The Beginner's Guide To Intercessory Prayer Order Printed Copy

Author: Dutch Sheets
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About the Book

"The Beginner's Guide to Intercessory Prayer" by Dutch Sheets provides practical guidance for those new to the practice of intercessory prayer. The book covers topics such as how to pray effectively, the importance of perseverance in prayer, and how to hear from God while interceding for others. It is a helpful resource for anyone looking to deepen their prayer life and make a greater impact through intercession.

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a German monk who forever changed Christianity when he nailed his '95 Theses' to a church door in 1517, sparking the Protestant Reformation. Who Was Martin Luther? Martin Luther was a German monk who began the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, becoming one of the most influential and controversial figures in the history of Christianity. Luther called into question some of the basic tenets of Roman Catholicism, and his followers soon split from the Roman Catholic Church to begin the Protestant tradition. His actions set in motion tremendous reform within the Church. A prominent theologian, Luther’s desire for people to feel closer to God led him to translate the Bible into the language of the people, radically changing the relationship between church leaders and their followers. Early Life Luther was born on November 10, 1483, in Eisleben, Saxony, located in modern-day Germany. His parents, Hans and Margarette Luther, were of peasant lineage. However, Hans had some success as a miner and ore smelter, and in 1484 the family moved from Eisleben to nearby Mansfeld, where Hans held ore deposits. Hans Luther knew that mining was a tough business and wanted his promising son to have a better career as a lawyer. At age seven, Luther entered school in Mansfeld. Education At 14, Luther went north to Magdeburg, where he continued his studies. In 1498, he returned to Eisleben and enrolled in a school, studying grammar, rhetoric and logic. He later compared this experience to purgatory and hell. In 1501, Luther entered the University of Erfurt, where he received a degree in grammar, logic, rhetoric and metaphysics. At this time, it seemed he was on his way to becoming a lawyer. Becoming a Monk In July 1505, Luther had a life-changing experience that set him on a new course to becoming a monk. Caught in a horrific thunderstorm where he feared for his life, Luther cried out to St. Anne, the patron saint of miners, “Save me, St. Anne, and I’ll become a monk!” The storm subsided and he was saved. Most historians believe this was not a spontaneous act, but an idea already formulated in Luther’s mind. The decision to become a monk was difficult and greatly disappointed his father, but he felt he must keep a promise. Luther was also driven by fears of hell and God’s wrath, and felt that life in a monastery would help him find salvation. The first few years of monastic life were difficult for Luther, as he did not find the religious enlightenment he was seeking. A mentor told him to focus his life exclusively on Jesus Christ and this would later provide him with the guidance he sought. Disillusionment with Rome At age 27, Luther was given the opportunity to be a delegate to a Catholic church conference in Rome. He came away more disillusioned, and very discouraged by the immorality and corruption he witnessed there among the Catholic priests. Upon his return to Germany, he enrolled in the University of Wittenberg in an attempt to suppress his spiritual turmoil. He excelled in his studies and received a doctorate, becoming a professor of theology at the university (known today as Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg). Through his studies of scripture, Luther finally gained religious enlightenment. Beginning in 1513, while preparing lectures, Luther read the first line of Psalm 22, which Christ wailed in his cry for mercy on the cross, a cry similar to Luther’s own disillusionment with God and religion. Two years later, while preparing a lecture on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, he read, “The just will live by faith.” He dwelled on this statement for some time. Finally, he realized the key to spiritual salvation was not to fear God or be enslaved by religious dogma but to believe that faith alone would bring salvation. This period marked a major change in his life and set in motion the Reformation. Though Luther intended these to be discussion points, the 95 Theses laid out a devastating critique of the indulgences - good works, which often involved monetary donations, that popes could grant to the people to cancel out penance for sins - as corrupting people’s faith. Luther also sent a