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Prayer and God’s Decree
Why do Christians pray? If God is sovereign, and He is executing His plan according to His Kingly freedom, then why does it matter if we pray?
After all, God’s ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8), so it’s not as if He needs us to instruct Him as to what He should do. When we pray, we are bringing our tiny perspective to a God that knows everything about every inch of the Universe (Job 38). If I’m praying that my kid will win his basketball game and a Christian parent in the opposite bleacher is praying the same for his kid on the opposing team, then are the prayers we send to heaven competing like our kids compete on the court?
If you really think about it, whenever people pray, could you say that they are actually competing with God? When Christians pray, are we trying to convince an all-wise King to do something that He hadn’t already planned to do without us to advise Him? Is our will in a given situation competing with God’s will? Why ask things of a God who already knows what to do better than we do?
The question becomes sharper when we consider that God is already (and always) more loving than we are. Goodness and love are at the core of His being, so it is not as if He needs us to convince Him to be better than He is. In prayer, we bring our limited goodness to a God who defines the very meaning of love (1 John 4:8). Wouldn’t we do better to simply be quiet and watch Him unfurl the events of this world, including everything that impacts each of our lives?
In view of God’s sovereignty, why pray? Before answering, let us establish the premise of the question, namely, that God is absolutely sovereign over all things.
There are systems of philosophy that do not begin with this premise. In fact, most do not. Because we all experience ourselves making choices, choices that have consequences and for which we are responsible, many philosophers assume that our creaturely will is truly free. God has not decreed everything that comes to pass. Man is master of his own destiny. This view that asserts the autonomous will of man, not the autonomous will of God, is actually a bedrock of almost every religious or philosophical system on earth. There is, accordingly, a strong tradition within Christianity that vigorously upholds the free will of man. This Christian free-will tradition often goes by the name of Arminianism, named after a Dutch professor of theology who died in 1609, but it goes as far back as the early church fathers.
The contrasting view, called Calvinism, named after the man who (along with Luther) was a primary leader of the Protestant Reformation, also goes back to the early church fathers (like Augustine) and, I would argue, the Apostles and Prophets themselves. Calvinism is known for its assertion that God (not man) elected a particular people before the foundation of the world, predestining them to receive forgiveness of sin and eternal life. But this view of how God saves according to His sovereign choice is only part and parcel of a larger assertion, namely, that all things happen according to God’s sovereign decree. So, whether it be in the salvation of a sinner—our most pressing concern, or any other matter whatsoever, Calvinism asserts that God has decreed everything that will come to pass.
Is Calvinism biblical? Is it true? The answer to these two questions is necessarily the same. And yes, the Bible teaches that God has a sovereign Decree.
“The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations” (Psalm 33:11). The certainty of God’s plans are juxtaposed in the preceding verse to the plans of the hearts of man, which are far from certain, far from autonomous. “The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples” (Psalm 33:10). There is only room for one absolutely free will in the Universe, and according to the Scriptures, it does not belong to us.
Even the most wicked scheme that humankind has seen through to completion was not outside the foreordained plan of God. According to the willful decisions of Pontius Pilate, Herod, the Jews, and the Romans (each one operating according to the individual desires of their own hearts), the only innocent, the infinitely valuable, the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ, was hung to die upon a cross. Although they had creaturely wills that chose according to their desires, they did “whatever
The Westminster Confession adequately summarizes the Bible’s teaching. “God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.”
If this view of God’s sovereignty is allowed, established by Psalm 33:10 and Acts 4:28, as it could be by Genesis 50:20, Isaiah 10, and a host of other passages, then it raises questions about prayer, to which we now return. If God already has a sovereign decree, then why pray?
First, It is important to realize that God ordains prayer. That is to say, He commands and prescribes it. The so-called “phone-number of God (33-3)”, taken from that famous verse, Jeremiah 33:3, is a simple and direct command to pray, notwithstanding the complexities of our theological understanding. “Call to me and I will answer you.” The command is clear. What’s more, the prescription is accompanied by a promise. We are to pray, and here is what He will do: answer. So, communication between the Holy One and His creatures is not only allowed, not only encouraged, but even commanded, and rewarded.
