The Test of Prosperity

Posted on April 26, 2011 by russellmckinney

Quick, name the toughest test to pass spiritually. Did you say, “Disease”? Did you say, “The death of a loved one”? Did you say, “Troubles?” Did you say, “Disappointment”? Well, there’s no doubt that none of those tests are spiritual gimmes, but would you believe that for many people the correct answer would be, “Prosperity”?

King David was such a person. When he was a young man, he was enough of a spiritual wonder that God Himself rated him as a man after God’s own heart. David was most likely still in his teens when he was anointed by the prophet Samuel as the king of Israel. Not long afterward he brought comfort to the demon-tormented Saul, the sitting king, by playing soothing music on the harp. Then came the day when he famously slew the Philistine giant, Goliath. David was on a spiritual roll!

Unfortunately, however, David killing Goliath caused King Saul to become insanely jealous of him, and that began a period of many years wherein Saul tried to kill David. Those were hard years for David, years which saw him and his band of followers living in constant hiding from Saul and his troops. Was David’s behavior perfect and above reproach during those years? No, not by a long shot. But was he always God’s man, a man whose basic spiritual center was right? Yes. And David remained that way all the way up through those years on the run, Saul’s death, David’s ascendency to the throne of Judah (the southern part of Israel), and his ascendency to the throne of all Israel seven years later.

What happened next? Oh, the story keeps getting better. As king of the land, David unified Israel’s fiercely independent twelve tribes and led Israel’s army in the conquering of Jerusalem. Then he expanded Jerusalem and built it into his capital city. A major part of that was him bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. We can truthfully say that, during those days, David’s decisions were spot on. Additionally, his army was unbeatable, all the people loved him, and God was pouring out His favor upon him. God even made a covenant with him that David’s royal line would be established forever.

You see, after all those years of struggling to formally claim his anointing as king and make the nation of Israel the greatest and most godly nation on earth, David had now “arrived.” His life was just as he wanted it to be. Overall, he had remained true to God during all his troubles and now he was living in a season of major prosperity.

Tragically, though, the next story from David’s life is the one about him having a one-night-stand with Bathsheba, the wife of one of David’s most loyal soldiers, Uriah. That one-night-stand resulted in Bathsheba getting pregnant and David then indirectly having Uriah killed and hastily marrying her to prevent a royal scandal. You see, David emphatically failed the test of prosperity.

Noted pastor Chuck Swindoll has said, “When testing comes we get purified, but when prosperity comes we get vulnerable.” How true. So tell me, is your life looking pretty good these days? Are you enjoying more ease, comfort, and worldly blessing than you have ever known? Would you call it a season of prosperity for you? Then you’d better put in extra effort to stay on top of your game spiritually. If you don’t, you might just go the way of David by forgetting the Lord in the midst of all that prosperity!

Posted in Adultery, Backsliding, Choices, Contentment, Decisions, Desires, Disobedience, Faithfulness, God's Provision, Greed, Lust, Personal Holiness, Prosperity, Sex, Sin, Temptation, Trials, Trusting In God | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wilted Roses

Posted on April 25, 2011 by russellmckinney

Somewhere along the way, I picked up a little story about a Sunday School teacher’s efforts to win one of her young students to Christ. I doubt that the story actually happened, but maybe it did. Even if it didn’t, it still makes an important point. Here’s the story.

When young Mary’s Sunday School teacher talked to her about becoming a Christian, Mary answered, “No, I don’t want to become a Christian right now.” The teacher asked, “Is there something that is preventing you from doing it right now?” Mary said, “It’s because I’m still young and want to have a good time. When I get old and settled down in life, then I’ll become a Christian.”

Several days later, Mary received a box of roses from the teacher. Mary opened the box excitedly, but her excitement soon turned to disappointment when she found that the roses were all wilted. Attempting to lift them from the box, she watched as most of their petals fell off and remained in the box.

As she stood there looking at all those dead roses, Mary became angry. She thought, “My teacher shouldn’t be sending me old, wilted roses.” Later on, however, she decided to give the teacher the benefit of the doubt by believing that the flowers had been ordered several days earlier and were supposed to have been delivered promptly. There must have been a mix up with the florist.

But that afternoon the teacher came to Mary’s house and asked her, “Did you receive the roses I sent you today?” Somewhat astonished, Mary replied, “Oh, then you did send them today. Why did you send me old, wilted roses?” The teacher said, “I did it because I thought that was the kind of gift you like.” Mary asked, “What made you think such a thing?” “Because,” said the teacher, “when I asked you to believe in Jesus as your Savior you said you would wait until you were old.”

