QUICK FIXES AND SPIRITUAL BAGGAGE

The Church today is inundated with teachers fixated on spiritual quick fixes and fads. It is not only the followers of Charismatic gurus such as Rod Parsley (with his "breakthrough" messages) or Benny Hinn (with any one of his "double portion," "fresh," or "fire" anointings) who pursue the effortless route to sanctification. Remember, the Church laughed with Rodney Howard Browne, barked and clucked in Toronto Vineyard meetings, and shaked, rattled, and rolled at the Pensacola Outpouring, but none is the wiser or better.

Then the Church at large took another turn down another road with the remarkable popularity of Bruce Wilkinson's The Prayer of Jabez. This all demonstrates how far too many Christians are all too eager to beat a path to instant solutions, spiritual panaceas, and transcendental spirituality.

For those unfamiliar with Wilkinson's book, it is a small, hardback volume which, during the past several months, has sold millions of copies as it topped the best seller charts. The book's back cover promises that the reader will "Join Bruce Wilkinson to discover how the remarkable prayer of a little known Bible hero [Jabez] can release God's favor, power, and protection. You'll see how one daily prayer can help you leave the past behind and break through to the life you were meant to live" (emphasis added).

We are certainly grateful for any teacher or any publication that can get people to pray more or establish a discipline of daily prayer. However, prayer can never be seen as an exercise in getting. The Lord's Prayer tends to be a more comprehensive model for prayer. In it we learn that prayer is first of all a relationship. We also learn that prayer is to change us as we confess our sins and bow before His glory. We also find that it is not done to get our will done but to submit to His will. There are certainly great mysteries in prayer. These mysteries are both theological and philosophical. Prayer is our way as believers to express our total dependence on God. We also remember that we pray because we are commanded to pray. Unfortunately, The Prayer of Jabez book oversells and over-promises.

Excluding the Psalms, there are 650 prayers recorded in Scripture. Why would we think any one of these is more efficacious than the other? They are all worthy to be used as prayer prompters, remembering that prayer is a personal matter of the heart.

One organization we know prayed "the prayer of Jabez" for more Bible studies. There was great fanfare made and letters announced the endeavor. Interestingly enough, those in the organization worked all the harder to get the extra studies. The rub was that they went thousands of dollars into debt and had to plead with congregants to bail them out of their over expenditures for more Bible studies. Is it that they forgot to pray the prayer of Jabez for the money?

Wilkinson himself pledges in the book's Preface that this brief, and heretofore uncelebrated, prayer found in Scripture "contains the key to a life of extraordinary favor with God" and that those who regularly "pray [this] daring prayer that God always answers" are "seeing miracles happen on a regular basis" (emphasis added). Can anyone promise miracles on a regular basis? Would miracles "on a regular basis" be miracles anymore, or would they just be ordinary occurrences?

Jabez's prayer, found in 1 Chronicles 4:10, apparently has become the Church's first mantra of the new millennium that claims to impart the right formula for "extraordinary favor with God," "miracles," and "significant changes in your life" (preface and pg. 86). The first chapter of Ephesians already tells us that if we are in Christ, we already have extraordinary favor with God. That truth needs to be restudied.

The whole concept sounds more in the line of the theology of the Word Faith movement, and Wilkinson has tried to defend his teaching that "one daily prayer" will allow the Christian to "break through to the life you were meant to live." All of us wish it were that simple. No doubt Word-Faith followers will use this book.

Popular Bible teacher Bill Gothard is a strong example of one who imposes a plethora of unbiblical interpretations and strange ideas upon his devotees to get them on the pathway to godly conformity and spiritual maturity. Gothard has guidelines to spirituality for everyone. No Cabbage Patch Kids dolls for children, no contemporary Christian music for adolescents, restricted periods of sexuality between married adults, a detailed circumcision ritual complete with a wall certificate, and ritual prayers to cast off consequences of a father's sins are but a few of Gothard's many mandates.

But alluring "breakthroughs" to living the victorious Christian life need not come by way of best selling authors, noted Bible teachers, or those prominent on the religious airwaves. They can come from the pulpits of local churches.