As we move into the New Testament, we find that the promises related to God answering prayer not only remain, but even seem to be intensified. Jesus said, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13). And, “whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith” (Matthew 21:22). And, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). And, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7). These are amazing promises indeed. All the more reason to simply obey His command. God has ordained that we should pray.
Second, God ordains means as well as ends. When our minds try to reconcile the above promises of Jesus with the aforementioned teaching on God’s sovereign decree, it won’t be long before we feel like our minds are getting twisted in knots. Since I cannot fully untangle the knot for myself, let alone for anyone else, allow me to stop trying after suggesting one key point that has helped me at many turns. That is, God ordains the means as well as the ends.
It shouldn’t surprise us that God already knew everything that we would pray even before we ask. After all, He exists outside of time. And, as hundreds of predictive prophecies recorded in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament indicate, He knows the future as certainly as He knows the past. By contrast, we are time-bound creatures. So, we live in a cause-and-effect continuum whereby certain choices we make result in certain outcomes. But for God, what we see as means (often things in our present) and what we see as ends (often things in the future) are simply settled knowledge in His mind, known by Him because He has ordained them both. So, from our perspective, we pray and see a desired outcome unfold. But for God, He knew what we would pray (no matter what it is) and how He would answer. Both the means and the ends have been ordained.
Third, and finally, God deals with us according to His prescriptive will, not His secret will. This point is crucial, because although we are told that God has a secret will (a decree that governs the Universe), we are not told what that decree is. To us it is a secret. We are not accountable to it. We are not judged by it. We are not expected to live by it. Rather, we are called to live according to His revealed (prescriptive) will.
“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29).
Recall that Peter spoke of two wills in God, one prescriptive and the other secret. “For this is the will of God” (Peter speaks prescriptively) “that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people” (1 Peter 2:15). “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will” (Peter speaks of God’s secret will) “than for doing evil” (1 Peter 3:17). Peter understood that God has two wills, or two kinds of willing.
One will of God is prescribed for us. That is what we have revealed to us in the Bible in the form of commands. God commands, for example, all men everywhere to repent of sin (Acts 17:30) and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ (John 3:16). This is the will of God by which we must live. And it includes the prescription to pray. The other will of God, like a larger circle that holds the prescriptive will of God like a circle within it, is secret. By definition, we cannot know it. So, we are not to live as if we can know it. So, for example, we are to broadcast the gospel far and wide, and indiscriminately. Why? Because we do not know the identity of the elect.
When it comes to prayer, then, we are to pray according to the prescriptive will of God. We should call on God for certain things because He commands us to ask for them. And we should fashion our prayers according to what the Bible reveals of His character and concern. For example, we should ask for things that are in keeping with the compassion and mission of Jesus Christ, as He is revealed to us on the pages of Scripture. Our job is not to try and figure out the secret will of God, but rather, to pray according to biblical concerns.
In conclusion, there is no contradiction between God’s having a sovereign decree and our responsibility to go before Him in prayer. If in our minds we allow Him to be who He is (the sovereign Ruler of the universe), we will find ourselves in no way restrained from offering meaningful prayers to Him. We will do so because we are told to do so. We will do so because we have a category whereby He is able to actually answer them while at the same time remaining sovereign and unchanged by them. Simply allow the Bible to define its own categories and live according to the jurisdiction which we have been given. He runs the Universe. We are called to pray.
