EDWARD McKENDREE BOUNDS did not merely pray
well that he might write well about prayer. He prayed because the needs of
the world were upon him. He prayed, for long years, upon subjects which
the easy-going Christian rarely gives a thought, and for objects which men
of less thought and faith are always ready to call impossible. From his
solitary prayer-vigils, year by year, there arose teaching equaled by few
men in modern Christian history. He wrote transcendently about prayer,
because he was himself, transcendent in its practice.
As breathing is a physical reality to us so
prayer was a reality for Bounds. He took the command, "Pray without
ceasing" almost as literally as animate nature takes the law of the reflex
nervous system, which controls our breathing.
Prayer-books -- real text-books, not forms
of prayer -- were the fruit of this daily spiritual exercise. Not brief
articles for the religious press came from his pen -- though he had been
experienced in that field for years -- not pamphlets, but books were the
product and result. He was hindered by poverty, obscurity, loss of
prestige, yet his victory was not wholly reserved until his
death.
In 1907, he gave to the world two small
editions. One of these was widely circulated in Great Britain. The years
following up to his death in 1913 were filled with constant labour and he
went home to God leaving a collection of manuscripts. His letters carry
the request that the present editor should publish these products of his
gifted pen.
The preservation of the Bounds manuscripts
to the present time has clearly been providential. The work of preparing
them for the press has been a labour of love, consuming years of
effort.
These books are unfailing wells for a
lifetime of spiritual water-drawing. They are hidden treasures, wrought in
the darkness of the dawn and the heat of the noon, on the anvil of
experience, and beaten into wondrous form by the mighty stroke of the
Divine. They are living voices whereby he, being dead, yet speaketh. --
C.C.
The above Foreword was written by Claude
Chilton, Jr., an ardent admirer of Dr. Bounds, and to whom we owe many
obligations for suggestions in editing the Bounds Spiritual Life Books. We
buried Claude L. Chilton February 18, 1929. What a meeting of these two
great saints of God, of shining panoply and knightly grace! HOMER W. HODGE. Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
"A dear friend of mine who was quite a lover of the
chase, told me the following story: 'Rising early one morning,' he said,
'I heard the baying of a score of deerhounds in pursuit of their quarry.
Looking away to a broad, open field in front of me, I saw a young fawn
making its way across, and giving signs, moreover, that its race was
well-nigh run. Reaching the rails of the enclosure, it leaped over and
crouched within ten feet from where I stood. A moment later two of the
hounds came over, when the fawn ran in my direction and pushed its head
between my legs. I lifted the little thing to my breast, and, swinging
round and round, fought off the dogs. I felt, just then, that all the
dogs in the West could not, and should not capture that fawn after its
weakness had appealed to my strength.' So is it, when human helplessness
appeals to Almighty God. Well do I remember when the hounds of sin were
after my soul, until, at last, I ran into the arms of Almighty God." -- A. C. DIXON.
In any study of the principles, and procedure of prayer,
of its activities and enterprises, first place, must, of necessity, be
given to faith. It is the initial quality in the heart of any man who
essays to talk to the Unseen. He must, out of sheer helplessness, stretch
forth hands of faith. He must believe, where he cannot prove. In
the ultimate issue, prayer is simply faith, claiming its natural yet
marvellous prerogatives -- faith taking possession of its illimitable
inheritance. True godliness is just as true, steady, and persevering in
the realm of faith as it is in the province of prayer. Moreover: when
faith ceases to pray, it ceases to live.
Faith does the impossible because it brings God to
undertake for us, and nothing is impossible with God. How great -- without
qualification or limitation -- is the power of faith! If doubt be banished
from the heart, and unbelief made stranger there, what we ask of God shall
surely come to pass, and a believer hath vouchsafed to him "whatsoever he
saith."
Prayer projects faith on God, and God on the world. Only
God can move mountains, but faith and prayer move God. In His cursing of
the fig-tree our Lord demonstrated His power. Following that, He proceeded
to declare, that large powers were committed to faith and prayer, not in
order to kill but to make alive, not to blast but to bless.
At this point in our study, we turn to a saying of our
Lord, which there is need to emphasize, since it is the very keystone of
the arch of faith and prayer.
"Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye
desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have
them."
We should ponder well that statement -- "Believe that ye
receive them, and ye shall have them." Here is described a faith which
realizes, which appropriates, which takes. Such faith is a
consciousness of the Divine, an experienced communion, a realized
certainty.
Is faith growing or declining as the years go by? Does
faith stand strong and four square, these days, as iniquity abounds and
the love of many grows cold? Does faith maintain its hold, as religion
tends to become a mere formality and worldliness increasingly prevails?
The enquiry of our Lord, may, with great appropriateness, be ours. "When
the Son of Man cometh," He asks, "shall He find faith on the earth?" We
believe that He will, and it is ours, in this our day, to see to it that
the lamp of faith is trimmed and burning, lest He come who shall come, and that right early.
Faith is the foundation of Christian character and the
security of the soul. When Jesus was looking forward to Peter's denial,
and cautioning him against it, He said unto His disciple:
"Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have
you, to sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith
fall not."
Our Lord was declaring a central truth; it was Peter's
faith He was seeking to guard; for well He knew that when faith is broken
down, the foundations of spiritual life give way, and the entire structure
of religious experience falls. It was Peter's faith which needed guarding.
Hence Christ's solicitude for the welfare of His disciple's soul and His
determination to fortify Peter's faith by His own all-prevailing
prayer.
In his Second Epistle, Peter has this idea in mind
when speaking of growth in grace as a measure of safety in the Christian
life, and as implying fruitfulness.
"And besides this," he declares, "giving diligence,
add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge
temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience
godliness."
Of this additioning process, faith was the starting-point
-- the basis of the other graces of the Spirit. Faith was the foundation
on which other things were to be built. Peter does not enjoin his readers
to add to works or gifts or virtues but to faith. Much depends on
starting right in this business of growing in grace. There is a Divine
order, of which Peter was aware; and so he goes on to declare that we are
to give diligence to making our calling and election sure, which election
is rendered certain adding to faith which, in turn, is done by constant,
earnest praying. Thus faith is kept alive by prayer, and every step taken,
in this adding of grace to grace, is accompanied by prayer.
The faith which pcreates powerful praying is the faith
which centres itself on a powerful Person. Faith in Christ's ability to do and to do greatly, is the faith which prays greatly. Thus
the leper lay hold upon the power of Christ. "Lord, if Thou wilt," he
cried, "Thou canst make me clean." In this instance, we are shown how
faith centered in Christ's ability to do, and how it secured the
healing power.
It was concerning this very point, that Jesus questioned
the blind men who came to Him for healing:
"Believe ye that I am able to do this?" He asks.
"They said unto Him, Yea, Lord. Then touched He their eyes, saying,
According to your faith be it unto you."
It was to inspire faith in His ability to do that
Jesus left behind Him, that last, great statement, which, in the final
analysis, is a ringing challenge to faith. "All power," He declared, "is
given unto Me in heaven and in earth."
Again: faith is obedient; it goes when commanded, as did
the nobleman, who came to Jesus, in the day of His flesh, and whose son
was grievously sick.
Moreover: such faith acts. Like the man who was born
blind, it goes to wash in the pool of Siloam when told to wash.
Like Peter on Gennesaret it casts the net where Jesus commands, instantly,
without question or doubt. Such faith takes away the stone from the grave
of Lazarus promptly. A praying faith keeps the commandments of God and
does those things which are well pleasing in His sight. It asks, "Lord,
what wilt Thou have me to do?" and answers quickly, "Speak, Lord, Thy
servant heareth." Obedience helps faith, and faith, in turn, helps
obedience. To do God's will is essential to true faith, and faith is
necessary to implicit obedience.
Yet faith is called upon, and that right often to wait in
patience before God, and is prepared for God's seeming delays in answering
prayer. Faith does not grow disheartened because prayer is not immediately
honoured; it takes God at His Word, and lets Him take what time He chooses
in fulfilling His purposes, and in carrying on His work. There is bound to
be much delay and long days of waiting for true faith, but faith accepts
the conditions -- knows there will be delays in answering prayer, and
regards such delays as times of testing, in the which, it is privileged to
show its mettle, and the stern stuff of which it is made.
The case of Lazarus was an instance of where there was
delay, where the faith of two good women was sorely tried: Lazarus was
critically ill, and his sisters sent for Jesus. But, without any known
reason, our Lord delayed His going to the relief of His sick friend. The
plea was urgent and touching -- "Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is
sick," -- but the Master is not moved by it, and the women's earnest
request seemed to fall on deaf ears. What a trial to faith! Furthermore:
our Lord's tardiness appeared to bring about hopeless disaster. While
Jesus tarried, Lazarus died.
But the delay of Jesus was exercised in the interests of a
greater good. Finally, He makes His way to the home in Bethany.
"Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.
And I am glad for your sakes, that I was not there, to the intent ye may
believe; nevertheless let us go unto him."
Fear not, O tempted and tried believer, Jesus will come, if patience be exercised, and faith hold fast. His delay will serve
to make His coming the more richly blessed. Pray on. Wait on. Thou canst
not fail. If Christ delay, wait for Him. In His own good time, He will come, and will not tarry.
Delay is often the test and the strength of faith. How
much patience is required when these times of testing come! Yet faith
gathers strength by waiting and praying. Patience has its perfect work in
the school of delay. In some instances, delay is of the very essence of
the prayer. God has to do many things, antecedent to giving the final
answer -- things which are essential to the lasting good of him who is
requesting favour at His hands.
Jacob prayed, with point and ardour, to be delivered from
Esau. But before that prayer could be answered, there was much to be done
with, and for Jacob. He must be changed, as well as Esau. Jacob had to be
made into a new man, before Esau could be. Jacob had to be converted to
God, before Esau could be converted to Jacob.
Among the large and luminous utterances of Jesus
concerning prayer, none is more arresting than this:
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on
Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these
shall he do; because I go unto My Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in
My Name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If
ye shall ask anything in My Name, I will do it."
How wonderful are these statements of what God will do in
answer to prayer! Of how great importance these ringing words, prefaced,
as they are, with the most solemn verity! Faith in Christ is the basis of
all working, and of all praying. All wonderful works depend on wonderful
praying, and all praying is done in the Name of Jesus Christ. Amazing
lesson, of wondrous simplicity, is this praying in the name of the Lord
Jesus! All other conditions are depreciated, everything else is renounced,
save Jesus only. The name of Christ -- the Person of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ -- must be supremely sovereign, in the hour and article of
prayer.
If Jesus dwell at the fountain of my life; if the currents
of His life have displaced and superseded all self-currents; if implicit
obedience to Him be the inspiration and force of every movement of my
life, then He can safely commit the praying to my will, and pledge
Himself, by an obligation as profound as His own nature, that whatsoever
is asked shall be granted. Nothing can be clearer, more distinct, more
unlimited both in application and extent, than the exhortation and urgency
of Christ, "Have faith in God."
Faith covers temporal as well as spiritual needs. Faith
dispels all undue anxiety and needless care about what shall be eaten,
what shall he drunk, what shall be worn. Faith lives in the present, and
regards the day as being sufficient unto the evil thereof. It lives day by
day, and dispels all fears for the morrow. Faith brings great ease of mind
and perfect peace of heart.
"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is
stayed on Thee: because he trusted in Thee."
When we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," we are,
in a measure, shutting tomorrow out of our prayer. We do not live in
tomorrow but in today. We do not seek tomorrow's grace or tomorrow's
bread. They thrive best, and get most out of life, who live in the living
present. They pray best who pray for today's needs, not for tomorrow's,
which may render our prayers unnecessary and redundant by not existing at
all!
True prayers are born of present trials and present needs.
Bread, for today, is bread enough. Bread given for today is the strongest
sort of pledge that there will be bread tomorrow. Victory today, is the
assurance of victory tomorrow. Our prayers need to be focussed upon the
present, We must trust God today, and leave the morrow entirely with Him.
The present is ours; the future belongs to God. Prayer is the task and
duty of each recurring day -- daily prayer for daily needs.
As every day demands its bread, so every day demands its
prayer. No amount of praying, done today, will suffice for tomorrow's
praying. On the other hand, no praying for tomorrow is of any great value
to us today. To-day's manna is what we need; tomorrow God will see that
our needs are supplied. This is the faith which God seeks to inspire. So
leave tomorrow, with its cares, its needs, its troubles, in God's hands.
There is no storing tomorrow's grace or tomorrow's praying; neither is
there any laying-up of today's grace, to meet tomorrow's necessities. We
cannot have tomorrow's grace, we cannot eat tomorrow's bread, we cannot do
tomorrow's praying. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;" and,
most assuredly, if we possess faith, sufficient also, will be the
good.
"The guests at a certain hotel were being rendered
uncomfortable by repeated strumming on a piano, done by a little girl
who possessed no knowledge of music. They complained to the proprietor
with a view to having the annoyance stopped. 'I am sorry you are
annoyed,' he said. 'But the girl is the child of one of my very best
guests. I can scarcely ask her not to touch the piano. But her father,
who is away for a day or so, will return tomorrow. You can then approach
him, and have the matter set right.' When the father returned, he found
his daughter in the reception-room and, as usual, thumping on the piano.
He walked up behind the child and, putting his arms over her shoulders,
took her hands in his, and produced some most beautiful music. Thus it
may be with us, and thus it will be, some coming day. Just now, we can
produce little but clamour and disharmony; but, one day, the Lord Jesus
will take hold of our hands of faith and prayer, and use them to bring
forth the music of the skies." -- ANON
GENUINE, authentic faith must be definite and free of
doubt. Not simply general in character; not a mere belief in the being,
goodness and power of God, but a faith which believes that the things
which "he saith, shall come to pass." As the faith is specific, so the
answer likewise will be definite: "He shall have whatsoever he saith."
Faith and prayer select the things, and God commits Himself to do the very
things which faith and persevering prayer nominate, and petition Him to
accomplish.
The American Revised Version renders the twenty-fourth
verse of the eleventh chapter of Mark, thus: "Therefore I say unto you,
All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive them,
and ye shall have them." Perfect faith has always in its keeping what
perfect prayer asks for. How large and unqualified is the area of
operation -- the "All things whatsoever!" How definite and specific the
promise -- "Ye shall have them!"
Our chief concern is with our faith, -- the problems of
its growth, and the activities of its vigorous maturity. A faith which
grasps and holds in its keeping the very things it asks for, without
wavering, doubt or fear -- that is the faith we need -- faith, such as is
a pearl of great price, in the process and practise of prayer.
The statement of our Lord about faith and prayer quoted
above is of supreme importance. Faith must be definite, specific; an
unqualified, unmistakable request for the things asked for. It is not to
be a vague, indefinite, shadowy thing; it must be something more than an
abstract belief in God's willingness and ability to do for us. It is to be
a definite, specific, asking for, and expecting the things for which we
ask. Note the reading of Mark 11:23:
"And shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe
that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have
whatever he saith."
Just so far as the faith and the asking is definite, so
also will the answer be. The giving is not to be something other than the
things prayed for, but the actual things sought and named. "He shall have
whatsoever he saith." It is all imperative, "He shall have." The granting
is to be unlimited, both in quality and in quantity.
Faith and prayer select the subjects for petition, thereby
determining what God is to do. "He shall have whatsoever he saith." Christ
holds Himself ready to supply exactly, and fully, all the demands of faith
and prayer. If the order on God be made clear, specific and definite, God
will fill it, exactly in accordance with the presented terms.
Faith is not an abstract belief in the Word of God, nor a
mere mental credence, nor a simple assent of the understanding and will;
nor is it a passive acceptance of facts, however sacred or thorough. Faith
is an operation of God, a Divine illumination, a holy energy implanted by
the Word of God and the Spirit in the human soul -- a spiritual, Divine
principle which takes of the Supernatural and makes it a thing
apprehendable by the faculties of time and sense.
Faith deals with God, and is conscious of God. It deals
with the Lord Jesus Christ and sees in Him a Saviour; it deals with God's
Word, and lays hold of the truth; it deals with the Spirit of God, and is
energized and inspired by its holy fire. God is the great objective of
faith; for faith rests its whole weight on His Word. Faith is not an
aimless act of the soul, but a looking to God and a resting upon His
promises. Just as love and hope have always an objective so, also, has
faith. Faith is not believing just anything; it is believing God,
resting in Him, trusting His Word.
Faith gives birth to prayer, and grows stronger, strikes
deeper, rises higher, in the struggles and wrestlings of mighty
petitioning. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the assurance and
realization of the inheritance of the saints. Faith, too, is humble and
persevering. It can wait and pray; it can stay on its knees, or lie in the
dust. It is the one great condition of prayer; the lack of it lies at the
root of all poor praying, feeble praying, little praying, unanswered
praying.
The nature and meaning of faith is more demonstrable in
what it does, than it is by reason of any definition given it. Thus, if we
turn to the record of faith given us in that great honour roll, which
constitutes the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, we see something of the
wonderful results of faith. What a glorious list it is -- that of these
men and women of faith! What marvellous achievements are there recorded,
and set to the credit of faith! The inspired writer, exhausting his
resources in cataloguing the Old Testament saints, who were such notable
examples of wonderful faith, finally exclaims:
"And what shall I more say? For the time would fail
me to tell of Gideon and Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David
also, and Samuel, and of the prophets."
And then the writer of Hebrews goes on again, in a
wonderful strain, telling of the unrecorded exploits wrought through the
faith of the men of old, "of whom the world was not worthy." "All these,"
he says, "obtained a good report through faith."
