Pray for One Another--Ephesians 6:18--Being the Body Series

            Her heart must have been pounding inside her chest as she stepped into that room—that room where no one was welcome without an invitation, that room where coming uninvited could get a person killed. But as the king heard her footsteps and lifted his eyes to see who had dared to come into that room, his heart was filled with compassion. When he saw the face of the one he loved, he raised his scepter to indicate that she was welcome.

            The story of Esther reminds us how difficult it has always been to get an audience with people in positions of high authority. Just imagine if you wanted to have a conversation with the President. For the average person, it would be practically impossible.

            And yet, as Christians, we have free and ready access to the highest authority of all—God himself! At any moment we choose, no matter where we are, we can simply turn our thoughts toward God and express our thoughts to Him, and He will hear us. Isn’t that amazing?

            With such an amazing privilege at our disposal, we should ask ourselves, “How am I using this opportunity?” Am I making the most of this incredible gift? Am I perhaps using it in a merely selfish way? I heard a great question recently that I think really helps put things in perspective—if all of my prayers were answered tomorrow, would only my life be different, or would the whole world be different?

            Today, we’re going to take a look at a scriptural command for us to pray for one another. It is no hollow cliché to say that the best thing we can do for each other is pray for each other. We’ll find out a bit more about how to do that in Ephesians 6:18.

            Beginning in Ephesians 6:10, the Apostle Paul uses the metaphor of warfare to discuss the battles that we face against the schemes of the devil. He makes a vital point in v. 12 when he writes, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” The titles “rulers” and “authorities” refer to the spiritual beings—the demonic beings—who are working with Satan to do battle against us.

            So our struggle is against spiritual beings and their powers, and as the old saying goes, you have to fight fire with fire. You’re not going to win a modern-day war with bows and arrows, and likewise, you’re not going to win a struggle against spiritual beings with merely human resources. This is one reason why prayer is such a vital tool in our spiritual arsenal, and it is why we need to employ it on behalf of others.

            In vv. 13-17, then, Paul calls upon us to embrace certain attitudes and behaviors, and he memorably compares them to different pieces of armor that were worn by Roman soldiers at that time. Then in v. 18, he ties it all together with this instruction about prayer—“praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.”

Let’s dig deeper into this verse with a few simple questions.

When Should We Pray?

            According to this verse, we should pray “at all times.” If we were to ask the Bible whether we should pray in the morning, the afternoon, or the evening, it would simply say, “Yes!” Every time of day is a good time for prayer!

            Recall that in John 15, Jesus said (and I paraphrase), “I am like a vine, and you are like the branches coming out of the vine. Apart from me, you can do nothing!” He meant, of course, nothing of spiritual value. We can do plenty of sinning on our own, but to do anything good, the guidance and strength of Christ are absolutely essential.

            If that’s true, then as people who need Jesus like a branch needs its vine, we should never be very far removed from our last prayer, and we should never be very far away from our next prayer. Texting conversations provide a great illustration of what that might look like. You can carry on a texting conversation with someone all day if you want, and yet at the same time, you can take care of the business you need to attend to that day. But that conversation is always in the back of your mind, and every so often you fire off another text to that person.

            That’s a great model for what it might look like to pray at all times. In the back of our minds, we should have an ongoing conversation with God about our day, and then every little bit, we bring that conversation to the front of our minds, and we pray a prayer to God.

            So think about your typical day and ask yourself, “Do I have some pretty long stretches of prayerlessness?” Or ask yourself this—“If I ate only as often as I pray, what would my physical health be like? Would I be well-fed or malnourished?” Well, if you endure long stretches without prayer, don’t you think your spiritual health suffers? So, we must pray at all times.

How Should We Pray?

1. In the Spirit

            When you hear this phrase, don’t picture yourself going into a trance or some kind of altered state of mind. The idea is to pray with the resources that the Holy Spirit provides. What kind of resources does He provide for our prayers?

            The first resource we should mention is confidence. The Holy Spirit reminds us that we are children of God, and as such, we have the right to come to God in prayer. Romans 8:16 says, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” Thus, we don’t have to wonder, like Esther did, whether the king is going to lower His scepter to us when we approach his throne. We can thus pray with confidence.

            That same chapter—Romans 8—mentions another activity of the Spirit to help us in prayer. Verses 26-27 state, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

            Notice how the Holy Spirit steps in for us. We don’t always know the right thing to pray for, do we? Sometimes, life is so complicated, we don’t even know what the best thing to ask for is. So as we wrestle with what to even say, the Holy Spirit assists us in the process. It may not be far off to think of Him acting like a translator—as I’m stumbling over my words, He can step in and say, “Father, what Tim really meant to say was…” And so, the Holy Spirit can give us great confidence for prayer.

