I haven’t been living under a rock or anything, but on many issues, my cultural engagement is pretty weak. Embryonic Stem-Cell Research has been thrown around near my ears, but only over the past year or so have I given myself to trying to stay informed. Here’s an article summarizing the history and controversy of Embryonic Stem-Cell Research since the first invitro fertilization baby was born in 1981. It is very helpful for people like me who need a little bit of help understanding the basic facts of the issue. This is a much needed review in light of President Barack Obama’s woeful decision on Monday March 9, 2009 to repeal President George W. Bush’s 2001 ban on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research.
Here is an exhortation for the Church:
We are called to stay informed. We are the people who know the dignity of human life from conception until natural death. We are the people whose love for the glory of God in all things must stay engaged in this issue in which the glory of God in the Imago Dei is being destroyed and dishonored. We are the people who are called to love our neighbor by warning them of lies and deceit while working to think through the same concerns that even the lost world cares for. We must work to provide biblical and honest answers while not straying or compromising from the integrity and truth of God in his word. This is a time for God’s people and his scientists to rise up and provide, for the glory of God, an honest alternative. Pray for the scientists, pray for those whose hurts and afflictions have called for these questions, pray for the families who just wanted to have children but did not think through the reprecutions of this issue, and most of all, pray for the lives that will be intentionally destroyed in the name of human progress and human glory.
I’m still praying for you Mr. President. God have mercy on you.
Working with you for life,
Vince R.
Why Revival Tarries by Leonard Ravenhill: Book Review
February 18, 2009
"No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying."
My Daily Protection with Milton Vincent
November 18, 2008
“As long as I am inside the gospel, I experience all the protection I need from the powers of evil that rage against me. It is for this reason that the Bible tells me to ‘take up‘* and ‘put on‘* the whole armor of God; and the pieces of armor it tells me to put on are all merely synonyms for the gospel. Translated literally from the Greek, they are: ‘…the salvation…the justification…truth…the gospel of peace…the faith…[and the]…word of God.‘* What are all these expressions but various ways of describing the gospel? Therefore, if I wish to stand victorious in Jesus, I must do as the songwriter suggests and ‘put on the gospel armor, each piece put on with prayer.’*
That God would tell me to ‘take up’ and ‘put on’ this gospel armor alerts me to the fact that I do not automatically come into each day protected by the gospel. In fact, these commands imply that I am vulnerable to defeat and injury unless I seize upon the gospel and arm myself with it from head to toe. And what better way is there to do this than to preach the gospel to myself and to make it the obsession of my heart throughout the day?”-Milton Vincent (bold emphasis mine).
*”Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day…” Ephesians 6:13
*”Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:11-12
*”Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Ephesians 6:14-17
*”Stand up, stand up for Jesus, Stand in His strength alone;
The arm of flesh will fail you, Ye dare not trust your own.
Put on the gospel armor, Each piece put on with prayer;
Where duty calls or danger, Be never wanting there.”–”Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus,” written by George Duffield, Jr., (1818-1888).
Working with you to make war on the flesh with the gospel armor,
Vince R.
Quoted from: Vincent, Milton. The Gospel Primer. Moreno Vally: Focus, 2008.
Prayer is so, so, so hard. Have you thought about it? “No it isn’t,” you say, “all you have to do is talk to God.” Well, yeah, that’s not the hard part. The hard part is talking to God more than just a little bit and more than just once a day and without distraction from the flesh. “Oh,” you say, “well one must struggle indeed if he only prays a little bit once a day.” But I hardly mean for my readers to excuse themselves by saying, “Well, at least I pray three or four times a day. He’s not talking about me.”
The issue here is not numbers. The issue here is not length. The issue here is not oratory skill and profundity of speech during prayer. The issue is desperation. The issue is humility. The issue is urgency. The issue is the Lord’s coming.
Prayer is the highest activity of the human soul, and therefore it is at the same time the ultimate test of a man’s true spiritual condition (there is nothing so much as prayer life that tells the truth about us as Christian people.) Everything we do in the Christian life is easier than prayer.
-D. Martyn-Lloyd Jones
Well, you know, as much as I esteem and respect this preacher, I must pain myself in seeing if these things are true. Experientially, I must say, when my prayer life flourishes, so do my works flourish. What does that mean? Do I mean that my works are always beautifully fairy-tale, such as an instance when I am preaching and God sends revival in the middle of the message? Well, no that’s not what I mean by flourish, and I will never use revival and fairy-tale together again in any other context. Revival is no fairy-tale.
