Exercising the Right to Remain Silent - Purity 941

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of sun— sunset view from a suburban neighborhood somewhere in Columbia County comes to a friend who captured and shared this scene along with a few others from their home on Christmas Day of 2020. I decided to look back into my phone's photo archive to clean house and discovered that this This will be the third and final scene from this friend's Christmas 2020 afternoon that I have, that I have shared on the blog. Unfortunately, I didn't know who this friend was in 2020. If you are the one who captured this photo and the ones on Purity674 and Purity302, let me know because it's never too late to give credit where credit is due. And to thank someone for the joy that they have perhaps unknowingly brought to our lives. Well, speaking of joy, it's Saturday and I'm content this morning because I have been reunited with my lovely wife at our countryside home in Easton. And last night we expressed our joy in the Lord by going to Star Point Church, uh, for a night of praise and worship to cap off a week of prayer. This week, Christians from Star Point, Faith Baptist, Grace Chapel, and the church at New Newtown Road got together each night at each other's churches to join together in unity and to petition the Lord in corporate and mostly silent prayer. This was the largest prayer event that I have ever been to in terms of the number of people gathered and in terms of the number of churches involved. Each evening, the respective churches were well attended, and with so many people silent prayer was the way to go, because if all in attendance were to pray out loud, it would have been chaos. While some people did pray out loud in small groups, as we were free to do so, the atmosphere encouraged solemn silent prayer. And so I had my largest exposure to silent prayer since my liturgical church days in my youth. Since being born again and attending Rock Solid Church in Hudson, I was taught how and got into the practice of praying out loud, even in my morning private morning prayer sessions. So when I say keep walking and talking with God, I mean that literally. As my relationship with the Lord has evolved beyond just praying out loud in the mornings or at church, to the point that I talk to the Lord out loud throughout my day. God is my constant companion So we talk all the time. So when I heard about this prayer event and heard that we would be gathering for silent prayer, I have to admit that I wasn't thrilled with the idea. What are we going to do, just sit there? But after I saw the vast numbers of people that showed up to the first night, I realized that silent prayer was sort of necessary logistically And after that first night, I realized that it was a powerful practice and has advantages over praying out loud in the corporate setting. When you go to a prayer meeting where the group prays together out loud, the format is usually that one person prays out loud and everyone else prays with that person, often with spontaneous comments such as "Amen," "Yes," or "Yes, Lord," "Thank you." as the group comes in into agreement with the one praying. If you have been to prayer meetings like that, you know how great that can be. However, after I have spent 4 nights in mostly silent corporate prayer, I can share the following observation: when you are in a prayer meeting where people take turns praying out loud, you end up listening to what the other people are saying, and And you, as much as you may agree or, or get something out of what the others are saying, you are not necessarily focused on hearing God's voice. Do not get me wrong, I know the Holy Spirit can move in those prayer circles in powerful ways, but the thing that I observed in the silent prayer sessions this week was that no one was in the way. No one was in between me and the Lord. My hearing is not the best, so I was content that I didn't have to strain to hear what someone was— someone else was saying or praying. I could just enjoy the relative silence and present my prayer simply without having to worry about what I would sound like or what I would say. And I could take the corporate prayer direction under advisement and let my thoughts and my silent conversation with the Lord take me where the Lord led me. In my private and my silent prayer sessions, I followed the various instructions to pray for what we were gathered together to pray for, but soon realized that I could be conversational with the Lord even when I was exercising my right to remain silent. And of course, because I was silent, I could actually be silent when I felt that I had prayed what I felt led to pray. In each area, I could stop and rest in the silence of the moment and in the presence of the LORD. And when I took these breaks, I discovered that the LORD did not just get up and walk away. He sat with me and brought things up in my attention that went above and beyond and in different directions than the simple corporate prayer instructions. So, even though I thought that speaking out loud in prayer was perhaps a mark of a deeper relationship with God, or a more free expression of our faith, I rediscovered the wisdom and blessing of silent prayer. As I said, in the out loud prayer circles, we run the risk of listening to man rather than God. We also run the risk of making a show of our prayers and seeking our approval from our fellow man rather than God. Jesus warned us about praying in the flesh and Matthew 6, where he said, when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners or in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. When you pray, don't babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don't be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need before you ask him. So we have to be careful that we don't fall into, in these traps of trying to impress others with our many words or vain repetitions when we pray out loud, but that is not as much of a concern when we are praying silently, unless you are doing that for show too. Only God knows when you are praying from the heart or just going through the motions. There is no fooling or impressing Him. So, let me encourage you to