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Title: Prayer and praying men
Author: Edward McKendree Bounds
Contributor: Homer W. Hodge
Release Date: April 28, 2023 [eBook #70657]
Language: English
Produced by: Brian Wilson, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRAYER AND PRAYING MEN ***
PRAYER
AND PRAYING MEN
REV. EDWARD M. BOUNDS
PRAYER
AND PRAYING MEN
BY
REV. EDWARD M. BOUNDS
AUTHOR OF “THE INEFFABLE GLORY,” “PREACHER
AND PRAYER,” “PURPOSE IN PRAYER,” ETC.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
REV. HOMER W. HODGE
HODDER & STOUGHTON
LIMITED : : LONDON
COPYRIGHT, 1921,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
INTRODUCTION
Rev. Edward McKendrie Bounds was passionately devoted to his beloved
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. His devotion was extraordinary in that
he was praying and writing about Him all the time, except during the
hours of sleeping.
God gave Bounds an enlargedness of heart and an insatiable desire to
do service for Him. To this end he enjoyed what I am pleased to term a
transcendent inspiration, else he could never have brought out of his
treasury things new and old far exceeding anything we have known or
read in the last half century.
Bounds is easily the Betelguese of the devotional sky. There is no man
that has lived since the days of the apostles that has surpassed him in
the depths of his marvelous research into the Life of Prayer.
He was busily engaged in writing on his manuscripts when the Lord said
unto him, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into
the joys of thy Lord.” His letters would often come to me in Brooklyn,
N. Y., in 1911, 1912 and 1913, saying, “Pray for me that God will give
me new nerves and new visions to finish the manuscripts.”
Wesley was of the sweetest and most forgiving disposition, but when
aroused he was a man of the “keenest penetration with a gift of speech
that bit like the stroke of a whip.” Bounds was meek and humble, and
never did we know him to retaliate upon any of his enemies. He cried
over them and wept praying for them early and late.
Wesley was easily gulled. “My brother,” said Charles, on one occasion
in disgusting accents, “was, I believe, born for the benefit
of knaves.” No man could impose on Bounds’ credulity. He was a
diagnostician of rare ability. Bounds shied away from all frauds in
profession, and would waste no time upon them.
Wesley was preaching and riding all day. Bounds was praying and writing
day and night.
Wesley would not allow any misrepresentation of his doctrinal positions
in his late years. Bounds in this respect was very much like him.
Wesley came to his fame while yet alive. He was always in the public
eye. Bounds, while editing a _Christian Advocate_ for twelve years, was
little known out of his church.
Wesley at eighty-six could still preach on the streets for thirty
minutes. Bounds was able at seventy-five in the first hour of the
fourth watch to pray for three hours upon his knees.
Wesley, at the time of his death, had enjoyed fifty-six years of
preferment. His name was on every tongue. Christianity was born again
in England under his mighty preaching and organization. Bounds was
comparatively unknown for fifty years but will recover the “lost and
forgotten secret of the church” in the next fifty years.
Wesley’s piety and genius and popularity flowed from his early life
like a majestic river. Bounds’ has been dammed up, but now it is
beginning to sweep with resistless force and ere long he will be the
mighty Amazon of the devotional world.
Henry Crabbe Robinson said in his diary when he heard Wesley preach at
Colchester, “He stood in a wide pulpit and on each side of him stood a
minister, and the two held him up. His voice was feeble and he could
hardly be heard, but his reverend countenance, especially his long
white locks, formed a picture never to be forgotten.” The writer of
these lines gave up his pulpit in Brooklyn in 1912 to Rev. E. M. Bounds
just ten months before his death. His voice was feeble and his periods
were not rounded out. His sermon was only twenty minutes long, when he
quietly came to the end and seemed exhausted.
Wesley had sufficient money and to spare during all his career. Bounds
did not care for money. He did not depreciate it; he considered it the
lowest order of power.
Wesley died with “an eye beaming and lips breaking into praise.”
“The best of all is God with us,” Bounds wrote the writer of these
lines. “When He is ready I am ready; I long to taste the joys of the
heavenlies.”
Wesley said, “The World is my parish.” Bounds prayed as if the universe
was his zone.
Wesley was the incarnation of unworldliness, the embodiment of
magnanimity. Bounds was the incarnation of unearthliness, humility and
self-denial. Wesley will live in the hearts of saints for everlasting
ages. Bounds eternally.
Wesley sleeps in City Road Chapel grounds, among his “bonny dead,”
under marble, with fitting tribute chiseled in prose, awaiting the
Resurrection. Bounds sleeps in Washington, Georgia, cemetery, without
marble covering, awaiting the Bridegroom’s coming.
These two men held ideals high and clear beyond the reach of other men.
Has this race of men entirely gone out of the world now that they are
dead? Let us pray.
HOMER W. HODGE
Brooklyn, N. Y.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I PRAYING SAINTS OF THE OLD TESTAMENTS 13
II PRAYING SAINTS OF THE OLD TESTAMENTS (_continued_) 21
III ABRAHAM, THE MAN OF PRAYER 29
IV MOSES, THE MIGHTY INTERCESSOR 33
V ELIJAH, THE PRAYING PROPHET 42
VI HEZEKIAH, THE PRAYING KING 54
VII EZRA, THE PRAYING REFORMER 66
VIII NEHEMIAH, THE PRAYING BUILDER 72
IX SAMUEL, THE CHILD OF PRAYER 80
X DANIEL, THE PRAYING CAPTIVE 89
XI FAITH OF SINNERS IN PRAYER 97
XII PAUL, THE TEACHER OF PRAYER 107
XIII PAUL AND HIS PRAYING 121
XIV PAUL AND HIS PRAYING (_continued_) 131
XV PAUL AND HIS REQUESTS FOR PRAYER 142
XVI PAUL AND HIS REQUESTS FOR PRAYER (_continued_) 150
PRAYER AND PRAYING MEN
PRAYER AND PRAYING MEN
CHAPTER I
PRAYING SAINTS OF THE OLD TESTAMENTS
_The Holy Spirit will give to the praying saint the brightness of
an immortal hope, the music of a deathless song, in His baptism and
communion with the heart. He will give sweeter and more enlarged
visions of heaven until the taste for other things will pall, and
other visions will grow dim and distant. He will put notes of other
worlds in human hearts until all earth’s music is discord and
songless._--REV. E. M. BOUNDS.
Old Testament history is filled with accounts of praying saints. The
leaders of Israel in those early days were noted for their praying
habits. Prayer is the one thing which stands out prominently in their
lives.
To begin with, note the incident in Joshua, 10th chapter, where the
very heavenly bodies were made subject to prayer. A prolonged battle
was on between the Israelites and their enemies, and when night was
rapidly coming on, and it was discovered that a few more hours of
daylight were needful to ensure victory for the Lord’s hosts, Joshua,
that sturdy man of God, stepped into the breach, with prayer. The sun
was too rapidly declining in the west for God’s people to reap the full
fruits of a noted victory, and Joshua, seeing how much depended upon
the occasion, cried out in the sight and in the hearing of Israel,
“Sun, stand thou still upon Gideon, and thou moon in the Valley of
Ajalon.” And the sun actually stood still and the moon stopped on her
course at the command of this praying man of God, till the Lord’s
people had avenged themselves upon the Lord’s enemies.
Jacob was not a strict pattern of righteousness, prior to his all-night
praying. Yet he was a man of prayer and believed in the God of prayer.
So we find him swift to call upon God in prayer when he was in trouble.
He was fleeing from home fearing Esau, on his way to the home of Laban,
a kinsman. As night came on, he lighted on a certain place to refresh
himself with sleep, and as he slept he had a wonderful dream in which
he saw the angels of God ascending and descending on a ladder which
stretched from earth to heaven. It was no wonder when he awoke he was
constrained to exclaim, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it
not.”
Then it was he entered into a very definite covenant with Almighty
God, and in prayer vowed a vow unto the Lord, saying, “If God will be
with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread
to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house
in peace; and shall the Lord be my God, and this stone which I have set
for a pillar shall be God’s house; and of all that thou shalt give me,
I will surely give one-tenth unto thee.”
With a deep sense of his utter dependence upon God, and desiring above
all the help of God, Jacob conditioned his prayer for protection,
blessing and guidance by a solemn vow. Thus Jacob supported his prayer
to God by a vow.
Twenty years had passed while Jacob tarried at the house of Laban, and
he had married two of his daughters and God had given him children. He
had increased largely in wealth, and he resolved to leave that place
and return home to where he had been reared. Nearing home it occurred
to him that he must meet his brother Esau, whose anger had not abated
notwithstanding the passage of many years. God, however, had said to
him, “Return to thy father’s house and to thy kindred, and I will be
with thee.” In this dire emergency doubtless God’s promise and his vow
made long ago came to his mind, and he took himself to an all-night
season of prayer. Here comes to our notice that strange, inexplicable
incident of the angel struggling with Jacob all night long, till Jacob
at last obtained the victory. “I will not let thee go except thou
bless me.” And then and there, in answer to his earnest, pressing and
importunate praying, he was richly blessed personally and his name was
changed. But even more than that, God went ahead of Jacob’s desire,
and strangely moved upon the angry nature of Esau, and lo and behold,
when Jacob met him next day, Esau’s anger had entirely abated, and he
vied with Jacob in showing kindness to his brother who had wronged
him. No explanation of this remarkable change in the heart of Esau is
satisfactory which leaves out prayer.
Samuel, the mighty intercessor in Israel and a man of God, was the
product of his mother’s prayer. Hannah is a memorable example of the
nature and benefits of importunate praying. No son had been born to her
and she yearned for a man child. Her whole soul was in her desire. So
she went to the house of worship, where Eli, the priest of God, was,
and staggering under the weight of which bore down on her heart she was
beside herself and seemed to be really intoxicated. Her desires were
too intense for articulation. “She poured out her soul in prayer before
the Lord.” Insuperable natural difficulties were in the way, but she
“multiplied her praying,” as the passage means, till her God-lightened
heart and her bright face recorded the answer to her prayers, and
Samuel was hers by a conscious faith and a nation was restored by faith.
Samuel was born in answer to the vowful prayer of Hannah, for the
solemn covenant which she made with God if He would grant her request
must not be left out of the account in investigating this incident
of a praying woman and the answer she received. It is suggestive in
James 5:15 that “The prayer of faith shall save the sick,” the word
translated means a vow. So that prayer in its highest form of faith
is that prayer which carries the whole man as a sacrificial offering.
Thus devoting the whole man himself, and his all, to God in a definite,
intelligent vow, never to be broken, in a quenchless and impassioned
desire for heaven--such an attitude of self-devotement to God mightily
helps praying. Samson is somewhat of a paradox when we examine his
religious character. But amid all his faults, which were grave in the
extreme, he knew the God who hears prayer and he knew how to talk to
God.
