How to Make Sure God Hears Your Prayers E-Book

Ray Comfort

• Herausgeber: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 232

Beschreibung

What if you could know God hears your prayers? We live in a noisy world full of uncertainty, hardship, and lies. In the confusion, it's easy to wonder where God is and if he hears us at all. In How to Make Sure God Hears Your Prayers, Ray Comfort exposes biblical truths, revealing how the fear of the Lord is key to entering God's holy presence and receiving his blessings. Through Ray's powerful stories, profound biblical illustrations, and real-life examples, you will ·        discover what the Bible says about the fear of the Lord, ·        recognize the importance of repentance and obedience, ·        be empowered to share gospel truths, and ·        find peace in God's promises. You can have confidence that God hears your prayers.

Leseprobe

God has gifted Ray in amazing ways. His newest book is a mixture between a call to action and an instruction manual on how to reach lost people. Every Christian should read How to Make Sure God Hears Your Prayers. You will be challenged and rightfully so. The church needs a wake-up call, and I believe this book to be just that. Thank you, Ray, for stepping on my toes—again.

Carl Kerby | president and founder, Reasons for Hope, www.rforh.com

BroadStreet Publishing® Group, LLC

Savage, Minnesota, USA

BroadStreetPublishing.com

How to Make Sure God Hears Your Prayers

Copyright © 2023 Ray Comfort

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked AMP are taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP). Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible, public domain.

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CONTENTS

Foreword by Ken Ham

Introduction

Chapter 1: What the World Says Is Good

Chapter 2: A Healthy Fear of the Lord

Chapter 3: Real God, Real Judgment

Chapter 4: Guilty, Not Condemned

Chapter 5: Scripture Reveals

Chapter 6: Obedience Protects

Chapter 7: Judas Is the Warning

Chapter 8: Jesus Is the Way

Chapter 9: Promises to Those Who Fear God

Endnotes

About the Author

FOREWORD

Despite Ray’s nationality as a Kiwi from New Zealand and mine as an Aussie from Australia, we’ve been good friends for a long time (though we frequently tease and insult each other—a sign of affection in our culture!). When he asked me to write the foreword for his latest book, I was honored. Ray’s resources are powerful and always point readers toward the most important message they could ever hear—the saving gospel of Jesus Christ.

Why should you read this book? Within its pages, Ray gives you the answer to your biggest problem. It’s the biggest problem every single person who has ever lived has—the sin that separates us from a holy God. That sin is no small matter: “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). We’ve rebelled against the Creator, and we deserve death (both physical death and eternal spiritual death) for our sin. But praise the Lord. He did what we can’t do and provided a way of salvation. Consider the rest of Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (ESV).

Salvation is a free gift, provided by God’s grace and offered to anyone who will turn from their sin and trust in Christ and his death and resurrection. Ray is passionate about this message because he truly loves people and wants to see everyone saved for eternity. That’s why he has dedicated his life to daily sharing the message you’ll read in this book.

So read How to Make Sure God Hears Your Prayers and honestly and seriously consider the truth that Ray shares. It’s truth straight from the very Word of God, and it has the power to save you if you will repent and believe.

CEO, Answers in Genesis, the Ark Encounter, and the Creation Museum

INTRODUCTION

When someone dies, we should ask ourselves if that person was a Christian. Did he know the Lord? Was she born again? These are legitimate ways to ask if the deceased person professed to believe in Jesus. However, the all-encompassing question we should ask is, Did he or she fear the Lord? It doesn’t matter how much we accomplish in our lives, the size of our Christian ministry, or how much money we leave behind. Everything boils down to whether we fear God. This is because, while many people profess to be born again, only people who fear the Lord reflect that fear in how they live. The fear of God is the fertile soil from which good, biblical fruit grows, and as we shall see, it is a priceless gift from the hand of our loving Creator.

