We've been focusing on the unity we have in Christ based on the unity of the nation of Israel as they went to battle against the Benjamites (see my posts here and here) in Judges 20, yet we can have no true unity if we are not ALL responding to the Lord's call to us.

Verse 1: Then all the people of Israel came out, from Dan to Beersheba, including the land of Gilead, and the congregation assembled as one man to the LORD at Mizpah.

Today I would like to focus on the need for all of the people of God to come out to battle, to respond to His call to them, not just some of the people...

Holy God, our Redeemer,

We are all called to be engaged in the battle against the wiles of the devil, against principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. We like the idea of being seated in heavenly places, but don't always like the idea of battle or of responsibility. Yet Your call to battle goes out to all of us whom You have birthed into Your family by Your Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ. We are not merely family members but we are also Kingdom warriors. As soon as we are Yours, we are the devil's target, and we are engaged in battle, in spiritual warfare.

This call to battle is not limited to a few particular people in the church. Yes, we are gifted differently, we all do not have the same gifts, we are all different parts of the Body, yet each one of us is called to battle with the gifts and resources You have entrusted to us. Your gifts are given to us so we might glorify You and build up the Church, not for our own selfish interests. You have placed the members in Your Body as You will for a particular purpose. As soon as You delivered us from the power of darkness and the evil one, You conscripted us into Your army. You have intended for all of us to be engaged in fighting for Your glory and Your Gospel. That is part of our calling as children of God. We can pray all day long for unity, as well we should, but if each and every one of Your people You are calling are not responding in faith to Your call to battle, the battle will not be won. We will be hampered. We will be at a disadvantage. We will be weakened. May we be like the Israelites, may none of us be disobedient to Your call. Circumcise and soften hearts to respond to Your call to battle.

Captain of our salvation, You are calling soldiers to enter the battle.
Give Your people ears to hear what You have to say to the Church.
Give each of us ears to hear what You have to say to us.
Give us all hearts to respond to Your call to us in trusting faith.
Make each of us willing to come out so we might assemble as one Body.
Strengthen us to endure hardship and not be entangled with the affairs of this life.
Strengthen us to fight as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.
If all of us do not respond in obedience to Your call, how can the battle be won?
If all of us do not respond in obedience to Your call, how can we see Satan crushed under our feet?

Then all the people of Israel came out...

Lord of the harvest, You are calling laborers to go into the harvest fields
Give Your people ears to hear what You have to say to the Church.
Give each of us ears to hear what You have to say to us.
Give us all hearts to respond to Your call to us in trusting faith.
Make each of us willing to come out so we might assemble as one Body.
Strengthen us to continue to plant and water and wait patiently.
Strengthen us to work hard as patient farmers of Jesus Christ.
If all of us do not respond in obedience to Your call, how can the harvest be reaped?
If all of us do not respond in obedience to Your call, how can we enjoy the precious fruit?

Then all the people of Israel came out...

Forerunner, You are calling athletes to compete in the race.
Give Your people ears to hear what You have to say to the Church.
Give each of us ears to hear what You have to say to us.
Give us all hearts to respond to Your call to us in trusting faith.
Make each of us willing to come out so we might assemble as one Body.
Strengthen us to compete according to the rules and discipline ourselves.
Strengthen us to persevere as good athletes of Jesus Christ.
If all of us do not respond in obedience to Your call, how can the race be won?
If all of us do not respond in obedience to Your call, how can we obtain the incorruptible crown?

Then all the people of Israel came out...

“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write,

‘These things says He who is holy, He who is true, “He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens”: 8 “I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name. 9 Indeed I will make those of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not, but lie—indeed I will make them come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you.  10 Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. 11 Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.  12 He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name.
 
13 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’

I'm continuing to write some prayers based Judges 19:22-20:48. In this passage of Scripture we read how Israel went to war against Benjamin because some Benjamites had sexually abused a Levite's concubine who later died as a result of their abuse.

I would like us to continue to consider and reflect upon the perseverance of the Israelites in battle and what we can learn from their example, and then turn those things into prayers for perseverance for ourselves, so we might keep God's command to us to persevere. There are three things I would like to draw your attention to in the Judges passage, and Lord willing, I hope to continue to post prayers based on this passage of Scripture.

I. A prayer for holiness. First, the children of Israel were clear about what sin was. So too ought to be praying for a clear vision of God's holiness and an increasing desire to be holy and to live holy lives. (I've already posted about that here and here, as well as in previous prayers on this blog. Holiness must be the constant prayer of the people of God.)

II. A prayer for unity. Second, the children of Israel were united in their efforts. So too we ought to be praying for God to protect the unity we have in Him and that we would endeavor to uphold the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (My last post/prayer related to unity as will today's post.)

III. A prayer for continuing obedience. Third, despite defeat, the children of Israel continued to seek and prepare themselves to do God's will and followed through in obedience. So too we ought to be praying God would keep us seeking His face, that we might be diligent and vigilant and follow through in obedience to His revealed will for us.

