Do You Pray the 'Jesus Prayer'?

Now, this week’s Cover Article.Tom and Dave continue their series of programs addressing the spiritual movement known as “The Emerging Church.”This week we focus on the question, “Do you pray the ‘Jesus Prayer?’”Along with Dave Hunt, here’s T. A. McMahon.

Tom:

Thanks, Gary.You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him.In this first segment of our program we will be discussing mysticism in evangelical Christianity as a part of our series on “The Emerging Church Movement.”We are evaluating the beliefs and practices that are being taught by “EmergingChurch” leaders, and one teaching that is common to most if not all of the emerging churches is mysticism.So we’ve been giving some examples of some of the mystical techniques that many emerging churches are using.Thus far we have covered the use of icons, the promotion of silence and stillness before God, and last week we explained and evaluated the biblical perspective of Lexio Divina, also called, “Sacred Readings.”

Dave:

Tom, can I interrupt a second?

Tom:

Sure.

Dave:

Silence—stillness before God.Now we may have some new listeners, we may have others that don’t quite understand this.Well, what could be wrong with “be still and know that I am God”?Shouldn’t we be still?Well, they are trying to listen to God instead of getting it from His Word.He has spoken clearly in His Word, but they also mean to empty your mind.Stillness—you’ve got to center yourself inside and you’re going to just reach a state of, really—

Tom:

Openness to whatever is out there.

Dave:

Right, right.

Tom:

Well, Dave, before we address the techniques, contemplative techniques of the Jesus prayer and centering prayer, you just mentioned centering, we’re going to talk about that, why do you think these practices that are clearly condemned in the Bible, why have they become so attractive to evangelical Christians?Now, I’m not just talking about the “EmergingChurch” leaders, but we are seeing some of these being promoted by Rick Warren, Eugene Peterson, Richard Foster, Tony Campolo, Brendon Manning, Karen Mains, and Beth Moore.Beth Moore is in the DVD, “Be Still” which is all about contemplative practices, and those go on.Youth specialties has introduced and, really majored in mysticism lately for young evangelicals, and it’s even being introduced in the AWANA programs, which is shocking.We’ll talk about that, maybe not in this program, but that will be coming up.So, why is this happening among evangelicals, even conservative evangelicals?

Dave:

Well, Tom, I don’t have the wisdom to be able to answer that—everybody’s motive, but it seems that we live in a time when the Bible is not sufficient.Bible study is really frowned on, sound doctrine is despised, it’s dull and somehow it’s not up to date, that’s old-fashioned stuff.

Tom:

In their view, in the view of a lot of people, not in our view by the way.

Dave:

