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Hank Unplugged: Essential Christian Conversations

Prayer of a Righteous Person Is Powerful

Hank Unplugged: Essential Christian Conversations

The Christian Research Institute

Education, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.9809 Ratings

🗓️ 11 January 2022

⏱️ 6 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast, reflects on an opinion piece in USA Today by Steven Petrow, titled, “Stop Gloating When Anti-vaxxers Die of COVID-19. It’s Tragic” (December 20, 2021, 7A). The piece centers on Marcus Lamb, head of Daystar Television Network, who died of COVID-19 on November 30. We are not to practice the uncivilized, unchristian ethic of dancing on someone’s grave. Unfortunately, Petrow also talks about “ineffective” means of combatting COVID-19, and one of those means that he cites is prayer. In reality, however, prayer is the most effective thing that we can do as Christians because there is no doubt that God exists—“the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1)—and that Christ, the eternal Son of God, “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). When we pray to Him, God responds. He answers prayer. As St. John wrote, “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:14–15 ESV). And St. James declared, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (James 5:16 NIV).



For further study, see Christianity in Crisis—21st Century by Hank Hanegraaff https://www.equip.org/product/cri-resource-christianity-in-crisis-21st-century/; and Truth Matters, Life Matters More by Hank Hanegraaff https://www.equip.org/product/cri-resource-truth-matters-life-matters-more/

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi, this is Hank Hanagraph, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Instrument

0:18.0

in broadcast with another Hank unplug short.

0:22.8

I'm sitting in my office reading an opinion piece in USA Today, written by Stephen Petro.

0:32.2

The article is titled Stop Gloating When Anti-Vaxers Die of COVID-19.

0:43.9

It's tragic.

0:46.2

And I would echo that remark.

0:49.0

The piece centers on a man named Marcus Lamb, the head of a Christian network known as Daystar,

1:00.0

which, according to Stephen Petro, has somewhere around 2 billion followers.

1:09.4

Whether that's an exaggeration or not, I do not know, but the one thing that we

1:15.6

can say with certainty is that Marcus Lamb had a very significant reach. He reached a lot of people, and sadly he reached them with a prosperity gospel, something

1:36.3

that I wrote about in my first book, Christianity and Crisis.

1:41.4

At any rate, one of the things I found heartening was that we are not to practice the uncivilized, unchristian, ethic of dancing on someone's grave.

2:06.8

So I commend the article in that regard.

2:13.2

Unfortunately, he talks about ineffective means of combating COVID-19.

2:23.3

And one of those ineffective means that he cites is prayer.

2:29.9

And I would just say, in this Hank Unplug short that prayer is the most effective.

2:38.4

The most effective thing that we can do as Christians.

2:43.5

Because there's no doubt whatsoever that God exists, the heavens declare the glory of God.

2:53.9

There's no doubt whatsoever that Christ came in incarnation.

3:06.1

I won't go through the arguments for that.

3:10.7

I've done that in many other forms, including my books.

3:17.5

But if there is a God, and there most certainly is, that God is not just distant. That God is nearby. You know, Jeremiah said about God,

...

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