Monthly Archives: October 2019

I wasn’t planning to post today, but as I became more involved in my personal journal, some questions began to arise about prayer.

In a couple of days, our Bible study on the Letter from James will get into prayer. I’m confused and hesitant about prayer. It seems clear from the Bible that we are urged to pray. In fact, James says near the end of Chapter 5 that “the prayer of a righteous man avails much.” That should be enough for me, but apparently, it is not. I’m am burdened by fatalism, “Que será, será.”

I have had some great prayer times, times when I am certain that God has heard me and He has responded. Why is it then, that I don’t desire prayer? Am I lazy? Is fatalism merely a cover for not caring enough about that for which I should pray to put in the time and mental effort to pray about it?

I’m in hopes that someone can straighten me out on this as it is most important. This is especially so if this “season” of my life is the one that I am supposed to be devoted to prayer and Bible study. I seem to be going around this subject in a circle. The default position is not to pray. I seem even to disdain prayer at times and think it “quaint” when other Christians talk about praying for people. I realize that this is a bad place to be.

I saw the video below that explains prayer to children. Is it that simple? It may be. See video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVHUx_EJnUs

Then I viewed a video where a pastor was saying the following about prayer.

• Distinguish between sovereignty and determinism.
• In the Bible, God responds to the prayers of His people.
• Jesus commands us to pray
• If we are to be like Jesus, Jesus prayed.
• There are issues of the balance of sovereignty and free that are antinomies (my word.) We will never understand them.

C.S. Lewis said, “My free act [of prayer] contributes to the cosmic shape. That contribution is made in eternity or ‘before all world’; but my consciousness of contributing reaches me at a particular point in the time-series.” In other words, prayer does influence God in His eternity. Likewise, whether or not we pray influences Him.

So, it the purpose of prayer to “influence” God? If that is my purpose, am I trying to usurp the prerogative of God? Does that remove the emphasis from God and put it on me and my desires or perceived needs?

Herman Dooyeweerd, the early 20th Century Dutch philosopher, a neo-Calvinist in the manner of Kuyper, held that since God is eternal, He is “atemporal,” i.e. not within time since God created time. Man’s prayers, among other things, can be “supratemporal,” above prayer. I believe that Dooyeweerd is saying that prayer pierces the bubble of the time in which we are encased by God and can be considered “atemporally” by God. His response then comes back within the bubble of time at a mark of His choosing.

As I view it, this aligns with C.S. Lewis’ thought that prayers, when uttered or thought, escape from time and reach, or as the Bible says, “influence,” God.

E.M. Bounds held that God could not work His divine will until someone prayed for him to do so. Thus, after recovering from a severe head wound in the Civil War, he eventually retired to a life of prayer in which he would pray for hours on end.

Atheist, Christopher Hitchens argued that praying to a god which is omnipotent and all-knowing would be presumptuous. For example, he interprets Ambrose Bierce’s definition of prayer by stating that “the man who prays is the one who thinks that god has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks that he can instruct god how to put them right.”

Speaking to the rationalist view of prayer, in this view, the ultimate goal of prayer is to help train a person to focus on divinity through philosophy and intellectual contemplation (meditation). This approach was taken by the Jewish scholar and philosopher Maimonides and the other medieval rationalists. It became popular in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic intellectual circles, but never became the most popular understanding of prayer among the laity in any of these faiths. In all three of these faiths today, a significant minority of people still hold to this approach.

In the experiential approach to prayer, ,  an approach with which I have spent some personal time, the purpose of prayer is to enable the person praying to gain a direct experience with God. This is prevalent in some forms of monasticism (as well as Zen.) Such prayer may be apophatic or cataphatic, that is, respectively, without the filter of the senses and with the filter of the senses. To further distinguish, apophatic prayer does not involve cognition while cataphatic prayer does involve cognition.

John Wesley, in addition to stressing individual “moral exertion,” thought that the religious experiences in the Methodist movement, paralleling the emphasis placed on idealism and experientiality of the Romantic Movement, were foundational to religious commitment as a way of life.