Right, and yet there is a desire on the part of most Christians, I hope, to live for the Lord, to really live a Christian life, to be His witnesses, and so forth.But to think that we’ve got to get this by doctrine, studying the Word?As Paul says, and we quote these two verses often, 2 Timothy 3—well, let’s take verse 15 to begin with.Paul says to Timothy:“And that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”Now, it’s the Holy Scriptures, this is where we learn about the Lord, this is where we get the gospel, this is where we get saved, this is where we are drawn closer to the Lord, and so forth.But anyway, Paul goes on and he says:“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for (or to be used for)—the first thing he says is doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness…, and then he explains why.“That the man of God may be perfect” (that includes the women of God and children), “the man of God may be perfect, (that means mature, complete, it doesn’t mean without fault.)"The man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”Now that tells us that we become what God wants us to be.We become useable in His hands by studying the Word of God, submitting ourselves to the Word of God.Look, how old am I now, Tom, 81?I’ve been, as I’ve mentioned before, I guess, my father had family devotions—well, he called it reading and prayer, twice a day.So I just heard the Bible over and over, I know the Bible from beginning to end.I can tell you it becomes more exciting for me. I see the wisdom.You know, I am preparing for some debates.One of the things that I notice, because I listen to other debates, I’ve listened to Christians debating some of the same people, atheists or Muslims or Hindus or whatever, the Christians don’t use the Bible!They are reasoning, but they don’t go to the Bible, this is the sword of the Spirit, this is the Word of God, this is our weapon.Furthermore, this is what will change my life, it will give me insights and understanding and over and over I have said to the Lord, Lord, thank you for your Word!The more I get into it the more I see its applications, the more I see that even in a debate with a Muslim.For example, Islam says that—it would be Surrah 4:157, I think, I’m just going by memory, I could have the wrong verse, but it says that ”they slew Him not.”This is Jesus now on the cross “they slew Him not.”So it appeared to them, it seemed to them…so Jesus didn’t die, much less die for our sins, of course, then He didn’t rise from the dead.But anyway, you can go into all kinds of details, because the Muslims are defending it.Well, now here’s the meaning of that word in Arabic—it doesn’t deny that he was on the cross, but it says that it didn’t kill Him, you know, and so forth and so on.Why do I care what the Koran says?There’s no eyewitnesses—the Bible, we have eyewitnesses, we have prophecies in the Old Testament foretelling this, we have Peter on the day of Pentecost preaching, “You by wicked hands have crucified and slain the Lord of glory, whom God has raised from the dead.”The Bible is one book, you couldn’t change the Bible, you couldn’t go back and rewrite it, because this is interwoven everywhere, and the death, burial and resurrection of Christ is the very heart of the Christian message.And now you’re going to undermine this, we’re going to throw this out because of one verse in the Koran? and because of Muhammad, or whoever it is?You don’t have a witness, you’ve got no prophecies, you’ve got no interrelationship with other Scriptures, you’ve got nothing!The Bible has this covered so thoroughly that no one can escape it.And so I began to appreciate the Bible more and more because, as I am involved in debating with people or reasoning with unbelievers, my goodness!It’s all there!I mentioned it before, Tom, sorry, I’m going on too long on this, but I’m writing a book Cosmos, Creator and Human Destiny, and part of it I’m going after the atheists and the evolutionists.And I notice, I have never found a Christian in a debate that I’ve listened to or in a book on Creationism that I have read that really goes to the Bible!They’re talking about science.Well, you’re going to argue science with people who have another view of science, and they have a way of getting around this.But Tom, I can tell you, as you know very well, you go to the Bible, you cannot escape!

Tom:

Dave, you get me excited, I mean I sit here and listen to you, we’ve been hanging out together for almost 3 decades now, and when you talk about the Bible and I’ve read many ofyour things and so on, but I get excited when you get excited because I know what you are saying is true, and it just really reinforces me.I hope that’s communicated to our listeners and our viewers because the Word of God is just that, the Word of God.For 30 years, as a Roman Catholic, never encouraged to read the Bible, now there is some movement that way although it still has to match up with what the Magisterium teaches.Okay, but now, when I became a believer in Jesus Christ, a true believer, understood the gospel and believed the gospel, the Bible opened to me.I had this insatiable appetite to read it, and just as you said, I haven’t been at it as long as you have but I get excited about it because it is God’s Word, the Creator of the universe is speaking to me, and to anyone else who reads it with an open heart and mind.

Dave:

Amen, and what excites me, I mean a lot of things excite me, but in the Bible you’ve got everything that any atheist or skeptic or someone from another religion could possible come up with.It is covered!Now you cannot escape it.

Tom:

Dave, I know there’s some times on this program I will say some things, introduce some things to you and you said, I’m getting angry, well, this series that we’re doing on the Emerging Church, maybe it’s the flesh, but I get angry at this because what they are doing is they are methodically undermining, attempting to undermine the Word of God.And these so called mystical techniques that are being introduced to the evangelical church, and I’m going through a book, just so people know that I’m not making it up, the book that we are using to identify the mystical techniques is called, The Sacred Way, Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life, and it’s by Tony Jones, and Tony Jones is a leader, recognized leader in the Emerging Church Movement.And these things, (as Ihope) when we went through icons, when we dealt with, Being still before God, and when we dealt with other techniques, mystical techniques, I hope people can see this is just pulling the rug out from under the Word of God as you described it, Dave.

