THE "SECRET PLACE" OF PRAYER

Chapter Four

Temptation by Relation

Matthew 4: 1: Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

Before you have a relationship with God, you have other relationships, other distractions – your tendency to interpret the Word of God – to decide what it says by your own mind.

Jesus’ temptation exemplifies this test in us. He faced the same temptations we do: the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life. Every one of us, before we receive the answer we seek, must meet that same challenge – go to that same desert, be so tempted, just as Jesus was. It is the battle of the spirits - the Spirit of God took Jesus to the desert, and Satan showed up. Every time you receive something from God, you will be tested. Look what happened: Jesus was just baptized by John in the Jordan – but did he get to rest and relax? No, he was sent to be tested! So are we all.

Jesus did not fall of course, but each of us does. Each temptation I will fail. This is because I must know that I cannot master temptation on my own – Jesus must do it for me, must do it in me. Each temptation is a challenge to your mind – just as when I prayed for my friends who had died. It appeared to be no big deal at first, but became a bigger and bigger deal. Satan said to me: “It’s not fair these people died. They worked for God, dedicated their lives, and He did not protect them. What’s more – He says you’ll have whatever you ask in prayer and then He didn’t answer you. Isn’t that strange?” He used this tactic to try to turn me somewhere else – he suggested to me there might be other ways – other solutions beside prayer. The temptation is not weakness of the flesh, but often is pride disguised – a desire for instance to have a result or find an answer that no one else has found. The night after Joshua and Miriam’s funeral; I asked God to give me an answer and felt He counseled me to be patient. Patience, though, was not my thing! I came to the point that the simple Good News of salvation through the blood of Jesus was no longer enough – I wanted to go “deeper” and find more. Satan used this occasion to suggest that maybe my conversion was just psychological; that my happening to go to that church that had prayed for me for a year without knowing me was just a coincidence. It caused a shift in me to the idea that the control of the mind was all – positive thinking instead of faith. If I had controlled my mind and let no unbelief creep in – I would have had my answer! I had a vision of my professor when I was a child prophesying in school that in the year 2000 science would have cured all ills and there would be no need for religion – there would be no more sickness, we’d discover other planets, other creatures so advanced that they would solve all Man’s problems – even time-travel! I was told that education would have created a new world with no crime, no problems, no suffering and eternal youth!

Well it’s 2008, and recently my wife and I spoke at length with an agnostic of my acquaintance who’s never happy, but believes that education will solve all one’s problems! Education never changed anyone! It may help, it may ameliorate a condition or give one the opportunity to change a circumstance or adapt to a problem, but it cannot and does not change our natures and that is why there is no new world, though generations have preached and expected it!

One or two weeks after that conversation, it brought back to me this time I am speaking of now, when I faced this challenge to my mind, when it appeared I had no answer. In prayer, the Lord showed me about Micaiah the prophet’s vision of the throne of God during the time of Ahab and Jezebel. God talked with Ahab, who was king of Israel; but he followed the evil ways of his wife, who desired to rule all around her including her husband, and to cause them to worship her idols. This all came about because Solomon had first allowed his heart to be swayed from the true God by his wives, and allowed idol worship. A prophet of Solomon’s time prophesied that Solomon’s kingdom would be split and a part go to Jeroboam. Solomon actually wanted to kill Jeroboam, who went to Egypt until Solomon died. Jeroboam, afraid that he would lose his tribes, made two cattle of gold, using the same words that Aaron had used in the wilderness. He used the Word of God for idol worship! Later, Jeroboam saw the error of his ways, but initially, he caused his people to fall to idolatry. I mention Jeroboam because Jezebel did the same thing as Jeroboam had – she made two idols and caused the people to worship them. When Jehoshaphat came to visit Ahab, to fight the Syrians, Micaiah was asked by Jehoshaphat, who was a godly king, to prophesy about the battle. At first Micaiah said they would prevail, but then, prodded by Ahab, he told the truth, and explained his vision also: he’d seen the throne of God, with the Hosts of Heaven standing at His Right and Left Hand. The Lord asked who would go to persuade Ahab to to up to battle, that he might fall. This spirit spoke and that; but one came before God and said he would go and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all of Ahab’s prophets. To this the Lord agreed, saying, “You shall persuade him. Go and do so.” This Micaiah said to Ahab; he told him the truth! And still Ahab did not believe. Rather, he believed the 450 lying prophets of Baal! We so easily create our own beliefs – our own gods. We don’t see the invisible working, and are fooled by our own mental constructions. Paul gives an example of this problem and its result in 3Romans 1: 19-33:

Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

The problem of these people is that they have a pain of some kind and want to ease it, but are not willing to accept the solution – follow God. They keep looking, and find something that temporarily eases that pain – and thereby think, “Ah – here’s my answer!” But it is not an answer; just as eating too much may temporarily ease the pain and cause one to feel better, but the result is morbid obesity, illness and death. Another person is different and not well-accepted by others, and persons of an alternate lifestyle appear to accept him or her (as long as the person then joins their lifestyle!) and this person, now feeling the relief of acceptance, thinks “Ah, this must be what I was looking for.” Yet in the end, he or she has no fewer problems and may have paid a very high price for simple acceptance. I have been asked if I love gay people – the answer is “yes”. What they are doing is wrong, but I love them. Same if you ask me if I love adulterers or liars! Of course! As my wife is fond of saying, there is only one kind of people! And God loves them too, but He is not here to make us feel better; He is here to save us and change our nature to HIS. If one cannot imagine this change, or is unwilling to accept it, He will not force them.

This reminded me of the time I was living in sin; there was a New Age place near the gym I went to, where one could go to learn the power of the mind. I was astonished that to these people this seemed to be new! I first heard this when I was 14; only it was under the guise of “education”! The god of the mind never goes away! I was surprised they were so easily fooled; at least I was just a kid when I heard the same crap. There were almost one hundred persons in this class! I said to a guy on my right that there was a guy who was a thinker in France – Voltaire – who said all this hundreds of years ago! His conclusion was that everything religious was bad and one could not expect salvation – only “enlightenment”. Sound familiar?

The French revolution was all based on “reason” too. They murdered the king and queen, and mouthed “Liberty, equality and fraternity”, but to actually believe in those things they pronounced “stupidity”! Near the time of the Revolution, your Thomas Jefferson was corrupted by this to the point that he wanted to remove the miracles from the Gospel! New Age is a little different – it mixes everything together: reason, religion, miracles, mind-control, and uses it to get riches, healing and happiness! But none of this is new!

I remember when I was in Mexico City in 1988, I saw a Norman Vincent Peele seminar advertised, so I went to hear him. He could not appear as he was ill, but I bought one of his books and read it. After that I went to a school of positive thinking, and bought a book on a Hawaiian religion called Houma, which was essentially the same thing, and on which these “new” positive-thinking gurus were basing their own versions. Today we have gurus everywhere mixing eastern philosophy with western religion: God is in everything and everyone, so everyone is God!

During this time, in speaking to my fellow students, I noticed that we were still full of anguish, still with problems, still essentially without a real answer. We might have begun by thinking we had found the answer, but very soon it would become obvious that we had not. We continued to play the game though, not admitting to ourselves or each other that the emperor had no clothes!

In my “playboy” period, I came into contact with many different kinds of people, as I said, and the majority of these people had been hurt in some way, had been disappointed by God in an answer or a help they expected. They had turned from Him and to Hinduism or Buddhism or positive thinking – to the spiritualism “du jour”. Most were divorced, most had some kind of statues or crystals, or meditated or studied some “master” or some special knowledge. These people who were partying with me at night, during the day were attempting to be “spiritual” and find “enlightenment”! They all had books too, books on Buddha and the Maharishi, or Gandhi or Mohammed or the Tao, and when I asked about the carpet they’d have in the corner – it was for yoga. Strangely no one seemed to have the Bible. I explained to them often my desert experiences: how I’d fasted, spent time with the monks, etc., but, as I explained to them, these people we were studying were all born like us. They had the same life we had. Reiki, tai chi, all these practices purport to manage and employ energy to change a person’s condition, but it is not our condition that needs to be changed! It is ourselves! Jesus on the other hand was born differently than we. Surely He would have what the others did not. I came to see what I should have seen long before – that we believe it is our circumstances that are the problem and it is not. It is our natures.

Many people are offended by the idea that one needs to be cleansed by blood – they want there to be a clean cross – a “green” cross, if you will! Example: my friend Alain. He ate Gomasio (a sesame product), with salt, and blue cheese and Roquefort cheese and all manner of pungent foods. I asked him if it was good and he gave me a taste – it was HORRIBLE, and I said so! No, he said, it is “yang”. He believed in macrobiotics. I had a lot of admiration for him, as I figured it must’ve required a lot of discipline to eat in this way. He was trying to balance his energy; his fiancée was against Christianity because she believed the apostles were anti-feminist! This was funny to me, because as I pointed out to her, the philosophy of yin and yang is that the yin is the soft, dark feminine and the yang is the bright, hard masculine! I asked her what was the difference? Peter said the woman was the weaker vessel, but this meant she was the more delicate and prone to attack by evil, not that she was less in some way.