No farness to which Israel had gone, no depth to which Israel had
fallen, no chains however iron with which Israel was bound but that
their cry to God easily spanned the distance, fathomed the depths,
and broke the chains. It was the lesson they were ever learning and
always forgetting, that prayer always brought God to their deliverance,
and that there was nothing too hard for God to do for His people. We
find all of God’s saints in straits at different times in some way
or another. Their straits are, however, often the heralds of their
great triumphs. But for whatever cause their straits come, or of what
kind soever, there is no strait of any degree of direness or from any
source whatsoever of any nature whatsoever, from which prayer could not
extricate them. The great strength of Samson does not relieve him nor
extricate him out of his straits. Read what the Scriptures say:
“And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him; and
the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the cords that
were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his
bands loosed from off his hands.
“And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and
took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.
“And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with
the jawbone of an ass have I slain a thousand men.
“And it came to pass when he had made an end of speaking, that
he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place
Ramath-Lehi.
“And he was sore athirst, and called on the Lord, and said, Thou hast
given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant, and now
shall I die of thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?
“But God clave a hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came
water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again and he
revived.”
We have another incident in the case of this strange Old Testament
character, showing how, when in great straits, their minds
involuntarily turned to God in prayer. However irregular in life they
were, however far from God they departed, however sinful they might
be when trouble came upon these men, they invariably called upon God
for deliverance, and, as a rule, when they repented God heard their
cries and granted their requests. This incident comes at the close of
Samson’s life, and shows us how his life ended.
Read the record as found in Judges, 16th chapter. Samson had formed an
alliance with Delilah, a heathen woman, and she, in connivance with the
Philistines, sought to discover the source of his immense strength.
Three successive times she failed, and at last by her persistence and
womanly arts persuaded Samson to divulge to her the wonderful secret.
So in an unsuspecting hour he disclosed to her the fact that the
source of his strength was in his hair which had never been cut; and
she deprived him of his great physical power by cutting off his hair.
She called for the Philistines, and they came and put out his eyes and
otherwise mistreated him.
On an occasion when the Philistines were gathered together to offer a
great sacrifice to Dagon, their idol god, they called for Samson to
make sport for them. And the following is the account as he stood there
presumably the laughing-stock of these enemies of his and of God.
“And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me
that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may
lean upon them.
“Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the
Philistines were there; and there were upon the roof about three
thousand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport.
“And Samson called unto the Lord and said, O Lord God, remember me,
I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, my God,
that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.
And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house
stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand
and of the other with his left.
“And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed
himself with all his might, and the house fell upon the lords, and
upon all the people that were there within. So the dead which he slew
at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.”
CHAPTER II
PRAYING SAINTS OF THE OLD TESTAMENTS
(_Continued_)
_Bishop Lambeth and Wainwright had a great M. E. Mission in Osaka,
Japan. One day the order came from high up that no more meetings would
be allowed in the city by Protestants. Lambeth and Wainwright did all
they could but the high officials were obstinate and unrelenting. They
then retired to the room of prayer. Supper time came and the Japanese
girl came to summon them to their meal, but she fell under the power
of prayer. Mrs. Lambeth came to find what the matter was and fell
under the same power. They then rose and went to the mission hall and
opened it: and at once commenced meeting. God fell upon the assembly
and two of the sons of the city officials came to the altar and were
saved. Next morning one of the officials in authority came to the
mission and said, “Go on with your meetings, you will not be
interrupted.” The Osaka daily paper came out with box car letters
saying, “THE CHRISTIAN’S GOD CAME TO TOWN LAST NIGHT.”_--REV. H. C.
MORRISON.
Jonah, the man who prayed in the fish’s belly, brings to view another
remarkable instance of these Old Testament worthies who were given to
prayer. This man Jonah, a prophet of the Lord, was a fugitive from God
and from the place of duty. He had been sent on a mission of warning to
wicked Nineveh, and had been commanded to cry out against them, “for
their wickedness is come up before me,” said God. But Jonah, through
fear or otherwise, declined to obey God, and took passage on a ship for
Tarshish, fleeing from God. He seems to have overlooked the plain fact
that the same God who had sent him on that alarming mission had His eye
upon him as he hid himself on board that vessel. A storm arose as the
vessel was on its way to Tarshish, and it was decided to throw Jonah
overboard in order to appease God and to avert the destruction of the
boat and of all on board. But God was there as He had been with Jonah
from the beginning. He had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah, in
order to arrest him, to defeat him in his flight from the post of duty,
and to save Jonah that he might help to carry out the purposes of God.
It was Jonah who was in the fish’s belly, in that great strait,
and passing through a strange experience, who called upon God, who
heard him and caused the fish to vomit him out on dry land. What
possible force could rescue him from this fearful place? He seemed
hopelessly lost, in “the belly of hell,” as good as dead and damned.
But he prays--what else can he do? And this is just what he had been
accustomed to do when in trouble before.
“I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me;
out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardst my voice.”
And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry
land.
Like others he joined prayer to a vow he had made, for he says in his
prayer, “But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving;
I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.”
Prayer was the mighty force which brought Jonah from “the belly of
hell.” Prayer, mighty prayer, has secured the end. Prayer brought God
to the rescue of unfaithful Jonah, despite his sin of fleeing from
duty, and God could not deny his prayer. Nothing is too hard for prayer
because nothing is too hard for God.
That answered prayer of Jonah in the fish’s belly in its mighty results
became an Old Testament type of the miraculous power displayed in the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Our Lord puts His seal of
truth upon the fact of Jonah’s prayer and resurrection.
Nothing can be simpler than these cases of God’s mighty deliverance.
Nothing is plainer than that prayer has to do with God directly and
simply. Nothing is clearer than that prayer has its only worth and
significance in the great fact that God hears and answers prayer.
This the Old Testament saints strongly believed. It is the one fact
that stands out continuously and prominently in their lives. They were
essentially men of prayer.
How greatly we need a school to teach the art of praying! This simplest
of all arts and mightiest of all forces is ever in danger of being
forgotten or depraved. The further we get away from our mother’s
knees, the further do we get away from the true art of praying. All
our after-schooling and our after-teachers unteach us the lessons of
prayer. Men prayed well in Old Testament times because they were simple
men and lived in simple times. They were childlike, lived in childlike
times and had childlike faith.
In citing the Old Testament saints noted for their praying habits, by
no means must David be overlooked, a man who preëminently was a man
of prayer. With him prayer was a habit, for we hear him say, “Evening
and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud.” Prayer with the
Sweet Psalmist of Israel was no strange occupation. He knew the way to
God and was often found in that way. It is no wonder we hear his call
so clear and impressive, “O come, let us worship and bow down; let us
kneel before the Lord our Maker.” He knew God as the one being who
could answer prayer: “O thou that hearest prayer, to thee shall all
flesh come.”
When God smote the child born of Bathsheba, because David had by his
grievous sins given occasion of the enemies of God to blaspheme, it is
no surprise that we find him engaged in a week’s praying, asking God
for the life of the child. The habit of his life asserted itself in
this great emergency in his home, and we find him fasting and praying
for the child to recover. The fact that God denied his request does not
at all affect the question of David’s habit of praying. Even though
he did not receive what he asked for, his faith in God was not in the
least affected. The fact is that while God did not give him the life of
that baby boy, He afterward gave him another son, even Solomon. So that
possibly the latter son was a far great blessing to him than would have
been the child for whom he prayed.
In close connection with this season of prayer, we must not overlook
David’s penitential praying when Nathan, by command of God, uncovered
David’s two great sins of adultery and murder. At once David
acknowledged his wickedness, saying unto Nathan, “I have sinned.”
And as showing his deep grief over his sin, his heart-broken spirit,
and his genuine repentance, it is only necessary to read Psalm 51
where confession of sin, deep humiliation and prayer are the chief
ingredients of the Psalm.
David knew where to find a sin-pardoning God, and was received back
again and had the joys of salvation restored to him by earnest,
sincere, penitential praying. Thus are all sinners brought into the
divine favor, thus do they find pardon, and thus do they find a new
heart.
The entire Book of Psalms brings prayer to the front, and prayer
fairly bristles before our eyes as we read this devotional book of the
Scriptures.
Nor must even Solomon be overlooked in the famous catalogue of men who
prayed in Old Testament times. Whatever their faults, they did not
forget the God who hears prayer nor did they cease to seek the God of
prayer. While this wise man in his later life departed from God, and
his sun set under a cloud, we find him praying at the commencement of
his reign.
Solomon went to Gibeon to offer sacrifice, which always meant that
prayer went in close companionship with sacrifice, and while there, the
Lord appeared to Solomon in a vision by night, saying unto him, “Ask
what I shall give thee.” The sequel shows the material out of which
Solomon’s character was formed. What was his request?
“O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of my father;
and I am but a little child; I know not how to go out or to come in.
“And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast
chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for
multitude.
“Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy
people, that I may discern between good and bad; for who is able to
judge this thy so great a people?”
We do not wonder that it is recorded as a result of such praying:
“And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing.
“And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and
hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for
thyself, nor hast asked the life of thy enemies, but has asked for
thyself understanding to discern judgment;
“Behold I have done according to thy word; Lo, I have given thee a
wise and understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before
thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.
“Also I have given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches
and honor; so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto
thee all thy days.”
What praying was this! What self-deprecation and simplicity! “I am but
a little child.” How he specified the one thing needful! And see how
much more he received than that for which he asked!
Take the remarkable prayer at the dedication of the temple. Possibly
this is the longest recorded prayer in God’s Word. How comprehensive,
pointed, intensive, it is! Solomon could not afford to lay the
foundations of God’s house in anything else but in prayer. And God
heard this prayer as he heard him before, “And when Solomon had made an
end of his praying, the fire came down from heaven, and the glory of
the Lord filled the house,” thus God attested the acceptance of this
house of worship and of Solomon, the praying king.
The list of these Old Testament saints given to prayer grows as we
proceed, and is too long to notice at length all of them. But the name
of Isaiah, the great evangelical prophet, and that of Jeremiah, the
weeping prophet, must not be left out of the account. Still others
might be mentioned. These are sufficient, and with their names we may
close the list. Let careful readers of the Old Scriptures keep the
prayer question in mind, and they will see how great a place prayer
occupied in the minds and lives of the men of those early days.
CHAPTER III
ABRAHAM, THE MAN OF PRAYER
_Oh for determined men and women, who will rise early and really burn
out for God. Oh for a faith that will sweep into heaven with the early
dawning of the morning and have ships from a shoreless sea loaded in
the soul’s harbor ere the ordinary laborer has knocked the dew from
his scythe or the huckster has turned from his pallet of straw to
spread nature’s treasures of fruit before the early buyers._--REV.
HOMER W. HODGE.
Abraham, the friend of God, was a striking illustration of one of the
Old Testament saints who believed strongly in prayer. Abraham was not
a shadowy figure by any means. In the simplicity and dimness of the
patriarchal dispensation, as illustrated by him, we learn the worth of
prayer, as well as discover its antiquity. The fact is, prayer reaches
back to the first ages of man on earth. We see how the energy of prayer
is absolutely required in the simplest as well as in the most complex
dispensations of God’s grace. When we study Abraham’s character,
we find that after his call to go out into an unknown country, on
his journey with his family and his household servants, wherever
he tarried by the way for the night or longer, he always erected an
altar, and “called upon the name of the Lord.” And this man of faith
and prayer was one of the first to erect a family altar, around
which to gather his household and offer the sacrifices of worship,
of praise and of prayer. These altars built by Abraham were, first
of all, essentially altars about which he gathered his household, as
distinguished from secret prayer.