In the New Testament, prayer is presented as a positive command (Colossians 4:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:17). The People of God are challenged to include Christian prayer in their everyday life, even in the busy struggles of marriage (1 Corinthians 7:5) as it brings people closer to God. Jesus encouraged his disciples to pray in secret in their private rooms, using the Lord’s Prayer, as a humble response to the prayer of the Pharisees, whose practices in prayer were regarded as impious by the New Testament writers (Matthew 6:6). Jesus healed through prayer and expected his followers to do so also (Mark 16:17–18; Matthew 10:8).

Throughout the New Testament, prayer is shown to be God’s appointed method by which we obtain what He has to bestow (Matthew 7:7–11; Matthew 9:24–29; Luke 11:13. Further, the Book of James says that the lack of blessings in life results from a failure to pray (James 4:2).

Is it as simple as taking the Bible at its plain-text meaning, or am I trying to confuse the subject with “religiobabble?”

I’d appreciate your, thoughts since you spent your time reading this.

From Capitalism to California.

I was reading an April article from The Washington Post Concerning the fear by some tech billionaires that the system they created by which they have become so wealthy may no longer be sustainable. If this happens, their fortunes will be lost. The article may be found at the following site.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/capitalism-in-crisis-us-billionaires-worry-about-the-survival-of-the-system-that-made-them-rich/2019/04/20/3e06ef90-5ed8-11e9-bfad-36a7eb36cb60_story.html

The first five verses of James Chapter 5 remind us that the problem cited hereinabove has existed ever since man began to keep written records.

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you. (James 5:1-6 NIV.)

In James’ day, as it was so many centuries earlier in the days of the Prophet Amos, the rich were getting richer by defrauding their poor laborers. The failure by these rich landowners to pay the daily wage was a continuing problem throughout the history of Israel. It was, in fact, one of the causes of their downfall to the Babylonians.

Further, this type of greed, no doubt, has contributed to the stereotype of the Jew as unscrupulously wealthy and callous towards his workers in his business dealings.

Like all stereotypes, this picture is exactly that, a stereotype. However, it does point out abuse in the system in the day of Amos on forward into the day of James. Obviously, this practice was not limited to Jews. To think so is to unfairly pass on a stereotype.

The modern stereotype is of the wealthy person of any (or no) religion who Is so caught up in protecting his wealth that he is completely, purposefully and unknowing ignorant of the hardship of his workers.

In a scathing op-ed piece written for the guardian, George Montbiot writes:

Capitalism’s failures arise from two of its defining elements. The first is perpetual growth. Economic growth is the aggregate effect of the quest to accumulate capital and extract profit. Capitalism collapses without growth, yet perpetual growth on a finite planet leads inexorably to environmental calamity…

The second defining element is the bizarre assumption that a person is entitled to as great a share of the world’s natural wealth as their money can buy. This seizure of common goods causes three further dislocations. First, the scramble for exclusive control of non-reproducible assets, which implies either violence or legislative truncations of other people’s rights. Second, the immiseration of other people by an economy based on looting across both space and time. Third, the translation of economic power into political power, as control over essential resources leads to control over the social relations that surround them.

Unfortunately, Mr. Montbiot admits that he does not have a solution to the problem. Perhaps, Mr. Montbiot Has not recently read his Bible, because the answer Is clear in that text. The same Bible which gives us the plaintiff cry of the Prophet Amos and of James the Just, condemning the unfair practices of the Entrepreneurs and capitalists of their days gives us a better way, the Way of Jesus.

Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; Love your neighbor as yourself.” While to the erudite writers of worldwide-circulation periodicals, these words might seem trite, time-worn, and a bit quaint, I would argue that these words live on to this very day and shall live on as Buzz Lightyear says, “to infinity and beyond.”

Jesus lives in the Christian’s heart. May I suggest that He also lives in the Christian’s brain, feet, and hands. An example of this life is found in the church in Petaluma County, California pastored by a friend of mine, Alan Cross, Petaluma Valley Baptist Church.

