"He that turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be an abomination", Proverbs 28:9.



"Your sins have separated you from your God", Isaiah 59:2.

So what happens to the prayer of a sinner who is repented or is trying to repent then?

Tim,



"Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, [even] to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." Romans 7:4



Peter

Tim,



"Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, [even] to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." Romans 7:4



How do you interpret 'dead to the law'....in relation to what Jesus Christ said: "IF..you love me, keep my commandments", (John 14:15).



And..... 1 John 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.

5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

So what happens to the prayer of a sinner who is repented or is trying to repent then?

You know the answer as well as me....God always answers the prayers of repentant sinners.



It is the one who prays for something other than the good of other people.

In other words, selfish motives, are not acknowledged by God.

ok, that's true.



my thinking was you were including things like health of one's self, too?? I'm trying to make sure I've got this straight here, is all, since I'm thinking that praying for one's health isn't selfish. Of course, I'm talking about healing from illness, and staying well. I know I'm responible for staying well as I can for myself, but asking God to help keep me healthy so I can do His work doesn't fall under selfish to me.

OK-I rejected Sabbath keeping, Holy Days, and diet restrictions as binding to New Covenant Christians. I began seeking God with every bit of energy I could. I was healed of acid reflux, horrible allergies, and nicotine addiction. I was empowered to minister through prophetic words of knowledge/wisdom and partcipated in healing and deliverence ministry. I was set free from some negative spiritual oppression myself through the ministry of other Christians. Not only was I blessed, but many others through this. Is you're contention that this is all the "counterfiet" work of the devil to fool me and my peer group into damnation?

No! Not in the least! I'm trying to make sure I understand what you're saying. I believe you clarified what I was asking about. I do have a question for you: do you believe one's state of health can be used for ministry? I'm talking about when someone isn't healed of something. (This can mean, to me, something like an illness or condition affecting the body or mind.)

This is David. I was questining the author's original post about those that did not 'keep the law' having abominable prayers. I would like to suggest digging into the definition of the word translated as saved in the gospel. Also, Psalm 103:3-5 seems to indicate a that healing from disease as part of the covenant established between God and the seeker. This is a difficult topic, because obviously people that are wonderfull Christians get sick and die. I believe the idea of sickness occurring for the sake of the glory of God may be a missunderstanding of the point being made about the man blind from birth that Jesus healed. When the nuance and inflection of the Greek is looked at, I have read that the healing was for the furthurence of the Kingdom, not the actual ailment. I don't read Greek, so I don't know. I do know that the advasary came only to steal, kill, and destroy and Jesus came, in part, to destroy the work of the devil and that we may have fullness of life which would include health. I think I read earlier where you referenced healthy habits. I feel this is very important, because the LordGod stated that at times we perish because of a lack of knowledge, be it of our authority as children of God or biology. I have been healed through simple belief in the power of the covenant, a word of prophetic knowledge followed by an act of faith, and taking authority over my body expressed by actually talking to it, as well as commanding negative spirits that I discerned were oppressing me. A fantastic book on healing is entitled "Healing" and was written by Francis NcNutt.

Keep on the path, my brother, and keep asking good questions.

Accorging to your faith it will be

I do have a question for you: do you believe one's state of health can be used for ministry? OH YES !

One of the things God requires of the born-again Christians is, to help the sick.

This can be done thru education of the health laws God has put into place, which means the original diet....set forth by the Creator in the Garden of Eden.

I'm talking about when someone isn't healed of something. (This can mean, to me, something like an illness or condition affecting the body or mind.)

Being 'healed', by supernatural means, is not always, done by God !

OK-supernatural healing isn't always accomplished through divine working. If I accept that premise as fact, for the sake of this discussion, then the next obvious "litmus test" is the fruit of the supernatural healing. According to Jesus we will know the validity of those that supernatural powers flow through by the fruit of their actions. If someone has a healing ministry that is associated with a proper witness to the diety of Jesus Christ and people are coming into relationship with Jesus through said ministy, yet they don't agree with Sabbath keeping, diet restrictions, and Holy Days is that, in your opinion, the work of the devil. A direct answer would be appreciated, Tim. If you want to seperate Sabbath from the other Hebrew feasts and diet restrictons for this it is fine with me. This is kind of like the women in ministry/KJV dissagreement I have had ongoing with my dad and his pastor. They told me that if a minister didn't use the 1611 KJV or was a female it HAD TO BE the devil. When I pointed out that(at the time)Joyce Meyer, who uses the amplified translation to teach, had the most 'fruitfull' ministry in terms of documentable numbers they asserted that she was, in essence,like the pharisees, creating those that were twice the children of hell that she was. If this is your position it is OK. If you want to stand in front of Jesus and be judged on the merits of teaching others that all of the non-Sabbath keepers are minions of the devil operating through demonic power to 'decieve even the elect' it is your business. I will be in line glad that I didn't, though. Again, Tim, how about a direct answer to this question.

If someone has a healing ministry that is associated with a proper witness to the diety of Jesus Christ and people are coming into relationship with Jesus through said ministy, yet they don't agree with Sabbath keeping, diet restrictions, and Holy Days is that, in your opinion, the work of the devil.

A direct answer would be appreciated, Tim.

A direct answer would be judgmental, as not all people are at the same time, having the same knowledge.

As you have said...people are 'coming' into a relationship with Jesus.

I can't state where they are in that experience, therefore to state a flat answer would be unfair to those who just now coming into a brand new experience compared to those, who have been Christians for some 20+ years.

Christianity is a learning process, and the reason we can't judge another person, as we don't know their past or present experience.