What an era of glorious achievements would dawn for the
Church and the world, if only there could be reproduced a race of saints
of like mighty faith, of like wonderful praying! It is not the
intellectually great that the Church needs; nor is it men of wealth that
the times demand. It is not people of great social influence that this day
requires. Above everybody and everything else, it is men of faith, men of
mighty prayer, men and women after the fashion of the saints and heroes
enumerated in Hebrews, who "obtained a good report through faith,"
that the Church and the whole wide world of humanity needs.
Many men, of this day, obtain a good report because of
their money-giving, their great mental gifts and talents, but few there be
who obtain a "good report" because of their great faith in God, or because
of the wonderful things which are being wrought through their great
praying. Today, as much as at any time, we need men of great faith and men
who are great in prayer. These are the two cardinal virtues which make men
great in the eyes of God, the two things which create conditions of real
spiritual success in the life and work of the Church. It is our chief
concern to see that we maintain a faith of such quality and texture, as
counts before God; which grasps, and holds in its keeping, the things for
which it asks, without doubt and without fear.
Doubt and fear are the twin foes of faith. Sometimes, they
actually usurp the place of faith, and although we pray, it is a restless,
disquieted prayer that we offer, uneasy and often complaining. Peter
failed to walk on Gennesaret because he permitted the waves to break over
him and swamp the power of his faith. Taking his eyes from the Lord and
regarding the water all about him, he began to sink and had to cry for
succour -- "Lord, save, or I perish!"
Doubts should never be cherished, nor fears harboured. Let
none cherish the delusion that he is a martyr to fear and doubt. It is no
credit to any man's mental capacity to cherish doubt of God, and no
comfort can possibly derive from such a thought. Our eyes should be taken
off self, removed from our own weakness and allowed to rest implicitly
upon God's strength. "Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath
great recompence of reward." A simple, confiding faith, living day by day,
and casting its burden on the Lord, each hour of the day, will dissipate
fear, drive away misgiving and deliver from doubt:
"Be careful for nothing, but in everything, by
supplication and prayer, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made
known unto God."
That is the Divine cure for all fear, anxiety, and undue
concern of soul, all of which are closely akin to doubt and unbelief. This
is the Divine prescription for securing the peace which passeth all
understanding, and keeps the heart and mind in quietness and
peace.
All of us need to mark well and heed the caution given in Hebrews: "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil
heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God."
We need, also, to guard against unbelief as we would
against an enemy. Faith needs to be cultivated. We need to keep on
praying, "Lord, increase our faith," for faith is susceptible of increase.
Paul's tribute to the Thessalonians was, that their faith grew
exceedingly. Faith is increased by exercise, by being put into use. It is
nourished by sore trials.
"That the trial of your faith, being much more
precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire,
might be found unto praise and honour and glow at the appearing of Jesus
Christ."
Faith grows by reading and meditating upon the Word of
God. Most, and best of all, faith thrives in an atmosphere of
prayer.
It would be well, if all of us were to stop, and inquire
personally of ourselves: "Have I faith in God? Have I real faith,
-- faith which keeps me in perfect peace, about the things of earth and
the things of heaven?" This is the most important question a man can
propound and expect to be answered. And there is another question, closely
akin to it in significance and importance -- "Do I really pray to God so
that He hears me and answers my prayers? And do I truly pray unto God so
that I get direct from God the things I ask of Him?"
It was claimed for Augustus Caesar that he found Rome a
city of wood, and left it a city of marble. The pastor who succeeds in
changing his people from a prayerless to a prayerful people, has done a
greater work than did Augustus in changing a city from wood to marble. And
after all, this is the prime work of the preacher. Primarily, he is
dealing with prayerless people -- with people of whom it is said, "God is
not in all their thoughts." Such people he meets everywhere, and all the
time. His main business is to turn them from being forgetful of God, from
being devoid of faith, from being prayerless, so that they become people
who habitually pray, who believe in God, remember Him and do His will. The
preacher is not sent to merely induce men to join the Church, nor merely
to get them to do better. It is to get them to pray, to trust God, and to
keep God ever before their eyes, that they may not sin against
Him.
The work of the ministry is to change unbelieving sinners
into praying and believing saints. The call goes forth by Divine
authority, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." We
catch a glimpse of the tremendous importance of faith and of the great
value God has set upon it, when we remember that He has made it the one
indispensable condition of being saved. "By grace are ye saved, through
faith." Thus, when we contemplate the great importance of prayer, we find
faith standing immediately by its side. By faith are we saved, and by
faith we stay saved. Prayer introduces us to a life of faith. Paul
declared that the life he lived, he lived by faith in the Son of God, who
loved him and gave Himself for him -- that he walked by faith and not by
sight.
Prayer is absolutely dependent upon faith. Virtually, it
has no existence apart from it, and accomplishes nothing unless it be its
inseparable companion. Faith makes prayer effectual, and in a certain
important sense, must precede it.
"For he that cometh to God must believe that He is,
and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him."
Before prayer ever starts toward God; before its petition
is preferred, before its requests are made known -- faith must have gone
on ahead; must have asserted its belief in the existence of God; must have
given its assent to the gracious truth that "God is a rewarder of those
that diligently seek His face." This is the primary step in praying. In
this regard, while faith does not bring the blessing, yet it puts prayer
in a position to ask for it, and leads to another step toward realization,
by aiding the petitioner to believe that God is able and willing to
bless.
Faith starts prayer to work -- clears the way to the
mercy-seat. It gives assurance, first of all, that there is a mercy-seat,
and that there the High Priest awaits the pray-ers and the prayers. Faith
opens the way for prayer to approach God. But it does more. It accompanies
prayer at every step she takes. It is her inseparable companion and when
requests are made unto God, it is faith which turns the asking into
obtaining. And faith follows prayer, since the spiritual life into which a
believer is led by prayer, is a life of faith. The one prominent
characteristic of the experience into which believers are brought through
prayer, is not a life of works, but of faith.
Faith makes prayer strong, and gives it patience to wait
on God. Faith believes that God is a rewarder. No truth is more clearly
revealed in the Scriptures than this, while none is more encouraging. Even
the closet has its promised reward, "He that seeth in secret, shall reward
thee openly," while the most insignificant service rendered to a disciple
in the name of the Lord, surely receives its reward. And to this precious
truth faith gives its hearty assent.
Yet faith is narrowed down to one particular thing -- it
does not believe that God will reward everybody, nor that He is a rewarder
of all who pray, but that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek
Him. Faith rests its care on diligence in prayer, and gives assurance
and encouragement to diligent seekers after God, for it is they, alone,
who are richly rewarded when they pray.
We need constantly to be reminded that faith is the one
inseparable condition of successful praying. There are other
considerations entering into the exercise, but faith is the final, the one
indispensable condition of true praying. As it is written in a familiar,
primary declaration: "Without faith, it is impossible to please
Him."
James puts this truth very plainly.
"If any of you lack wisdom," he says, "let him ask of
God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall
be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that
wavereth (or doubteth) is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind
and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing
of the Lord."
Doubting is always put under the ban, because it stands as
a foe to faith and hinders effectual praying. In the First Epistle to
Timothy Paul gives us an invaluable truth relative to the conditions of
successful praying, which he thus lays down: "I will therefore that men
pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and
doubting."
All questioning must be watched against and eschewed. Fear
and peradventure have no place in true praying. Faith must assert itself
and bid these foes to prayer depart.
Too much authority cannot be attributed to faith; but
prayer is the sceptre by which it signalizes its power. How much of
spiritual wisdom there is in the following advice written by an eminent
old divine.
"Would you be freed from the bondage to corruption?"
he asks. "Would you grow in grace in general and grow in grace in
particular? If you would, your way is plain. Ask of God more faith. Beg
of Him morning, and noon and night, while you walk by the way, while you
sit in the house, when you lie down and when you rise up; beg of Him
simply to impress Divine things more deeply on your heart, to give you
more and more of the substance of things hoped for and of the evidence
of things not seen."
Great incentives to pray are furnished in Holy Scriptures,
and our Lord closes His teaching about prayer, with the assurance and
promise of heaven. The presence of Jesus Christ in heaven, the preparation
for His saints which He is making there, and the assurance that He will
come again to receive them -- how all this helps the weariness of praying,
strengthens its conflicts, sweetens its arduous toil! These things are the
star of hope to prayer, the wiping away of its tears, the putting of the
odour of heaven into the bitterness of its cry. The spirit of a pilgrim
greatly facilitates praying. An earth-bound, earth-satisfied spirit cannot
pray. In such a heart, the flame of spiritual desire is either gone out or
smouldering in faintest glow. The wings of its faith are clipped, its eyes
are filmed, its tongue silenced. But they, who in unswerving faith and
unceasing prayer, wait continually upon the Lord, do renew their
strength, do mount up with wings as eagles, do run, and are
not weary, do walk, and not faint.
"One evening I left my office in New York, with a
bitterly cold wind in my face. I had with me, (as I thought) my thick,
warm muffler, but when I proceeded to button-up against the storm, I
found that it was gone. I turned back, looked along the streets,
searched my office, but in vain. I realized, then, that I must have
dropped it, and prayed God that I might find it; for such was the state
of the weather, that it would be running a great risk to proceed without
it. I looked, again, up and down the surrounding streets, but without
success. Sudden]y, I saw a man on the opposite side of the road holding
out something in his hand. I crossed over and asked him if that were my
muffler? He handed it to me saying, 'It was blown to me by the wind.' He
who rides upon the storm, had used the wind as a means of answering
prayer." -- WILLIAM HORST.
PRAYER does not stand alone. It is not an isolated duty
and independent principle. It lives in association with other Christian
duties, is wedded to other principles, is a partner with other graces. But
to faith, prayer is indissolubly joined. Faith gives it colour and tone,
shapes its character, and secures its results.
Trust is faith become absolute, ratified, consummated.
There is, when all is said and done, a sort of venture in faith and its
exercise. But trust is firm belief, it is faith in full flower.
Trust is a conscious act, a fact of which we are sensible. According to
the Scriptural concept it is the eye of the new-born soul, and the ear of
the renewed soul. It is the feeling of the soul, the spiritual eye, the
ear, the taste, the feeling -- these one and all have to do with trust.
How luminous, how distinct, how conscious, how powerful, and more than
all, how Scriptural is such a trust! How different from many forms of
modern belief, so feeble, dry, and cold! These new phases of belief bring
no consciousness of their presence, no "Joy unspeakable and full of glory"
results from their exercise. They are, for the most part, adventures in
the peradventures of the soul. There is no safe, sure trust in anything.
The whole transaction takes place in the realm of Maybe and
Perhaps.
Trust like life, is feeling, though much more than
feeling. An unfelt life is a contradiction; an unfelt trust is a misnomer,
a delusion, a contradiction. Trust is the most felt of all attributes. It
is all feeling, and it works only by love. An unfelt love is as
impossible as an unfelt trust. The trust of which we are now speaking is a
conviction. An unfelt conviction? How absurd!
Trust sees God doing things here and now. Yea, more. It
rises to a lofty eminence, and looking into the invisible and the eternal,
realizes that God has done things, and regards them as being already done.
Trust brings eternity into the annals and happenings of time, transmutes
the substance of hope into the reality of fruition, and changes promise
into present possession. We know when we trust just as we know when we
see, just as we are conscious of our sense of touch. Trust sees, receives,
holds. Trust is its own witness.
Yet, quite often, faith is too weak to obtain God's
greatest good, immediately; so it has to wait in loving, strong,
prayerful, pressing obedience, until it grows in strength, and is able to
bring down the eternal, into the realms of experience and time.
To this point, trust masses all its forces. Here it holds.
And in the struggle, trust's grasp becomes mightier, and grasps, for
itself, all that God has done for it in His eternal wisdom and plenitude
of grace.
In the matter of waiting in prayer, mightiest prayer,
faith rises to its highest plane and becomes indeed the gift of God. It
becomes the blessed disposition and expression of the soul which is
secured by a constant intercourse with, and unwearied application to
God.
Jesus Christ clearly taught that faith was the condition
on which prayer was answered. When our Lord had cursed the fig-tree, the
disciples were much surprised that its withering had actually taken place,
and their remarks indicated their in credulity. It was then that Jesus
said to them, "Have faith in God."
"For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say
unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, and
shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which
he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith.
Therefore, I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray,
believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."
Trust grows nowhere so readily and richly as in the
prayer-chamber. Its unfolding and development are rapid and wholesome when
they are regularly and well kept. When these engagements are hearty and
full and free, trust flourishes exceedingly. The eye and presence of God
give vigorous life to trust, just as the eye and the presence of the sun
make fruit and flower to grow, and all things glad and bright with fuller
life.
"Have faith in God," "Trust in the Lord" form the keynote
and foundation of prayer. Primarily, it is not trust in the Word of God,
but rather trust in the Person of God. For trust in the Person of God must
precede trust in the Word of God. "Ye believe in God, believe also in Me,"
is the demand our Lord makes on the personal trust of His disciples. The
person of Jesus Christ must be central, to the eye of trust. This great
truth Jesus sought to impress upon Martha, when her brother lay dead, in
the home at Bethany. Martha asserted her belief in the fact of the
resurrection of her brother:
"Martha saith unto Him, I know that he shall rise
again in the resurrection at the last day."
Jesus lifts her trust clear above the mere fact of the
resurrection, to His own Person, by saying:
"I am the resurrection and the life: he that
believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever
liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die. Believest thou this? She
saith unto Him, Yea, Lord: I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son
of God, which should come into the world."
Trust, in an historical fact or in a mere record may be a
very passive thing, but trust in a person vitalizes the quality,
fructifies it, informs it with love. The trust which informs prayer
centres in a Person.
Trust goes even further than this. The trust which
inspires our prayer must be not only trust in the Person of God, and of
Christ, but in their ability and willingness to grant the thing prayed
for. It is not only, "Trust, ye, in the Lord," but, also, "for in the Lord
Jehovah, is everlasting strength."
The trust which our Lord taught as a condition of
effectual prayer, is not of the head but of the heart. It is trust which
"doubteth not in his heart." Such trust has the Divine assurance that it
shall be honoured with large and satisfying answers. The strong promise of
our Lord brings faith down to the present, and counts on a present
answer.
Do we believe, without a doubt? When we pray, do we
believe, not that we shall receive the things for which we ask on a future
day, but that we receive them, then and there? Such is the teaching of
this inspiring Scripture. How we need to pray, "Lord, increase our faith,"
until doubt be gone, and implicit trust claims the promised blessings, as
its very own.
This is no easy condition. It is reached only after many a
failure, after much praying, after many waitings, after much trial of
faith. May our faith so increase until we realize and receive all the
fulness there is in that Name which guarantees to do so much.
Our Lord puts trust as the very foundation of praying. The
background of prayer is trust. The whole issuance of Christ's ministry and
work was dependent on implicit trust in His Father. The centre of trust is
God. Mountains of difficulties, and all other hindrances to prayer are
moved out of the way by trust and his virile henchman, faith. When trust
is perfect and without doubt, prayer is simply the outstretched hand,
ready to receive. Trust perfected, is prayer perfected. Trust looks to
receive the thing asked for -- and gets it. Trust is not a belief that God can bless, that He will bless, but that He does bless, here and now. Trust always operates in the present tense. Hope
looks toward the future. Trust looks to the present. Hope expects. Trust
possesses. Trust receives what prayer acquires. So that what prayer needs,
at all times, is abiding and abundant trust.
Their lamentable lack of trust and resultant failure of
the disciples to do what they were sent out to do, is seen in the case of
the lunatic son, who was brought by his father to nine of them while their
Master was on the Mount of Transfiguration. A boy, sadly afflicted, was
brought to these men to be cured of his malady. They had been commissioned
to do this very kind of work. This was a part of their mission. They
attempted to cast out the devil from the boy, but had signally failed. The
devil was too much for them. They were humiliated at their failure, and
filled with shame, while their enemies were in triumph. Amid the confusion
incident to failure Jesus draws near. He is informed of the circumstances,
and told of the conditions connected therewith. Here is the succeeding
account:
"Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and
perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I
suffer you? Bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he
departed out of him and the child was cured from that very hour. And
when He was come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, Why
could not we cast him out? And He said unto them, This kind can come
forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting."
Wherein lay the difficulty with these men? They had been
lax in cultivating their faith by prayer and, as a consequence, their
trust utterly failed. They trusted not God, nor Christ, nor the
authenticity of His mission, or their own. So has it been many a time
since, in many a crisis in the Church of God. Failure has resulted from a
lack of trust, or from a weakness of faith, and this, in turn, from a lack
of prayerfulness. Many a failure in revival efforts has been traceable to
the same cause. Faith had not been nurtured and made powerful by prayer.
Neglect of the inner chamber is the solution of most spiritual failure.
And this is as true of our personal struggles with the devil as was the
case when we went forth to attempt to cast out devils. To be much
on our knees in private communion with God is the only surety that we
shall have Him with us either in our personal struggles, or in our efforts
to convert sinners.
Everywhere, in the approaches of the people to Him, our
Lord put trust in Him, and the divinity of His mission, in the forefront.
He gave no definition of trust, and He furnishes no theological discussion
of, or analysis of it; for He knew that men would see what faith was by
what faith did; and from its free exercise trust grew up,
spontaneously, in His presence. It was the product of His work, His power
and His Person. These furnished and created an atmosphere most favourable
for its exercise and development. Trust is altogether too splendidly
simple for verbal definition; too hearty and spontaneous for theological
terminology. The very simplicity of trust is that which staggers many
people. They look away for some great thing to come to pass, while all the
time "the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy
heart."
When the saddening news of his daughter's death was
brought to Jairus our Lord interposed: "Be not afraid," He said calmly,
"only believe." To the woman with the issue of blood, who stood
tremblingly before Him, He said:
"Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in
peace, and be whole of thy plague."