As you are no doubt aware, both northern and southern California are being consumed by wildfires at an unprecedented rate. In the northern California fires, the evacuation area has currently come to within 30 miles of Petaluma, California, the town which houses the church to which I refer.

While it would be a very good thing for the church members to pray for the evacuees, it is also a good thing to do as they have done, putting feet to their prayers. They have opened their church as a shelter for evacuees. They are currently at capacity. Every night, members of the church reside on the floors of the church’s facilities supervising evacuees. Every day, members of the church cook and bring in meals to feed the evacuees.

Pastor Alan posted on Facebook that a reporter from Sacramento came to view the church. The reporter asked Pastor Alan if they were doing these good things out of “survivor’s guilt.” Pastor Alan, himself a survivor Hurricane Katrina, and no doubt a bit taken aback, told the reporter that they were merely acting as Christians should act. They are putting into hands and feet Jesus’ words to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you; To love your neighbor as yourself.”

I’m not an economist. Neither am I a Socialist or a Communist, and neither do I have a better solution to the rape of the poor by the unscrupulous rich in a system of capitalism run amok, but I suggest that James the Just, who condemned the same thing in his time in James 5, and Amos in his time would agree with my assertion that if Christians acted like Christians and followed the words of Jesus (the Christ for Whom they are named,) the other things would take care of themselves.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

Today the Spirit calls to our attention a seemingly strange exhortation to James’ Jewish-Christian brethren. In 4:7-9 he says (in summary,) submit yourself to God; come into God’s presence; wash your hands; and then grieve, mourn, and weep.

“Grieve, mourn, and weep,” really? This is a strange exhortation for people who should be the happiest on earth. We have been given the indescribable gifts of the very presence of God and eternal life, so why should we feel sad, let alone grieve, mourn, and weep?

May I submit that the answer lies not in the words, but in the REASONS for the words. The words are as follows.

James 4:7, 9 NIV. Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you… Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Now, the reasons.

James presents us with a conundrum. We must be clean of heart and hands before we can approach God. But, how can we become so cleansed? James does not give us the answer and requires us to study other portions of the Bible for that answer.

In today’s passage, James presents us with another conundrum. How are we to appreciate and utilize God’s great temporal gifts to us as balanced against pride in the possession of these gifts and against the lack of temporal gifts by so many others, i.e., our relative wealth versus others’ poverty?

James begins with a Greek word for “grieve” that literally means “to bear affliction, hard times.” One can’t know or experience hard times when one lives in the lap of luxury. On the question of how do we balance enjoying God’s temporal gifts with not being controlled by them, Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.” Matthew 6:21.

To begin with, in this verse, James cautions us not to take pride in the gifts God has given us but rather to be sorrowful that others do not possess those gifts. James begins with a strange metaphor. He tells us rather than rejoice we should grieve. We should grieve over the fact that others do not possess the gifts that we do. Further, James tells us that we should remember our own sin. Remembering our sin should bring us to tears. Perhaps, if it does not, we are not truly sorrowful for our sins. To lose the ability to recognize and to be sorrowful for our sin is to take a step in the wrong direction toward greater sin and a step away from God and His will for our lives.

The word James uses for “mourn” comes from the Greek pentheos, the root word for penance and repentance, i.e. to be filled with remorse over and over again – to “keep on” being filled with remorse.

In his commentary on James, William Barclay writes:

In his demand for godly sorrow, James is going back to the fact that Jesus had said: ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted’ (Matthew 5:4; cf. Luke 6:20–6). We must not read into this passage something James does not mean. He is not denying the joy of the Christian life. He is not demanding that people should live a life filled with gloom in a shadowed world… [rather] He is pleading for a sober life in place of frivolity, and in doing so… he is describing not the end but the beginning of the Christian life.