But why does it seem like it?
Revival seems like a fairy-tale because we pray like it is.
So, as I was saying, experientally, I find I am most fruitful for the Lord when I am most prayerful for the Lord. I must clarify, however. I by now means mean to say that God’s harvest is dependent on my prayer. How arrogant and blasphemous to the Almighty to suppose such a thing to be true! What I do mean here is that I (me personally) experience the most joyful obedience to the will and word of God when I am most prayerful.
“Well, Vince,” you say, “you speak experientally, but you would definitely be one who would say that experience has no validation on truth apart from Scriptural subjugation.”
Yes, I would say that, so allow me to look at Scripture to see if these things Martyn-Lloyd Jones says are true. (Let us be Berean as in Acts 17.)
Well, first, does not the scripture exhort us to ”pray without ceasing” in 1 Thessalonians 5:17?
In verse 23-24, Paul prays for the believers at Thessalonica in this way:
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
I, of course, believe that Paul may have interjected this prayer for no reason at all except that it is true. He would want God to sanctify his people and present them blameless on the day of Jesus Christ. But the only thing that makes question the interpretation that says that Paul just wanted to pray for the believers in this way without any logical flow in his text seems to deny the context of verses 23 and 24. Why does Paul end his previous thoughts (and subsequently the entire letter) with this prayer?
In verses 12-22, Paul lists an entire section of exhortations like: “respect those who labor among us” (v. 12), “esteem them highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves” (v. 13) “admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be paitent with them all” (v. 14), “[Don't repay] anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone” (v.15), “Rejoice always” (v.16), “pray without ceasing” (v.17), “give thanks in all circumstances” (v. 18), “Do not quench the Spirit” (v.19), “Do not despise prophecies” (v. 20), “test everything; hold fast to what is good” (v. 21), “Abstain from every form of evil” (v.22).
What’s with these seemingly unrelated admonishings?
Well, I think that the entire chapter from its beginning will help you understand that.
Chapter 5 is about the end times, that is, the second coming of Christ.
Paul begins in verse 1 by speaking rhetorically to the believers.
“Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you.”
So why doesn’t Paul just stop there and end the letter? Clearly, they do need to have something written to them because he continues for 27 more verses. I believe that verse 1 is a rhetorical verse.
They SHOULDN’T need to have anything written to them about this topic, but he WILL write about it because they do need him to write about it. It’s a manner of speaking, very Greek and very rhetorical. Paul is a master of speech, language and rhetoric.
(Understanding rhetoric and logic will help you immensly in understanding Paul. In fact, the only book in the New Testament that this won’t help as much is probably Revelation. It’s probably more Hebrew in its genre of literature. We westernized Americans just have so much trouble thinking that way. I know I do. Revelation puzzles me. )
In verse 1, however, Paul is emphasizing the fact that they should not need him to correct them on this issue, but he will because there are some among them who are not urgent about the Lord’s second coming. It’s a shaming way of speaking to them.
In verse 2, he continues this way of speaking.
“For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”
Can you feel his sarcastic rhetoric? “You yourselves are fully aware…surely you are. After all, Jesus, himself, used this phrase. You ARE aware of the words of Christ, are you not?”
We even talk like this when we argue and persuade; we just don’t really ponder how western it truly is.
How wonderfully Gentile Paul speaks!
It’s how you debate. It’s extremely Greek. To whom is Paul speaking? Greeks, of course. (Paul would whip my tail in a debate, for sure.) To speak historically, note how the renaissance, the enlightment and the reformation almost came hand in hand. What was the point of that new age of thinking? Well, really it was nothing new. It was a return to Grecco-Roman ideas and ways of thinking. There is nothing new under the sun. Luther and the other reformers understood this, why do you think they were so powerfully attuned in using it against humanists and others who toyed with God’s word? The Renaissance and the enlightment brought the slippery slope for humanism. The Reformation brought the strong rock of God’s word.
Luther and the reformers were very aware of this way of speaking, and God used it to shake his church back into shape. Soli Deo Gloria!)
Nevertheless,
In verse 3, Paul mildly abandons his way of speaking, in so much as he no longer emphasizes his intent of shaming them, and he begins to speak more doctrinally and illustratively.
