Sunday, October 12, 2008

THE "SECRET PLACE" OF PRAYER

Chapter 6

I waited a bit to go on to this chapter because it was so important that I get across to you just what I wanted to say in order for you not to be deceived by what prayer is not. Also, many people today come to Christianity with different backgrounds, and sometimes mix what they believed before with Christianity, which causes confusion; and there are many who begin as Christians, go searching for some reason, and then come back, but bring with them some of the confusion that caused their falling away. So, the world we have today is often a mess!

Samuel 15:22 says that people who rebel against God commit the sin of witchcraft. This sounds odd until you consider that rebels leave God to find a way around His law and His way. They want to be their own God, but have power too; to idolize themselves, but have power like God. I don’t want to condemn these people, I was like them. Many of them have been hurt by the people of the church, by life, by circumstances they can’t understand. I don’t want to judge them; I was disobedient too. I do want them to see why and how to turn back, and how very much God loves them. I have seen the entirely sincere, but torn by questions; the faithful, confused by hypocracy. I have been there.

I remember once back in Algeria as a boy, I got bad marks in school on my report card. I knew if I showed it to my maman, I would be punished. So, I decided to avoid the situation. When she asked me where my report card was, I lied and said they don’t give them out anymore – they’re doing things a new way. I smile when I think of this because it is SO much like those involved in the New Age. Huh! “New”. Nothing new about it. Anyway, back to my story. After I lied about not getting report cards any more, as I was coming in to school one morning, I saw my maman talking to the teacher. I knew the jig was up and I ran very fast to the grocer, bought some food – on my father’s credit of course – and made off to the beach. This is what people want – easy life on someone else’s work! I spent three days there, found new friends and thought I was fine. Then, my food ran out and I decided to go back home. Just as many people come back to the Word of God from the fantasy of the “alternatives”. I remember the dark, cold night when I came home. I saw the light in my kitchen from the street. I was at the top of the street, and I saw someone walking around at the bottom – it was my maman! Later, she told me she walked to and fro every night, praying for me, that I would come back. How could she do that for me? I think of those wanderers away from the Lord when I consider what my maman did for me! And I do this every night in prayer for them, as for my brothers and sisters. When I saw my mother, I was overjoyed, and terrified! I saw the light in my home and wanted to go there SO badly! But I couldn’t; I felt so guilty. How could they accept me now? They’d want to kill me! There was a garage for horses across from my home, and this was a long time ago so there was a yellow flickering gaslight. My heart pounding, my mother began to go by the entrance of this shed. Instead of going, though a part of me was praying that she go by, she stopped, turned, and said “Michel, I know you are here – come out and come home with me!” I said, “Maman, forgive me!” and she said, “I forgive you, my son!”

Well when we got inside, she gave me the forgiveness I was expecting, and a heavy dose of her hand on my behind. But that pain was as nothing against the sheer relief and joy I had to be back home! She told me God told her I was there; I didn’t understand that at the time, but have come to understand that when Love is great, the Lord will tell you many things. Satan, with the help of our guilt, always tells us we cannot go back; we won’t be accepted – the very ones we love will reject us. This is not what the Word of God says – HE says whoever comes to Him He will not cast out.

Remember, the disciples were confused when Jesus died – they saw the soldier pierce His heart, they saw Him laid to rest; nothing more to be done – it was the end. Some said He’d been seen; some said it was not He. I know how they feel. But look what happened: in Luke 24: 36 – 43, after visiting the two on the road to Emmaus, Jesus appeared to His followers. They were afraid, supposing they had seen a spirit, but He asked why they were troubled and doubting, when they could see His scarred hands and feet, and asked them to touch Him, for a spirit did not have flesh and bones as he did, and while they marveled, He even ate before them. That same spirit of confusion causes suffering in the world today. Now, you have many who claim to be prophets, but are false. I am writing for those who are captured by these false prophets, by the Gnostic works and other “new” works they claim are gospels. These people question the four gospels, but insist the apocryphal and Gnostic works are true. This position is truly not sensible; however, it exists to try to draw the believer away in these other alleged gospels. There are people who claim to be learned, and say that the books accepted as being part of the Bible were chosen my man, so they have the right to choose among the other “gospels”; however, this is just another form of avoidance – because these other books do not follow or go along with the Old Testament prophecy as the Bible books do. Some of the same people claim that there was no virgin birth! These are people who claim to believe! Many today are deceived that other religions are equally true, and that the eastern religions also point the way to God; these are always the folks looking for a particular result and not very studious as to the actual beliefs they’ve espoused. Meanwhile the children of those in the east are sent west to be educated! There are the ones who take a little of this religion and a little of that – even a little Christianity – and add in “steroid” of humanism, science, psychology and the like and say “Aha! I’ve found the truth!” They are like the body builders who depend on steroids for their result – it looks good for a while, but they end up infected and deflated with the disease their shortcut brought on.

