On 12/28/2007, I posited a question to Zack H. at Forever Nocturnal.
Zack has been gracious enough to devote a post to his response. I will likewise post my response here and over at Zack’s.
—————-
Zack,
Thanks for taking the time to answer my question. You make me think these things through a bit more thoroughly as well.
First, I should address the issue of God’s sovereignty and prayer/intercession. You said:
God is all sovereign. …He doesn’t need us. Yet that’s the glory of the gospel, He desires that we partner with him, to be with him.
I believe I have stated this before, but likely not as clearly and emphatically as I should have:
I am a Calvinist. I believe in God’s absolute sovereignty over all, including the wills of men. I believe nothing happens apart from God’s predetermined plan. I believe no one hinders or turns back God (Job) through unbelief, lack of prayer or by any other means.
I also believe God has sovereignly ordained to realize much of His will via the prayers of His people. I believe prayer moves God, though I would say it moves Him to a place He had already determined to go. That He folds us into His sovereignty in this way truly is glorious.
I don’t think you and I are very far apart here. I nowhere meant to give the impression that I do not believe God is moved by prayer.
(John Piper preached on prayer two Sundays ago. You and I would find much to agree on here.)
—————-
On to my persisting issues:
The purpose of IHOP is not to make Jesus come back faster. Our purpose is to fast and pray because we believe Jesus is coming back soon. (Again I speak for IHOP in that as well because it’s a public fact, but I am not an official spokesman nor can I be labeled as one.)
…
Do I or have I heard it preached at IHOP that we are praying for the purpose of bringing Jesus back faster? No. But IHOP and I do believe Jesus is coming back soon.
I’m not sure this is a distinction with any difference. Perhaps, I again need to be a bit clearer. I recognize IHOP intercessors are not praying “to make Jesus come back faster”, but believe He is coming back soon (faster?) and this return is contingent upon prayer (contingent in the manner I would defend above). And not just any prayer - 24/7, Bridally Paradigm-ed prayer. You said:
Our prayers fill the bowl not because He needs us, but because He wants us. (John 3:16; John17) Thus why the Bridal Paradigm is needed.
24/7 prayer and the Bridal Paradigm are necessary to propel the end-times saints into the kind of prayer and holiness that will be required to usher in Christ’s Second Coming. This is exactly what Jennifer Roberts spoke of when I saw her at onething Minneapolis. (See: Here and here for my comments on Roberts, onething and the Bridal Paradigm.) I will concede that it is probably not your, Roberts’ or IHOP’s intent to portray 24/7 prayer or the Bridal Paradigm as a means of manipulating God. However, when these are lifted up as necessary, it inevitably gives the impression that if these are not followed (at least by a small vanguard of full-time intercessors), then Christ will not return.
Creating a place on the Earth for the spirit of the Lord to dwell. Not saying that we need to reestablish the rabbinic tabernacle of David. But saying we need to create a place with in us for the Holy Spirit to rest. Christ is in us. The Spirit already abides in us, but by resting place I mean a place free of gossip and slander. A place free of lust and perversion. A place where the spirit can rest. The city of refuge is not a biblical quotation, but from a prophecy about cities of refuge being raised up at the end of the Age.
To which prophecy do you refer? This drives to the heart of my problem with IHOP and other modern charismatic/prophetic ministries: they are driven, at least in part, by a gnostic understanding of Christianity and the Bible. No one outside this clique has any knowledge of the Bridal Paradigm, Cities of Refuge, the Joseph Company, Joel’s Army, Tabernacle of David… because they are essentially extra-biblical. They are wrapped in biblical language, but are really founded on extra-biblical, personal, divine revelation. If God hadn’t “spoken” to Mike Bickle, Bob Jones, Paul Cain, etc., then none of the above concepts/paradigms would exist.
To get into this clique, one must have a similar special, divine, personal, extra-biblical revelation about these things. As you and Roberts have both stated, these things are essential to what “God is doing” in these “final days”. I believe you have stated elsewhere on your blog that you believe we are fast-approaching the eschaton, because God told you so.
But what about the rest of us - the 99.9% of believers who haven’t received these secret messages from God? When people accuse IHOP’rs and other prophetic/charismatic types of being elitist, I don’t think they necessarily mean it personally or individually, but corporately. The movement is definitionally elitist, because it hinges on personal, extra-biblical revelation from God. It is, in this sense, a gnostic elitism.
“…we need to create a place with in us for the Holy Spirit to rest.”
I honestly don’t know what that means. If I (or my family, local church, small group, etc.) need to be free of gossip, slander, lust and perversion in order for the “Holy Spirit to rest”, I am/we are in trouble. This smacks of a moral perfectionism I see in much modern charismatic/prophetic language. No one individual or community is or ever will be free of sin this side of eternity. We Christians, sinners all, are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit as a guarantee of our inheritance (Eph. 1), not because we cleaned house beforehand, but because God is gracious, merciful and good to His undeserving called-out ones.
