Month: March 2017

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Greetings in the name of the Jesus Christ our risen Savior, who thought it not robbery to be considered equal with God for He is God!

Many centuries ago two powerful kings came to fight each other. The first king came to the battlefield with an army of 400,000 soldiers while the second fielded an army totaling 800,000 men. As if the 2:1 ratio was not bad enough for the first king, the second king also had his soldiers arrayed in ambush, half in front and half behind the first army. With such an arrangement, the outcome seemed certain. However, when the battle was complete, some 500,000 soldiers of the larger army lay dead on the battlefield and the remaining 300,000 were scattered. How could this be?

The two kings at war with each other in this battle were Jeroboam of Israel and Abijah of Judah. Jeroboam was a wicked king who had set himself not against Judah but against Jehovah God. As the battle is about to begin in II Chronicles Chapter 13, King Abijah stands on a mountain and shouts to the army of Israel that “Jeroboam the son of Nebat…rebelled against his Lord. And now ye think to withstand  the kingdom of Jehovah…and there are with you the golden calves which Jeroboam made you for gods….But as for us, Jehovah is our God, and we have not forsaken him…O children of Israel fight ye not against Jehovah, the God of your fathers; for ye shall not prosper.”

The Israelites rejected this warning and the battle that follows is God’s judgment against them. The reason for this long illustration is not so much that we might learn from Jeroboam’s wickedness, but that we might learn from Abijah’s zeal. King Abijah had great zeal for the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, even Jehovah. He confesses that Jehovah alone is God and urges the Israelites not to fight a losing battle against God.

When Jesus teaches us to pray, the first petition he gives us is, “Hallowed be Thy name.” This word, “hallowed,” is not one we find much in the New Testament. It appears only a few times in the Old Testament. However, the Greek word is used some 28 times in the New Testament and is generally translated “sanctify.” In John 17, the same word is used when Jesus prays to the Father and says, “Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth” and two verses later, “And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they might be sanctified through the truth.” The word “hallowed” means sanctify, that is to make holy, to recognize as holy, to treat as holy, even to venerate and worship.

When Jesus teaches us to pray “Hallowed be Thy name,” He is teaching us to set His name apart for holy use, to reverence His name, to honor His name, to treat with great reverence, even to worship His name. In prayer, we are then asking God to see to it by His providence that His name might be always highly reverenced and sanctified, by us individually and by all men. Generally speaking, Christ is teaching us that everywhere God makes Himself known, He is to be hallowed. God’s bride the church should not be profaned, human beings made in the image of God should not be cursed, the good creation should not be condemned. You see, this petition goes beyond the reverence of His name generally. However, very specifically, the honor, exaltation, and purity of God’s name is directly in mind in this petition.

In King Hezekiah’s day, Rabshakeh of Assyria came to Jerusalem threatening the city and blaspheming the name of God. Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, confessing God’s glory and asking the Lord to open His eyes and see and hear the words of the Assyrians. And what specifically were the words Hezekiah was calling to the Lord’s attention? Isaiah 37:17-­‐20, defying the living God. When Rabshakeh came at King Sennacherib’s orders, he came defying, denying, and mocking Jehovah God. So Hezekiah brings this to God’s attention and asks God to save Judah from the Assyrians’ hands, “So that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art Jehovah, even thou only.” And the Lord vindicates His own name and destroys some 186,000 soldiers of the Assyrians in one night.

The Lord is a jealous God. He is jealous for the hallowing of His name, for the faithfulness of His people, for the purity of His worship. And our Lord has told us to pray for this. Often when we actually come to the Lord in prayer, we pray for many things about our own lives, our health, our friends, our family, our work, etc… and these are good and right things to pray for. However, they should not be the only things we pray for, and often times, they should not be the only focus of our prayer. Jesus tells us first to pray that the name of God would be praised.

In the first commandment given by God at Mount Sinai, He tells us, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” In the second commandment God tells us, in paraphrase, to worship Him according to His commandments, and in the third commandment God tells us not to profane His name. Now in the first petition of the Lord’s prayer, we are learning that God desires us to pray that what He has commanded would actually come to pass. It is proper and good then for us to pray that God would help us and others to keep His commandments – specifically the hallowing, sanctifying, and keeping pure His name.

