When I look at the pictures of the oil on the water it looks red. What would an ocean look like if a third of it had turned to blood, I wonder.

And will a third of the fish die from this oil spewing into the sea?

I don’t know. But as I listen to the news all day, every day (my mother needs noise to be happy, and for some reason sermons and music just don’t do it for her—news is her thing) I am amazed at the blame game going on.

We hear people from Louisianna so angry at the president for not fixing this problem as if Obama has some kind expertise in oil spills—as if he CAN fix it and he’s simply refusing to.

And, of course people are mad at BP and we have Secretary Salazar assuring us that the US government has its “boot on the throat of BP to ensure that they’re doing all that is necessary…” as if BP is just being lazy, so we need to threaten them and make them work.

And I’m thinking when the end of the world does come, it could well start with something like this. Maybe God will just open the heavens and pour blood down from the clouds and fill the oceans. But I suspect at least some of the disasters will be man-made.

Either way we should be repenting and praying rather than blaming. They haven’t even capped the thing yet and they are already having senate hearings. Why not wait until the crisis is over to start blaming and defending?

But, no, because people who live without God have to find an answer for everything. They have to believe that someone is to blame and someone can be held accountable because if they can fix blame then they think these kinds of things can be eradicated in the future.

And besides all that, we like to give vent to our frustration and anger.

We are a world full of entitled people. We are entitled to health and wealth and happiness. We are entitled to good, reasonably priced medical care. We are entitled to have sex with whomever, whenever. We are entitled to have it our way at Burger King.

Who says?

The fish and the birds are entitled to clean water. They are going to suffer in this mess we’ve made. But why are we so mad? We who drive the cars.

And why, of all things, are we yelling at the president demanding that he fix something he can’t fix instead of kneeling before our God and asking him to fix something he can fix very easily?

How do we distinguish between what God is doing in our lives and what Satan is doing?

That may sound like an odd question. How can I confuse God’s work with Satan’s? But I think we do confuse the two.

I believe God is doing everything—that he’s behind everything that happens to me. I believe that God ordains every sniffle, every sneeze.

Well, where does that leave Satan? Doesn’t the Bible say that Satan is like a roaring lion seeking to destroy? Doesn’t it say I’m to be on my guard against him?

I think we need to ask how Satan destroys. Does he destroy people by making them suffer with illness and poverty? Or does he destroy them by giving them riches? Or does he destroy by using both circumstances and whispering in the ear, “God doesn’t love you, he’s letting you suffer.” Or, “You don’t need God, he’s a tyrant. You’ve worked hard for this money, you deserve to enjoy it.”

Satan does not destroy us by giving us different outward circumstances, I don’t think. Wasn’t that one of the main lessons in Job? Satan cannot steal a man’s faith by stealing a man’s wealth and health. We don’t have to fight the demon of poverty or the demon of wealth. We don’t have to give any thought to whether we are healthy or wealthy. If we are in Christ, we are healthy and wealthy beyond our wildest imaginings.

I agree with the posts I put on here by Bob Vincent (here, here, and here), but I also think that physical health and wealth is minor in light of eternity.

God does give me the health and wealth I need to do the things he asks me to do. I don’t need to chase after the things the pagans chase after. I don’t need to worry about what I’ll eat or what I’ll wear. (Matt. 6:31&32)

I think I have to beware of Satan not because of how he buffets me on the outside but because of how he buffets me on the inside. I think I have to flee from Satanic thought—from temptation to hate God because I’m poor or to forget God because I’m rich.

This is important: Temporal stuff is passing away and it can’t harm us. It’s like food that goes into the body and out. An excess of money today can’t hurt us. A lack of money can’t hurt us. Money is not the root of all evil—the love of money is. It’s not the money and the health that are so dangerous to us, it’s the way we idolize them.  And we idolize money and health whether we are rich or poor, healthy or ill.

So I don’t pray for health and wealth or for illness and poverty. I pray in health and wealth and in illness and poverty, asking God not to change my outward situation, but to make me gain from my outward situation. Give me more of Christ. Make me more like Christ. This is what I ask of God when I am sick and poor.