Mary was silent for a moment but then her face lightened. She said, “Oh, I get it now. It’s wrong for me to wait until I’m old and wilted to give myself to Jesus. I should believe in Him as Savior right now and devote the rest of my life to living for Him.” “Yes,” said the teacher, “that’s the lesson I was trying to teach you by sending you those flowers.” And right then and there Mary did believe in Jesus as her personal Savior and spent the rest of her life serving Him.

Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come, and the years draw near when you say, “I have no pleasure in them.” (Ecclesiastes 12:1, N.K.J.V.)

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Be Sure to Get All the Message

Posted on April 22, 2011 by russellmckinney

But the angel answered and said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” (Matthew 28:5-6, N.K.J.V.)

Before the invention of electric telegraph machines and Morse code, messages were sent long distance by means of semaphoring. England’s version of semaphoring involved signalmen using coded visual imagery to spell out messages (letter by letter, word by word) to sentries who sat with telescopes in hand atop high buildings. The sentries would then relay the messages to those who were awaiting the information.

As one often-told story has it, in the wake of the great Battle of Waterloo in which Napoleon’s French troops took on the English troops of The Duke of Wellington, a signalman on board an English ship semaphored the first word, “Wellington,” to a sentry who was sitting atop England’s Winchester Cathedral. Then the signalman sent the next word, “defeated,” just before an eerie fog settled upon the whole area, The fog was so thick that the sentry atop Winchester Cathedral couldn’t even see the ship, let alone any visual signals being sent from it. And so, as the fog continued to disrupt communications for the next few hours, the message “Wellington defeated” spread throughout England like wildfire. That, of course, was terrible news for the nation.

At some point, however, the fog lifted just as suddenly as it had appeared, and the signalman was able to finish sending his message. And what was the entirety of the message? It was: “Wellington defeated the enemy.” With that news, England’s gloom was turned to joy.

Okay, so is this famous old story true? I have no idea. All I know for sure is that it makes for a powerful illustration in relation to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Symbolically speaking, we might say that when the dead body of Jesus was laid in that tomb after His crucifixion, a fog settled upon the land, and that fog prevented the rest of the message from being heard.

Ah, but on the third day, the fog lifted as Jesus arose victorious from the grave. That’s why, every Easter Sunday (and, really, every Sunday), we Christians celebrate the lifting of the fog and the completion of the message. Needless to say, we must never leave Christ’s body hanging dead on the cross or decomposing in the tomb, and we must always make sure that the world hears ALL the message.

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Christ’s Resurrection: Study the Facts, I Dare You

Posted on April 21, 2011 by russellmckinney

A group of lawyers once met in England to discuss the Biblical accounts of Christ’s resurrection. They were curious as to whether or not there was sufficient information regarding the resurrection to make a case that would hold up in an English court of law. When they had finished their research, they published the results of their investigation. Their conclusion was that Christ’s resurrection was nothing less than one of the most well-established facts of history!

Along the same lines, noted Christian apologist Josh McDowell came to Christ by way of some of Christian friends in college challenging him to intellectually examine the claims of Jesus. In his book, Christianity: Hoax or History?, he writes:

Finally, I accepted their challenge. I did it out of pride, to refute them. But I didn’t know there were facts. I didn’t know there was evidence that a person could evaluate.

The point I’m making is that you becoming a Christian doesn’t require you to check your brains at the door. You don’t have to believe in Santa’s flying reindeer in order to also believe that Christ rose from the dead. One is fantasy, the other is history. If you doubt the historical veracity of the resurrection, I challenge you to dive into the same serious, academic study into which those lawyers and Josh McDowell dove. I mean, after all, if the claims about Christ can’t stand up to a little honest scrutiny, they aren’t worth much anyway.

But what you’ll find is that they can stand up to such scrutiny, and that simple fact will bring you face to face with a risen Savior. At that point, the decision will be yours. Will you make Him the Lord of your life or will you reject Him? Even if you do reject Him, you won’t be able to change the fact that He really was who He said He was, and He really arose just as He said He would.

Posted in Belief, Christ's Resurrection, Easter, Salvation | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

The Origins of the Easter Holiday (post #3)

Posted on April 19, 2011 by russellmckinney

The name “Easter” is a derivation of the name “Ishtar,” “Astarte,” and “Eostre.” Each of these was a localized, cultural name for Semiramis, ancient Babylon’s so-called “queen of heaven.” In the Babylonian religion now known as “the Babylonian cult,” each year a festival for Semiramis was held in honor of her supposedly receiving her slain son, Tammuz, back from the dead. This festival is where the holiday we call “Easter” has its origins.

