Seeking & Finding God-Part 12...Is Faith Found Only In Foxholes?

Tom: Thanks, Gary. You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him. The subject for this first segment of today’s Search the Scriptures Daily, as it has been for a number of weeks, is Dave Hunt’s book, Seeking and Finding God, subtitled: In Search of the True Faith. Now Dave, as you point out in chapter 8, quite often people who avoid God all of their lives, when a crisis takes place, they take a shot at seeking God, hoping that He, or it, or however they think of God, hoping He will bail them out. Now, we know that as the “faith in the foxhole” scenario, when the enemy is surrounding you, you know, you cry out to whoever might bail you out. Now, of course, we’re going to get into this – that doesn’t make sense, okay, which we are going to talk about, hopefully. But you open the chapter with a scripture verse – this is Psalm:69:13But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O LORD, in an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of thy mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation.
See All...: “But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord.” Now, to begin with, how does that verse relate to the foxhole scenario?

Dave: Well, apparently the person who is praying, “My prayer is unto thee, O Lord,” must have some acquaintance with God. It’s not just an emergency. I think this is an ongoing attitude of prayer. The Scripture says…

Tom: According to the psalmist.

Dave: Right …”pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks.” I think you have to know God to really fulfill that, and that doesn’t suddenly happen, you know. I sometimes use the illustration with children: “Well, you’ve been disobedient to your mommy all year. I mean, you’ve done some terrible things, and you’ve been disrespectful, but oh, it’s her birthday! Now she would really appreciate a birthday card, wouldn’t she?” I don’t think so! You don’t buy mommy off with a birthday card when you’ve been misbehaving all year.

So, for someone who has turned their back on God, they have not considered His Word, they have been in total disregard, suddenly: “Oh God, please help me!” That doesn’t make sense. Now, I’m not saying that God will not honor that in some cases, because I know there have been some foxhole conversions. But the Lord is being very gracious. But there must have been, I believe, a change of heart that really caused them to call out. Maybe they realize, “Oh! I have forsaken God. I haven’t paid any attention…” That could all be included in this foxhole prayer.

Tom: Sure, but many times it’s, “Well, I’ll never ask You for another thing, okay? Just do this one thing for me.” And again, who am I talking to? Does this person, this entity, or whatever, do they have conditions, rules, standards, you know?

Dave: Or, “If you do this for me, God, here’s what I’ll do.”

Tom: Right. Yeah, make a pact.

Dave: But David the psalmist does say, I think it’s Psalm 66: “I will pay unto thee my vows, which I have uttered when I was in trouble.”

Tom: Right, but there’s a problem with vows, isn’t there, Dave? Because who can really keep a vow?

Dave: Yeah, don’t make a vow.

Tom: Well, again, chapter 8 of your book, Seeking and Finding God, you title it, “Concerning Prayer.” And, Dave, I don’t know if we can get through all the issues related to prayer in this segment today, maybe we have to… but we’ll see what happens, but there’s a lot here. And that is mainly misconceptions about prayer, what it is – not just in the world, and we’ll get to a few of those, but in the church as well. Unbelievable!

Now, it’s amazing how many forms of prayer there are that are really foreign and contradictory to what the Bible teaches about prayer. You start in your book here with those who try to drum up enough faith, imagining that the key to answered prayer is believing hard enough to make the answer come about.

Dave: Yeah, well, that’s what a lot of people think faith is. If I can just believe that God will answer my prayer…For example, you get many false ideas and even occult ideas, …. “If I could just see that Cadillac I’m praying for…if I could just make it real…and if I could just really believe that this prayer will be answered….” That’s not faith, that is mind power. So, if God does things for you just because you believe, you can talk yourself into it, or you’ve taken a course, positive mental attitude, or something, that is not faith at all. You cannot manipulate God.

Tom: Dave, the thing that, you know, when you just stop and think about these things or try to think them through, try to be reasonable about them, to whom is somebody who believes that they are the power here, well, what’s your concept of God? What’s your understanding of God? Is it a force? Is it an impersonal mind? Is it something we need, we can manipulate, and so on?

Dave: Well, Jeremiah (I think it’s 29:13), God says, “You will seek for me and find me when you seek for me with all your heart.” Now, that’s a pretty strong requirement. “Seek for me with all your heart?” You know, it’s like Hebrews 11, I think it’s verse 6, “He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” And Tom, I probably mentioned this before, but I can remember as a young believer, young earnest Christian thinking: Wow! Now that’s a verse! Whatever you want, you seek God with all your heart, and then you get your big house, or you get your good job, or you get your healing! No, He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. And if you are seeking God, and instead He gives you the whole world, that would be a bad bargain.

Tom: And then the result of something like that would be, “Well, yeah, but what has He done for me lately? It’s like we could be satisfied with anything we ask for. It doesn’t work that way!

Dave: Well, this is why, picking up from where I was, this is why Jesus said: “What shall it profit a man [Matthew 16, and other places], what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? So, you could get the whole world.

