By Tim Bloedow

I saw this article heading over the weekend: “Ministry says some members have quit praying for Obama.” What a sad headline! I wasn’t sad for the U.S. President; I am sad for the Church of Christ. The OneNewsNow article said, “A national ministry – Presidential Prayer Team – that organizes prayer for the president says it’s hearing from members who have quit praying for President Barack Obama.” Dave Otto, chairman of the ministry, in a fundraising letter, wrote that members “tell us that they are discouraged, disappointed, and some have admitted they have stopped praying for the president and our nation.”

Think about what you’ve just read! Is that the response of a Church that has something to say to the world, a Church that has something to say to the culture, a Church that has something to say to its non-Christian neighbours?

No way! We are talking about Christians who don’t know how to handle real life, who don’t know how to face the painful and difficult realities of life. They may be able to float on through the happy-clappy times, but they can’t navigate the valleys.

And I wonder how many of these people are pastors or other Christian leaders rather than simple laymen?

There are several points that need to be made in the face of this kind of Christianity.

First of all, it is a wholly inadequate Christianity. It’s not a Biblical Christianity. If you don’t worship a God who can handle the valleys, who can carry you through the hard times – and I’m not talking about providing mushy, sentimental feelings of comfort – then who do you worship? We need an abiding peace in Christ, and also the learning of real-world problem-solving skills, and the cultivation of character such as perseverance. This comes from knowing the Bible as God’s law-word and obeying it as such, rather than simply looking for cheap quotes and positive thinking slogans. God’s Word is all-sufficient. If it’s not all-sufficient for you, then you don’t know it, or you aren’t obeying it. And therefore, just like these members of the Presidential Prayer Team – you don’t have the faith, wisdom and knowledge necessary to push through hard times. I’m sure you want more…

Christianity is a worldview. God, in His Word, speaks authoritatively to every area of life. You need not become overwhelmed. You need not be on your own through times of suffering or sorrow. And you don’t need God to be a magician to pull you out of disappointing or painful circumstances.

If your Christianity is not a worldview, what good is it really? What do you have to offer anyone else? The answer to that question may not seem as important during good times because it’s easier to “wing it” through life in good times. But hard times are a good place to separate truth from error because that’s where doctrine as well as character is tested.

One of the best ways to disciple yourself – or to be discipled by God – into a faith that is comprehensive, a faith that can be sustained through all circumstances – is by singing. No, not just any old singing, but singing the substance that needs to be in you to sustain you. This means singing the Word of God; singing the Psalms. It is not possible to be a strong and stable Christian without singing Psalms.

I belong to a denomination that, out of conviction, sings only the Psalms during the Sunday public worship of God. I am very glad for that tradition. But even if your church doesn’t sing the Psalms, you can sing Psalms yourself. There are numerous helps available on the Internet. Click here for one site. And even if your church doesn’t sing only Psalms, it should be singing some Psalms. If your church doesn’t sing some Psalms, then your church isn’t really worshipping God. You’re not singing infallible truth; you’re singing another human being’s expression of devotion or sentimental thoughts. Such content might be suitable as an aid in prayer, but it’s not true worship. Does your pastor preach out of Dr. Seuss or out of Pilgrim’s Progress or out of Calvin’s Institutes? No! If he’s a Christian preacher, he preaches from the Word of God. That’s a pretty good source for singing as well!

In terms of the topic at hand, the benefit of the Psalms is that they cover the totality of human experience and human emotion. Every single emotional, psychological and spiritual dynamic a person could and does experience is addressed in the Psalms. With the Psalms, we share in the experiences of other historical figures as they sorrow, as they rejoice, as they get angry, as they repent, as they praise God, as they recall God’s acts of deliverance as a cause for thanksgiving and faith, as they struggle over seeming injustice in the providence of God, and as they call on God to judge oppressors and wicked men. The repetitive songs, and even the hymns, we sing today don’t come close to covering that breadth of human experience. They certainly don’t touch the difficult areas of human experience and emotion such as anger and confusion. Who wants to try producing words on such topics that are suitable for all Christians to sing? But God has given us such content to sing: divinely inspired, wholly true and completely reliable content that is convicting, healing, encouraging, edifying and delivering.

Why do so many Christians stay away from such wonderful, beautiful truth from God? Ignoring the gift of music which helps to get a message deep down into our souls? Actually, I suspect that a large portion of today’s Christians would embrace God’s hymn book for at least a portion of their singing, but sadly due to bad doctrine, or traditionalism, or any number of other reasons, their pastors and elders are keeping them separated from the Psalms. If you want to explore the richness of the Psalms for your spiritual strength, check out some Internet sources such as www.psalter.org or http://www.psalter.com/.

In closing, I want to narrow our focus in the Psalms to the matter at hand, which is the report that members of the Presidential Prayer Team are no longer praying for the U.S. President.

The Psalms deal with prayer in a wide variety of contexts. They also address the civil magistrate, or politician, in various ways. When many Christians think about prayer, they think about what we might call positive prayer: praying for things like blessing and healing and repentance. But there is a realm of prayer today that is perhaps only known in Protestant circles to very conservative Calvinists or Presbyterians and Reformed folk who sing the Psalms. The reason for this is that it is one of those very delicate areas of Christian living dealing with harsh realities, with judgment, with wrath. But those who sing the Psalms, sing these truths, sing these harsh petitions, and we sing them in faith and in righteousness because we are singing God’s divine, inerrant words. These Psalms are known as Imprecatory Psalms. Not all lists of the Imprecatory Psalms are identical, bu Wikipedia lists Psalms 69 and 109 as “major” Imprecatory Psalms, while also listing Psalms 5, 6, 11, 12, 35, 37, 40, 52, 54, 56, 58, 69, 79, 83, 137, 139, and 143 as imprecatory.

People who only know how to pray “positive” prayers may be sensing something that is right when they feel they can’t pray any more for Obama. But if such people find that they cannot pray at all for Obama, then that should be a huge, red-flashing, warning light to them about the tragic deficiency of their own theology. Why? Because there are very, very few people in this world whom it should be impossible for you to pray for. If you find you can’t pray for someone like Obama, then that should be evidence of the inadequacy of your doctrine of prayer. Imprecatory prayers are part of God’s word. They are prayers we can utter because they are part of God’s song book for singing. To be sure, they must be prayed with a right heart and sound doctrine. They are not a justification for asking God to kill our enemies. If imprecatory praying is unfamiliar to you, then you should research the issue before starting to pray in that way. Click here for an article on the subject.

The point I want to drive home with this article is that Christianity is a worldview. God, in His Word, has given us everything we need for life and godliness. He even says so – in the New Testament – in 2 Peter 1:3. If you are listening to someone who claims that Christianity is not a worldview, that the Bible is inadequate for your life in the 21st Century, then you’re listening to someone who has a religion that is inadequate for difficult times, a person whose religion is worthless to non-Christians, a person who is either ignorant or deceptive. Don’t burden yourself or waste your time there any longer. Go where the hope is. Go where you can find real solutions to real troubles. Go where the truth is because the truth will set you free (John 8:38). Find the love of God and the wisdom of Christianity as a worldview, starting with justification – redemption – in Christ alone, but building from there to a comprehensive, Kingdom-building mission of deliverance and victory.

Tim Bloedow is the founder of ChristianGovernment.