The Roman emperor Constantine’s decree that Christianity would be the state religion of the Roman empire eventually led to the Christianizing of Rome’s yearly festival for Semiramis and Tammuz. That’s how the holiday changed from being about the resurrection of Tammuz to being about the resurrection of Jesus. However, even though the meaning of the holiday changed, many of its trappings didn’t.

First, during this festival, people exchanged colored eggs. They did this because legend had it that Tammuz considered the egg sacred. Supposedly, he saw it as depicting the miracle of his resurrection, thus becoming symbolic of new life. This, of course, is the basis of the idea of Easter eggs.

Second, in the forty days prior to the festival for Semiramis and Tammuz, the people engaged in a time of mourning. This forty-day period was held to commemorate the forty days Semiramis reportedly mourned between Tammuz’s death and resurrection. This forty-day period is the origin for Catholicism’s forty-day observance of Lent during the forty days leading up to Easter.

Third, rabbits were part of the festival held in honor of Semiramis and Tammuz. The rabbits, with their incredible ability to reproduce, spoke of Semiramis as a fertility goddess. This set the stage for the idea of an Easter bunny.

Continuing on with that topic, the predominate spring festival in second-century Europe was a Saxon fertility celebration held in honor of the Saxon goddess Eastre (Ostara). She was the Saxon version of Semiramis, and her sacred animal was a hare (rabbit).

1,500 years later, in Germany, children would await the arrival of Oschter Haws, a rabbit who supposedly laid colored eggs in nests for children to find on Easter morning. Ultimately, this German tradition was transformed into the American “Easter bunny” after the tradition was introduced by German settlers who settled in Pennsylvania.

Now as I begin to close out this post and this series, let me say that the issue we Christians face today is keeping a right balance on all of this subject matter. Personally, I don’t believe we should shun Easter baskets or create a picket line in front of Easter egg hunts. Neither do I believe we should ignore the Easter holiday all together.

Like it or not, we can’t isolate ourselves from the world and become spiritual hermits. When our children go off to kindergarten, they want to take part in the Easter parties. When those same kids go into Walmart around Easter, they want to buy Easter baskets. How can we possibly isolate them from this kind of thing? Are we supposed to say, “No, child, those chocolate bunnies and plastic eggs might lead you to worship the Babylonian goddess Semiramis and her son Tammuz”? I think that is taking things to a wrong extreme.

Here is a good piece of advice for any parent: Choose your stands well. Be much in prayer over what to make an issue of and what to let go. The last thing you want to do is turn into a mean-spirited legalist who raises a child who can’t wait to get out from under your domineering thumb and try everything under the sun. Easter is such a fun time for kids. Don’t rob them of that fun. Instead, use Easter to teach them about the glorious resurrection of Jesus.

Oh, and by the way, if you want to read about how God is going to bring down the Roman Catholic Church during the coming tribulation period, you should read Revelation chapters 17 and 18. For reasons I’ve already explained in this series, those chapters refer to the Catholic Church as “Mystery Babylon.” Chapter 17 describes the coming destruction of the religious power of the Catholic Church, and chapter 18 describes the coming destruction of the financial power of the Catholic Church.

Study these chapters and you will see that the system of religion that was started by Semiramis way back in ancient Babylon and was ultimately merged with true Christianity will one day be brought to an end by God. For now, though, we Christians must deal with the mess that was created by that merging. That mess includes the Easter holiday.

So, despite all of Easter’s idolatrous and pagan origins, let’s just stay focused on the fact that Jesus Christ really did resurrect from the dead. Unlike the lies associated with Tammuz, the story of Christ’s resurrection is true. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Jesus is alive! And that is something that is definitely worth celebrating.

Posted in Catholicism, Easter, Easter Traditions, Idolatry, Series: "The Origins of the Easter Holiday" | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Origins of the Easter Holiday (post #2)

Posted on April 19, 2011 by russellmckinney

In my previous post, I began a short series on the origins of the Easter Holiday. That post explained the historical significance of the names “Semiramis” (the queen of heaven) and “Tammuz” as well as the idolatrous religion that was built around them. That religion began in ancient in Babylon and, over the centuries, snaked its way across the known world. Now, with this post, let’s press on further into world history and see what ultimately became of that religion.

