THE SPIRIT-OF-PRAYER FORGOTTEN 150 YRS AGO
Prayer is the greatest asset of any church. Until it is allowed, with the return of assembled free-prayer opportunities in our buildings, this is unlikely to occur. I am not talking about stilted, limited list sentence prayer cells allotted minimum time at the end of a needless 4th sermon/Bible Study for the week.
I am not talking about Rubin Torrey’s model of controlling the pews widely adopted by Protestant Bible-believing clergy which ousted the old full congregational prayer meeting dedicated to intercession for the lost.
Though pastors claim to be focused on agenda, timetable, and security risks, the truth is that these are mere excuses to prevent intercession by the saints. The pastor must be elevated to the status of guru and holy man of prayer, hence the arrival of the super-pastor and his personality cult of admirers (especially one gender) whose ears are regularly tickled as the pastor ingratiates himself to make his loyalists dependent upon his flattery.
The replacement of prayer by its substitute: unctuous utterances of the super-hero are to stop outspoken individualism among the pews and to reign in freedom of speech.
The cost over the last 150 years has been to quench any possibility of awakening the lost or illuminating the awakened. (Luke 24) Easy free religion has thrived in this climate in which conversion is now synonymous with affirmation, acknowledgment of lisping lips.
In the meantime we ‘beat the air’ with sound and fury accomplishing little more than the farmer watering barren ground, as hardened as the pathway in the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13). This is great opportunity for the enemy to sow his seed during the night. That same false gospel thrives on false hope which abounds galore among the goats filling the pews of the average church.
The volume of our preaching is often so loud that even God cannot hear it, let alone the goats and sheep of the flock.
