Lesson 6: “Prayer Warriors”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
Adventist, does prayer feel like an obligation to you? A necessary chore that is your lifeline to connect with God? Do you feel as if your prayers go nowhere? Do you wonder HOW you should pray in order to get results? And let’s be really honest: do you ever wonder why you need to pray if God already knows His plans?
Adventist Prayer Anxiety
As an Adventist, I struggled with prayer: how should I pray? What good did prayer actually do? Why could I pray for God to show me the right thing to do while at the same time my life was falling apart around me?
There are reasons that Adventists struggle with prayer. People committed to a false gospel with a fallible Jesus have no idea how to pray biblically because they have no idea how to become truly connected to God. Furthermore, Ellen White set up barriers to prayer on one hand and on the other urged opening the heart to a God who was judging them for what they fed their children.
Underneath the prayer confusion lay a deeper reality: my Adventism taught me to use the Bible as a set of moral lessons, a collection of examples to show me how to do the things that would keep me connected to Jesus. I did not understand the difference between DESCRIPTIVE passages of Scripture and PRESCRIPTIVE passages of Scripture. My Adventism had taught me that everything in the Bible was “for me”, and the examples of God’s people were supposed to inform me how to do godly things so that God would see me as serious about Him and deserving of His intervention.
Over all of this confusion, I believed that my behavior and practices were the “secret” to God’s being favorable to me. I had to stay connected to Him—and because I believed that I also had to remember to confess every sin I committed in order to be sure Jesus would mark “Pardon” beside the record of my sins in heaven (if the investigative judgment were actually true), prayer became suffocating, a never-ending demand to remember every sin, to beg for forgiveness, to beg Him to help to be good, to ask for His protection, to give me wisdom, to help me overcome my bad habits—and endless other requests that demanded I submit them to God.
In fact, my anxiety became so extreme that I feared I was losing my grip on my sanity. I simply couldn’t pray adequately to make my life peaceful. I lived in fear and worry, never able to enjoy the moment, always afraid I was transgressing against God or the people in my life, and never able to be good enough.
This week’s Sabbath School lesson is exactly the type of Adventist instruction that increased my prayer anxiety. The author has chosen Daniel, Enoch, and Moses as EXAMPLES of effective pray-ers, and the lesson, punctuated liberally with Ellen White quotes from Steps to Christ, exhorts the reader to follow these men’s examples to stay connected to God.
Yet these men are NOT “examples” for how to pray! These men’s stories reveal God’s faithfulness to His people. Each of these men was chosen by God for specific work and purposes, and their faithfulness to pray and to walk with God was not the WAY they stayed connected to God—it was the FRUIT of their connection to God. The “secret” of these great men was that the knew and TRUSTED God. There was no hint that if they failed to pray, God would not still love them. That is not the lesson we learn from these men.
What About Daniel?
The author makes the point that Daniel’s prayer was characterized by certain personal habits:
When faced with difficulty, Daniel prayed. Although the threat was against his life, he was consistent and persistent in prayer (three times every day, as was his custom), and predictable (at his open window three times a day as he prayed toward Jerusalem). His prayer was a physical act (he knelt) and focused on thanksgiving and supplication.
Daniel’s prayers recorded in his book, Daniel, are not given to show us how to structure our day. Rather they are described to show us Daniel’s trust in God that was greater than his fear of the king or of the national decree that demanded his death for his loyalty to Yahweh. His prayers grew out of his certainty that God was with him and was trustworthy.
The passage above from the lesson suggests that Daniels’ decisions and actions are what cemented his connection and communion with God. Not only was he “consistent and persistent” and “predictable”, his prayer “was a physical act”.
What?
Our physical behavior is never described in Scripture as part of what ensures our prayers will be heard and answered. The motive behind Daniel’s kneeling was that his heart, which trusted God even when he codlin’t see what He was doing, WORSHIPED Yahweh! Daniel kneeled because He worshiped God and trusted Him above all human maneuvering!
Yet this deduction, that Daniel’s physical behavior and decisions affected his prayers’ effectiveness, is what Ellen White taught Adventism. Even if people haven’t read some of her more indicting comments, her influence is still shaping Adventists’ understanding of prayer, and her sweet-sounding quotes in this lesson are more guilt-producing than helpful because most Adventists do not know how to relate to God as to one they can trust. Look, for example, at these quotations:
You should be teaching your children. You should be instructing them how to shun the vices and corruptions of this age. Instead of this, many are studying how to get something good to eat. You place upon your tables butter, eggs, and meat, and your children partake of them. They are fed with the very things that will excite their animal passions, and then you come to meeting and ask God to bless and save your children. How high do your prayers go? You have a work to do first. When you have done all for your children which God has left for you to do, then you can with confidence claim the special help that God has promised to give you.—Testimonies for the Church vol 2:362, 1870.