As the two blind men followed Him, pressing their way into
the house, He said:
"According to your faith be it unto you. And their
eyes were opened."
When the paralytic was let down through the roof of the
house, where Jesus was teaching, and placed before Him by four of his
friends, it is recorded after this fashion:
"And Jesus seeing their faith, said unto the sick of
the palsy: Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee."
When Jesus dismissed the centurion whose servant was
seriously ill, and who had come to Jesus with the prayer that He speak the
healing word, without even going to his house, He did it in the manner
following:
"And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and
as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was
healed in the selfsame hour."
When the poor leper fell at the feet of Jesus and cried
out for relief, "Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean," Jesus
immediately granted his request, and the man glorified Him with a loud
voice. Then Jesus said unto him, "Arise, go thy way; thy faith hath made
thee whole."
The Syrophenician woman came to Jesus with the case of her
afflicted daughter, making the case her own, with the prayer, "Lord, help
me," making a fearful and heroic struggle. Jesus honours her faith and
prayer, saying:
"O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as
thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very
hour."
After the disciples had utterly failed to cast the devil
out of the epileptic boy, the father of the stricken lad came to Jesus
with the plaintive and almost despairing cry, "If Thou canst do anything,
have compassion on us and help us." But Jesus replied, "If thou canst
believe, all things are possible to him that believeth."
Blind Bartimaeus sitting by the wayside, hears our Lord as
He passes by, and cries out pitifully and almost despairingly, "Jesus,
Thou son of David, have mercy on me." The keen ears of our Lord
immediately catch the sound of prayer, and He says to the beggar:
"Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And
immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the
way."
To the weeping, penitent woman, washing His feet with her
tears and wiping them with the hair of her head, Jesus speaks cheering,
soul-comforting words: "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in
peace."
One day Jesus healed ten lepers at one time, in answer to
their united prayer, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us," and He told them
to go and show themselves to the priests. "And it came to pass as they
went, they were cleansed."
"There are those who will mock me, and tell me to
stick to my trade as a cobbler, and not trouble my mind with philosophy
and theology. But the truth of God did so burn in my bones, that I took
my pen in hand and began to set down what I had seen." -- JACOB
BEHMEN.
DESIRE is not merely a simple wish; it is a deep seated
craving; an intense longing, for attainment. In the realm of spiritual
affairs, it is an important adjunct to prayer. So important is it, that
one might say, almost, that desire is an absolute essential of prayer.
Desire precedes prayer, accompanies it, is followed by it. Desire goes
before prayer, and by it, created and intensified. Prayer is the oral
expression of desire. If prayer is asking God for something, then prayer
must be expressed. Prayer comes out into the open. Desire is silent.
Prayer is heard; desire, unheard. The deeper the desire, the stronger the
prayer. Without desire, prayer is a meaningless mumble of words. Such
perfunctory, formal praying, with no heart, no feeling, no real desire
accompanying it, is to be shunned like a pestilence. Its exercise is a
waste of precious time, and from it, no real blessing accrues.
And yet even if it be discovered that desire is honestly absent, we should pray, anyway. We ought to pray.
The "ought" comes in, in order that both desire and expression be
cultivated. God's Word commands it. Our judgment tells us we ought to pray
-- to pray whether we feel like it or not -- and not to allow our feelings
to determine our habits of prayer. In such circumstance, we ought to pray
for the desire to pray; for such a desire is God-given and
heaven-born. We should pray for desire; then, when desire has been given,
we should pray according to its dictates. Lack of spiritual desire should
grieve us, and lead us to lament its absence, to seek earnestly for its
bestowal, so that our praying, henceforth, should be an expression of "the
soul's sincere desire."
A sense of need creates or should create, earnest desire.
The stronger the sense of need, before God, the greater should be the
desire, the more earnest the praying. The "poor in spirit" are eminently
competent to pray.
Hunger is an active sense of physical need. It prompts the
request for bread. In like manner, the inward consciousness of spiritual
need creates desire, and desire breaks forth in prayer. Desire is an
inward longing for something of which we are not possessed, of which we
stand in need -- something which God has promised, and which may be
secured by an earnest supplication of His throne of grace.
Spiritual desire, carried to a higher degree, is the
evidence of the new birth. It is born in the renewed soul:
"As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the
word, that ye may grow thereby."
The absence of this holy desire in the heart is
presumptive proof, either of a decline in spiritual ecstasy, or, that the
new birth has never taken place.
"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness: for they shall be filled."
These heaven-given appetites are the proof of a renewed
heart, the evidence of a stirring spiritual life. Physical appetites are
the attributes of a living body, not of a corpse, and spiritual desires
belong to a soul made alive to God. And as the renewed soul hungers and
thirsts after righteousness, these holy inward desires break out into
earnest, supplicating prayer.
In prayer, we are shut up to the Name, merit and
intercessory virtue of Jesus Christ, our great High Priest. Probing down,
below the accompanying conditions and forces in prayer, we come to its
vital basis, which is seated in the human heart. It is not simply our
need; it is the heart's yearning for what we need, and for which we feel
impelled to pray. Desire is the will in action; a strong, conscious
longing, excited in the inner nature, for some great good. Desire exalts
the object of its longing, and fixes the mind on it. It has choice, and
fixedness, and flame in it, and prayer, based thereon, is explicit and
specific. It knows its need, feels and sees the thing that will meet it,
and hastens to acquire it.
Holy desire is much helped by devout contemplation.
Meditation on our spiritual need, and on God's readiness and ability to
correct it, aids desire to grow. Serious thought engaged in before
praying, increases desire, makes it more insistent, and tends to save us
from the menace of private prayer -- wandering thought. We fail much more
in desire, than in its outward expression. We retain the form, while the
inner life fades and almost dies.
One might well ask, whether the feebleness of our desires
for God, the Holy Spirit, and for all the fulness of Christ, is not the
cause of our so little praying, and of our languishing in the exercise of
prayer? Do we really feel these inward pantings of desire after heavenly
treasures? Do the inbred groanings of desire stir our souls to mighty
wrestlings? Alas for us! The fire burns altogether too low. The flaming
heat of soul has been tempered down to a tepid lukewarmness. This, it
should be remembered, was the central cause of the sad and desperate
condition of the Laodicean Christians, of whom the awful condemnation is
written that they were "rich, and increased in goods and had need of
nothing," and knew not that they "were wretched, and miserable, and
poor, and blind."
Again: we might well inquire -- have we that desire which
presses us to close communion with God, which is filled with unutterable
burnings, and holds us there through the agony of an intense and
soul-stirred supplication? Our hearts need much to be worked over, not
only to get the evil out of them, but to get the good into them. And the
foundation and inspiration to the incoming good, is strong, propelling
desire. This holy and fervid flame in the soul awakens the interest of
heaven, attracts the attention of God, and places at the disposal of those
who exercise it, the exhaustless riches of Divine grace.
The dampening of the flame of holy desire, is destructive
of the vital and aggressive forces in church life. God requires to be
represented by a fiery Church, or He is not in any proper sense,
represented at all. God, Himself, is all on fire, and His Church, if it is
to be like Him, must also be at white heat. The great and eternal
interests of heaven-born, God-given religion are the only things about
which His Church can afford to be on fire. Yet holy zeal need not to be
fussy in order to be consuming. Our Lord was the incarnate antithesis of
nervous excitability, the absolute opposite of intolerant or clamorous
declamation, yet the zeal of God's house consumed Him; and the world is
still feeling the glow of His fierce, consuming flame and responding to
it, with an ever-increasing readiness and an ever-enlarging
response.
A lack of ardour in prayer, is the sure sign of a lack of
depth and of intensity of desire; and the absence of intense desire is a
sure sign of God's absence from the heart! To abate fervour is to retire
from God. He can, and does, tolerate many things in the way of infirmity
and error in His children. He can, and will pardon sin when the penitent
prays, but two things are intolerable to Him -- insincerity and
lukewarmness. Lack of heart and lack of heat are two things He loathes,
and to the Laodiceans He said, in terms of unmistakable severity and
condemnation:
"I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou
art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My
mouth."
This was God's expressed judgment on the lack of fire in
one of the Seven Churches, and it is His indictment against individual
Christians for the fatal want of sacred zeal. In prayer, fire is the
motive power. Religious principles which do not emerge in flame, have
neither force nor effect. Flame is the wing on which faith ascends;
fervency is the soul of prayer. It was the "fervent, effectual prayer"
which availed much. Love is kindled in a flame, and ardency is its life.
Flame is the air which true Christian experience breathes. It feeds on
fire; it can withstand anything, rather than a feeble flame; and it dies,
chilled and starved to its vitals, when the surrounding atmosphere is
frigid or lukewarm.
True prayer, must be aflame. Christian life and
character need to be all on fire. Lack of spiritual heat creates more
infidelity than lack of faith. Not to be consumingly interested about the
things of heaven, is not to be interested in them at all. The fiery souls
are those who conquer in the day of battle, from whom the kingdom of
heaven suffereth violence, and who take it by force. The citadel of God is
taken only by those, who storm it in dreadful earnestness, who besiege it,
with fiery, unabated zeal.
Nothing short of being red hot for God, can keep the glow
of heaven in our hearts, these chilly days. The early Methodists had no
heating apparatus in their churches. They declared that the flame in the
pew and the fire in the pulpit must suffice to keep them warm. And we, of
this hour, have need to have the live coal from God's altar and the
consuming flame from heaven glowing in our hearts. This flame is not
mental vehemence nor fleshy energy. It is Divine fire in the soul,
intense, dross-consuming -- the very essence of the Spirit of
God.
No erudition, no purity of diction, no width of mental
outlook, no flowers of eloquence, no grace of person, can atone for lack
of fire. Prayer ascends by fire. Flame gives prayer access as well as
wings, acceptance as well as energy. There is no incense without fire; no
prayer without flame.
Ardent desire is the basis of unceasing prayer. It is not
a shallow, fickle inclination, but a strong yearning, an unquenchable
ardour, which impregnates, glows, burns and fixes the heart. It is the
flame of a present and active principle mounting up to God. It is ardour
propelled by desire, that burns its way to the Throne of mercy, and gains
its plea. It is the pertinacity of desire that gives triumph to the
conflict, in a great struggle of prayer. It is the burden of a weighty
desire that sobers, makes restless, and reduces to quietness the soul just
emerged from its mighty wrestlings. It is the embracing character of
desire which arms prayer with a thousand pleas, and robes it with an
invincible courage and an all-conquering power.
The Syrophenician woman is an object lesson of desire,
settled to its consistency, but invulnerable in its intensity and
pertinacious boldness. The importunate widow represents desire gaining its
end, through obstacles insuperable to feebler impulses.
Prayer is not the rehearsal of a mere performance; nor is
it an indefinite, widespread clamour. Desire, while it kindles the soul,
holds it to the object sought. Prayer is an indispensable phase of
spiritual habit, but it ceases to be prayer when carried on by habit
alone. It is depth and intensity of spiritual desire which give intensity
and depth to prayer. The soul cannot be listless when some great desire
fires and inflames it. The urgency of our desire holds us to the thing
desired with a tenacity which refuses to be lessened or loosened; it stays
and pleads and persists, and refuses to let go until the blessing has been
vouchsafed.
"Lord, I cannot let Thee go, Till a blessing Thou
bestow; Do not turn away Thy face; Mine's an urgent, pressing
case."
The secret of faint heartedness, lack of importunity, want
of courage and strength in prayer, lies in the weakness of spiritual
desire, while the non-observance of prayer is the fearful token of that
desire having ceased to live. That soul has turned from God whose desire
after Him no longer presses it to the inner chamber. There can be no
successful praying without consuming desire. Of course there can be much seeming to pray, without desire of any kind.
Many things may be catalogued and much ground covered. But
does desire compile the catalogue? Does desire map out the region to be
covered? On the answer, hangs the issue of whether our petitioning be
prating or prayer. Desire is intense, but narrow; it cannot spread itself
over a wide area. It wants a few things, and wants them badly, so badly,
that nothing but God's willingness to answer, can bring it easement or
content.
Desire single-shots at its objective. There may be many
things desired, but they are specifically and individually felt and
expressed. David did not yearn for everything; nor did he allow his
desires to spread out everywhere and hit nothing. Here is the way his
desires ran and found expression:
"One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I
seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my
life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in His
temple."
It is this singleness of desire, this definiteness of
yearning, which counts in praying, and which drives prayer directly to
core and centre of supply.
In the Beatitudes Jesus voiced the words which directly
bear upon the innate desires of a renewed soul, and the promise that they
will be granted: "Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after
righteousness, for they shall be filled."
This, then, is the basis of prayer which compels an answer
-- that strong inward desire has entered into the spiritual appetite, and
clamours to be satisfied. Alas for us! It is altogether too true and
frequent, that our prayers operate in the arid region of a mere wish, or
in the leafless area of a memorized prayer. Sometimes, indeed, our prayers
are merely stereotyped expressions of set phrases, and conventional
proportions, the freshness and life of which have departed long years
ago.
Without desire, there is no burden of soul, no sense of
need, no ardency, no vision, no strength, no glow of faith. There is no
mighty pressure, no holding on to God, with a deathless, despairing grasp
-- "I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me." There is no utter
self-abandonment, as there was with Moses, when, lost in the throes of a
desperate, pertinacious, and all-consuming plea he cried: "Yet now, if
Thou wilt forgive their sin; if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy
book." Or, as there was with John Knox when he pleaded: "Give me Scotland,
or I die!"
God draws mightily near to the praying soul. To see God,
to know God, and to live for God -- these form the objective of all true
praying. Thus praying is, after all, inspired to seek after God.
Prayer-desire is inflamed to see God, to have clearer, fuller, sweeter and
richer revelation of God. So to those who thus pray, the Bible becomes a new Bible, and Christ a new Saviour, by the light and revelation of
the inner chamber.
We iterate and reiterate that burning desire -- enlarged
and ever enlarging -- for the best, and most powerful gifts and graces of
the Spirit of God, is the legitimate heritage of true and effectual
praying. Self and service cannot be divorced -- cannot, possibly, be
separated. More than that: desire must be made intensely personal, must be
centered on God with an insatiable hungering and thirsting after Him and
His righteousness. "My soul thirsteth for God, the living God." The
indispensable requisite for all true praying is a deeply seated desire
which seeks after God Himself, and remains unappeased, until the choicest
gifts in heaven's bestowal, have been richly and abundantly
vouchsafed.
"St. Teresa rose off her deathbed to finish her work.
She inspected, with all her quickness of eye and love of order the whole
of the house in which she had been carried to die. She saw everything
put into its proper place, and every one answering to their proper
order, after which she attended the divine offices of the day. She then
went back to her bed, summoned her daughters around her . . . and, with
the most penitential of David's penitential prayers upon her tongue,
Teresa of Jesus went forth to meet her Bridegroom." -- ALEXANDER
WHYTE.
PRAYER, without fervour, stakes nothing on the issue,
because it has nothing to stake. It comes with empty hands. Hands, too,
which are listless, as well as empty, which have never learned the lesson
of clinging to the Cross.
Fervourless prayer has no heart in it; it is an empty
thing, an unfit vessel. Heart, soul, and life, must find place in all real
praying. Heaven must be made to feel the force of this crying unto
God.
Paul was a notable example of the man who possessed a
fervent spirit of prayer. His petitioning was all-consuming, centered
immovably upon the object of his desire, and the God who was able to meet
it.
Prayers must be red hot. It is the fervent prayer that is
effectual and that availeth. Coldness of spirit hinders praying; prayer
cannot live in a wintry atmosphere. Chilly surroundings freeze out
petitioning; and dry up the springs of supplication. It takes fire to make
prayers go. Warmth of soul creates an atmosphere favourable to prayer,
because it is favourable to fervency. By flame, prayer ascends to heaven.
Yet fire is not fuss, nor heat, noise. Heat is intensity -- something that
glows and burns. Heaven is a mighty poor market for ice.
God wants warm-hearted servants. The Holy Spirit comes as a fire, to dwell in us; we are to be baptized, with the Holy
Ghost and with fire. Fervency is warmth of soul. A phlegmatic temperament
is abhorrent to vital experience. If our religion does not set us on fire,
it is because we have frozen hearts. God dwells in a flame; the Holy Ghost
descends in fire. To be absorbed in God's will, to be so greatly in
earnest about doing it that our whole being takes fire, is the qualifying
condition of the man who would engage in effectual prayer.
Our Lord warns us against feeble praying. "Men ought
always to pray," He declares, "and not to faint." That means, that we are
to possess sufficient fervency to carry us through the severe and long
periods of pleading prayer. Fire makes one alert and vigilant, and brings
him off, more than conqueror. The atmosphere about us is too heavily
charged with resisting forces for limp or languid prayers to make headway.
It takes heat, and fervency and meteoric fire, to push through, to the
upper heavens, where God dwells with His saints, in light.
Many of the great Bible characters were notable examples
of fervency of spirit when seeking God. The Psalmist declares with great
earnestness:
"My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto
Thy judgments at all times."
What strong desires of heart are here! What earnest soul
longings for the Word of the living God!
An even greater fervency is expressed by him in another
place:
"As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so
panteth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the
living God: when shall I come and appear before God?"
That is the word of a man who lived in a state of grace,
which had been deeply and supernaturally wrought in his soul.
Fervency before God counts in the hour of prayer, and
finds a speedy and rich reward at His hands. The Psalmist gives us this
statement of what God had done for the king, as his heart turned toward
his Lord:
"Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not
withholden the request of his lips."
At another time, he thus expresses himself directly to God
in preferring his request:
"Lord, all my desire is before Thee; and my groaning
is not hid from Thee."