You see, that’s another little problem (I don’t want to get too far astray here, Tom), but that’s another little problem with Calvinism. Well, the Calvinist, and I won’t name some of them that I know, friends of mine, but of course there’s common grace, and you can’t say that God doesn’t help these people. Well, He does! The Bible says, “He makes His sun to shine and the rain to fall on the good and on the evil.” Well, wait a minute! If God gave me the whole world, but He has predestined me to hell, what kind of a deal is that? It doesn’t make sense!

Tom: Right. Dave, there is so much about this that doesn’t make sense, and that’s why we are trying to explain a few things. Hopefully we can explain them clearly. But the verses that you gave, Hebrews: “God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Dave: Diligently!

Tom: Diligently seek Him, because the “Him” has to do with the knowledge of Him, getting to know Him. That’s why biblical Christianity – we don’t like to call it a religion because it has to do with a relationship with God; it has to do with knowing Him. We know Him, we come to know Him, we understand through His Word, what He has revealed to us through the Scriptures. So, that the part that in all of these errors related to faith, they come up with a different god, or a god that’s just absurd, a mindless force out there that we can manipulate?

Dave: Yeah, the Bible doesn’t say, you will seek for a higher power and find it. When you seek for the higher power, and I cannot get out of my mind Al Gore’s words at a prayer breakfast. He said, “Belief in my opinion, in some higher power is essential by whatever name.” Well, he was raised in a very fundamental, narrow, I mean, they were biblical, and he’s left it all behind him, like Phil Jackson.

Tom: This is also the god of AA, Alcoholics Anonymous.

Dave: Right.

Tom: You know, a higher power. This is absurd, especially when we see the church, professing evangelicals, bring this into the church and think it’s consistent with what the Bible teaches.

Dave: “You will seek for ME,” God says, “and find ME, when you seek for ME, with all your heart!” And part of that seeking is, “Lord, please reveal yourself to me.”

Tom: Right. Now Dave, in that light, you talk about in this chapter, positive affirmations for some people as a form of prayer. Now where did that come from, and how does it work, or how do they suppose it works?

Dave: Well, of course, this isn’t just Norman Vincent Peale or Robert Schuller. This is your Positive Mental Attitude. You could, PMA…

Tom: Émile Coué, right? and “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.” I mean, you have been going through some health struggles, and so have I. I mean, isn’t that our mantra? Don’t we say that? No! We trust in the living God, the God who heals.

Dave: Yeah, in everything we are subject to Him, and it is only according to His will. Okay, so what else do we say in this chapter about prayer?

Tom: Well, positive affirmations. I mean, my question is, how is that supposed to work? Because there is a rational behind it, but I think it’s absurd. But anyway, let’s let our audience know.

Dave: Well, if we are assuming that you don’t know a personal God – see,  it’s like Religious Science or Science of Mind, and there’s a mind out there, this universal mind—

Tom: Right, impersonal.

Dave: Yeah, because it doesn’t have a mind of its own, and we can make it give us what we want by positive affirmations, and so forth. So, it’s witchcraft, Tom.

Tom: It’s Hinduism. This is the view of Hinduis: everything is Maya. And we can control and create the universe by our thoughts, right?

Dave: Yeah, but they are not believing exactly that, but there is some “mind” out there that they can get to do what they want. In other words, this great mind of Religious Science or Science of Mind, the mind that you are believing in – it doesn’t have a mind of its own. That’s a little bit ridiculous, isn’t it?

Tom: Yeah, but popular? The secular form we’ve seen promoted by Oprah Winfrey, Larry King Live – on Larry King Live they had participants in this DVD called The Secret, and this is all of what we are talking about: affirmations, if you believe strong enough you can control this force out there, and so on. It’s just absurd!

Dave: So it’s mind power.

Tom: Yeah.

Dave: If I could just affirm it, if I could just believe it, then it’s going to happen. And it has nothing to do with God.

Tom: Right. Now, you point out in the book, if we indeed…as I said, this is really absurd, it’s irrational, it doesn’t work, but the concept is out there, and people are buying into it. Now, let’s just assume that this did work. You’d say chaos would reign. If everyone had the power to impose his or her will on everyone else, this would be a bad deal.

Dave: Tom, I’ll confess to the audience, I have been through this sort of thing. I thought, “Well, faith – if I can just believe it….” I remember, we were in Europe. I think there were 80,000 unsold units, mostly single family dwellings in the Los Angeles area, and we had been left with this house.  I remember one morning over there (this was in Switzerland), and I was on my knees and I’m just trying to get faith. “If I could just believe, Lord! We’ve really got to sell this thing. Otherwise we are in real trouble.” I thought I really got that faith, and what do you know! Here comes a letter from the realtor. Wow! My heart is jumping! This has got to be it – the answer to prayer.

Well, the letter said, “Mr. Hunt, we are sorry to inform you, but vandals broke into the house the other night,” and they flooded this place with water, and the water has gone up the… you know, we had the very expensive wall paper, and this was a house that I had built to sell. Oy! That popped my bubble!