I do ask God to give me food daily—physical as well as spiritual. I do ask him to meet my needs. But for years and years I prayed regularly that God would give me neither poverty or riches. (Proverbs 30:7-9)

I still think that’s a good prayer. I want to lift my eyes off of the lack or excess of today and look into eternity. I want to use my wealth and my poverty, my successes and my failures, my prosperous times and my times of suffering, to praise God for his mercy to me and his willingness to mold me and make me after the image of his Son.

So who gives cancer and who gives health? God gives both and Satan gives both. Ultimately God, because he’s the big dog in charge. But I don’t think I need to look at every instance of suffering or prosperity in my life and try to discern who gave it and whether I should pray against it or be thankful for it. I think I am to give thanks in all things, for this is the will of God in Christ (1 Thess. 5:18). I think I am to rejoice always, and again, I say, rejoice (Phil. 4:4). I think Satan can’t crush me under suffering because I see all suffering as a good gift from God, and Satan can’t lure me away under riches because I see all riches as good gifts from God.

Clear vision is what we need, not health and wealth.

I’ll tell you what I don’t see: I don’t see a down side to saying, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21) My prayer against Satan is not that God will keep him from harassing me in the physical realm but that he’ll keep him from sending fiery darts of doubt and bitterness and worry and fear and pride and greed and self-righteousness and self-sufficiency into whatever situation I find myself in physically.

This, my friends, is the secret of being content in all things. Knowing that God gives all things—the temporal good and the temporal evil¹—for our eternal good and his eternal glory.

One of the reason I wanted to post Bob’s take  on prayers for health and wealth here, here, and here), is that I’ve been harping on suffering so long that I felt I needed to offer some balance.

I do believe God is a miracle-working God, even today. He’s graciously saved me and my loved ones from all kinds of hurts and disasters. We’ve seen swift answer to prayer and answers that tarried but could not be mistaken for anything other than God’s hand.

And I also agree with Bob’s take on health and wealth. I do believe that God’s desire is to bless us in every way. I love to celebrate his goodness and his generosity with my friends and family. I believe God gave us this world to enjoy and that he longs for the day when we will be glorified and can truly enjoy him and all his gifts.

Yes, the Bible makes it clear that in this world we will have tribulation. We are told that we will suffer. Christ suffered and we are told to take up our crosses and follow. Crosses are never comfortable. They are cruel, torture devices. And Jesus tells us to take them up and walk after him.

But we are told to take up our own crosses, not to lie down and allow Satan to trample us. To take a cross is to willingly lay down your life for another—to sacrifice for a neighbor or an enemy. That is not the same thing as having a fatalistic view and thinking God just wants you to suffer so you might as well grin and bear it. We are supposed to cry out to God. We are supposed to run to him as we would run to a high tower if an enemy were chasing us. We are supposed to ask God to relieve us. And we are to pray believing. Knowing that God loves us and is going to answer in the best way.

Because I recently went through a five-year period of suffering—it started with my husband’s diagnosis of colon cancer and it ended with his death, and in between it entailed a son that at times seemed to be lost to us, a home that was lost to us, one financial blow after another, and anxiety attacks that lasted for two years—I have done a lot of writing on suffering. I think suffering in the Christian life is always a blessing from God. I think that every curse is turned to blessing for those in Christ. (Just as I think that every blessing is turned to curse for those outside Christ.) I wouldn’t trade any of my suffering because in the hard places I’ve learned that God is utterly faithful and all powerful and all loving.

But I really want peace and prosperity and I don’t think it’s wrong to want those. I think God also wants to give me those good things. “The blessing of the LORD brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it.” God blesses us often and richly and there is no guilt or sorrow attached to the good gifts he gives.

If we run ahead of God and try to help him out or try to manipulate him or try to steal the thing we want, we will bring trouble into our lives. The manna you keep overnight turns maggoty, the stolen bread turns to gravel in the mouth, and the quail we whine for makes us sick. But if we will pray and ask God for the thing we want, the health or the wealth, putting it in its proper place, below God and to be given at his discretion and used for his glory, then when he gives it, we find much to enjoy and nothing to regret.