copy to Archbishop Albert Albrecht of Mainz, calling on him to end the sale of indulgences. Aided by the printing press, copies of the 95 Theses spread throughout Germany within two weeks and throughout Europe within two months. The Church eventually moved to stop the act of defiance. In October 1518, at a meeting with Cardinal Thomas Cajetan in Augsburg, Luther was ordered to recant his 95 Theses by the authority of the pope. Luther said he would not recant unless scripture proved him wrong. He went further, stating he didn’t consider that the papacy had the authority to interpret scripture. The meeting ended in a shouting match and initiated his ultimate excommunication from the Church. Excommunication Following the publication of his 95 Theses, Luther continued to lecture and write in Wittenberg. In June and July of 1519 Luther publicly declared that the Bible did not give the pope the exclusive right to interpret scripture, which was a direct attack on the authority of the papacy. Finally, in 1520, the pope had had enough and on June 15 issued an ultimatum threatening Luther with excommunication. On December 10, 1520, Luther publicly burned the letter. In January 1521, Luther was officially excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. Diet of Worms In March 1521, Luther was summoned before the Diet of Worms, a general assembly of secular authorities. Again, Luther refused to recant his statements, demanding he be shown any scripture that would refute his position. There was none. On May 8, 1521, the council released the Edict of Worms, banning Luther’s writings and declaring him a “convicted heretic.” This made him a condemned and wanted man. Friends helped him hide out at the Wartburg Castle. While in seclusion, he translated the New Testament into the German language, to give ordinary people the opportunity to read God’s word. Lutheran Church Though still under threat of arrest, Luther returned to Wittenberg Castle Church, in Eisenach, in May 1522 to organize a new church, Lutheranism. He gained many followers, and the Lutheran Church also received considerable support from German princes. When a peasant revolt began in 1524, Luther denounced the peasants and sided with the rulers, whom he depended on to keep his church growing. Thousands of peasants were killed, but the Lutheran Church grew over the years. Katharina von Bora In 1525, Luther married Katharina von Bora, a former nun who had abandoned the convent and taken refuge in Wittenberg. Born into a noble family that had fallen on hard times, at the age of five Katharina was sent to a convent. She and several other reform-minded nuns decided to escape the rigors of the cloistered life, and after smuggling out a letter pleading for help from the Lutherans, Luther organized a daring plot. With the help of a fishmonger, Luther had the rebellious nuns hide in herring barrels that were secreted out of the convent after dark - an offense punishable by death. Luther ensured that all the women found employment or marriage prospects, except for the strong-willed Katharina, who refused all suitors except Luther himself. The scandalous marriage of a disgraced monk to a disgraced nun may have somewhat tarnished the reform movement, but over the next several years, the couple prospered and had six children. Katharina proved herself a more than a capable wife and ally, as she greatly increased their family's wealth by shrewdly investing in farms, orchards and a brewery. She also converted a former monastery into a dormitory and meeting center for Reformation activists. Luther later said of his marriage, "I have made the angels laugh and the devils weep." Unusual for its time, Luther in his will entrusted Katharina as his sole inheritor and guardian of their children. Anti-Semitism From 1533 to his death in 1546, Luther served as the dean of theology at University of Wittenberg. During this time he suffered from many illnesses, including arthritis, heart problems and digestive disorders. The physical pain and emotional strain of being a fugitive might have been reflected in his writings. Some works contained strident and offensive language against several segments of society, particularly Jews and, to a lesser degree, Muslims. Luther's anti-Semitism is on full display in his treatise, The Jews and Their Lies. Death Luther died following a stroke on February 18, 1546, at the age of 62 during a trip to his hometown of Eisleben. He was buried in All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, the city he had helped turn into an intellectual center. Luther's teachings and translations radically changed Christian theology. Thanks in large part to the Gutenberg press, his influence continued to grow after his death, as his message spread across Europe and around the world.

