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Prayer: How to Manipulate God
I hope you don't expect to find in this blog post a list of helpful hints in your quest to manipulate God through your prayers. Whether or not you want to manipulate God, we often unwittingly attempt this impossible feat in our prayers. How do we try to manipulate God? By subconsciously thinking "if I pray the right way, then God will answer my prayer the right way." We somehow equate prayer with something like a math problem: If I do X then God will be forced to do Y.
Many of us have had prayers that have gone "unanswered" and we ask ourselves - "Why didn't God do what I wanted?" Then (because we think that our prayers can manipulate God), we come to the arrogant conclusion that "Well, He must not have done what I wanted because something was wrong with my prayer...Maybe I didn't pray enough times...Maybe I didn't pray long enough...Maybe I didn't use the right words...Maybe I didn't have enough faith...Maybe I didn't kneel in the right posture...Maybe I...Maybe I...Maybe I..."
Isn't it absurd that we think that our mere words can force God to do our bidding? Don't get me wrong, I believe that our prayers matter. I believe that God listens to them. I believe that God answers them...ALL of them. BUT, when we pray, we need to realize that we do not have the power to manipulate God. Prayer is not a formula such that if we get the formula right, we will receive the right "product" from God. Prayer, to subtly modify a definition from Dallas Willard, is "talking [with] God about what we're doing together."
Prayer is not a formula. Prayer is a conversation. There really can be no wrong way to have the conversation. In a conversation there is no way to guarantee a certain outcome. There is only a guarantee of a conversation...of a growing relationship...of your concerns and joys being shared with the God who is actively working with us to right all the wrongs, heal all the hurt, and fix all the brokenness in our world.
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Stop the Prayers of the People
Wife: "Hi, honey...How was your day?"
Husband: "Sorry, sweetie, we can't possibly talk about me right now...
I've first got to talk with you about the situation in Iran;
then we can talk about the current national healthcare situation;
then we can talk about Houston's new mayor;
then we can talk about our church's budget crunch;
and then we can finally get to our own personal lives..."
If you have any experience in "traditional" worship, you may recall a prayer time known as "the prayers of the people." Remember? What I remember most about this as a child was how long it was - it was simply exhausting. It's a guided prayer that invites people to shout out their own requests in each category. You start out with praying for world issues & leaders and then gradually localize till you're finally praying about personal issues: (world, nation, city, community, church, personal lives). It usually looks something like this:
Leader: Let's pray for our world...
People: For clean water in Kenya...For the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...
Leader: Let's pray for our nation...
People: For our president...
etc. etc.
These prayers can be fine and dandy, they can cause us to pray about things that we may not think about otherwise...but the basic problem I see is that they are somewhat inauthentic to the normal way that conversations work. Isn't prayer, at its core, a conversation? Don't all of our other conversations start with the things that are most presently on our minds? - don't they begin with what is closest to us? - don't conversations really focus on what we're really really interested in talking about?
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The False Prophet
This is the "second beast" found in Revelation 13:11-17. It is the "beast out of the land" (13:11). It is the "false prophet" (19:20). There are different opinions about the specific identity of this beast, but the most plausible (in my opinion) is that the false prophet is the Imperial Cult - that is, it is the worship of Caesar. Remember that saying "Jesus is Lord" (one of the earliest Creeds in the church) would be a direct contradiction to saying "Caesar is Lord." The worship of the emperor was prevalent in the 7 churches in Asia Minor that Revelation mentions (chapter 2-3).
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More about the Beast of Revelation
I hope you've been enjoying our worship series on the book of Revelation. But more than just "enjoying" it, I hope that you are more able to see God's inspiration of this amazing book - I hope you're able to see the Gospel in this text. There is more about the Beast that could have been said in last week's sermon, but it had to be left on the cutting room floor. I'd say that I cut it out "for the sake of time" but, as everyone knows, we really pay no attention to the time. Anyway, here it is.
17:9 - "This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits."
Rome is famously known as the city on Seven Hills.
17:10 - "They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for a little while." Could these kings be the line of "Caesars" in Rome? You decide:
1. Julius Caesar (BC 49-44)
2. Caesar Augustus – Gaius Octavius – Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (first “Caesar”) (BC 27- AD 14)
3. Tiberius– Tiberius Claudius Nero - Tiberius Julius Caesar (AD 14-37)
4. Caligula - Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (AD 37-41)
5. Claudius I (AD 41-54)
6. Nero – Nero Caesar (AD 54-68)
7*. Servius Sulpicius Galba – Servius Galba Imperator Caesar (AD 68-69)
8*. Marcus Otho (AD 69 – January 15 –April 16)
9*. Aulus Vitellius – Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Imperator Augustus (AD 69:Apr17- Dec22)
10*. Vespasian - Titus Flavius Vespasianus (beginning Flavian Dynasty) (AD Jul 1, 69 –79)
The first 5 are the kings that "have fallen" (i.e. they're dead). The 6th happens to be Nero, "who is" (i.e. he's presently ruling). Caesars 7-10, you'll notice were all Caesars in the year 69. It was after the death of Nero that the Roman empire went through a short civil war - one Caesar claimed the thrown, he was "offed" by another, etc etc. It was known as "The Year of 4 Kings" before Vespasian finally settled into a 10-year reign. This history gives new insight to Revelation 13:3 which says, "One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed." The "fatal wound" is the death of Nero. His death and the civil wars that followed seemed like it might have been the fall of the Roman Empire...but alas, the Beast was "healed" when Vespasian became emperor.
Some "futurists" (those who believe that the prophecies in Revelation will come be fulfilled in the distant future) like to suggest that 13:3 means that the Beast will die and then be resurrected (like Jesus). This is a VERY DANGEROUS position to hold. If the devil (i.e. the dragon) gives the beast it's power and authority, then it would be by the devil's power that the beast is resurrected to new life. This is ridiculous, because GOD is the creator of all life (you might recall Jesus saying something like "I AM ... the Life"). It's also a very dangerous teaching because, if Satan can raise the dead, then what does that mean of Jesus' own resurrection at Easter? Jesus' ultimate claim to his divinity, his ability to forgive sin, and his recreation of the world would be nullified if Satan can pull of this same kind of stunt. Does that make sense?
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Worship + Life Together = Church
You may (or may not) have noticed an invitation to learn more about Life Together Groups at the end of each of our worship services over the last several weeks. What is Life Together? And why are we mentioning it each week? For a short answer to "What is Life Together?" - it's the small group / home group ministry of this church: go to the Life Together page on this website for more details (under Adults/Small Groups/Life Together). "Why are we mentioning it?" because we believe that "worship" is more than singing, praying, and listening to a sermon - worship involves the action of our lives. Life Together Groups are designed to help us LIVE as worshipers - we study together, pray together, serve together, share the gospel together, care for others, and connect together. In a Life Together Group there is encouragement, accountability, and support. Worshiping is less about "going to church" and more about "being the church." If you're not connected in a group, you're missing out on a more full picture of what it means to BE the church.
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