just humbly come before the Lord when you pray, uh, when you pray, Honestly, and whether you exercise your right to remain silent or decide to talk to him out loud, let your heart and mind be directed to him honestly and sincerely. Be real with God. Anyway, after silently praying for 4 nights, I was rip-roaring ready to sing last night, and I did. The joy of the Lord is our strength, and whether you want to find it in silence or when you are praising the Lord in song at the top of your lungs. It is my prayer that you seek the Lord and find the life of peace and joy that he gives to all who walk in the Spirit. So keep walking and talking with God, and have a great weekend. Today's Bible verses come to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verses are Psalm 18:1-2. And they say, "I love you, LORD; you are my strength. The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my Savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety." Today's verses encourage us to tell the LORD that we love Him and to proclaim that we know that He is the one who saves us and protects us. He is the rock on which we stand for all eternity, and He is our shield and fortress that keeps us safe. In Christ, we are safe. We are safe from God's wrath. We make peace with God and become members of His family. He saves us and protects us. And in our recognition of His love, grace, salvation, and protection, we should love Him and make a regular habit of telling God that we love Him. In the fall session of the Freedom in Christ course that I led a group of men through online, one of the instructions that I gave in the early sessions of the course was to tell God you love him. And I demonstrated that I meant that quite literally by saying, tell him, I love you, Lord. I then went on to explain that we often hear that God loves you, but somehow it is often It isn't often taught to tell— it isn't often taught that we should also seek to love him. I have heard many people teach on thanking God in all times for all things, but rarely have I heard many expound on Jesus's instruction in Matthew 22:37-38, where Jesus said, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. That is the first and great commandment. I think we all know that verse. Maybe my memory is faulty, but I don't recall anyone really expounding— really explaining how we are to fulfill this commandment experientially. While love is a decision, it is also a feeling. I encourage people on the path of Christian discipleship to make the daily decision to love the Lord, but I also encourage them to seek a close intimate relationship with God where the feelings of love will be greater than the love we have for even our most precious loved ones. So yes, we should thank God for our salvation and protection, but we should also love Him for it and seek to develop a loving relationship with Him where we can say, "I love you, Lord," and really mean it. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink's The Sovereignty of God, and today we begin, uh, sharing from chapter 4, which is on the sovereignty of God in salvation. So get ready, all you Calvinists And Arminians, and get your dukes up. Um, I present, um, uh, A.W. Pink's, uh, work for your, for your, your review and discussion. Um, basically, but, um, yeah, I believe that God is sovereign, and then as the word says, um, that the only ones who come to God are the ones that he draws. And, uh, you can take it And take it— take that any way you wish. I'm not— I don't proclaim to expound any particular theological view in this thing. I just know that coming to God wasn't necessarily my idea. I had a revelation. I had a call on my life. I think I had a call on my life all my life to come to the Lord., but I didn't come, and I went far from God. And I had removed myself from ever any exposure to Christian material, and it was only through a quote-unquote chance encounter where I decided to mock God that I had the tables turned on me and experienced the grace and the love of God, uh, and showed me what the gospel actually means. That we don't earn our salvation. Um, you know, some would debate whether we choose it or not. I think we choose to, and choose to follow the Lord for sure, um, but I don't know if we choose our salvation. I think that's something that the Lord directs us to. So whether you want to fight about the elect or not, that's if you want to. I think we're missing something there. Um, I think we're missing the relationship with the Lord. Um, we're debating theological points more than relating to God and living in his presence. I think we let miss something. We're trying to teach other people what's right over experiencing God personally. We might be on the wrong path, just saying. Anyway, that's my opinion. And like I said, the views I express here are strictly mine. They don't represent the ministries and churches that I might attend, necessarily. Just a disclaimer, so if I say anything stupid, everyone else is off the hook. So yeah, and I have my own individual ideas about Scripture and everything. I'm pretty conservative, quite frankly, but, you know, I might challenge some things too. I guess we'll see as we continue this journey of blogging. Anyway, today is Saturday. I don't really have any plans for the day except for to be with my wife, and that's something I've been waiting for all week, even though I've gotten to see her more this week than I normally do. Because I came up to visit with her for dinner before prayer each night. Um, so I'm very happy, and I hope everyone listening or reading this message will be happy this weekend as well. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Thank you for another— the, the first full weekend of, uh, that I get to enjoy, um, this, this new year. And, uh, we're looking forward to it, Lord. We just pray for you to bless us and guide us as we go about our day today. And, uh, as always, we pray for the people listening or reading this message, Lord, that they would be blessed, that you would come alongside their— them and their walk and their prayer request. Lord, um, we thank you and, uh, we love you, as I— as I always pray. Um, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.