If God Approves, Let Men Condemn

It may appear, at first glance, to be an odd text to hang in your bedroom: Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. (Matthew 5:11–12 KJV) Whereas others might draw from a thousand wells before this one, Susannah Spurgeon framed Jesus’s words to remind her husband, Charles, of Jesus’s upside-down perspective. When his disciples face bitter opposition for his name’s sake, the proper response should be joy. “Spurgeon was slandered in the newspapers, ridiculed by his opponents, and censured by many evangelical ministers.” When we consider this Baptist giant, when we read his stirring sermons, when we remember that his life’s work rivaled that of one hundred men, when we read of the revival and the winning of countless souls to Christ, we can imagine the Prince of Preachers encountering little but unbroken success. Compared with so many of our ministries, his seemed to soar high in the clouds. We rarely consider, as Iain Murray contends, The Forgotten Spurgeon — the Spurgeon who needed Matthew 5:11–12 hanging on his wall. Forgotten Prince The forgotten Spurgeon stood among the tornadoes of several great controversies in his day. His protestation against Arminianism, his disgust at baptismal regeneration, and his resistance to an evangelical unity founded upon fragments of Christian doctrine (known as the Downgrade Controversy) made him the target for many arrows. This Spurgeon, especially at the beginning and end of his ministry, had reason to reckon himself as “the scum of the earth” (24–25). The name Spurgeon, which we regard fondly, was, by estimation of its owner, “kicked about the street like a football” (28). He had occasion to remark in a sermon, “Scarce a day rolls over my head in which the most villainous abuse, the most fearful slander is not uttered against me both privately and by the public press; every engine is employed to put down God’s minister — every lie that man can invent is hurled at me” (63). This Spurgeon was slandered in the newspapers, ridiculed by his opponents, and censured by many evangelical ministers who he anticipated would be his allies. This Spurgeon was a living example of the happy — but often hated — man of God to whom Jesus spoke in the Sermon on the Mount. Fleeing Compromise What can we learn from this forgotten Spurgeon? This Spurgeon can teach us to handle controversy manfully and without compromising. His convictions, which he held to his dying day, cost him dearly. He did not practice that vice he so clearly preached against: “I think there is scarcely a Christian man or woman that has been able to go all the way to heaven and yet quietly hide himself and run from bush to bush, skulking into glory. Christianity and cowardice? What a contradiction in terms!” (“Speak for Yourself — a Challenge”). If we would cast away the temptation to tiptoe into glory, and be of real benefit for Christ’s name in this world, Spurgeon teaches us that we would do well to resist loving our own names, be comfortable in the minority, and recognize (and reject) false unity. 1. Don’t fall in love with your own name. “Let my name perish, but let Christ’s name last forever! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Crown him Lord of all!” (43) Spurgeon warns us of falling in love with our own reputations and influence. This self-love, he identified, is a main ingredient in the undoing of the best of us. He exposes the steps to compromise of the person initially used by God: The temptation comes to be careful of the position he has gained, and to do nothing to endanger it. The man, so lately a faithful man of God, compromises with worldlings, and to quiet his own conscience invents a theory by which such compromises are justified and even commended. He receives the praises of “the judicious”; he has, in truth, gone over to the enemy. The whole force of his former life now tells upon the wrong side. (170) How many times have we seen or experienced this drift? First, we are somehow exalted for special use. Then we quietly begin to notice it and relish the attention. Falling in love with recognition, we tighten our grip around our platforms in fear of losing them. We then calculate what we say, filtering out anything that may weaken our influence — including the unfavorable truths of Scripture. And finally, faced with the thing we used to call compromise, we invent reasons to support what we’ve become — why we’ve beaten the sword into a plowshare. “When we begin sharing truth based on how well that truth will be received, we are halfway to compromise.” Fierce loves fixed on unworthy objects mold Christians into cowards. If we have begun to love the music of our own name, manage our brand, or consider our popularity as necessary to the advancement of Christ’s kingdom, we have begun building our own kingdoms. May we say with Spurgeon, “I count my own character, popularity, and usefulness to be as the small dust of the balance compared with fidelity to the Lord Jesus” (219). It is Christ we proclaim, not ourselves (2 Corinthians 4:5). 