As God’s revelations became fuller and more perfect, Abraham’s
prayerfulness increased, and it was at one of these spiritual eras
that “Abraham fell on his face and God talked with him.” On still
another occasion we find this man, “the father of the faithful,” on
his face before God, astonished almost to incredulity at the purposes
and revelations of Almighty God to him in promising him a son in his
old age, and the wonderful engagements which God made concerning his
promised son.
Even Ishmael’s destiny is shaped by Abraham’s prayer when he prayed, “O
that Ishmael might live before thee!”
What a remarkable story is that of Abraham’s standing before God
repeating his intercessions for the wicked city of Sodom, the home of
his nephew Lot, doomed by God’s decision to destroy it! Sodom’s fate
was for a while stayed by Abraham’s praying, and was almost entirely
relieved by the humility and insistence of the praying of this man
who believed strongly in prayer and who knew how to pray. No other
recourse was opened to Abraham to save Sodom but prayer. Perhaps the
failure to ultimately rescue Sodom from her doom of destruction was due
to Abraham’s optimistic view of the spiritual condition of things in
that city. It might have been possible,--who knows?--that if Abraham
had entreated God once more, and asked Him to spare the city if even
one righteous man was found there, for Lot’s sake, He might have heeded
Abraham’s request.
Note another instance in the life of Abraham as showing how he was
a man of prayer and had power with God. Abraham had journeyed to
and was sojourning in Gerar. Fearing that Abimelech might kill him
and appropriate Sarah his wife to his own lustful uses, he deceived
Abimelech by claiming that Sarah was his sister. God appeared unto
Abimelech in a dream and warned him not to touch Sarah, telling him
that she was the wife of Abraham, and not his sister. Then he said
unto Abimelech, “Now restore therefore the man his wife; for he is a
prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live.” And the
conclusion of the incident is thus recorded: “So Abraham prayed unto
God, and God healed Abimelech and his wife, and his maid servants, and
they bare children. For the Lord had fast closed up all the wombs of
the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, his wife.”
This was a case somewhat on the line of that of Job at the close of
his fearful experience and his terrible trials, when his friends, not
understanding Job, neither comprehending God’s dealings with this
servant of His, falsely charged Job with being in sin as the cause of
all his troubles. God said to these friends of Job, “My servant Job
shall pray for you, for him will I accept. And the Lord turned the
captivity of Job when he had prayed for his friends.”
Almighty God knew His servant Job as a man of prayer, and He could
afford to send these friends of Job to him to pray in order to carry
out and fulfill His plans and purposes.
It was Abraham’s rule to stand before the Lord in prayer. His life
was surcharged with prayer and Abraham’s dispensation was sanctified
by prayer. For wherever he halted in his pilgrimage, prayer was his
inseparable accompaniment. Side by side with the altar of sacrifice was
the altar of prayer. He got up early in the morning to the place where
he stood before the Lord in prayer.
CHAPTER IV
MOSES, THE MIGHTY INTERCESSOR
_Intercessory Prayer is a powerful means of grace to the praying man.
Martyn observes that at times of inward dryness and depression, he had
often found a delightful revival in the act of praying for others for
their conversion, or sanctification, or prosperity in the work of the
Lord. His dealings with God for them about these gifts and blessings
were for himself the divinely natural channel of a renewed insight
into his own part and lot in Christ, into Christ as his own rest and
power, into the “perfect freedom” of an entire yielding of himself to
his Master for His work._--BISHOP HANDLEY C. G. MOULE.
Prayer unites with the purposes of God and lays itself out to secure
those purposes. How often would the wise and benign will of God fail
in its rich and beneficent ends by the sins of the people if prayer
had not come in to arrest wrath and make the promise sure! Israel as
a nation would have met their just destruction and their just fate
after their apostasy with the golden calf had it not been for the
interposition and unfainting importunity of Moses’ forty days’ and
forty nights’ praying!
Marvelous was the effect of the character of Moses by his marvelous
praying. His near and sublime intercourse with God in the giving
of the law worked no transfiguration of character like the tireless
praying of those forty days in prayer with God. It was when he came
down from that long struggle of prayer that his face shone with such
dazzling brightness. Our mounts of transfiguration and the heavenly
shining in character and conduct are born of seasons of wrestling
prayer. All-night praying has changed many a Jacob, the supplanter,
into Israel, a prince, who has power with God and with men.
No mission was more majestic in purpose and results than that of
Moses, and none was more responsible, diligent and difficult. In it
we are taught the sublime ministry and rule of prayer. Not only is it
the medium of supply and support, but it is a compassionate agency
through which the pitying long-suffering of God has an outflow. Prayer
is a medium to restrain God’s wrath, that mercy might rejoice against
judgment.
Moses himself and his mission were the creation of prayer. Thus it is
recorded: “When Jacob was come into Egypt, and your fathers cried unto
the Lord, then the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers
out of Egypt, and made them dwell in this place.” This is the genesis
of the great movement for the deliverance of the Hebrews from Egyptian
bondage.
The great movements of God have had their origin and energy in and
were shaped by prayers of men. Prayer has directly to deal with God.
Other ends, collateral and incidental, are secured by prayer, but
mainly, almost solely, prayer has to deal with God. He is pleased to
order His policy, and base His action on the prayers of His saints.
Prayer influences God greatly. Moses cannot do God’s great work, though
God-commissioned, without praying much. Moses cannot govern God’s
people and carry out the divine plans, without having his censer filled
full of the incense of prayer. The work of God cannot be done without
the fire and fragrance are always burning, ascending and perfuming.
Moses’ prayers are often found relieving the terrible stroke of God’s
wrath. Four times were the prayers of Moses solicited by Pharaoh to
relieve him of the fearful stroke of God’s wrath. “Entreat the Lord,”
most earnestly begged Pharaoh of Moses, while the loathsome frogs were
upon him. And “Moses cried unto the Lord because of the frogs which God
had brought against the land of Egypt, and the Lord did according to
the word of Moses.” When the grievous plague of flies had corrupted the
whole land, Pharaoh again piteously cried out to Moses, “Entreat for
me.” Moses went out from Pharaoh and entreated the Lord, and the Lord
again did according to the word of Moses. The mighty thunderings and
hail in their alarming and destructive fury extorted from this wicked
king the very same earnest appeal to Moses, “Entreat the Lord.” And
Moses went out from the city into privacy, and alone with Almighty God,
he “spread abroad his hands unto the Lord, and the thunderings and hail
ceased, and the rain was not poured out upon the earth.”
Though Moses was the man of law, yet with him prayer asserted its
mighty force. With him, as in the more spiritual dispensation, it could
have been said, “My house is the house of prayer.”
Moses accepts at its full face value the foundation principle of
praying that prayer has to do with God. With Abraham we saw this
clearly and strongly enunciated. With Moses it is clearer and stronger
still if possible. It declared that prayer affected God, that God was
influenced in His conduct by prayer, and that God hears and answers
prayer even when the hearing and answering might change His conduct and
reverse His action. Stronger than all other laws, and more inflexible
than any other decree, is the decree, “Call upon me and I will answer
you.”
Moses lived near God, and had the freest and most unhindered and
boldest access to God, but this, instead of abating the necessity of
prayer, made it more necessary, obvious and powerful. Familiarity and
closeness to God gives relish, frequency, point and potency to prayer.
Those who know God the best are the richest and most powerful in
prayer. Little acquaintance with God, and strangeness and coldness to
Him, make prayer a rare and feeble thing.
There were conditions of extremity to which Moses was reduced which
prayer did not relieve, but there is no position of extremity which
baffles God, when prayer puts God into the matter.
Moses’ mission was a divine one. It was ordered, directed and planned
by God. The more there is of God in a movement, the more there is of
prayer, conspicuous and controlling. Moses’ prayer rule of the church
illustrates the necessity of courage and persistence in prayer. For
forty days and forty nights was Moses pressing his prayer for the
salvation of the Lord’s people. So intense was his concern for them
which accompanied his long season of praying, that bodily infirmities
and appetites were retired. How strangely the prayers of a righteous
man affect God is evident from the exclamation of God to Moses, “Now,
therefore, let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, that I
may consume them; and I will make of thee a great nation.” The presence
of such an influence over God fills us with astonishment, awe and fear.
How lofty, bold and devoted must be such a pleader!
Read this from the divine record:
“And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Oh, this people have
sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold!
“Yet now if thou wilt forgive their sin--and if not, blot me, I pray
thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.
“And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him
will I blot out of my book.
“Therefore now go, and lead the people unto the place of which I have
spoken unto thee. Behold my angel shall go before thee.”
The rebellion of Korah was the occasion of God’s anger flaming out
against the whole congregation of Israel, who sympathized with these
rebels. Again Moses appears on the stage of action, this time having
Aaron to join him in intercession for these sinners against God. But it
only shows that in a serious time like this Moses knew to whom to go
for relief, and was encouraged to pray that God would stay His wrath
and spare Israel. Here is what is said about the matter:
“And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, saying,
“Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume
them in a moment.
“And they fell on their faces, and said, O God, the God of the
spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with
all the congregation?”
The assumption, pride and rebellion of Miriam, sister of Moses, in
which she had the presence and sympathy of Aaron, put the praying and
the spirit of Moses in the noblest and most amiable light. Because of
her sin God smote her with leprosy. But Moses made tender and earnest
intercession for his sister who had so grievously offended God, and his
prayer saved her from the fearful and incurable malady.
The record is intensely interesting, and follows just here:
“And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them and the cloud
departed from off the tabernacle and behold, Miriam became leprous,
white as snow; and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and behold she was
leprous.
“And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas, my Lord, I beseech thee, lay not
the sin unto us, wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have
sinned.
“Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when
he cometh out of his mother’s womb.
“And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, Heal her, O God, I beseech
thee.
“And the Lord said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her
face, should she not be ashamed seven days? Let her be shut out from
the camp seven days, and after that let her be received again.”
The murmurings of the children of Israel furnished conditions which
called into play the full forces of prayer. They impressively bring out
the intercessory feature of prayer and disclose Moses in his great
office as an intercessor before God in behalf of others. It was at
Marah, where the waters were bitter and the people grievously murmured
against Moses and God.
Here is the Scripture account:
“And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of
Marah; for they were bitter; therefore the name of it was called
Marah.
“And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?
“And Moses cried unto the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which
when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet; there
he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved
them.”
How many of the bitter places of the earth have been sweetened by
prayer the records of eternity alone will disclose.
Again at Taberah the people complained, and God became angry with them,
and Moses came again to the front and stepped into the breach and
prayed for them. Here is the brief account:
“And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord; and the Lord
heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the Lord burnt
among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost part of the
camp.
“And the people cried unto Moses, and when Moses prayed unto the
Lord, the fire was quenched.”
