Saturday, June 07, 2008

These prayers make Satan rejoice, not tremble

Have you noticed how much praying for revival has been going on of late – and how little revival has resulted? I believe the problem is that we have been trying to substitute praying for obeying, and it simply will not work. To pray for revival while ignoring the plain precept laid down in Scripture is to waste a lot of words and get nothing for our trouble. Prayer will become effective when we stop using it as a substitute for obedience.”

- A. W. Tozer

[HT: Justin Nale]

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous7/6/08 21:54

    AMEN!

    Tozer seems to have been prophetic on this. :)

    p.s. I'm, erm, pinching this. ;-)

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  2. Isaiah:

    sure, no problem. =)

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  3. I seriously doubt Satan rejoices when godly men and women pray for revival. What I imagine Tozer is really cautioning against is when prayer for revival becomes a replacement for Christian living.

    But nonetheless, the concept of replacing balanced and healthy Christian living with any single focus (cf. Screwtape Letters) is a constant trap - for all of us.

    One could argue the same for spending time blogging about the error of others.

    Additionally, I am bothered by the implication of this post. Do folks here imagine they know the lives of those in the current revival? Please feel free to share evidence how these have left the path of obedience to God.

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  4. Rick:

    >prayer for revival becomes a replacement for Christian living.

    Sure, of course that was Tozer's intent.

    >Do folks here imagine they know the lives of those in the current revival?

    Rick, sorry, but you are way off-track. This post wasn't about Bentley and Lakeland at all. This was posted as a preparation for something else to be posted on in the future, at least that's the reason why I posted this quote. Anyway, I think I have done more than enough to expose Bentley and the Lakeland "revival" anyway.

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  5. Oh yes,

    I forgot to mention that this post was not posted under the heading of "Charismatism". This should inform anyone that this post has nothing to do with Bentley or Lakeland per se, although it IS chronologically above the post on this issue.

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  6. Daniel - then I misunderstood, I took it as being related. Hopefully you can see why I made that assumption given your previous posts and Isaiah's comment regarding Tozer being "prophetic".

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  7. Rick:

    sure, no problem. =) I realize the possible misunderstanding after I reviwed my blog page again and notice that the two posts were consecutive.

    Actually, I am of the opinion that Isaiah was just commenting of the quote, not of Bentley per se. Oh well...

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