The nation of Rome eventually rose to become the most powerful empire on earth, and the Babylonian mother-child religion (in our day referred to by many as “the Babylonian cult”) became deeply entrenched in that massive empire. This is where a Roman emperor named Constantine comes into the story.

As legend has it, Constantine had a vision that led him to convert to Christianity. Whether or not he actually got saved is highly debatable, but he at least outwardly professed to be a Christian. As emperor, he then began a process of making Christianity the state religion of the Roman empire. This was in 324 A.D., and here is where we start pulling some things together.

When Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman empire, millions of lost Romans flooded into the Christian churches. Basically, those Romans said to the Christians, “Okay, the emperor says that we are now Christians. Show us how to do Christianity.” Well, those Christians surely tried, but Rome’s old system of pagan religion, which was built around the mother-child idolatry of ancient Babylon, was just too ingrained in the people to go away. Just because an emperor forces Christianity onto his people, that doesn’t make those people truly Christian.

So, what happened? Over a period of about four hundred years, those lost Romans, mingled in with true Christians, created a bizarre mix of Christianity and Babylonian cult paganism. When all the dust was settled, this mix became what we know as the Roman Catholic Church.

Let me cite four specific examples to help explain what happened. Keep in mind now that these things didn’t happen overnight. It was a gradual process that played itself out over about four centuries.

Example #1 centers around the worship of the queen of heaven. When the lost Romans came into the Christian churches, those pagans looked for Christianity’s version of the queen of heaven and her son. But they soon learned that Christians didn’t worship the queen of heaven or her son. So, rather than give up the worship of the queen of heaven and her son, those lost Romans made Mary the queen of heaven and her son, Jesus, the equivalent of Tammuz. This is why Catholics, to this day, call Mary the “queen of heaven” and pray to her.

Example #2 centers around the idea of ongoing, blood, sacrificial offerings. Such offerings were a vital part of the Babylonian cult system of worship. Again, though, those lost Romans found out that Christianity didn’t align so well with that Babylonian system of worship. Rather than feature ongoing, blood, sacrificial offerings, Christianity considered Christ’s death on the cross to be the one, final, blood sacrifice that eliminated the need for any more blood sacrifices.

Consequently, rather than give up on the idea of continuing, blood sacrifices, those lost Romans devised a new interpretation for The Lord’s Supper. They began to say that a miracle takes place during the partaking of The Lord’s Supper. Through this miracle, the symbolism of The Lord’s Supper is done away with as the bread literally becomes the actual body of Christ and the content of the cup literally becomes the actual blood of Christ. Under this interpretation, by partaking of The Lord’s Supper, we sacrifice Jesus over and over again for our sins. This interpretation is now known as the Catholic doctrine of “transubstantiation,” and it is why Mass (Communion), which is the Catholic version of The Lord’s Supper, is so important to Catholics.

Example #3 centers around priests. The Babylonian cult system of worship prominently featured priests, but those lost Romans discovered that Christianity taught that each Christian is a priest in his or her own right. As Revelation 5:9-10 puts it, Jesus has “made us kings and priests to our God…” Instead of having priests who were in charge, the Christian churches had pastors, men who were on the same spiritual level as those in the congregations.

Nevertheless, rather than give up on the idea of having priests, those lost Romans started calling the pastors “priests” and got them to wear ornate, priestly garments. These garments were actually duplicates of the garments worn by the priests in the Babylonian cult system of worship. Furthermore, under the rules of the Babylonian cult, a person had to confess his sins to a priest before that person could be initiated into the religion. Therefore, those lost Romans began to confess their sins to the pastors, a practice which eventually led to the Catholic act of confessing one’s sins to a priest.

Example #4 centers around vestal virgins. In the Babylonian cult system of worship, a special class of women were set apart for religious service. These women were the vestal virgins. Don’t be fooled by that name, though. Even though these women were supposedly dedicated to God, they served as temple prostitutes. To understand this, you must understand that the queen of heaven was associated with fertility, and the subject of fertility brings in the act of sex.

Of course, it didn’t take the pagan Romans long to learn that the Christian churches didn’t have a class of women who were especially set apart in any way for religious service. True to form, though, rather than give up on the idea of having a class of women set apart for religious service, those lost Romans created the order of women we now call “nuns.” You see, in this case, the situation swung from one extreme (temple prostitutes who were set apart for service to God) to the opposite extreme (literal virgins who were set apart for service to God).