Moses got what he asked for. His praying was specific and God’s answer
was likewise specific. Always was he heard by Almighty God when he
prayed, and always was he answered by God. Once the answer was not
specific. He had prayed to go into Canaan. The answer came but not
what he asked for. He was given a vision of the Promised Land, but
he was not allowed to go over Jordan into that land of promise. It
was a prayer on the order of Paul’s when he prayed three times for
the removal of the thorn in the flesh. But the thorn was not removed.
Grace, however, was vouchsafed which made the thorn a blessing.
It must not be thought that because the 90th Psalm is incorporated with
what is known as the “Psalms of David,” that David was the author of
it. By general consent it is attributed to Moses, and it gives us a
sample of the praying of this giver of the law of God to the people. It
is a prayer worth studying. It is sacred to us because it has been the
requiem uttered over our dead for years that are past and gone. It has
blessed the grave of many a sleeping saint. But its very familiarity
may cause us to lose its full meaning. Wise will we be if we digest it,
not for the dead, but for the living, that it may teach us how to live,
how to pray while living, and how to die. “So teach us to number our
days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Establish thou the work of
our hands, yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”
CHAPTER V
ELIJAH, THE PRAYING PROPHET
_“I have known men,” says Goodwin--it must have been himself--“who
came to God for nothing else but just to come to Him, they so loved
Him. They scorned to soil Him and themselves with any other errand
than just purely to be alone with Him in His presence. Friendship is
best kept up, even among men, by frequent visits; and the more free
and defecate those frequent visits are, and the less occasioned by
business, or necessity, or custom they are, the more friendly and
welcome they are.”_--REV. ALEXANDER WHYTE.
Elijah is preëminently the elder of the prophets. The crown, the
throne and the scepter are his. His garments are white with flame. He
seems exalted in his fiery and prayerful nature, as a being seemingly
superhuman, but the New Testament places him alongside of us as man of
like nature with us. Instead of placing himself outside the sphere of
humanity, in the marvelous results of his praying, it points to him as
an example to be imitated and as inspiration to stimulate us. To pray
like Elijah, and to have results like Elijah, is the crying need of the
times.
Elijah had learned the lesson of prayer, and had graduated in that
divine school ere we know him. Somewhere in the secret places, on
mountain or in plain, he had been alone with God, an intercessor
against the debasing idolatry of Ahab. Mightily had his prayers
prevailed with God. How confidently and well assured were the answers
to his praying.
He had been talking with God about vengeance. He was the embodiment of
his times. Those times were times of vengeance. The intercessor was not
to be clothed with an olive branch with its fillet of wood, the symbol
of a suppliant for mercy, but with fire, the symbol of justice and the
messenger of wrath. How abruptly does he come before us in the presence
of Ahab! Well assured and with holy boldness does he declare before
the astonished, cowering king his message of fearful import, a message
gained by his earnest praying,--“in praying he prayed that it might
not rain,” and God did not deny his prayer. “As the Lord God of Israel
liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these
years but according to my word.”
The secret of his praying and the character of the man are found in
the words, “Before whom I stand.” We are here reminded of Gabriel’s
words to Zacharias in informing this priest of the coming of a son to
him and his wife in their old age: “I am Gabriel that standeth in the
presence of God.” The archangel Gabriel had scarcely more unflinching
devotion, more courage, and more readiness of obedience, and more
jealousy of God’s honor, than Elijah. What projecting power do we see
in his prayer! “And it rained not on the earth by the space of three
years and six months.” What omnipotent forces which can command the
powers of nature! “Not dew nor rain.” What man is this who dares utter
such a claim or assert such a power? If his claim be false, he is a
fanatic or a madman. If his claim be true, he has stayed the benevolent
arm of Omnipotence, and put himself, by God’s leave, in God’s place.
The accursed and burnt-up land and the fiery, rainless and dewless days
and nights, attest the truth of his saying, and prove the sternness,
strength, firmness and passion of the man who holds back the clouds and
stays the blessed visitation of the rain. Elijah is his name, and this
attests the truth of that name, “My God is Jehovah.”
His prayers have the power to stay the benignant course of nature.
He stands in God’s stead in this matter. The sober, passionless,
unimaginative James, the brother of our Lord, in his Epistle, says to
us: “See what prayer can do, by Elijah! Pray as Elijah prayed. Let the
righteous man put forth to its fullest extent the energy of prayer.
Let saints and sinners, angels and devils, see and feel the mighty
potencies of prayer. See how the prayer of a good man has power and
influence, and avails with God!”
No sham praying was that of Elijah, no mere performance, no spiritless,
soulless, official praying was it. Elijah was in Elijah’s praying. The
whole man, with all his fiery forces, was in it. Almighty God to him
was real. Prayer to him was the means of projecting God in full force
on the world, in order to vindicate His name, establish His own being,
to avenge His blasphemed name and violated law, and to vindicate His
servants.
Instead of “prayed earnestly,” in James 5:17, the Revised Version has
it, “In his prayer he prayed,” or “with prayer he prayed.” That is,
with all the combined energies of prayer he prayed.
Elijah’s praying was strong, insistent, and resistless in its elements
of power. Feeble praying secures no results and brings neither glory to
God nor good to man.
Elijah learned new and higher lessons of prayer while hidden away by
God and with God when he was by the brook Cherith. He was doubtless
communing with God while Ahab was searching all lands for him. After
a while he was ordered to Sarepta, where God had commanded a widow to
sustain him. He went there for the widow’s good as well as for his own.
A benefit to Elijah and a signal good to the widow were the results
of Elijah’s going. While this woman provided for him, he provided for
the woman. Elijah’s prayers did more for the woman than the woman’s
hospitality did for Elijah. Great trials awaited the widow and great
sorrows too. Her widowhood and her poverty tell of her struggles and
her sorrows. Elijah was there to relieve her poverty and to assuage her
griefs.
Here is the interesting account:
“And it came to pass that after these things, the son of the woman,
the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was sore, that
there was no breath left in him.
“And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of
God? Art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance and to slay
my son?
“And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her
bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him
upon his own bed.
“And he cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, hast thou also
brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn by slaying her son?
“And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto
the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, I pray thee let this child’s soul
come into him again.
“And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child
came into him again, and he revived.
“And Elijah took the child and brought him down out of the chamber
into the house, and delivered him unto his mother. And Elijah said,
See, thy son liveth.
“And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man
of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth.”
Elijah’s prayer enters regions where prayer had never gone before. The
awful, mysterious and powerful regions of the dead are now invaded by
the presence and demands of prayer. Jesus Christ refers to Elijah’s
going to this widow as mainly, if not solely, for her good. Elijah’s
presence and praying keep the woman from starving and brings her son
back from death. Surely no sorrow is like the bitterness of the loss of
an only son. With what assured confidence Elijah faces the conditions!
There is no hesitancy in his actions, and there is no pause in his
faith. He takes the dead son to his own room, and alone with God he
makes the issue. In that room God meets him and the struggle is with
God alone. The struggle is too intense and too sacred for companionship
or for spectator. The prayer is made to God and the issue is with God.
The child has been taken by God, and God rules in the realms of death.
In His hands are the issues of life and death. Elijah believed that
God had taken the child’s spirit, and that God could as well restore
that spirit. God answered Elijah’s prayer. The answer was the proof of
Elijah’s mission from God, and of the truth of God’s Word. The dead
child brought to life was a sure conviction of this truth: “Now by this
I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy
mouth is truth.” Answers to prayer are the evidences of the being of
God and of the truth of His Word.
The immortal test of Elijah made in the presence of an apostate king,
and in the face of a back-slidden nation and an idolatrous priesthood
on Mount Carmel, is a sublime exhibition of faith and prayer. In the
contest the prophets of Baal had failed. No fire from heaven falls from
heaven in answer to their frantic cries. Elijah, in great quietness of
spirit and with confident assurance, calls Israel to him. He repairs
the wasted altar of God, the altar of sacrifice and of prayer, and puts
the pieces of the bullock in order on the altar. He then uses every
preventive against any charge of deception. Everything is flooded with
water. Then Elijah prays a model prayer, remarkable for its clearness,
its simplicity and its utmost candor. It is noted for its brevity and
its faith.
Read the account given in the Scriptures:
“And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening
sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of
Abraham, Isaac and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art
God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all
these things at thy word.
“Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art
the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again.
“Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice,
and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water
that was in the trench.
“And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they
said, The Lord, he is God; The Lord, he is God.”
Elijah had been dealing directly with God as before. True prayer always
deals with God. This prayer of Elijah was to determine the existence
of the true God, and the answer direct from God settles the question.
The answer is also the credentials of Elijah’s divine mission and the
evidence that God deals with men. If we had more of Elijah’s praying,
marvels would not be the marvels that they are now to us. God would not
be so strange, so far away in being and so feeble in action. Everything
is tame and feeble because our praying is so tame and feeble.
God said to Elijah, “Go show thyself to Ahab, and I will send rain
on the earth.” Elijah acted promptly on the divine order, and showed
himself to Ahab. He had made his issue with Ahab, Israel and Baal.
The whole current of national feeling had turned back to God. The day
was fading into the evening shades. No rain had come. But Elijah did
not fold his arms and say the promise had failed, but gave point and
fulfilment to the promise.
Here is the Scripture record with the result given:
“And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink, for there is
a sound of abundance of rain.
“So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top
of Carmel. And he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face
between his knees.
“And said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went
up and looked, and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again
seven times.
“And it came to pass at the seventh time that he said, Behold there
riseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand. And he said,
Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that
the rain stop thee not.
“And it came to pass in the meanwhile, that the heaven was black with
clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode and went
to Jezreel.
“And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah.”
Then it was, as James records, “And he prayed again, and the heaven
gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.”
Elijah’s importunate, fiery praying and God’s promise brought the
rain. Prayer carries the promise to its gracious fulfillment. It takes
persistent and persevering prayer to give to the promise its largest
and most gracious results. In this instance it was expectant prayer,
watchful of results, looking for the answer. Elijah had the answer in
the small cloud like a man’s hand. He had the inward assurance of the
answer even before he had the rain. How Elijah’s praying shames our
feeble praying! His praying brought things to pass. It vindicated the
existence and being of God, brought conviction to dull and sluggish
consciences, and proved that God was still God in the nation. Elijah’s
praying turned a whole nation back to God, ordered the moving of the
clouds, and directed the falling of the rain. It called down fire from
heaven to prove the existence of God or to destroy God’s enemies.
The praying of the Elder Prophet of Israel was clothed in his robes of
fire. The golden crown was on his head, and his censer was full and
fragrant with the flame, the melody and the perfume of prayer. What
wonderful power clothed him on this occasion! It was no wonder that
Elisha cried out as he saw this fiery prophet of the Lord enter the
chariot for his heavenly ride, “My father! my father! The chariot of
Israel and the horsemen thereof!” But chariots and armies could not
begin to do as much for Israel as did this praying Elijah. Prayers are
omnipotent forces, world-wide and heaven-reaching.
Where are the praying ones of modern times of fiery faith who can
incense Elijah’s prayers? We need at this time rulers in the Church
who can add to the force, flame and fragrance of Elijah’s praying by
their own prayers.
Elijah could touch nothing but by prayer. God was with him mightily
because he was mighty in prayer.