Dave:

Let me interject here again, Tom, very quickly.Techniques—that’s divination, as though God is impressed by some technique.That’s a problem with Catholicism—they have a lot of rituals.

Tom:

Correct.

Dave:

As thought some ritual would impress God and God would respond to it.No, He does not respond to that.He responds to our sincere passion to know Him through His Word.So, Tom, as you said, they are taking people away from the Word of God, they are leading them into a contemplation that’s not is not contemplation it’s not thinking deeply about the Word of God, it’s mysticism.

Tom:

Right.Dave, one of the techniques that I want to address right now, and I want to get your response to it, it’s called, “The Jesus Prayer.”It involves a continuation recitation of a prayer to Jesus such as—and this is a classic in this technique:“Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me.”Well, on the one hand you would say, well, there’snothing wrong with that, we want the Lord to have mercy on us, and so on.But listen to this, this is from Tony Jones, as I mentioned, who’s an EmergingChurch leader, and from his book, The Sacred Way, Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life.And he gives an example of an anonymous Russian pilgrim who wrote how he learned the Jesus Prayer from an elderly monk, and keeping track on a rope with a hundred knots he was taught to recite: Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me—, 12,000 times a day.Jones provides instructions and what he says has—I’m quoting him now, “Has become very significant to me, maybe more than any other practice I’ve investigated.”Now let me quote from his book, and then you pick up on this, Dave.“So seated comfortably in a dimly lit room with the head bowed, attend toyour breathing, and then begin the prayer in rhythm with your breathing.Breathe in: “Lord Jesus Christ Son of God,”— breathe out: “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner,”— guarding the mind against all distractions—the prayer focuses during every repetition on the meaning of the words praying them from the heart and in the heart.Since clocks were not a reality when the prayer was first practiced, instead of designating an amount of time to pray a number of repetitions was determined ahead of time.The pilgrim, at 3,000 repetitions per day, if the normal person takes between 12 and 15 breaths per minute, this takes 3 and 4 hours.When the pilgrim got to 12,000 repetitions, it was taking him between 11 and 14 hours.That’s probably out of reach for you and me, but 100 or 500 prayers is a valuable and achievable practice.In order to keep tract of my repetitions I use a prayer robe called a chotki (that’s interesting) in Slavonic.Most are made in monasteries on Mount Athos (and you could tell us something about that, Dave) in Greece with 100 knots each knot tied with 9 crosses.”(Though they also have 33, 50 and 1,000 knots and so on…)He says this is one of the most significant practices that he learned.Saying this phrase over, this sentence over, this verse over—

Dave:

Thousands of times.

Tom:

Even up to 12,000 times.Now Dave, what is that!

Dave:

Well, first of all, Jesus said, Use not vain repetitions as the heathen who think they will be heard for their much speaking.Now, we’ve got tohave a prayer rope, we’ve got to have all these techniques.

Tom:

It’s like rosary beads Ihad as a Catholic.

Dave:

Absolutely.This was made up in Mount Athos.I can tell you a little bit about Mount Athos as quickly as I can.One of my dearest friends years ago, he was actually from the famous Balfour family in England, he was a Catholic at that time and he was sent by the Vatican as an emissary to Mount Athos to try to woo the Greeks back to Rome.When he went there an elderly monk said:“David, his name was David Balfour, David, I’m going to begin praying for your conversion to the East.”And after he had been there about a month, David asked this monk, How has it been going since you started praying for my conversion?The Monk said:“Every night when I pray for you I am mercilessly beaten by demons.”Now Mount Athos that was taken as a sign of great spirituality it’s a very demonic place.David converted to the East!Now he was not a Christian by a long shot but he finally became one.Now let me give you a—someone I know very closely, and as a young man, actually his junior semester abroad—he and a friend—They wanted to visit Mount Athos that’s like the holy of holies of the Greek Orthodox Church, it’s like the Vatican of Greek Orthodoxy.You had to get permits from the government, from the religious hierarchy, the church hierarchy, and so forth, but they did—they were determined.They went in there and when we received a letter from this other David, a young man, that he had been attacked by demons in Mount Athos in the monastery and had been paralyzed and had to cry out in the name of Jesus, Get out of here!And this young man was not someone who would have emotional experiences, he was very brilliant and intellectual, and not going to have some experience that was just from his emotions.So we knew that was real, but then later I met David Balfour and his experience corroborated it.By the way, his friend awakened, he was lying on his back sleeping in this monastery, he wakened in the middle of the night with a monk’s face right overhim, right over his face.I have found—well, Tom, you would know some of the darkest characters you will find in Israel, in Jerusalem for example are these Greek Orthodox monks.It is a very demonic thing, and this is where this prayer rope comes from.

Tom:

Dave, last November we were in Russia in Lademmer, and I interviewed a number of people who were involved in the Orthodox Church and that’s all I can think of.In the interviews they talked about these priests were mean-spirited, almost demonic.

Dave:

I would say they are.

Tom:

So that’s sad, but what’s even more sad is now these techniques, as you said, these are mindless techniques, these are repetitions to the absurdity, but now they are going to increase someone’s spirituality, draw them closer to God by repeating something 12,000 or 3,000 or however, many times?

Dave:

Tom, here’s the situation.Instead of relying on the love of God, and His relationship to me as Father, relying on the relationship that I have with Him through Jesus Christ, it’s very clear that everything we have is in Christ.Now, I’m going to rely on some rope, I’m going to rely on some so-called “Jesus Prayer,” some technique that God willnot honor, I can guarantee you that!

Tom:

Well, Dave, this takes us to something similar to it, but even more absurd but more as I’ve read these books and I’ll give you some quotes if we have time on this program, but we’re going to go to the “Jesus prayer.”Now we move from a phrase like, Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, to one word, this is the centering prayer.It’s usually a one-syllable word that somehow we are going to find meaning in, but the meaning has nothing to do with the actual definition of the word, it has nothing to do with its place or context in Scripture, it’s wherever it takes you in your mind and in your imagination, and so on.Well, here’s Tony Campolo.Now we’ve talked about him in other programs and he’s an advocate of the EmergingChurch, but he claims to have a long history in these techniques that we are talking about.

Dave:

I wouldn’t doubt it.

Tom:

Well, let me give you a quote:He says, “In my case intimacy with Christ has developed gradually over the years primarily through what Catholic mystics called Centering Prayer.Each morning as soon as I wake up I take time, some times as much as a half hour to center myself on Jesus.I say His name over and over again to drive back the 101 things that begin to clutter my mind the minute I open my eyes.Jesus is my mantra, as some would say.”

Dave:

Well, it’snot biblical.I would call this a vain repetition.

Tom:

Of course.

Dave:

What is the point?You were never told to do this in the Word of God.I never read of a prayer like this in the Bible, or a suggestion that we should get into such a prayer. So Tom, we are, as wehave said already, we’re being taken away from the Word of God.We’re being taken away from the true relationship with God through Christ, and we’re being led astray by a technique that’s going to lead to some kind of a feeling.And furthermore, Tom, as you know, this can put you into an altered state of consciousness.

Tom:

Right.Dave, I want to get to that next week and go over this more, but look, you know this, this is not just occultic, this is stupid!If I have a personal intimate relationship with somebody, you and I have a relationship, what happens if in my conversation I begin repeating something over and over and over again, either a phrase or now a word, what would you think?What kind of communication is that?It’s stupid!

Dave:

I need to read the words of the Lord, and I need to see what He has done.I need to see His example, I need to become filled with wonder and appreciation for who He is and what He has done for me on the cross and His resurrection, and so forth.And this is keeping you away from that, taking up time, it’s an occult technique actually.