What a cheering thought! Our inward groanings, our secret
desires, our heart-longings, are not hidden from the eyes of Him with whom
we have to deal in prayer.
The incentive to fervency of spirit before God, is
precisely the same as it is for continued and earnest prayer. While
fervency is not prayer, yet it derives from an earnest soul, and is
precious in the sight of God. Fervency in prayer is the precursor of what
God will do by way of answer. God stands pledged to give us the desire of
our hearts in proportion to the fervency of spirit we exhibit, when
seeking His face in prayer.
Fervency has its seat in the heart, not in the brain, nor
in the intellectual faculties of the mind. Fervency therefore, is not an
expression of the intellect. Fervency of spirit is something far
transcending poetical fancy or sentimental imagery. It is something else
besides mere preference, the contrasting of like with dislike. Fervency is
the throb and gesture of the emotional nature.
It is not in our power, perhaps, to create fervency of
spirit at will, but we can pray God to implant it. It is ours, then, to
nourish and cherish it, to guard it against extinction, to prevent its
abatement or decline. The process of personal salvation is not only to
pray, to express our desires to God, but to acquire a fervent spirit and
seek, by all proper means, to cultivate it. It is never out of place to
pray God to beget within us, and to keep alive the spirit of fervent
prayer.
Fervency has to do with God, just as prayer has to do with
Him. Desire has always an objective. If we desire at all, we desire something. The degree of fervency with which we fashion our
spiritual desires, will always serve to determine the earnestness of our
praying. In this relation, Adoniram Judson says:
"A travailing spirit, the throes of a great burdened
desire, belongs to prayer. A fervency strong enough to drive away sleep,
which devotes and inflames the spirit, and which retires all earthly
ties, all this belongs to wrestling, prevailing prayer. The Spirit, the
power, the air, and food of prayer is in such a spirit."
Prayer must be clothed with fervency, strength and power.
It is the force which, centered on God, determines the outlay of Himself
for earthly good. Men who are fervent in spirit are bent on attaining to
righteousness, truth, grace, and all other sublime and powerful graces
which adorn the character of the authentic, unquestioned child of
God.
God once declared, by the mouth of a brave prophet, to a
king who, at one time, had been true to God, but, by the incoming of
success and material prosperity, had lost his faith, the following
message:
"The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the
whole earth, to shew Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is
perfect toward Him. Herein hast thou done foolishly; therefore, from
henceforth thou shalt have wars."
God had heard Asa's prayer in early life, but disaster
came and trouble was sent, because he had given up the life of prayer and
simple faith.
In Romans 15:30, we have the word, "strive," occurring, in
the request which Paul made for prayerful cooperation.
In Colossians 4:12, we have the same word, but translated
differently: "Epaphras always labouring fervently for you in prayer." Paul
charged the Romans to "strive together with him in prayer," that is, to
help him in his struggle of prayer. The word means to enter into a
contest, to fight against adversaries. It means, moreover, to engage with
fervent zeal to endeavour to obtain.
These recorded instances of the exercise and reward of
faith, give us easily to see that, in almost every instance, faith was
blended with trust until it is not too much to say that the former was
swallowed up in the latter. It is hard to properly distinguish the
specific activities of these two qualities, faith and trust. But there is
a point, beyond all peradventure, at which faith is relieved of its
burden, so to speak; where trust comes along and says: "You have done your
part, the rest is mine!"
In the incident of the barren fig tree, our Lord transfers
the marvellous power of faith to His disciples. To their exclamation, "How
soon is the fig tree withered alway!" He said:
"If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only
do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto
this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall
be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing,
ye shall receive."
When a Christian believer attains to faith of such
magnificent proportions as these, he steps into the realm of implicit
trust. He stands without a tremor on the apex of his spiritual
outreaching. He has attained faith's veritable top stone which is
unswerving, unalterable, unalienable trust in the power of the living
God.
"How glibly we talk of praying without ceasing! Yet
we are quite apt to quit, if our prayer remained unanswered but one week
or month! We assume that by a stroke of His arm or an action of His
will, God will give us what we ask. It never seems to dawn on us, that
He is the Master of nature, as of grace, and that, sometimes He chooses
one way, and sometimes another in which to do His work. It takes years,
sometimes, to answer a prayer and when it is answered, and we look
backward we can see that it did. But God knows all the time, and it is
His will that we pray, and pray, and still pray, and so come to know,
indeed and of a truth, what it is to pray without ceasing." -- ANON.
OUR Lord Jesus declared that "men ought always to pray and
not to faint," and the parable in which His words occur, was taught with
the intention of saving men from faint-heartedness and weakness in prayer.
Our Lord was seeking to teach that laxity must be guarded against, and
persistence fostered and encouraged. There can be no two opinions
regarding the importance of the exercise of this indispensable quality in
our praying.
Importunate prayer is a mighty movement of the soul toward
God. It is a stirring of the deepest forces of the soul, toward the throne
of heavenly grace. It is the ability to hold on, press on, and wait.
Restless desire, restful patience, and strength of grasp are all embraced
in it. It is not an incident, or a performance, but a passion of soul. It
is not a want, half-needed, but a sheer necessity.
The wrestling quality in importunate prayers does not
spring from physical vehemence or fleshly energy. It is not an impulse of
energy, not a mere earnestness of soul; it is an inwrought force, a
faculty implanted and aroused by the Holy Spirit. Virtually, it is the
intercession of the Spirit of God, in us; it is, moreover, "the effectual,
fervent prayer, which availeth much." The Divine Spirit informing every
element within us, with the energy of His own striving, is the essence of
the importunity which urges our praying at the mercy-seat, to continue
until the fire falls and the blessing descends. This wrestling in prayer
may not be boisterous nor vehement, but quiet, tenacious and urgent.
Silent, it may be, when there are no visible outlets for its mighty
forces.
Nothing distinguishes the children of God so clearly and
strongly as prayer. It is the one infallible mark and test of being a
Christian. Christian people are prayerful, the worldly-minded, prayerless.
Christians call on God; worldlings ignore God, and call not on His Name.
But even the Christian had need to cultivate continual prayer. Prayer must
be habitual, but much more than a habit. It is duty, yet one which rises
far above, and goes beyond the ordinary implications of the term. It is
the expression of a relation to God, a yearning for Divine communion. It
is the outward and upward flow of the inward life toward its original
fountain. It is an assertion of the soul's paternity, a claiming of the
sonship, which links man to the Eternal.
Prayer has everything to do with moulding the soul into
the image of God, and has everything to do with enhancing and enlarging
the measure of Divine grace. It has everything to do with bringing the
soul into complete communion with God. It has everything to do with
enriching, broadening and maturing the soul's experience of God. That man
cannot possibly be called a Christian, who does not pray. By no possible
pretext can he claim any right to the term, nor its implied significance.
If he do not pray, he is a sinner, pure and simple, for prayer is the only
way in which the soul of man can enter into fellowship and communion with
the Source of all Christlike spirit and energy. Hence, if he pray not, he
is not of the household of faith.
In this study however, we turn our thought to one phase of
prayer -- that of importunity; the pressing of our desires upon God with
urgency and perseverance; the praying with that tenacity and tension which
neither relaxes nor ceases until its plea is heard, and its cause is
won.
He who has clear views of God, and Scriptural conceptions
of the Divine character; who appreciates his privilege of approach unto
God; who understands his inward need of all that God has for him -- that
man will be solicitous, outspoken and importunate. In Holy Writ, the duty
of prayer, itself, is advocated in terms which are only barely stronger
than those in which the necessity for its importunity is set forth. The
praying which influences God is declared to be that of the fervent,
effectual outpouring of a righteous man. That is to say, it is prayer on
fire, having no feeble, flickering flame, no momentary flash, but shining
with a vigorous and steady glow.
The repeated intercessions of Abraham for the salvation of
Sodom and Gomorrah present an early example of the necessity for, and
benefit deriving from importunate praying. Jacob, wrestling all night with
the angel, gives significant emphasis to the power of a dogged
perseverance in praying, and shows how, in things spiritual, importunity
succeeds, just as effectively as it does in matters relating to time and
sense.
As we have noted, elsewhere, Moses prayed forty days and
forty nights, seeking to stay the wrath of God against Israel, and his
example and success are a stimulus to present-day faith in its darkest
hour. Elijah repeated and urged his prayer seven times ere the raincloud
appeared above the horizon, heralding the success of his prayer and the
victory of his faith. On one occasion Daniel though faint and weak,
pressed his case three weeks, ere the answer and the blessing
came.
Many nights during His earthly life did the blessed
Saviour spend in prayer. In Gethsemane He presented the same petition,
three times, with unabated, urgent, yet submissive importunity, which
involved every element of His soul, and issued in tears and bloody sweat.
His life crises were distinctly marked, his life victories all won, in
hours of importunate prayer. And the servant is not greater than his
Lord.
The Parable of the Importunate Widow is a classic of
insistent prayer. We shall do well to refresh our remembrance of it, at
this point in our study:
"And He spake a parable unto them to this end, that
men ought always to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city
a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man; and there was a
widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of my
adversary. And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within
himself, Though I fear not God nor regard man; yet because this widow
troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary
me. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not
God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though He
bear long with them? I tell you He will avenge them
speedily."
This parable stresses the central truth of importunate
prayer. The widow presses her case till the unjust judge yields. If this
parable does not teach the necessity for importunity, it has neither point
nor instruction in it. Take this one thought away, and you have nothing
left worth recording. Beyond all cavil, Christ intended it to stand as an
evidence of the need that exists, for insistent prayer.
We have the same teaching emphasized in the incident of
the Syrophenician woman, who came to Jesus on behalf of her daughter.
Here, importunity is demonstrated, not as a stark impertinence, but as
with the persuasive habiliments of humility, sincerity, and fervency. We
are given a glimpse of a woman's clinging faith, a woman's bitter grief,
and a woman's spiritual insight. The Master went over into that Sidonian
country in order that this truth might be mirrored for all time -- there
is no plea so efficacious as importunate prayer, and none to which God
surrenders Himself so fully and so freely.
The importunity of this distressed mother, won her the
victory, and materialized her request. Yet instead of being an offence to
the Saviour, it drew from Him a word of wonder, and glad surprise. "O
woman, great is thy faith! Be it unto thee, even as thou wilt."
He prays not at all, who does not press his plea. Cold
prayers have no claim on heaven, and no hearing in the courts above. Fire
is the life of prayer, and heaven is reached by flaming importunity rising
in an ascending scale.
Reverting to the case of the importunate widow, we see
that her widowhood, her friendlessness, and her weakness counted for
nothing with the unjust judge. Importunity was everything. "Because this
widow troubleth me," he said, "I will avenge her speedily, lest she
weary me." Solely because the widow imposed upon the time and attention of
the unjust judge, her case was won.
God waits patiently as, day and night, His elect cry unto
Him. He is moved by their requests a thousand times more than was this
unjust judge. A limit is set to His tarrying, by the importunate praying
of His people, and the answer richly given. God finds faith in His praying
child -- the faith which stays and cries -- and He honours it by
permitting its further exercise, to the end that it is strengthened and
enriched. Then He rewards it by granting the burden of its plea, in
plenitude and finality.
The case of the Syrophenician woman previously referred to
is a notable instance of successful importunity, one which is eminently
encouraging to all who would pray successfully. It was a remarkable
instance of insistence and perseverance to ultimate victory, in the face
of almost insuperable obstacles and hindrances. But the woman surmounted
them all by heroic faith and persistent spirit that were as remarkable as
they were successful. Jesus had gone over into her country, "and would
have no man know it." But she breaks through His purpose, violates His
privacy, attracts His attention, and pours out to Him a poignant appeal of
need and faith. Her heart was in her prayer.
At first, Jesus appears to pay no attention to her agony,
and ignores her cry for relief. He gives her neither eye, nor ear, nor
word. Silence, deep and chilling, greets her impassioned cry. But she is
not turned aside, nor disheartened. She holds on. The disciples, offended
at her unseemly clamour, intercede for her, but are silenced by the Lord's
declaring that the woman is entirely outside the scope of His mission and
His ministry.
But neither the failure of the disciples to gain her a
hearing nor the knowledge -- despairing in its very nature -- that she is
barred from the benefits of His mission, daunt her, and serve only to lend
intensity and increased boldness to her approach to Christ. She came
closer, cutting her prayer in twain, and falling at His feet, worshipping
Him, and making her daughter's case her own cries, with pointed brevity --
"Lord, help me!" This last cry won her case; her daughter was healed in
the self-same hour. Hopeful, urgent, and unwearied, she stays near the
Master, insisting and praying until the answer is given. What a study in
importunity, in earnestness, in persistence, promoted and propelled under
conditions which would have disheartened any but an heroic, a constant
soul.
In these parables of importunate praying, our Lord sets
forth, for our information and encouragement, the serious difficulties
which stand in the way of prayer. At the same time He teaches that
importunity conquers all untoward circumstances and gets to itself a
victory over a whole host of hindrances. He teaches, moreover, that an
answer to prayer is conditional upon the amount of faith that goes to the
petition. To test this, He delays the answer. The superficial pray-er
subsides into silence, when the answer is delayed. But the man of prayer
hangs on, and on. The Lord recognizes and honours his faith, and gives him
a rich and abundant answer to his faith-evidencing, importunate
prayer.
Back to Top VII. PRAYER AND IMPORTUNITY (Continued)
"Two-thirds of the praying we do, is for that which
would give us the greatest possible pleasure to receive. It is a sort of
spiritual self-indulgence in which we engage, and as a consequence is
the exact opposite of self-discipline. God knows all this, and keeps His
children asking. In process of time -- His time -- our petitions take on
another aspect, and we, another spiritual approach. God keeps us praying
until, in His wisdom, He deigns to answer. And no matter how long it may
be before He speaks, it is, even then, far earlier than we have a right
to expect or hope to deserve." -- ANON.
THE tenor of Christ's teachings, is to declare that men
are to pray earnestly -- to pray with an earnestness that cannot be
denied. Heaven has harkening ears only for the whole-hearted, and the
deeply-earnest. Energy, courage, and persistent perseverance must back the
prayers which heaven respects, and God hears. All these qualities of soul,
so essential to effectual praying, are brought out in the parable of the
man who went to his friend for bread, at midnight. This man entered on his
errand with confidence. Friendship promised him success. His plea was
pressing: of a truth, he could not go back empty-handed. The flat refusal
chagrined and surprised him. Here even friendship failed! But there was
something to be tried yet -- stern resolution, set, fixed determination.
He would stay and press his demand until the door was opened, and the
request granted. This he proceeded to do, and by dint of importunity
secured what ordinary solicitation had failed to obtain.
The success of this man, achieved in the face of a flat
denial, was used by the Saviour to illustrate the necessity for insistence
in supplicating the throne of heavenly grace. When the answer is not
immediately given, the praying Christian must gather courage at each
delay, and advance in urgency till the answer comes which is assured, if
he have but the faith to press his petition with vigorous
faith.
Laxity, faint-heartedness, impatience, timidity will be
fatal to our prayers. Awaiting the onset of our importunity and
insistence, is the Father's heart, the Father's hand, the Father's
infinite power, the Father's infinite willingness to hear and give to His
children.
Importunate praying is the earnest, inward movement of the
heart toward God. It is the throwing of the entire force of the spiritual
man into the exercise of prayer. Isaiah lamented that no one stirred
himself, to take hold of God. Much praying was done in Isaiah's time, but
it was too easy, indifferent and complacent. There were no mighty
movements of souls toward God. There was no array of sanctified energies
bent on reaching and grappling with God, to draw from Him the treasures of
His grace. Forceless prayers have no power to overcome difficulties, no
power to win marked results, or to gain complete victories. We must win
God, ere we can win our plea.
Isaiah looked forward with hopeful eyes to the day when
religion would flourish, when there would be times of real praying. When
those times came, the watchmen would not abate their vigilance, but cry
day and night, and those, who were the Lord's remembrancers, would give
Him no rest. Their urgent, persistent efforts would keep all spiritual
interests engaged, and make increasing drafts on God's exhaustless
treasures.
Importunate praying never faints nor grows weary; it is
never discouraged; it never yields to cowardice, but is buoyed up and
sustained by a hope that knows no despair, and a faith which will not let
go. Importunate praying has patience to wait and strength to continue. It
never prepares itself to quit praying, and declines to rise from its knees
until an answer is received.
The familiar, yet heartening words of that great
missionary, Adoniram Judson, is the testimony of a man who was importunate
at prayer. He says:
"I was never deeply interested in any object, never
prayed sincerely and earnestly for it, but that it came at some time, no
matter how distant the day. Somehow, in some shape, probably the last I
would have devised, it came."
"Ask, and ye shall receive. Seek, and ye shall find.
Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." These are the ringing challenges
of our Lord in regard to prayer, and His intimation that true praying must
stay, and advance in effort and urgency, till the prayer is answered, and
the blessing sought, received.
In the three words ask, seek, knock, in the order in which
He places them, Jesus urges the necessity of importunity in prayer.
Asking, seeking, knocking, are ascending rounds in the ladder of
successful prayer. No principle is more definitely enforced by Christ than
that prevailing prayer must have in it the quality which waits and
perseveres, the courage that never surrenders, the patience which never
grows tired, the resolution that never wavers.
In the parable preceding that of the Friend at Midnight, a
most significant and instructive lesson in this respect is outlined.
Indomitable courage, ceaseless pertinacity, fixity of purpose, chief among
the qualities included in Christ's estimate of the highest and most
successful form of praying.
Importunity is made up of intensity, perseverance,
patience and persistence. The seeming delay in answering prayer is the
ground and the demand of importunity. In the first recorded instance of a
miracle being wrought upon one who was blind, as given by Matthew, we have
an illustration of the way in which our Lord appeared not to hearken at
once to those who sought Him. But the two blind men continue their crying,
and follow Him with their continual petition, saying, "Thou Son of David,
have mercy on us." But He answered them not, and passed into the house.
