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The Prayer of Jabez is in the top 25 U.S. bestsellers, based on sales through Sunday, July 22, 2001 as reported by USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com) were The Prayer of Jabez, by Bruce Wilkinson (Multnomah) Calvary Contender reported JABEZ CRITICS—The Prayer of Jabez book's related merchandise, from mugs to wall plaques, has turned it into a lucrative franchise for Multnomah, its publisher. But three new books, looking similar to Jabez, challenge what their authors say is the book's misguided notion of prayer: focusing on material rather than spiritual gain. The critics point to the "Lord's Prayer" as a better model (9/3 USN&WR). A Moody reviewer (9-10/01) of Wilkinson's newer Secret of the Vine book says: "Wilkinson persuasively argues that God wants all believers to become intimate friends of Jesus Christ. But he admits that he, too, even as the president of Walk Thru the Bible Ministries, remained a 'novice' at such intimacy throughout most of his life. I'm not sure how that admission relates to his [30-year] commitment to daily reciting the prayer of Jabez, because in the earlier book he writes that saying the prayer sets 'in motion a cycle of blessing that will keep multiplying what God is able to do in and through you.'" Good point. A seeming discrepancy. HUNTERS USE JABEZ PRAYER FOR MONEY, SALVATION & HEALINGS—It had to happen. Wilkinson's The Prayer of Jabez book is tailor made for name-it-and-claim-it, health-and-wealth charlatans. The World said this book “plays to the attraction of the 'prosperity gospel'—claiming that one need just pray this prayer and God will, in the words of Jabez, 'enlarge your territory.'” Charles and Frances Hunter, in their July newsletter, write: “Many of you have called, written or spoken to us about the dream we had after we prayed the Jabez Prayer for the first time. We are so excited about this because the more we think about the dream the more we think about the far outreach of it. This not only meant that we will have an abundance of finances and things in the monetary area, but it includes the salvation of your family. The abundance includes not only the salvation of your family, but also healings you or your family need…. Don't forget to pray for that $1 million gift we need!” My Baptist friend gave me a copy of the book to read which was based on the prayer of Jabez and I read it: Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, "I gave birth to him in pain." And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, "Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!" So God granted him what he requested. 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 But if you would just use your logic and think about how many people had bought and read the book and what had happened to them? Nothing. If something had happened the media would have reported it? So the book was a failure other than deceiving people that they could get something for nothing from God. Especially consider the fact that in The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce H. Wilkinson and the Preface page of the book, the author states, “ I want to teach you to pray a daring prayer that God always answers.” The author is not only making a very unsubstantiated fabulous remark but appears to be saying that he has found a magic formula by which you will get you what you want from God. The author continues to state: I picked up my Bible and read verse ten--the prayer of Jabez. Something in his prayer would explain the mystery. It had to. Pulling a chair up to the yellow counter, I bent over my Bible, and reading the prayer over and over, I searched with all my heart for the future God had for someone as ordinary as I. The next morning, I prayed Jabez's prayer word for word. And the next. And the next. Thirty years later, I haven't stopped. If you were to ask me what sentence--other than my prayer for salvation--has revolutionized my life and ministry the most, I would tell you that it was the cry of a gimper named Jabez, who is still remembered not for what he did, but for what he prayed--and for what happened next. ( page 11) In the last chapter of the book titled Making Jabez Mine, the author challenges the reader to make the Jabez prayer for blessing a part of the daily fabric of their life. He gives several steps that he feels the person should follow for the next 30 days. I will only quote 3 of the 6 here: 1. Pray the Jabez prayer every morning, and keep a record of your daily prayer by marking off a calendar or a chart you make especially for the purpose. 2. Write out the prayer and tape it in your Bible, in your day-timer, on your bathroom mirror, or some other place where you'll be reminded of your new vision. 3. Reread this little book once each week during the next month, asking God to show you important insights you may have missed. ( pages 86-87) Notice that he is still speaking about this prayer, word for word. Also notice he does not encourage the reader to read their Bible just his book. Just by looking at what is happening, I can assure you that God still answers those who have a loyal heart and pray the Jabez prayer. (page 90) The author guarantees that God will answer those who have a loyal heart and pray the Jabez prayer based on what fact? On nothing! For the name of Jesus is not even mentioned. Even though Jesus clearly taught His disciples: "But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. "And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Matthew 6:6-7 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. "And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. "If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. John 14:12-14 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. John 14:26 One of the things that Jesus taught His disciples is to use His name in prayer and not to use vain repetitions and many words. It is a fact that God answers prayers because of Jesus Christ and the use of His name and not because of Bruce H. Wilkinson and his wild false statements. One of the premises that Wilkerson expresses is that God has untold blessings waiting for us but we never get them because we never ask for them. The author goes out of his way to say that what he is preaching is not the same as the name it and claim it word of faith crowd, but it sounds almost the same thing? “God really does have unclaimed blessings waiting for you, my friend. “( page 17) While the word of faith movement goes further than that and claims that God has storehouses with unclaimed riches for His children because they don't ask, Wilkerson is almost saying the same thing. He goes on to write what some call a heavenly lie, not a devilish lie, “By the time he was an adult, Jabez believed and fervently hoped in the God of miracles and new beginnings. (page 22) So from where did the author get this insight if it is not recorded in scripture? Did an angel tell him about Jabez life or did he make it up? It is foolish to build any theology or doctrine based on a lie or sincere presumption, as it will not stand up to the test of truth. Everything one hears and reads must be checked with the Holy Spirit who alone is the Spirit of Truth and God's