So I want to encourage some of you that are now in your years of suffering. Some of you have cancer going on, or you are feeling like God has withheld a gift from you that he’s given to others that were less deserving, or you have children that worry you. Keep praying. God has delivered and does deliver and will yet deliver.

Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us; (2 Corinthians 1:10)

The end of Bob Vincent’s paper (continued from yesterday)

The Bible reveals God’s will.  We should always take our stand on what the Bible tells us pleases God:  God’s will is life and health and strength and enough of this world’s goods to take care of those for whom we are responsible and have enough left over to give to others in need.  God’s will is salvation:  “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).  “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:31).

When our Lord Jesus faced the most frightful and painful event in the history of the world, he earnestly prayed against it, and he did not rest until he had God’s good purpose clearly set before him: “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mark 14:36).  At least four things stand out in Mark 14:36:

• Jesus rests in the love of God. God is his Father and his stance toward his child is one of affection and delight: “Abba, Father.”
• Jesus rests in the absolute sovereignty of God: “All things are possible unto thee.”
• Jesus really prays: “Take away this cup from me.”
• Having prayed, Jesus rests in submission to God’s good purpose: “Nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.”

Too often Christians fail to pray through a matter until they truly have the mind of the Lord.  The Apostle Paul prayed earnestly to be delivered from his painful, demonic thorn in the flesh, and he did not rest until he was assured by the Lord himself that he had something better in mind than merely being delivered from a vexing problem:  “For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:8, 9).

Living as we do when Christian Theology is no longer the Queen of the Sciences, we are apt to receive bad news as if it is a revelation of the will of God.  Physicians, driven by obligation, often lay out all of the negative possibilities to their patients, and hurting people hear these words as if they are a divine decree.  They hear the doctor say, “Some people who undergo this treatment may die.”  They think, “Oh, no, I’m going to die!”  Without really wrestling in prayer, without following the Biblical instruction of James 5:13-16, they simply pray for grace to accept the inevitable.  How foolish!  How shortsighted!  How unbiblical!  Such thinking fails to come to grips that the world is governed by more than an observable nexus of natural phenomena. Behind every natural phenomenon is something greater, something beyond the observation of the natural man.  God is sovereign:  “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father” (Matthew 10:29)

Beyond natural phenomena is something else, too, the manipulation of Satan.  His hateful hand can sometimes be traced in the physical afflictions that we often face.  Had we been present at the synagogue that day when Jesus healed the crippled woman (Luke 13:11-17), perhaps we could have offered a purely natural explanation for her malady.  But Luke tells us that there was something sinister that lay behind her natural problem:  she “had a spirit of infirmity” (Luke 13:11). The Lord Jesus puts it this way:  “This woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound — think about it — these eighteen years” (Luke 13:16).

Until Jesus returns, everybody is going to die (Hebrews 9:27).  But we need to consider the fact that not every sickness is “unto death” (John 11:4).  Furthermore, we need to embrace the concept that it is normally God’s will that we be in sufficiently good health to go about the business of doing what God has called us to do.  And we need to see the real advantage Satan and his demons take through human sickness.  These times of pain and affliction become exacerbated by demonic whispers in our souls:  “You’re going to die, and there’s nothing that anybody can do about it.  You are a failure.  God doesn’t love you.  His promises are not for you.”  This is one reason that we should not only pray for the sick, but also visit them and pray with them.  They need words of encouragement.  We need to go and speak God’s Word to them to put life into them, to put the fight back into them.

Yes, of course, it isn’t always God’s will to heal everybody of every disease.  But so often we may miss the blessing of seeing someone wonderfully delivered and the testimony of that deliverance resulting in lost people coming to the Lord Jesus.  May we fight the good fight of faith, remembering that Psalm 118 was not written with a passive faith in mind, but a warring faith — a faith that boldly runs into the battle of the ages, joining the ranks of other warriors in the Lord’s army.  In such an active faith, as we boldly do what we could never do without the promises of God, we may stand secure, bolding shouting the promise:  “The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do to me.”