Yet the needy ones followed Him, and, finally, gained their eyesight and
their plea.
The case of blind Bartimaeus is a notable one in many
ways. Especially is it remarkable for the show of persistence which this
blind man exhibited in appealing to our Lord. If it be -- as it seems --
that his first crying was done as Jesus entered into Jericho, and that he
continued it until Jesus came out of the place, it is all the stronger an
illustration of the necessity of importunate prayer and the success which
comes to those who stake their all on Christ, and give Him no peace until
He grants them their hearts' desire.
Mark puts the whole incident graphically before us. At
first, Jesus seems not to hear. The crowd rebukes the noisy clamour of
Bartimaeus. Despite the seeming unconcern of our Lord, however, and
despite the rebuke of an impatient and quick-tempered crowd, the blind
beggar still cries, and increases the loudness of his cry, until Jesus is
impressed and moved. Finally, the crowd, as well as Jesus, hearken to the
beggar's plea and declare in favour of his cause. He gains his case. His
importunity avails even in the face of apparent neglect on the part of
Jesus, and despite opposition and rebuke from the surrounding populace.
His persistence won where half-hearted indifference would surely have
failed.
Faith has its province, in connection with prayer, and, of
course, has its inseparable association with importunity. But the latter
quality drives the prayer to the believing point. A persistent
spirit brings a man to the place where faith takes hold, claims and
appropriates the blessing.
The imperative necessity of importunate prayer is plainly
set forth in the Word of God, and needs to be stated and re-stated today.
We are apt to overlook this vital truth. Love of ease, spiritual
indolence, religious slothfulness, all operate against this type of
petitioning. Our praying, however, needs to be pressed and pursued with an
energy that never tires, a persistency which will not be denied, and a
courage which never fails.
We have need, too, to give thought to that mysterious fact
of prayer -- the certainty that there will be delays, denials, and seeming
failures, in connection with its exercise. We are to prepare for these, to
brook them, and cease not in our urgent praying. Like a brave soldier,
who, as the conflict grows sterner, exhibits a superior courage than in
the earlier stages of the battle; so does the praying Christian, when
delay and denial face him, increase his earnest asking, and ceases not
until prayer prevail. Moses furnishes an illustrious example of
importunity in prayer. Instead of allowing his nearness to God and his
intimacy with Him to dispense with the necessity for importunity, he
regards them as the better fitting him for its exercise. When Israel set
up the golden calf, the wrath of God waxed fierce against them, and
Jehovah, bent on executing justice, said to Moses when divulging what He
purposed doing, "Let Me alone!" But Moses would not let Him alone.
He threw himself down before the Lord in an agony of intercession in
behalf of the sinning Israelites, and for forty days and nights, fasted
and prayed. What a season of importunate prayer was that!
Jehovah was wroth with Aaron, also, who had acted as
leader in this idolatrous business of the golden calf. But Moses prayed
for Aaron as well as for the Israelites; had he not, both Israel and Aaron
had perished, under the consuming fire of God's wrath.
That long season of pleading before God, left its mighty
impress on Moses. He had been in close relation with God aforetime, but
never did his character attain the greatness that marked it in the days
and years following this long season of importunate
intercession.
There can be no question but that importunate prayer moves
God, and heightens human character! If we were more with God in this great
ordinance of intercession, more brightly would our face shine, more richly
endowed would life and service be, with the qualities which earn the
goodwill of humanity, and bring glory to the Name of God.
Back to Top VIII. PRAYER AND CHARACTER AND
CONDUCT
"General Charles James Gordon, the hero of Khartum,
was a truly Christian soldier. Shut up in the Sudanese town he gallantly
held out for one year, but, finally, was overcome and slain. On his
memorial in Westminster Abbey are these words, 'He gave his money to the
poor; his sympathy to the sorrowing; his life to his country and his
soul to God.'" -- HOMER W. HODGE.
PRAYER governs conduct and conduct makes character.
Conduct, is what we do; character, is what we are. Conduct is the outward
life. Character is the life unseen, hidden within, yet evidenced by that
which is seen. Conduct is external, seen from without; character is
internal -- operating within. In the economy of grace conduct is the
offspring of character. Character is the state of the heart, conduct its
outward expression. Character is the root of the tree, conduct, the fruit
it bears.
Prayer is related to all the gifts of grace. To character
and conduct its relation is that of a helper. Prayer helps to establish
character and fashion conduct, and both for their successful continuance
depend on prayer. There may be a certain degree of moral character and
conduct independent of prayer, but there cannot be anything like
distinctive religious character and Christian conduct without it. Prayer
helps, where all other aids fail. The more we pray, the better we are, the
purer and better our lives.
The very end and purpose of the atoning work of Christ is
to create religious character and to make Christian conduct.
"Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us
from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of
good works."
In Christ's teaching, it is not simply works of charity
and deeds of mercy upon which He insists, but inward spiritual character.
This much is demanded, and nothing short of it, will suffice.
In the study of Paul's Epistles, there is one thing which
stands out, clearly and unmistakably -- the insistence on holiness of
heart, and righteousness of life. Paul does not seek, so much, to promote
what is termed "personal work," nor is the leading theme of his letters
deeds of charity. It is the condition of the human heart and the
blamelessness of the personal life, which form the burden of the writings
of St. Paul.
Elsewhere in the Scriptures, too, it is character and
conduct which are made preeminent. The Christian religion deals with men
who are devoid of spiritual character, and unholy in life, and aims so to
change them, that they become holy in heart and righteous in life. It aims
to change bad men into good men; it deals with inward badness, and works
to change it into inward goodness. And it is just here where prayer enters
and demonstrates its wonderful efficacy and fruit. Prayer drives toward
this specific end. In fact, without prayer, no such supernatural change in
moral character, can ever be effected. For the change from badness to
goodness is not wrought "by works of righteousness which we have done,"
but according to God's mercy, which saves us "by the washing of
regeneration." And this marvellous change is brought to pass through
earnest, persistent, faithful prayer. Any alleged form of Christianity,
which does not effect this change in the hearts of men, is a delusion and
a snare.
The office of prayer is to change the character and
conduct of men, and in countless instances, has been wrought by prayer. At
this point, prayer, by its credentials, has proved its divinity. And just
as it is the office of prayer to effect this, so it is the prime work of
the Church to take hold of evil men and make them good. Its mission is to
change human nature, to change character, influence behaviour, to
revolutionize conduct. The Church is presumed to be righteous, and should
be engaged in turning men to righteousness. The Church is God's
manufactory on earth, and its primary duty is to create and foster
righteousness of character. This is its very first business. Primarily,
its work is not to acquire members, nor amass numbers, nor aim at
money-getting, nor engage in deeds of charity and works of mercy, but to
produce righteousness of character, and purity of the outward
life.
A product reflects and partakes of the character of the
manufactory which makes it. A righteous Church with a righteous purpose
makes righteous men. Prayer produces cleanliness of heart and purity of
life. It can produce nothing else. Unrighteous conduct is born of
prayerlessness; the two go hand-in-hand. Prayer and sinning cannot keep
company with each other. One, or the other, must, of necessity, stop. Get
men to pray, and they will quit sinning, because prayer creates a distaste
for sinning, and so works upon the heart, that evil-doing becomes
repugnant, and the entire nature lifted to a reverent contemplation of
high and holy things.
Prayer is based on character. What we are with God gauges
our influence with Him. It was the inner character, not the outward
seeming, of such men as Abraham, Job, David, Moses and all others, who had
such great influence with God in the days of old. And, today, it is not so
much our words, as what we really are, which weighs with God. Conduct
affects character, of course, and counts for much in our praying. At the
same time, character affects conduct to a far greater extent, and has a
superior influence over prayer. Our inner life not only gives colour to
our praying, but body, as well. Bad living means bad praying and, in the
end, no praying at all. We pray feebly because we live feebly. The stream
of prayer cannot rise higher than the fountain of living. The force of the
inner chamber is made up of the energy which flows from the confluent
streams of living. And the weakness of living grows out of the shallowness
and shoddiness of character.
Feebleness of living reflects its debility and langour in
the praying hours. We simply cannot talk to God, strongly, intimately, and
confidently unless we are living for Him, faithfully and truly. The
prayer-closet cannot become sanctified unto God, when the life is alien to
His precepts and purpose. We must learn this lesson well -- that righteous
character and Christlike conduct give us a peculiar and preferential
standing in prayer before God. His holy Word gives special emphasis to the
part conduct has in imparting value to our praying when it
declares:
"Then shalt thou call and the Lord shall answer; thou
shalt cry, and He shall say, Here I am; if thou take away from the midst
of thee the yoke, the putting forth the finger, and speaking
vanity."
The wickedness of Israel and their heinous practices were
definitely cited by Isaiah, as the reason why God would turn His ears away
from their prayers:
"And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide
mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear:
your hands are full of blood."
The same sad truth was declared by the Lord through the
mouth of Jeremiah:
"Therefore, pray not thou for this people, neither
lift up a cry or prayer for them; for I will not hear them in the time
that they cry unto Me for their trouble."
Here, it is plainly stated, that unholy conduct is a bar
to successful praying, just as it is clearly intimated that, in order to
have full access to God in prayer, there must be a total abandonment of
conscious and premeditated sin.
We are enjoined to pray, "lifting up holy hands, without
wrath and doubting," and must pass the time of our sojourning here, in a
rigorous abstaining from evil if we are to retain our privilege of calling
upon the Father. We cannot, by any process, divorce praying from
conduct.
"Whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we
keep His commandments, and do those things which are pleasing in His
sight."
And James declares roundly that men ask and receive not,
because they ask amiss, and seek only the gratification of selfish
desires.
Our Lord's injunction, "Watch ye, and pray always," is to
cover and guard all our conduct, so that we may come to our inner chamber
with all its force secured by a vigilant guard kept over our lives.
"And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your
hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of
this life, and so that day come upon you unawares."
Quite often, Christian experience founders on the rock of
conduct. Beautiful theories are marred by ugly lives. The most difficult
thing about piety, as it is the most impressive, is to be able to live it.
It is the life which counts, and our praying suffers, as do other phases
of our religious experience, from bad living.
In primitive times preachers were charged to preach by
their lives, or not to preach at all. So, today, Christians, everywhere,
ought to be charged to pray by their lives, or not to pray at all. The
most effective preaching, is not that which is heard from the pulpit, but
that which is proclaimed quietly, humbly and consistently; which exhibits
its excellencies in the home, and in the community. Example preaches a far
more effective sermon than precept. The best preaching, even in the
pulpit, is that which is fortified by godly living, in the preacher,
himself. The most effective work done by the pew is preceded by, and
accompanied with, holiness of life, separation from the world, severance
from sin. Some of the strongest appeals are made with mute lips -- by
godly fathers and saintly mothers who, around the fireside, feared God,
loved His cause, and daily exhibited to their children and others about
them, the beauties and excellencies of Christian life and
conduct.
The best-prepared, most eloquent sermon can be marred and
rendered ineffective, by questionable practices in the preacher. The most
active church worker can have the labour of his hands vitiated by
worldliness of spirit and inconsistency of life. Men preach by their
lives, not by their words, and sermons are delivered, not so much in, and
from a pulpit, as in tempers, actions, and the thousand and one incidents
which crowd the pathway of daily life.
Of course, the prayer of repentance is acceptable to God.
He delights in hearing the cries of penitent sinners. But repentance
involves not only sorrow for sin, but the turning away from wrong-doing,
and the learning to do well. A repentance which does not produce a change
in character and conduct, is a mere sham, which should deceive nobody. Old
things must pass away, all things must become
new.
Praying, which does not result in right thinking and right
living, is a farce. We have missed the whole office of prayer if it fail
to purge character and rectify conduct. We have failed entirely to
apprehend the virtue of prayer, if it bring not about the revolutionizing
of the life. In the very nature of things, we must quit praying, or our
bad conduct. Cold, formal praying may exist side by side, with bad
conduct, but such praying, in the estimation of God, is no praying at all.
Our praying advances in power, just in so far as it rectifies the life.
Growing in purity and devotion to God will be a more prayerful
life.
The character of the inner life is a condition of
effectual praying. As is the life, so will the praying be. An inconsistent
life obstructs praying and neutralizes what little praying we may do.
Always, it is "the prayer of the righteous man which availeth much."
Indeed, one may go further and assert, that it is only the prayer of the
righteous which avails anything at all -- at any time. To have an eye to
God's glory; to be possessed by an earnest desire to please Him in all our
ways; to possess hands busy in His service; to have feet swift to run in
the way of His commandments -- these give weight and influence and power
to prayer, and secure an audience with God. The incubus of our lives often
breaks the force of our praying, and, not unfrequently, are as doors of
brass, in the face of prayer.
Praying must come out of a cleansed heart and be presented
and urged with the "lifting up of holy hands." It must be fortified by a
life aiming, unceasingly, to obey God, to attain conformity to the Divine
law, and to come into submission to the Divine will.
Let it not be forgotten, that, while life is a condition
of prayer, prayer is also the condition of righteous living. Prayer
promotes righteous living, and is the one great aid to uprightness of
heart and life. The fruit of real praying is right living. Praying sets
him who prays to the great business of "working out his salvation with
fear and trembling;" puts him to watching his temper, conversation and
conduct; causes him to "walk circumspectly, redeeming the time;" enables
him to "walk worthy of the vocation wherewith he is called, with all
lowliness and meekness;" gives him a high incentive to pursue his
pilgrimage consistently by "shunning every evil way, and walking in the
good."
"An obedience discovered itself in Fletcher of
Madeley, which I wish I could describe or imitate. It produced in him a
ready mind to embrace every cross with alacrity and pleasure. He had a
singular love for the lambs of the flock, and applied himself with the
greatest diligence to their instruction, for which he had a peculiar
gift. . . . All his intercourse with me was so mingled with prayer and
praise, that every employment, and every meal was, as it were, perfumed
therewith." -- JOHN WESLEY.
UNDER the Mosaic law, obedience was looked upon as being
"better than sacrifice, and to harken, than the fat of lambs." In
Deuteronomy 5:29, Moses represents Almighty God declaring Himself as to
this very quality in a manner which left no doubt as to the importance He
laid upon its exercise. Referring to the waywardness of His people He
cries:
"O that there were such a heart in them, that they
would fear Me, and keep all My commandments always, that it might be
well with them, and with their children after them."
Unquestionably obedience is a high virtue, a soldier
quality. To obey belongs, preeminently, to the soldier. It is his first
and last lesson, and he must learn how to practice it all the time,
without question, uncomplainingly. Obedience, moreover, is faith in
action, and is the outflow as it is the very test of love. "He that hath
My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me."
Furthermore: obedience is the conserver and the life of
love.
"If ye keep My commandments," says Jesus, "ye shall
abide in My love, even as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide
in His love."
What a marvellous statement of the relationship created
and maintained by obedience! The Son of God is held in the bosom of the
Father's love, by virtue of His obedience! And the factor which enables
the Son of God to ever abide in His Father's love is revealed in His own
statement, "For I do, always, those things that please Him."
The gift of the Holy Spirit in full measure and in richer
experience, depends upon loving obedience:
"If ye love Me, keep My commandments," is the
Master's word. "And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you
another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever."
Obedience to God is a condition of spiritual thrift,
inward satisfaction, stability of heart. "If ye be willing and obedient,
ye shall eat the fruit of the land." Obedience opens the gates of the Holy
City, and gives access to the tree of life.
"Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they
may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates,
into the city."
What is obedience? It is doing God's will: it is keeping
His commandments. How many of the commandments constitute obedience? To
keep half of them, and to break the other half -- is that real obedience?
To keep all the commandments but one -- is that obedience? On this point,
James the Apostle is most explicit: "Whosoever shall keep the whole law,"
he declares, "and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of
all."
The spirit which prompts a man to break one commandment is
the spirit which may move him to break them all. God's commandments are a
unit, and to break one strikes at the principle which underlies and runs
through the whole. He who hesitates not to break a single commandment,
would -- it is more than probable -- under the same stress, and surrounded
by the same circumstances, break them all.
Universal obedience of the race is demanded. Nothing short
of implicit obedience will satisfy God, and the keeping of all His
commandments is the demonstration of it that God requires. But can we keep
all of God's commandments? Can a man receive moral ability such as enables
him to obey every one of them? Certainly he can. By every token, man can,
through prayer, obtain ability to do this very thing.
Does God give commandments which men cannot obey? Is He so
arbitrary, so severe, so unloving, as to issue commandments which cannot
be obeyed? The answer is that in all the annals of Holy Scripture, not a
single instance is recorded of God having commanded any man to do a thing,
which was beyond his power. Is God so unjust and so inconsiderate as to
require of man that which he is unable to render? Surely not. To infer it,
is to slander the character of God.
Let us ponder this thought, a moment: Do earthly parents
require of their children duties which they cannot perform? Where is the
father who would think, even, of being so unjust, and so tyrannical? Is
God less kind and just than faulty, earthly parents? Are they better and
more just than a perfect God? How utterly foolish and untenable a
thought!
In principle, obedience to God is the same quality as
obedience to earthly parents. It implies, in general effect, the giving up
of one's own way, and following that of another; the surrendering of the
will to the will of another; the submission of oneself to the authority
and requirements of a parent. Commands, either from our heavenly Father or
from our earthly father, are love-directing, and all such commands are in
the best interests of those who are commanded. God's commands are issued
neither in severity nor tyranny. They are always issued in love and in our
interests, and so it behooves us to heed and obey them. In other words,
and appraised at its lowest value -- God having issued His commands to us,
in order to promote our good, it pays, therefore, to be obedient.
