on Audible> Daring To Draw Near
on Amazon> Daring to Draw Near
I read this book, the first time, in my early teens. Over the course of my life the truths taught me through this book stayed with me, and became a part of me! It wasn’t until re-reading it later on in life, that truths I’ve clung to came back to me, reminding me of the one who taught them to me. That tells me that God confirmed those things, that it was God who led me to this book so early on in my life, and Christian Development.
Its a simple concept, laid out in the preface and/or first chapter. He goes through 10 prayers in the bible and teaches them to us.
Quotations>
Daring to Draw near
82>
thee, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us contusion of face.”
Herein lies a secret for would-be intercessors. You must not pray, “Have mercy on them, O Lord,” but, “Have mercy on us.” You may object and say, “How can I identify myself with unbelievers? I am a Christian. Many for whom I pray are unsaved and living in sin.” Yet you are just as much part of a fallen race as those for whom you pray. You share the nature of our common forefather Adam. You are not better than they, only more fortunate. If you would pray, you must sit where they sit, stand where they stand, and say with Daniel,iLord, we are sinners, we rebel constantly, have mercy on us.”
What hinders you from praying thus? Are you more deserving of God’s grace than others? Were you chosen for your superior potential? Was the disease of sin in your members more benign, more open to cleansing? Have you ceased to be part of the human race since you became a Christian? Or, to refer to our text, are you morally superior to a Daniel?
Pray alongside those for whom you intercede. Take them by the hand and say,iTo us, O Lord, belongs confusion of face.
However, to do this involves more than a change in words. It calls for a change in perspective. It demands that we take seriously the doom that hangs over the heads of other people and that we acknowledge God’s right to bring judgment upon them.
If you are anything like me, you will grow uncomfortable at this point. As I chat with and rub shoulders with non-Christians around me, I blot
83>
out completely the thought that a sword hangs over their heads. Were any of them right now to be looking over my shoulder, I would be embarrassed to have them read what I am writing. I would grow defensive were they to ask,Surely you don’t believe in a God like that?” The problem is that I do not share Daniel’s or God’s perspective on the men and women I meet every day. Only when I do so, do my prayers for them come alive.
God’s perspective is one of judgment. We all deserve the wrath of God. Hell is too good for us. And that means hell is too good for the non-Christians who surround us. The wrath of the Lamb is too good for the Christians we feel critical of. Daniel saw it with absolute clarity.iTherefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us; for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works which he has done, and we have not obeyed his voicei We do not think like Daniel. Somewhere deep in our minds is a feeling (which we may not dare to ac-knowledge, even to ourselves) that maybe God is a little bit harsh with the nicer kind of non-Christians. And to think about God’s wrath toward a brother or sister in Christ is inconceivable.
CRIPPLING FEARS
I may be probing a sensitive spot but must pro-ceed. You say, “Yes, but have we any right to judge people? After all, aren’t we supposed to love them?” You are missing the point.
People are already under judgment. We find ourself reluctant to admit that God is doing the right
84>
thing when he judges them. But, reluctant or not, we are facing an either/or in God’s relationship with us. Either he is in the right or we are. To be honest, my own conflict has always arisen because I don’t want to believe that God is who he is. Yet I am setting up any disinclination as a standard to assess the righteousness of God.
As for loving people, I cannot help but feel that our “loving” attitude toward their sin is like some people’s attitude toward sickness or accidents. I remember one teenage boy who fell off his bicycle and broke his arm. It was so broken it looked bent. He ran into his father’s office for help, only to be greeted with the words,Take it away! Take it away! You know I can’t bear to look at things like that!”
It is not a sign of love to avoid thinking about people’s sickness. It is not loving to avoid visiting a dying person “because I wouldn’t know what to say.” It is not loving (though it may be legally pru-dent) to avoid helping someone involved in an accident “because that sort of thing makes me feel ill.” Rather, it is a sign that we are crippled by fears that prevent us from facing reality.
In the same way, our fear of sin and judgment are no demonstration of love. An intercessor is above all a realist. You cannot intercede like Daniel unless you see things as they are, including a world and even a church under the sword of judgment.
My wife and I had been in Bolivia only three months when our first child, a boy, was born. I watched the birth take place. If you had asked me how I felt, I’m sure I would have said, “I’m feeling
84>
great, thank you. Yet as I look back, I know that I was extremely frightened
Scott was born with badly clubbed feet. As he was lifted from the delivery table my wife cried, “John, look at his feet. There’s something wrong with his feet!” I looked at the red, wet, squirming body but saw nothing wrong.
“His feet are fine, honey,” I retorted
“But his feet, honey, look at his feet!”
I looked, but I did not see. “It’s okay, dear, his feet are just fine.”
Such was my anxious need to feel that all was well that I was blind to the distorted limbs. Incredible as it may seem (for I am a physician and was trained to inspect babies as they were born), I saw no grotesquely twisted limbs, only straight ones. I did not know it at the time, but my fears made me blind to the reality that my son was born a cripple. I could not see what was under my nose.
Were the full impact of the fate of people around us to break over our minds, we might be too overwhelmed to pray at all. Some of us are blind to the fate of those around us in the same way and for the same reasons that I was blind to my son’s feet. We are emotionally incapable of seeing the judgment that awaits them. Either we deny its reality, or else we shield ourself from its full impact, acknowledging the fact, but isolating ourself from its horror. No urgency grips us as we pray. How can it, when we hide ourself from the truth?
What can we do? We can start by acknowledging to ourself and confessing to God that we are indeed
86>
afraid to face the truth. We can read those parts of his Word that deal with judgment and let the Holy Spirit make them come alive to us. If we are perplexed that God should judge at all, we need to bring our perplexity to him and let him reveal more of himself to our heart. And then, like Abraham, like Moses, and like Daniel, we will begin to intercede.