Tom: The Lord will do that sometimes.

Dave: But by the grace of God, it was – they wouldn’t cover vandalism, but they would cover water damage, and so the insurance did cover it all, but that was the mercy of God. But anyway, I learned a lesson there. I’ve learned a lot of lessons.

Tom: Dave, you know, I appreciate your sharing that with me. I think we’ve all been through that. My mom was dying of pancreatic cancer, and I thought I had a word from the Lord! I was just going to confess it, and I was going to take it. Listen, we had written about this stuff.

Okay, so folks out there, don’t think we are being judgmental here, or we’re trying to pick on somebody, these are things that we can fall into, and all we’re trying to do is explain what the Word of God says. But just because we’ve been tripped up by some of these things, as you confess, and I just confessed, doesn’t mean we can’t turn back to what God’s Word says. Do it His way, the right way.

Dave: Well, we have to submit ourselves. There’s a book that we offer, I think, by Andrew Murray, called Absolute Surrender. That is one of the key concepts: I must surrender totally to the Lord. I have used the illustration many times: A young man is on his knees praying, “Oh God, give me the wife you have chosen for me to be my partner for life. But Lord, could you please let it be Jane?” Well, we’ve got a problem. He’s not looking for an answer from God. He wants God to give him what he wants to have, and God is not going to do that, because He is smarter than we are. He knows what’s best, and if we’re trying to tell Him what we think is the way it ought to go, we’re imposing our will upon the Lord. We’re not surrendering to Him. We are not submitted to His will. So that’s one of the key elements in prayer: “Lord, please – whatever you want.

Tom: But nevertheless, Dave, we keep looking for a better technique, a methodology, and so on. One of the things related to this that you point out is that people say, “Well, what about praying in Jesus’ name? Where does that deviate from the Scriptures?” Aren’t we to pray in Jesus’ name?

Dave: Well, if you don’t know Jesus, it’s like those seven sons of Sceva the Jew, who went in to cast out a demon, and they said, “In the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches, get…” – well, the guy just drove them out of there wounded He beat them up! Well, “in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches”? If you don’t know this Jesus, that’s not going to work.

Tom, I’ve given the illustration, I’m sure several times probably, but I’ll do it again because when I was in the business world, I was sort of the alter ego of a very wealthy man in Beverly Hills. We had powers of attorney that were registered in various states and various counties. I remember especially Las Vegas – we were building a lot of homes in Las Vegas in those days, and he had financed them. Well, you have the power of attorney – I could literally sign a check. I didn’t have to sign his name; I signed my name, and it would be honored. I could write out a check for $100,000 to myself and sign it in my name, but a court of equity would not allow that because I had been given the power of attorney to act in his interest, not in my interest. So, people who think they can just tack in the name of Jesus, “Oh, I can get what I want now!”

Tom: Hey, open sesame!

Dave: Yeah, right. No, I mean, common sense, if you think about it, will tell you: that is not the way it works. And I wouldn’t want it to work that way.

Tom: See, Dave, that’s an important point, and this is all we are asking our audience, who may be way ahead of us on this in understanding. There some that say, “Well, I never heard that before; I never really thought it through.” That’s what we are asking: think these things through, and see how it lines up with the Scriptures, with the Word of God.

Dave: Others would say, “That’s heresy,” according to TBN or Benny Hinn.

Tom: Dave, what about those who promote the idea, you know, I mentioned methodologies and techniques. But, in the church – we wrote about this in The Seduction of Christianity almost 23 years ago – and it hasn’t gone away. But those who believe that faith, belief – it works on the basis of laws, okay? And you need to get it right from a law standpoint.

Dave: Yeah, I remember a book by Pat Robertson, The Secret Kingdom. And the Secret Kingdom worked on eight laws, and one of the laws was the law of faith. Now, let me just quickly interject: The atheist, or the skeptic, will say to you, “Oh, you think that was a miracle? You just don’t understand, that’s physics, and you just don’t know the scientific laws.” So, scientific basis – this was Mary Baker Eddy’s problem, Christian Science, Jesus Christ, First Church of Christ Scientist. So now, what is wrong with that? If it works by laws, you don’t have to be a Christian.

Tom:  Right.

Dave: Now, why would a Christian get – “Oh, now if I just understand the laws, and I know how to apply these laws – No! That’s not the way it works. It works by faith. But Pat Robertson even said, “There is a Law of Miracles, and you’ve got to know the Law of Miracles to make miracles happen.” And he literally said, “If you know these rules and these techniques you can get whatever you want.” Not true, not biblical, and it’s not even rational if you think about it.

Tom: Dave, we’re out of time now, but I want to come back to this. You list four problems for the Christian with this idea. The other thing we want to talk about next week is, there are conditions for God to answer prayer. There are times when He won’t even hear your prayer. Well, we’ll get to that next week, the Lord willing.

Dave: Amen.