Comments on: Baptists, Bible Bloat, & Praying Like A Bishop http://sbcvoices.com/baptists-bible-bloat-praying-like-a-bishop/ Connecting Southern Baptist: 516 Blogs + 246 Twitter Accounts Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:02:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Dr. James Willingham http://sbcvoices.com/baptists-bible-bloat-praying-like-a-bishop/#comment-2733 Dr. James Willingham Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:38:35 +0000 http://sbcvoices.com/?p=916#comment-2733 Prayer is agonizingly exhausting, excruciatingly painful, tediously boring at times, trite, dull, exciting, motivating beyond words to describle, long, drawn out exercises, repetitious. One can pray once and get what one asks for, and pray for years and never get it. I once prayed, "Lord, send me a ride from this town to the next, and from the next on home." Within five minutes, a driver stopped and gave me a ride to the next town. I walked a block and a half there and a car full of kids stopped and offered to take me to my grandfather's home 14 miles out in the country over gravel roads. About an hour after I had said the prayer, I was sitting in my grandfather's house. On the other hand, I have been praying for a Great Awakening for 36 years and things have steadily grown worse. As it is said, THE DARKEST HOUR IS JUST BEFORE THE DAWN OR AS THE WORD OF GOD PUTS IT, AT EVENING TIME IT SHALL BE LIGHT (Zech 14:7). Shall I give up in discouragement? I have prayed for loved ones ever since I was converted. A few have shown some evidence of salvation. As they use to say in the cotton fields, "Bear down. Get with it." North Carolina has an interesting idiom, "Haul Buggy." It is sort of like, "Gettin out of Dodge." But the idea I want to stress is let us really give ourselves to seeking God's face for the most outrageous blessings. Mr. Spurgeon's prayers for the whole earth to be converted, when he believed in particular redemption (limited atonement as some mistakenly call it), are most moving. Matthew T. Yates was launched into missions (he was Southern Baptists' first missionary to China) by a church which knew only of Christ dying for the church???? Could it be that particular redemption is like a paradoxical intervention. Our Lord surely let the woman of Canaan know it, when he said (and she surely heard), "I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the House of Israel." She was no Israelite, no Jew, but she heard Him and she came and fell down before Him in worship. Amazing. Then He took up the issue of her total depravity and reprobation - only He did not use those technical terms; He chose one most repulsive, one that she surely knew was the way Jews thought of Gentiles, namely, "DOGS," AND SHE AGREED WITH HIM. "Truth, Lord, "..and the rest of it you know. Jesus then bestowed upon that gentile woman, His highest praise, praise He never bestowed upon any of His disciples as far as I know, "Great is your faith."(Mt.15:21-28) Here is the secret of the Great Awakening: It is to see the invitations and encouragemets in the supposedly negative terms. Even reprobation becomes the most intensely inviting invitation to the desperate soul in extreme need of help. Even bitter things taste good to one who is starving. <abbr><em><abbr><em>Dr. James Willinghams last blog post..<a href="http://thirdgreatawakeningcom.blogspot.com/2009/02/climax-of-reformation.html" rel="nofollow">The Climax of the Reformation</a></em></abbr></abbr></em> Prayer is agonizingly exhausting, excruciatingly painful, tediously boring at times, trite, dull, exciting, motivating beyond words to describle, long, drawn out exercises, repetitious. One can pray once and get what one asks for, and pray for years and never get it. I once prayed, “Lord, send me a ride from this town to the next, and from the next on home.” Within five minutes, a driver stopped and gave me a ride to the next town. I walked a block and a half there and a car full of kids stopped and offered to take me to my grandfather’s home 14 miles out in the country over gravel roads. About an hour after I had said the prayer, I was sitting in my grandfather’s house. On the other hand, I have been praying for a Great Awakening for 36 years and things have steadily grown worse. As it is said, THE DARKEST HOUR IS JUST BEFORE THE DAWN OR AS THE WORD OF GOD PUTS IT, AT EVENING TIME IT SHALL BE LIGHT (Zech 14:7). Shall I give up in discouragement? I have prayed for loved ones ever since I was converted. A few have shown some evidence of salvation. As they use to say in the cotton fields, “Bear down. Get with it.” North Carolina has an interesting idiom, “Haul Buggy.” It is sort of like, “Gettin out of Dodge.” But the idea I want to stress is let us really give ourselves to seeking God’s face for the most outrageous blessings. Mr. Spurgeon’s prayers for the whole earth to be converted, when he believed in particular redemption (limited atonement as some mistakenly call it), are most moving. Matthew T. Yates was launched into missions (he was Southern Baptists’ first missionary to China) by a church which knew only of Christ dying for the church???? Could it be that particular redemption is like a paradoxical intervention. Our Lord surely let the woman of Canaan know it, when he said (and she surely heard), “I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.” She was no Israelite, no Jew, but she heard Him and she came and fell down before Him in worship. Amazing. Then He took up the issue of her total depravity and reprobation – only He did not use those technical terms; He chose one most repulsive, one that she surely knew was the way Jews thought of Gentiles, namely, “DOGS,” AND SHE AGREED WITH HIM. “Truth, Lord, “..and the rest of it you know. Jesus then bestowed upon that gentile woman, His highest praise, praise He never bestowed upon any of His disciples as far as I know, “Great is your faith.”(Mt.15:21-28) Here is the secret of the Great Awakening: It is to see the invitations and encouragemets in the supposedly negative terms. Even reprobation becomes the most intensely inviting invitation to the desperate soul in extreme need of help. Even bitter things taste good to one who is starving.

Dr. James Willinghams last blog post..The Climax of the Reformation

]]> By: johnMark http://sbcvoices.com/baptists-bible-bloat-praying-like-a-bishop/#comment-1585 johnMark Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:03:11 +0000 http://sbcvoices.com/?p=916#comment-1585 Tony, I'm with you on this observation. I want to point out something else about prayer in our churches. Despite the busyness in the church and *people doing things* I think our prayers reflect as much. How many prayers are Kingdom focused? So much (all?) of prayer requests and time is focused on illness or grief or whatever will make one feel better. It's very *me* focused. Mark <abbr><em><abbr><em>johnMarks last blog post..<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/hereiblog/XMYK/~3/532691730/" rel="nofollow">Get Outta My Face! - Book Review</a></em></abbr></abbr></em> Tony,

I’m with you on this observation. I want to point out something else about prayer in our churches. Despite the busyness in the church and *people doing things* I think our prayers reflect as much.

How many prayers are Kingdom focused? So much (all?) of prayer requests and time is focused on illness or grief or whatever will make one feel better. It’s very *me* focused.

Mark

johnMarks last blog post..Get Outta My Face! – Book Review

]]> By: In the Blogosphere « Kingdom People http://sbcvoices.com/baptists-bible-bloat-praying-like-a-bishop/#comment-1583 In the Blogosphere « Kingdom People Fri, 06 Feb 2009 08:27:21 +0000 http://sbcvoices.com/?p=916#comment-1583 [...] Kummer thinks Baptists should start praying like [...] [...] Kummer thinks Baptists should start praying like [...]

]]> By: Les Puryear http://sbcvoices.com/baptists-bible-bloat-praying-like-a-bishop/#comment-1565 Les Puryear Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:49:43 +0000 http://sbcvoices.com/?p=916#comment-1565 Amen. I couldn't agree more. Amen. I couldn’t agree more.

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