Alright, now as long as I am in this deep, let me go ahead and name some other examples of how the Babylonian mother-child religion was mixed with Christianity to produce Roman Catholicism. Again, these Catholic doctrines didn’t come into being overnight, but they were ultimately created:

Example #1: The Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory has its roots in the Babylonian cult. In the Babylonian cult, a priest would offer up prayers for a dead person to get that person into a better afterlife. But he would only do this after a large fee had been paid.

Example #2: The Roman Catholic practice of last rites has its roots in the Babylonian cult. In the Babylonian cult, the dying were anointed for their journey into death. This anointing was done in the name of the “lord of heaven.”

Example #3: The Roman Catholic practice of burning candles and incense to Mary has its roots in the Babylonian cult. As I mentioned in the first post from this series, Semiramis had shrines to herself placed along the roads leading in and out of ancient Babylon. Worshipers stopped at these shrines and burned candles and incense to her.

Example #4: The Roman Catholic doctrine of baptismal regeneration has its roots in the Babylonian cult. In the Babylonian cult, water baptism was one part of the initiation rites into the religion. This explains why the idea of baptismal regeneration was found in places like India and Mexico before Roman Catholic missionaries ever arrived in those places.

Example #5: The Roman Catholic doctrine of the supreme authority of the Pope has its roots in the Babylonian cult. In the Babylonian cult system, one man served as the greatest high priest. The Latin for “the greatest high priest” is Pontifex Maximus. Keep in mind now that the Roman empire was saturated with the ideas of the Babylonian cult. This explains why each Roman emperor held the title Pontifex Maximus. And what happened to that title when the emperor system was ended? That’s when the bishops of Rome began to claim the title. Today, the Pope is called “The Bishop of Rome,” but Catholicism more officially refers to him as Pontifex Maximus, “The Greatest High Priest.”

Example #6 (this one might shock you): The sign of the cross has its roots in the Babylonian cult. Believe it or not, the sign of the cross was not originally made famous by Christianity. Long before the sign ever represented Christ and His death on the cross, it symbolized Tau, which corresponds to the letter “T,” the initial for the name Tammuz. This explains why the sign has been found on many altars and temples that were built long before the time of Christ.

As further evidence that the sign of the cross has its roots in the Babylonian cult, ancient Babylon featured coins that had crosses engraved upon them. Similarly, different variations of the cross appeared in other parts of the world. Sometimes the cross had a small circle on the top of the cross. That circle identified Tammuz with the sun. Other times a full circle was drawn around the entire cross. This, again, identified Tammuz with the sun. The symbol of the cross was even used on the garments of the priests of the Babylonian cult.

So, to sum up, by the year 700 or so, true Christianity had become dwarfed by an unholy mix of paganism and Christianity, and this mix dominated Europe into the Middle Ages. It wasn’t until the age of the Protestant Reformation (led by Martin Luther) that any dent was made in the religious and political machine the Roman Catholic Church had become. And today we still deal with the fallout of a world that has been deceived and confused by Catholicism.

(More to come next post.)

Posted in Baptism, Catholicism, Confession, Easter, Easter Traditions, Idolatry, Series: "The Origins of the Easter Holiday" | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Origins of the Easter Holiday (post #1)

Posted on April 17, 2011 by russellmckinney

On the holiday we call Easter, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We must admit, though, that certain odd questions surround this holiday. For example, what do eggs have to do with an empty tomb? Or what does a bunny have to do with a risen Savior?

This post is the first in a three-post series in which I’ll explain how Christ’s resurrection came to be celebrated with the holiday known as Easter. I’ll also explain how some of the trappings of the holiday, things such as eggs and bunnies, became associated with it. My goal here is not to try to give the first and last word on this subject. I simply want to give you the core basics of it.

Now, to get us started, we need to read Genesis 10:8-10:

Cush begat Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.” And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. (N.K.J.V.)

(For the record, the land of Shinar ultimately came to be known as the kingdom of Babylon. Today we call that land Iraq.)

Okay, what you need to know is that Nimrod had a wife. Her name was Semiramis, and she was the first high priestess of idolatry. Her story is not found in the Bible, but it is certainly found in the ancient records of the history of this world. According to the story, Semiramis gave birth to a son named Tammuz, a son she claimed was miraculously conceived in her womb by way of a sunbeam. This claim led to the worship of both Semiramis and Tammuz. Semiramis became known as “the queen of heaven,” and Tammuz became known as a miraculously conceived, Savior-like figure.

As the story continues, when Tammuz grew up he was killed by a wild boar. Semiramis then wept for her dead son for forty days, after which he reportedly arose from the dead. This was a lie, of course. Either Tammuz wasn’t killed by a wild boar or he didn’t resurrect from the dead. But people believed the lie. This furthered the purported divinity of both mother and child, and the worship of them grew.

