Almost Everybody On FaceBook Is a Christian...
Or at least you might get that impression. As so many did with Linda and me when evil came near, an avalanche of support, much of it in the name of prayer, comes down upon FaceBook friends. You can find endless expressions of prayer in posts, all of it encapsulated in this brief phrase recorded by so many, “Prayers coming.”
Though historically there really were people who have done this, none of us believe that all these friends of ours are bowed at that moment - or any other moment - wearing indentations into their hickory floors with their kneecaps or praying for such length of time that moisture from their breath is condensing on the ceiling of their bedrooms. They are not folding hand and hair and whispering, “Oh, Thou, Great God of Jehoshaphat, Melchizedek, and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, we come to Thee today to hold before You our brother and suffering servant on whom Thou hast brought down Your great hand of misfortune.. (and so forth).”
However, I do know people who formulate prayer lists and go through them in a formal routine of prayer. One of the best people I know, a graduate of Westminster Seminary who later became the custodian there is such a person. He keeps catalogues of binders in which he documents answers to his prayers that have accumulated into the thousands. Another fellow I went to Moody with who became a pastor would start praying on week days about 5 am in the morning and emerge from his house about Noon time looking like he had been in a Rip Van Winkle deep sleep coma. But he claimed he was praying as if his house was at the foot of Mount St. Helens. Knowing something about him, I tended to believe him, but the people in the church did not.
No, most of the prayers, I am sure, are brief, prayerful articulations of support that go something like this: “God, be with those people and please heal Bob’s cancer.” Such a thing may be uttered in one form or another on several occasions when such a person comes to mind and qualify for the prayers that Facebook people imply with sincerity. I find nothing wrong with this and accept it as it is because many times we only have seconds - if that long - to call upon the Lord for help.
But I am sure it is also true is that many of these people do not go to a church or may never have for that matter. Some may be anti-church or anti-organized religion. They may be pagan in every sense of the word. Maybe even atheistic. But, regardless, they will encourage a person with the words, “Prayers coming…” An actual prayer from them may not have gone any higher than their hairline, or they may have in some superstitious way, just in case prayer is somehow efficacious in helping themselves to avoid the very misfortune that has come down on their friend, whipped off in their minds “a prayer.” Regardless, we thank them for whatever it meant.
But here is what this tells me. I think it belies the fact that no matter what anyone says - be he an atheist, a savage in a South American jungle, someone who forsakes churches and the Bible but claims to be spiritual - all of us INNATELY know that we have a divine Creator, and we are going to give Him account one day. Prayer may be sincere, or it may be a formula to avoid what others suffer, but it acknowledges the God and Judge of us all.
Here is how the Bible says it in Romans 1, verses 19-20, “For what can be known about God is PLAIN to them, because GOD HAS SHOWN it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, HAVE BEEN CLEARLY PERCEIVED, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
But the clearest of all is Psalm 19. It says everybody knows it. Everybody hears it. Everybody sees it. It is screaming at you non-stop as long as you draw breath and is playing a cinema on sky and terrain in front of your face 24 hours around the clock every day and night of your life no matter which direction you turn or whether you look up or down. And it is in a language that every person anywhere at any time understands even though he is completely deaf. It goes like this:
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
Though historically there really were people who have done this, none of us believe that all these friends of ours are bowed at that moment - or any other moment - wearing indentations into their hickory floors with their kneecaps or praying for such length of time that moisture from their breath is condensing on the ceiling of their bedrooms. They are not folding hand and hair and whispering, “Oh, Thou, Great God of Jehoshaphat, Melchizedek, and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, we come to Thee today to hold before You our brother and suffering servant on whom Thou hast brought down Your great hand of misfortune.. (and so forth).”
However, I do know people who formulate prayer lists and go through them in a formal routine of prayer. One of the best people I know, a graduate of Westminster Seminary who later became the custodian there is such a person. He keeps catalogues of binders in which he documents answers to his prayers that have accumulated into the thousands. Another fellow I went to Moody with who became a pastor would start praying on week days about 5 am in the morning and emerge from his house about Noon time looking like he had been in a Rip Van Winkle deep sleep coma. But he claimed he was praying as if his house was at the foot of Mount St. Helens. Knowing something about him, I tended to believe him, but the people in the church did not.
No, most of the prayers, I am sure, are brief, prayerful articulations of support that go something like this: “God, be with those people and please heal Bob’s cancer.” Such a thing may be uttered in one form or another on several occasions when such a person comes to mind and qualify for the prayers that Facebook people imply with sincerity. I find nothing wrong with this and accept it as it is because many times we only have seconds - if that long - to call upon the Lord for help.
But I am sure it is also true is that many of these people do not go to a church or may never have for that matter. Some may be anti-church or anti-organized religion. They may be pagan in every sense of the word. Maybe even atheistic. But, regardless, they will encourage a person with the words, “Prayers coming…” An actual prayer from them may not have gone any higher than their hairline, or they may have in some superstitious way, just in case prayer is somehow efficacious in helping themselves to avoid the very misfortune that has come down on their friend, whipped off in their minds “a prayer.” Regardless, we thank them for whatever it meant.
But here is what this tells me. I think it belies the fact that no matter what anyone says - be he an atheist, a savage in a South American jungle, someone who forsakes churches and the Bible but claims to be spiritual - all of us INNATELY know that we have a divine Creator, and we are going to give Him account one day. Prayer may be sincere, or it may be a formula to avoid what others suffer, but it acknowledges the God and Judge of us all.
Here is how the Bible says it in Romans 1, verses 19-20, “For what can be known about God is PLAIN to them, because GOD HAS SHOWN it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, HAVE BEEN CLEARLY PERCEIVED, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
But the clearest of all is Psalm 19. It says everybody knows it. Everybody hears it. Everybody sees it. It is screaming at you non-stop as long as you draw breath and is playing a cinema on sky and terrain in front of your face 24 hours around the clock every day and night of your life no matter which direction you turn or whether you look up or down. And it is in a language that every person anywhere at any time understands even though he is completely deaf. It goes like this:
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.