THE TRENTON BULLETIN

THE TRENTON BULLETIN

Trenton Church of Christ, Trenton, Florida

The blood of Abel (Genesis 4) still cries through the ages of centuries as a sad reminder of man’s inhumanity to man. The early world was destroyed because “every intent of the thoughts of [man] was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5) as men filled with rage against their fellow man shed man’s blood. Following the flood the Lord told Noah, "Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man's brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man” (Genesis 9:5-6).

Murder is suggested in the actions of the works of the flesh as “enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying” (Galatians 5:20,21) drive men to kill one another. Jesus said "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders” (Matthew 15:19). The challenge of the deeds listed in Galatians 5 is not only the sin itself but what the sin leads to. The taking of human life has always been condemned by Jehovah when the actions are unrighteous. David murdered Uriah for his lust of Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11); Naboth was falsely accused and murdered by Jezebel for a vineyard (1 Kings 21; 2 Kings 9:26); Jesus accused the Jews of murdering the prophets (Matthew 23:31,35); and even Jesus was killed by unrighteous men (1 Thessalonians 2:15).

When God spoke to Noah in Genesis 9, He established forever the condemnation of those who take the lives of other men. The Ten Commandments clearly forbade the killing of men for unjust cause (Exodus 20:13). Penalties were swift and severe for murder in the Law of Moses (Exodus 21:14; Leviticus 24:21). The Lord will punish the murderer (1 Timothy 1:9; Revelation 21:8). It would seem obvious that murder (the taking of life) is repulsive and forbidden – yet while we would never suggest our part in such deeds, we find another aspect of this hatred.

“Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15). Jesus taught the same principle in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:21-26). We cannot worship God with this kind of heart. When hatred and malice dwell in the heart of a person there can be no hope of eternal life.

Murder is imagined in this sense that while no physical life is taken, the feelings of hate reign in the heart. This will defile a man (Matthew 15:19,20). We like to say that we are to “love one another but not like one another.” This represents an attitude of disrespect for others and for God. Prejudice, jealousy and envy will lead to murderous thoughts in the heart. “For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things” (1 John 3:20). Albert Barnes wrote, “The private malice, the secret grudge, the envy which is cherished in the heart, is murderous in its tendency.”

Those who allow the spirit of Satan to fill their hearts will not inherit the kingdom of God! That is not a maybe; that is a reality! We should heed the warning of the Lord through the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 7.

"The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (James 5:16), and "with great power gave the Apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all" (Acts 4:33). How mighty are the combined forces God has let loose in the spiritual world! Try to comprehend the power of prayer, or the power of preaching. Yet how weak is the latter sometimes because fervent prayers have not been offered in its behalf. Reflect for a few moments on the power of prayer, then the power of preaching, then what prayerful preaching can accomplish.

Since God declares, "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much," man's wisdom can not say how much. Only the Revelation God has made would contain the wisdom to say how much. Consider what prayer hath wrought in olden times. When the men left Abraham in Genesis. 18:15, he "yet stood before 'the Lord," and interceded in behalf of a wicked city where dear ones lived. Herein is a marvelous thing, not only that the Sovereign Maker of the vast universe can be approached by mortal man, but also that the Scripture expressly declares God "communed" with Abraham (Genesis 18:33). He who "commanded the morning," and "caused the dayspring to know his place" (Job 38:12), now is mindful of man.

His wrath was ready to fall on Sodom and Gomorrah, "and the cities about them in like manner" (Jude 7), but He quickly agrees to the pleas of a creature in His image. The power of man availing with God is seen in the fact God suspended the destiny of the exceedingly great cities on the words of Abraham, actually agreeing to conditions for which Abraham pled.

The tremendous power of prayer to change the course of human history and avail with Him who directs that course is also seen in the days of Moses. As Moses related it in Deuteronomy 9:13-29, "the Lord spake unto me saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people: Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they." Imagine if you can how different the course of history would have been if God had carried out this intention.

To have had a nation from the man, Moses, and to have lost the Jews forever from sight. It is beyond imagination to know what might have been. Yet notice what saved the Jews. Moses, who was, according to physical measurements, a mere speck of protoplasm sitting on a cog of a gigantic cosmic machine, tells us, "Thus I fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the Lord had said he would destroy you. I prayed therefore unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, which thou has redeemed through thy greatness. . . . Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm." And the Lord hearkened unto Moses, spared the nation, and held them in the hollow of His hand, and fought their battles for them till the seed came to whom the promise had been made. The power of Moses' prayer!

Another indication of the power of prayer is seen in Joshua 10, the record of the battle of the Amorite kings with the Lord's people. Joshua and his men were called into battle and needed time to complete the destruction of the Lord's enemies. "Then spake Joshua to the Lord," and the Lord of this universe took hold of the astronomical gear that governs the motions of the vast bodies that adorn the spacious firmament, and stayed all their movements till the iniquitous hosts were discomfited. The record is plain in its testimony to the power of prayer: "And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel." Who can say what prayer can avail!