            Second, He can also give us content for our prayers. Notice that Ephesians 6:17 says that the sword of the Spirit is the word of God. God’s Word is a powerful tool that the Holy Spirit uses to shape our lives—to give us teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16). As the Spirit teaches us the promises of God, we can use them to inform our prayers. As He convicts us of sin, we can find the remedy in Scripture, and pray over it. A Scripture-saturated prayer is a powerful prayer indeed, and the Holy Spirit can impress those Scriptures upon our hearts.

2. With all prayer and supplication

            Think of this directive as a goal to make your prayers a “well-balanced diet.” The word “prayer” is a more general term that could encompass anything you might say to God—whether you’re thanking Him or praising Him or confessing sin. The word “supplication” is a more specific term that refers to making requests.

            Taken together, these terms describe a well-rounded prayer life. If anything, I’ll bet we’re tempted to go heavy on making requests, and perhaps go a bit light on everything else. Or maybe your prayers are like a form letter—you always end up saying the same things, and the only section that ever gets an update is the request section.

            This statement from Paul instructs us not to neglect any aspect of prayer. Reflecting on The Lord’s Prayer is a good way to find some balance in your prayer life, because Jesus uttered that prayer in order to teach the disciples how to pray. It can teach us, too, if we’ll reflect on it a bit and learn what the Lord was saying.

3. With alertness and perseverance

            This phrase may surprise us a bit, because I think it paints prayer in a different light than the light in which we’re used to seeing it. Paul’s language here is perfectly suited to the context, since he’s been using this metaphor of warfare. A soldier in battle must always remain alert and must persevere through difficulty.

            And remember—a soldier in battle is precisely how Paul envisions you and me in this passage. That observation puts the practice of prayer into an important context. I believe we are often tempted to think of prayer as being like a perk or a fringe benefit of being a Christian—kind of like a bonus that God tossed into the gift of salvation.

            But prayer is no fringe benefit in the Christian life—it is much more like the communication that occurs in a time of battle. If you’re a soldier, communicating with your commander isn’t a bonus or something optional—it is absolutely crucial to the success of the mission and to your own safety and well-being.

            In his book Desiring God, John Piper suggested that many of our problems in prayer and much of our weakness in prayer come from the fact that we have taken a wartime walkie-talkie and turned it in to a civilian intercom. Rather than use prayer to go on active duty for God, he says, we use it to try to call the servants to bring another cushion into the den. We’ve turned it into something like a call button for an airline stewardess—something we can just use to call for another Coke whenever we’re thirsty.

            We must never forget that we are constantly under attack by the schemes of Satan. It is in that light that we must pray—as if our very survival depended on it. We must not let Satan catch us during a season of drought in our prayer lives. If we truly are at war with the Evil One, why would we cut our own line of communication with our commander by not praying? Or why would we render it moot and useless by trying to use it for the wrong purpose?

For Whom Should We Pray?

            At the end of this verse, Paul states that we should make supplication for all the saints. At a minimum, I’m sure Paul was telling these Christians in Ephesus to pray for all the other Christians there in their local church. To that, we could add other believers with whom they had personal contact, like the Apostle Paul, and then beyond that, we could add other Christians as they came to hear about them.

            Here is where we really get to the heart of the command to pray for one another. Our prayers should not be all about ourselves and our own concerns. Other people should have the starring role in our prayers—then, we can just bring ourselves in for a cameo appearance!

            That balance may ebb and flow with different prayers. A prayer to confess sin will, of course, be intensely personal, and it will focus on yourself. In other prayers, you may have a very urgent personal need that receives most of the focus. But in the bulk of your prayers overall, other people should be blessed by being the focus of your prayers.

            I would encourage you not to simply rely on your memory to help you pray for others and their needs. Use other tools to help faithfully pray for others. We supply several different tools through our own church—our recurring prayer list that we now print once a month, our urgent prayer list that we print in the bulletin, the selected family to pray for each week. If you will make use of these tools, they will provide you with a systematic way to pray for all of your brothers and sisters in this church.

            Praying for each other is a great privilege and a necessary tool in our battle against Satan. It also reminds us of the unity that we have as a result of our Lord’s sacrifice for our sins. Whenever we celebrate The Lord’s Supper together, we are reminded that we all have a stake in the sacrificial death of Christ; we all have been washed clean by His shed blood. May we partake of it today with our unity in the forefront of our minds!

Can We Claim Physical Healing By Faith? Isaiah 53:5--Twisters series

            Cold and flu season is coming upon us soon, and along with it all of the misery that those ailments bring.  Of course, in the grand scheme of things, those ailments pale in comparison to other illnesses and diseases that sometimes invade our lives.  None of us enjoy being sick, and we don’t like to see our loved ones dealing with such problems either.