In the contest with the prophets of Baal, he makes the issue clearly
and positively to determine the true God, as one to be made by prayer.
Does God live? Is the Bible a revelation from Him? How often in
these days are those questions rising? How often do they need to be
settled? An appeal by prayer is the only settlement to them. Where is
the trouble? Not in God, but in our praying. The proof of God and of
His being is that He answers prayer. It takes the faith and prayer of
Elijah to settle the question. Where are the Elijahs in the Church of
the present day? Where are the men of like passions as he, who can pray
as he prayed? We have thousands of men of like passions, but where
are the men of like praying as he was? Notice with what calm, assured
confidence he stakes the issue and builds the altar. How calm and
pointed is his prayer on that occasion!
Instead of such praying being out of the range of New Testament
principles and moderation, this very praying of Elijah is pressed as
an example to be imitated and as an illustration of what prayer is and
what prayer can do when performed by the right men in the right way.
Elijah’s results could be secured if we had more Elijah men to do the
praying.
Elijah prayed really, truly and earnestly. How much of praying there
is at the present time which is not real praying, but is a mere shell,
shucks, and mere words! Much of it might well be termed non-praying.
The world is full of such praying. It goes nowhere, it avails nothing,
it brings no returns. In fact, no returns nor results are expected.
The requisites of true prayer are the requisites of scriptural, vital,
personal religion. They are the requisites of real religious service
in this life. Primary among these requisites is that in serving, we
serve. So in praying, we must pray. Truth and heart reality, these
are the core, the substance, the sum, the heart of prayer. There are
no possibilities in prayer without we really pray in all simplicity,
reality and trueness. Prayerless praying--how common, how popular, how
delusive and vain!
CHAPTER VI
HEZEKIAH, THE PRAYING KING
_One can form a habit of study until the will seems to be at rest and
only the intellect is engaged, the will having retired altogether from
exercise. This is not true of real praying. If the affections are
laggard, cold, indifferent, if the intellect is furnishing no material
to clothe the petition with imagery and fervor, the prayer is a mere
vaporing of intellectual exercise, nothing being accomplished worth
while._--REV. HOMER W. HODGE.
The great religious reformation under King Hezekiah and the prophet
Isaiah was thoroughly impregnated with prayer in its various stages.
King Hezekiah, of Judah, will serve as an illustration of a praying
elder of God’s Church, white-robed and gold-crowned. He had genius and
strength, wisdom and piety. He was a statesman, a general, a poet and
a religious reformer. He is a distinct surprise to us, not so much
because of his strength and genius--they were to be expected--but in
his piety, under all the circumstances connected with him. The rare
statement, “He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord,” is
a glad and thrilling surprise when we consider all his antecedents
and his environments. Where did he come from? Under what circumstances
was his childhood life spent? Who were his parents and what were their
religious character? Worldliness, half-heartedness and utter apostasy
marked the reign of his father, grandfather and his great-grandfather.
His home surroundings as he grew up were far from being favorable to
godliness and faith in God. One thing, however, favored him. He was
fortunate in having Isaiah for his friend and counselor when he assumed
the crown of Judah. How much there is in a ruler’s having a God-fearing
man for a counselor and an associate!
With what familiar and successful praying did he intercede with God
is seen in the Passover feast, in which a number of the people were
unfitted to participate. They had not prepared themselves by the
required ceremonial cleansing, and it was important that they be
allowed to eat the Passover feast with all the others.
Here is the brief account with special reference to the praying of
Hezekiah and the result:
“For there were many in the congregation that were not sanctified;
therefore the Levites had the charge of the killing of the passover
for every one that was not clean, to sanctify them unto the Lord.
“For a multitude of the people had not cleansed themselves yet did
they eat the passover otherwise than it was written. But Hezekiah
prayed for them saying, The Good Lord pardon every one.
“That prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his fathers,
though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the
sanctuary.
“And the Lord hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people.”
So the Lord heard him as he prayed, and even the violation of the most
sacred law of the Passover was forgiven in answer to the prayer of this
praying, God-fearing king. Law must yield its scepter to prayer.
The strength, directness and foundation of his faith and prayer are
found in his words to his army. Memorable words are they, stronger and
mightier than all the hosts of Sennacherib:
“Be strong and courageous; be not afraid nor dismayed for the king
of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him; for there be
more with us than with him.
“With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God to help
us, and to fight our battles. And the people rested themselves upon
the words of Hezekiah, king of Judah.”
His defense against the mighty enemies of God was prayer. His enemies
quailed and were destroyed by his prayers when his own armies were
powerless. God’s people were always safe when their princes were
princes in prayer.
An occasion of serious import came to the people of God during his
reign which was to test his faith in God and furnish opportunity to
try the prayer agency to obtain deliverance. Judah was sorely pressed
by the Assyrians, and, humanly speaking, defeat and captivity seemed
imminent. The King of Assyria sent a commission to defy and blaspheme
the name of God and to insult King Hezekiah, and they uttered their
insults and blasphemy publicly. Note what Hezekiah immediately did
without hesitation:
“And it came to pass when King Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his
clothes and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house
of the Lord.”
His very first impression was to turn to God by going to the “house of
prayer.” God was in his thoughts, and prayer was the first thing to be
done. And so he sent messengers to Isaiah to join him in prayer. In
such an emergency God must not be left out of the account. God must be
appealed to for deliverance from these blasphemous enemies of God and
His people.
Just at this particular juncture the forces of the King of Assyria,
which were besieging Hezekiah, were diverted from an immediate attack
on Jerusalem. The King of Assyria, however, sent to Hezekiah a defaming
and blasphemous letter.
For the second time, as he is insulted and beset by the forces of this
heathen king, he enters the house of the Lord, the “house of prayer.”
Where else should he go? And to whom should he appeal but unto the God
of Israel?
“And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers,
and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, and
spread it before the Lord.
“And Hezekiah prayed unto the Lord: O Lord of hosts, the God of
Israel that dwellest between the cherubim, Thou art the God, even
thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. Thou hast made heaven
and earth.
“Now, therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the
kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord, even thou
only.”
And note the speedy answer and the marvelous results of such praying by
this God-fearing king. First, Isaiah gave the King full assurance that
he need fear nothing. God had heard the prayer, and would give a great
deliverance.
Then secondly, the angel of the Lord came with swift wings and smote
185,000 Assyrians. The king was vindicated, God was honored, and the
people of God were saved.
The united prayers of the praying king and of the praying prophet were
almighty forces in bringing deliverance and destroying God’s enemies.
Armies lay at their mercy, defenceless; and angels, swift-winged and
armed with almighty power and vengeance, were their allies.
Hezekiah had ministered in prayer in destroying idolatry and in
reforming his kingdom. In meeting his enemies, prayer had been his
chief weapon. He now comes to try its efficiency against the set and
declared purposes of Almighty God. Will it avail in this new field
of action? Let us see. Hezekiah was very sick, and God sends his own
familiar friend and wise counselor and prophet, Isaiah, to warn him of
his approaching end, and to tell him to arrange all his affairs for his
final departure. This is the Scriptural statement:
“In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the Prophet Isaiah,
the son of Amoz, came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord:
Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die and not live.”
The decree came direct from God that he should die. What can set aside
or reverse that Divine decree of heaven? Hezekiah had never been in a
condition so insuperable with a decree so direct and definite from God.
Can prayer change the purposes of God? Can prayer snatch from the jaws
of death one who has been decreed to die? Can prayer save a man from an
incurable sickness? These were the questions with which his faith had
now to deal. But his faith does not seem to pause one moment. His faith
is not staggered one minute at the sudden and definite news conveyed to
him by the Lord’s prophet. No such questions which modern unbelief or
disbelief would raise are started in his mind. At once he gives himself
to prayer. Immediately without delay he applies to God who issued the
edict. To whom else could he go? Cannot God change His own purposes if
He chooses?
Note what Hezekiah did in this emergency, sorely pressed, and see the
gracious result:
“Then he turned his face to the wall and prayed unto the Lord, saying,
“I beseech thee, O Lord, remember now how I have walked before thee
in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good
in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.”
It was no self-righteous plea which he offered to God for recovery. He
was only pleading his fidelity, just as Christ did in after years:
“Father, I have glorified thee on earth.” He is the Lord’s reminder,
and is putting Him in mind as to his sincerity, fidelity and service,
which was in every way legitimate. This prayer was directly in line
with that of David in Psalm 26:1, “Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked
in my integrity.” This is not a prayer test with Hezekiah, nor is it a
faith cure, but it is a testing of God. It must be God’s cure if a cure
comes at all.
Hezekiah had hardly finished his prayer, and Isaiah was just about
to go home when God gave him another message for Hezekiah, this time
one more pleasant and encouraging. The mighty force of prayer had
affected God, and had changed His edict and reversed Him in His purpose
concerning Hezekiah. What is that which prayer cannot do? What is it
which a praying man cannot accomplish through prayer?
“And it came to pass before Isaiah had gone out into the middle
court, that the word of the Lord came to him, saying,
“Turn again, and tell Hezekiah, the captain of my people, Thus, saith
the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer; I
have seen thy tears; Behold, I will heal thee; on the third day thou
shalt go up to the house of the Lord.
“And I will add unto thy days fifteen years, and I will deliver thee
and this city out of the hand of the King of Assyria; and I will
defend this city for my own sake, and for David, my servant’s sake.”
The prayer was to God. It was that God should reconsider and change His
mind. Doubtless Isaiah returned to his house with a lighter heart than
he did when he delivered his original message. God had been prayed to
by this sick king, and had been asked to revoke His decree, and God
had condescended to grant the request. God sometimes changes His mind.
He has a right to do so. The reasons for Him to change His mind are
strong reasons. His servant Hezekiah wants it done. Hezekiah had been
a dutiful servant and had done much for God. Truth, perfection and
goodness have been the elements of Hezekiah’s service and the rule of
his life. Hezekiah’s tears and prayer are in the way of God’s executing
His decree to take away the life of His servant. Prayer and tears are
mighty things with God. They are to Him much more than consistency and
much more to Him than decrees. “I have heard thy prayer; I have seen
thy tears; behold I will heal thee.”
Sickness dies before prayer. Health comes in answer to prayer. God
answered more than Hezekiah asked for. Hezekiah prayed only for his
life, and God gave him life, and in addition promised him protection
and security from his enemies.
But Isaiah had something to do with the recovery of this praying king.
There was something more than prayer in it. Isaiah’s praying was
changed into the skill of the physician. “And Isaiah said, Take a lump
of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.”
God often uses remedies in answering prayer. It frequently takes a
stronger faith to rise above means and not to trust in them, than it
does to wholly reject all means. Here was a simple remedy that all
might know that it did not cure the deadly disease, and yet a means to
aid or to test faith. But still more praying was to be done. Isaiah and
Hezekiah could not do things without much praying:
“And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What shall be the sign that the Lord
will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the Lord the
third day?
“And Isaiah said, This sign shalt thou have of the Lord, that the
Lord will do the thing that he hath spoken: Shall the shadow go
forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees?
“And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down
ten degrees; nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees.
“And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord, and he brought the
shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of
Ahaz.”