In today's prayer I would like to focus us on our need for unity in the Gospel.

Father, Son and Spirit, one God in three persons,

In Judges 20 we see the Israelites uniting together and working together:

How can we have such unity and harmony if we are not of one mind about the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

In Leviticus 10 (NKJV) you warned us through your servant Moses:

Forgive us, Holy Father, spotless Lamb and Holy Spirit, we have offered You the profane fire of false gospels.
Protect us, Holy Father, spotless Lamb and Holy Spirit from offering You the profane fire of false gospels.

You are holy, holy, holy. As we come near You we must regard You as holy and before all people You must be glorified. All we offer to You must be holy.

Many who proclaim Your Gospel have twisted it; instead of allowing Your glory to shine through the sufficiency of Christ, they allow profane fire to shine in the world. Such profane fire is not the true light and has no real power to save. O, Lord have mercy on us. Send us pastors and teachers who have been led by Your Holy Spirit into the truth of the Gospel to lead us and teach us.

Whenever the Gospel is not proclaimed rightly, You are not glorified. You alone are the source of our life in Christ Jesus, You made Him alone to be our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that no one can boast but in You. All things were created by You, through You and to You so that all praise, honor and glory goes to You alone.

When we add anything to the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, we no longer regard You as holy.
When we add anything to the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, we diminish and obscure Your glory.
Instead of putting Christ on the lampstand for all to see, we are putting profane fire there.

We confess we have offered profane fire to You.
Cleanse us, O God, show us where we are offering profane fire to You.

Show us where we keep living in bondage to the law and religious traditions of men rather than knowing the freedom You have provided for us so we might no longer be entangled with a yoke of bondage.

Protect us from adding any of our own works onto the pure, beautiful and wholly sufficient sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Protect us from adding our own filthy rags to the perfect righteousness that has been imputed by faith to us in His sacrifice and imparted to us through the gift of your indwelling Holy Spirit.

When we take anything away the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, we no longer regard You as holy.
When we take anything from the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, we diminish and obscure Your glory.
Instead of putting Christ on the lampstand for all to see, we are putting profane fire there.

We confess we have offered profane fire to You.
Cleanse us, O God, show us where we are offering profane fire to You.

Show us where we keep living in bondage to our sin and cultural norms rather than knowing and living in the freedom You have provided for us so sin might no longer have dominion over us.

Protect us from taking away Your call to sanctification and for holy living for the believer.
Protect us from taking away the necessity of the new birth, the need for us to be born again.

By Your Holy Spirit's work, protect us, strengthen us and guide us into all truth so we might strive together for the faith the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the only true Gospel, the only Gospel that has power to save, and persevere in the battle set before us.

Amen.

I recently posted A Prayer for Holiness based on Judges 19:22-20:48. In the introductory remarks to that prayer I'd written:

In the past several days I've been reflecting and praying over what unity in the Body of Christ means.

We can disagree on the nonessentials of our faith, but we can never disagree on the essentials.

Unity in Christ never means we turn a blind eye to unholiness in our midst.

Paul exhorts both Timothy and Titus to watch their doctrine and their behavior.

From the time I began this blog I wanted it to be a place that would honor God. (Please see my post About this blog - why "tent of meeting"?)

When we allow unholy doctrine and behavior into our midst, we do not honor Him.

In short, there are two ways we can be unholy.

1. WE CAN BE UNHOLY IN OUR DOCTRINE.

If we don't all accept Christ as the chief Cornerstone, as the author and finisher of our faith, then we have no unity. The Gospel of Christ is the power unto salvation. There is no other power. The Spirit brings us life; we are dead apart from His life. We are made children of God by His working. Salvation from beginning to end is all of Him and none of us. We will never be righteous in our own power. In order to be saved we must submit ourselves to the righteousness God has provided for us through faith in Jesus Christ. The good works we do are all by Him, through Him and to Him, so He alone gets all the praise, honor and glory. God forbid this place of prayer, a place that is to bring praise, honor and glory to God alone and to our Savior Jesus Christ, is polluted and tainted by any other gospel. I am praying for protection over this place of prayer and hope you will also. I truly believe that God will not bless us if we bring Him strange fire or if there are any who hide away in his own tent false idols of doctrinal profession without regeneration, legalism, moralism, returning to the law and so forth.

2. WE CAN BE UNHOLY IN OUR BEHAVIOR.

I also believe God will not bless our efforts here if we continue to confess we are His but do not live like it, if we continue in known sin without being grieved by it, we have to question if the Holy Spirit of God dwells in us. If we have truly seen God as holy, we cannot help but see how our sin grieves Him. If we are God's and being conformed into Christ's image, our sin should grieve us more and more. We cannot say we truly know Christ's love for us and insist our sin doesn't matter. He died for our sin. He died to purify us from all unrighteousness by His blood. He died so we might have His Holy Spirit who dwells in us to make us holy. If we persist in known sin, if we continue to excuse or rationalize sin, we have to question whether we are truly His children or not. God forbid this place of prayer, a place that is to bring praise, honor and glory to God alone and to our Savior Jesus Christ is polluted and tainted by our sinful behavior. God will not bless us here if we continue to bow down idols of licentious and sinful lifestyles. And by sin, I'm talking all sin, not just sexual immorality, I'm including those sins we too easily overlook such as anger, rage, murmuring, impatience, jealousy and so forth.