            I think every one of us finds ourselves at some point in time thinking, “Does it really have to be this way?  Do sickness and disease have to play such a major role in the story of our lives?” From some corners of Christendom at large, the answer we hear to those questions is, “No!” Some very influential Bible teachers proclaim that sickness and disease do not have to play any part in our lives today because of the blessings that belong to us as children of God.

            These teachers often appeal to Isaiah 53:5, a well-known verse of Scripture which says, “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.”

The Suggested Interpretation

            With respect to sickness and disease, these teachers focus on the statement in this verse that mentions healing, and they interpret it to mean that Christ’s death purchased for us not only salvation from sin, but from sickness and disease as well.  Of course, they refer to other verses as well to support this interpretation, but they strongly emphasize this verse because of its connection to one of the central events of our faith—the sacrificial death of Christ.

            Let me read a couple of brief quotes so you can hear this claim.  The first comes from Kenneth Hagin.  He is deceased now, but he had a very influential ministry in past decades.  He said, “A person seeking healing should look to God’s Word, not to his symptoms.  He should say, ‘I know that I am healed because the Word says that by His stripes I am healed.’”¹

            The second quote comes from a pastor named Joseph Prince, who has a very popular ministry today.  He states, “Sickness and diseases are not from God.  On the cross, Jesus bore not just our sins, but also our sicknesses, diseases and infirmities, and by his stripes we are healed.”² Other teachers who have taught this idea in the past include Kenneth Copeland and Oral Roberts. Other popular teachers today who embrace this interpretation include Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, and Joel Osteen.

            With this interpretation, it is said that we today, as children of God, can receive healing from sickness in the same way that we receive salvation from sin—that is, simply claiming it by faith.  Just as we can enjoy lasting forgiveness from God simply by receiving it in faith, these teachers would say that we can also enjoy lasting health from God simply by receiving it in faith.

The Correct Interpretation

            Is this an appropriate way to interpret this phrase, “with his stripes we are healed?” Should we take that statement as a reference to physical healing?  A close look at the context of that statement would say, “No.”

            Isaiah 52:13-53:12 is a majestic passage that predicts the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.  Verses four through 12 place a particular emphasis on Christ’s sacrifice and what he accomplished for us.  Throughout those verses, we see a consistent emphasis on Christ bearing our sins and saving us from our spiritual ailments and dangers. Notice these statements:

• v. 5: wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, his chastisement brought us peace
• v. 6: we have gone astray, have turned to our own way, the Lord laid our iniquity on him
• v. 8: he was stricken for the transgression of my people
• v. 10: his soul made an offering for guilt
• v. 11: he will make many to be accounted righteous, he will bear their iniquities
• v. 12: he was numbered with the transgressors, he bore the sin of many, he makes intercession for the transgressors.

            With this repeated and constant emphasis on our spiritual failings and restoration, the context leads us to interpret the “healing” in v. 5 the same way. In other words, the word “healed” in v. 5 is being used in a metaphorical sense to refer to our spiritual condition, not our physical condition.

            This interpretation is confirmed by the Apostle Peter in the New Testament. In writing about Jesus in 1 Peter 2:24-25, he stated, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” Notice how Peter, just like Isaiah, emphasizes spiritual healing—the forgiveness of sins.

            Now someone might say, “Okay, I see the emphasis in Peter and Isaiah on spiritual restoration, but do we have to limit the phrase to that emphasis? Couldn’t we also include the idea of physical healing without taking away from the emphasis on spiritual salvation?”

            Some might point to Isaiah 53:4 and argue that our sicknesses and diseases are part of the “griefs and sorrows” that Jesus bore for us. It is interesting to note that Matthew does connect that verse to Jesus healing ministry in the Gospels. In Matthew 8:16-17, he wrote, “That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.’”

            But notice a very important detail about this reference—Matthew is connecting this statement to Jesus’ life, not His death. According to Matthew, this was not something that Jesus accomplished in His death; rather, it was something that He carried out during His life. Also, Matthew gives us no teaching that such healing would be performed for all believers at all times in all places. He simply records one aspect of Jesus’ ministry, and states that it was a fulfillment of Isaiah 53:4. We would need more than just this quotation to conclude that we have a right to claim healing from Jesus today.

            So all in all, the context leads us to conclude that the “healing” referred to in Isaiah 53:5 is a metaphor for spiritual renewal and restoration. It gives us no justification to conclude that Jesus purchased physical healing for us on the cross, therefore we have the ability today to claim healing from all our sicknesses by faith.

What’s the Danger?