This post is continued from yesterday. Today we have more from Bob Vincent on prayer and on health and wealth:

As believers living under the New Testament, we are called to battle every bit as much as David.  But unlike David, our weapons are not sword and bow.  “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:  (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

The Christian must never look at dark circumstances and assume that God has foreordained some dreadful thing for us and those we love.  On the contrary, we are called to pray and fight; we are called to plead the promises of God, trusting in our Sovereign God to deliver us from the malice of Satan as we resist the evil one, firm in our faith.  We are just as much in battle as David ever was, with a most deadly foe.  “For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe.  His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate.  On earth is not his equal” (Martin Luther’s paraphrastic hymn of Psalm 46, “A Mighty Fortress Is our God”).

Given the secularist prejudice that has numbed the minds even of many Bible-believing Christians, we must beware that we do not rule out the evil supernatural forces that are pitted against us in the ordinary circumstances of life.  God is sovereign over all of life, to be sure, but underneath God’s sovereign purpose, a real battle is still raging between Christ and Satan.  We face three real and deadly enemies: the world, the flesh and the devil. And as we live our lives in this world, we must take seriously the real power of Satan.  This is explored in a sermon that I preached the Sunday after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, right after Sandy and I returned from hauling people out of the Super Dome, “A Trip to Job’s House.”  But the Bible takes natural circumstances seriously as well as the supernatural battle going on for our planet, even though all things are under God’s sovereignty.

When we encounter dreadful things, we must fight them using the Spiritual weapons God has given us (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).  We must pray and take our stand.  If we have loved ones who have gone astray, turning their backs on the Lord Jesus, we should never adopt a fatalistic attitude, twisting the teaching about God’s sovereignty into some heartless fatalism:  “God if it be thy will, save my child.”  What nonsense!  Scripture reveals God’s revealed will, and God’s revealed will is the salvation of our loved ones.  God’s sovereignty is never revealed so that we adopt an attitude of stoical resignation; it is so that we will fight, confident that the Lord is beside us, as quoted above:  “The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name” (Exodus 15:3).

(to be continued)

For the next few days I’ll be posting a paper written by Bob Vincent, a pastor in Alexandria Louisiana, just because I liked it so much.

A Testimony

I have known the Lord for over forty-five years and during those years, I have seen him deliver me time and time again.  I have seen him physically heal people, sometimes literally in seconds:  one evening after our mid-week service, a woman who had been diagnosed with degenerated disks and was awaiting surgery as the only solution, was instantly healed as a group of elders laid hands on her.  That was over twenty-eight years ago, and she is still healthy and free from pain today.  I have seen the effects of God’s causing people to conceive after all human efforts had been exhausted:  on one occasion, nine months after our elders anointed the couple with oil.  Most did not give birth nine months later; sometimes it was a year or more.  But over the years we have had almost a dozen such folk in our congregation.  These are not naive rubes: two of the fathers are physicians; a third oversees physicians and nurses at a local hospital.

Time and time again, I have prayed for money, and God has sent it to me. I’ll pass on two memorable situations that I have often shared publicly and privately.

More than twenty years ago, the transmission went out in our only vehicle; it was going to cost $900, and I simply did not have the money. I told no one about it but cried out to God on my knees.  Several days later I found an envelope that had been pushed under my door.  Inside were nine, one hundred dollar bills.  I certainly praised the Lord, but I didn’t understand just how special this gift was at the time.  When I received the anonymous gift, I had assumed that someone had learned about my transmission from the mechanic and had chosen to bless me in this way.  However, some years later a young man came to see me.  He was a Southern Baptist from another parish (county) and hardly knew me.  He asked me, “Several years ago, did you find an envelope with nine, one hundred dollar bills in it?”

“Yes,” I replied. Then he told me that he had been praying, and the Lord had told him to go to Alexandria and give this amount of money to me. Needless to say, I was stunned at such an example of one of God’s providentia extraordinaria.