The primary symbol of this mother-child religion was the scene of the motherly Semiramis holding the infant Tammuz in her arms. Semiramis had these images set up as worship shrines along all of the major highways running in and out of Babylon. Worshipers stopped at these shrines and burned candles and incense to her.

Many Bible scholars now refer to the mother-child religion as “the Babylonian cult.” Whatever we call it, one thing is clear: From its very inception, it was Satan’s master counterfeit to the true story of Jesus. Make no mistake, there is a reason (and not a godly one) why Semiramis and Tammuz interchange so easily with Mary and Jesus.

Well, over the next 1,000 years, the religious system (cult) that began in ancient Babylon spread its influence through the known world. Would you believe that archaeologists have uncovered mother-child images from ruins as far as ancient China? These ruins date back to several centuries before the birth of Jesus.

And as the Babylonian cult system of worship spread across the known world, it took on new facets and details as the names of Semiramis and Tammuz were changed to fit the languages of the various cultures. Some of the other names for Semiramis, the queen of heaven, were: Isis, Astarte, Ashtoreth, and Ishtar. Likewise, Tammuz became known by names such as Baal and Adonis. Still, though, despite the frequent cultural changes and the changing of the names, the fundamentals of the system of religion remained the same.

Sadly, even the nation of Israel, God’s chosen nation, eventually succumbed to the influence of the Babylonian cult. As clear evidence of this, in Jeremiah 7:17-18, Jeremiah relates what God had said to him:

Do you not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven, and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger. (N.K.J.V.)

Similarly, in Jeremiah 44:15-18, we see more of this same kind of thing:

Then all the men who knew that their wives had burned incense to other gods, with all the women who stood by, a great multitude, and all the people who dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying: “As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you! But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and saw no trouble. But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.” (N.K.J.V.)

As you can see, by Jeremiah’s day the worship of the queen of heaven, Semiramis, had become common practice in Israel. The people even attributed their abundance and blessing to her! And this specific form of idolatry was actually practiced by the kings and princes of Judah in Jerusalem, where the Jewish temple stood.

Next, let’s read Ezekiel 8:13-14. Here Ezekiel says of God:

And He said to me, “Turn again, and you will see greater abominations that they are doing.” So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the LORD’s house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. (N.K.J.V.)

Remember that (according to the legend) Tammuz was killed by a wild boar, after which Semiramis wept for forty days. Those forty days ended with Tammuz’s resurrection from the dead. In honor of his resurrection, those who followed the mother-child religion observed an annual forty-day period of mourning and weeping for Tammuz. That mourning and weeping was what Ezekiel saw those women of Israel doing.

(More to come next post.)

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The One Requirement Even the Christian Must Meet for Prayer

Posted on April 14, 2011 by russellmckinney

Did you know there is a certain requirement that even the Christian must meet to ensure that God will hear his prayer? As you read the following passages (all from the N.K.J.V.), see if you can spot it:

If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear. (Psalm 66:18)

One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, Even his prayer is an abomination. (Proverbs 28:9)

Then they will cry to the Lord, But He will not hear them; He will even hide His face from them at that time, Because they have been evil in their deeds. (Micah 3:4)

But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear. (Isaiah 59:2)

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their prayers; But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. (1 Peter 3:12)

The requirement jumps right out at you, doesn’t it? Even if you are a Christian, the only way to guarantee that God will hear your prayers is to live a life of personal holiness. Obviously, I’m not talking about some unattainable sinless perfection because such perfection simply isn’t possible for born sinners such as us. But I am talking about making the confession of your sins and the actual repentance of them integral parts of your walk with Christ.

I’ve known some professing Christian singles who chose to live with members of the opposite sex rather than get married. I’ve known others who frequently got drunk on alcohol or high on drugs. I’ve known others who consistently conducted themselves in other sinful ways. Concerning these people, I’ve asked myself, “Is God even hearing their prayers?” Based upon the passages that I gave earlier, a solid case can be made to answer, “No, He’s not.”

I’m not trying to play the role of “Prayer Czar” here. God is God, and He can choose to hear any prayer that He wants to hear, regardless of how the person is living. If, however, His word means what it says, He has to draw some lines of division between the prayers of Christians who are trying to live right and the prayers of those who aren’t.