Consider one method of a local pastor who informed his congregation how to obtain "God's cleansing, God's sweeping power of purity." This pastor and his wife, as they would move into a new house, would always go room to room praying over each room, to remove the consequences of any sinfulness which may have occurred there. (When they would check into a motel room, they would also pray over the room to inhibit the curse left in the wake of previous sinful activity.) If they moved into a newly built home, their prayers would be against any ungodly contractor who worked on the premise. Why? "Because God wants us to be pure," the pastor told his flock.

His system is tragically unbiblical. No amount of praying over motel rooms or rooms in our home will ever bring us to a place of purity in our lives. We must deal with our own heart issues. The heart is the seedbed of sinfulness—not the environment around us (such as a motel room). Scripture commands, "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life" (Proverbs 4:23). Can our Lord's words be any more penetrating? "Are you still so dull? ... But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander" (Matthew 15:16, 18 19).

This whole concept is a mutation of employing spiritual warfare against the likes of generational and territorial spirits and to remove the demonic strongholds they possess. While Christians may wish to use such "spiritual warfare" techniques, they do so apart from the authority of Scripture. The criteria for those employing this type of procedure rests solely upon subjective experience, for nowhere in the New Testament writings did Paul (or the other New Testament writers) ever engage in or command such a practice.

When one employs a doctrine or practice apart from the prescription of Scripture, it can have disastrous effects. Consider, for example, the methodology of the local pastor. How far does one take such activity? Does it stop with the purchase of a home, or should it include the purchase of an automobile? (It shouldn't matter if the car is new or used. Remember, like a new home, a new car may have had an ungodly auto worker who helped build the car, or all sorts of sinful activity may have occurred within a previously owned automobile.)

And then just how much further do we take this theology? Should we also employ a cleansing ritual prayer next time we start to push a shopping cart at our local grocery store? Who knows what demons may linger there if we don't? A previous customer (who used the very cart you are now pushing) may have been an adulterer or an alcoholic or a homosexual or a thief—or any combination of the above. Perhaps even the cart itself was used to haul cases of beer and other types of alcohol.

Taxi cabs, airplanes, pay telephones, and even mailboxes—where does the madness end?

When one stops and takes a sobering and biblical view of such activity, they will see it not as a pathway to breaking and overcoming spiritual strongholds, but as having the very opposite effect—an effect which places one under excessive and unnecessary spiritual baggage and a stronghold of fear. Moreover, it moves the believer into a life of paranoia and to an unhealthy and unbiblical preoccupation with the demonic; having to bind and destroy demonic entities and strongholds. It causes one to become more focused on evil spiritual forces, than upon the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). Such obsessions are not too far removed from the bizarre and twisted "curse" theology taught by self proclaimed occult expert Rebecca Brown.
Scripture is clear as to the impotency of Satan and his host of demons. Consider the following:

* Satan cannot harm believers — "...and the evil one cannot harm him" (1 John 5:18).

* Satan must flee when resisted — "Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you" (James 4:7).

* Satan has no authority over Christians — "For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves" (Colossians 1:13).

* Satan has been disarmed and defeated — "And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross" (Colossians 2:15).

* Satan and his works are destroyed — "...so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14), and "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work" (1 John 3:8).

* God protects His own against Satan's attack — "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has?" (Job 1:10).

Christians allow themselves to be burdened with spiritual baggage at the hands of self assuming teachers because they fail to realize the importance of knowing God's Word. These techniques, with their claim of divine intervention and triumph, offer no hope or help to the soul weary with sin and striving for a life pleasing to God. Pastor and author David Kirkwood says, "The first step in preparing to win in our struggle against Satan and evil spirits is to know what God has said. If we don't know what God has said, we won't recognize Satan's lies. If we don't know what God has said, we won't be able to believe what He has said or do what He said" (Modern Myths About Satan and Spiritual Warfare, pg. 153).

We must remember, too, that the ruts of sin can run deep and, in some cases, may entail a lifelong process of working through to sanctification on specific issues. Instant means of blessing (such as 30 day prayer formulas) or bizarre spiritual warfare to crush the effects of sin (by throwing in the trash a child's doll or praying over motel rooms) are not part of God's plan for us to be transformed into the image of His Son (see Ephesians 4:17 6:18).

Such unorthodox and unbiblical solutions only do more harm than good for the believer. God's Word is sufficient to equip the believer for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16 17) and His grace is sufficient to work perseverance so that we will be mature and complete, not lacking anything (James 1:2 4).

—MKG

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