Obedience brings its own reward. God has ordained it so, and since He has,
even human reason can realize that He would never demand that which is out
of our power to render.
Obedience is love, fulfilling every command, love
expressing itself. Obedience, therefore, is not a hard demand made upon
us, any more than is the service a husband renders his wife, or a wife
renders her husband. Love delights to obey, and please whom it loves.
There are no hardships in love. There may be exactions, but no irk. There
are no impossible tasks for love.
With what simplicity and in what a matter-of-fact way does
the Apostle John say: "And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because
we keep His commandments, and do those things which are pleasing in His
sight."
This is obedience, running ahead of all and every command.
It is love, obeying by anticipation. They greatly err, and even sin, who
declare that men are bound to commit iniquity, either because of
environment, or heredity, or tendency. God's commands are not grievous.
Their ways are ways of pleasantness, and their paths peace. The task which
falls to obedience is not a hard one. "For My yoke is easy, and My burden
is light."
Far be it from our heavenly Father, to demand
impossibilities of His children. It is possible to please Him in all
things, for He is not hard to please. He is neither a hard master, nor an
austere lord, "taking up that which he lays not down, and reaping that
which he did not sow." Thank God, it is possible for every child of God,
to please his heavenly Father! It is really much easier to please Him than
to please men. Moreover, we may know when we please Him. This is
the witness of the Spirit -- the inward Divine assurance, given to all the
children of God that they are doing their Father's will, and that their
ways are well-pleasing in His sight.
God's commandments are righteous and founded in justice
and wisdom. "Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just
and good." "Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints." God's
commandments, then, can be obeyed by all who seek supplies of grace which
enable them to obey. These commandments must be obeyed. God's
government is at stake. God's children are under obligation to obey Him;
disobedience cannot be permitted. The spirit of rebellion is the very
essence of sin. It is repudiation of God's authority, which God cannot
tolerate. He never has done so, and a declaration of His attitude was part
of the reason the Son of the Highest was made manifest among men:
"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak
through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but
after the Spirit."
If any should complain that humanity, under the fall, is
too weak and helpless to obey these high commands of God, the reply is in
order that, through the atonement of Christ, man is enabled to obey. The
Atonement is God's Enabling Act. That which God works in us, in
regeneration and through the agency of the Holy Spirit, bestows enabling
grace sufficient for all that is required of us, under the Atonement. This
grace is furnished without measure, in answer to prayer. So that, while
God commands, He, at the same time, stands pledged to give us all
necessary strength of will and grace of soul to meet His demands. This
being true, man is without excuse for his disobedience and eminently
censurable for refusing, or failing, to secure requisite grace, whereby he
may serve the Lord with reverence, and with godly fear.
There is one important consideration those who declare it
to be impossible to keep God's commandments strangely overlook, and that
is the vital truth, which declares that through prayer and faith, man's
nature is changed, and made partaker of the Divine nature; that there is
taken out of him all reluctance to obey God, and that his natural
inability to keep God's commandments, growing out of his fallen and
helpless state, is gloriously removed. By this radical change which is
wrought in his moral nature, a man receives power to obey God in every
way, and to yield full and glad allegiance. Then he can say, "I delight to
do Thy will, O my God." Not only is the rebellion incident to the natural
man removed, but a heart which gladly obeys God's Word, blessedly
received.
If it be claimed, that the unrenewed man, with all the
disabilities of the Fall upon him, cannot obey God, there will be no
denial. But to declare that, after one is renewed by the Holy Spirit, has
received a new nature, and become a child of the King, he cannot obey God,
is to assume a ridiculous attitude, and to display, moreover, a lamentable
ignorance of the work and implications of the Atonement.
Implicit and perfect obedience is the state to which the
man of prayer is called. "Lifting up holy hands, without wrath and
doubting," is the condition of obedient praying. Here inward fidelity and
love, together with outward cleanness are put down as concomitants of
acceptable praying.
John gives the reason for answered prayer in the passage
previously quoted: "And whatsoever we ask we receive of Him because we
keep His commandments and do those things which are pleasing in His
sight."
Seeing that the keeping of God's commandments is here set
forth as the reason why He answers prayer, it is to be reasonably assumed
that we can keep God's commandments, can do those things
which are pleasing to Him. Would God make the keeping of His commandments
a condition of effectual prayer, think you, if He knew we could not keep
His statutes? Surely, surely not!
Obedience can ask with boldness at the Throne of grace,
and those who exercise it are the only ones who can ask, after that
fashion. The disobedient folk are timid in their approach and hesitant in
their supplication. They are halted by reason of their wrong-doing. The
requesting yet obedient child comes into the presence of his father with
confidence and boldness. His very consciousness of obedience gives him
courage and frees him from the dread born of disobedience.
To do God's will without demur, is the joy as it is the
privilege of the successful praying-man. It is he who has clean hands and
a pure heart, that can pray with confidence. In the Sermon on the Mount,
Jesus said:
"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall
enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of My
Father which is in heaven."
To this great deliverance may be added another:
"If ye keep My commandments ye shall abide in My
love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His
love."
"The Christian's trade," says Luther, "is prayer." But the
Christian has another trade to learn, before he proceeds to learn the
secrets of the trade of prayer. He must learn well the trade of perfect
obedience to the Father's will. Obedience follows love, and prayer follows
obedience. The business of real observance of God's commandments
inseparably accompanies the business of real praying.
One who has been disobedient may pray. He may pray for
pardoning mercy and the peace of his soul. He may come to God's footstool
with tears, with confession, with penitent heart, and God will hear him
and answer his prayer. But this kind of praying does not belong to the
child of God, but to the penitent sinner, who has no other way by which to
approach God. It is the possession of the unjustified soul, not of him who
has been saved and reconciled to God.
An obedient life helps prayer. It speeds prayer to the
throne. God cannot help hearing the prayer of an obedient child. He always
has heard His obedient children when they have prayed. Unquestioning
obedience counts much in the sight of God, at the throne of heavenly
grace. It acts like the confluent tides of many rivers, and gives volume
and fulness of flow as well as power to the prayer chamber. An obedient
life is not simply a reformed life. It is not the old life primed and
painted anew nor a church-going life, nor a good veneering of activities.
Neither is it an external conformation to the dictates of public morality.
Far more than all this is combined in a truly obedient Christian,
God-fearing life.
A life of full obedience; a life settled on the most
intimate terms with God; where the will is in full conformity to God's
will; where the outward life shows the fruit of righteousness -- such a
life offers no bar to the inner chamber but rather, like Aaron and Hur, it
lifts up and sustains the hands of prayer.
If you have an earnest desire to pray well, you must learn
how to obey well. If you have a desire to learn to pray, then you must
have an earnest desire to learn how to do God's will. If you desire to
pray to God, you must first have a consuming desire to obey Him. If you
would have free access to God in prayer, then every obstacle in the nature
of sin or disobedience, must be removed. God delights in the prayers of
obedient children. Requests coming from the lips of those who delight to
do His will, reach His ears with great celerity, and incline Him to answer
them with promptitude and abundance. In themselves, tears are not
meritorious. Yet they have their uses in prayer. Tears should baptize our
place of supplication. He who has never wept concerning his sins, has
never really prayed over his sins. Tears, sometimes, is a
penitent's only plea. But tears are for the past, for the sin and the
wrongdoing. There is another step and stage, waiting to be taken. It is
that of unquestioning obedience, and until it is taken, prayer for
blessing and continued sustenance, will be of no avail.
Everywhere in Holy Scripture God is represented as
disapproving of disobedience and condemning sin, and this is as true in
the lives of His elect as it is in the lives of sinners. Nowhere does He
countenance sin, or excuse disobedience. Always, God puts the emphasis
upon obedience to His commands. Obedience to them brings blessing,
disobedience meets with disaster. This is true, in the Word of God, from
its beginning to its close. It is because of this, that the men of prayer,
in Holy Writ, had such influence with God. Obedient men, always, have been
the closest to God. These are they who have prayed well and have received
great things from God, who have brought great things to pass.
Obedience to God counts tremendously in the realm of
prayer. This fact cannot be emphasized too much or too often. To plead for
a religious faith which tolerates sinning, is to cut the ground from under
the feet of effectual praying. To excuse sinning by the plea that
obedience to God is not possible to unregenerate men, is to discount the
character of the new birth, and to place men where effective praying is
not possible. At one time Jesus broke out with a very pertinent and
personal question, striking right to the core of disobedience, when He
said: "Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things I
say?"
He who would pray, must obey. He who would get anything
out of his prayers, must be in perfect harmony with God. Prayer puts into
those who sincerely pray a spirit of obedience, for the spirit of
disobedience is not of God and belongs not to God's praying
hosts.
An obedient life is a great help to prayer. In fact, an
obedient life is a necessity to prayer, to the sort which accomplishes
things. The absence of an obedient life makes prayer an empty performance,
a mere misnomer. A penitent sinner seeks pardon and salvation and has an
answer to his prayers even with a life stained and debauched with sin. But
God's royal intercessors come before Him with royal lives. Holy
living promotes holy praying. God's intercessors "lift up holy hands," the
symbols of righteous, obedient lives.
"Many exemplary men have I known, holy in heart and
life, within my four score years. But one equal to John Fletcher -- one
so inwardly and outwardly obedient and devoted to God -- I have not
known." -- JOHN WESLEY.
IT is worthy of note that the praying to which such
transcendent position is given and from which great results are
attributable, is not simply the saying of prayers, but holy praying. It is
the "prayers of the saints," the prayers of the holy men of God. Behind
such praying, giving to it energy and flame are the men and women who are
wholly devoted to God, who are entirely separated from sin, and fully
separated unto God. These are they who always give energy, force and
strength to praying.
Our Lord Jesus Christ was preeminent in praying, because
He was preeminent in saintliness. An entire dedication to God, a full
surrender, which carries with it the whole being, in a flame of holy
consecration -- all this gives wings to faith and energy to prayer. It
opens the door to the throne of grace, and brings strong influence to bear
on Almighty God.
The "lifting up of holy hands" is essential to Christly
praying. It is not, however, a holiness which only dedicates a closet to
God, which sets apart merely an hour to Him, but a consecration which
takes hold of the entire man, which dedicates the whole life to
God.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, "holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinners," had full liberty of approach and ready access to
God in prayer. And He had this free and full access because of His
unquestioning obedience to His Father. Right through His earthly life His
supreme care and desire was to do the will of His Father. And this fact,
coupled with another -- the consciousness of having so ordered His life --
gave Him confidence and assurance, which enabled Him to draw near to the
throne of grace with unbounded confidence, born of obedience, and
promising acceptance, audience, and answer.
Loving obedience puts us where we can "ask anything in His
name," with the assurance, that "He will do it." Loving obedience brings
us into the prayer realm, and makes us beneficiaries of the wealth of
Christ, and of the riches of His grace, through the coming of the Holy
Spirit who will abide with us, and be in us. Cheerful obedience to God,
qualifies us to pray effectually.
This obedience which not only qualifies but fore-runs
prayer, must be loving, constant, always doing the Father's will, and
cheerfully following the path of God's commands.
In the instance of King Hezekiah, it was a potent plea
which changed God's decree that he should die and not live. The stricken
ruler called upon God to remember how that he had walked before Him in
truth, and with a perfect heart. With God, this counted. He hearkened to
the petition, and, as a result, death found his approach to Hezekiah
barred for fifteen years.
Jesus learned obedience in the school of suffering, and,
at the same time, He learned prayer in the school of obedience. Just as it
is the prayer of a righteous man which availeth much, so it is
righteousness which is obedience to God. A righteous man is an obedient
man, and he it is, who can pray effectually, who can accomplish great
things when he betakes himself to his knees.
True praying, be it remembered, is not mere sentiment, nor
poetry, nor eloquent utterance. Nor does it consist of saying in honeyed
cadences, "Lord, Lord." Prayer is not a mere form of words; it is not just
calling upon a Name. Prayer is obedience. It is founded on the adamantine
rock of obedience to God. Only those who obey have the right to pray.
Behind the praying must be the doing; and it is the constant doing of
God's will in daily life which gives prayer its potency, as our Lord
plainly taught:
"Not every one which saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall
enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of My
Father which is in heaven. Many will say unto Me in that day, Lord, have
we not prophesied in Thy Name, and in Thy Name have cast out devils? And
in Thy Name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto
them, I never knew you; depart from Me, ye that worketh
iniquity."
No name, however precious and powerful, can protect and
give efficiency to prayer which is unaccompanied by the doing of God's
will. Neither can the doing, without the praying, protect from Divine
disapproval. If the will of God does not master the life, the praying will
be nothing but sickly sentiment. If prayer do not inspire, sanctify and
direct our work, then self-will enters, to ruin both work and
worker.
How great and manifold are the misconceptions of the true
elements and functionings of prayer! There are many who earnestly desire
to obtain an answer to their prayers but who go unrewarded and unblest.
They fix their minds on some promise of God and then endeavour by dint of
dogged perseverance, to summon faith sufficient to lay hold upon, and
claim it. This fixing of the mind on some great promise may avail in strengthening faith, but, to this holding on to the promise must be
added the persistent and importunate prayer that expects, and waits till
faith grows exceedingly. And who is there that is able and competent to do
such praying save the man who readily, cheerfully and continually, obeys God?
Faith, in its highest form, is the attitude as well as the
act of a soul surrendered to God, in whom His Word and His Spirit dwells.
It is true that faith must exist in some form, or another, in order to
prompt praying; but in its strongest form, and in its largest results,
faith is the fruit of prayer. That faith increases the ability and the
efficiency of prayer is true; but it is likewise true that prayer
increases the ability and efficiency of faith. Prayer and faith, work, act
and react, one upon the other.
Obedience to God helps faith as no other attribute
possibly can. When obedience -- implicit recognition of the validity, the
paramountcy of the Divine commands -- faith ceases to be an almost
superhuman task. It requires no straining to exercise it. Obedience to God
makes it easy to believe and trust God. Where the spirit of obedience
fully impregnates the soul; where the will is perfectly surrendered to
God; where there is a fixed, unalterable purpose to obey God, faith almost
believes itself. Faith then becomes almost involuntary. After obedience it
is, naturally, the next step, and it is easily and readily taken. The
difficulty in prayer is not with faith, but with obedience, which is
faith's foundation.
We must look well to our obedience, to the secret springs
of action, to the loyalty of our heart to God, if we would pray well, and
desire to get the most out of our praying. Obedience is the groundwork of
effectual praying; this it is, which brings us nigh to God.
The lack of obedience in our lives breaks down our
praying. Quite often, the life is in revolt and this places us where
praying is almost impossible, except it be for pardoning mercy.
Disobedient living produces mighty poor praying. Disobedience shuts the
door of the inner chamber, and bars the way to the Holy of holies. No man
can pray -- really pray -- who does not obey.
The will must be surrendered to God as a primary condition
of all successful praying. Everything about us gets its colouring from our
inmost character. The secret will makes character and controls conduct.
The will, therefore, plays an important part in all successful praying.
There can be no praying in its richest implication and truest sense, where
the will is not wholly and fully surrendered to God. This unswerving
loyalty to God is an utterly indispensable condition of the best, the
truest, the most effectual praying. We have "simply got to trust
and obey; there's no other way, to be happy in Jesus -- but to
trust, and obey! "
"David Brainerd was pursued by unearthly adversaries,
who were resolved to rob him of his guerdon. He knew he must never quit
his armour, but lie down to rest, with his corselet laced. The stains
that marred the perfection of his lustrous dress, the spots of rust on
his gleaming shield, are imperceptible to us; but they were, to him, the
source of much sorrow and ardency of yearning." -- LIFE OF DAVID
BRAINERD.
THE description of the Christian soldier given by Paul in
the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, is compact and
comprehensive. He is depicted as being ever in the conflict, which has
many fluctuating seasons -- seasons of prosperity and adversity, light and
darkness, victory and defeat. He is to pray at all seasons, and with all
prayer, this to be added to the armour in which he is to fare forth to
battle. At all times, he is to have the full panoply of prayer. The
Christian soldier, if he fight to win, must pray much. By this means,
only, is he enabled to defeat his inveterate enemy, the devil, together
with the Evil One's manifold emissaries. "Praying always, with all
prayer," is the Divine direction given him. This covers all seasons, and
embraces all manner of praying.
Christian soldiers, fighting the good fight of faith, have
access to a place of retreat, to which they continually repair for prayer.
"Praying always, with all prayer," is a clear statement of the imperative
need of much praying, and of many kinds of praying, by him who, fighting
the good fight of faith, would win out, in the end, over all his
foes.
The Revised Version puts it this way: (Note from the webmaster: KING JAMES BIBLE SHOULD HAVE BEEN USED!!!!)
"With all prayer and supplication, praying at all
seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and
supplications, for all saints, and on my behalf, that utterance may be
given unto me, in opening my mouth to make known with boldness the
mystery of the Gospel, for which I am in bonds."
It cannot be stated too frequently that the life of a
Christian is a warfare, an intense conflict, a lifelong contest. It is a
battle, moreover, waged against invisible foes, who are ever alert, and
ever seeking to entrap, deceive, and ruin the souls of men. The life to
which Holy Scripture calls men is no picnic, or holiday junketing. It is
no pastime, no pleasure jaunt. It entails effort, wrestling, struggling;
it demands the putting forth of the full energy of the spirit in order to
frustrate the foe and to come off, at the last, more than conqueror. It is
no primrose path, no rose-scented dalliance. From start to finish, it is
war. From the hour in which he first draws sword, to that in which he
doffs his harness, the Christian warrior is compelled to "endure hardness
like a good soldier."
