- 00:00
- perspective, we pray for our children regularly. But the reason that we pray for them is not because we're trying to convince
- 00:08
- God to work harder on them. The reason we pray for them is because we believe that God can change their hearts and that by my praying for them,
- 00:17
- He's going to make me a better parent. He's going to make me more sensitive, more consistent in the proclamation of the gospel and an instrument in His hands.
- 00:24
- But at the same time, we have to recognize that God's under no obligation. So James, would you not use an expression like praying your children into the kingdom?
- 00:34
- No, I would use praying that God would be merciful to your children. That's the terminology that we utilize.
- 00:41
- And that is we express to God the desire of our hearts that our children and both of my children have professed faith in Jesus Christ.
- 00:49
- One of the greatest experiences in my life was when I baptized both of my children.
- 00:54
- And yet I have to recognize that God is under no obligation to extend that mercy.
- 01:01
- My children are the fallen sons and daughters of Adam and just as I was under the wrath of God.
- 01:06
- And it's when we get to the point of feeling that somehow God owes us something at that point. That's I think where we miss the biblical emphasis.
- 01:14
- But Edward, you couldn't survive as a pastor, could you, without teaching your people to be praying the children into the kingdom?
- 01:21
- Yes, and that is where I had a bit of a slight disagreement there. You're allowed to have more than a slight disagreement.
- 01:29
- Of course, I mean, I believe that we can pray our children into the kingdom of God.
- 01:37
- When we come into the ministry of warfare or ministry of wrestling, what
- 01:45
- I call it, the Bible says in the book of Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 12, it says we wrestle not against flesh and blood.
- 01:52
- Most of these things that are diverting people away from their destiny, that are making these children not to be able to fulfill the perfect will of God, of course is the devil.
- 02:02
- I was telling somebody the other day, I said in the time of Peter, if you look in the book of Matthew chapter 16, that's in verse 23,
- 02:12
- Peter was told, get thee behind me, Satan. In other words,
- 02:17
- Satan was around to try to sift Peter and for Jesus to pray for him so that he can stay in the kingdom of God.
- 02:26
- And so if it had not happened, probably we would have had another thing entirely. So the powers of darkness at times need to be dealt with.
- 02:34
- In other words, praying so that these children will be free, because at times their will is actually eroded, let me put it that way, by the devil.
- 02:45
- And if we know our authority and we take authority over the powers of darkness as parents, because most of the children, we hedge them around by the prayers that we do for them, then
- 02:59
- God will be able to move them into the kingdom. I'm going to ask Tony in a moment to tell us what they teach in terms of the students who are there, but some emails come in.
- 03:08
- There's one here from Tunde. She says, not very clear on this issue. Why does
- 03:14
- Revelation 17 verse 8 say some names are not in the book of life from the beginning? Why does
- 03:19
- Revelation 3, 5 say some names can be removed, but I do believe it reveals God that knows the end even from the beginning.
- 03:28
- And there's another one here from Kim, Psalm 139, 13. It tells us that God creates the baby in the womb.
- 03:35
- Acts 17, 26 tells us that God predetermines the time of birth, therefore does God create and predestine baby
- 03:42
- A for heaven and baby B for hell. Well, before we come on to those, we've got another caller on the line.
- 03:49
- Hello, I don't have your name caller, but welcome to World In Focus. Hi, my name's Jill. Jill, Jill.
- 03:55
- Where are you ringing from tonight? Southampton. Southampton. What would you like to say? Well, I mean,
- 04:01
- I think I've witnessed an outworking of what I call extreme predestinationalism. Right.
- 04:06
- Could you just speak up slightly? You're quite soft for us. I think I witnessed the outworking of what
- 04:12
- I call extreme predestinationalism. It was about 10 years ago, and we were at a spiritual warfare meeting for a city, a large city.
- 04:24
- It was a large meeting. And before we had the time of prayer, the pastor was instructing us and everything, and he was saying how to deal with people that got in the way of the work of God.
- 04:35
- And he called them the wicked. And he said, pray them out of the way or out of the world, it doesn't matter.
- 04:43
- And I thought, I was really shocked when he said that, because I don't think that's the way you should be.
- 04:50
- And anyway, we had this time of prayer, and there's a lot of young men around us, which is quite unusual for a meeting anyway.
- 04:57
- And they ended up stomping their feet and cursing all that will get in the way of God and what he's doing.
- 05:06
- Now, I'm concerned about this attitude, because I think it allows people to diagnose people as the wicked, anyone that opposes them.
- 05:16
- Also, it stops believers praying and witnessing to them. But also, I think at the meeting, there was dominionist type doctrine.
- 05:25
- And if you get this extreme predestination of Islam, allied to dominionism,
- 05:33
- I think it can have a militancy, which isn't of God. And I think that's what
- 05:38
- I witnessed. And I've never forgotten it. All right, Jill, I wonder if you'd listen offline while we answer it, because we've got phone calls, which are stacking up there.
- 05:47
- Thank you. Thank you for ringing and making your point. Is that an example of extreme
- 05:53
- Calvinism that Jill was describing there? No, I certainly wouldn't say that it was at all.
- 06:00
- In fact, the entire concept and background of that kind of, at least as she represented it,
- 06:06
- I don't know anything about whoever was speaking or anything like that. But no, I don't believe that that's a representation, especially because the fact that if you do believe that God has a sovereign decree, then you're not going to be one who, in essence, is claiming to determine
- 06:22
- God's will for him. You're going to be seeking as the creature to know what God's will is.
- 06:27
- And of course, for us, that's revealed in Scripture. God has given us his prescriptive will. We do not know what his decree is as far as the identity of the elect or anything like that.
- 06:36
- That's why I can proclaim the gospel to anyone. I don't have to have special glasses that identify who the elect are, and I only witness to them.
- 06:44
- No, there's no such concept as that. And so I would not see any connection whatsoever between the ideas that I, as a pastor in a
- 06:53
- Reformed Baptist church, would present and what was presented in that conference that she saw in any way. Okay.
