When Praying is a Mistake

 A few years ago a young man asked me what was happening with God in Venezuela, he said: "the church has been holding vigils and fasts for Venezuela for years and Venezuela remains the same."

At that time I gave an answer using the second part of 2 Chronicles 7:14 but I like this better that I found a few days ago:

WHEN PRAYING IS A MISTAKE.

Sometimes praying is not only useless; it is a mistake!

A classic example can be found when Israel was defeated at Ai:

Then Joshua and the elders of Israel tore their clothes in distress, put dust on their heads, and bowed down with their faces to the ground before the ark of the Lord until evening.

(Joshua 7:6)

According to our modern revival philosophy, this was the right thing to do, and if we did it long enough, we would surely persuade God and He would send us blessing. But...

10 And the Lord answered him:

-Get up! What are you doing lying there? 11 The Israelites have sinned and violated the covenant I made with them. They have appropriated the spoils of war that were to be destroyed and hidden them among their possessions. 12 That is why the Israelites will not be able to confront their enemies, but will have to flee from their adversaries. They brought their destruction upon themselves. And if you do not destroy that spoil that is in your midst, I will not continue at your side. 13 Get up! Purify the people! Tell them to consecrate themselves to appear before me tomorrow, and that I, the Lord, God of Israel, declare: “Destruction is in your midst, Israel! “You will not be able to resist your enemies until you have removed the disgrace that is among the people.”

(Joshua 7:10-13)

We must have reforms in the church.

To beg for a torrent of blessing to be poured out on a disobedient church is to waste time and effort.

God is not interested in increasing the number of members in the congregations, unless their intention is to amend their lives, and the desire to begin a new reality in God.

On one occasion, the Lord pronounced, through the prophet Isaiah, these words that have been established perpetually:

«What good are your many sacrifices to me?

     -says the Lord-.

I am fed up with burnt offerings of rams

     and from the fat of fatted animals;

the blood of bulls, lambs and goats

     It doesn't please me.

12 Why do you come to appear before me?

     Who ordered them to bring animals

     so that they would trample my courts?

13 Do not continue bringing me vain offerings;

     Incense is an abomination to me.

New moon, Sabbath, assemblies called;

     I can't stand being offended by their adoration!

14 I hate their new moons and festivals;

     they have become a burden to me

     that I'm tired of enduring.

15 When they raise their hands,

     I turn my eyes away from you;

Even if they multiply their prayers,

     I won't listen to them,

     because their hands are full of blood.

16 Wash yourselves, cleanse yourselves!

     Remove your evil works from my sight!

Stop doing evil!

17 Learn to do good!

Seek justice and rebuke the oppressor!

     Advocate for the orphan and defend the widow!

18 »Come, let's set the record straight

     -says the Lord-.

Are your sins are like scarlet?

     They will be white as snow!

They are red as crimson?

     They will look like wool!

19 Are you willing to obey?

     They will eat the best of the land!

20 Do they refuse and rebel?

     They will be devoured by the sword!

             The Lord himself has said it.

(Isaiah 1:11-19)

Prayer for revival will prevail when accompanied by a radical change of life; not before!. All nightly prayer meetings which are not preceded by a continuous practice of the new conduct in Christ will indeed be displeasing to God. "Obedience is better than sacrifice."

We must return to the Christianity of the New Testament. Not to

confessional creed, but to a life of complete separation, obedience, humility, simplicity, self-control, modesty, carrying the cross. All of this must be, once again, a vital part of Christian work and applied to conduct every day of life.

We must cleanse the temple of thieves and money changers, and completely submit ourselves again to the authority of our risen Lord. And this applies to this one (the one who writes to them) as to all those who confess the name of Jesus. Then we can pray with confidence and hope that

revival comes.