What a misconception many people have of the Christian
life! How little the average church member appears to know of the
character of the conflict, and of its demands upon him! How ignorant he
seems to be of the enemies he must encounter, if he engage to serve God
faithfully and so succeed in getting to heaven and receive the crown of
life! He seems scarcely to realize that the world, the flesh and the devil
will oppose his onward march, and will defeat him utterly, unless he give
himself to constant vigilance and unceasing prayer.
The Christian soldier wrestles not against flesh and
blood, but against spiritual wickedness in high places. Or, as the
Scriptural margin reads, "wicked spirits in high places." What a fearful
array of forces are set against him who would make his way through the
wilderness of this world to the portals of the Celestial City! It is no
surprise, therefore, to find Paul, who understood the character of the
Christian life so well, and who was so thoroughly informed as to the
malignity and number of the foes, which the disciple of the Lord must
encounter, carefully and plainly urging him to "put on the whole armour of
God," and "to pray with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit." Wise,
with a great wisdom, would the present generation be if all professors of
our faith could be induced to realize this all-important and vital truth,
which is so absolutely indispensable to a successful Christian
life.
It is just at this point in much present-day Christian
profession, that one may find its greatest defect. There is little, or
nothing, of the soldier element in it. The discipline, self-denial, spirit
of hardship, determination, so prominent in and belonging to the military
life, are, one and all, largely wanting. Yet the Christian life is warfare, all the way.
How comprehensive, pointed and striking are all Paul's
directions to the Christian soldier, who is bent on thwarting the devil
and saving his soul alive! First of all, he must possess a clear idea of
the character of the life on which he has entered. Then, he must know
something of his foes -- the adversaries of his immortal soul -- their
strength, their skill, their malignity. Knowing, therefore, something of
the character of the enemy, and realizing the need of preparation to
overcome them, he is prepared to hear the Apostle's decisive
conclusion:
"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in
he power of His might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be
able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Wherefore, take unto you
the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand in the evil day,
and having done all, to stand."
All these directions end in a climax; and that climax is
prayer. How can the brave warrior for Christ be made braver still? How can
the strong soldier be made stronger still? How can the victorious battler
be made still more victorious? Here are Paul's explicit directions to that
end:
"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in
the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and
supplication for all saints."
Prayer, and more prayer, adds to the fighting qualities
and the more certain victories of God's good fighting-men. The power of
prayer is most forceful on the battle-field amid the din and strife of the
conflict. Paul was preeminently a soldier of the Cross. For him, life was
no flowery bed of ease. He was no dress-parade, holiday soldier, whose
only business was to don a uniform on set occasions. His was a life of
intense conflict, the facing of many adversaries, the exercise of
unsleeping vigilance and constant effort. And, at its close -- in sight of
the end -- we hear him chanting his final song of victory, a I have fought
a good fight," and reading between the lines, we see that he is more than
conqueror!
In his Epistle to the Romans, Paul indicates the
nature of his soldier-life, giving us some views of the kind of praying
needed for such a career. He writes:
"Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus
Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together
with me in your prayers to God for me, that I may be delivered from them
that do not believe in Judaea."
Paul had foes in Judaea -- foes who beset and
opposed him in the form of "unbelieving men" and this, added to other
weighty reasons, led him to urge the Roman Christians to "strive with him
in prayer." That word "strive" indicated wrestling, the putting forth of
great effort. This is the kind of effort, and this the sort of spirit,
which must possess the Christian soldier.
Here is a great soldier, a captain-general, in the great
struggle, faced by malignant forces who seek his ruin. His force is
well-nigh spent. What reinforcements can he count on? What can give help
and bring success to a warrior in such a pressing emergency? It is a
critical moment in the conflict. What force can be added to the energy of
his own prayers? The answer is -- in the prayers of others, even the
prayers of his brethren who were at Rome. These, he believes, will bring
him additional aid, so that he can win his fight, overcome his
adversaries, and, ultimately, prevail.
The Christian soldier is to pray at all seasons, and under
all circumstances. His praying must be arranged so as to cover his times
of peace as well as his hours of active conflict. It must be available in
his marching and his fighting. Prayer must diffuse all effort, impregnate
all ventures, decide all issues. The Christian soldier must be as intense
in his praying as in his fighting, for his victories will depend very much
more on his praying than on his fighting. Fervent supplication must be
added to steady resolve, prayer and supplication must supplement the
armour of God. The Holy Spirit must aid the supplication with His own
strenuous plea. And the soldier must pray in the Spirit. In this, as in
other forms of warfare, eternal vigilance is the price of victory; and
thus, watchfulness and persistent perseverance, must mark the every
activity of the Christian warrior.
The soldier-prayer must reflect its profound concern for
the success and well-being of the whole army. The battle is not altogether
a personal matter; victory cannot be achieved for self, alone. There is a
sense, in which the entire army of Christ is involved. The cause of God,
His saints, their woes and trials, their duties and crosses, all should
find a voice and a pleader in the Christian soldier, when he prays. He
dare not limit his praying to himself. Nothing dries up spiritual
secretions so certainly and completely; nothing poisons the fountain of
spiritual life so effectively; nothing acts in such deadly fashion, as
selfish praying.
Note carefully that the Christian's armour will avail him
nothing, unless prayer be added. This is the pivot, the connecting link of
the armour of God. This holds it together, and renders it effective. God's
true soldier plans his campaigns, arranges his battle-forces, and conducts
his conflicts, with prayer. It is all important and absolutely essential
to victory, that prayer should so impregnate the life that every breath
will be a petition, every sigh a supplication. The Christian soldier must
needs be always fighting. He should, of sheer necessity, be always
praying.
The Christian soldier is compelled to constant
picket-duty. He must always be on his guard. He is faced by a foe who
never sleeps, who is always alert, and ever prepared to take advantage of
the fortunes of war. Watchfulness is a cardinal principle with Christ's
warrior, "watch and pray," forever sounding in his ears. He cannot dare to
be asleep at his post. Such a lapse brings him not only under the
displeasure of the Captain of his salvation, but exposes him to added
danger. Watchfulness, therefore, imperatively constitutes the duty of the
soldier of the Lord.
In the New Testament, there are three different words,
which are translated "watch." The first means "absence of sleep," and
implies a wakeful frame of mind, as opposed to listlessness; it is an
enjoinder to keep awake, circumspect, attentive, constant, vigilant. The
second word means "fully awake," -- a state induced by some rousing
effort, which faculty excited to attention and interest, active, cautious,
lest through carelessness or indolence, some destructive calamity should
suddenly evolve. The third word means "to be calm and collected in
spirit," dispassionate, untouched by slumberous or beclouding influences,
a wariness against all pitfalls and beguilements.
All three definitions are used by St. Paul. Two of them
are employed in connection with prayer. Watchfulness intensified, is a
requisite for prayer. Watchfulness must guard and cover the whole
spiritual man, and fit him for prayer. Everything resembling
unpreparedness or non-vigilance, is death to prayer.
In Ephesians, Paul gives prominence to the duty of
constant watchfulness, "Watching thereunto with all perseverance and
supplication." Watch, he says, watch, WATCH! "And what I say unto
you, I say unto all, Watch."
Sleepless wakefulness is the price one must pay for
victory over his spiritual foes. Rest assured that the devil never falls
asleep. He is ever "walking about, seeking whom he may devour." Just as a
shepherd must never be careless and unwatchful lest the wolf devour his
sheep, so the Christian soldier must ever have his eyes wide open,
implying his possession of a spirit which neither slumbers nor grows
careless. The inseparable companions and safeguards of prayer are
vigilance, watchfulness, and a mounted guard. In writing to the Colossians
Paul brackets these inseparable qualities together: "Continue in prayer,"
he enjoins, "and watch in the same, with thanksgiving."
When will Christians more thoroughly learn the twofold
lesson, that they are called to a great warfare, and that in order to get
the victory they must give themselves to unsleeping watchfulness and
unceasing prayer?
"Be sober, be vigilant," says Peter, "because your
adversary, the devil, walketh about seeking whom he may
devour."
God's Church is a militant host. Its warfare is with
unseen forces of evil. God's people compose an army fighting to establish
His kingdom in the earth. Their aim is to destroy the sovereignty of
Satan, and over its ruins, erect the Kingdom of God, which is
"righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." This militant army is
composed of individual soldiers of the Cross, and the armour of God is
needed for its defence. Prayer must be added as that which crowns the
whole.
"Stand then in His great might,With all His
strength endued;But take, to arm you for the fight,The
panoply of God."
Prayer is too simple, too evident a duty, to need
definition. Necessity gives being and shape to prayer. Its importance is
so absolute, that the Christian soldier's life, in all the breadth and
intensity of it, should be one of prayer. The entire life of a Christian
soldier -- its being, intention, implication and action -- are all
dependent on its being a life of prayer. Without prayer -- no matter what
else he have -- the Christian soldier's life will be feeble, and
ineffective, and constitute him an easy prey for his spiritual
enemies.
Christian experience will be sapless, and Christian
influence will be dry and arid, unless prayer has a high place in the
life. Without prayer the Christian graces will wither and die. Without
prayer, we may add, preaching is edgeless and a vain thing, and the Gospel
loses its wings and its loins. Christ is the lawgiver of prayer, and Paul
is His Apostle of prayer. Both declare its primacy and importance, and
demonstrate the fact of its indispensability. Their prayer-directions
cover all places, include all times, and comprehend all things. How, then,
can the Christian soldier hope or dream of victory, unless he be fortified
by its power? How can he fail, if in addition to putting on the armour of
God he be, at all times and seasons, "watching unto prayer"?
"How constantly, in the Scriptures, do we encounter
such words as 'field,' 'seed,' 'sower,' 'reaper,' 'seed-time,'
'harvest'! Employing such metaphors interprets a fact of nature by a
parable of grace. The field is the world and the good seed is the Word
of God .Whether the Word be spoken or written, it is the power of God
unto salvation. In our work of evangelism, the whole world is our field,
every creature the object of effort and every book and tract, a seed of
God." -- DAVID FANT, JR.
GOD'S Word is a record of prayer -- of praying men and
their achievements, of the Divine warrant of prayer and of the
encouragement given to those who pray. No one can read the instances,
commands, examples, multiform statements which concern themselves with
prayer, without realizing that the cause of God, and the success of His
work in this world is committed to prayer; that praying men have been
God's vicegerents on earth; that prayerless men have never been used of
Him.
A reverence for God's holy Name is closely related to a
high regard for His Word. This hallowing of God's Name; the ability to do
His will on earth, as it is done in heaven; the establishment and glory of
God's kingdom, are as much involved in prayer, as when Jesus taught men
the Universal Prayer. That "men ought always to pray and not to faint," is
as fundamental to God's cause, today, as when Jesus Christ enshrined that
great truth in the immortal settings of the Parable of the Importunate
Widow.
As God's house is called "the house of prayer," because
prayer is the most important of its holy offices; so by the same token,
the Bible may be called the Book of Prayer. Prayer is the great theme and
content of its message to mankind.
God's Word is the basis, as it is the directory of the
prayer of faith. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all
wisdom," says St. Paul, "teaching and admonishing one another in psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the
Lord."
As this word of Christ dwelling in us richly is transmuted
and assimilated, it issues in praying. Faith is constructed of the Word
and the Spirit, and faith is the body and substance of prayer.
In many of its aspects, prayer is dependent upon the Word
of God. Jesus says:
"If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye
shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."
The Word of God is the fulcrum upon which the lever of
prayer is placed, and by which things are mightily moved. God has
committed Himself, His purpose and His promise to prayer. His Word becomes
the basis, the inspiration of our praying, and there are circumstances
under which, by importunate prayer, we may obtain an addition, or an
enlargement of His promises. It is said of the old saints that they,
"through faith obtained promises." There would seem to be in prayer the
capacity for going even beyond the Word, of getting even beyond His
promise, into the very presence of God, Himself.
Jacob wrestled, not so much with a promise, as with the
Promiser. We must take hold of the Promiser, lest the promise prove
nugatory. Prayer may well be defined as that force which vitalizes and
energizes the Word of God, by taking hold of God, Himself. By taking hold
of the Promiser, prayer reissues, and makes personal the promise. "There
is none that stirreth up himself to take hold of Me," is God's sad lament.
"Let him take hold of My strength, that he may make peace with Me," is
God's recipe for prayer.
By Scriptural warrant, prayer may be divided into the
petition of faith and that of submission. The prayer of faith is based on
the written Word, for "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of
God." It receives its answer, inevitably -- the very thing for which it
prays.
The prayer of submission is without a definite word of
promise, so to speak, but takes hold of God with a lowly and contrite
spirit, and asks and pleads with Him, for that which the soul desires.
Abraham had no definite promise that God would spare Sodom. Moses had no
definite promise that God would spare Israel; on the contrary, there was
the declaration of His wrath, and of His purpose to destroy. But the
devoted leader gained his plea with God, when he interceded for the
Israelites with incessant prayers and many tears. Daniel had no definite
promise that God would reveal to him the meaning of the king's dream, but
he prayed specifically, and God answered definitely.
The Word of God is made effectual and operative, by the
process and practice of prayer. The Word of the Lord came to Elijah, "Go
show thyself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the earth." Elijah showed
himself to Ahab; but the answer to his prayer did not come, until he had
pressed his fiery prayer upon the Lord seven times.
Paul had the definite promise from Christ, that he "would
be delivered from the people and the Gentiles," but we find him exhorting
the Romans in the urgent and solemn manner concerning this very
matter:
"Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus
Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together
with me in your prayers to God for me; that I may be delivered from them
that do not believe in Judaea, and that my service which I have for
Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints."
The Word of God is a great help in prayer. If it be lodged
and written in our hearts, it will form an outflowing current of prayer,
full and irresistible. Promises, stored in the heart, are to be the fuel
from which prayer receives life and warmth, just as the coal, stored in
the earth, ministers to our comfort on stormy days and wintry nights. The
Word of God is the food, by which prayer is nourished and made strong.
Prayer, like man, cannot live by bread alone, "but by every word which
proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord."
Unless the vital forces of prayer are supplied by God's
Word, prayer, though earnest, even vociferous, in its urgency, is, in
reality, flabby, and vapid, and void. The absence of vital force in
praying, can be traced to the absence of a constant supply of God's Word,
to repair the waste, and renew the life. He who would learn to pray well,
must first study God's Word, and store it in his memory and
thought.
When we consult God's Word, we find that no duty is more
binding, more exacting, than that of prayer. On the other hand, we
discover that no privilege is more exalted, no habit more richly owned of
God. No promises are more radiant, more abounding, more explicit, more
often reiterated, than those which are attached to prayer. "All things,
whatsoever" are received by prayer, because "all things whatsoever" are
promised. There is no limit to the provisions, included in the promises to
prayer, and no exclusion from its promises. "Every one that asketh,
receiveth." The word of our Lord is to this all-embracing effect: "If ye
shall ask anything in My Name, I will do it."
Here are some of the comprehensive, and exhaustive
statements of the Word of God about prayer, the things to be taken in by
prayer, the strong promise made in answer to prayer:
"Pray without ceasing;" "continue in prayer;"
"continuing instant in prayer;" "in everything by prayer, let your
request be made known unto God;" "pray always, pray and not faint;" "men
should pray everywhere;" "praying always, with all prayer and
supplication."
What clear and strong statements are those which are put
in the Divine record, to furnish us with a sure basis of faith, and to
urge, constrain and encourage us to pray! How wide the range of prayer, as
given us, in the Divine Revelation! How these Scriptures incite us to seek
the God of prayer, with all our wants, with all our burdens!
In addition to these statements left on record for our
encouragement, the sacred pages teem with facts, examples, incidents, and
observations, stressing the importance and the absolute necessity of
prayer, and putting emphasis on its all-prevailing power.
The utmost reach and full benefit of the rich promises of
the Word of God, should humbly be received by us, and put to the test. The
world will never receive the full benefits of the Gospel until this be
done. Neither Christian experience nor Christian living will be what they
ought to be till these Divine promises have been fully tested by those who
pray. By prayer, we bring these promises of God's holy will into the realm
of the actual and the real. Prayer is the philosopher's stone which
transmutes them into gold.
If it be asked, what is to be done in order to render
God's promises real, the answer is, that we must pray, until the words of
the promise are clothed upon with the rich raiment of
fulfilment.
God's promises are altogether too large to be mastered by
desultory praying. When we examine ourselves, all too often, we discover
that our praying does not rise to the demands of the situation; is so
limited that it is little more than a mere oasis amid the waste and desert
of the world's sin. Who of us, in our praying, measures up to this promise
of our Lord:
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on
Me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these
shall he do, because I go to My Father."
How comprehensive, how far reaching, how all-embracing!
How much is here, for the glory of God, how much for the good of man! How
much for the manifestation of Christ's enthroned power, how much for the
reward of abundant faith! And how great and gracious are the results which
can be made to accrue from the exercise of commensurate, believing
prayer!
Look, for a moment, at another of God's great promises,
and discover how we may be undergirded by the Word as we pray, and on what
firm ground we may stand on which to make our petitions to our God:
"If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye
shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."
In these comprehensive words, God turns Himself over to
the will of His people. When Christ becomes our all-in-all, prayer lays
God's treasures at our feet. Primitive Christianity had an easy and
practical solution of the situation, and got all which God had to give.
That simple and terse solution is recorded in John's First
Epistle:
"Whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we
keep His commandments, and do those things which are pleasing in His
sight."
Prayer, coupled with loving obedience, is the way to put
God to the test, and to make prayer answer all ends and all things.