When a nation loses the fear of God, it doesn’t depart from sin. And as with Israel of old, it instead gravitates toward idolatry. It creates its own image of God—one that won’t and can’t threaten future punishment for evil. That opens the gates to sexual sin, followed by general lawlessness—blasphemy, lying, stealing, greed, rape, violence, murder, pornography, pride, the delusion of self-righteousness, and even the killing of one’s own offspring. Welcome to our modern-day world.

We desperately need to return to the preaching of truths that make sinners tremble. Such a thought may sound distasteful to some. However, in the light of Scripture, we should be suspicious of any medicine that isn’t a little bitter. In addressing the necessity of the fear of the Lord, A. W. Tozer said,

Wherever God appeared to men in Bible times the results were the same—an overwhelming sense of terror and dismay, a wrenching sensation of sinfulness and guilt. When God spoke, Abram stretched himself upon the ground to listen. When Moses saw the Lord in the burning bush, he hid his face in fear to look upon God. Isaiah’s vision of God wrung from him the cry, “Woe is me!” and the confession, “I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips.”1

Abram, Moses, Isaiah, Daniel—even Jesus feared the Lord. Biblically speaking, the fear of God is an essential condition for a relationship with God. At first, it may be strange to consider that Jesus himself had a healthy fear of the Lord, but Scripture tells us that his prayers were heard by the Father not because of his faith or his humility of heart but “because of His godly fear” (Hebrews 5:7).

Every day millions pray, believing they are being heard by God. Some think they are heard because of their vain repetition or their many words. Others believe that nothing restricts the smallest prayer—that God always hears and responds. But Scripture says this is not so. It tells us that sin cuts us off from God so that he will not hear (see Psalm 66:18; Isaiah 59:1–2). If we want to capture God’s attention, we must take note of the Bible’s teaching on the subject and thoroughly mingle our prayers with the fear of God.

A book on the fear of the Lord goes against the tide of a culture that frowns on such talk. As far as the world is concerned, God is not to be feared. He is a loving Father who hears every prayer. But I must defend the integrity of Scripture with as much passion as I would defend the integrity of my faithful wife. While many of today’s preachers don’t delight in the fear of God, we must look to God’s Word to see what he says about himself. That is my agenda with this publication.

Each of the chapters in this book concludes with a transcript of a real-life witnessing scene. As you will see, I use a biblical key to produce the fear of God in all those with whom I share the gospel. This is because I know they need the fear of the Lord to depart from sin, for it is “by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil” (Proverbs 16:6 KJV).

Having said all this, let me allay any possible concerns with a concession: there is a perversion of the doctrine of fear of the Lord, one that is neither biblical nor glorifying to God, and that has long been employed to keep the religious masses in submission. The fear of the Lord of which I am concerned is fear mingled with love—exemplified in the terrible cost of the cross. At that scene, we tremble.

May God bless you and strengthen you through this wonderful and sublime truth.

August 2021

Chapter 1

WHAT THE WORLD SAYS IS GOOD

There are over seven billion people on this earth right now. Many of them walk through their daily lives believing they are good people. Maybe they volunteer at the local nursing home or donate to orphanages. They may even attend church every Sunday. Yet when they pray, they wonder why God feels distant. They’re “good” people after all. However, they don’t fear the Lord. In secret, they sin because they don’t think God notices or cares. But God cares deeply about our sin. It separates us from him.

SIN IN BELSHAZZAR’S COURT

While Daniel was faithfully serving God as an exile in Babylon, his captor, King Belshazzar, was partying. This was despite his city being surrounded by his enemy, the hostile Medo-Persian army, for four months. But he had a good reason not to be too concerned. Belshazzar had water and food enough to last for two decades. His city was encircled by two walls. The inner wall was twenty-one feet thick with massive towers at sixty-foot intervals. The outer wall was eleven feet in width and had watchtowers. Six feet outside these walls was a moat fed by the Euphrates River, making Babylon a seemingly impenetrable fortress.2 Belshazzar, therefore, was unintimidated. He needed only wait until the enemy became discouraged and left, so despite the siege, he made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and calmly drank wine in their presence.