Prayer is one of the most important aspects of our walk with Jesus. Even as we hear from Him in His Word, we need to take time to talk to Him from our hearts. Our theology should be God-centered enough that we avoid the trap of thinking that He needs our prayers to accomplish His plans. Yet our walk with Christ should be child-like enough that we avoid the trap of thinking we know more than we do. Is anyone sick? Let’s pray for healing. Are some lost? Let’s pray God brings them to Himself. Is there a church that wants to be used mightily by the Sovereign King? Let us join together and call upon His name in fervent prayer, asking that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
The Meat of Our Gospel
I took a class on evangelism in Seminary in which the Professor—Dr. Doug Cecil—used a helpful analogy to describe the gospel that we are to preach. He likened the gospel to a hamburger, which, he said, has 3 essential elements. According to the analogy, the bottom bun of the gospel is sin, because unless people come to know their problem of sin, they cannot know their need for the Savior. Says Dr. Cecil, you cannot preach the gospel without the bottom bun of sin. The top bun is faith, because that is what justifies. The gospel brings people to repentant believing, or else it does not save. If we do not call for faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, our preaching is missing the top bun. Now, there are many other condiments and toppings that rightly belong in the gospel, but one more thing is necessary to actually have a hamburger. You have to have the meat. The meat of the gospel, according to Dr. Doug Cecil (and I agree with him) is substitutionary atonement.
Substitutionary atonement includes the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, but focuses especially on the meaning of His death. To be sure, we must declare that Jesus is the Son of God, and by that mean that He is God in flesh. We must declare the facts of His having been crucified and buried, and that He rose from the dead. But unless we declare the meaning of His death, our gospel is missing the meat, or the substance, that makes it what it is.
Substitutionary atonement is a theological term that simply means that Christ died as a substitute for believers, taking the penalty that we deserve upon His shoulders. He bears the wrath of God against our sin, not against His own, for He, in fact, had none. He substitutes for us—the Bridegroom for His bride, the Shepherd for His sheep, the King for His subjects, the God-man for the fallen children of Adam who are made by this one sacrifice to be the children of God.
The Scriptures clearly teach that substitutionary atonement is the core of the gospel.
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:1-4, emphasis mine)”
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18, emphasis mine)
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21, emphasis mine)
“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:4-6)
Substitutionary atonement is the core of the gospel and has been regarded as such throughout the ages by the true Church, but we live in a day of rampant apostasy. Even supposedly evangelical churches, like the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, are hosting conferences and purveying teachings that present the God who substitutes His Son to propitiate His own wrath against sinners as a “Monster God” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdYMO2ZBboc). False teachers (like Brian Zahnd in this “Monster God debate”) decry the very meat of the gospel under the cover of supposedly evangelical leaders like Mike Bickle (pastor of IHOP). Although, in the debate, Dr. Michael Brown was also given a voice to herald the truth, the witnesses to the spectacle were divided in their assessment of who spoke the truth. And so it goes with deception. It tickles the ears and appears right to undiscerning minds who think according to the flesh rather than according to the Spirit.
The problem of apostasy in the church and unbelief among the peoples of earth is something that we cannot fix. Only God can change a heart of stone to a heart of flesh that is able to receive the teaching of the gospel. Nevertheless, God has ordained that the gospel would go forward and convert sinners by means of preaching. And it is our job to communicate the meat of gospel with clarity.
So then, armed with a clear understanding of the gospel—sin, substitutionary atonement, faith—let us go forth preaching this message to the ends of the earth. With Paul, let’s “pray that I will proclaim this message as clearly as I should” (Colossians 4:4). With Dr. Doug Cecil, let’s go out preaching with a hamburger on our brains. The top bun is sin. The bottom bun is faith. And the meat is substitutionary atonement. Our thinking about the gospel sharpened by this analogy, let us call sinners to faith in the loving God (Romans 8:32) who did not spare His one and only Son, but gave Him up for us all.
We Plead The Blood
In a law court, the accused stands in danger of punishment. Facing accusation, the defendant might well plead guilty and accept the punishment. Or the defendant could plead innocent and fight the charges. In the course of a trial, sometimes, rather than testify, a person will plead the fifth and exercise their right to remain silent. We hear all these pleadings in a court of law.
In evangelical circles, it is not uncommon to hear another plea. It usually occurs in prayer. The evangelical will plead the blood of the Lamb. It could be a parent praying for their young children, who for the duration of a school day, will be separated from the protection of the parent. The parent must entrust the child’s spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being into the hands of other adults, so in supplication to God, the parent will plead the blood of the Lamb over the child before they depart. It could be someone who just received bad news. It could be a prayer team remembering missionaries on a foreign field. It could be part of a prayer for the healing of a physical illness. In all these cases and more, it is not uncommon for Christians to plead the blood of the Lamb.