On September 15, 1996, as I put a check in the morning offering for $110, God quickened me with what had happened to Isaac in Genesis 26:12. By faith — I had never been able to do this before, nor have I ever had the liberty to pray exactly this way since — I prayed for a hundredfold blessing — we were really hurting financially at the time. I continued to press this home to my Father in prayer for weeks on end, and then, on November 16, 1996, out of the blue, I received 200 shares of Wachovia Bank stock from a relative on the East Coast.  Upon opening the envelope, I got on the Internet and discovered that the stock had closed at $55.00 per share.  Do the math:  it comes out to the penny! Through God’s hearing our prayers, instead of living in a church owned parsonage, we now have a beautiful home of our own, on top of a hill overlooking a lake, and we have been able to give away many thousands of dollars.

Psalm 118

Clearly Psalm 118 is a Messianic Psalm.  The Lord Jesus is the Stone rejected by the builders (Psalm 118:22; Matthew 21:42; Mark 12:10-11; Luke 20:17; Acts 4:11; Ephesians 2:20; 1 Peter 2:7).  He is the ultimate and final sacrifice bound to the altar; his blood was shed once for all time, obtaining eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12-15, 23-28; 10:1-18).

The writer of Hebrews applies this Messianic Psalm to us.  Because we are “in Christ,” this Psalm is ours, as well.  Its promises are our promises, “For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us” (2 Corinthians 1:20).  And because King David is “in Christ,” this Psalm is his Psalm, too, a Psalm that had its origins in terrible conflicts from which our Lord God delivered David.

“In Christ,” David is also the stone rejected by the builders, often despised and overlooked, as when the Prophet Samuel came to Bethlehem to anoint King Saul’s successor.  ‘Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel. And Samuel said unto Jesse, “The LORD hath not chosen these.  And Samuel said unto Jesse, “Are here all thy children?” And he said, “There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep”‘ (1 Samuel 16:10, 11).

People were often against him.  His own father-in-law repeatedly plotted his death, but God was always with David to deliver him, and David celebrates these wonderful deliverances in Psalm 118.  As I analyzed each word in the Hebrew text, I was impressed with the significance of the triplet in verses 10-12:

All nations surrounded me, but in Yahweh’s name indeed I cut off their foreskins.  They surrounded me, surrounded me completely, but in Yahweh’s name indeed I cut off their foreskins.  They surrounded me like bees, they crackled like a fire of thorns, but in Yahweh’s name indeed I cut off their foreskins [Psalm 118:10-12; in Mitchell Dahood, Psalms III, 101-150, Anchor Bible, Vol 17, (Doubleday:  New York, 1970), p. 154.  Supporting Dahood’s translation is Brown-Driver-Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1968), p. 558: “Psalm 118:10; 118:11; 118:12 in the name of y_, yea I will make them to be circumcised {enemies, by force of arms. . .}”.).

1 Samuel 18 records one example of this kind of violent circumcision of David’s enemies:  ‘And Saul said, “Thus shall ye say to David, ‘The king desireth not any dowry, but an hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be avenged of the king’s enemies’”‘ (1 Samuel 18:25).  King Saul’s plan was that David would be killed by these “uncircumcised Philistines,” but the Lord was with David and delivered him in battle so that David brought, not one hundred, but two hundred of these Philistine “scalps” (1 Samuel 18:27) and won Michal, King Saul’s daughter.

How often must David have been in violent battles, surrounded by deadly enemies: “They surrounded me like bees, they crackled like a fire of thorns . . .” Again and again, the Lord delivered David: “but in Yahweh’s name indeed I cut off their foreskins” (Psalm 118:12).

David celebrates the victory of God over his enemies in Psalm 118, and as we sing this ancient hymn of praise, we are reminded that the truth of the Sovereignty of God is not about fatalistic, passive acquiescence to some horrible thing that we fearfully imagine is God’s predestined end for us.  It is about fighting the good fight of faith, confident that as we go into battle, the Lord is with us — as Moses teaches us to sing:  “The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name” (Exodus 15:3).

(to be continued)