Teach Us How To Pray: Prayer & The WORD for 11-28-24

Good Evening Everyone. Mercy Unto You, and Peace, and Love, Be Multiplied. Saints of GOD, my prayer for you all on tonight is:  let not us be weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. I also pray the Wisdom of Solomon 12:19-27, 13:1-19, 14:1-11.

God’s Lessons for Israel

Through such works you have taught your people

that the righteous must be kind,

and you have filled your children with good hope,

because you give repentance for sins.

For if you punished with such great care and indulgence

the enemies of your servants and those deserving of death,

granting them time and opportunity to give up their wickedness,

with what strictness you have judged your children,

to whose ancestors you gave oaths and covenants full of good promises!

So while chastening us you scourge our enemies ten thousand times more,

so that, when we judge, we may meditate upon your goodness,

and when we are judged, we may expect mercy.

The Punishment of the Egyptians

Therefore those who lived unrighteously, in a life of folly,

you tormented through their own abominations.

For they went far astray on the paths of error,

accepting as gods those animals that even their enemies despised;

they were deceived like foolish infants.

Therefore, as though to children who cannot reason,

you sent your judgment to mock them.

But those who have not heeded the warning of mild rebukes

will experience the deserved judgment of God.

For when in their suffering they became incensed

at those creatures that they had thought to be gods, being punished by means of them,

they saw and recognized as the true God the one whom they had before refused to know.

Therefore the utmost condemnation came upon them.

The Foolishness of Nature Worship

13 For all people who were ignorant of God were foolish by nature;

and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know the one who exists,

nor did they recognize the artisan while paying heed to his works;

but they supposed that either fire or wind or swift air,

or the circle of the stars, or turbulent water,

or the luminaries of heaven were the gods that rule the world.

If through delight in the beauty of these things people assumed them to be gods,

let them know how much better than these is their Lord,

for the author of beauty created them.

And if people were amazed at their power and working,

let them perceive from them

how much more powerful is the one who formed them.

For from the greatness and beauty of created things

comes a corresponding perception of their Creator.

Yet these people are little to be blamed,

for perhaps they go astray

while seeking God and desiring to find him.

For while they live among his works, they keep searching,

and they trust in what they see, because the things that are seen are beautiful.

Yet again, not even they are to be excused;

for if they had the power to know so much

that they could investigate the world,

how did they fail to find sooner the Lord of these things?

The Foolishness of Idolatry

(Isa 44:9–20; Jer 10:1–16; Let Jer 8–73)

But miserable, with their hopes set on dead things, are those

who give the name “gods” to the works of human hands,

gold and silver fashioned with skill,

and likenesses of animals,

or a useless stone, the work of an ancient hand.

A skilled woodcutter may saw down a tree easy to handle

and skillfully strip off all its bark,

and then with pleasing workmanship

make a useful vessel that serves life’s needs,

and burn the cast-off pieces of his work

to prepare his food, and eat his fill.

But a cast-off piece from among them, useful for nothing,

a stick crooked and full of knots,

he takes and carves with care in his leisure,

and shapes it with skill gained in idleness;

he forms it in the likeness of a human being,

or makes it like some worthless animal,

giving it a coat of red paint and coloring its surface red

and covering every blemish in it with paint;

then he makes a suitable niche for it,

and sets it in the wall, and fastens it there with iron.

He takes thought for it, so that it may not fall,

because he knows that it cannot help itself,

for it is only an image and has need of help.

When he prays about possessions and his marriage and children,

he is not ashamed to address a lifeless thing.

For health he appeals to a thing that is weak;

for life he prays to a thing that is dead;

for aid he entreats a thing that is utterly inexperienced;

for a prosperous journey, a thing that cannot take a step;

for money-making and work and success with his hands

he asks strength of a thing whose hands have no strength.

Folly of a Navigator Praying to an Idol

14 Again, one preparing to sail and about to voyage over raging waves

calls upon a piece of wood more fragile than the ship that carries him.

For it was desire for gain that planned that vessel,

and wisdom was the artisan who built it;

but it is your providence, O Father, that steers its course,

because you have given it a path in the sea,

and a safe way through the waves,

showing that you can save from every danger,

so that even a person who lacks skill may put to sea.

It is your will that works of your wisdom should not be without effect;

therefore people trust their lives even to the smallest piece of wood,

and passing through the billows on a raft they come safely to land.

For even in the beginning, when arrogant giants were perishing,

the hope of the world took refuge on a raft,

and guided by your hand left to the world the seed of a new generation.

For blessed is the wood by which righteousness comes.

But the idol made with hands is accursed, and so is the one who made it—

he for having made it, and the perishable thing because it was named a god.

For equally hateful to God are the ungodly and their ungodliness;

for what was done will be punished together with the one who did it.

Therefore there will be a visitation also upon the heathen idols,

because, though part of what God created, they became an abomination,

snares for human souls

and a trap for the feet of the foolish.

I pray that this WORD not only strengthen, encourages, and blessed you. I pray that it gives you hope, and endurance to faith this good fight of faith throughout eternality. IN THE MIGHTY AND MATCHLESS NAME OF JESUS I PRAY, AMEN.