word. Just because some preacher said it doesn’t make it to be true for it can also be inspired by the flesh or the devil. But God’s word is unchanging: "Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. "And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. "He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. "All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. John 16:7-15 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 2 Timothy 4:3-4 But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him. 1 John 2;27 "He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. "But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." Revelations 21:7-8 Lord, Won't You Buy Me a Mercedes-Benz? http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/05/20/bookend/bookend.html Jabez's obscurity makes him ideal for the narrative of conversion and redemption. By JUDITH SHULEVITZ Our text today is ''The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life.'' This inexpensive, shirt-pocket-size volume (Multnomah Publishers, $9.99) has sold more than four million copies in the past year, and is the best-selling book in America right now. It has attracted a prodigious following among people who have chosen to repeat every day the one-sentence prayer that gives the book its title. (''Oh, that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that your hand would be with me, and that you would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!'') Jabez enthusiasts have risen up in churches and private homes and on the Prayer of Jabez Web site (www.prayerofjabez.com) to testify to the changes the sentence has wrought in their lives. National publications have made note; experts have been consulted; videos have been made; a sequel has been published, and others, including ''The Prayer of Jabez for Teens'' and ''The Prayer of Jabez for Women,'' have been commissioned. ''The Prayer of Jabez'' has also been taken up by the mighty. The author, an Atlanta-based evangelical minister named Bruce Wilkinson, who was one of the leaders of the Promise Keepers movement, was recently invited to the White House. What makes ''The Prayer of Jabez'' so appealing? The easy answer is that the book differs slightly from other how-to guides. Wilkinson has resurrected the once ubiquitous and now mostly forgotten genre of the published Sunday sermon. ''The Prayer of Jabez'' follows the rules that have governed American preaching since the Puritans came to the New World. It contains Scripture, doctrine and a practical application of both. The style is plain but fiery. The Scripture consists of two verses from the Old Testament book of I Chronicles, a little-studied text otherwise made up of tedious genealogical lists. Wilkinson reads the verses closely and cleverly. They tell the story of an Israelite commoner whose mother gave him the unhappy name of Jabez, which the Bible tells us comes from ''pain.'' (This is a folk etymology; the name is actually an inversion of the letters in the Hebrew word for pain.) Despite his inauspicious start in life, Jabez begs God ''to enlarge his territories'' and winds up being ''more honorable than his brothers.'' That is all we know about him, but for Wilkinson's purposes, we don't need to know more. Jabez's obscurity, textually and socially, makes him an ideal vehicle for the traditional American Christian narrative of conversion and redemption. Jabez is a biblical everyman, vaguely discontented with his lot and ripe for a turn toward God. As Wilkinson puts it: ''Things started badly for a person no one had ever heard of. He prayed an unusual, one-sentence prayer. Things ended extraordinarily well.'' Wilkinson breaks Jabez's prayer into four parts and turns them into steps to be taken toward the good life. And then -- this is the point at which he turns a little snake-oil salesmanish -- he promises that if you take the steps, results will be yours within days. Those steps require remarkably little effort. If you ask for God's blessing (Step 1), he will enlarge your territory -- that is, in the modern American context, grant you success (Step 2). Wilkinson defines success in different ways at different points in the book. Sometimes it seems to consist in being a skillful evangelist. That's how Wilkinson measures his own success -- in numbers of converts and the speed at which he converts them. For other people success manifests itself in wealth and worldly esteem. ''If Jabez had worked on Wall Street,'' Wilkinson writes, ''he might have prayed, 'Lord, increase the value of my investment portfolios.' '' Because of remarks like these, Wilkinson has been accused of preaching prosperity theology. This is a serious charge, since the phrase is more commonly associated with the teachings of ministers who grow fat off the pennies of the poor. (The Rev. Jerry Falwell, for instance, once called the disgraced televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker prosperity theologians.) Wilkinson denies the charge, and it does seem a crude way to characterize ''The Prayer of Jabez.'' Though the prayer certainly enjoys brand extension, it is a prayer, not a con game or a pyramid scheme. Wilkinson has a revival-meeting manner that makes it seem as if he's offering a tit-for-tat with God -- you pray to him; he'll make you rich -- but he also says that the Jabez prayer requires an acceptance of God's will whatever its form, not the presentation of an itemized demand. On the other hand, Wilkinson makes God's will awfully easy to accept, since he says God wants us to be successful. Indeed, Step 3, Wilkinson says, is to realize that God wants us to take entrepreneurial risks, to pile on more than we think we can handle. If we truly believe in him, he'll back us up. (In Jabez-speak, his hand will be with us.) Is it really God's business to help us avert bankruptcy? Wilkinson says yes. God doesn't want you to fail. He empowers because he is power itself. In fact, the reason to avoid sin (Step 4) is that it separates you from his energy current: ''It is as if the electric lines to your house in Phoenix were severed and you were cut off from the immense power generators at Hoover Dam.'' A God who diverts his awesome supernatural force for the sole purpose of giving a jump-start to your personal and professional development may seem disconcertingly crass. But a deity who sounds like a motivational speaker at a business luncheon may also be the right deity for an era when megachurches sprawl across the land and more traditional houses of worship are going into genteel decline. The Jabez prayer grants the supplicant full access to the American cult of success, an adoration of power and material satisfaction untroubled by any sense that the world may be a tragic place or the fear that the enlargement of one's territory might leave others' diminished. That such upbeat theologies of convenience should have mass appeal is neither particular to our time -- think of Norman Vincent Peale, whose 1952 best seller, ''The Power of Positive Thinking,'' was ''The Prayer of Jabez'' of its day -- nor all that deplorable. It's useful to have these ideas spelled out, rather than at work in the culture but unexamined.
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