Hezekiah meets the occasion and covers the answer to his prayer with
thanksgiving. The fragrance of the sweet spices are there, and the
melody of the harp also.
Four things let us ever keep in mind: God hears prayer, God heeds
prayer, God answers prayer, and God delivers by prayer. These things
cannot be too often repeated. Prayer breaks all bars, dissolves all
chains, opens all prisons and widens all straits by which God’s saints
have been holden.
Life was sweet to Hezekiah and he desired to live, but what can brook
God’s decree? Nothing but the energy of faith. Hezekiah’s heart was
broken under the strain, and its waters flowed and added force and
volume to his praying. He pleaded with great strivings and with strong
arguments; and God heard Hezekiah praying, saw his tears, and changed
his mind, and Hezekiah lived to praise God and to be an example of the
power of mighty praying.
Like Hezekiah, the decent, soulless way of praying did not suit Paul.
He puts himself in the attitude of a wrestler, and charges his brethren
to join him in the agony of a great conflict. “Brethren, I beseech
you,” he says, “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.” He was too much in earnest to touch the praying business
genteelly or with gloved hands. He was in it as an agony, and he
desired his brethren to be his partners in this conflict and wrestling
of his soul. Epaphras was doing this same kind of praying for the
Colossians: “Always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that ye
may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.” An end worth
agonizing for always. This kind of praying by these early pastors of
the Apostolic Church was one secret of the purity, one source of the
power of the Church. And this was the kind of praying which was done by
Hezekiah.
Here was prayer born in the fire of a great desire, and pursued through
the deepest agony of conflict and opposition to success. Our spiritual
cravings are not strong enough to give life to the mighty conflicts of
prayer? They are not absorbing enough to stop business, arrest worldly
pursuits, awaken us before day, and send us to the closet, to solitude,
and to God; to conquer every opposing force and win our victories from
the very jaws of hell. We want preachers and men and women who can
illustrate the uses, the forces, the blessing, and the utmost limits of
prayer.
Isaiah laments that there was no one who stirred himself up to take
hold of God. Much praying was done, but it was too easy, indifferent,
complacent. There were no mighty movements of the soul toward God, no
array of all the sanctified energies to reach out and grapple God and
draw out his treasures for spiritual uses. Forceless prayers have no
power to overcome difficulties, no power to win marked results, or gain
a complete and wonderful victory.
CHAPTER VII
EZRA, THE PRAYING REFORMER
_Before the Great War there were many signs of a new interest in_
PRAYER _and new hope from its exercise. How these signs have
multiplied is known to every one. This one thing at least that is good
the War has done for us already. Let us not miss our opportunity.
Prayer is not an easy exercise. It requires encouragement, exposition,
and training. There never was a time when men and women were more
sincerely anxious to be told how to pray. Prayer is the mightiest
instrument in our armory, and if we are to use it as God has given the
encouragement, we must do everything in our power to bring it into
exercise._--REV. JAMES HASTINGS.
Ezra, the priest, and one of God’s great reformers, comes before
us in the Old Testament as a praying man, one who uses prayer to
overcome difficulties and bring good things to pass. He had returned
from Babylon under the patronage of the King of Babylon, who had been
strangely moved toward Ezra and who favored him in many ways. Ezra had
been in Jerusalem but a few days when the princes came to him with the
distressing information that the people had not separated themselves
from the people of that country, and were doing according to the
abominations of the heathen nations about them. And that which was
worse than all was that the princes and rulers in Israel had been chief
in the trespass.
It was a sad state of affairs facing Ezra as he found the Church almost
hopelessly involved with the world. God demands of His Church in all
ages that it should be separated from the world, a separation so sharp
that it amounts to an antagonism. To effect this very end, He put
Israel in the Promised Land, and cut them off from other nations by
mountains, deserts and seas, and straightway charged them that they
should not form any relation with alien nations, neither marital,
social nor business.
But Ezra finds the Church at Jerusalem, as he returns from Babylon,
paralyzed and hopelessly and thoroughly prostrated by the violation of
this principle. They had intermarried, and had formed the closest and
most sacred ties in family, social and business life, with the Gentile
nations. All were involved in it, priests, Levites, princes and people.
The family, the business, and the religious life of the people was
founded in this violation of God’s law. What was to be done? What could
be done? Here were the important questions which faced this leader in
Israel, this man of God.
Everything appeared to be against the recovery of the Church. Ezra
could not preach to them, because the whole city would be inflamed,
and would hound him out of the place. What force was there which could
recover them to God so that they would dissolve business partnerships,
divorce wives and husbands, cut acquaintances and dissolve friendships?
The first thing about Ezra which is worthy of remark was that he saw
the situation and realized how serious it was. He was not a blind-eyed
optimist who never sees anything wrong in the Church. By the mouth of
Isaiah God had propounded the very pertinent question, “Who is blind
but my servant?” But it could not possibly be made to apply to Ezra.
Nor did he minimize the condition of things or seek to palliate the
sins of the people or to minimize the enormity of their crimes. Their
offense appeared in his eyes to be serious in the extreme. It is worth
not a little to have leaders in Zion who have eyes to see the sins of
the Church as well as the evils of the times. One great need of the
modern Church is for leaders after the style of Ezra, who are not blind
in their seeing department, and who are willing to see the state of
things in the Church and who are not reluctant to open their eyes to
the real situation.
Very naturally, seeing these dreadful evils in the Church and in the
society of Jerusalem, he was distressed. The sad condition of things
grieved him, so much so that he rent his garments, plucked his hair,
and sat down astonished. All these things are evidences of his great
distress of soul at the terrible state of affairs. Then it was in that
frame of mind, concerned, solicitous and troubled in soul, that he gave
himself to prayer, to confession of the sins of the people, and to
pleading for pardoning mercy at the hands of God. To whom should he go
in a time like this but unto the God who hears prayer, who is ready to
pardon and who can bring the unexpected thing to pass?
He was amazed beyond expression at the wicked conduct of the people,
was deeply moved and began to fast and pray. Prayer and fasting always
accomplish something. He prays with a broken heart, for there is naught
else that he can do. He prays unto God, deeply burdened, prostrate on
the ground and weeping, while the whole city unites with him in prayer.
Prayer was the only way to placate God, and Ezra became a great mover
in a great work for God, with marvelous results. The whole work, its
principles and its results, are summarized by just one verse in Ezra
10:1:
“Now when Ezra had prayed, and had confessed, weeping and casting
himself down before the house of God, there assembled unto him out of
Israel a very great congregation of men and women and children, for
the people wept sore.”
There had been mighty, simple and persevering prayer. Intense and
prevailing prayer had accomplished its end. Ezra’s praying had brought
into being and brought forth results in a great work for God. It was
mighty praying because it brought Almighty God to do His own work,
which was absolutely hopeless from any other source save by prayer and
by God. But nothing is hopeless to prayer because nothing is hopelessly
to God.
Again we must say that prayer has only to do with God, and is only
resultful as it has to do with God. Whatever influence the praying of
Ezra had upon himself, its chief, if not its only, results followed
because it affected God, and moved Him to do the work.
A great and general repentance followed this praying of Ezra, and there
occurred a wonderful reformation in Israel. And Ezra’s mourning and
his praying were the great factors which had to do with bringing these
great things to pass.
So thorough was the revival which occurred that as evidences of its
genuineness it is noted that the leaders in Israel came to Ezra with
these words:
“We have trespassed against our God, and have taken strange wives of
the people of the land. Yet now there is hope in Israel concerning
this thing.
“Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all
the wives, and such as are born to them, according to the counsel of
my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God;
and let it be done according to the law.
“Arise, for this matter belongeth unto thee. We also will be with
thee; be of good courage, and do it.”
CHAPTER VIII
NEHEMIAH, THE PRAYING BUILDER
_We care not for your splendid abilities as a minister, or your
natural endowment as an orator before men. We are sure that the truth
of the matter is this: No one will or can command success and become a
real praying soul unless intense application is the price. I am even
now convinced that the difference between the saints like Wesley,
Fletcher, Edwards, Brainerd, Bramwell, Bounds, and ourselves is
energy, perseverance, invincible determination to succeed or die in
the attempt. God help us._--REV. HOMER W. HODGE.
In enumerating the praying saints of the Old Testament, we must not
leave out of that sacred catalogue Nehemiah, the builder. He stands out
on an equal footing with the others who have been considered. In the
story of the reconstruction of Jerusalem after the captivity, he plays
a prominent part, and prayer is prominent in his life during those
years. He was a captive in Babylon, and had an important position in
the palace of the king to whom he was cup bearer. There must have been
considerable merit in him to cause the king to take a Hebrew captive
and place him in such an office, where he really had the life of the
king in his charge, because he was responsible for the wine which he
drank.
It was while Nehemiah was in Babylon, in the king’s palace, that one
day his brethren came from Jerusalem, and very naturally Nehemiah
desired news from the people there and information concerning the city
itself. The distressing information was given him that the walls were
broken down, the gates were burned with fire, and the remnant who were
left there at the beginning of the captivity were in great affliction
and reproach.
Just one verse gives the effect of this sad news upon this man of God:
“And it came to pass when I heard these words, that I sat down and
wept, and mourned certain days and fasted, and prayed before the God
of heaven.”
Here was a man whose heart was in his own native land far away from
where he now lived. He loved Israel, was concerned for the welfare
of Zion, and was true to God. Deeply distressed by the information
concerning his brethren at Jerusalem, he mourned and wept. How few the
strong men in these days who can weep at the evils and abominations
of the times! How rare those who, seeing the desolations of Zion, are
sufficiently interested and concerned for the welfare of the Church to
mourn! Mourning and weeping over the decay of religion, the decline
of revival power, and the fearful inroads of worldliness in the Church
are almost an unknown quantity. There is so much of so-called optimism
that leaders have no eyes to see the breaking down of the walls of Zion
and the low spiritual state of the Christians of the present day, and
have less heart to mourn and cry about it. Nehemiah was a mourner in
Zion. And possessing this state of heart, distressed beyond measure,
he does that which other praying saints had done--he goes to God and
makes it a subject of prayer. The prayer is recorded in Nehemiah, 1st
chapter, and is a model after which to pattern our prayers. He begins
with adoration, makes confession of the sins of his nation, pleads the
promises of God, mentions former mercies, and begs for pardoning mercy.
Then with an eye to the future--for unquestionably he had planned, the
next time he was summoned into the King’s presence, to ask permission
to visit Jerusalem and to do there what was possible to remedy the
distressing state of affairs--we hear him pray for something very
special: “And prosper thy servant this day, I pray thee, and grant him
mercy in the sight of this man. For,” he adds by way of explanation, “I
was the king’s cup bearer.”
It seemed all right to pray for his people, but how was a heathen
king, with possibly no sympathy whatever for the sad condition of his
city and his people in a captive land, and who had no interest in
the matter, to be so favorably affected that he would consent to give
up his faithful cup bearer and allow him to be gone for months? But
Nehemiah believed in a God who could touch even the mind of a heathen
ruler and move him favorably toward the request of his praying servant.