There is a corollary to this prayer as well. That is, that whoever does not hallow the name of God might repent and if they do not repent that their mouths might be stopped. The larger catechism addresses atheism and atheists specifically in this prayer. That all who deny God would repent and come to saving faith in the only living and true God. That all those who do not repent might be brought to nothing. We can apply here, that in all places of worship where God’s name is profaned, that they might be stopped. It is proper to pray for the end of those places that deny the living and true God as revealed in His Word.

This letter began with King Abijah. As we close, think again what King Abijah did. He declared the name of Jehovah, he glorified and exalted His name, and He called and warned all the enemies of Jehovah to seek the living and true God, to repent and join with the true God rather than oppose Him. When Israel opposed the true God in their position of unquestionable strength, God fought against them and destroyed them. Those who oppose the name of God today, the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Jehovah, are facing the same outcome. When we pray that we and all men would hallow the name of the LORD, we are praying for the salvation of all. We are asking God to save many and turn hearts of stone into hearts of flesh so that all creatures would bless the Creator and worship Him.

This petition is far reaching. It covers many areas of our prayer lives, from asking God to enable us to keep His commandments, to praying for the lost and the vindication and exaltation of the powerful name of Jesus Christ. May this help us as a church when we pray, to lift high the name of Christ, to exalt God the  Father, and to rejoice in the Holy Ghost.

Following is an example of how this petition can  be prayed in your personal prayer and devotion:

Our Father and ourGod

We come before You in the name of Your only Son Jesus Christ

Praising Your name for it is very great and greatly to be praised

We confess, oh Lord, we  have not given You the honor that is due to Your name

We confess we have made other people and things  to be our desire

We have not worshiped You aright, we have profaned Your holy name

Father, have mercy on us sinners  and forgive us

Enable us to exalt the name of the Lord To bless the name of Jesus Christ

To praise God our Father and the Holy Ghost

When we speak Your name may Your majesty be always on our mind

May we  speak Your name with  reverence and sobriety

We ask that You  would help us to concentrate as we read Your word

And focus our hearts and minds as we worship You

That we might not make trivial that wherein You have made Yourself known

And that we might not give occasion for the world to mock Your name

We ask, Lord God, that You would enable all the earth to hold high Your name

Rather than profane it – that it would be hallowed

Rather than being abused,that it might be sanctified

We long for the day when none will deny the living and true God

And we ask Lord God that You would bring that day about quickly

That all men may know that the Lord God Omnipotent reigns

And there is no other God, save the LORD.

Until that day help us to declare Your glory and the glory of Your holy name

In Jesus name we pray, Amen

Ben Stahl, Elder

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Greetings to you in the name of God the Father who chose us, God the Son who redeemed us, and God the Holy Spirit who sealed us!

Several years ago a colleague from work recounted an experience he had on an aircraft where significant turbulence had him scared for his life. During this experience he said he prayed to every god he could think of, and, sadly, he could think of more gods than the only living and true God, Jesus Christ. In crying out to all the gods he had heard of he thought one would hear and answer him.

In Psalm 121, the psalmist is also looking for help. He lifts up his eyes to the hills from where his help comes. And as his eyes are looking up, the psalmist declares, “My help cometh from the Lord, which made Heaven and Earth.” As the Psalm continues, the psalmist expounds on the help of the Lord. He speaks of the Lord as our foundation, our keeper, and our protector, and the Psalm concludes with, “The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth and forevermore.”

The Lord is the only help of His people forever. For this reason, when the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray, he says to begin with, “Our Father, which art in Heaven…” How can this be that sinful creatures may approach the Holy God in such familiar language? God has done something for us. He has adopted us as His children. He has made us joint heirs with Christ and on the basis of Christ and His priestly work we may come directly to the Lord God in prayer and call Him, “Our Father.” And we must come to Him in prayer for there is help from no other; for there is no other God, save the LORD.

This title of familiarity in our approach to God is a recognition of who God is and what He has done to draw us to Himself. It is a title that does not first appear in the New Testament but actually begins in the Old Testament. We find in Isaiah 63:16 where the prophet writing the Word of God says, “Doubtless thou art our Father…thou, O LORD, art our Father, our Redeemer, they name is from everlasting.” In Isaiah 4:8, we read, “But now, O LORD, thou art our Father, we are the clay…” In Jeremiah’s prophecy of pleading for God’s people to repent in Jeremiah 3, the Lord says in verse 4, “Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My Father, thou art the guide of my youth?” And in 3:9, “Thou shalt call me, My Father, and shalt not turn away from me.”

