THE KING'S COMMANDMENT WAS - ANSWER HIM NOT Isaiah 36:21
Sometimes things happen, and we quickly see it is the Lord’s hand, so we watch to see what he is intending..
This weekend, besides mother’s day, is Syracuse University graduation ceremonies, and our B&B’s busiest weekend of the year. All the area hotels fill up, to where the Syracuse Marriott, the priciest in town, was able to let rooms to the tune of $1800 per night, on Friday and Saturday. Our B&B prices are far more reasonable, but we still raise them to reflect the high season event. Yet, in 6 seasons here, the house always filled up well in advance - EXCEPT for this year. We had TWO rooms left. Hmmmm..
Then the pastor called.
A local pastor.. (That I previously wrote in this series, about having visited him.) had two other pastors coming into town for a conference, and, surprise surprise, he couldn’t find available accommodations anywhere. (Not that any reasonable person could afford anyway.)
Bingo!
We not only let him have our 2 open rooms for their 6 day stay- we gave him our regular rates and 1 room for free. He saved a couple of thousand dollars, and was understandably thrilled. The 2 pastors showed up on Tuesday.
I had suspected that the unusual availability of the 2 bedrooms had something to do with the Lord wanting the pastors to stay here. Whether they would bless us, or we would bless them.
This idea was proven to be the case, He wanted them here. But the results were not what I anticipated, nor enjoyed, as with other brothers & sisters in Christ who have stayed here..
Conversations with pastors are understandably different than with laymen. You talk about Christian things, including the Scriptures, the days we’re living in, the covid church closings, and - in THIS house -> healing and deliverance. In one conversation it came out that one of the 2 pastors had 2 sons, each of which was afflicted. One has a recent affliction, the other has for many years had an affliction.
So, if you know me, you know I offered insights from the Bible, and my experiences, relative to deliverance, that I thought would be helpful and a blessing to the hearers.
But... the pastor with the afflicted sons is Baptist.
What’s wrong with that?
There are Christian denominations that rotate on an axis of concepts that they hold indisputable and unalterable. Water baptism is theirs.
Now, this post is not going to be about the Biblical truth that water baptism was only a Biblical ‘shadow of good things to come’1, and that water baptism was replaced on Pentecost by the FIRE baptism2 - the baptism that unleashed POWER on the Church of God, that only Jesus had walked in previously.. But it serves to point this out.
Holding fast to water baptism symbolizes a rut- a place that God’s people were supposed to grow up from and advance into → POWER. There is no power in John’s baptism - which was a ‘baptism unto repentance’, Thus there is, generally speaking, little manifestation of power in churches that teach water baptism. It’s like teaching circumcision or animal sacrifice. It ENDED on Pentecost.
The late great Thurmond Scrivner, a man with a powerful deliverance ministry, had to leave the Baptist church in order to practice as he did.
So, I thought I was getting 'WHY' the Lord sent these men to my house. My heart went out to the man for his family, and I wanted earnestly to demonstrate for him that even after SO many years of his son’s illness - HEALING WAS AVAILABLE. He would be thrilled.. right?
My preferred way to talk of Bible things, is to speak from the hip, and let the holy spirit show me what to say, and in this case, remind me of testimonies to recount. I did this before the both pastors while they drank coffee yesterday morning, Friday.
The FIRST CLUE that my words were bouncing off brick walls came when the pastor - the father of the 2 afflicted males - looked at me, with a pasted smile - and made a snarly reference to - ‘People who are the heroes of their own stories’.
His barely veiled slight, came as a shock, and communicated to me that my hope of encouraging him, by recounting some of the wonderful testimonies of deliverance I’ve been involved in, was seen, much to my chagrin, as bragging, rather than helpful. It was also enlightening for me. This man would be no easy sell.
Should I even continue to try?
He continued after that remark, telling me that his church had prayed for his son for years to no avail. (Ergo... What did I THINK I could add to such a LONG TERM effort on the part of SO many venerable people?) His behavior - pretending to be the picture of humility, was rather a pit of hubris - which deflects both enlightenment and grace.
Then he asked me rhetorically, ‘Have you ever had to stand for years next to a mother crying over her afflicted child’?
(I’m paraphrasing a bit, as I try to recollect the precise words he used). The answer that (I didn’t give him) would have been - ‘No, I have never needed to stand for years next to anyone crying over an afflicted anyone, because - as the woman in the Virginia drycleaner whose husband had a cracked open skull, I would pray like Elijah - as I did for that man and close his skull. But I didn’t say anything. I felt stayed to do so.
(What I write here isn’t hubris. It’s what Jesus EXPECTS his Church to do. 3 His greatest frustration was not men who COPIED him, but men who didn't.)
THEN it struck me WHY.. 2 days before these men came to stay.. the Lord took me to a book, and had me RE-READ it. (This is for your benefit too, because the book contains a LIONS Share of GODLY INSIGHTS into what makes SOME Prayers effective, and others not. It’s not a long book, so reading the whole thing again took about an hour.
It’s called ‘Touching the Invisible’, by Norman Grubb.4
(The book was hidden in a box in my garage for some years. I was LED to visit the garage (a place I rarely go) and open said box, and find said book, and bring it to my room to read.)
