What is the traditional Protestant view on prayer?

[Guest Kurt]

Question
What is the traditional Protestant view on prayer? I mean, I know all Christians pray for God to intervene in the affairs of men by, for instance, healing a sick relative, or bringing a loved one safely home from a trip, but what is the traditional Protestant view on the subject of whether God speaks to us directly? Pentecostals are always saying that God told them this or that. When they need guidance on a question, they'll pray about it and say that God told them the answer, either directly through words or through some sort of feeling. So, does this belief have any basis in traditional Protestant theology? 

Answer
"WHAT IS THE TRADITIONAL PROTESTANT VIEW ON PRAYER? GOD SPEAKS TO US DIRECTLY?"

No, like most religions, Protestants believe that God listens to their prayers and sometimes he answers them, but they don’t believe God speaks “directly” They believe that God answers prayers by having the minister say just what you want to hear.

PENTECOSTALS ARE ALWAYS SAYING THAT GOD TOLD THEM THIS OR THAT, EITHER DIRECTLY THROUGH  WORDS OR THROUGH SOME SORT OF FEELING. 

Mmm this notion is unscriptural, God does not answer through “feelings” I enclose a true story which will explain many things regarding the Pentecostal religion—

I Escaped Religious Deception- As told by Ireta Clemons  (g88 3/22 9-12 Life Stories of Jehovah´s Witnesses)

I remember the first “miracle” I saw. I was six and a half years old. My mother and I were at this Pentecostal meeting held in a house. The preacher was singing, and he got the spirit, the way Pentecostals do when they sing. It was winter, and there was a big round stove in the middle of the room. I saw him reach into the stove, still singing and giving little shouts, and he took out this big chunk of coal that had burned down to a red-hot cinder. He held it up with both hands, carrying it around the room and giving those little triumphant shouts and singing too. All this time the others were singing and shouting and dancing around him. After the meeting, everybody kept looking at his hands to see if they were burned. There wasn’t a mark on them!

And this was only one of the signs of this Pentecostal church in Kentucky that my mother went to. They believed in the 16th chapter of Mark, beginning with the 17th verse, where it talked about speaking in tongues, healing the sick, taking up serpents, and drinking poison. (These verses are spurious, that is, they are not in the oldest manuscripts of the Bible.) Not all Pentecostal churches believe in these things. But when you see them happen, it makes you feel like, well, God has to be in a church that can perform these signs and people not be hurt.

We then moved to Indiana. I was baptized when I was 12, in 1953. I learned to play the guitar and accompany groups singing at the meetings. I felt that it was part of my serving God—it is by this singing that Pentecostals get the spirit. When I got the spirit and spoke in tongues, I didn’t know what I was saying, but it was a good feeling.

I never handled snakes myself, but I remember one weekend I visited the church in Kentucky where I used to attend. A visiting preacher got the spirit and pulled a big rattlesnake out of the snake box he had brought with him. He twirled it around his hand and was crying out. I was on the stage behind him with the singers, and I remember seeing blood start oozing out from between his fingers.

Then the preacher that I had seen handling fire years earlier got the spirit, and he came up and took the snake out of the other preacher’s hand and put it back in the box. But the man who got bit never got sick. I do remember, however, three people I knew that were bitten by snakes and died. My father-in-law was one of them.

When I was 19, I married a young man who was supposed to have been saved. But he was not a strong Pentecostal. I saw him handle snakes once, yet he didn’t have a spirit that corresponded with mine. He would do good as a Pentecostal for a while, then he’d quit, start smoking, do other things we didn’t believe in. This matter of spirits, however, was one thing that troubled me. When Pentecostals got the spirit, the spirits were not always the same. Some were stronger, some were not compatible, and some even clashed with others.

I never could understand this. It caused me to wonder why there were so many different spirits. I remember praying all through the time that I was a Pentecostal: “This is the only religion that I know of, God, that can be right. But if I’m not serving you in a way that’s pleasing you, God, I want to know it. If this isn’t the right religion, please show me the one that is.” I prayed that prayer many times.

My husband became involved with other women, and after seven years of marriage, we were divorced. My two sons and I went to live with Olene, a longtime friend who had married my uncle. She was an excellent singer, and we went to Pentecostal meetings together and sang in different churches. Olene was also the daughter of the preacher who had handled the fire.

Twice I was “healed.” First was when I had had a miscarriage and was hemorrhaging. In spite of this, I went to the Pentecostal meeting. I was so weak I was afraid I was going to have to leave. Then I heard Olene and her father start to sing. They got the spirit. They got ahold of each other’s shoulders. They came and laid their hands on me. I immediately became unconscious. When I came to, I felt fine! No more hemorrhaging!

The second time was when I had a gum disease. I’d worn false teeth since I was 15. Now, years later, my mouth started swelling under my upper plate. I went about three months without my teeth and was on liquid food. I became desperate and went to a medical doctor. He looked at my mouth. “You don’t need me; you need an oral surgeon.” He named the disease, papillomatosis, and recommended a dentist.

I never went. Olene and I were on our way to the church in Kentucky. Later that night I was singing, getting very deep into the spirit. Olene laid her hands on me, I blacked out, and I sank to the floor. After I came to, I spit out pieces of what seemed like dry, chewed-up meat. By the time I got home, I could put my false teeth in. I’ve never had any trouble since.

Second husband--He lived in Kentucky, near the same Pentecostal church that I went to as a child. When I married him, I told him that I would never go back to the Pentecostals, that if I ever got involved with any religion again, it would be with Jehovah’s Witnesses. He agreed to this. But we had been married only a few months when he wanted me to go to his Pentecostal meeting. I went once. I couldn’t sit through it. The demons’ presence was overwhelming!

By this time I had learned that Satan, his demons, and his ministers here on earth could perform signs and wonders and that the Christian’s warfare was against such demonic forces in heavenly places. (Exodus 7:11, 22; 8:7, 18, 19; 2 Corinthians 11:13-15; Ephesians 6:11, 12) Also, I had learned that the miraculous gifts of the early Christian church were for the establishing of it in its infancy and that later, with the passing of the apostles, such gifts would pass away. Concerning the gift of speaking in tongues, for example, it is written: “Whether there are tongues, they will cease.” Love, faith, and hope are now the mainstays of the mature Christian church.—1 Corinthians 13:8-13.

All the best
Brenda