(December 09, 2023) Elizabeth Kendal, RLPB, shares…

Blaise Pascal is mostly remembered as a 17th Century French child prodigy; a genius in mathematics and physics. But Pascal was also an extraordinary theologian and apologist of grace. Though he remained in the Catholic Church, he was beloved of Protestants.

Requirement
Pascal is the author of one of my favourite quotes on prayer: ‘God has instituted prayer in order to lend his creatures the dignity of causality’ . . . causality being the principle that every effect has a cause. As Pascal understood, God instituted prayer for our benefit!

Now God can work without us! He is not dependent on our intelligence. He does not need our advice! And unlike us, He knows what is best. God is perfectly capable of fulfilling all His plans without our involvement – except, that is not the way He has chosen to work in the world.

But –  our God wants to work with us – and in a way that both engages and dignifies us. He established prayer as the means (cause) by which we receive His supernatural help (effect). I think most of us understand this… at least to some degree.

Responsibility
The issue that really seizes my mind, is the flip side of the ‘dignity of causality’ – and that is, the responsibility of causality. What happens when we do not pray?

I believe the answer is found in Isaiah 30:15-19, where we read that because God’s people refused to ‘return and rest’– ie trust – in their covenant God (v15), preferring instead to save themselves (v16), ‘therefore’ they would fail (v17) (cf Deuteronomy 8:11-20). ‘Therefore, the Lord waits to be gracious to you…’ (v18a).

And so it was that in 701BC, as the armies of Assyria’s King Sennacherib rampaged across Judah sacking town after town, looting, destroying, killing, abducting … the Lord waited to be gracious.

Only after the enemy had arrived at the gates of Jerusalem (Isaiah 36) did Judah’s King Hezekiah return/repent and rest/wait on the Lord (Isaiah 37). As French academic and lay theologian Jacques Ellul notes, King Hezekiah’s withdrawal into the house of the Lord and his crying to him was a political act whereby the truth that God is the Lord was reaffirmed.

And Hezekiah’s prayer (Isaiah 37:16-20) changed everything. As foretold in Isaiah 28:5-6, as soon as the people returned to the way of faith, the battle was turned back at the gate.

Realities
‘Thus,’ affirms Isaiah commentator Alec Motyer, ‘the way of believing prayer is the truly practical way of dealing with the harsh realities of this world. What neither armaments (36:9) nor diplomacy (30:1,2) nor money (2 Kings 18:13-14) could achieve, prayer has done.’

‘The Lord waits to be gracious to you… Blessed are those who wait for him! … How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you’ (from Isaiah 30:18-19ESV).

I must confess, the thought of God waiting horrifies me. But I also know that God is never inactive, and that as God waits he is seizing the day and redeeming the times to do another great new work in which we are integral!

Never before in the history of the church, has the church been in the position that we are in today, where, thanks to today’s globalised networks and information systems, satellites and digital communication technologies, the church can now know about and respond to a crisis – even on the other side of the world, even as it is unfolding, sometimes even before it unfolds – for the saving of many lives. This is new and totally unprecedented.

Response
I believe that as the church responds to the issue of persecution – through speaking, praying, and giving [see www.ElizabethKendal.com ACTION (Speak, Pray, Give)] – three effects will become evident.

I believe a serious and passionate response from the church will:
(1) Enable the saving of many lives
Even the preservation and restoration of whole Christian communities.
(2) Facilitate the sanctification of the church
As the church becomes in practice what the church is in theory/reality ie the body of Christ;
(3) Present the watching world with a vision of sacrificial Christian love

Reflection
Reflecting the image and sacrificial love of Christ – ‘that the world may believe’, which is precisely what Jesus prayed for in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night He was betrayed.

‘I do not ask for these only [His current disciples], but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me’ (John 17:20-23NKJV emphasis mine).

I believe that the 21st century could go down in Christian history as the century in which God knitted together an increasingly global church, using chords of love forged in the flames of persecution, that the world may believe.

Pray that the church will seize the day!

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SPECIAL NOTATION

As mentioned in last week’s RLPB 721, after nearly 25 years and a total of 1,246 religious liberty prayer bulletins, two separate health issues are forcing me into a premature retirement, the time has come to retire the weekly Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) ministry.

It has been a profound honour for me to be able to serve not only our Lord’s persecuted Church, but also His vast army of intercessors. One of the aims of the RLPB ministry was to equip intercessors not merely with prayer needs so we could pray for the persecuted, but also with an understanding of the context so we could pray against root causes of persecution. While we prayed against hostile actors, negative trends, and all manner of political, ideological, geo-political and/or historical root causes, we have always acknowledged that the primary root cause – the cause of all causes – is spiritual (Ephesians 6:12-18).

A spiritual battle necessitates the use of spiritual weapons (2 Corinthians 10:3-4): those being Holy Spirit-empowered prayer and mission.

It is long been my heart’s desire to see not only individuals, but churches committing to pray for the persecuted as a normal, integral part of Christian life and worship. I would like to encourage pastors to lead by example, from the front. [See www.ElizabethKendal.com ACTION (pastors).]

I want to thank several special people who, against all odds, embraced me from the outset (1999). They believed that I – a musician and single mother of four small children from Melbourne, Australia – was God’s provision in answer to prayer. I don’t doubt for a minute how much faith that required! [For my list of thankyous, see RLPB 722: Seize the Day (and final words)].

Thank you all, especially for your prayers! Please continue to pray for our Lord Jesus Christ’s persecuted Church, remembering that intercessory prayer is:
* Serious business in the Court of Heaven,
* Advocacy to the highest authority, and
* Faith in action.

Because every little bit of online truth is helpful* the www.ElizabethKendal.com website will remain live, as I plan to develop and add to this site as I am able and the RLPB and RLM archives will remain on-line for research purposes at Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin https://rlprayerbulletin.blogspot.com/ and Religious Liberty Monitoring https://elizabethkendal.blogspot.com/

INSTAGRAM:
I will continue to use Instagram to:
(1) Facilitate intercessory prayer for the persecuted Church;
(2) Share information that is relevant to suffering Church issues;
(3) Encourage and promote prayer as integral and indispensable to Christian and church life; and
(4) Publish any personal announcements/news I might wish to make. So please, follow religiouslibertyprayer on INSTAGRAM.

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Elizabeth Kendal will continue as an international religious liberty analyst and advocate for the persecuted church. To support this ministry visit www.ElizabethKendal.com. Above article/update/information excerpted from RLPB report RLPB 722.

Elizabeth, an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam, Melbourne School of Theology, has authored two books: Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today (Deror Books, Melbourne) which offers a biblical response to persecution and existential threat; and After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA).
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