            There is significant danger to embracing this misunderstanding of Scripture.  People have died from treatable illnesses because they believed they had the right to claim healing from God by faith.  As they tried to muster up the perfect faith that is supposedly required to be healed, their conditions simply got worse and worse until ultimately, their illnesses claimed their lives.

            There is significant spiritual danger in this interpretation as well.  If you believe you have the right to claim healing from God and yet you never get better, the only person you have to blame is yourself.  Your healing is supposedly there for the taking, so if you never receive it, according to these teachers of faith healing, you just didn’t have enough faith.

            It’s hard to imagine a more spiritually disastrous thing to say to someone who’s struggling with sickness and disease.  People in that condition need love and compassion, they need someone who will weep with them as they weep.  They don’t need someone telling them that they just don’t measure up to receive all of the blessings that God might otherwise give them.

            There is also a danger in being part of a church that teaches this theology of faith healing.  Many people can tell you their stories of spiritual abuse at the hands of church leaders who told them that they just didn’t have enough faith to save their stillborn child, or their spouse who had cancer or a stroke.  What heartbreaking guilt such people must carry around, and the saddest part is that it’s all unnecessary!

So where have people gone wrong to get this misunderstanding from Isaiah 53:5?

Interpretive Errors

1.  Failing to let the context determine the meaning of a word

            Teachers of faith healing read the word “healed” in Isaiah 53:5 and they apparently take it to refer to physical healing because that’s the way we normally use that word in conversation today.  But we must understand that we can’t simply read one common meaning of a word into every occurrence of that word.  We have to let the context of the statement tell us what the author or speaker is trying to say.

            For example, if I said there was going to be a board meeting after church today, you wouldn’t expect to see a pile of lumber being stacked together—even though the word “board” can refer to pieces of wood.  The context of our church service would tell you that I’m obviously talking about the church board—the group of men who lead our fellowship.

            So, as you read the Bible, it’s a very important for you to let the context of a statement determine what the words in that statement mean.  Of course, that means that we have to know the context, and we must not be in a rush to interpret a word on the basis of the most common ways that we might use that word.

Overall, I think the biggest error made by teachers of faith healing is…

2.  Allowing your overall theology to distort the meaning of a statement

            Last week, I mentioned the importance of allowing a passage of Scripture to speak for itself.  Another way of saying this is that you need to draw the correct interpretation out of the text rather than force an interpretation onto it, whether that interpretation comes from your own ideas or even another portion of Scripture.  Teachers of faith healing have an overriding theology that forces all of Scripture to be pressed into its mold—no matter what these passages may actually teach in their own context.

            Behind any discussion of faith healing lies one important theological question—could sickness be part of God’s plan for his children during our present time?  Teachers of faith healing universally answer this question with a resounding, “No!”

            Listen to Kenneth Hagin’s take on this question: “I believe that it is the plan of God our Father that no believer should ever be sick…  It is not—I state boldly—it is not the will of God my Father that we should suffer with cancer and other dread diseases which bring pain and anguish.  No!  It is God’s will that we be healed.”³ Kenneth Copeland concurs, stating, “God intends for every believer to live completely free from sickness and disease.  It is up to you to decide whether or not you will.”⁴

            According to Kenneth Hagin, sickness should always be attributed to Satan, not to God: “Jesus plainly taught that sickness is of the devil, and not of God…  Since Satan is the author of sickness, I ought to walk free from it…  Divine health is my covenant right!...  Everybody healed in the ministry of Jesus was oppressed of the devil…  The devil is behind all sickness…  There is no such thing as the separation of sickness and disease from Satan.”⁵

            If you are going to remain committed to this theology, then you have to interpret the Bible in such a way as to make it teach that theology—whether it actually does or not!  You have to find statements that you can twist to support it, then you have to explain away or ignore statements that don’t.

            Let’s briefly allow God to speak for himself on this question of whether sickness could be part of His plan for His children.  In Exodus 4, as Moses is trying to weasel out of his call from God by appealing to his poor speaking skills, the Lord states in v. 11, “Who has made man’s mouth?  Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind?  Is it not I, the Lord?” In no uncertain terms, God simply takes responsibility here for making people mute, deaf, or blind.

            Ultimately, the reason that teachers of faith healing interpret the Bible the way they do is that they cannot accept the idea that God might use sickness and suffering even for good purposes.  That idea does not fit with the god that they have created in their own minds, yet since they do not want to cast aside the Bible, they must twist it to make it paint the picture of the god they want to believe in, not the God who really is.

            I cannot stress how important it is for us to allow the Bible to tell us what God is like rather than the other way around.  We must not tell the Bible what God has to be like and then distort it to make it fit our own ideas.  If we do so, we put ourselves at great risk of spiritual harm and danger, and in some cases, physical harm and danger as well.