To those who desire prayer for their restoration to health, it should be made plain that the violation of God’s law, either natural or spiritual, is sin, and that in order for them to receive His blessing, sin must be confessed and forsaken.—Gospel Workers, p. 216.2
If we regard iniquity in our hearts, if we cling to any known sin, the Lord will not hear us; but the prayer of the penitent, contrite soul is always accepted. When all known wrongs are righted, we may believe that God will answer our petitions.—Steps to Christ, p. 95.3
Ellen taught us that our obedience, our adherence to the health message, and our consistent persistence in prayer determined whether or not we would have those prayers answered. She taught, as the lesson teaches, that constant prayer is the way to stay connected with God.
Yet this teaching completely bypasses Scriptural truth: we are only connected with God when we believe and trust in Jesus’ completed atonement for our sin and His resurrection on the third day. When we believe, we pass out of our spiritual death into eternal, spiritual life.
We are by nature dead in sin and children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). Avoiding meat and eggs, feeding our children properly, kneeling to pray, and begging God to help us be good does not connect us to God. Rather BELIEVING God is the secret to being connected. We are born disconnected—our inheritance from Adam—and only belief in Jesus results in being made alive with Jesus’ own life. It is not prayer hygiene that helps us connect with God; it is trust and belief in HIM.
Enoch and Moses: Not Examples!
Tuesday’s lesson focusses on Enoch about whom we know very little except that He walked with God and then was not. Besides the names of Enoch’s descendants, the only thing we know about the man is found in Genesis 5:22–24:
Then Enoch walked with God 300 years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he became the father of [other] sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.—Genesis 5:22–24 LSB
That’s it. Enoch walked with God, and God took him. Yet the lesson quotes Ellen from Patriarchs and Prophets in Tuesday’s lesson in which she writes flowery speculative statements about Enoch’s steadfastness in maintaining “his communion with God.” She described how he would withdraw “to spend a season in solitude”, and as he communed more and more with God, he “came more and more to reflect the divine image.” She even declares that “the ungodly behold with awe the impress of heaven upon his countenance.”
The Bible never tells us any of these details. We only know he walked with God, and God took him.
Of course, the lesson does not remark that Enoch is an example of a God-fearer who was “raptured”, or caught up, just a few generations before the destruction of the earth by a flood. Yet the lesson uses Enoch as an EXAMPLE for Adventists, claiming the authority of the prophet to imbue Enoch with all manner of behaviors that they can adopt in order to walk with God more closely. Yet all of these details are extra-biblical. They have nothing to do with being close to God. Enoch walked with God because he believed Him and honored Him.
As for Moses, the lesson spends two days describing his prayers, his intercessions for his family and for the nation, and Thursday’s lesson ends with a four-point summary we can learn “from Moses’ life when it comes to prayer and holding fast to God: his “deep love for God” and his “clear picture of His character; his boldness and faithfulness “as he held on to God through the ups and downs; his claiming and remembering God’s leading and promises, and his acceptance of God’s answers to his prayers.
Yet then story of Moses is not a story of how to pray nor a moral lesson teaching us how to intercede and hold fast and be faithful and beg God for intervention. The story of Moses is DESCRIPTIVE. It recounts the life and work of the man God chose to be the mediator of the old covenant.
None of us is asked to do the work Moses did. None of us is the mediator of a covenant of God with a nation or other group. Moses was a type of Christ, not an example for us. The accounts of Moses’ intercession are not prescriptive passages telling us how to pray!
Rather we see Moses standing between God and the nation, offering his own life in place of Israel’s lives. We see Moses mediating the law, the words of the covenant God made with Israel. We see Moses communicating with God in place of the nation who feared God and didn’t want to hear Him speak. We see Moses delivering God’s judgment on their sin yet mediating God’s provisions for them in the wilderness.
None of these things is given as examples to us of how to pray! We are to see in Moses a foreshadowing of the Lord Jesus!
Finally, the lesson did not even mention Moses’ regularly going into the presence of Yahweh in the Tent of Meeting, speaking to the Lord face to face, and emerging with God’s glory glowing from his face to the extent that he covered his own face with a veil so the Israelites would not gaze upon God’s glory reflecting off of him.
Moses bore the glory of God that was present in the old covenant—but he was the only Israelites permitted to have that close communion with God, the only Israelite permitted to personally carry the glory of God. Israel could see God’s glory in the pillar of cloud and fire, but they could not come near it nor did they carry God’s glory. Only Moses the mediator was given that privilege in the old covenant.
The lesson cannot describe this aspect of Moses’ prayer life because Adventism does not understand nor teach the biblical new covenant. Moses was a foreshadowing of the glory each individual believer on this side of the cross experiences. Listen to how Paul explains the connection of Moses’ reflection of God’s glory with those who are born again in the new covenant:
But if the ministry of death, in letters having been engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, which was being brought to an end, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be even more in glory? For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. For indeed what had been glorious, in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses [it]. For if that which was being brought to an end [was] with glory, much more that which remains [is] in glory. Therefore having such a hope, we use great boldness, and [are] not like Moses, [who] used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the consequence of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is brought to an end in Christ. But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart, but WHENEVER a person TURNS TO THE LORD, THE VEIL IS TAKEN AWAY. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, [there] is freedom. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.—2 Corinthians 3:7–18 LSB
The lesson never mentions this most important fact about Moses’ communication with God—and ours in comparison. Moses was the mediator of the old covenant prescribed by law. God communicated with the nation through Moses and appointed levitical priests to mediate His atonement and grace.