A confirmatory incident occurred in the life of Hezekiah. As Isaiah 38 and 2 Kings 20 record it, Hezekiah was sick unto death, but pled with the Lord for lengthened days. God again adjusted this cosmic machine to the needs of his creature; the key to it is in the words, "I have seen thy tears." Just think, the tears of a man can influence the entire universe!

Examples could be multiplied with profit, but we simply observe here that the power of prayer is not limited to the days when God performed such miracles as these we have studied. But, says someone, if God does not intervene miraculously in the natural order today, how can we pray for things that involve natural laws and the entire universe. The answer to this profound inquiry lies, to me, in God's present relation 'to the natural order. He is not afar off, but is nigh, because "in him we live and move and have our being." He makes, yes, makes, the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends, yes sends, the rain on the just and the unjust. He clothes, not clothed, but clothes the grass of the field, and watches the sparrow that falls. He giveth, not gave, but giveth, to all life and breath and all things.

These being true, since God controls the entire natural universe which is some six billions of light years (how far light can travel in six billion years at the rate of 186,000 miles a second) across, Men He can and will control the natural order to answer the prayers of His children according to His own good will and in His own time and way. We can pray for the sick, and should, and should expect God to answer our prayers according to His will, for there are billions of combinations of Circumstances which men never regard as miraculous, yet which God can and will bring to bear to answer our prayers. There is power in prayer!

All who preach long to preach with power. Since God designed preaching "to save them that believe," we earnestly desire ours to achieve God's purpose. This can be done only if we observe the New Testament pattern of perfect preaching. Yet how great is the temptation to omit parts of that perfect pattern. Perhaps we follow the love of that pattern to an extent without following its firmness. Perhaps we have all the latter and practically none of the former. Perhaps we omit the greatest power which New Testament preachers seemed to use, the power of prayer in our lives as preachers of the faith. Preaching transforms life, so does prayer.

Preaching saves souls, so does prayer for the child of God. There is power in preaching the Gospel, because the Gospel is God’s power to save. There is also power "in prayer, in believing prayer, when the Savior's name to the throne we bear." Oh that these two mighty forces will be combined to a greater degree than they have in many instances so that preaching will evidence a prayerful life and prayer will give power 'to our preaching, more power than we have let it give. Note the grand combination of these in New Testament days.

When the Apostles were put in prison, the church lifted up their voice with one accord, and prayed, "’And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence, while You extend Your hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus.’ And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:29-31). Fervent praying led to bold preaching.

When some of the bold statements are made by us today, they evidence anything but the kind of paying which the early church did. Brother rises up against brother with motives impugned, character assaulted and name slandered at the slightest provocation. Preaching even to brethren can be bold yet prayerful, strong yet loving, uncompromising, yet forbearing, confident yet "in the spirit of meekness."

The prayers that were made "without ceasing of the church unto God for" Peter when he was imprisoned can still work wonders even though miracles are not performed, for God still has the "reins and the hearts" of this universe (Acts 12:5). May our prayers be fervent, our lives righteous, our preaching powerful and all together we can by God's help "avail much" in this wicked world.

Little Johnnie was saying his bedtime prayers a week before his birthday. In a loud voice he listed all the things he wanted. "Do not pray so loudly," his mother instructed. "The Lord is not hard of hearing!" "Maybe He isn't," admitted Johnnie, "but Grandma is."

A lot of our prayers may be like Johnnie's. We ask God, yet make other provisions. There is something good about the axiom, "Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you." But, in one sense, it reveals our spirit of independence. It conveys the notion: "I will have to do it all myself, anyway!"

We must admit the essentiality of dialogue with God. And our requests must come from righteous lips, for "he hears the prayer of the righteous" (Proverbs 15:29). Prayers are like skyhooks-if we get enough fastened in up there we will have something to hang on to when the world is jerked out from under us.

Yes! Pray believing! Then God will answer your prayer. He may answer, "No!" He may answer, "Later!" He may answer, "Maybe!" Or he many answer, "Yes!" But let us understand one universal truth. The Father in heaven is eager to hear and answer in positive ways those of us who are his faithful children.

"Almighty Father, accept our prayers of faith as confessions of our utter dependence upon your love and generous mercy. In Jesus' name. Amen."

§ “Prayer is not using God; it is more often to get us in a position where God can use us. I watched the deck hands on the great liner United States, as they docked that ship in New York Harbor. First, they threw out a rope to the men on the dock. Then inside the boat, the great motors went to work and pulled on the great cable. But oddly enough, the pier wasn’t pulled out to the ship; but the ship was pulled snugly up to the pier. Prayer is the rope that pulls God and man together. But it doesn’t pull God down to us: it pulls us to Him. We must learn to say with Christ, the master of the art of praying, “Not my will; but thine be done.” (Billy Graham)

§ Work as if you were to live 100 years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow. (Benjamin Franklin)