            I want to leave you today with the reminder that even though God may use sickness for good purposes at the present time, it was not part of his original creation, nor will it be part of the new heaven and new earth.  In the resurrection, God will bring complete healing and restoration to our bodies, and we will be completely well in both body and soul.

            Until then, the Apostle Paul gives us the proper attitude to embrace: “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor 12:9-10).”

Notes:

1. As quoted by Hank Hanegraaff in Christianity in Crisis (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1993), 244.

2. “Joseph Prince: Unmerited Favor,” http://www.equip.org/article/joseph-prince-unmerited-favor.  Accessed October 16, 2015.

3. Christianity in Crisis, 248.

4. Ibid., 268.

5. Ibid., 258.

God Won't Give You More Than You Can Handle? 1 Corinthians 10:13--Twisters series

            Clichés—these familiar phrases can serve as either conversation fodder or conversation stoppers.  We often find ourselves using them as conversation stoppers when someone is describing a painful situation to us and we just don’t know what to say.  And so, we simply fall back on a familiar cliché.

            I had a professor in seminary who used to call these phrases “counseling grenades,” because we use these phrases kind of like we use grenades in war—we throw them out there, and then run away as fast as we can! “Oh—you say you just lost your job, your spouse, your dog, and your favor tee shirt?  Well, you know, God works all things together for good! Hey—look at the time! I’ve got to get going. I really hope that all works out for you.”

            One phrase that we may use like that at times is the very common phrase, “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” I think a lot of people believe that phrase actually comes straight from the Bible, but in reality, you won’t find that precise phrase anywhere. Rather, this phrase appears to be an interpretation of 1 Corinthians 10:13, which says, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.  God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

The Common Interpretation

            That verse seems to be the origin of this common phrase, “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” This phrase is kind of tricky to assess, because you could understand it in a couple of different ways.  Mostly, it suffers from being unclear and incomplete.

            There is one way of understanding this phrase that I think we can rule out right off the bat. It is the notion that when you don’t believe in yourself, God believes in you. He knows how strong you are and so he put certain challenges on your plate rather than someone else’s.  At worst, this idea can reduce God to being little more than a cheerleader or a kind of personal trainer who pushes you just to remind you that you’re good enough, you’re strong enough, and people like you!  As we’ll see, that’s really not God’s intent when he lets us face challenging times.

            Now, this phrase “God won’t give you more than you can handle” can be interpreted in other ways that are much closer to being correct.  The truthfulness of this statement really depends on what you think it means to “handle” a situation.  Does it mean that you can live through something without ever feeling overwhelmed by it?  Does it mean that you can live through a hard time and maintain your composure throughout it, so that no one will ever see you cry?  Does it mean you can make it through a difficulty without ever asking for help?

What’s the Danger?

            These questions help us see one of the dangers of this unclear interpretation of 1 Corinthians 10:13.

1. Feeling unnecessary shame or guilt

            If you deal with a hard time and in your opinion you’re not “handling it” well, you can end up dealing with some unnecessary shame or guilt.  You might think, “What’s wrong with me?  I’m supposed to be able to handle this, but I’m still feeling sad longer than I thought I would.”

            An awful lot rides on what you think it means to “handle” a situation well.  Our culture doesn’t do us any favors, because we have a practically irrational fear of grief and sadness.  We treat almost any little period of the blues as if it’s something to be ashamed of, or even something to be medicated.  Those of us within northern European ancestry come from a heritage that discourages us from showing emotions publicly.

            In a moment, we’ll get a more Biblical view of what it means to “handle” something well—especially in light of 1 Corinthians 10:13—so that hopefully we can avoid the danger of this misunderstanding.

2. Casting doubt on God’s goodness

            Some people have suggested that we should just declare this common cliché to be absolutely untrue.  They might say, “You know what?  God actually will give you more than you can handle!” I don’t want us to rush to embrace that phrase either, because it could give us the wrong impression about God.

            We’ve probably all encountered people in authority in our lives who like to make life miserable for others just to remind people who’s in charge.  They might ask us to do virtually impossible things just to break our spirits a little bit and “keep us in check.”

            But God is not like that.  He absolutely does not act with a desire to simply keep us beaten down and under his heel. Oh, he certainly does have reasons for letting us face difficult trials, but those reasons are born out of love and good will, not some twisted desire to just assert his authority over us.

So what’s the correct interpretation of 1 Corinthians 10:13? Let’s turn our attention to that passage now.