However, the God of Israel had already given the king a prophetic message:

[Daniel] told the king three times that the kingdom of Babylon would end and that it would be replaced by the Medes and the Persians. The army outside the gates would win.

God had also given the same message through other prophets. Both Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied that Babylon would fall to the Medes (see Jeremiah 51:1–11; Isaiah 13:17–22). Isaiah’s prediction was over 200 years earlier!

Belshazzar knew what God had said, but he felt safe inside his city walls. In a final act of defiance, he threw a great party.3

His drinking of wine is mentioned five times in these few verses, inferring that this was more than just a feast. And one sin led to another. Scripture doesn’t hesitate to align sexual sin with drunkenness. They are bedfellows: “Let us conduct ourselves properly and honorably as in the [light of] day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and irresponsibility” (Romans 13:13 AMP). The Bible further warns that drunkenness leads to sexual sin:

For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. (1 Peter 4:3)

Drunkenness emboldens sin by dulling the conscience. It muffles its warning and has no doubt robbed many men and women of virginity they otherwise would have prized. Drunkenness certainly marred Noah’s good reputation (see Genesis 9:20–23).

Belshazzar’s drunkenness not only led to sexual sin but also to idolatry, for it was while the king had a cup of wine in his hand that the now infamous and devilish thought entered his mind: he would take the cups from the temple so that he and his guests could drink wine from them:

While he tasted the wine, Belshazzar gave the command to bring the gold and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple which had been in Jerusalem, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. Then they brought the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple of the house of God which had been in Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone. (Daniel 5:2–4)

But this wasn’t solely for the pleasure of drinking fine wine. It was to be a time of praise to the demon gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone. And in Belshazzar’s mind, they were worthy to be praised—because dumb idols don’t forbid sexual sin. His idols let him behave however he pleased. The psalmist speaks of how the ungodly boast of their idols: “Let all be put to shame who serve carved images, who boast of idols” (Psalm 97:7).

Sinners feel so safe and secure from the judgment of God that they throw a party. Despite the many warnings in Scripture, the voice of conscience, and the protest of the church against sin, people today have fortified themselves behind impenetrable walls and become emboldened in their sin, just like Belshazzar: “Yet they say, ‘The LORD does not see, nor does the God of Jacob understand’” (94:7).

All the while, justice strains against the reins of mercy. Despite the patience of God, his law remains. His love of justice never changes, but the Scriptures tell us that he is rich in mercy. Like a good judge, he waits patiently because he wants to show mercy to a criminal. The judge waits for signs of remorse. And it’s the same with our Creator. He waits, but all the while, wrath is being stored up; the ultimate stallion rises on its hind legs and is keen to rush into battle:

But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who “will render to each one according to his deeds”: eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil. (Romans 2:5–9)

How can we not but tremble when we think of the terrifying fate of those who don’t fear God—who, without restraint, give themselves to sin? They “feast…without fear,” serving their own lusts. “They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever” (Jude 1:12–13). They act in rebellion against God’s commands. These people could be your coworkers, your neighbors, your friends, and even your family members. Without the fear of the Lord, all await his judgment.

THE WORLD’S DEFINITION OF GOOD AND EVIL

But our world tries to say, “Surely you don’t mean everyone who doesn’t fear the Lord is destined for hell? What about the neighbor who bakes cookies for you? Or the cousin who’s just had a hard life? Or the friend who goes out of her way to help people?”

If you ask the unsaved to define evil, you will find that most confine their definition to a mass murderer like Hitler—someone who was responsible for the slaughter of millions of people. Or they will point to Jeffrey Dahmer—a man who, between 1978 and 1991, molested seventeen men and boys, strangled them, dismembered them, and cannibalized them.4 Most people wouldn’t deny mass murderers are evil.