Perhaps Professor Barclay’s “live a life filled with gloom in a shadowed world… is a reference to Plato’s “World of Shadows,” the prevalent Greek idea of death at the time of James’ writing. The mourning that James’ Jewish readers would know was found in their funerary customs. In Jesus’ time, Jewish funerary customs were fairly rigid. They included the tearing of the front of the mourners’ clothes and a type of weeping known as “wailing,” a half cry-half moan. The Jewish mourning period of seven days for the average person traditionally was accompanied by professional mourners who would play instruments such as flutes and chant funeral dirges. Rabbinical rules allowed for even the poorest person to have at least two flute-players provided, along with one mourning woman.

An example of such in found in Mark 5:38 where Jesus came to the home of the synagogue ruler whose daughter had just died. Mark writes that Jesus found much more than the minimum number of mourners: there was “a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly” (Mark 5:38 NIV.) That would have indicated a person of some elevated stature in the community or the family member of the high-ranking person.

All this funeral “folderol” could be summarized by saying that mourning for the dead was a big deal. It is to this “big deal” that James refers. He advises that when confronted with our sin, we should, inwardly, make a “big deal” of it because sin is a “big deal.”

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, gives us a visual picture of this type of mourning.

In 1739, James Whitefield, another founding father of Methodism, who had been preaching in the Welsh village of Kingswood called on John Wesley to help. Whitefield called upon Wesley to come out of his, Wesley’s, comfortable church pulpit and to use his preaching skills with the common miners and others in the open areas of the village as they gathered. This was a giant leap for Wesley, as until this time, he had preached primarily in church pulpits and in small, controlled gatherings. He had not preached to the masses. In fact, many of his Anglican denomination, believing that “church” was for the well-to-do, condemned preaching to the masses as a waste of time. They contended that the pastor’s efforts should be concentrated on caring for his immediate flock.

Nevertheless, Wesley, no doubt led by the spirit, heeded the call of Whitefield and proceeded on to Kingswood where he was confronted by a scene that made an indelible impression on him. He saw the people of the town, miners and their families, as they were coming in from work gathered to hear what he had to say.

He preached a sermon on the topic of the Sermon on the Mount. Wesley states later that he was taken aback at the tears of sorrow for sin etched in the coal dust on the faces of the miners in recognition of and sorrow for their sin. That is what James insists that his readers should feel.

Harkening back to verse 7 where James tells us to “draw near to God,” we come to the conclusion that when we do so, inexorably we come to the conclusion that when we draw near to God, the first thing we notice is the contrast between God’s holiness and our own sin. There is a famous word picture drawn from Isaiah 6 where the Prophet has a vision of the very throne room of God. In a masterful presentation of language, the prophet describes God and the beings around him. His reaction is perhaps a universal one. He stands not agape at the glorious sight, rather, the prophet falls on his face and utters the only thing he can think to say,

Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty. (Isaiah 6:5 NIV.)

Recognition of our sin is the first step to Salvation. The old, unnamed preacher once said, “Before you can get a man saved, you first have to get him lost.” Obviously, what the old preacher meant was that a man had to first come to an understanding of the depth of his sinful, lost condition and to his desperate need of a savior before he could turn to the Savior and accept the salvation freely offered to him.

James means that we, as individuals, must grieve for our own sin. If we are not able to grieve our own sin, perhaps we have become to be too comfortable with our sin. That is a dangerous state in which to find oneself. It begins a slippery slope to greater sin.

Note the progression that the Psalmist points out in Psalm 1:1.

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers . . . (Psalm 1:1 NIV.)

The one about whom the psalmist writes first walks in step with the wicked, the sinners. Then, he stops, stands, and looks at what the wicked are doing. Finally, he sits down with the wicked and finds himself doing the same thing the wicked are doing. Sorrowful, mourning, and weeping for our own sin eventually leads us to personal salvation. When we realize that there is a log in our eye, we must first pluck it out, then we can see with spiritual eyes. See Matthew 7:5. But that’s only half of James’ story.

As Whitefield and Wesley recognized, we are not the centers in the world. We have a duty, according to James, to see the sin of other people in the world and rather than condemning, we should grieve, mourn, and weep for their sinful condition. But there is still more.