Prayer, joined to the Word of God, hallows and makes sacred all God's
gifts. Prayer is not simply to get things from God, but to make those
things holy, which already have been received from Him. It is not merely
to get a blessing, but also to be able to give a blessing. Prayer makes
common things holy and secular things, sacred. It receives things from God
with thanksgiving and hallows them with thankful hearts, and devoted
service.
In the First Epistle to Timothy, Paul gives us
these words:
"For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be
refused, if it be received with thanksgiving. For it is sanctified by
the word of God and prayer."
That is a statement which gives a negative to mere
asceticism. God's good gifts are to be holy, not only by God's creative
power, but, also, because they are made holy to us by prayer. We receive
them, appropriate them and sanctify them by prayer.
Doing God's will, and having His Word abiding in us, is an
imperative of effectual praying. But, it may be asked, how are we to know
what God's will is? The answer is, by studying His Word, by hiding it in
our hearts, and by letting the Word dwell in us richly. "The entrance of
Thy word, giveth light."
To know God's will in prayer, we must be filled with God's
Spirit, who maketh intercession for the saints, and in the saints,
according to the will of God. To be filled with God's Spirit, to be filled
with God's Word, is to know God's will. It is to be put in such a frame of
mind, to be found in such a state of heart, as will enable us to read and
interpret aright the purposes of the Infinite. Such filling of the heart,
with the Word and the Spirit, gives us an insight into the will of the
Father, and enables us to rightly discern His will, and puts within us, a
disposition of mind and heart to make it the guide and compass of our
lives.
Epaphras prayed that the Colossians might stand "perfect
and complete in all the will of God." This is proof positive that, not
only may we know the will of God, but that we may know all the will
of God. And not only may we know all the will of God, but we may do all the will of God. We may, moreover, do all the will of God, not
occasionally, or by a mere impulse, but with a settled habit of conduct.
Still further, it shows us that we may not only do the will of God
externally, but from the heart, doing it cheerfully, without reluctance,
or secret disinclination, or any drawing or holding back from the intimate
presence of the Lord.
Back to Top XIII. PRAYER AND THE WORD OF GOD (Continued)
"Some years ago a man was travelling in the wilds of
Kentucky. He had with him a large sum of money and was well armed. He
put up at a log-house one night, but was much concerned with the rough
appearance of the men who came and went from this abode. He retired
early but not to sleep. At midnight he heard the dogs barking furiously
and the sound of someone entering the cabin. Peering through a chink in
the boards of his room, he saw a stranger with a gun in his hand.
Another man sat before the fire. The traveller concluded they were
planning to rob him, and prepared to defend himself and his property.
Presently the newcomer took down a copy of the Bible, read a chapter
aloud, and then knelt down and prayed. The traveller dismissed his
fears, put his revolver away and lay down, to sleep peacefully until
morning light. And all because a Bible was in the cabin, and its owner a
man of prayer." -- REV. F. F. SHOUP.
PRAYER has all to do with the success of the preaching of
the Word. This, Paul clearly teaches in that familiar and pressing request
he made to the Thessalonians:
"Finally, brethren, pray for us that the Word of the
Lord may have free course, and be glorified."
Prayer opens the way for the Word of God to run without
let or hindrance, and creates the atmosphere which is favourable to the
word accomplishing its purpose. Prayer puts wheels under God's Word, and
gives wings to the angel of the Lord "having the everlasting Gospel to
preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and
kindred, and tongue, and people." Prayer greatly helps the Word of the
Lord.
The Parable of the Sower is a notable study of preaching,
showing its differing effects and describing the diversity of hearers. The
wayside hearers are legion. The soil lies all unprepared either by
previous thought or prayer; as a consequence, the devil easily takes away
the seed (which is the Word of God) and dissipating all good impressions,
renders the work of the sower futile. No one for a moment believes, that
so much of present-day sowing would go fruitless if only the hearers would
prepare the ground of their hearts beforehand by prayer and
meditation.
Similarly with the stony-ground hearers, and the
thorny-ground hearers. Although the word lodges in their hearts and begins
to sprout, yet all is lost, chiefly because there is no prayer or
watchfulness or cultivation following. The good-ground hearers are
profited by the sowing, simply because their minds have been prepared for
the reception of the seed, and that, after hearing, they have cultivated
the seed sown in their hearts, by the exercise of prayer. All this gives
peculiar emphasis to the conclusion of this striking parable: "Take heed,
therefore, how ye hear." And in order that we may take heed how we
hear, it is needful to give ourselves continually to prayer.
We have got to believe that underlying God's Word
is prayer, and upon prayer, its final success will depend. In the Book
ofIsaiah we read:
"So shall My word be that goeth out of My mouth; it
shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I
please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."
In Psalm 19, David magnifies the Word of God in six
statements concerning it. It converts the soul, makes wise the simple,
rejoices the heart, enlightens the eyes, endures eternally, and is true
and righteous altogether. The Word of God is perfect, sure, right, pure.
It is heart-searching, and at the same time purifying, in its effect. It
is no surprise therefore that after considering the deep spirituality of
the Word of God, its power to search the inner nature of man, and its deep
purity, the Psalmist should close his dissertation with this
passage:
"Who can understand his errors?" And then praying
after this fashion: "Cleanse Thou me from secret faults. Keep back Thy
servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me.
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart be acceptable
in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer."
James recognizes the deep spirituality of the Word, and
its inherent saving power, in the following exhortation:
"Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity
of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is
able to save your souls."
And Peter talks along the same line, when describing the
saving power of the Word of God:
"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of
incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth
forever."
Not only does Peter speak of being born again, by the
incorruptible Word of God, but he informs us that to grow in grace we must
be like new-born babes, desiring or feeding upon the "sincere milk of the
Word."
That is not to say, however, that the mere form of words
as they occur in the Bible have in them any saving efficacy. But the Word
of God, be it remembered, is impregnated with the Holy Spirit. And just as
there is a Divine element in the words of Scripture, so also is the same
Divine element to be found in all true preaching of the Word, which is
able to save and convert the soul.
Prayer invariably begets a love for the Word of God, and
sets people to the reading of it. Prayer leads people to obey the Word of
God, and puts into the heart which obeys a joy unspeakable. Praying people
and Bible-reading people are the same sort of folk. The God of the Bible
and the God of prayer are one. God speaks to man in the Bible; man speaks
to God in prayer. One reads the Bible to discover God's will; he prays in
order that he may receive power to do that will. Bible-reading and praying
are the distinguishing traits of those who strive to know and please God.
And just as prayer begets a love for the Scriptures, and sets people to
reading the Bible, so, also, does prayer cause men and women to visit the
house of God, to hear the Scriptures expounded. Church-going is closely
connected with the Bible, not so much because the Bible cautions us
against "forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of
some is," but because in God's house, God's chosen minister declares His
Word to dying men, explains the Scriptures, and enforces their teachings
upon his hearers. And prayer germinates a resolve, in those who practise
it, not to forsake the house of God.
Prayer begets a church-going conscience, a church-loving
heart, a church-supporting spirit. It is the praying people, who make it a
matter of conscience, to attend the preaching of the Word; who delight in
its reading; exposition; who support it with their influence and their
means. Prayer exalts the Word of God and gives it preeminence in the
estimation of those who faithfully and wholeheartedly call upon the Name
of the Lord.
Prayer draws its very life from the Bible, and has no
standing ground outside of the warrant of the Scriptures. Its very
existence and character is dependent on revelation made by God to man in
His holy Word. Prayer, in turn, exalts this same revelation, and turns men
toward that Word. The nature, necessity and all-comprehending character of
prayer, is based on the Word of God.
Psalm 119 is a directory of God's Word. With three or four
exceptions, each verse contains a word which identifies, or locates, the
Word of God. Quite often, the writer breaks out into supplication, several
times praying, "Teach me Thy statutes." So deeply impressed is he with the
wonders of God's Word, and of the need for Divine illumination wherewith
to see and understand the wonderful things recorded therein, that he
fervently prays:
"Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous
things out of Thy law."
From the opening of this wonderful Psalm to its close,
prayer and God's Word are intertwined. Almost every phase of God's Word is
touched upon by this inspired writer. So thoroughly convinced was the
Psalmist of the deep spiritual power of the Word of God that he makes this
declaration:
"Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin
against Thee."
Here the Psalmist found his protection against sinning. By
having God's Word hidden in his heart; in having his whole being
thoroughly impregnated with that Word; in being brought completely under
its benign and gracious influence, he was enabled to walk to and fro in
the earth, safe from the attack of the Evil One, and fortified against a
proneness to wander out of the way.
We find, furthermore, the power of prayer to create a real
love for the Scriptures, and to put within men a nature which will take
pleasure in the Word. In holy ecstasy he cries, "O, how I love Thy law! It
is my meditation all the day." And again: "How sweet are Thy words to my
taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my taste."
Would we have a relish for God's Word? Then let us give
ourselves continually to prayer. He who would have a heart for the reading
of the Bible must not -- dare not -- forget to pray. The man of whom it
can be said, "His delight is in the law of the Lord," is the man who can
truly say, "I delight to visit the place of prayer." No man loves the
Bible, who does not love to pray. No man loves to pray, who does not
delight in the law of the Lord.
Our Lord was a man of prayer, and He magnified the Word of
God, quoting often from the Scriptures. Right through His earthly life
Jesus observed Sabbath-keeping, church-going and the reading of the Word
of God, and had prayer intermingled with them all:
"And He came to Nazareth where He had been brought
up, and as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath
Day, and stood up to read."
Here, let it be said, that no two things are more
essential to a spirit-filled life than Bible-reading and secret prayer; no
two things more helpful to growth in grace; to getting the largest joy out
of a Christian life; toward establishing one in the ways of eternal peace.
The neglect of these all-important duties, presages leanness of soul, loss
of joy, absence of peace, dryness of spirit, decay in all that pertains to
spiritual life. Neglecting these things paves the way for apostasy, and
gives the Evil One an advantage such as he is not likely to ignore.
Reading God's Word regularly, and praying habitually in the secret place
of the Most High puts one where he is absolutely safe from the attacks of
the enemy of souls, and guarantees him salvation and final victory,
through the overcoming power of the Lamb.
"And dear to me the loud 'Amen,'Which echoes
through the blest abode -- Which swells, and sinks, then swells
again,Dies on the walls -- but lives with God! "
PRAYER stands related to places, times, occasions and
circumstances. It has to do with God and with everything which is related
to God, and it has an intimate and special relationship to His house. A
church is a sacred place, set apart from all unhallowed and secular uses,
for the worship of God. As worship is prayer, the house of God is a place
set apart for worship. It is no common place; it is where God dwells,
where He meets with His people, and He delights in the worship of His
saints.
Prayer is always in place in the house of God. When prayer
is a stranger there, then it ceases to be God's house at all. Our Lord put
peculiar emphasis upon what the Church was when He cast out the buyers and
sellers in the Temple, repeating the words from Isaiah, "It is written, My
house shall be called the house of prayer." He makes prayer preeminent,
that which stands out above all else in the house of God. They, who
sidetrack prayer or seek to minify it, and give it a secondary place,
pervert the Church of God, and make it something less and other than it is
ordained to be.
Prayer is perfectly at home in the house of God. It is no
stranger, no mere guest; it belongs there. It has a peculiar affinity for
the place, and has, moreover, a Divine right there, being set, therein, by
Divine appointment and approval.
The inner chamber is a sacred place for personal worship.
The house of God is a holy place for united worship. The prayer-closet is
for individual prayer. The house of God is for mutual prayer, concerted
prayer, united prayer. Yet even in the house of God, there is the element
of private worship, since God's people are to worship Him and pray to Him,
personally, even in public worship. The Church is for the united prayer of
kindred, yet individual believers.
The life, power and glory of the Church is prayer. The
life of its members is dependent on prayer and the presence of God is
secured and retained by prayer. The very place is made sacred by its
ministry. Without it, the Church is lifeless and powerless. Without it,
even the building, itself, is nothing, more or other, than any other
structure. Prayer converts even the bricks, and mortar, and lumber, into a
sanctuary, a holy of holies, where the Shekinah dwells. It separates it,
in spirit and in purpose from all other edifices. Prayer gives a peculiar
sacredness to the building, sanctifies it, sets it apart for God,
conserves it from all common and mundane affairs.
With prayer, though the house of God might be supposed to
lack everything else, it becomes a Divine sanctuary. So the Tabernacle,
moving about from place to place, became the holy of holies, because
prayer was there. Without prayer the building may be costly, perfect in
all its appointments, beautiful for situation and attractive to the eye,
but it comes down to the human, with nothing Divine in it, and is on a
level with all other buildings.
Without prayer, a church is like a body without spirit; it
is a dead, inanimate thing. A church with prayer in it, has God in it.
When prayer is set aside, God is outlawed. When prayer becomes an
unfamiliar exercise, then God Himself is a stranger there.
As God's house is a house of prayer, the Divine intention
is that people should leave their homes and go to meet Him in His own
house. The building is set apart for prayer especially, and as God has
made special promise to meet His people there, it is their duty to go
there, and for that specific end. Prayer should be the chief attraction
for all spiritually minded church-goers. While it is conceded that the
preaching of the Word has an important place in the house of God, yet
prayer is its predominating, distinguishing feature. Not that all other
places are sinful, or evil, in themselves or in their uses. But they are
secular and human, having no special conception of God in them. The Church
is, essentially, religious and Divine. The work belonging to other places
is done without special reference to God. He is not specifically
recognized, nor called upon. In the Church, however, God is acknowledged,
and nothing is done without Him. Prayer is the one distinguishing mark of
the house of God. As prayer distinguishes Christian from unchristian
people, so prayer distinguishes God's house from all other houses. It is a
place where faithful believers meet with their Lord.
As God's house is, preeminently, a house of prayer, prayer
should enter into and underlie everything that is undertaken there. Prayer
be longs to every sort of work appertaining to the Church of God. As God's
house is a house where the business of praying is carried on, so is it a
place where the business of making praying people out of prayerless people
is done. The house of God is a Divine workshop, and there the work of
prayer goes on. Or the house of God is a Divine schoolhouse, in which the
lesson of prayer is taught; where men and women learn to pray, and where
they are graduated, in the school of prayer.
Any church calling itself the house of God, and failing to
magnify prayer; which does not put prayer in the forefront of its
activities; which does not teach the great lesson of prayer, should change
its teaching to conform to the Divine pattern or change the name of its
building to something other than a house of prayer.
On an earlier page, we made reference to the finding of
the Book of the Law of the Lord given to Moses. How long that book had
been there, we do not know. But when tidings of its discovery were carried
to Josiah, he rent his clothes and was greatly disturbed. He lamented the
neglect of God's Word and saw, as a natural result, the iniquity which
abounded throughout the land.
And then, Josiah thought of God, and commanded Hilkiah,
the priest, to go and make inquiry of the Lord. Such neglect of the Word
of the Law was too serious a matter to be treated lightly, and God must be
enquired of, and repentance shown, by himself, and the nation:
"Go enquire of the Lord for me, and for them that are
left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that is
found; for great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out upon us,
because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to do after all
that is written in this book."
But that was not all. Josiah was bent on promoting a
revival of religion in his kingdom, so we find him gathering all the
elders of Jerusalem and Judah together, for that purpose. When they had
come together, the king went into the house of the Lord, and himself read
in all the words of the Book of the Covenant that was found in the house
of the Lord.
With this righteous king, God's Word was of great
importance. He esteemed it at its proper worth, and counted a knowledge of
it to be of such grave importance, as to demand his consulting God in
prayer about it, and to warrant the gathering together of the notables of
his kingdom, so that they, together with himself, should be instructed out
of God's Book concerning God's Law.
When Ezra, returned from Babylon, was seeking the
reconstruction of his nation, the people, themselves, were alive to the
situation, and, on one occasion, the priests, Levites and people assembled
themselves together as one man before the water gate.
"And they spake unto Ezra the scribe, to bring the
book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel. And
Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation, both of men and
women, and all that could hear with understanding. And he read therein
before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until
midday; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of
the law."
This was Bible-reading Day in Judah -- a real revival of
Scripture-study. The leaders read the law before the people, whose ears
were keen to hear what God had to say to them out of the Book of the Law.
But it was not only a Bible-reading day. It was a time when real preaching
was done, as the following passage indicates:
"So they read in the book in the law of God
distinctly and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the
reading."
Here then is the Scriptural definition of preaching. No
better definition can be given. To read the Word of God distinctly -- to
read it so that the people could hear and understand the words read; not
to mumble out the words, nor read it in an undertone or with
indistinctness, but boldly and clearly -- that was the method followed in
Jerusalem, on this auspicious day. Moreover: the sense of the words was
made clear in the meeting held before the water gate; the people were
treated to a high type of expository preaching. That was true preaching -- preaching of a sort which is sorely needed, today, in order
that God's Word may have due effect on the hearts of the people. This
meeting in Jerusalem surely contains a lesson which all present-day
preachers should learn and heed.
No one having any knowledge of the existing facts, will
deny the comparative lack of expository preaching in the pulpit effort of
today. And none, we should, at least, imagine, will do other than lament
the lack. Topical preaching, polemical preaching, historical preaching,
and other forms of sermonic output have, one supposes, their rightful and
opportune uses. But expository preaching -- the prayerful expounding of
the Word of God is preaching that is preaching -- pulpit effort par excellence.
For its successful accomplishment, however, a preacher
needs must be a man of prayer. For every hour spent in his study-chair, he
will have to spend two upon his knees. For every hour he devotes to
wrestling with an obscure passage of Holy Writ, he must have two in the
which to be found wrestling with God. Prayer and preaching: preaching and
prayer! They cannot be separated. The ancient cry was: "To your tents, O
Israel! "The modern cry should be: "To your knees, O preachers, to your
knees!"