The tenderness, mercy, grace, and longsuffering of our God is so clearly on display in these passages. The context, especially in Jeremiah, is God the Lord pleading with His people to turn away from their sin and repent of their sinful deeds. It is like a faithful father mourning over the sin of his children and pleading with them to repent and come back into fellowship with the family. The father pleads with his children reminding them how he guided them in their youth and they ought not forsake him now. In their youth he protected them and cared for them and does so now. So our Heavenly Father is doing the same. He is pleading: Remember your Father, call out to me and I will deliver you; repent, and I will forgive, for I am your Father and Redeemer.

We see also that our Father, God the Lord, has redeemed us with great price so that we may be His people and He our God. He has adopted us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. Is it not a wonder too great for us that the creator of the world, the One who holds back the mighty oceans from overcoming the sands of the shore, this God, would call us to approach unto Him in such a manner? Because God is who He is, as we come before Him as our Father it is incumbent upon Christians to come before Him with reverence and awe. The infinite, eternal, unchangeable Triune God has shown great love and tender mercies to His creation through His Son Jesus Christ; so when we pray to our Father, let us confess His glory, lift high His praise, and honor Him in our prayer.

Secondly, because He is our Father and He is our God, when we pray to Him, we may and should come before Him with boldness and confidence. If, as a child, you had an angry father or perhaps no father at home at all, the thought of approaching your father is a thing of bitterness and perhaps great grief. If you could approach him, you would approach him with great fear and worry and only when you absolutely had to for fear he would lash out at you in anger and rage. If you had a kind father as I trust many, by God’s grace, do have in this life, you can approach your father with boldness and confidence because you know your father loves you and cares for you. If earthly fathers can be approached in such a manner, how much more our Heavenly Father who loved us so much that He spared not His Son, His only Son from death, even the painful and shameful death of the cross so that He might be our life, righteousness, and salvation?

Finally, it is interesting to note that Jesus does not tell His disciples to pray, “My Father,” but rather, “Our Father.” Why? Well, whose Father is He? He is the Father of the elect. The Father of believers. He is the Father of Christians. Many times when we pray and almost always when we pray in public, we are praying with other believers. Even in private we are often praying for other believers. In this preface to the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus is teaching us to acknowledge that we are praying with other children of God and for other children of God, by calling out to Him as “Our Father.”

So, how does the preface to the Lord’s Prayer provide guidance and instruction for us in all our prayers, even when not using the script of the Lord’s Prayer? It reminds us of the love that God has for His people, despite our sin. It reminds us in prayer to adore God for who He is; to adore Him for His marvelous glory and for His attributes; to give reverence to Him; and to humble ourselves before Him in prayer. It also reminds us to come to our Father through the Son Jesus Christ (more to come on this in future letters) and to come with boldness and confidence. Praying with faith the Lord’s Prayer to God who taught it to us is an excellent way to come before God with boldness and confidence.

Using God’s Word in our prayers is a proper practice and benefits us in our meditation on the Word of God. It also assures us that our prayers are agreeable to God’s holy will. May this encourage us to come before God in prayer calling upon Him as our Father and adoring Him who made us and saved us. Lord willing in future letters we will see how the balance of the Lord’s Prayer continues to lead us in the whole of our prayer life.

Following is an example of an introduction to personal, family, or corporate prayer that applies the preface of the Lord’s Prayer to our prayer life. Your prayers in no way need be so long, this merely gives an example of prayer to our Father incorporating God’s own Word in His praise, adoration, and reverent thanksgiving!

Our Father which art in heaven,

We praise Your great and glorious name.

For You are our strength and shield, Our ever present help in times of trouble.

Though the earth be removed and the mountains be carried into the sea,

We shall not fear, for the Lord of Hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.

The Earth is Yours and You made it; The Heavens also are Yours and You have stretched them out.

Who is a God like our God? How glorious are Your mercies toward Your people!

You are the guide of our youth and faithful.

We beseech You in the name of Your Son Jesus Christ to preserve us in Your ways.

Even as we advance from glory into glory.

Ben Stahl, Elder

Greetings to you in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord who gave Himself for our sins that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father, to whom be glory forever and ever!

If you are like me at all, you have considered this month how it is that we already wrapped up the first 12th of the New Year and are nearing the end of the first 6th. It seems only yesterday we were celebrating Christmas and New Years with our family and friends. If you grew up south of Atlanta, you may have wondered at Christmas if winter would ever end; if you grew up north of Atlanta, you may have wondered if winter would ever begin. Now, spring is next month and weed killer soon needs to be applied.