If this seems harsh, let me offer an illustration to help you better understand. Let’s say that a father has a son whose life is dominated by a lust for money and possessions. The young man wants everything the “good” life has to offer, even if it means bending a few rules or breaking a few laws to get it. Time and time again the father begs him to reprioritize his life and repent of his sins, but the son refuses.

Finally, with a broken heart, the father says, “Son, I’ve tried to help you, but I’ve grown to realize that you are dead set in your course. Therefore, the only play I have left is to separate myself from you and let you hit rock bottom. Even though you are my child and I will always love you, there comes a time when love must be tough. So, don’t call me, write me, or come see me until you have changed your ways.”

Several months later, the son gets caught embezzling from his company. Not only does he lose his job, but if he doesn’t repay the thousands of dollars he stole, he’ll be formally charged and sent to jail. He goes to see his father and says, “Dad, I’m in trouble. I owe my former company a lot of money that I don’t have. If I can’t pay it, I’ll end up in jail. Will you help me?”

How do you think that father will respond? If he responds the way the Bible says that God does, everything will hinge upon whether or not that father sees true repentance in that son. If the young man is obviously broken and ready to live a different kind of life, the father will do whatever it takes (empty his savings, take out a loan, mortgage his house) to pay the son’s debt and keep him out of jail. Conversely, if it’s clear that the young man is just a somewhat less cocky version of his same old self, complete with the same priorities, attitude, and immoral streak, the father will remain staunch in his tough love and refuse to hear the son.

Of course, when it comes to God, He has a full knowledge of His child’s situation even before the child prays, which means that He knows if sincere repentance is on display. Consequently, whatever decision He makes regarding hearing the prayer and getting involved or refusing to hear it altogether, that decision will be the correct one. You see, Christian, if God doesn’t do hear your prayer, YOU are the problem, not Him. Like any loving father, God longs to bless His children and help them when they are in trouble, but like any discerning father, He knows that blessing and helping a rebel will only lead to more rebellion. And helping a child to not only continue his or her rebellion but even increase it is just not something that God is going to do.

Posted in Children, Disobedience, Fatherhood, Forgiveness, God's Holiness, God's Love, Obedience, Personal Holiness, Prayer, Prayer Requests, Repentance, Seeking Forgiveness, Separation | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Does God Hear the Prayers of Lost People? (part 3)

Posted on April 13, 2011 by russellmckinney

The New Testament stories of God hearing the prayers of Cornelius (Acts 10:1-48) and the tax collector from Christ’s parable (Luke 18:9-14) shouldn’t surprise us. I say that because even in the Old Testament we find examples of God showing varying degrees of mercy to repentant lost people. For example, He did so for Israel’s wicked king, Ahab, (1 Kings 21:17-29) and for the citizens of Nineveh (Jonah 3:1-10). Admittedly, no mention is made in those stories about either Ahab or those Ninevites actually praying, but the point is that in both cases God was quick to show mercy. In the case of the Ninevites, a good argument can even be made that they actually got saved.

One Old Testament character who we can say with some certainty did get saved was Manasseh, Judah’s most notorious king. His sins were so great that God caused the Assyrians to capture him as a prisoner of war. They put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles, and transported him to Babylon (2 Chronicles 33:10-11). But there, in captivity, Manasseh humbled himself before God and prayed (v.12-13).

And did God hear those prayers? Yes. 2 Chronicles 33:13 says that God “…received his entreaty, heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom” (N.K.J.V.). Furthermore, that verse concludes by saying: “Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.” Once he was back in Jerusalem, Manasseh then evidenced his newfound salvation by removing all the false idols from the city, repairing the altar of the Lord, offering up sacrifices, and commanding all Judah to serve the Lord God (2 Chronicles 33:15-16).

In addition to the Bible’s passages in which God hears the prayers of lost people, there are some other passages that speak of His general hearing of all of mankind. Consider the following verses (all from the N.K.J.V.):

For He hears the cry of the afflicted. (Job 34:28)

For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You. (Psalm 86:5)

He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matthew 5:45)

Oh, and there’s something else that we should consider in this whole debate about whether or not God hears the prayers of people who aren’t Christians: the prayers of children who are under the age of accountability. Are we going to say that God doesn’t hear those prayers simply because those kids aren’t old enough to understand what it is to be “born again”? Is every child who prays the words, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep…” just mouthing meaningless words? Do the words “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food…” fall on deaf ears? You see, when you get dogmatic and say, “God only hears the prayers of born-again Christians,” you take in more territory than you realize.

So, where does all this leave us? Well, it leaves me with four statements. By heeding each of these, I feel that we can keep a God-approved balance on this whole subject.

