Wishing is Not Praying

“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.  For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.  For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.  For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”  Romans 10:1-4

The Jews of Paul’s day had the same problem as people do today–they think their “goodness” will make them acceptable before God.  However, people have to see themselves as God does, as sinners who are full of pride, before they can be saved.  The thing is, though, folks don’t like to think of themselves as sinners.  That’s the way the Jews, the ones whom Paul was so intent on leading to Christ, felt about themselves, and people are no different today.  It is vital that they be convinced of their lost condition before God and given the plan of salvation whereby they can come to know Christ and be made acceptable before God.  God made man, and He set the standard for the kind of righteousness that He requires.

Paul truly desired the salvation of his Jewish brothers and sisters.  His desire was so great that he willing to give up his own salvation if it would save them (Romans 9:3).  Now, that’s a desire!  Not only was it his desire, but it was also his prayer to God.  Matthew Henry wrote, “There may be desires in the heart, and yet no prayer, unless those desires be presented to God.  Wishing and woulding (would that he or she repent), if that be all, are not praying”.  Prayer is a very serious matter.  Dr. Charles Stanley, who went to heaven recently, was preaching about intercessory prayer on the radio one time.  He said that to truly intercede for someone, you must be willing to possibly become a part of the solution for that person’s problem or need.  In other words, one must make himself or herself available for God to use in answering one’s intercessory prayer, and that was Paul’s attitude.  What if all Christians had that attitude?

Jewish religion was based on a meticulous obedience to the law.  That couldn’t have been very easy.  The religious leaders had added so many little do’s and don’ts to God’s law that it was a burden to keep up with all of them.  For example, the sabbath law would only allow a certain distance that one could walk and considering that walking was the main mode of transportation, travel was severely limited on the sabbath.  Nothing that weighed more than two dried figs could be lifted on the sabbath.  Cooking was not allowed.  If a person was sick, measures could be taken to keep him from getting worse, but not to make him better.  To this day, there are strict orthodox Jews in this country who will not poke a fire in a fireplace or flip on a light switch.  If the fire needed to be poked, a Gentile is employed to do it.  Some have installed timers so that lights can automatically come on at dusk on the sabbath (William Barclay’s Commentary).

By following all of these rules, some believe that they can earn salvation and be acceptable to the Lord.  God gave the law to show men and women that they were sinful creatures, but it was turned into a method whereby obedience to it was the way to please God.  They accepted God’s law, but they would not accept His Son.  It all goes back to human pride.  Even after all the things that Jesus did while He was among the people which proved that He was God’s Son, they still wouldn’t believe in Him.  Even with all the evidence that we have in God’s word, in nature, and within the conscience, people today still believe that they can do some good works in order to appease God.  I have written this before, but it bears repeating:  to think that a few good works could equal Christ’s suffering and death on the cross is absurd.

Paul wrote that the Jews were ignorant of God’s righteousness.  Eternal life is completely, absolutely, and essentially dependent upon being righteous.  The Jews wouldn’t argue with that statement.  However, they sought righteousness through keeping the law and being “good”.  They failed to see that God’s righteousness requires that a person be as good as God, who is perfectly righteous.  To please and be accepted by Him, people must be as righteous as He is which is impossible on our own.  The Jews of Paul’s day and the majority of the world today are all in the same boat.  They have refused to measure their “goodness” to God’s standard of righteousness.

All working and striving to keep laws and traditions for acceptance with God was brought to an end by Christ and His work on the cross.  He brought legalism to an end.  No more of doing this and that and not doing such and such and maybe, just maybe, that will be good enough to please God.  How can a person who is trying to please God in this way ever know how much is good enough?  They can’t.  Christians also get caught up in legalism:  attend this meeting, be on that committee, visit these folks, read my Bible for X amount of time, and so forth.  What they can do let Christ live His life through them and all of these other things will be accomplished.  Some Christians will eventually get burned out in legalistic service when all they have to do is to sit at Jesus’ feet, hear His word, and choose that good part, that which shall endure (Luke 10:39,42).