So  many constant changes in the life of a Christian, it is often difficult for us to focus on our spiritual needs and, primarily, communion with the Triune God. The disciples were very concerned    with their fellowship with God, specifically their communication with Him in prayer, so they asked Jesus Christ to teach them how to pray. And Jesus, of course, answers them by giving what we commonly call today the Lord’s Prayer.

From personal experience, it can be very easy to neglect the means of grace and communion with God we have been given in prayer. As we go through the months of this year, the focus of these pastoral letters will revolve around prayer; how to pray; how not to pray; how to apply the Lord’s Prayer in our daily prayer life. The goal is that we would grow in our knowledge, love, devotion, and fellowship with our Savior Jesus Christ who tells us in Colossians 4:2, “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful,” and in I Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray without ceasing.”

Sometimes Christians do not feel like praying. Sometimes Christians do not know what to pray or how to pray. Sometimes Christians are afraid their prayers will not be good enough. Sometimes Christians just don’t know what the purpose of prayer is and have heard all manner of poor explanations for prayer.

Just the other day on the radio, a minister from a church in California was telling a large church that the way we know that God is true is when He does miraculous things after we pray. This man gave the example of a minister who as a young boy asked the Lord to show His power to him and went over to his little sister with a broken arm, touched her, and his little sister’s arm was healed. This is how God works through prayer, the preacher explained, and this is how you know that God is who He says He is. In the charismatic movement around the world, this is common teaching on prayer.

But in the Word of God, the only infallible rule for faith and life, we find God teaching us something different about prayer. We find that prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God (Phil 4:6) for things agreeable to His revealed will (I John 5:14) in the name of Jesus Christ (John 14:13) with confession of our sins (Psalm 51) and thankful acknowledgment of God’s mercies (Hebrews 4:16, Psalm 136).

This description of prayer, taken from our shorter catechism, describes the primary components of a Christian’s prayer. Christians are to praise God in our prayers; repent to God;  adore God; and
yearn for things agreeable to God’s will. My father always taught me the acronym PRAY as a young child: Praise, Repent, Adore, and Yearn.

Sometimes, as we pray privately during our time of personal devotion, we are able to cover all of these areas of prayer. Perhaps we are able to do so also during our times of family worship as we make a concerted effort to praise and adore God, repent of our sins, and make petitions, requests, and supplications of Him. In I Kings 8:22-­?61 Solomon offers such a prayer.He praises the name of the Lord, “There is no God like thee…(vs. 23)”; he proclaims and adores the power of the Lord, “thou spakest also with thy mouth, and hast fulfilled it with thine hand…”(vs. 24). He confesses sins of the present and of the future in verses 28, 30, 34, 36, 39, 50. He makes supplication throughout the prayer. Much of his supplication is for safety and Solomon yearns for the Lord to hear the cry and repentance of the people.

Sometimes as we pray, we do not have this full structure before us. The prayer is less planned and thought through, but we have a need and bring it before the Lord. Such was the case in Hezekiah’s day as the Assyrians threatened the destruction of Jerusalem in 2 Kings 19:15-­?19. Yet, in this desperation, Hezekiah calls out to the Lord God of Israel and praises His holy name, “You are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth” (vs. 15). Hezekiah makes supplication, he yearns for the Lord’s deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Assyrians and he does so for the cause that God alone may be glorified. “Save us…that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O LORD, are God alone” (vs. 19).

Sometimes, we cry out to the Lord in faith for deliverance in a moment of trial. Peter did so as he began to sink while walking on the water in Mark 14:30: “Lord, save me!” Sometimes we focus on  the praise of God, such as in the invocation of the worship service. Sometimes we focus on the requests, the supplications. Other times we adore and give thanks to God for who He is and what He has done. And yet other times, we focus on repentance, even as we prepare for the Lord’s Supper.

God has told us much about prayer in His Word, He has ordained much for us to pray, He has taught us how to pray, and He prays and intercedes for us. With these broad categories in mind, in the months ahead, if God is willing, we shall examine how God teaches us to praise His name, repent, adore Him, and make supplication even in the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer which cover in some manner the whole of our prayer lives.

May God see fit to strengthen and encourage us in prayer, to increase our faith in Him, to build us up in love for Him and His church, to take encouragement in prayer from God only, to ascribe all kingdom, power, and glory to Him, and in testimony of our desire and assurance to be heard, to heartily confess, Amen!

Ben Stahl, Elder