Inter-faith Prayer - a Dilemma?

Recently our president called on the nation to observe a day of prayer, which included all faiths represented in our country. This posed a moral problem for many Christians: should we, or shouldn’t we participate? I have no problem kneeling down amongst people of different faiths like Hindus, Muslims, New Agers, Buddhists, and others, and praying.

Why?

Because of what the Bible teaches me about Elijah and the 850 priests in 1 Kings 18. No matter how hard those priests worshipping false gods prayed, only the prayers to the One True Living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, were answered. And please note the overwhelming number of pagan priests and therefore the number of prayers offered to those false gods, remembering also that they tried all day long, going to extreme measures like cutting themselves, against the ONE man praying ONE prayer to the true God.

The spiritual principles involved are a) altars and b) authority.

Altars are erected in the spirit wherever people regularly pray and worship. There is no neutral ground in the spirit. If no one establishes and services an altar of prayer to God in an area, then Satan will be worshipped there. By default.

But here’s the thing. The altar that has the highest authority attached to it, always supersedes the others. Prayers to our God will always trump all other prayers, because He is the Highest Authority in Heaven and on earth!

So my call to my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ is: please start praying! For even if you are the only Christian in your entire city, your prayers are the only ones that have the power behind them to cancel the effect of all the others!

2020Copyright All rights reserved P. Koegelenberg

About Jonah

 

When you just read “Jonah”, you immediately thought of the huge fish, didn’t you. But today I do not want to concentrate on that great supernatural miracle of God (creating such a big fish for him – Jonah 1:17 “Now the LORD provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah,”). 

 Let us first quickly get the theory that Jonah is only mythology and not a real event, out of the way.  Because this is the modern tendency, isn’t it, to call the historical events recorded in the Bible into disrepute.

Firstly, the style of the book, the wording and the grammar, are identical to the Old Testament books 1 and 2 Kings.  So if you dispute the authenticity of the story of Jonah, you also have to disregard 1 & 2 Kings, for which ample historical proof exists.

 Secondly, real people and real places are mentioned in Jonah, which are also mentioned elsewhere in the Bible.  For example: Jonah himself is also mentioned in II Kings 14.

 And thirdly, Jesus treated Jonah as a real person in Matt 12:40-41. Let’s read verse 40: “For even as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth”.  Please note that Jesus did not say:  For even as the STORY of Jonah says that….He spoke of a real person.  You see, Jonah was born in Nazareth, and must have been one of the local heroes to Jesus when He was growing up!   If you start disputing the very words of Jesus Himself, you are in essence then declaring that you believe nothing written in the Bible - we cannot decide which sections we will believe, and which not.  It is all, or nothing. 

 What I really want to get to, is the fact that Jonah’s story is a foreshadow of Jesus’ resurrection.  Because Jonah was actually dead in the belly of that fish.

 What!  I hear you say.  But this is not what we were taught in Sunday School?  Let’s investigate:

 Jonah 2:3 – For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the floods surrounded me, all Your waves and Your billows passed over me. – No doubt that he was cast into the deepest waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

  Verse 5-6  – The waters compassed me about, even to the extinction of life, the abyss surrounded me, the seaweed was wrapped around my head.  I went down to the bottoms and the very roots of the mountains, the earth with its bars closed  behind me forever.   – It takes only about one and a half mins to drown, and many more minutes to reach the bottom of the sea and lie there with seaweed wrapped around your head.

 Jonah2:2: “ saying, “I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.”- Jonah’s prayer came out of the belly of Sheol.  Now Sheol was the abode of the dead.

 Verse 7 – When my soul fainted upon me – This is his last moments of consciousness – I remembered my Lord.

 You see, when that fish spewed Jonah out, God had also resurrected him, and this is why Jesus could say:  LIKE Jonah, the Son of Man….and He meant:  Will be enclosed for three days and three nights AND will also be resurrected from the dead.

 So this is a key element from the story of Jonah:  RESURRECTION!

 What does Jesus have to say about the resurrection of the dead?

 Read sections of John 6 with me:

Verse 39:  …but that I should give new life and raise them all up at the last day.

Verse 40:…and I will raise him up from the dead at the last day.

Verse 44: …and them I will raise up from the dead at the last day.

Verse 54:…and I will raise him up from the dead on the last day.

 I think Jesus meant what He said:  He WILL raise us up from the dead on the last day. How it happens is described in 1 Cor 15 (where Paul explains that the rapture will happen first, but this is a topic for another day). The question of course is:  what happens next?  Why would He raise us up after we had already died, assuming that this has happened before His rapture-appearance?

 Because He wants to reward His children!  Read Rev 11:18 – And the heathen raged, but Your wrath came, the time when the dead will be judged and Your servants the prophets and saints (that’s us!) rewarded.  Halleluja!  We serve a God Who has compassion.  We sometimes forget how patient God is, and how full of mercy, and how many chances He wants to give people to choose life, to turn away from our wickedness and choose Him.  Look at Jonah!

 ©2020Copyright All rights reserved P. Koegelenberg