Do you believe IHOP is a place free of gossip, slander, lust and perversion? I don’t believe you do, and don’t believe your point here was to say that you do. But, why say it at all then? What’s the point? I think this again drives to the perceived elitism - there seems to be the implication that the average Bible-believing Christian church/ministry does not strive for holiness in the same way IHOP does, because it is not devoted to 24/7 prayer and the Bridal Paradigm (and Joel’s Army, and the JoCo, and establishing Cities of Refuge, etc.). I know that’s not your intent, Zack, but I think it is an understandable perception taken by those on the outside. (I also understand IHOP leadership repeatedly states their mission is not for the whole Church, but a small troupe of intercessors. However, I think this only reinforces the perception of elitism. IHOP is not for everyone, but only a select few. It’s like the Navy Seals of Christian spirituality.)
Zack, please accept that I say all of the above out of a genuine concern and desire to understand more clearly, not a desire to be unnecessarily quarrelsome. I don’t doubt the genuineness of your faith, and I admire your zeal. I just believe it is a zeal that could be put to better use.
God Bless,
Jim B.
—————-
P.S. If you happen to read/listen to/watch Piper’s sermon on prayer, I believe he paints a much more biblical picture of 24/7 prayer. It is not the picture of an Intercessory Missionary, but of a common saint breathing prayer as a 24/7 lifestyle. Though I fall dreadfully short of this goal, it is my life’s aim in regard to prayer.
—————-
Now playing: The Beach Boys - Sloop John B
via FoxyTunes
“…we need to create a place with in us for the Holy Spirit to rest.”
is there a difference between the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the infilling of the Holy Spirit?
Ephesians 1:13 and Galatians 3:2 speaks of the promised Holy Spirit that will dwell in every believer at salvation but IMO this is different than being “filled” with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30) and quenched (1 Thessalonians 5:19) and it is sin that hinders us from experiencing the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
Why do you think the manifest presence of God left the OT temple?
Ortho,
I just covered that comment about us providing a resting place for the Holy Spirit over on Zack’s blog. Not about the ‘filling” because that doesn’t really have anything to do with that statement. But if you’re interested you’ll find it here:
http://zackhensley.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/intercession-my-answer-to-jimb/#comment-6216
Ortho,
I do believe there is a difference between the HS indwelling and infilling. However, I am guessing you and I would draw different conclusions from this difference.
I would spend more time on a reply, but I read mbaker’s comments here and over at Forever Nocturnal, and I think she summed it up as well as I would have been able to.
If questions remain, feel free to ask!
God Bless
Jim, You had mention that Surgeon didn’t preach the chruch as the bride of Christ? Did I understand that correctly? This sounds alot like the love language that IHOP talks about. And look, he refers to Song of Songs.
(Taken From Spurgeons sermons)
A Warning against Hardness of Heart - Heb. 3:13
I do not mean to insinuate that the Church of God is not infinitely to be preferred to the world in character; God forbid that I should slander the fair bride of Christ, she is as much superior to the world as the curtains of Solomon excel the smoke blacked tents of Kedar; but who dares deny that there are specimens to be found of the worst of sins occurring among the best of men, just as in the most carefully tended garden there will spring up here and there some of the most noxious weeds: not that the weeds are permitted to smother the whole garden and kill the flowers, but that their coming there while men sleep, is an indication of what the soil is, and a plain manifestation that although the garden is very different from the piece of waste ground on the other side the wall, yet it differs not in nature, but owes all its superiority to the culture of the husbandman, even as the saints owe all their excellence above the very chief of sinners to the guardian care and omnipotent grace of the great lover of souls.
(from Spurgeon’s Sermons, Electronic Database. Copyright © 1997, 2003, 2006 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)
Haybark,
“Jim, You had mention that Surgeon didn’t preach the chruch as the bride of Christ?”
No, I didn’t. I have clearly and repeatedly stated that many in the Church have interpreted Song of Songs in a GENERAL allegorical sense. Spurgeon is among them, as I have made mention of several times. My argument against the Bridal Paradigm is that it obfuscates the difference between what Spurgeon believed and what IHOP teaches by conflating the two. I.e. “What’s your problem with the Bridal Paradigm, Spurgeon believed Song of Songs was an allegory of Christ and His Church!”
The problem is that IHOP takes the allegory WAY too far and places it at the center of their ministry. Spurgeon did not do this, nor has anyone else I am aware of throughout Church history.
Check out my posts on Jennifer Roberts and onething.
God Bless
While these commentators agree that this book S.S. can be used as an allegory they catagorilcally say that it needs to be looked at as literal teaching of love between man and woman.
From the New Bible Commentary, Revised 1970, pg 579…
Owing to it’s apparent eroticism the book for centuries has been understood as an allegory of Christ’s love for the church. There is however, no indictaion that the writing is allegorical and the fanciful, varied and often contridictory results of such a view are not in its favor. The song must be taken literally, as what it appears to be, a song about human love written in the form of a series of dramatic poems with this one unifying theme. The fact that it probably owes its existence in the Canon to an allegorical interpretation is still no basis for the the acceptance of such an interpretation. This is not to say thatthe book may not at times be illustrative of the relationship between Christ and the individual… A further danger of the allegorical interpretation is that readers may be led into an erotic view of his personal relationship with Christ
Interesting the warning at the end of this introduction of this commentary. This has been the issue all along that the BP teaching does indeed lead to this.