Nehemiah was summoned into the king’s presence, and God used even the
appearance of Nehemiah’s countenance as an entering wedge to gain the
consent of Artaxerxes. This started the inquiry of the king as to
its cause, and the final result was that the king not only permitted
Nehemiah to go back to Jerusalem but furnished him with everything
needful for the journey and for the success of the enterprise.
Nor did Nehemiah rest his case when he first prayed about this matter,
but he stated this significant fact as he was talking to the king: “So
I prayed unto the God of heaven?” leading out the impression that while
the king was inquiring about his request and the length of time he
would be gone, he was then and there talking to God about the matter.
The intense, persistent praying of Nehemiah prevailed. God can even
affect the mind of a heathen ruler, and this he can do in answer to
prayer without in the least overturning his free agency or forcing his
will. It was a parallel case with that of Esther when she called upon
her people to fast and pray for her as she went uninvited into the
king’s presence. As a result, his mind at a very critical moment was
touched by the Spirit of God, and he was favorably moved toward Esther
and held out to her the golden scepter.
Nor did the praying of Nehemiah cease when he had succeeded thus far.
In building the wall of Jerusalem, he met with great opposition from
Sanballat and Tobiah, who ridiculed the efforts of the people to
rebuild the city’s walls. Unmoved by these revilings and the intense
opposition of these wicked opponents of that which was for God’s cause,
he pursued the task which he had undertaken. But he mixes prayer with
all he does: “Hear, O our God, for we are despised; and turn their
reproach upon their own head, and give them for a prey in the land of
our captivity.” And in continuing the account he says, “Nevertheless we
made our prayer unto our God.”
All along in the accounts of the high and noble work he was doing,
we find prayer comes out prominently to the front. Even after the
walls were completed, these same enemies of his and of the people of
God again opposed him in his task. But he renews his praying, and he
himself records this significant prayer: “Now there, O God, strengthen
my hands.”
Still further on, when Sanballat and Tobiah had hired an emissary to
frighten and hinder Nehemiah, we find him setting himself directly
against this new attack, and then again he turns to God in prayer: “My
God, think thou upon Tobiah and Sanballat according to these their
works and on the prophetess Noadiah, and the rest of the prophets, that
would have put me in fear.” And God answered his faithful laborer, and
defeated the counsels and the plans of these wicked opponents of Israel.
Nehemiah discovered to his dismay that the portions of the Levites had
not been given them, and as a result the house of God was forsaken.
He took steps to see that the lawful tithes were forthcoming so that
God’s house should be opened to all religious services, and appointed
treasurers to give attention to this business. But prayer must not be
overlooked, so we find his prayer recorded at this time: “Remember me,
O my God, concerning this, and wipe not out my good deeds that I have
done for the house of my God, and for the offices thereof.”
Let it not be thought that this was the plea of self-righteousness as
was that of the Pharisee in our Lord’s time who professedly went up
to the temple to pray, who paraded his self-righteous claims in God’s
sight. It was a prayer after the fashion of Hezekiah, who reminded God
of his fidelity to Him and of his heart’s being right in his sight.
Once more Nehemiah finds evil among the people of God. Just as he
corrected the evil which caused the closing of the house of God, he
discovers practices of Sabbath breaking, and here he has not only to
counsel the people and seek to correct them by mild means, but he
proposes to exercise his authority if they did not cease their buying
and selling on the Sabbath Day. But he must close this part of his work
also with prayer, and so he records his prayer on that occasion:
“Remember me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare me according
to the greatness of thy mercy.”
Lastly, as a reformer, he discovers another great evil among the
people. They had intermarried with the men and women of Ashdod, Ammon
and Moab. Contending with them, he caused them to reform in this
matter, and the close of his record has a prayer in it:
“Remember me, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, and
the covenant of the priesthood, and of the Levites.”
Cleansing them from all strangers, he appointed the wards of the
priests, and the Levites, and his recorded career closes with this
brief prayer: “Remember me, O my God, for good.”
Fortunate is that Church whose leaders are men of prayer. Happy is
that congregation who are contemplating the erection of a church to
have leaders who will lay its foundations in prayer, and whose walls
go up side by side with prayer. Prayer helps to build churches and to
erect the walls of houses of worship. Prayer defeats the opponents of
those who are prosecuting God’s enterprises. Prayer touches favorably
the minds even of those not connected with the Church, and moves them
toward Church matters. Prayer helps mightily in all matters concerning
God’s cause and wonderfully aids and encourages the hearts of those who
have His work in hand in this world.
CHAPTER IX
SAMUEL, THE CHILD OF PRAYER
_That was a grand action by Jerome, one of the Roman fathers. He laid
aside all pressing engagements and went to fulfill the call God gave
him, viz., to translate the Holy Scriptures. His congregations were
larger than many preachers of to-day but he said to his people, “Now
it is necessary that the Scriptures be translated; you must find you
another minister: I am bound for the wilderness and shall not return
until my task is finished.” Away he went and labored and prayed until
he produced the Latin Vulgate which will last as long as the world
stands. So we must say to our friends, “I must away and have time for
prayer and solitude.” And though we did not write Latin Vulgates yet
our work will be immortal: Glory to God._--REV. C. H. SPURGEON.
Samuel came into this world and was given existence in direct answer
to prayer. He was born of a praying mother, whose heart was full of
earnest desire for a son. He came into life under prayer surroundings,
and his first months in this world were spent in direct contact with
a woman who knew how to pray. It was a prayer accompanied by a solemn
vow that if he should be given, he should be “lent unto the Lord,” and
true to that vow, this praying mother put him directly in touch with
the minister of the sanctuary and under the influence of “the house of
prayer.” It was no wonder he developed into a man of prayer. We could
not have expected otherwise with such a beginning in life and with such
early environments. Such surroundings always make impressions upon
children and tend to make character and determine destiny.
He was in a favorable place to hear God when He spoke to him, and
was in an atmosphere where it tended to his heeding the divine call
which came to him. It was the most natural thing in the world when
at the third call from heaven, when he recognized God’s voice, that
his childish heart responded so promptly, “Speak, Lord, thy servant
heareth.” Quickly was there a response from his boyish spirit, of
submission, willingness and prayer.
Had he been born of a different sort of mother, had he been placed
under different surroundings, had he spent his early days in contact
with different influences, does any one for one moment suppose he could
have easily heard the voice of God calling him to His service, and that
he would have so readily yielded his young life to the God who brought
him into being? Would a worldly home, with worldly surroundings,
separated from the Church of God, with a worldly-minded mother, have
produced such a character as Samuel? It takes such influences and
agencies in early life to produce such praying men as Samuel. Would you
have your child called early into divine service and separated from the
world unto God? Would you have him so situated that he will be called
in childhood by the Spirit of God? Put him under prayer influences.
Place him near to and directly under the influence of the Man of God
and in close touch with that house which is called “the house of
prayer.”
Samuel knew God in boyhood. As a consequence he knew God in manhood.
He recognized God in childhood, obeyed him and prayed unto him. The
result was that he recognized God in manhood, obeyed him, and prayed
unto him. If more children were born of praying mothers, brought up
in direct contact with “the house of prayer,” and reared under prayer
environments, more children would hear the voice of God’s spirit
speaking to them, and would more quickly respond to those divine calls
to a religious life. Would we have praying men in our churches? We
must have praying mothers to give them birth, praying homes to color
their lives, and praying surroundings to impress their minds and to lay
the foundations for praying lives. Praying Samuels come from praying
Hannahs. Praying priests come from “the house of prayer.” Praying
leaders come from praying homes.
Israel for years had been under bondage to the Philistines and the ark
was housed in the home of Abinadab, whose son Eleazer was appointed to
keep this sacred testimony of God. The people had gone into idolatry
and Samuel was disturbed about the religious condition of the nation.
The ark of God was absent, the people were given to the worship of
idols, and there had been a grievous departure from God. Calling upon
them to put away their strange gods, he urged them to prepare their
hearts unto the Lord and to begin again to serve Him--promising them
that the Lord would deliver them out of the hands of the Philistines.
His preaching thus plainly to them, for with all else belonging to him,
Samuel was a preacher of the times, made a deep impression and bore
rich fruits as such preaching always does. “Then the children of Israel
did put away Baalim and Ashtoreth, and served the Lord only.”
But this was not enough. Prayer must be mixed with and must accompany
their reformation. So Samuel, true to his convictions about prayer,
says to the people, “Gather all Israel to Mizpeh, and I will pray for
you unto the Lord.” While Samuel was offering up prayer for these
wicked Israelites, the Philistines drew near to battle against the
nation, but the Lord intervened at the critical moment and thundered
with a great thunder, and discomfited these enemies of Israel, “and
they were smitten before Israel.”
The nation fortunately had a man who could pray, who knew the place and
the worth of prayer, and a leader who had the ear of God and who could
influence God.
But Samuel’s praying did not stop there. He judged Israel all the
days of his life, and had occasion from year to year to go in circuit
to Bethel, Gilgal and Mizpeh. Then he returned home to Ramah, where
he resided. “And there he built an altar unto the Lord.” Here was an
altar of sacrifice but as well was it an altar of prayer. And while it
may have been for the benefit of the community where he lived, after
the fashion of a town church, yet it must not be overlooked that it
must have been a family altar, a place where the sacrifice for sin was
offered but at the same time where his household gathered for worship,
praise and prayer. Here Almighty God was acknowledged in the home, here
was the advertisement of a religious home, and here father and mother
called upon the name of the Lord, differentiating this home from all
the worldly and idolatrous homes about them.
Here is an example of a religious home, the kind so greatly needed in
this irreligious, godless age. Blessed is that home which has in it an
altar of sacrifice and of prayer, where daily thanksgivings ascend to
heaven and where morning and night praying is done.
Samuel was not only a praying priest, a praying leader and a praying
teacher and leader, but he was a praying father. And any one who knows
the situation so far as family religion is concerned knows full well
that the great demand of these modern times is religious homes and
praying fathers and mothers. Here is where the breakdown in religion
occurs, where the religious life of a community first begins to decay,
and where we must go first to beget praying men and women in the Church
of God. It is in the home that the revival must commence.
A crisis came in the history of this nation. The people were infatuated
by the glory of a kingdom with a human king, and was prepared to reject
God as their king, as He had always been. So they came to Samuel with
the bold request, “Make us a king to judge us like all the nations.”
The thing displeased this man of God, who was jealous for the name,
the honor and the pleasure of the Lord God. How could it be otherwise?
Who would not have been likewise displeased if he were built after the
pattern of Samuel? It grieved him in soul. The Lord, however, came to
him just at that time with the comforting assurance so far as he was
personally concerned in the transaction, that “they have not rejected
thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.
Hearken unto the voice of the people, in all that they say unto thee.”
Then it was that Samuel followed the bent of his mind, “And Samuel
prayed unto the Lord.” It seemed that in every matter concerning this
people, with which Samuel was connected, he must pray over it. How
much more now when there was to be an entire revolution in the form of
government, and God was to be displaced as the ruler of the people,
and a human king was to be set up? National affairs need to be prayed
over. Praying men are demanded to carry to God in prayer the affairs of
government. Lawmakers, law judges, and law executives need leaders in
Israel to pray for them. How much fewer the mistakes if there was more
praying done in civil matters?
