“The throne of grace.”—Hebrews 4:16
THESE words are found embedded in that gracious verse, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need”; they are a gem in a golden setting. True prayer is an approach of the soul by the Spirit of God to the throne of God. It is not the utterance of words, it is not alone the feeling of desires, but it is the advance of the desires to God, the spiritual approach of our nature towards the Lord our God. True prayer is not a mere mental exercise, nor a vocal performance, but it is deeper far than that—it is spiritual commerce with the Creator of heaven and earth. God is a Spirit unseen of mortal eye, and only to be perceived by the inner man; our spirit within us, begotten by the Holy Ghost at our regeneration, discerns the Great Spirit, communes with him, prefers to him its requests, and receives from him answers of peace. It is a spiritual business from beginning to end; and its aim and object end not with man, but reach to God himself.
In order to such prayer, the work of the Holy Ghost himself is needed. If prayer were of the lips alone, we should only need breath in our nostrils to pray: if prayer were of the desires alone, many excellent desires are easily felt, even by natural men: but when it is the spiritual desire, and the spiritual fellowship of the human spirit with the Great Spirit, then the Holy Ghost himself must be present all through it, to help infirmity, and give life and power, or else true prayer will never be presented, but the thing offered to God will wear the name and have the form, but the inner life of prayer will be far from it.
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Transcript
The false prophet has giftings, is quite a speaker, is dynamic and he seems to have some sort of power about him. But know this, his character is the key. Does he bear fruit?
False prophets are known by two things: (1) the fruit that they bear and (2) the gospel they preach (Gal. 1).
You can just line up many of these TV preachers and just look at the fruit of their life (the way they live) and then look at the gospel that they supposedly preach and you can mark them off as false prophets. Immediately.
Now, he [Paul] says something unusual about them. He says that they are like wolves. (Acts 20:29) Their god is their belly. Their god is their belly. (Phil 3:19) But they look like sheep. Now how is that?
How is it that they look like sheep?
- By their flattering smooth speech, which in an age of tolerance makes you think that they are the men most full of love.
- They will never contradict
- They will never create a scandal
- They will never be offensive
- They will never speak forth things to anger men
- They have the smooth tongue of a serpent
- They flatter men and give carnal men exactly what they want
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One day, outside of a store I frequent, stood two boy scouts – one at the entrance and one at the exit.
The boy at the entrance was speaking toward people, however, because he was rather sheepish and his voice so low; no one paid attention to him. They walked right past him into the store.
In contrast, the boy at the exit, being very bold, was not afraid to confront people. Making sure he had their attention, he then began to plead his cause.
The situation struck me immediately that what I was witnessing was a profound analogy of the preachers in this land.
The god that has been preached in our pulpits – this god who is effeminate and repressively tolerant, is not the true God. This god who is a wish granter and life coach is not the God of the Bible. This god who coercers you into sowing your seed into the most successful ground for the sole purpose of you having all your wealthy dreams come true, is not the same God who told us to store up our treasures in heaven!
Oh how these false ministers have fleeced God’s flock!
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Young people, especially in a time like ours need help. I am saying this as a high school student, who can clearly see the impacts of a satanic culture around me. The problems I’m talking about are not the usually talked about ones like “sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll”. Of course, they have their own detrimental results – but I think far worse is the philosophy and worldview of most teenagers/young adults. I never knew it had a name, but apparently it’s called “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”. I recently came across an article describing it VERY well:
“Moralistic Therapeutic Deism consists of beliefs like these: 1. “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.” 2. “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.” 3. “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.” 4. “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.” 5. “Good people go to heaven when they die.” (http://www.christianpost.com/article/20050418/moralistic-therapeutic-deism-the-new-american-religion/index.html)
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One need only look at the history of the church within the last generation or so, to see that our resolve has been weakened, and is almost nonexistent when it comes to defending the truth, or standing up for what we know to be just and right. For most people, silence and retreat is more acceptable than the defense of truth, because chances are very slim that one will get wounded while retreating. We weigh the matter judiciously, conclude that it’s too small a thing to get worked up about, and back away slowly as to not stir the attention of the enemy. We don’t like making waves and the enemy knows this. We have an aversion to being marginalized, to being mocked, to being ridiculed, to being persecuted, and so we would rather slink away in the middle of the night than confront the enemy. We have taken it upon ourselves to become negotiators, when we have been called to be messengers, to be spectators when we have been called to be soldiers. We have become passionately passionless, and purposefully purposeless for fear of offending the unregenerate and unrepentant.
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“For many walk of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.” Philippians 3:18, 19
There are many now among us, as there were then, who walk in such a manner that we recognize them at once as the “enemies of the cross of Christ.” I do fear that the evil, instead of having decreased, has multiplied and grown in danger. We have more profession now than there was in the age of Paul, and consequently we have mere hypocrisy.
It is a crying sin with our churches that there are many in their midst who never ought to be there, who would be fit members of an ale-house or any favorite resort of the gay and frivolous, but who never ought to sip the sacramental wine or eat the holy bread, the emblems of the sufferings of our Lord. We have — O Paul, how wouldst thou have said it to night, and how wouldst thou have wept while saying it! — we have many in our midst who are the “enemies of the cross of Christ,” because “their God is their belly, they mind earthly things,” and their life is not consistent with the great things of God.
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Let us abhor the sin that brought such agony upon our beloved Lord.
What an accursed thing is sin that crucified the Lord Jesus!
Do you laugh at it?
Will you go and spend an evening to see a mimic performance of it?
Do you roll sin under your tongue as a sweet morsel and then come to God’s house on Sunday morning and think to worship Him? Worship Him! Worship Him, with sin indulged in your breast! Worship Him, with sin loved and pampered in your life!
If I had a dear brother who had been murdered, what would you think of me if I valued the knife that had been crimsoned with his blood? If I made a friend of the murderer and daily consorted with the assassin who drove the dagger into my brother’s heart, what would you think of me? Surely I, too, must be an accomplice in the crime!
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