In fact, the dictionary says that to be evil means to be “profoundly immoral and wicked.”5 These two monsters adequately qualify for that definition. However, the dictionary’s use of the word profoundly elevates evil above the reach of average sinners, completely ignoring God’s moral standards. Even respected theologians miss the mark if they don’t point to an objective standard when describing evil:

Essentially, evil is a lack of goodness. Moral evil is not a physical thing; it is a lack or privation of a good thing. As Christian philosopher J. P. Moreland has noted, “Evil is a lack of goodness. It is goodness spoiled. You can have good without evil, but you cannot have evil without good.” Or as Christian apologist Greg Koukl has said, “Human freedom was used in such a way as to diminish goodness in the world, and that diminution, that lack of goodness, that is what we call evil.”6

Although these statements are true, they are obscure if goodness is also left without a clear definition. What may be goodness to one person may not be goodness to another. How profound is profound, and how good is good?

With these vague definitions of good and evil, it’s no wonder most people today wonder why God feels distant to them. They may even think that as long as they’re good people—living up to whatever their definition of good is—that God will hear their prayers and do whatever they ask. However, the Bible has clearly defined good from evil. This is why we must point to the law of God as the ultimate reference point for good and evil. Scripture says the law is perfect, holy, just, and good (Psalm 19:7; Romans 7:12). By it, we can measure evil. The law demanded that Hitler love the Lord his God with all of his heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love every Jew as much as he loved himself. If he saw an injured Jewish person, he was required to lovingly bathe his wounds, transport him to a place where he could find help, and pay for any and all costs incurred (see Luke 10:25–37). Scripture is clear that anyone who breaks God’s commandments “shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19). To look the other way when someone is in such need is profoundly evil. The law thunders the truth about evil: “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (15:19).

Despite this truth, the world’s “philosophy and empty deceit” (Colossians 2:8) is born out of willful ignorance:

Understand, you senseless among the people; and you fools, when will you be wise?

He who planted the ear, shall He not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not see? (Psalm 94:8–9)

They willfully forget that God judged the world through the flood in the time of Noah. There are oceans of evidence that the earth was once flooded (including the fact that 70 percent of the earth is still covered in water), but sinful men and women refuse to study it because of the implications of divine judgment:

For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. (2 Peter 3:5–7, emphasis added)

Without the law to bring knowledge of sin and the fear of the Lord, people cannot help but do that which is right in their own eyes. They are directed in a way that seems right by their own deficient moral compass, but that way only leads to death. No wonder people are so lost, and no wonder they are so lawless.

BEWARE OF BEING MISLED

Scripture says to beware! Be on your guard, for if you lack vigilance, you will be cheated! Stand your ground with both eyes peeled because “anyone” may try to fleece, hoodwink, mislead, and swindle you with worldly philosophy and empty deceit. That “anyone” could be your own loving mother or grandpa, gently correcting you by explaining that the God of the Bible is loving and kind and would never create hell, let alone damn anyone to such a place. They may even back up their thoughts by giving you a Bible verse about God being love. Or the “anyone” may be your science teacher, who leaves science for a moment or two to share her concern that “Christian fundamentalism,” as she calls it, has led to tremendous bigotry and narrow-mindedness. The “anyone” may even be the convictions of a certain religion professor who says of evangelicals that “their racism, their sexism… their lack of belief in science, lack of belief and common sense may end up killing us all…If evangelicals don’t change, they pose an existential crisis to us all.”7

And “anyone” may even explain that the much-feared beliefs held by these evil and bigoted evangelicals can be traced back to the Bible. They blame the Bible because it speaks the truth about sin and sexual perversion, warning that God will judge the world in righteousness. That’s why wicked people hate the Scriptures. So be on the alert for the friendly delivery person who gently tells you to let go of the vindictive God portrayed in that archaic book—a book, he’ll tell you, that has been changed many times down through the ages. Be wary of the celebrity who unashamedly thanks God for her award but explains that she believes in an inclusive Jesus. Such love and tolerance for everyone is not only applauded by her fans but by all of Hollywood. However, the accolades would cease in a second if she were loving enough to warn them that God is intolerant of all sin:

For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them. (Ephesians 5:5–7)

Simply quoting these two verses in an acceptance speech would stir Hollywood’s demons of hatred and ensure blacklisting. It is indeed a sin in the world’s eyes to share these truths.

