seasons of refreshing and revival upon our land. But it has always been when He first began to set men to pray and seek His face. I believe this to be a generally accepted statement across the board: God first moves men to pray in order that He may work wondrously. And so it is that during these times, we should look for 'where prayer is wont to be made'. To find those that are laboring in prayer night and day and that can be truly said of them, 'I give myself unto prayer'. Here is where God begins.
For God says, 'I looked for a man' and 'wondered that He could not find one' that would make up the hedge, stand in the gap and intercede for a people. And you and I are left to ask ourselves, 'Am I that man/woman?' For how many during numerous occassions of pastors, and lay people together confess these same truths: "I know I should pray more"; "I have not prayed nearly as much as I should"; " I am so sorry for neglecting prayers for my family, church and nation". These are not confessions of idle words, but deep contrite affections of servants of God, who God is dealing with to make them to be men and women of prayer. And it begins with this ascertion and confession of repentance, "I have not prayed like I should".
When the 'Call to Prayer' is issued, and hearts, minds and souls deal with the present sin of prayerlessness in churches, homes and secret closets, then God is able to raise up a people that 'ask, and it shall given'. They call upon Him, believing and He hears and stands ready to answer in great and mighty ways. But when the 'call to prayer' is issued and it falls upon hard hearts, carnal ambitions and closed ears, then hell advances. It is because of our failure to obey in prayer that there is no standard to push back the flood of evil. For we have eyes to see the need of sin before us, but we give no thought to what we see; we have ears to hear the truth and respond to it, but our hearts are far from Him. Yes, many profess themsevles to be Christians, they know the value of His atoning blood, they worship Him in spirit and truth. But Satan, our great enemy, has caused a sleep to come, has stirred appetites for carnal, worldly things and trapped many a saint in the ways of the flesh. So that, while interests, time and energy is spent on temporal things, spiritual things are left unattended.
I issued several 'calls to prayer' on the Southern Baptist convention floor, through emails, and video uploads. I was ruled 'out of order' on the convention floor twice. Can you imagine prayer being ruled out of order? It was a kind of a prophetic note for the way of the church in our day. Naive and ignorant of proper procedures and ways, I simply stood to call for an awareness and response from SBC leaders to engage and take it. Now it is important to note 'why' I issued the call to prayer:
1. I did not know so much about Jonathan Edwards historic 'call to prayer'. I simply knew that God gave me a task to stand and make a motion for it to be acted upon. It was not a birth of an idea from a man; it was not for attention to me or my minstry; it was not for fame. It was to be obedient to the 'heavenly calling' laid upon my soul to have my fellow brethren, Southern Baptists, become a people of prayer for the sake of our nation, families and future generations. I have been chastised, scorned and critiscized by some for obeying; but we 'ought to obey God rather than men'. It is amazing that a few can pierce the heart, when in comparison there have been numerous voices encouraging and applauding the 'call to prayer'. It is one of Satan's devices that we focus on the weaker things rather than the whole. I confess that with my own shame of putting my eyes on those critical voices rather than simply 'looking unto Jesus'.
2. The points that stirred this 'heavenly calling' to pray was found in the signs of the time. NO revival had ever occurred without God raising up prevailing prayer before His Manifest Presence showed up. And with confession of so many not praying in pulpits, churches and personal lives, it could not be a more needful time to respond to getting back to the spiritual discipline of prevailing prayer The lack of prayer was based on numerous interviews, confessions, phone calls, from one question I asked of them, 'Tell me about your prayer life'. Their responses told our reality of the sin of prayerlessness. It was repeated and demonstrated over and over that the need for prayer to be restored was great.
3. Upon the land for the last several decades has been the wrath of God with increased judgments. Signs are everywhere of our great need of revival through the church responding to 'a call to prayer'. Divorces, murder, suicides, pornography, lies, every fabric of life being assualted by hell to our own demise. These signs and realities should be enough to stir a response to 'a call to prayer'. However, even in the midst of such things, the hearts are waxed cold and passes over till self life begins again. Yea, the selfishness of humanism is spreading like a cancer that we lose sight of eternity because we are fixed on the here and now for our own easement, desires, interests, indulgences and enjoyments. We pass through the tragedies at hand to get back to our life and its pleasures. What about the kingdom?
When California had elections in regard to 'Propisiton 8' over the allowance of same sex marriage or not, they voted to not allow same sex marriage to be law of their state. Other states were battling this and some were beginning to pass legislation to make it okay for homosexuality okay in the land. And the natural question is that if one state allows it and they move from that state to my state, then are they still legal or not? The hand-writing was on the wall to where we was going with this. and when a lawsuit allowed for courts to overturn the votes of the California people to say, 'Your votes and voide doesn't matter, we are going to allow same sex marriage'; it was quite certain that all of this was heading to the Supreme Court for a decision and whether to make it law of our land. Roe vs. Wade and the great shedding of innocent blood, of abortions from 1973 was repeating itself for this our generation This great cry 'for an immediate 'call to prayer' to not allow this sin to destroy us was issued. Many were called to respond early on, but delay after delay was allowed.
Until, finally in January, 2013 Frank Page, issued this year to be ' A Call to Pray' because of these most pressing issues of same sex marriage, the Boy Scouts allowance of homosexual boys (seriously, tell me what pre-teen knows there gay, unless some adult is forcing their agenda on them), the crucial hour of churches baptisms, growth being reduced drastically. Overall, the state of the church is weak, powerless and very much in shameful plight for how much God has done for us and given to us. 'Where much is given, much is required'. Yea, it is a question to be asked and answered, 'Is the Lord among us or not?' And God responds, 'Repent, and do your first works; lest I come and remove your candlestick'.
Many churches that desire to maintain their obedience and righteousness, argue that, 'We are praying'. And when asked about their prayer meetings, they confess that 80 - 90 %, and for some almost all of their time, of their prayers are for the sick, discussions of remedies, and peoples personal editorial comments on everything from governement to weather. Very little kingdom prayers are offered. Very little pursuit of 'effective, fervent prayers' against sin and for God's holiness to prevail. Thus, 'a Call to Pray' is diminished to casual, ineffective, temporal, carnal petitions.
And now, with the very soul of our nation, our future, the status of the church held in contempt by God; the 'call to prayer' is diminished to cover everything of temporal matters. All the while principlaties and powers of hell are advancing and we are fighting the wrong battles. 'Our battle is not against flesh and blood'; our 'call to prayer' is not about our agendas and humanistic ways; they are to be prayers of unction for God's glory, God's agenda and God's power to exhibit for His glory Name sake. But 'calls to prayer' should not be "majoring on the minors".
Now let the 'call to prayer' go out and be received for the fulfillment of God's promise and directives. Let the fulfillment be that which is pronounced in II Chronicles 7:14. Let prayer be effective to the kingdom of our Lord. Let prayer be made 'without ceasing'. Let prayer be fervent for everything that is at stake. Everything we know as 'life' can be removed in a moment, due to the lack of prayer for God's mercy in the midst of a wicked nation. Fervency for souls that are one breath away from an eternity in hell. Fervency that God's bride, the church, which is so filthy and vile and has brought great occasion against our Lord, be revived, restored and renewed. And remember that such prayers are received from a righteous man. Is there any inqiutiy in my heart? Are my hands clean? Is my heart pure? And as the Spirit reveals our wicked ways, our tongues, minds and hearts are quick to confess and repent. 'Cleanse thou me O God, renew a right spirit within me. Take not Thy Holy Spirit from us.' May we be found pleasing to You in all our ways for Your glory Name sake. In wrath O God remember Your great mercy and revive us again we pray.
until,
dan biser
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