The Correct Interpretation

            In 1 Corinthians 10, the Apostle Paul warned the Corinthians not to be overconfident when it comes to facing temptation.  They must not underestimate the power of temptation to trip them up.  To prove his point, Paul reminds them of the history of the children of Israel in the Old Testament.  They enjoyed some significant spiritual blessings, as Paul points out at the beginning of the chapter [READ vv. 1-4; the idea that they were “baptized into Moses” is simply the idea that they became unified—or one in spirit—with him as their trusted leader].

            Yet despite all of these spiritual blessings, the people were frequently disobedient to the Lord [READ vv. 5-11].  This history is important for us to remember, because I know I’ve thought to myself many times, “Man!  If I had seen all those things that the children of Israel saw, I don’t think I would have ever sinned!”

            But the power of temptation is strong indeed, so Paul issues this warning in verse 12: “therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” We must not be overconfident in the face a temptation because it is a formidable foe.

            Yet at the same time, we need not fear temptation as if we had no hope whatsoever of overcoming it.  It is a mighty enemy, but it is not almighty.  Notice verse 13 [READ v. 13].

            There are really two distinct claim in this verse that are both meant to encourage us.  The first is this—the temptations that we face are simply the same temptations faced by people all around us.  You will never face a temptation that is completely brand-new.  You see, Satan is the original recycler!  His bag of tricks is powerful, but it’s limited, so as time goes by, he just has to reissue the same temptations in shiny new packaging.

            This thought should encourage us because it means that any temptation we face has been successfully resisted by other people at some time in some place.  Above all, scripture tells us that Jesus “in every respect has been tempted as we are,” yet he never gave in and committed sin.  He is now the very one to whom we can turn to find help in our times of need (Hebrews 4:14-16).

            The second claim in 1 Corinthians 10:13 is that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability.  That’s not because we have some kind of amazing power or ability of our own, but because God will provide for us a way of escape, as it says here.  God will not put us in a situation where the only option we have is to sin. 

            By relying on his grace, we can actually say “no” to temptation anytime it confronts us.  We may feel like temptation has us completely surrounded, but that’s not literally true—God has given us the power to say no through his Holy Spirit, and for many temptations, his word tells us precisely what to do rather than give into sin.

            So here is the sense in which I think we can truly say that God won’t give us more than we can handle.  If I may restate that idea in a slightly different way, I would say God will give us the grace to remain faithful to Him through anything that comes our way.

            God may allow us to face circumstances that leave us physically drained or emotionally depleted, but when you feel that way please don’t think that you haven’t “handled” this situation.  It is no sin to feel beaten up by life!  The promise we have from God is that even in those times, he will give us the grace to remain faithful to him.  We must simply lean on that grace rather than our own strength or wisdom.

So how have we come to the point of having this misunderstanding of 1 Corinthians 10:13?

Interpretive Error—Failing to let Scripture interpret Scripture

            One key component of good Bible study is allowing other passages of Scripture to shed light on the particular passage that you’re studying.  When you first began to study a passage, you want to look very carefully at that passage by itself.  You want to allow it to speak for itself as much as possible.

            But once you think you’ve arrived at the correct interpretation of that passage, the next step is to test your interpretation against other passages of Scripture. Since all scripture is given by God, it forms a unified body of truth. So, if you arrive at an interpretation that contradicts another passage of scripture, that conflict tells you that you better go back to the drawing board and try to gain a more accurate understanding of your passage.

            Just think of it like double-checking your work. When I went through high school, our math textbooks had the answers to certain exercises in the back of the book.  So when we completed those exercises, we could look at those answers to see if we had done it right.

            That’s the idea I’m talking about here when I say “let Scripture interpret Scripture.” When we let the rest of the Bible clarify for us what it might mean that “God won’t give you more than you can handle,” we get some important clarification.  If we have the idea that ”handling” a situation means that we’re not supposed to cry or we’re not supposed to ask for help or we’re not supposed to ask God hard questions, we haven’t gotten that idea from the Bible!

            In the Bible, we read about faithful servants of God experiencing the full range of human emotions—from the fullest joys to the deepest despair.  Over and over again in the psalms, we read the words of godly men who are asking tough, probing questions of God.  Yet through it all, we see them reach the same conclusion—I will not give up on God!  In their dark and difficult times, they have learned that God will not allow them to be tempted beyond their ability, but with the temptation he will provide the way of escape.

            You are never a failure if you continue to cling to God when your whole life seems turned upside down.  The Psalmist said it very well in Psalm 73:26—“my flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

Stars and Stripes Forever? 2 Chronicles 7:14--Twisters series

            There’s a bit of symbolism at the front of our sanctuary that you may have never noticed before. If you’ll look up here now, you’ll notice that we have flags on either side of the platform—the Christian flag over on the left side, and the American flag on the right. These two flags are here to remind us of the “dual citizenship” that we have (so to speak) as children of God.