1. It is undeniable that only a born-again Christian can pray in God’s ideal way.

2. Since God the Father is completely sovereign over all creation, He can choose to hear prayers even if they aren’t prayed by born-again Christians.

3. Whether the individual be a lost person or a child under the age of accountability, God will choose to hear the prayer of one who is genuinely seeking Him in a humble, especially repentant, way.

4. Even with the first three statements in mind, we would be foolish to emphasize the exceptions over the rule, and the rule is: By and large, prayer is the privilege of the person who has a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Posted in Brokenness, Children, Grace, Humility, Mercy, Prayer, Salvation | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Does God Hear the Prayers of Lost People? (part 2)

Posted on April 12, 2011 by russellmckinney

In Luke 18:9-14, we find another example of a lost man who, like Cornelius, had God hear his sincere prayer. His prayer is what some call “the sinner’s prayer.” Actually, the man isn’t a literal person but is, instead, merely a fictional character in one of Christ’s parables. Nevertheless, we can use him to make the point that God can, if He chooses to do so, hear the prayers of lost people.

In the parable, a Jewish Pharisee and a Jewish tax collector go to the Jerusalem temple to pray. Obviously, Jesus’ intent was to describe two polar opposites as His subjects for the parable. The Pharisees were Israel’s religious elite, men who were all about keeping Judaism’s laws to the strictest standard. Their lives were one big obsession over not committing any outward sins. They genuinely believed they were working their way into salvation by their fanatical keeping of God’s commandments. They simply did not understand or care to understand that no amount of good works can produce salvation (Ephesians 2:8-9).

The tax collectors, by contrast, were men who earned a living by collecting taxes for the Roman government. Rome required a prescribed amount of taxes and was satisfied as long as it got that amount, and that left the tax collectors unregulated to collect excess taxes in order to make money for themselves. As might be expected in a setup like that, the greed of many of the tax collectors ran rampant and the whole profession was notorious for its immoral business practices.

To make matters worse for the tax collectors who were Jewish, their fellow Jews despised them for hiring themselves out to Rome, the enemy who ruled over Israel. Consequently, in the eyes of a self-righteous Jewish Pharisee, a Jewish tax collector was in the same social class as harlots and drunkards. From the Pharisee’s point of view, such people were all vile, wicked “sinners.”

So, in Christ’s parable the two men come to pray. First, the Pharisee launches into his prayer, which is really just an egotistical description of how divinely devout he is. Jesus describes the scene as follows:

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men – extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.'” (Luke 18:10-12, N.K.J.V.)

The Pharisee’s prayer certainly sounds religiously impressive, doesn’t it? I mean, all that talk about fasting twice a week and giving those tithes must have impressed God, right? Nope. Truth be told, what the Pharisee said wasn’t even a true prayer. As Jesus said, the Pharisee only prayed “with himself.”

Standing far away from the Pharisee is the tax collector, who doesn’t even consider himself worthy to pray in the same vicinity of the Pharisee. He doesn’t consider himself worthy to look upward to heaven, either. Jesus describes his prayer as follows:

“And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:13-14, N.K.J.V.)

Jesus surely stunned His listeners by saying that the tax collector left the temple justified while the Pharisee didn’t. Such a thought went against everything the Jewish mind had been taught to believe! A tax collector praying a more acceptable pray than a Pharisee? How could such a thing be possible? Even more than that, the Greek word the passage translates as “justified” is dikaioo. That’s the same word the New Testament uses in numerous passages to describe the justification that comes as the result of salvation.

Therefore, like Cornelius from my previous post, the tax collector in Christ’s parable stands as an example of God hearing the prayer of a lost person. While it might be argued that the man being Jewish and praying in the temple was evidence that he was already saved before he prayed, the words of his prayer have long been taken to mean that he was lost. Furthermore, the fact that he was still employed as a tax collector — unlike Matthew (Levi), who quit the profession when he got saved — is ample evidence to indicate that he was lost. Along the same lines, it’s probably not a coincidence that Luke, in the very next chapter of his gospel, gives us the story of Zacchaeus, a real-life Jewish tax collector who needed to experience salvation (Luke 19:1-10). Based upon all this, I feel safe in saying that the tax collector in Christ’s parable was a lost man whose prayer got heard by God and culminated in the man’s salvation.

Posted in Brokenness, Grace, Humility, Mercy, Prayer, Salvation, Series: "Does God Hear the Prayers of Lost People?" | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment