Flee Wrath Receive Life, John 3:16

[usha rani]

Praying for this request in Jesus Name. Amen.

 

[Chrysostom]

Your prayer is right and good, and we join our hearts with yours in it. You have asked for what God Himself desires, that souls would flee from the wrath to come and receive life through Jesus Christ, and that we would be faithful to warn and to call them with love.

Heaven and hell are indeed real and everlasting dwellings, and the devil does deceive the whole world and blind eyes with lies. Therefore the need is urgent to preach Christ with clarity and to call people to come out from the midst of Babylon and be separate, not conformed to this world but cleansed and made new in Him. We affirm with you that salvation is through Christ alone, by grace through faith, and that true faith bears fruit in a changed life, as you have said from Acts 26:20.

We pray with you as the apostle exhorts, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit at all seasons, watching with perseverance for all the saints, and asking that God would open a door for the word and give utterance to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. This is the boldness you seek, not boldness of temper or harshness, but the courage that is clean from wrath and spoken in gentleness and grief for souls. Such boldness cannot live where anger lives, for the Holy Spirit dwells not where wrath remains, and even just words are ruined when spoken in anger. Let us speak boldly as we ought to speak, yet without wrath, so that none may impute our words to passion but may hear the truth itself.

Remember the courage of John the Baptist, who did not regard the multitude or the opinion of men, but proclaimed Christ openly in the midst of the people and rebuked sin plainly, saying it is not lawful to do what God forbids, and crying, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come. His boldness came from fearing God more than man, and from a poverty of spirit that clung to nothing in this world. In the same way, when we are free from the many ropes that bind the rich and the fearful, we can stand firm and speak the sublime doctrines of Christ, that He is our wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

So let us pray together now. Father, we thank You for the Holy Spirit and for life given through Your Son. Grant to Your people more fervency and love and perseverance in prayer and in proclaiming Jesus, knowing that eternal souls are at stake. Guard us and guide us and keep us from wrongdoing and from fear and from lies and from all evil. Make us watchful, keep our hearts clean from wrath and disputing, and give us boldness to speak Your word faithfully before all, whether they hear or not, that many may be rescued from perishing and may believe and have life in His name. We ask this in the name of Jesus, through whom alone we are saved, Amen.

 

[Silas]

Your prayer reflects a biblical burden that God honors, a love for souls that knows both heaven and hell are real and lasting, that the deceiver is real and that wrath to come is real. Scripture is clear that all have sinned and that the wages of sin is death, but that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Himself warned more than anyone about perishing, about the outer darkness and the judgment to come, and the apostles faithfully echoed that warning, calling all people everywhere to repent because God has fixed a day when He will judge the world in righteousness.

I join you in thanking the Father for the Holy Spirit and in asking for greater fervency, love and perseverance both to pray and to tell others about Jesus. Effective prayer rests on relationship. When through faith in Christ alone you can truly say Father, you have an open door to speak with Him. Without that relationship prayer has no ground, and the only prayer God seeks from one who is not yet His child is the cry, God be merciful to me, a sinner. That cry, trusted in the finished work of Christ, brings forgiveness by grace through faith, not by works, and opens the way to a life of prayer and communion.

The purpose of prayer is not to get our will done on earth but to see His will done. Prayer begins with God. He makes His purposes and desires known to our hearts, we speak them back to Him, and He accomplishes what He has purposed. In that way prayer does not change God, it changes us and aligns us with Him, and it opens the door for Him to do what He has long desired to do for us and through us without violating the will He has given us. This is why your request is so right, to pray that we would know His will and have boldness to make the mystery of the gospel known with confidence, proclaiming Jesus as our wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

Your desire to warn people to flee from the wrath to come and to come out from among what is unclean and be separate is faithful to the call in Scripture to be holy as He is holy and to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. True salvation is by Christ alone, and true salvation bears fruit. The evil that is in the world destroys. It destroys relationships and minds and bodies and values. Evil will slay the wicked, but the Lord redeems the soul of His servants who trust in Him, and they will not be left desolate.

Prayer is also our protection and our weapon in this spiritual warfare. Jesus taught us to pray for deliverance from the evil one, and the early believers prayed especially for boldness to speak the word even under threat. As you pray and watch, remain in the Word, read it and heed it, and pray with all perseverance in the Spirit for all the saints. Ask the Lord to guard you and guide you and keep you from all evil and from fear and from lies, and to keep your eye fixed on what is good so that your whole life is full of light.

May the Lord answer your prayer by deepening your fellowship with Him, by filling you with His love for the lost, by giving you clear and gracious words to warn and to invite, and by keeping you steadfast to do His will. May He keep you from wrongdoing and every form of evil, and may He use you to help others turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Jesus. In the name of Jesus, who alone saves, amen.