Wondering How to Pray

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                          Acts 1:7

Wondering How to Pray

by Robert T. Cooper

There have been a lot of distressing times throughout the centuries, times when believers wondered whether the end of the age was at hand. Many-a Sunday morning a couple of us sit around and discuss whether the Lord might send another Great Awakening to our nation or whether God’s judgment will require Him to bring about the conquest and enslavement of our country. Then ruminating over world conditions we wonder whether He will raise another nation or whether He will bring about the Day of Judgment and the Glorious Appearing.

In our hearts, we don’t particularly want the second option, the conquest of the United States. I guess our preference is the Great Awakening as we know so many who need Jesus and salvation. We aren’t selfish; we’d be happy for the Great Awakening to spread across the entire world and last longer than any previous Awakening. But we would also be excited to be the generation that sees that Great and Glorious Day. We would love to experience God’s Kingdom in its fullness.

But just like the Eleven did not know and could not know whether Jesus would bring about God’s Kingdom in the days following the Resurrection, so can we not know what our Lord intends, neither in the short term or the long term. This may be the year the Chinese or the Muslims or the Hispanics take over America. On the other hand, the US may last 200 more years or even 2000 more years. Jesus may come at any moment, or it may be 20,000 more years. We just have to be ready as though it will be today.

So how is one to pray? For the most part we have settled for expressing to God the Father those things that are the options that we know about, assuring our commitment that His will be done, but then mentioning our preferences if only for the record. Ultimately the prayer boils down to, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Questions: How do you pray regarding the end of the age? Does this approach to prayer apply to anything besides Judgment Day?

Curiosity Killed the Cat

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                          Acts 1:6

Curiosity Killed the Cat

by Robert T. Cooper

In 2009 I spent nearly the entire year preaching through the book of Revelation. The congregation wanted to do it again. After prayer, I decided that if I was going to preach through it again, I would do so in more depth. So I spent nearly all of 2010 – 2011 preaching through it a second time.

I first became aware of Revelation in the mid-1960’s when my mother listened to programs on the subject on the radio. When I was in college the big book was Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth. In seminary I spent some time examining the various -isms of interpretation of Revelation. In more recent days we have had the Left Behind series of books and related materials. And so on until just yesterday a Facebook friend said she was reading through the book of Revelation.

Folks are simply curious about what the future holds. We cry out, “Maranatha! Lord, come quickly!” In many ways we are anxious for the fullness of Christ’s reign to come.

The Twelve (or in this case, the Eleven) were like that. Their culture had driven into their minds the expectation that the Messiah would conquer the Romans and bring back into existence an independent Jewish state such as during the Maccabean period. Perhaps it was the realization that Jesus had no intention of doing so, at least not immediately, that drove Judas to betray Him. Yet after the Resurrection the Eleven were back to their earlier expectation of a literal earthly Kingdom with Jesus as monarch.

It is an issue. Whether it be the Millennial Kingdom or the Eternal State that comes next in history, we want to know, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom?”

When I was a child there was a cartoon called “Peeping Penguins.” I had forgotten the cartoon featured penguins, but I did remember all these years later the song sung by the mother, “Curiosity Killed the Cat.”

Perhaps having an interest in whether Christ will establish His Kingdom in the near future will not necessarily kill a disciple. Yet a person can become so fixated on the Doctrine of Last Things that one is not very well tuned into living for Jesus today or into the real-life ministry needs of those around us. I was once in a store in which an Adventist tried to engage me in conversation. All he wanted to talk about was Last Things. I had other things I wanted to discuss.

Indeed, as we will see, Jesus had something else He wanted to talk to the Eleven about before His Ascension. He wanted to talk about getting the lost into His spiritual Kingdom.

But God is like that. There will be plenty of time to think about whatever physical Kingdom will be established at the time of its establishment. Meanwhile, let us be faithful to the task of living for Jesus and ministering to people in this moment.