What does this practice mean? Is it Biblical? If I were to commend it to you, would you do it?
Pleading the blood of the Lamb means that we are asking God for something highly important to us, and that the basis of our request—the ground upon which we take the privilege to stand before God in the asking—is the person and work of Jesus Christ, which is what we mean by “the blood of the Lamb.” For example, parents departing from their children plead the blood and therein effectively say to God, “Please protect our loved ones while we are apart, and do so on account of Jesus, whose blood removed our sins and any condemnation, and whose life gave us life and an unshakable inheritance, assuring us of Your favorable disposition toward us and Your never-ending protection of our lives.” That is what the parent is really praying, and pleading the blood is a nice easy shorthand way to say all that.
It is not a Biblical prayer—per say—in that the actual wording—this particular shorthand—is not there in the text, but I think it is consistent with the language and theology of the Bible. Romans 8:31-34, in response to the glorious truths of the Golden Chain of Redemption (Romans 8:29-30) reads:
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”
Notice two things about this passage: the courtroom language and the basis of our vindication, which provides us a favorable standing before God. First, the question is raised as to who would endanger us by charging us with wrongdoing. The image is one of a courtroom. God is the judge. There is a potential accuser, and we are the ones in danger of being accused, condemned, and punished. We might be harmed. We stand in need of protection. That is why we plead. We are in a courtroom, in danger that the Judge of all the earth might deal harshly with our poor guilty souls.
Second, notice the reason why nothing comes of this danger. Notice why we face no danger at all. Our advocate, “if God is for us” (8:31), has already done something that assures His absolutely favorable disposition toward us. He “did not spare His Son”, but gave Him as a bloody sacrifice to atone for our sin. Who could possibly stand up to accuse us? No more charges can be brought because the Judge (who loves us) is already satisfied with the payment our Advocate has made on our behalf. The One who “indeed is interceding for us” is none other than Jesus, and the basis of His intercession is the life He poured out (“life is in the blood” Leviticus 17:11) unto death upon the cross. On the basis of the person and work of Jesus—His life and death, we are absolutely favored by God. That is why we plead the blood.
So, first, the courtroom metaphor of pleading is there in Romans 8:31-34 and the blood of the Lamb is the reason given as to why we know that God “will graciously give us all things.” Pleading the blood is a Biblical thing to do. We plead the blood because it is Biblical shorthand for Romans 8:31-34.
We plead the blood because it means that we trust God to protect our loved ones, and we trust Him on the basis that He proved His love by the giving of the Son to die for us. It is not uncommon to hear me plead the blood, and I encourage you to do the same. Pray this way for your children and for all the elect. Here’s how you can make my day. Come up to me and say that you have been pleading the blood of the Lamb over someone you know. Better yet, go lay your hand on their head, or come to me and extend your hand toward my head and give me the privilege of receiving prayer for my well-being, grounded as it were upon the person and work of Jesus Christ. Plead the blood of the Lamb over me, and I’ll do the same for you. We are a people that once stood in danger of eternal condemnation but now find ourselves completely and eternally safe under the protection of a God who did not spare His own Son. We plead the blood.
What Then Shall They Eat?
Andy Stanley just passed Bill Hybels for third largest church in the nation. Ed Young, whose church is the second largest in America in average weekly attendance, is a mere 1102 people ahead of Stanley, sure to be gobbled up in a matter of months. Joel Osteen, with a staggering 43,500 attenders per week, maintains a healthy 20,000 person lead over second best. Stanley is no threat to him…yet.
In my way of thinking, there’s nothing wrong with church growth. Would that every American attended church on Sunday mornings. But even if sports arenas across the country were converted to churches and packed to capacity, the question must be asked, “What then shall they eat?”
Sports fans fill stadiums to watch a game unfold. Concert goers feast their eyes upon their favorite performers. Political rallies culminate in a main course—a speech from the candidate who promises to improve their lives. But why do churchgoers go to church?