Maybe when we go into these areas about which I want to deal, we’ll get into some very strange things, some that some folks may say are not real, and don’t even exist. I am going into these things because there is such deep confusion today about what is fantasy, and what is important. I don’t want to base my belief on my experience of life, or what I’ve done, but in Jesus’ death and resurrection. I just want you to know some of what I will be dealing with now may seem like fiction, but is very real and very dangerous.

I remember when I started my ministry, I build a small tent in Essertine, for baptisms, etc., and when we started church one morning, a visitor, a 30–year-old man, stood up and said “I know who you are Jean Michel, and I tell you that I am here to destroy you. I have four strong spirits, who told me that I am more strong than you are!” And with that, he actually came forward and grabbed me to strangle me! I tell you, at that time, I had not ever faced that before! I was so shocked! This was in the seventies, when everything was “Peace, Peace, Peace”; I had never seen anyone possessed and of course had been taught that kind of thing did not happen in the modern day! I pushed this man back in the name of Jesus! He got up again and came after me again. I wasn’t just concerned for myself; there were others there, including children and old folks, and babies starting to cry. The other brothers tried to grab the man, and some of them fell back on the little ones. He came back to me, and I fought with him for a half hour, because I did not know what to do. Finally, I stopped fighting him physically, and began battling with the Word of God, giving him opposition for each thing he said. He said my God was not true and his spirit was bigger than mine and that he would destroy any Christian he could find! Finally, I rebuked him in Jesus’ Name, and he was free. He looked around, confused and asked what was going on. We told him what he had done; he face changed completely; he dropped to his knees and asked Jesus into his heart. We baptized him right there; he received the Holy Spirit, and became a new man! He had been into Hinduism before that. Now, I don’t believe every Hindu is possessed; but this man certainly was!

During my rebellious period, I went sometimes to a Unity Church, and met many broken, hurting people. They were divorced, or otherwise alone, or dealing with a difficulty of some kind. And when they found a modicum of hope, because they were looking for help, they believed in what they had found. I am sure all these people, as we will see, really wanted a solution, and believed they are right; they are very sincere. But at bottom, when they decide that what Jesus says is not true, He did not come in the flesh and sacrifice Himself to save us, because many of them KNOW what He said, and read the Bible, now they become true rebels. Before they did not look like rebels, just confused people. But this decision reveals they were actually rebels all along. If they are, then the Lord will send them a lying spirit to cause them to follow the lie they have chosen to believe, and they will try to find others to believe with them. These are the same people who will say there is no resurrection, but believe in reincarnation! If, of course, they come to understand that Jesus did die, did return from the dead, and still lives today, they can be redeemed. To these people, I want to show that the Bible is the Word of God. What Jesus taught is not that there is something you need to know – it is a Person, dead and returned to life – it is not just a teaching, it is a relationship. It is not just spirit, but flesh and bones – a real experience with a real person, not just a mental exercise.

It is so funny to me that in “spiritual” stores there are statues of animals, and fairies and the like, and people who believe in them, but deny there can be a virgin birth, or resurrection after three days. Paul says in Romans 1:27, that people with darkened minds will follow after images of animals and worship things made with hands, rather than the Image of the Living God. I had one lady in one of these stores show me a book that compares the words of Buddha to the words of Krishna to the words of Jesus, and show that some of the things they said are similar. It dawned on me what her confusion was and I said, “Ah, I understand where your confusion lies! You believe religion is just a comparison of one wisdom to another!” But it isn’t. We are not Christian so much because of what Jesus said, though that is certainly important. We are Christian because of what He did for us. We accept that He became our final sacrifice for sin and that He saved us for Himself, to come to know Him and be like Him. Jesus did not just come to teach us – He came to bring us out of death and into Life. The other words are to give us some help and hope while we are still in the world. Jesus was an accomplishment of prophecy, not just a teacher; He is GOD, not just a wise and good man. It is likely that there are wise sayings in the teachings of Buddha, and Krishna and Mohammed; but did Buddha die for you? Did Lao Tsu cause you to pass from death to Life? And not just this life, but a perfect, eternal Life? Well Jesus did.

I told the lady about the parable of the good seed and the bad seed. The same God gave both seeds the same process to grow and gave them both rain! The Bible doesn’t explain exactly what is meant by “good” seed and “bad”. It says Satan planted the bad seeds, and God does not want the good seeds rooted up, and to let them grow. But in this story we only find out which is which at the end, when the harvest comes – the bad seeds are destroyed and the good put away in the barn. So are some people today who say, “My religion is as good as yours!” but the proof will be seen in the end. The real issue is, what is the result of your belief? The result of belief in Jesus is to pass from Death to Life and begin a relationship with Him. It is not something you must know or some ritual you must perform, it is something you must accept.

Jesus also gave a parable about men who built homes. The homes were likely built the same, but one house fell and the other stood. The difference was the foundation. The foundation in Jesus is “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” The foundation in the others is the shifting sand of uncertainty.