Month: July 2013

silent prayer

relationships with anyone, be it your spouse, children, family and/or friends, is best built on communication that has lots of variety, sincerity, and humility (preferring the other in love). 

praying silently to the Lord is great, and personally i spend probably 99% of my prayer life praying silently and/or quietly privately between myself and the Lord throughout each day.

however, some folks make it a religious practice of silent prayer being the ONLY way to pray, and they look down their noses at anyone that thinks otherwise.

the truth is, praying silently can be abused as a religious practice as much as praying out loud can be abused as a religious practice.

the key is moderation in all things, and while we have a lot of liberty in how we pray and worship, whatever we do must be done decently and in order, within the boundaries described by God in scripture. (1Cor 14:40)

i can find nothing in the Bible that would suggest that we should ONLY pray out loud, and nothing in the Bible that we should ONLY pray silently.  instead, there are lots of examples in the old and new testament of both silent and out loud prayer.

there are numerous examples of both corporate and individual prayer being done out loud.  Jesus Himself prayed out loud and prayed out loud when making the meal time blessing (Matt 14:19-21; Matt 15:34-36; Matt 26:26; Luke 24:30; John 17; Acts 1:14; 1:24; 8:15; 16:25; 20:36; 27:35; 1Cor 10:30)

if there wasn’t spoken prayer, then how could the other members of the body be in agreement?  Matt 18:19-20

the Bible clearly teaches that having someone pray out loud in a way that others could understand during a gathering of believers was good for the edification, teaching, and agreement of others (1Cor 14:15-19)

at the same time, there are clearly wrong ways of praying out loud.  prayer becomes a religious exercise when it is just vain repetition that loses meaning and/or when the motivation for praying is done to draw attention to the “piety” of the one praying  (Luke 18:10-14; Luke 20:46-47; Matt 6:5)

the key to keep in mind is not the religious practice, but the relationship…

the question to ask is: how can i best go about building my relationship with God?

relationships with anyone, be it your spouse, children, family and/or friends, is best built on communication that has lots of variety, sincerity, and humility (preferring the other in love).

so the answer is to pray both silently and out loud, and whatever you do, be sure it is sincerely motivated by a desire for a stronger relationship with God.

extrabiblical

doctrinal beliefs should be based only on what can be found in scripture without adding to or taking away from it.

in cases where extra-biblical material confirms scripture, great

in cases where extra-biblical sources add additional background details to something established in scripture, good to know, but should be considered as commentary and/or historical background.

anything not directly substantiated in scripture should be relegated to educated speculation.

throw out anything that contradicts scripture

the awakening

“The Awakening” Sculpture is set in the sand on the shores of the Potomac River at National Harbor in Prince George’s County, Maryland. In 2008, the Peterson Companies, the developer of National Harbor, purchased the sculpture and moved it from Hains Point in Washington, DC to its current location. “The Awakening” is a five piece cast iron sculpture depicting the arousing of a bearded giant with a head, hand, outstretched arm, bent knee and foot arranged to suggest that the giant is breaking free from the earth. The sculpture was part of a city-wide public art exhibition in 1980 and was on loan to the National Park Service for almost three decades.

Is this the awakening of the Nephilim and the return of the days of Noah?  The ascendance of Apollyon out of the pit?  The return of Nimrod as the Antichrist?

seed of satan: Nimrod the first false messiah

Judges 2:13: And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth

Nimrod, mighty hunter, ruler of Babel aka: Marduk, Mithra, Gilgamesh, Osiris, Apollo/Apollyon, Dionysis, Ninurta, Baal

Semiramus – mother and wife of Nimrod; aka: Ishtar, Asherah, Anaita, Andromeda, Queen of Heaven with the ancient Phoenicians, was Astarte; Greeks, Hera; Romans, Juno; Trivia, Hecate, Diana, the Egyptian Isis, etc., were all so called; but with the Roman Catholics it is the Virgin Mary (Ester, Easter, Ashteroth, Shekhina, Aphrodite, Venus)

Jeremiah 7,18: The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

Tammuz – son of Nimrod and Semiramus, supposed reincarnation of Nimrod; aka: Horus,

Ezekiel 8:14: Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for *Tammuz (babylonian idol).



Why so many names for same legendary figure?

All were gathered together in Babel under rule of Nimrod, all followed the religion of mystery Babylon.

Then came confusion of the languages, so they all had the common experience, but around 70 different words for it – a different word in each language for the same thing…

They all worshiped the same figure, but then had 70 different names for him.  As time went on the different language groups separated geographically and socially and though the religion/mythos had the same root, they diverged over time from generation to generation.