As I read it, this time I was drawn to reflect on something the author wrote about ‘effective’ vs ‘unavailing prayer’. (Page 12 & 13). Here is what Norman Grubb wrote:
‘We had, however, begun to observe another emphasis in the prayer lives of the men of the Bible. They first discovered whether their prayer was God’s will; then, having received assurance on this point, they prayed, PERSISTED, and DECLARED THINGS TO COME - WITH ALL THE AUTHORITY OF GOD HIMSELF.’ [emphasis mine]
‘We saw this in countless cases.’ Grubb continues… ‘Elijah suddenly appears on the scene and announces, “As the Lord God of Israel liveth, there shall not be dew nor rain these years but ACCORDING TO MY WORD’.
(Haha, I often stop the rain too! In fact, it’s supposed to rain here on Monday, but IT WON’T according to MY WORD - because our roof repairs here, will continue till Tuesday. Mark my words. And this sort of thing is PLEASING to Him, with whom we have to do.) (POSTSCRIPT: The Roofers are PAINTING today in one more day of PERFECTLY DRY SUNNY WEATHER. Prayer never fails).
Grubb continues:
‘And James tells us that ‘THIS was EFFECTUAL PRAYING! The contrast struck us between Hezekiah - a man of sincere but ‘UNAVAILING PRAYER’, and Isaiah, a man of ‘EFFECTUAL PRAYER’.
This minister visiting us, could certainly be called ‘sincere’. But in his shackles to his religious calling, and his 50+ years in ministry, he refuses to entertain the possibility that there is something he needs to learn, or do differently.
That conversation over coffee hit the dirt like a lead balloon.
Later that day, I forwarded 2 emails to the man, that I hoped would be encouraging. The first email, he responded, “Thank you for your love’. No reaction to the content, otherwise.
The 2nd Email, I wrote in yet more detail. Then let it go at that for the day. I had not opened my emails to see if there was any reply when I got up this morning.
THIS MORNING THE LORD WEIGHED IN.
Before anyone else is up, I get up, and set out coffee and self serve breakfast for the guests. Then depending on how I feel, I either return to bed (!) or - as I did today, I went out to the porch with my own coffee, grabbing a Bible on the way out the door.
We have 35 Bibles in this house. I have different notes in all of them. No 2 are alike. But when I sat and prayed and then opened the Bible, this one had a marker in it, which took me directly to Isaiah 36, where verse 21 was CIRCLED in dark ink:
‘THE KING’S COMMANDMENT WAS -‘ANSWER HIM NOT’. Isaiah 36:21
I said, ‘Lord’ Is this your will in this situation? Can you confirm that please?
(One thing I never do, is take an ‘impression’ and run with it. I always ask for a 2nd witness to ‘establish’ what the Lord wishes to teach me on any point. And, assuming the point is his, HE ALWAYS PROVIDES IT.)
Christ led my eyes back to the Bible. I found myself reading in the BIBLE the VERY SAME RECORD that I had read before the 2 men even arrived, in Norman Grubb’s Book! I was being led to read Isaiah 37, the record where the prayers of Hezekiah were weak, blubbery, and of no effect! Compared to the prayers of Elijah that were COMMANDING and EFFECTIVE.!
God put His watermark on the point.
He was weighing in on the man’s refusal to learn that his son was still sick, after all those years, because of his REFUSAL to be taught., OR TO TEACH HIS SON. Obviously to the Lord’s chagrin.
Maybe the minister objected to a woman, and not a minister at that.. being God’s choice of messenger?
Perhaps, but then he needs to learn the lesson of Na’aman.
Na’aman was also a proud man, who needed deliverance - but Na’aman was second guessing HOW God would DO IT. He was MORTIFIED when Elijah sent a ‘helper’ rather than appearing in person, and that the instructions were to BATHE in the Jordan! Like some Christians to this day, Na’aman had his own religious illusions about how healing and miracles are done.
Na’aman finally got his deliverance when he humbled himself and did the Word of the Lord.
Is this a sticking point for people? Historically YES. As the Lord pointed out to the infuriated listeners - in Elijah's day, ONLY Naaman and a foreign woman were ever healed. NONE from Israel, which is why the Pharisees became apoplectic! 5
Friend, this is what pride does. It keeps men from receiving from God.
The pastors son has been sick for many years. So, was another Church leader who visited here, and a street evangelist, yet both left ultimately with their deliverance.
But the word of the Lord to me was clear -‘THATS IT. Say no more’.
So, today when I saw both ministers, I was my usual cheery self, poured coffee, and complimented the weather.
Victoria
Hebrews 10:13
Acts 1:5 5 For John truly baptized with water; BUT YE SHALL be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
Matthew 17:17 ‘Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.’
And Mark 4:39 & 40 ‘And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?’ NOTE THE FOS ‘EROTESIS’ IN BOTH VERSES.
A wonderful man of God who served in the Congo alongside the missionary C.T. Studd
Luke 4:23 - 30 ‘And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. 24 And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.25 But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land;26 But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.27 And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.28 And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,29 And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.30 But he passing through the midst of them went his way,