In the Gospel of John in chapter 11, the Apostle gives us the story of Jesus’ raising of Lazarus from the tomb. As you will remember the story, Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus that their brother and Jesus’ dear friend, Lazarus, was sick unto death. Jesus waits for 2 days before he leaves to attend to Lazarus. The journey to Bethany, near Jerusalem, would take two days as Jesus and his disciples were in the Galilee. By the time Jesus and the disciples arrived, Lazarus had been dead for four days.

There was a common belief among the Jews that the spirit of the dead person circled around the deceased for 3 days to see if he would revive and then flew away. Thus, after the third day, the person was absolutely and positively dead.

Jesus and the disciples arrived on the scene the day after Lazarus died. Jesus met the family members, four days into their seven-day period of mourning. He consoled them and asked them to take him to the tomb. At the site, Jesus gazed at the stone covered the cave. In verse 35, the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept.” This was not a show, not a façade. These were tears of true sorrow. Lazarus was His friend as were the sisters, Mary and Martha. Jesus mourned as did the family members.

This is exactly what James writes about. He wants us to mourn our sins. But there is more. Our mourning should lead to action.

In John 11, Jesus does something remarkable. Out of His grief, mourning, and tears, he is spurred to action. The King James Version captures Jesus’ words and actions with great poetry. “And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.” (John 11:34 KJV.) I have heard it said, perhaps with a little hyperbole, that had Jesus not prefaced “come forth” with the name, “Lazarus,” all the tombs within the sound of Jesus’ voice would have opened and the dead would have “come forth.” I would add “like a zombie apocalypse.”

Be that as it may, Lazarus hopped out of the Grave still wrapped in the grave clothes. The Movie, “Jesus of Nazareth,” captures this drama of this even in the following clip. See the following. https://youtu.be/L0IbOJ0Acmg .

Lazarus was the living proof of the power of Jesus’ words. That is exactly the picture of where our mourning and grief should leave us. James urges us to grieve, mourn, whale, and weep for the sin of other people. But then, like Jesus, we should do something about their sin.

Obviously, we cannot save them from their sins. But we know Someone who can, that someone is Jesus. It then becomes incumbent upon us to lead them to Jesus, the One who can save them from their sins.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

James the Just, half-brother of Jesus and earliest Christian church leader in Jerusalem (after the Apostle also named James, brother of John, was beheaded by Herod Agrippa and Peter and some other early Church leaders fled Jerusalem,) wrote the New Testament Letter from the James to the Jewish diaspora scattered throughout the Mediterranean Basin.

Today the Spirit calls to our attention to but one verse found the Letter from James verse 4:8. “Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. “

Christians have the greatest privilege of all, individual access to God. In Old Testament times, the right of approach to God was solely the province of the priests. (Exodus 19:22.) In that time, the presence of God was thought to be contained in the Ark of the Covenant that was housed in the Inner Sanctum, the Sanctum Santorum, the Holy of Holies. If you have seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, you have seen a representation of the Ark.

At God’s order, the ancient Hebrews housed the Holy of Holies in a tent called the Tent of Meeting or the Tabernacle. There, the Ark was separated from the remainder of the tent and later, in the temple, by a veil, a thick curtain woven in a pattern of cherubim, flying angelic beings.

Even the priest was not permitted to enter the presence of God there in just any ordinary manner. He was to come near to God only in the prescribed manner and only for the purpose of making atonement (setting relationships with God aright) for “sin-stained people.” (Ezekiel 44:13). The “sinner” who needed atonement in that time was any member of Israel, the chosen people of God; each and all of them collectively and individually. This atonement had to be performed annually.

The Spirit guides us now to New Testament times as there are differences in the OT and NT passages cited supra.

The first difference is that in James’ letter, the Greek word for “sinner” has a darker, more personal meaning. James does not address the average man or woman – we could say, “The Average Sinner-in – the-Street” – but the “hamartēlos,” the hardened sinner, the one whose sin is obvious. This word refers to the sin that lawyers would call “open and notorious.” Likewise, the word refers to the person living a sinful lifestyle.

There is a second, and happier, difference. In James’ time, as in ours, we need no priest. Through the work of Jesus Christ, any believer can come boldly before the throne, the very presence, of God, where such a person will unfailingly find mercy and grace to help in times of need (Hebrews 4:16).  We are the priests, and Christ is our High Priest. (I Peter 2;9, Revelation 1:6.) The writer of Hebrews tells us that though there was a time, now “dead,” when only the high priest might enter the Holy of Holies to make atonement for our sin, we have a new and a living way, a better hope by which we draw near to God. (Hebrews 7:19). But there is a problem.

Then as now, only a person who is perfect and clean can stand before a Holy God. For any time and in any generation, the Psalmist proclaims, “Who may ascend the mountain of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart.” (Psalm 24:3-4 NIV.) “Ay, there’s the rub.” William Shakespeare: Hamlet: Act 3 Scene 1 Page 3, (Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy.) How does one become “clean?”

In OT times, the priest first had to meet a high standard of racial, lineal, and moral purity. He had to be a Jewish man who was a descendant of Aaron of the tribe of Levi. Leviticus sets out in exquisite (some would say, “excruciating”) detail these requirements. Having met all these requirements, the priest then had to undergo ritual cleansing. The specifications for ritual cleansings were set out at length in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy in much too much detail for this writing. Suffice it to say. The priest had to clean himself from head to toe, inside and out, upside and down, backward forwards, and – you get the picture.

Then, his clothes had to be the right kind and cleansed the proper way. This extreme ceremonial cleansing was undertaken each and every time that priest approached the Holy of Holies to make atonement. The practice began sometimes around the 10th Century BC and continued until the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in AD 70 by the Romans.

Back to James’ (and our) time. William Barclay writes in his commentary on James,.

Biblical thought demands a fourfold cleansing. It demands a cleansing of the lips (Isaiah 6:5–6). It demands a cleansing of the hands (Psalm 24:4). It demands a cleansing of the heart (Psalm 73:13). It demands a cleansing of the mind (James 4:8).

Even having done with all the volumes of OT rules and regulations about cleansings, we are still left with Hamlet’s dilemma, how can we possibly be clean enough to stand before a Holy God?

There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that we cannot. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 3:10.

As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. (Romans 3:10 NIV.)

Here’s the good news. Paul continues in vv. 23-26.

[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

The answer to how a human being can become clean enough, pure enough, sanctified enough, holy enough to stand before a Holy God is one word: “Jesus.” The writer of Hebrews continues Paul’s answer.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16 NIV.)

Clearly, “Jesus” is the answer to the conundrum, but, how does one appropriate this priestly blessing – the grace bestowed by God in the Person of Jesus? Acts 16:24-40 details the account of a sinner-man who asked just such a question. That passage also gives him – and us – the answer. After Paul and Silas had been thrown in jail in the City of Philippi, God sent an earthquake to rattle the chains loose and the doors open. The chief jailer, the man in charge who would be held mortally responsible for the “jail-break,” was amazed to find that all the prisoners were still in their cells. He recognized the power of Jesus and Jesus’ Holy Spirit, and the jailer burst forth the succinct and all-important question of all the ages.

And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God. (Acts 16:29-34 NIV.)

Now you know the answer to the question of the ages, how to cleans a sinner, even the “hamartēlos,” how to cleanse me, and how to be cleansed yourself from the vice-grip of sin. “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”

One more question for you comes from the words of the old Hymn published by Elisha A. Hoffman in 1878, “Are You Washed in the Blood?”

Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?                                                              Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?                                                                          Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour?                                                                      Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?

Are you washed in the blood,                                                                                                    In the soul-cleansing blood of the lamb?                                                                                  Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?                                                      Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?

OK, it’s that’s more than one question – but you get the gist. I’ll summarize. “What’s your answer?

So let it be written, so let it be done.