Questions: What proportion of your time do you spend contemplating Last Things? What would Jesus rather you be doing with at least some of your time? Will you start living according to His agenda for your life?

God Rules, People Drool

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                              Acts 1:3

God Rules, People Drool

by Robert T. Cooper

That’s a wretched title, but it gets the meaning across. The countdown was on. From Resurrection to Ascension, Jesus had 40 days of appearances to get in His final “on the earth” teachings to His earthly followers. Just about His main topic was the Kingdom of God. Sadly, we don’t talk about this in the USA too much. I’m doing Hillsdale’s Constitution studies with thousands of others, so like many I’m into “all men are created equal.” No one is born with the right to rule. But Jesus says that one of the most important things in all of life is that God rules.

1.      God rules the cosmos.

Why is this important? Because God determines the times set for us and the exact places we will live. I’ll tell you the long story of how the Lord taught me that verse when we get there, but the short version is that He gave us the money to buy a house one block from a classmate of our child. This classmate had a home situation which was helped by our family being there for him. And God did it in such a way that everybody knew it was Him and no coincidence.

In fact, there are no coincidences. Hurricane Isaac causes a delay of the Republican Convention. That means a slightly different group will attend on a slightly different schedule. God moves in big things and in small. A friend met a new neighbor yesterday who casually out of the blue denigrated something; this triggered a reconsideration of a lifestyle decision of the friend. Coincidence? No, for the Lord reminds us to seek Him regarding all decisions on all subjects. He is Lord. He rules.

There are other consequences of God ruling the cosmos. Perhaps you’d like to mention them in the comments section.

2.      Where God rules, His people have His guidance.

We who have placed our faith in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ have the indwelling Holy Spirit. When we pray, it is not an unusual occurrence that our thoughts are directed in ways we know are from God and not from ourselves. This is because God is a real person and we have a real relationship with Him. God communicates with us in such a way that we know that it is really He Who is speaking with us. So this is one manner of guidance available to God’s people. However it is admittedly subjective.

There is also more objective guidance available from God by way of the Holy Bible. Again, the Holy Spirit is crucial to this guidance, for the Spirit interprets the Scripture to us and teaches us how to apply what it says to our daily situations. We have to learn the right ways to apply the Bible, because some ways are not right. Since God is more interested in us having His guidance than we are, He is active in this process.

As you might guess, it is important to have regular times for prayer and Bible study, not rushed, not short. It is important to have times as an individual and times with other believers. And it is important to “do what it says.” (James 1:22)

3.      No dual citizenship.

One of the issues in witnessing to polytheists is that they tend to simply add Jesus to their pantheon of gods. But there is also an issue in witnessing to modern Americans. That issue is that people tend to think of Christianity as simply “praying the prayer” to accept Jesus, and then you go on with your life like you were before, only you get to go to heaven when you die. Or else you go to church several Sundays each year and that’s about all the claim Christ makes on you; all the rest of your life is like it was before. It’s like you continue your citizenship in the lost world and add citizenship in the Kingdom of God as a dual citizen.

The only thing is that the Kingdom of God has a law: No dual citizenship. In order to become a citizen of the Kingdom of God, a person has to renounce citizenship in the world. A more traditional way of saying this is that one must turn from one’s sinful life and turn to Christ. The fancy theological word is repentance.

That’s what Jesus meant when He said that no one can serve two masters. Either you will love the one and hate the other or you will cling to one and despise the other; you cannot serve God and Mammon. Now we usually think of Mammon as the money god, but think larger than that. Jesus was saying no dual citizenship. If you are going to be in God’s Kingdom, to place yourself under the rulership of God, then you must abandon all allegiance to this world. This world is no longer your home. You become an alien here, an ambassador for the Kingdom. Your heart will long for your true home.

Question: React to these things. What else do you know about the Kingdom of God? If the Kingdom was so important to Jesus, why don’t we hear about the Kingdom so much anymore?