            On the one hand, as the New Testament tells us, we are citizens of Heaven and the kingdom of God, and that kingdom is to receive our greatest allegiance. But on the other hand, as we live out our lives in this world, we are also citizens of a particular nation—the United States of America—and we are called to be good citizens of this nation as well.

            Now, we know the Bible has a lot to say about the kingdom of God, but does it have anything to say about the United States? There is a statement in 2 Chronicles 7:14 that is frequently treated as a promise from God that can be applied directly to our nation. That verse says this: “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

A Common Interpretation

            We hear this verse frequently around events like the National Day of Prayer and at other times when people are encouraging us to pray for our nation. It is very common for people to take this verse to mean that God has promised to bring spiritual revival to the United States if we, as Christians, will humble ourselves and ask God for it. But should we interpret the verse this way? Can we apply it to our nation so directly and say that God is duty-bound to send us revival if we as Christians will simply humble ourselves enough?

The Correct Interpretation

            To answer those questions, let’s take a closer look at the context of 2 Chronicles 7. This chapter records some events from the glory days of the ancient nation of Israel. At the time of those events, Israel was at its absolute peak in terms of wealth, expansion, peace with its neighbors, and political influence throughout the Middle East.

            In chapter 5, King Solomon had just completed the building of the magnificent Temple in Jerusalem. The priests brought the Ark of the Covenant into the Temple, and Solomon entered the Temple courtyard to offer a sacrifice to God. He prayed a long prayer of dedication for the Temple, and when he finished, God sent fire from Heaven to consume Solomon’s sacrifice, and God’s glory cloud that had led Moses through the wilderness came down into the Temple and filled it, and all the people fell to their knees in worship. What a magnificent moment!

            During Solomon’s prayer, he made one request that I’d like to highlight briefly, because it pertains to God’s statement in 2 Chronicles 7:14. In 6:26-27, Solomon prayed, “When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, if they pray toward this place and acknowledge your name and turn from their sin, when you afflict them, then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk, and grant rain upon your land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance.” Remember this request, because it forms an important background for 7:14.

            Chapter 7 then tells us that after some time had passed, God appeared to Solomon one night with a reply to Solomon’s prayer of dedication. Let’s read about that announcement from the Lord [READ 7:11-16].

            With this context in mind, let’s think about some observations that we can make about 2 Chronicles 7:14. First of all, notice that God says this promise is given to “my people who are called by my name.” From the context, we can see that this phrase clearly refers to the people of Israel.  What we have to ask ourselves, then, is if our relationship with God is similar enough to their relationship with God to allow us to apply this promise directly to ourselves. We’ll touch on this thought a bit more in a moment, but I think the answer is no.

            Next, we need to ask ourselves, “what’s the problem with the land?” At the end of verse 14, God promises to heal their land, but heal it from what exactly? In the common interpretation, that phrase is often taken to refer to spiritual revival. It’s understood as a promise that God will heal our country from the moral and spiritual chaos that we are experiencing.

            But in the context, we learn that the problem with the land is a physical problem, not a spiritual one. In verse 13, God talks about withholding rain or sending plagues of insects on the people’s crops as discipline for their sins. So in verse 14, the healing of the land refers to the end of the drought or the removal of pests. That statement is not a reference to spiritual revival. In fact, notice that the spiritual revival comes before the healing of the land. There’s nothing in the context that would justify interpreting that phrase the way we often do—namely, that God will reverse the moral and spiritual decline in our nation.

            So what is the correct interpretation of this verse? It is that God promised Solomon that if He ever had to discipline the people of Israel for disobedience, He would remove that discipline if they humbly repented and lived in obedience once again. There’s really nothing in the context that would justify the way that we often interpret this verse.

What’s the Danger?

            Now you might be thinking, “Okay, Tim. It might be a bit of a stretch to apply this verse directly to the United States, but what’s the danger? After all, isn’t it good for us to humble ourselves and pray for revival in our nation?” Well, yes it is, but the danger in taking this verse as a promise is that we might end up living with unnecessary guilt. We might end up thinking that we are to blame for the continuing problems in our country because we just haven’t humbled ourselves enough or prayed hard enough for revival.

            If you think I’m joking about that, please understand that some people have already reached that conclusion. Back in June, I received an e-mail from a Christian organization just a couple of days before the Supreme Court handed down their ruling legalizing gay marriage. Here is what it said: “Scripture tells us in 2 Chronicles 7:14 that the healing of a land is to be found in a right relationship between God and His people. God promises that if His people will humble themselves, pray, seek His face and turn from their wicked ways, that He will hear their prayers, forgive their sins, and heal their land. It is evident that America has not yet received God’s healing promise—could that be because we have not yet met his conditions?”