I place Bible scriptures in front of people, that in time, they will come to understand, if not right at the time I placed them.



If you want to stand in front of Jesus and be judged on the merits of teaching others that all of the non-Sabbath keepers are minions of the devil operating through demonic power to 'decieve even the elect' it is your business. I will be in line glad that I didn't, though. Again, Tim, how about a direct answer to this question.

Once the backround of satan is understood, then the 7th day Sabbath vs. Sunday issue, falls into place.



Remember that it was satan who wanted to be worshipped as God (Isaiah 14:12-14), because of his perfection as a created being, both in superior intelligence and great beauty.



When satan was cast down to this earth, his desire did not...decrease in the least !

As scripture tells us, satan is the god of this world....and as such he has set up a religious kingdom to counterfeit God's Kingdom.

In other words, everything God does, satan has a counterfeit for.



God's holy day...7th day Sabbath.

Satan's day....Sunday (as Daniel 7:25 prophecied....'think to change times and laws').

Romans 6:16 "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness ?"

OK-I rejected Sabbath keeping, Holy Days, and diet restrictions as binding to New Covenant Christians. I began seeking God with every bit of energy I could. I was healed of acid reflux, horrible allergies, and nicotine addiction. I was empowered to minister through prophetic words of knowledge/wisdom and partcipated in healing and deliverence ministry. I was set free from some negative spiritual oppression myself through the ministry of other Christians. Not only was I blessed, but many others through this. Is you're contention that this is all the "counterfiet" work of the devil to fool me and my peer group into damnation?

There is a way to test that theory.

Try keeping the 7th day sabbath, as God instructs us to, and see what happens then !

OK-I just had the impression that by repeatively posting the verse that said those who didn't keep the law had abominable prayers you were saying a non-Sabbath keeper's prayers were not of value, even a stench in God's nostrils, so to speak(excepting repentance prayer, etc). I was testing the interpretation of that verse to apply to Sabbath keeping and found that that was not the case, unless it has been the devil healing and delivering me and all these folks for the past 15 years. I am going to work on a response to your debatable assertions about the devil, his origin, desire to change times and stuff. It is just not something I can bang out inbetween school stuff, work, and minding the kids.

I appreciate your heart to be submissive to our Lord and enjoy a good, spirited debate. Please don't read any animosity into anything I write. It is not there.

Peace and Light, David

Easier than I thought. Both the passages in Daniel and Isaiah are referring to earthly kings, how hard is that. You know as well as I that the ancient kings looked upon themselves as diety and refered to themselves by all sorts of divine sounding titles. We could debate the events that occur after death, but it wouldn't change the original point. I think that the guy who sought to change the times was a past persecuter of the church, someone else may think he is a future anti-Christ figure, but there is no way to difinatly say that it is the devil. In addition, the name 'Lucifer' never appears in the Bible, it is a misstranslation of the phrase 'son of the morning' which was a generic phrase earthly kings used for themselves as mentioned above. The Bible does say in Isaiah 54:16 "...it is I who have created the destroyer to wreak havoc" and the army of locust everyone like to talk about in Joel is also described as the Lord's great army-see Joel 2:25. Since we see our advasary in attendence in the court of our King(Job) and evil spirits are dispatched by the LordGod for various duties(1 Sam 16:14, 1 Kings 22:20-23, Judges 9:23) as well as the direct word of the Lord that the devil was a lying murder from the beginning it is kind of hard for me to buy into the whole 'worship leader in heaven turned lunatic rebel out of jealousy' doctrine. Lots of people will disagree with me and have lots of different ideas, which is cool with me, because I am not hanging the hat of my salvation on the idea that the proper understanding of those scriptures in Daniel and Isaiah are referencing the devil, much less that they indicate that he attempted to decieve us all out of eternal reward by switching up the calender.

David,



You are using very poor logic in this post. You are saying that use of the 1611 KJV and male only pastors/preachers are equivalent. If a person rejects one, they have to reject the other.



I believe the KJV of any year is not mentioned in the NT. Neither is the NIV, the RSV, nor is the Amplified. Therefore, we should seek the best translation from the Greek, or if several are of equal value, pick the one easiest for us to use.



Women preaching is a completely different question. This is mentioned in the NT and the Holy Spirit is quite clear about the subject. We therefore do not have the right to decide on our own.



In addition, the number of results is never an indicator of how much God is or is not using a person. You need to compare what Joyce Meyers is doing with the Bible, not with the number of people affected.



Peter

guy, please stop. The KJV and women in ministry are two topics that are part of an ongoing conversation with my dad and his pator. They are united for discussions sake only in the fact that Joyce Meyer brings both points into sharp focus. There is a lot of difference of opinion about women teaching the Word. We can start a thread on that if you want, but I'm sure if you do we will find all sorts of scriptural foundation for women participating in ministry as well as clarification of Paul's remarks on the subject. Furthermore, I incuded the word 'documentable' in an effort to avoid this whole thing about fruit not being linked to numbers thing. On the other hand, we are told we will know them by their fruits, not Peter's private interpretation and application of scripture, so I guess if people are turning to Jesus, getting set free from enslavement to the advasary, and growing in God as a result of a ministry I would be more likely to reevaluate my ideas prior to having a negative attitude about the ministry.

Ah, ok, now I am understanding some things better now. Thank you for the answers.



AH, sorry! I got in the way of something there. Wow! Hmm, I'm needing to do some reading before answering that...



Now, I'm needing to see if I can put another question together that would make sense to others (before trying to post it) before I go on. (I'll be back with it then!)