2. Be comfortable in the minority. “Long ago I ceased to count heads. Truth is usually in the minority in this evil world. I have faith in the Lord Jesus for myself, a faith burned into me as with a hot iron. I thank God, what I believe I shall believe, even if I believe it alone.” (146) Have you ever felt the temptation to count heads — or followers, likes, and shares — to see what you should or should not say? I have. When we begin sharing truth based on how well that truth will be received, we are halfway to compromise. Spurgeon counsels us to consider the cost beforehand: truth is often in the minority; to stand with it means you may stand alone. Yet those who stand for Christ’s truth never truly stand alone. You may go as Esther before the king without kin beside you, resolved that if you perish, you perish; you may preach like Stephen, as crowds press in around you, shutting their ears and hurling stones; you may rebuke King Herod’s adultery alone or say with Paul, “At my first defense no one came to stand by me” (2 Timothy 4:16) — but Christ shall be with you, even until the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). And if your cause is true, you will find, like Elijah, you are not the only one not to bow the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19:14, 18). 3. Recognize false unity. “It is, of course, the most easy to flesh and blood to deal in generalities, to denounce sectarianism, and claim to be of an ultra-catholic spirit; but though rough and rugged, it is required of the loyal servant of King Jesus to maintain all his crown rights and stand up for every word of his laws. Friends chide us and foes abhor us when we are very jealous for the Lord God of Israel, but what do these things matter if the Master approves?” (18) Error loves vagueness. As in Spurgeon’s day, the temptation to tolerate all positions and accept all perspectives on truth is strong in ours. We are told it is prejudiced, narrow, and even unchristian to draw lines. But to Spurgeon, promoting a type of “Christian unity” whose common denominator sinks lower than genuine Christianity in the first place is unacceptable. Unity of Jew and Gentile into one new man is bought with the blood of Christ; unity of gospel truth and gospel untruth is unity brought about by Satan. Orthodox Christianity, he argued, is distinct. Not all views can be true. When the only standard left is for all in the flock to have four legs, wolves and goats stand at ease among us. The trend toward an undoctrinal, atheological, shapeless evangelicalism, beginning in Spurgeon’s day and seemingly ripening in ours, is one of the quickest ways to compromise our fidelity to Christ and witness in the world. “Truth is often in the minority; to stand with it means you may stand alone.” In saying this, Spurgeon did not intend to divide over every possible theological difference — lest every man be an island unto himself. But Spurgeon chafed at minimizing Christian zeal and truth in order to bring together contrasting theologies and to mix liberalism with historic Christianity. We may be called particular or dogmatic, but what do we care if what we promote is the Master’s truth? Though the Heavens Fall “It is yours and mine to do the right though the heavens fall, and follow the command of Christ whatever the consequence may be. “That is strong meat,” do you say? Be strong men, then, and feed thereon.” (171) His beloved wife, who hung Matthew 5:11–12 in their bedroom, said after his death at the age of 57, “His fight for the faith . . . cost him his life.” He fought the good fight of faith, he kept the faith, he finished the race (2 Timothy 4:7), claiming before his death, “My work is done” (173). He lived for his Lord, and now he basks in his presence. To those of us who lag behind him, traversing our own times with all of their challenges and opportunities, temptations and labors, take up his oft-quoted hymn as we continue on in our race of faith: Must I be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease, While others fought to win the prize And sailed through bloody seas? Since I must fight if I would reign, Increase my courage, Lord! I’ll bear the toil, endure the pain, Supported by thy word. Though the heavens fall, though the earth gives way, though controversy and temptations of spiritual compromise stand before us, may we heed this forgotten Spurgeon, hang Matthew 5:11–12 in our hearts, and live before men and devils with the courage and hope that only Christ supplies. Article by Greg Morse