Consumerism in the church is a big problem already, fed as we are by comfortable buildings, accommodating programs, cutting-edge music and lights, and sermons designed to be relevant to our lives (and not to overstretch our attention spans). We live in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, which is not a problem in itself, but leaves us susceptible to certain temptations. If we are not careful, we just might end up going to church for the wrong reason. We might consume the wrong thing. We might leave feeling satisfied (good enough anyway), but having consumed nothing that nourishes the soul.
If we go to church to consume anything, it must be the Word of God. Sunday mornings are first-of-all about offering praise to God, not receiving anything. But His glory is our joy, and—in a derivative sense—it is right and good for us to receive things from God on Sunday mornings. When Jesus recommissioned Peter after his 3-fold failure, he repeated the same charge 3 times. Peter was to care for the sheep—the people he was given to pastor. In two of the three commands (John 21:15-17), Jesus specifically said “Feed my sheep” (the other time He said “Tend my sheep”). What then are sheep supposed to eat?
When Peter—commissioned as he was to pastor Christ’s sheep—wrote a letter to the scattered sheep of the dispersion, he surely had in mind to feed them. That is why he tells them to “long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Peter 2:2-3). Peter has in mind to feed them, and their food is to be the Word of God. He closes his last inspired letter by exhorting the sheep to pay heed to scriptures that are being given to the church through another apostle—Paul (2 Peter 3:15). Clearly, the Church’s food is the Scripture (Acts 2:42).
Since the apostles’ teaching was the food and foundation (Ephesians 2:20) of the early Church, we need to return now to Andy Stanley, since his influence is widespread and growing. In a recent sermon, Stanley taught that “Christianity does not rise and fall on the integrity or verifiability of the entire Bible.” It is clear to me that Andy Stanley was not, in this sermon, asserting that the Bible is untrustworthy. Rather, in order to be sensitive to seekers, in an effort to reduce Christian dogma down to the mere essentials, Stanley sets out to prove the veracity of the Christian faith, and to do so without reference to the Bible. For him, the historicity of the events that undergird the Christian message are self-evident enough to establish the Faith (Jude 3) without needing the book that, according to him, came later.
Without questioning Stanley’s motives, I question the foundation of his thinking. I question his epistemology. The problem is: How do we know the truthfulness of the events apart from the Bible? Even if we could prove the resurrection from historical sources, which we can’t, we still couldn’t prove the meaning of the events apart from the Bible. Without the Levitical sacrifices, without the Passover Lamb, without passages like Isaiah 53, how could we know that the death of Jesus was a penalty substitute? Yet substitutionary atonement is part and parcel of the Gospel. So, it is the case—contra Stanley—that Christianity stands or falls on the integrity of the Bible. Scripture is our only way of knowing the meaning of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection.
Here’s the problem that may have given rise to Stanley’s recent unorthodox teaching: There’s a wrong way to grow. Let’s recognize: Things grow in America. It’s not all that hard to grow a church in America. If lousy sports teams, bad singers, and dishonest politicians can still fill stadiums, then why can’t churches grow by offering the wrong food for consumption?
It’s not my job to say which churches are growing the right way and which aren’t. I’m not even saying that Andy Stanley grew his church the wrong way. I don’t know as much, since I haven’t followed his teaching over the years. But I am saying that many churches are growing the wrong way, and the prescribed diet that Andy Stanley is offering recently is poison in the well. Jesus said “Feed my sheep”, and that means careful exposition of the Word of God, which is the food and foundation of the Church. Stanley says we could make it without the Bible, “but
Andy Stanley’s recent assertions downplaying the importance of Scripture must be rejected. Moreover, as we navigate life in a consumeristic culture, we need to be careful not to allow the world around us to conform our churches to its consumer-driven methodologies. Let’s focus on feeding the sheep the pure unadulterated Word of God through expository preaching, and let growth happen organically. Then we will be able to say that “God gave the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:7). Jesus repeated himself, but perhaps we still need to hear it again: “Feed My sheep.”
* Here is a link to Andy Stanley’s recent teaching: http://northpoint.org/messages/who-needs-god/the-bible-told-me-so/