Thursday, August 16, 2007

Abusing the Power of Prayer

I’m currently reading Julian by Gore Vidal for the Nonbelieving Literati which I’m not supposed to post about until September 15. Between this and the heat, I’ve had little else to inspire me to post. Until now…

Pastor Wiley Drake Calls for Imprecatory Prayer against So-Called Religious Liberty Watchdog Group

MEDIA ADVISORY, Aug. 14 /Christian Newswire/ -- In light of the recent attack from the enemies of God I ask the children of God to go into action with Imprecatory Prayer. Especially against Americans United for Separation of Church and State. I made an attempt to go to them via Matt 18:15 but they refused to talk to me. Specifically target Joe Conn or Jeremy Learing. They are those who lead the attack. (You can see their press release attack at www.au.org )

Imprecatory prayer, is now our duty

Now that all efforts have been exhausted, we must begin our Imprecatory Prayer, at the key points of the parliamentary role in the earth where we live.

John Calvin gave the church its marching orders from Scripture. The righteous have dominion, but only through imprecatory prayer against the ungodly.
David as our Old Testament shepherd gives us many Imprecatory prayers, and can be found to be in best focus in Psalm 109. Also chapters 55, 58, 68, 69, and 83

Like most people, including most Xtians, I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head what those verses are so I have to go look those up. Not to fear, I have a link to the Skeptics Annotated Bible. I’m going to limit myself to Psalm 109 since that was the first listed. It’s a doozy all on its own.


Psalm 109
109:1 Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise;
109:2 For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
109:3 They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause.
109:4 For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer.
109:5 And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.
109:6 Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.
109:7 When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin.


Let his prayer become sin… nice. How exactly do you know that it isn’t your prayer that’s become sin? I guess I’ll have to read a little further.


109:8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
109:9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
109:10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
109:11 Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labor.
109:12 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children.


What did the children ever to that they should be punished as well?


109:13 Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
109:14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
109:15 Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
109:16 Because that he remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart.
109:17 As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him.
109:18 As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones.
109:19 Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually.
109:20 Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the LORD, and of them that speak evil against my soul.
109:21 But do thou for me, O GOD the Lord, for thy name's sake: because thy mercy is good, deliver thou me.


I’d say this god was a little thin on the mercy, what with the overkill of the smiting extending all the way to the children.


109:22 For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.


This is poor and needy Pastor Wiley Drake. That smile is his brave cover for the wounded heart within him.



109:23 I am gone like the shadow when it declineth: I am tossed up and down as the locust.
109:24 My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness.
109:25 I became also a reproach unto them: when they looked upon me they shaked their heads.
109:26 Help me, O LORD my God: O save me according to thy mercy:
109:27 That they may know that this is thy hand; that thou, LORD, hast done it.
109:28 Let them curse, but bless thou: when they arise, let them be ashamed; but let thy servant rejoice.
109:29 Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion, as with a mantle.
109:30 I will greatly praise the LORD with my mouth; yea, I will praise him among the multitude.
109:31 For he shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those that condemn his soul.

Wow. I can see now that God IS Love and Mercy. But back to the press release…

Pray these back to God and He will answer.

Jesus in Matthew 23: 13, 15, 16, 23, 24, 27, and 29 gave us our New Testament marching orders as well.

Let us join Paul and declare anathema upon anyone" who loves not the Lord Jesus." I Cor 16:22

Church father Martin Luther, led us by saying…"If any of the enemies of God's people belong to God's election, the church's prayer against them giveth way to their conversion, and seeketh no more than that the judgment should follow them, only until they acknowledge their sin, turn, and seek God."

How to pray

Please join us, with Bible in hand, and let us do battle against the enemies of God.

I know this is a really, really long post. Assuming you’ve waded your way through all this, I just want to wrap this up with this idea. If Xtians would confine themselves to doing battle, Bible in hand, by prayer, we’d all be much happier. The whole reason for this confrontation is that Pastor Wiley Drake didn’t. He chose to break the law, using the pulpit to endorse a candidate.


“Although Drake may express his personal views on political candidates,” [AU’s Executive Director Barry] Lynn wrote to the IRS, “federal tax law prohibits such endorsements by religious leaders acting in their capacities as officials of non-profit religious organizations. The IRS has repeatedly warned non-profits not to use organizational resources to intervene in elections.

2 comments:

John Evo said...

I accidentally posted on the previous post instead of here. I'm getting old.

I make more and more of those kind of mistakes. I think I'll do an imprecatory prayer against god for doing this to me. He could have just made me immortal, ya know?? You asked in your post what kind of god would support the punishment of children... the same kind who punishes his own, I would guess.

Anonymous said...

If you are a Christian and you believe that God's word is his word you must believe that imprecatory prayer is Biblical, it's all through the Psalms, the prophets and the New Testament as well. In Acts 13 there was Bar Jesus the sorcerer who Paul pronounced a curse on and he was struck blind for a season, he probably repented as Paul did, I would imagine. But to pray against God's enemies is Biblical, another New Testament verse is Revelation 6:10 And they cried out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, wilt Thou refrain form judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" Again in 1 Timothy 1:20 Among those are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they may be taught not to blaspheme. And how about Jude where he talks about Men that are clouds without water, carried along by winds, autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted: he goes on to say that black darkness is reserved for them, and there is much more in the New Testament. So to imply that Paul, John and Jude who wrote part of the Holy Scriptures that are profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness are all wrong, Would be saying that God's word is wrong, so now we are the Judge judging our Lords' precious word.

To conclude, if someone slaps you or wrongs you, don't retaliate, love them, go the extra mile, help them in whatever way that you can. This is the priciple, you cannot retaliate and pray prayers against your neighbor or someone that wrongs you personally. Our attitude daily shoud be love.

With imprecatory prayer we are talking about a perfect anger, we are talking about God's enemies, we must hate those that hate God as David said. This is not a bitter anger, your heart has to be clean, it's righteous Godly anger. I challenge all of you to look to the scriptures for the balance, not to your own knowledge or feelings, I encourage you to dig deep, start with Matthew 23 when the Lord told off the Pharisees. God's word is our standard, not our own minds.

Now that I have said all of that, remember that love triumphs over evil, that God loves the sinner and we are to reach out to them in actions and prayer. Imprecatory prayer is rare, but it is scriptural and necessary at times.