FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
THE COVID PANDEMIC, THE INTERNET, AND PRAYER
This is a personal interlude in our running topic, as the title already suggests. It’s definitely not off-tangent nor non sequitur but rather parenthetical to it. Let me lead it off with this quote from Brian Stelter of CNN, which caught my eye as I made my quick morning scan of internet news on my smart phone. He wrote:
“On the internet, everything looks the same….Warping the public discourse, creating less space for the big stories and the big debates that we need to have.”
And I quickly add, “not only warping the public discourse”merely, “but creating less space” for God Almighty’s last merciful warnings of the everlasting gospel, contained in the most comprehensive and all-embracing messages of the Third angel of Revelation to the churches and earth’s inhabitants, before the only door of probation closes forever!
I have a rule which I now follow carefully (and recommend to you) which is based on the Bible principles of how and why we must “eat and digest the manna” of God’s Word, specially the joined-at-the-hip prophecies of Daniel and Revelation. The final edition of the gospel is not in Psalms or Proverbs, or Parables or the synoptic Gospels, not even the he epistles of the New Testament but in Prophecy!
The first angel “flying in the midst of heaven” with his message, meaning covering the whole earth, is introduced as “the EVERLASTING GOSPEL” announcing that “His hour of judgment has come,” imploring and warning all to worship the Creator of heaven and earth, as Adam and Eve worshipped Him on the day He rested from His completed, perfect work of creating. He blessed, sanctified, set apart, and gave this day a proper name, the Sabbath.
This rule is:
Never interpret prophecy by current events (particularly in these last days, as portrayed in the internet and digital platforms). Instead, interpret current events by the Bible’s prophecies (of which you must first be knowledgeable of, through diligent, continuous healing and progressive study, not merely in cadence with the drumbeat of the times, but ahead of it, as it was divinely-designed to precisely do for God’s faithful people).
This is how I have learned to discipline and allow my “feet” to be guided, when scanning the internet for late-breaking news headlines and stories—-which to quickly ignore, or what may be worth the time and effort to check out.
To this moment, I haven’t YET seen any real need to open any social media accounts. I will do so ONLY if and when unmistakably moved by the Holy Spirit, as experience has taught me. How many lies, false narratives, misinformation and disinformation-by-design, wild Bible-contradicting conspiracy theories that shockingly have gained a mysterious, bewitching, strangle-hold on, of all people, politicians, lawyers, law-makers, and worse although also prophesied, church-attending, praying, Bible-reading Christians! God have mercy!
I have resisted from the beginning, suggestions from well-meaning friends to go on social media. Thus far, I am not missing anything essential! And yet grave concerns of responsible members of society are decrying over the long, sinister, corrupting tentacles of another even deadlier “pandemic” that is steadily corralling the minds, actions, and aspirations of both young and old alike, as has never been witnessed before.
Influences and influencers of all stripes are leading unnumbered millions father away from the testing truths for the last days into a dark and bleak spiritual wilderness, another kind of “black hole” on earth, not in deep space, where the silent and unspectacular, yet salvation-giving light and “still small voice” of the Holy Spirit is at once blocked and silenced at the only entrance to the conscience of man.
By the spiritual template and testing standard of “the law and the testimony” (Isa. 8:20), the word of truth of the living Word, revealed through the written Word, “It is written, is the only safe way we can negotiate through the hazy maze of Babylonian confusion in these last days.
This includes how to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” as we move among “wolves in sheep’s clothing,”discerning in alacrity and dispatch how, where, and when to “launch” into the swirling waves of the internet’s ocean of information and disinformation—-lest Eve-like, our eyes be dazzled, ears titillated by countless lilting voices, and our imaginations fired up to activate the brain powers to move the fingers, Ouija board-like, to follow the invisible lead, entranced, mesmerized, and ensnared by Satan’s unnumbered schemes.
Satan, working desperately “knowing his time is short,”’ through his evil spirits and wicked human agencies, working in tandem, knows where, when, and what our weaknesses and vulnerabilities are, even if we think we are doing things under the cloak of secrecy in the darkest part of the night. We forget that “the night has a thousand eyes”closely watching our every move. And they are not high-resolution, military-grade surveillance cameras!
Nehemiah, like Daniel (or vice-versa) knew the science of answered prayer. He followed the principle enunciated where God said He has “a time and place for every purpose.” When faithfully followed, God promises to “make all things beautiful in His and it’s TIME” and His WAY.
I recall our present lesson on how Nehemiah engaged in a LONG PRAYER period. Lasting four months, seeking and ascertaining God’s will, and claiming God’s promises since certain requirements of God had already been complied with. All these were the preparations leading up to the SHORT PRAYER at the precise moment of opportunity, which I call the CRISIS PRAYER OF A COMMANDMENT-KEEPIiNG SAINT.
As prophecy clearly reveals, it is certain that we are facing “more and more calamitous and greater disasters” as we near the final crisis. Instead of cringing in fear, discouragement, self-pity, and murmuring like the Israelites, we should rather take all these in the spirit of the working “faith of Jesus”’and view them as “special opportunities” to upgrade our prayer life and practices by “examining and proving ourselves”—not others “whether we are really in the faith” or just endlessly discussing or even pontificating upon it, to no avail.
Remember that Christ’s life of power was inextricably intertwined with His life of prayer. As the Life giver in the flesh, every breathe He took while on earth—with all the weaknesses and passions but not the pollutions of our fallen human nature—was both a prayer and a breathe of life!
This is what is meant when “He breathed His spirit”’upon the 70 disciples” before His death, resurrection, and ascension whence He sent the Holy Spirit, His “other Comforter” who descended upon the 120 disciples in the upper room, in the appearance not of “burnished-color dove,” but of “cloven tongues of fire.”
The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Godhead or the “Trinity” which is not a Biblical term but used by the churches to describe the Godhead, which is a Biblical term used in the epistles of Paul.
The Holy Spirit is not merely a Spirt “spirit” or “the breathe of Christ” as some who teach the fearful, Holy Spirit-grieving blasphemy that there is only the Father and Son that make up the Godhead!
Christ, our Pattern Man’s life was the quintessential model of a living, walking Prayer itself. Enoch’s life came closest to it; and he was translated to heaven without tasting the first death, as the very special reward for such mortals, even before receiving the “crown” that is eternal life.
Like Daniel, Nehemiah and the righteous men and women of the Bible, who “lived, moved, and had their being” constantly working for God through crisis after crisis, he knew how, when, and what to pray for——LONG periods of prayerful seeking of God’s will, in preparation for both revealed and therefore anticipated crisis to come, or unanticipated and unknown ones, and then the SHORT but “effectual fervent PRAYER of a righteous man that avails much,” at the precise moment of the crisis. This is also the more comprehensive explanation of what it means “to pray without ceasing.”
If for any reason whatsoever you may find yourself unable to pray as you used and ought to do in the morning, before taking on the “evils of the day,” here’s a short one I recommend from the pen of inspiration:
“Take me O Lord, as wholly Thine. I lay all my plans at Thy feet. Use me today in Thy service, Lord. Abide in me and let all my work be wrought in me.” Amen.
To be continued. Bless all, NMF