            Notice where they are placing the blame for the problems in our country. Never mind the people who are actually choosing evil lifestyles and are choosing to live by their own standards of morality. The problems in our country are still here because Christians just don’t have our act together!

            Now, is the church in America perfect?  By no means! But the suggestion that the blame for our nation’s moral slide lies at our feet is insulting and wrong! As you can imagine, the rest of this e-mail was a plea for me to make a donation to this organization. If I would just give them some money, they would get the church in America whipped into shape, and all of our problems would disappear. Needless to say, they received nothing from me except an e-mail asking them not to use Scripture like this ever again!

            On a bit of a side note here, let me mention a helpful way to test an interpretation of Scripture—if the interpretation only seems to fit in the context of the United States, its probably not a good interpretation. Would anyone dare to blame Christians in Iraq and Syria for what’s happening to them right now? Would anyone have the gall to say, “Boy, I’m sorry that you’re getting murdered and run out of your homes, but you know, if you had just humbled yourselves a bit more and prayed harder, none of this would have happened because God would have sent a sweeping revival through your country!”

            Do you see how ill-fitting that interpretation is in other parts of the world? So again, if an interpretation only seems to fit in the context of the United States, its probably not a good interpretation.

So how did we get to the point of twisting this passage in an inappropriate way?

Interpretive Errors

1. Taking a statement out of context

            We mentioned this error last week in our study of Jeremiah 29:11, but its even more applicable here. Notice that 2 Chronicles 7:14 is not even a complete sentence—its just the second half of a sentence! So, when we take this verse all by itself, we’re only studying half of a sentence! Think how badly people would misunderstand you if they only thought about half of each sentence that you spoke!

            To understand the Bible correctly, we have to keep its statements in context. In order to do that, one thing we have to learn to do is ignore chapter and verse divisions. It may surprise you to learn this, but the chapter and verse divisions that you see in your copy of the Bible were not in the original text. They were added centuries after the Bible was written as a tool to help people find a specific passage. The chapter divisions were added in 1227, and the verse divisions were added in 1555.

            The chapter and verse numbers are very helpful for finding a statement in the Bible, but ironically, once we have found the statement we’re looking for, we need to forget about the chapter and verse numbers! There are many instances in which a single verse of Scripture does not contain a complete sentence, so if you look only at that single verse, you’ll miss the bigger picture.

            So here’s one great piece of advice for Bible study—never read a Bible verse! Don’t do it! Never read a Bible verse! If you want to make sure that you understand a statement, you need to read at least the whole paragraph in which the statement is found. Beyond that, the more you read, the better!

2. Failing to maintain a proper distinction between Israel and The Church

            As I alluded to earlier, there are some differences between our relationship with God and the kind of relationship that Israel had with God. These differences are significant enough that they make it illegitimate to apply promises given to Israel directly to ourselves today. Consider a few of these differences:

• They were a gathered people—they all lived in the same area, and their worship revolved around a holy site, the Temple in Jerusalem. We are a scattered people—we live all over the world, and our worship does not revolve around a holy site.
• They were an organized nation, with a king, an army, a tax code, and a specific kingdom with boundaries. We are a spiritual fellowship with none of those things.
• They lived under The Law of Moses, with its specific blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. We live under The Law of Liberty, as James calls it (James 2:12), which does not have the same promises of blessing or threats of cursing.

            That last distinction is very relevant for our study today. The reason that God promised to give the people good farming conditions in 2 Chronicles 7:14 is that when He first gave them the Law of Moses, that’s exactly what he promised to give them if they obeyed His laws. Notice these words from Deuteronomy 28:

“And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God…blessed shall be…the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl…And the Lord will make you abound in prosperity…in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands (Deut 28:1, 4-5, 11-12).”

            So when God told Solomon that He would heal the land when the people left behind wickedness and obeyed Him, this was really nothing new. It was simply a re-statement of this promise from centuries before. This particular promise was attached to the Law of Moses, and so it is no longer directly applicable to us today since we no longer live under that Law.

            My friends, let me say this clearly—we have no promise from God that the United States will continue to exist as a nation, or that our moral decline will ever be turned around. That’s a bit of a jarring statement because so many of us—myself included—bleed red, white, and blue. We love our country, and we believe our country was guilt on godly, biblical foundations, and we believe that things could improve in our country if we could just embrace those foundations once again.

            But we have no promise that that will ever happen, and that’s important to understand. Does that mean, then, that we should just say “good riddance” to our country? Should we NOT pray for revival? Certainly not! There are other passages of Scripture that give us strong commands to pray for our leaders and our nation. Let me close by reading one to you—1 Timothy 2:1-4:

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”