I had a good friend at this time who was a older lady, a medium and a spiritual searcher; she used hypnotism, past life regression, and taught classes in those across the country. She “treated” people in this way. I asked her to explain what she really thought of these experiences. She said she did put people into a trance, she did not really know how, but she did not believe what they told her! She said they told her what they thought she wanted to hear – based on the conversation they had before the “session”! She called me once when she was ill – and I prayed for her and held her hand for many hours. She thought she would lose her mind! I actually got her to pray in the Name of Jesus, and the day after, she called me and told me how great it was to pray that way. In my time of rebellion, that was really something to hear!

One day I went to a Starbucks and saw a guy reading a big book on Taoist health and fitness. I thought to myself, “What is this crap again!” I asked him if he went to the gym; he said “NO!, this is different”. He believed in shaman herbalists and acupuncture too, and said he’d stopped smoking by a needle in the ear. I told him I had a friend who’d lost an ear in an accident, but continued to smoke! He looked at me very strangely, I can tell you, but I thought it was very funny. I think of that now when I see people doing tai chi for their “health”. I know it is taught at the beginning just as an exercise system. The objective is to stimulate the central nervous system and take off stress, but this is not to make your arthritis feel better! Medicine nowadays is getting bad press because it has side-effects, and people turn to such things as an alternative; however, they have side-effects too. If you read about Taoism, it is a religion, and tai chi is a practice of this religion. You have diseases because your energy, your “chi” is blocked somewhere. Tai chi is to restore your balance and energy flow, an inner massage for your organs! Feng shui is the current fad that brings the whole Taoist philosophy into home decoration! But Taoism’s goal is immortality. Initially, they searched for a certain dirt to use to cause physical immortality. Many were poisoned by the potions they made! So they transitioned to a search for the “immortal embryo”, which could be discovered in controlling the breathing and body movements so as to control the Qi or chi. This was certainly more healthy than the poisonous potions! The idea is immortality, living forever; this presupposes mortality, but the Taoists did not know the cause of it. It was certainly an admirable goal, and they were doing the best they could to answer the age-old problem; however, none has ever achieved what was sought. China today is certainly not a land of the immortals! They have the same problems as we in America, despite daily practice of tai chi. And all they want is an answer! Again, though they may obtain temporary improvement in one aspect of life or another; they do not change their natures!

The Chinese had an excuse, because they did not know about Jesus. Many eastern peoples did not. Most here in America do. To turn from Him to New Age practices makes no sense. Now these practices are accepted by many as “health care”! How can they be health care? Are the Chinese without arthritis or smoking? Hardly; yet acupuncture AND tai chi are widely practiced there. The thing that gets me the most is when someone who is not a Christian uses something Jesus said, but then denies what He said about Himself! I met a man once who told me he was a Buddhist; when I asked him if he believed in the virgin birth he said no. But he believed that Buddha’s mother had a dream of a white elephant while pregnant and that this meant Buddha was special. In fact, he had simply chosen to believe what he did and simply chosen not to believe the rest. It had nothing to do with truth - only with choice.

The newest thing is to “save” the planet: “mother” earth – Gaea. Gaea was the ancient Greeks’ name for the earth as a goddess. Not an ignoble goal, saving the earth; but it does not change people’s natures to stop using paper and save gas. I read a new book recently: The Corporate Mystique. I can tell you, it will not change your office! But if you go to bookstores you are bombarded by the promises – we’ll show you how to change your life by what you eat or don’t eat, by how you exercise, by how you think or speak, by magic or spiritism, by following your dreams – even by politics! They tout pantheism, magic or “magick”, voodoo, reincarnation, superintelligence, Hinduism, Philosophy.

It is not change the soul needs – it is rebirth! Jesus says I am the Life. My dear friend, with occultism, or spiritism or special knowledge, or christicism or humanism or personal or impersonal god, or communing with the “one” or the universal mind or the universal soul, I cannot fail to find the God in me – that I am God! Oh, that sounds familiar – “You won’t die; you’ll be like God…” But you will never find the answer that way.

Before we come to the end of this passage about prayer, I wanted to let you know I have been down this road before you in these directions and I can tell you – they can’t change your nature! If you don’t believe me, ask me about it – I can give you answers. If you have practiced any of this – anything I mentioned here – including astrology or speaking to the dead or tarot or divination, you need to go now to your room, confess all the things you tried and may have believed could be true and ask for forgiveness. If you don’t you may be hindered in accepting the next part of the message. Remember, this was my desert – this was my temptation in the wilderness. I fell; my confidence in Jesus at that time was not perfect. But I also learned that there is nowhere else to go – no one else has the words of eternal Life!

In the next Chapter, I will tell you what the Lord has revealed to me about prayer, and why I believe Jesus is the only way – the only One who came with LIFE, died, rose, and gives not a forever version of this poor life, but Eternal Life.