Both types of unholiness are threats not only here but also in the Church at large. God's standards are the same today. God's Gospel has not changed: Salvation comes by grace through faith and not by works. And God's definition of sin has not changed: He continues calls us out to be a holy nation and to  be holy as He is holy and He has given us the means to do so through His Holy Spirit.

We cannot abide impure doctrine and impure behavior in the midst of this place that is to be holy unto the Lord. If we come to Him unholy and impure in any way, He will not accept our prayers.

While I was out walking recently I saw an end table ready for trash pick-up. Why was it put out to the curb for trash pick-up? Why was it discarded?

It had three legs.

What good is a table with three legs?

When we come with unholy doctrine, it's as if we're coming with to the Lord with three legs. When we come with unholy behavior, it's as if we're coming to the Lord with three legs. We're not whole. We'll never stand before a holy God.

Psalm 24 reminds us:

At times I think we've become so enamored with Christ as our "friend," which He is, but we tend to forget He is absolutely holy. How often do you think of Jesus like the Jesus we see in Revelation 1?

Do you have an understanding of Jesus like that? If not, then I ask that you ask God to reveal His holiness to you, the holiness Isaiah saw.

Should we not all not be responding to the holiness of God like John...

Oh, yes, I know we've come to Mt. Zion, not Mt. Sinai. We've been saved by grace through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Our God has poured out His manifold mercies and lavish grace and love for us at the cross of Calvary. Nonetheless we are to approach Him as a holy God and have a holy fear of Him. Sometimes I venture to say that we've drunk a bit too much of grace and forgotten that Jesus drank the cup of God's wrath to the dregs for us. We've made grace cheap and forgotten about the righteousness of God which calls us to holiness. If we truly saw God as holy, holy, holy, how could we continue to sin and not be grieved by it and go back to the cross once again to repent and receive His forgiveness and cleansing?

When God's people insist on coming to Him full of sin and unholiness, unrepentant over our sin, harboring and bowing down to those hidden sins of lust in our hearts, He looks upon us as if we were Sodom and Gomorrah (this from Isaiah 1):

Thanks be to God He gives us the remedy for our unholiness through the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah's words remind us of the Lamb who was to come and give His blood to save us and purify us and make us a holy and blameless people for Himself.

O, by the grace of God drawing us, let us be willing and obedient and go to Him to rid ourselves of all our idols, brothers and sisters, so we might eat the good of the land. Until we do, our sins will continue to separate us from Him.

We can have no true fellowship with the Father, Son and the Spirit so long as we persist in sin. We can say we have fellowship with Him, but we are only lying! And correspondingly, we can have no true fellowship with our brothers and sisters unless we have fellowship with Him. We can have no true fellowship unless we come to Him and receive the forgiveness and cleansing only He can provide. And then by His Holy Spirit at work in us, He will help us to become pure in our doctrine and our behavior, after all His will for us is sanctification. May He do for us which we are powerless to do! May He make us holy as He is holy so we might shine as lights in the world!

A PRAYER FOR UNITY

Father, Son and Spirit, one God in three persons,

You show us what perfect unity and harmony looks like in the Godhead.

In Judges 20 we see the Israelites uniting together and working together.

Holy Father, Spotless Lamb, Holy Spirit,

You are perfectly holy and perfectly united. We acknowledge have no unity apart from being united to You.

You are holy. We cannot say we have fellowship with You so long as we continue to be unholy in our doctrine and in our behavior. And we can have no fellowship or unity with our brothers and sisters so long as we are unholy in any way. Forgive us, forgive Your Church, as we have so often persisted in being unholy in our doctrine and behavior. May Your kindness bring us into Your light and show us our unholiness and lead us to repentance. Send Your Holy Spirit to purify us and make us holy so we might be a praise in the earth.

Holy Spirit, purify us and make us holy unto the Lord. Knit us together into You so we might work together as one man to You, O Lord. May we be a praise in the earth. Make us shine in the darkness. We confess we often look and act no differently than the world. Guard each of us and keep us from sin.

Holy Spirit, purify this place of prayer, this tent of meeting, and make it holy unto the Lord. Knit those who come together into You so we might pray together as one man to You. May this place be a praise in the earth. Make it shine in the darkness. Guard this place and keep it from sin.

May our doctrine never bring reproach to Your holy Name.

May our behavior never bring reproach to Your holy Name.

Have mercy on us. Protect this place of prayer. You are calling many of Your people to turn to You in prayer. May You give all You are calling ears to hear and grace to respond to Your call. May those You have called continue to persevere in prayer by Your great grace and mighty arm strengthening us to do so.

Amen.