“While people are saying, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”
Verse 4 finds Paul beginning to speak more truth still yet with an edge of loving sarcasm again.
“But you are not darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief.”
I hope you kind of see what I mean when I say he is being persuasive by using what we would call sarcasm. He is not using it disrespectfully and unlovingly, but he IS rebuking them. “But you…brothers.” Do you see the sarcasm sprinkled with love when he tells them things he knows they already know, yet at the same time, he inserts the loving gesture of calling them brothers?
Verse 5 finds him continuing his illustration of dark and light, night and day.
“For you are children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.”
They are nothing like those of darkness who would be caught surprised by the Lord’s coming.
Verse 6 introduces Paul’s first exhortation.
“So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.”
Because the other things he said in verses 2-5 are true about the believers and the Lord’s second coming, this verse proceeds from those truths as something that should be true, as well. “So then…” Do you see how logic and rhetoric help?
Now, note how verse 7 gives another reason that verse 6 is true.
“For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night.”
He continues illustrating how those caught off guard are like those of the night. Look at it this way:
If,
Night=unprepared for the Lord’s coming
and,
Day=prepared for the Lord’s coming
and,
Night=sleeping and drunkeness
Then,
Sleeping and drunkeness=unprepared for the Lord’s coming.
However, Paul would say, look at verse 8:
“But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.”
So we should look at this way if we want to understand what he means:
If,
Day=prepared for the Lord’s coming
and,
Day=sober, faithful, loving, hopeful saints
Then,
Sober, faithful, loving, hopeful saints=prepared for the Lord’s coming
Now, Paul wants to give a foundation for verse 8 with verses 9-10:
“For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.”
Why, Paul is asking, do you think that you are children of light and day prepared for the Lord’s coming being sober, faithful, loving, and hopeful? Here’s why, he says:
Because God has not destined his saints for wrath.
But why does he use the word wrath?
Look at Romans 2:5 were it says:
“But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”
So, we see from this passage in Romans, that Paul characterizes wrath, at times, with the day in the future called the day of wrath “when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”
So in 1 Thessalonians 5:9, since the whole passage is characterized with end times theology, I think that Paul is using wrath here as that day in the future “when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”
So, Paul is saying, you are children of light and day, prepared for the Lord’s coming exhibiting faithfulness, lovingness, and hopefulness (all fruit of the Spirit I will add), BECAUSE (if these things are true about you then) you are God’s chosen not destined to face his wrath on that horrible day.
What glory!
Rather, Paul is emphasizing how believers ARE destined. They are destined “…to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” That, Paul says, is how these believers (and you believer) are destined. Not for wrath, but for salvation.
Verse 10, then, emphasizes how urgent yet also how gracious the Lord’s coming is. “[Christ] died for us SO THAT [emphasis added] whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.”
In verse 10, we see urgency because Christ is returning and grace because even if we are found unprepared for it, we will STILL live with God and not face his wrath.
But, does Paul mean to use God’s grace as a tool to emphasize idleness? May it never be!
Paul means for us to have the fruitfulness of work for the Lord. The fruit of JOY UNSPEAKABLE because we don’t labor in vain when we labor for the Lord. So, therefore, LABOR!
Look at verse 11,
“Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”
Now comes the list of exhorations in verses 12-22. All beginning with this “Therefore.” There is a reason that “therefore” is there for.
So then, bring it back around, verses 23-24 do not consist of a randomly placed prayer. All of these exhorations for labor are exhortations for works that are sanctifying. They are works preparing us for “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Pray without ceasing” is a sanctifying work.
And now, my point:
Prayer is hardest but definitely most necessary. I hardly expect to be fruitful if I am not praying.
You can do more than pray after you’ve prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed. -John Bunyan
I think I have made it abundently clear how essential prayer is for fruitful labor and how abundently clear it speaks of your spiritual state. Are you prepared for the coming of the Lord? Are you watchful and prayerful working while the master is away? You have not fruit if prayer does not characterize your life.
But if you need a much more effective article citing more Scriptural text and even some historical examples of prayer, here’s an article by the late Leonard Ravenhill entitled “The Gospel of Prayer.”
http://www.ravenhill.org/prayer.htm
“Be ye watchful, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh.” Mark 13:35
Stay up, and pray without ceasing. He’s coming back and we’re not destined for his wrath!
Working with you until the master of the house cometh,
Vince R.