Moses’ story is a description of how God dealt with His nation Israel through the mediatory role of Moses who represented Israel to God and God to Israel. Moses stood between Yahweh and the nation. His prayers and supplications and intercessions are not examples for us to follow in order to pray better. We are to read his story and learn how faithful God is and how He dealt with sinful humanity by making and keeping His covenant promises.
How Do We Know How to Pray?
We do not primarily learn to pray by following the examples of the Old Testament greats whom God raised up for His own glory and purposes. Rather, on this side of the cross we learn how to pray by first understanding the gospel.
Natural humans cannot please God nor seek Him on their own. We are dead by nature and cannot rise above our natures. The first thing we have to deal with is this: are we believers? Have we heard and understood the biblical gospel of our salvation? Have we place our belief and trust in the Lord Jesus alone? Have we submitted to Him our beliefs? Our worldview? Have we trusted Him and His word OVER the Adventist worldview and the interpretive lens of Ellen White?
Only after we have believed and have been born again, sealed with the indwelling Holy Spirit of promise, does the question of prayer even make sense.
As an unbeliever who is held captive by the Adventist worldview, a person has one prayer that can bring relief and reveal the goodness of God: the prayer of repentance. Only when we ask Him to reveal Himself and to teach us truth will be we begin to see who He is and to know how to pray..
Unless we have been born again, prayer advice and moral examples will be utterly useless. We have to admit our need and trust Jesus alone.
Once we have believed and have been indwell by the Holy Spirit, we can see how Jesus taught us to pray. We can read Paul’s prayers, Peter’s prayers, John’s prayers, and we can begin to address God on the basis of His promises to us.
Jesus taught us as believers to call God “Our Father”. Calling God “Father” is the privilege of the born again. He gives us spiritual rebirth and adopts us, and we become joint heir with Christ when we are born again (Romans 8:14–17).
Furthermore, if we don’t know exactly HOW or WHAT to pray, we can pray God’s word back to Him. David prayed prayers we can pray. Paul prayed prayers we can pray. For example, this is a prayer I began to pray for my husband Richard and also for myself years ago:
And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in full knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and without fault until the day of Christ, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which [comes] through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.—Philippians 1:9–11 LSB
And here is one that I prayed often for our children and still pray for Richard and myself:
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that He would give you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; [and] that you, being firmly rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.—Ephesians 3:14–19 LSB
The Bible is full of prayers that we can pray for one another. Paul prayed for opportunities for the gospel and for the wisdom to speak what he ought to speak. He gave thanks for the people whom God had brought into his life. He thanked God in all things because God has promised that His promises will not fail. We can know that God will accomplish His will, even if we cannot see how or what He is doing.
In fact, sometimes I thank God for what He is doing that I cannot see in situations I cannot fully understand. Sometimes I pray that He will accomplish His will and glorify Himself in circumstances I cannot control but in which I find myself.
The lesson misses the entire point about prayer. The men of God in Scripture are descriptions of how God has been faithful to His people through the ministries of the men He appointed for unique tasks. Enoch, Daniel, and Moses are all examples of men who trusted God when circumstances were dangerous and threatening. They trusted and believed God above all the noise and threats that assaulted them.
We can develop communion with God only one way: we must believe Him. We must trust His provision for us: the death of Jesus for our sin; His burial and His resurrection on the third day demonstrating that His sacrifice was sufficient to atone for all our sin!
When we believe Him and trust Jesus’ finished atonement, we are born again and filled with the permanently indwelling Holy Spirit. God Himself. It is God Himself who connects us with Himself, and He never lets us go.
When we are spiritually alive and eternally united with our triune God through belief in the finished work of Christ and the indwelling of the Spirit of God Himself, then our prayers flow from an existing relationship. No longer are they words pleading with God to give us relief. Instead, our prayers flow from hearts that trust Him even if what we want doesn’t happen. We know He is good, just, and merciful, and we trust Him even if we don’t see the results we want.
Being what the lesson calls a “prayer warrior” is not about learning to pray with the right techniques. It is learning to trust the Lord Jesus when we have been born again, knowing that all things are for our good and His glory. We can learn to pray for the people in our lives to know Him and to trust His word and to be born again. We pray for the things the Bible commands us to pray, including for our civil leaders and church leaders.
Praying is not something we improve upon by improving our techniques. Rather, it flows from a heart that has been washed clean and made alive by faith in the Son of God.
If you have never trusted Jesus’ finished work, this is your opportunity to confess your sin to Him and to thank Him for atoning for it. Trust His death, burial, and resurrection for your justification and eternal life, and you will pass out of death into life. For the first time, you will know what it means to pray to the Lord God with the confidence of a loved son or daughter. Trust Him today, and begin living in the peace and comfort of knowing you are His child. †
This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.
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