A.W. Tozer - The Deepest Life

************************************************** *******************

Now I'm going to put my touch on it:

I'm going to end with one of the answers I gave to that young man who I mentioned at the beginning that he asked me the question; I told him the following:

"It is of no use to spend from 8 at night until 6 in the morning in a vigil crying asking for forgiveness for Venezuela if at the end of the vigil we continue with our sinful life as I know happened with the national vigils that as a church we attended for "Many, years. We spent the entire vigil crying and asking for forgiveness and at the end each one continued with his sin, that is why God has not done anything! Because to top it all off we do not recognize our sins."

We ask forgiveness for the sins of the wicked when the Venezuelan church, the pastors, the ministers, are full of sin and if in order to appear humble they come to ask forgiveness for their sin they only do so to "appear humble" and the next day they continue with their sin . And we repeat and repeat 2 Chronicles 7:14 but we delete the part that says "...and they will turn from their evil ways"

It is as if we were saying: "We can pray for 12 hours straight, have a flag competition to see who can bring out the biggest flag when praying for the country, we can fast for 40 days, but don't expect us to turn away from our evil ways."

First hand I can tell you that the most heretical churches in my country (analyzing them according to biblical criteria, not mine) have fasts at least once a month, national fasts every 4 or 5 months and prayers from Monday to Friday between 5 and 6 in the morning and even books on prayer have been written by their pastors... and they continue to be the churches with the most heretical preaching and life in the country.

I always remember that once I was invited to a united campaign that my Pentecostal friends were having and I stood at the end and said to the person who invited me "Please don't pass, please don't pass me because if you pass me I will say what the spirit I start saying so you don't like it, that's why I'm standing far away so you can't see me."

Well in the end they called me and while I was walking slowly so that people would get tired of waiting for me and move on to someone else I was saying to God "Please don't make me say things that people will hate me later, look I'm new here and I don't have any friendship." The truth is that I went up to that platform and prayed and there came out these words: "The church is bad, and the country is bad because the church is bad and we must leave our sin and repent."

Immediately a pastor took the microphone and said "The church is in victory, the church is in power. How many say amen!

And there we see how the church is in sin and unable to recognize its sin.

And that is why nothing has happened and as long as we continue like this nothing will happen in our country. Everyone wants a revival, but do you think a revival from heaven will come with us like this? -And I clarify "from heaven" because today people invent revivals in the flesh, they convulse, they hit the ground, everyone dancing and shouting glory to God manipulated by a specialist manipulating emotions placed in front and for them that is a revival .

(And Sunday, do you know what a revival is? I haven't been to one because one hasn't happened in more than 100 years, but I took it upon myself to study all the revivals that have occurred since the day of Pentecost and I have a idea of what a revival is like according to what those who were part of them wrote)

A few days ago I remembered that I have never or almost never seen a pastor or ministers publicly acknowledge their sins and ask for forgiveness. He was talking about it with a pastor who did some crazy things and her response was "I already asked God for forgiveness and God forgave me."

Wow, how easy, Wow, how cool.

That's why we are where we are, pastors are too big to ask for forgiveness.

They call everyone arrogant but the truth is that in 40 years of knowing the church I can say that where I have seen the most pride and arrogance is in pastors and to make matters worse I have seen many of them rebuking the spirit of pride in others. And there you could use the word that so many misuse: "Hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye and then take the straw out of another's eye."

I know churches that have 24-hour prayer chains, fasts every week, vigils every month but no, they "really" repent, they do not renounce their sin or stop doing wrong; and as long as this does not happen this will be happening as this man of God A.W. said. Tozer: "Praying is not only useless; it is a mistake!" a waste of time, as that verse says "...we had labor pains, we gave birth to wind; we made no deliverance on earth..." (Isaiah 26:18)

It's sad, so much suffering, so much pain and in the end only a "peito" comes out. And that is what is happening to the majority of the church in Venezuela. A lot of sacrifice, a lot of prayer, zero stopping from sinning.

May God have mercy and he will give us understanding so that God does not continue to say of us: "What good is it to me, says the Lord, the multitude of your

sacrifices? (Isaiah 1:11)

Kisses

elprofebubba