Israel Folau learned this the hard way when, in 2019, Australian rugby union authorities suspended him from playing and later ended his contact for posting on his Instagram account several Bible verses about repentance.

The post’s graphic listed various sins from 1 Corinthians 6:9, including drunkenness and idolatry, that people must repent of or face eternal judgment. Folau wrote that Jesus loves those who are living in sin and is giving sinful people time to repent, adding Galatians 5:19–21 and Acts 17:30.8

Sinners hate the light—no matter whom it shines through. But their philosophy is nothing new. It is the same venom that came through the vipers who hated Jesus two thousand years ago because he talked about them being evil (see John 7:7). Their worldview is “according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8). Jesus was not shy in talking about the coming judgment:

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation. (John 5:24–29)

THE GRAVITY OF OUR SIN

While God’s anger is like a flood pressing against a cracked dam, waiting to crush those beneath it—those who live without fearing his power—the Scriptures make a wonderful promise to those who do fear him: “As a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear Him…But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children” (Psalm 103:13, 17).

Perhaps if we were to think differently about lost sinners, we would be struck with the seriousness of their plight. Consider this story D. L. Moody shared about the urgency to preach the gospel to our own children. While we must be concerned with our family, this story applies to all who don’t fear God because every soul is precious to God:

There was a little story going the round of the American press that made a great impression upon me as a father. A father took his little child out into the field one Sabbath, and, it being a hot day, he lay down under a beautiful shady tree. The little child ran about gathering wild flowers and little blades of grass, and coming to its father and saying, “Pretty! pretty!” At last the father fell asleep, and while he was sleeping the little child wandered away. When he awoke, his first thought was, “Where is my child?” He looked all around, but he could not see him. He shouted at the top of his voice, but all he heard was the echo of his own voice. Running to a little hill, he looked around and shouted again. No response! Then going to a precipice at some distance, he looked down, and there upon the rocks and briars, he saw the mangled form of his loved child. He rushed to the spot, took up the lifeless corpse and hugged it to his bosom, and accused himself of being the murderer of his child. While he was sleeping his child had wandered over the precipice. I thought as I heard that, what a picture of the church of God!9

Every lost person is like that child caught up in carefree play, not realizing that they are perhaps but a few steps away from a deadly precipice. Now is the time to chase after them and share the good news of salvation. Now is the time to plead with them for their eternal destiny. Now is the time to tell them they have good reason to be afraid!

WITNESSING ENCOUNTER

In the following conversation, see how knowledge of sin and its consequences gives an agnostic and an atheist something to think about.

RAY: What are your thoughts on the afterlife?

DAVID: I don’t think much about it.

RAY: Are you agnostic?

DAVID: I guess if you had to classify me, that’s probably what it would be.

KEN: I’m honestly a man of science, and I believe that we’re just made out of molecules, and we come and go.

RAY: You’ve got a van there.

DAVID: Yeah.

RAY: Okay. Anyone make your van?

DAVID: Yes.

RAY: How do you know?

DAVID: How do I know that they made it?

RAY: Yes, I mean, what would you think of me if I said, “I don’t know if anyone made this van?” You’d think I was a bit slow in the brain. Obviously, the thing’s made. It’s got design. It’s got purpose. It’s got wheels, steering wheel, motor. Everything in it says, “Hey, there was a maker of this van.”

DAVID: Okay.

RAY: And when you look around you…