But this was not to be the end of this matter. God must show so
definitely and plainly His displeasure at such a request as had been
made for a human king, that the people might know what a wicked thing
they had done, even though God acceded to their request. They must
know God still existed and had to do with this people, and with their
king and the affairs of the government. So the prayers of Samuel must
again be brought into play to carry out the divine purposes. So Samuel
called upon the people to stand still, and he would show them what the
Lord would do before their eyes. So he called upon God, and in answer
God sent a tremendous storm of thunder and rain, which exceedingly
terrified the people, and caused them to acknowledge their great sin
in asking for a king. So afraid were the people that they hastily
called upon Samuel to pray for them and to spare them from what seemed
to be destruction. Samuel again prayed, and God heard and answered, and
the thunder and rain ceased.
One more incident in the prayer life of Samuel is worth noticing. King
Saul had been ordered to destroy all the Amalekites, root and branch,
and all their stuff, but Saul, contrary to divine instructions, had
spared King Agag and the best of the sheep and the cattle, and had
justified it because he claimed that the people wanted it done.
God brought this message to Samuel at this time:
“It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king; for he is turned
back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments.”
“And it grieved Samuel, and he cried all night unto the Lord.” Such
a sudden declaration was enough to produce grief of soul in a man
like Samuel, who loved his nation, who was true to God, and who above
everything else desired the prosperity of Zion. Such grief of soul
over the evils of the Church and at the sight of the abominations of
the times always drives a man to his knees in prayer. Of course Samuel
carried the case to God. It was a time for prayer. The case was too
serious for him not to be deeply moved to pray. So greatly was the
inner soul of Samuel disturbed that he prayed all night about it. Too
much was at stake for him to shut his eyes to the affair, to treat it
indifferently, and to let it pass without taking God into the matter,
for the future welfare of Israel was in the balance.
CHAPTER X
DANIEL, THE PRAYING CAPTIVE
_It is a wonderful historical fact that the men of prayer have always
been the men of power in the world. I want to convince you about this.
Some of you men--and I am glad to see such a large number of men here
to-night--if you are arguing with some friend in the workshop, be sure
and ask him why it is that the men of power in the world have been the
men of prayer. Take only one instance: Where did they go always to
find men for the forlorn hope in Havelock’s days? They went to
Havelock’s prayer meeting; that is where they found men who had
courage to come out for the forlorn hope._--BISHOP WINNINGTON INGRAM.
That was a notable experience in the life of Daniel when he was ordered
by the king while in Babylon not to ask any petition of any God or king
for thirty days, under penalty of being cast into the lions’ den. He
paid no attention to the edict, for it is recorded, “Now when Daniel
knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house, and his
windows being opened in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon
his knees three times a day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God,
as he did aforetime.” Do not forget that this was the regular habit
of this man of God. “He kneeled upon his knees and prayed as he did
aforetime.” What was the result? Just as expected. God sent an angel
into the den of lions with Daniel and locked their mouths so that not
a hair on his head was touched, and he was wonderfully delivered. Even
so to-day deliverance always come to God’s saints who tread the path of
prayer as the saints of old did.
Daniel did not forget his God while in a foreign land, away from the
house of God and its religious services, and deprived as he was of many
religious privileges. He was a striking illustration of a young man
who was decidedly religious under the most unfavorable surroundings.
He proved conclusively that one could be definitely a servant of God
though his environments were anything else than religious. He was among
heathens so far as a God-fearing nation was concerned. There was no
temple worship, no Sabbath Day, no Word of God to be read. But he had
one help there which remained with him, and of which he could not be
deprived, and that was his secret prayers.
Purposing in his heart without debating the question one moment or
compromising at any one point, that he would not eat of the king’s
meat nor drink the king’s wine, he stood out in that ungodly country
a striking illustration of a young man, fearing God first of all, and
resolving to be religious, cost what it may. But he was not to have a
flowery bed on which to rest nor a smooth road on which to travel. The
whimsical, tyrannical and unreasonable king, Nebuchadnezzar, was to
put him to the test, and his praying qualities were to be proved. This
king had a strange dream, the particular items of which passed from his
memory, but the fact of the dream remained. So troubled was he about
the dream, he called for all the soothsayers, astrologers and sorcerers
to call the dream to mind, an impossible task, humanly speaking, and
then to interpret it. He classed Daniel and his three companions,
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, with these men, though there really was
nothing in them in common with the two classes of men. Being informed
that it was impossible to discover a dream like that, and at their
saying if the king would tell the dream to them, they would interpret
it, the king became very angry, and ordered them to be put to death.
This sentence of death was against Daniel and his three companions.
But Daniel appeared upon the stage of action. At his suggestion the
execution of the rash edict was held up, and he immediately called his
three companions into counsel, and he urged them to unite with him in
a concert of prayer that God would discover to Daniel the dream with
the interpretation thereof. In answer to this united praying, it is
recorded: “Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision.
Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.” As a sequel to this incident
of the praying of these four men, Daniel revealed to the king his dream
and its interpretation, and as a final result the king acknowledged
the God of Daniel and elevated to high positions Daniel and his three
associates. And it all came about because there was a praying man there
just at a critical time. Blessed is that nation which has praying men
who can come to the help of civil rulers who are greatly perplexed and
in great difficulties, and who can be depended upon to pray for rulers
of state and Church.
Years afterward, while still in a foreign land, he still had not
forgotten the God of his fathers, and to him was given the noted vision
of the “Ram and the He Goat.” But Daniel did not comprehend this
strange vision, and yet he knew it was from God and had a deep and
future meaning for nations and people. So, of course, he followed the
bent of his religious mind and prayed about it.
“And it came to pass when I even I Daniel, had seen the vision, and
sought for the meaning, then behold there stood before me as the
appearance of a man.
“And I heard a man’s voice which called, and said, Gabriel, make this
man to understand the vision.”
And so Gabriel made him understand the full meaning of this remarkable
vision. But it came in answer to Daniel’s praying. So puzzling
questions may often find an answer in the closet. And as elsewhere,
God employs angelic intelligences to convey information as to prayer
answers. Angels have much to do with prayer. Praying men and the angels
of heaven are in close touch with each other.
Some years thereafter, Daniel was studying the records of the nation,
and he discovered that it was about time for the seventy years of
captivity of his people to end. So he gave himself to prayer:
“And I set my face to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting
and sackcloth and ashes. And I prayed unto the Lord, and made
confession.”
Then follows the record in those Old Testament Scriptures of Daniel’s
prayer, so full of meaning, so simple in its utterances, so earnest in
its spirit, so direct in its confession and requests, worthy of being
patterned after.
And it was while he was speaking in prayer that the same archangel
Gabriel, who seemed to have a direct interest in the praying of this
man of God, “being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of
the evening sacrifice, and he informed me and talked with me,” and then
gave him much desired information valuable to Daniel.
The angels of God are much nearer us in our seasons of prayer than
we imagine. God employs these glorious heavenly intelligences in the
blessed work of hearing and answering prayer, when the prayer, as in
the case of Daniel on this occasion, has to do with the present and
future welfare of His people.
One other incident on the prayer line in the life of this captive man
in Babylon. Another revelation was made to Daniel, but the time of its
fulfillment appeared to be far in the future. “In those days, I Daniel
was mourning three full weeks. I ate no pleasant bread, neither came
flesh nor wine into my mouth till the three whole weeks were fulfilled.”
It was then that he had a very strange experience and a still stranger
revelation was made to him by some angelic being. It is worth while to
read the scripture account:
“And behold a hand touched me, which set me on my knees, and upon the
palms of my hands.
“And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the
words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright, for unto thee am I
now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling.
“Then he said unto me, Fear not, Daniel; for from the first day that
thou didst set thy heart to understand and to chasten thyself before
thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.
“But the Prince of the Kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty
days; but lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and
I remained there with the kings of Persia.”
What all this means is difficult to comprehend, but enough appears on
its face to lead us to believe that the angels in heaven are deeply
interested in our praying, and are sent to tell us the answers to our
prayers. Further, it is very clear that some unseen forces or invisible
spirits are operating to hinder the answers to our prayers. Who the
Prince of Persia was who withstood this great angelic being is not
divulged, but enough is revealed to know that there must be a contest
in the unseen world about us between those spirits sent to minister to
us in answer to our prayers and the devil and his evil spirits who seek
to defeat these good spirits.
The passage furthermore gives us some intimation as to the cause of
delayed answers to prayer. For “three full weeks” Daniel mourned and
prayed, and for “one and twenty days” the divinely appointed angel was
opposed by the “Prince of the Kingdom of Persia.”
Well was it for praying Daniel that he had the courage, fortitude and
determination to persist in his praying for three weeks while the
fearful conflict between good and bad spirits was going on about him
unseen by mortal eyes. Well will it be for us if we do not give up in
our praying when God seems not to hear and the answer is not immediate.
It takes time to pray, and it takes time to get the answer to prayer.
Delays in answering prayer are not denials. Failure to receive an
immediate answer is no evidence that God does not hear prayer. It takes
not only courage and persistence to pray successfully, but it requires
much patience. “Wait on the Lord and be of good courage; and he shall
strengthen thy heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.”
CHAPTER XI
FAITH OF SINNERS IN PRAYER
_A certain preacher whose sermons converted many souls received a
revelation from God that it was not his sermons or works by all
means but the prayers of an illiterate lay brother who sat on the
pulpit steps pleading for the success of the sermon. It may be in the
all-revealing day so with us. We may believe after laboring long and
wearily that all honor belongs to another builder whose prayers were
gold, silver, and precious stones, while our sermonizings being apart
from prayer are but hay and stubble._--REV. C. H. SPURGEON.
One of the peculiar features of prayer as we study the Old Testament
on this subject is the faith of unrighteous and back-slidden men in
prayer, and the great confidence they had in the prayers of praying men
of that day. They knew certain men as men of prayer, who believed in
God, who were favored of God and who prayed unto God. They recognized
these men as having influence with God in averting wrath and in giving
deliverance from evil.
Frequently when in trouble, when God’s wrath was threatened and even
when there were visitations of evil upon them for their iniquities,
they showed their faith in prayer by appealing to the men who prayed,
to beg God to avert His displeasure and turn aside His wrath against
them. Recognizing the value of prayer as a divine agency to save men,
they made application to the men who prayed, to intercede with God for
them.
It is one of the strange paradoxes of those early days that while
people departed from God, and went into grievous sin, they did not
become either atheists nor unbelievers when it came to the question
of the existence of a prayer-answering God. Wicked men held fast to
a belief in God’s existence, and to faith in the power of prayer to
secure pardon for sin and to deliver them from God’s wrath. It is worth
something as showing the influence of the Church on sinners, when the
latter believe in prayer and beg Christian people to pray for them. It
is an item of interest and an event of importance when a sinner on a
dying bed calls for a praying man to come to his bedside to pray for
him. It means something when penitent sinners, under a sense of their
guilt, feeling the displeasure of God, approach a church altar and
say, “Pray for me, ye praying men and women.” Little does the Church
understand its full import, and still less does the Church appreciate
and take in the full import of praying, especially for the unsaved men
and women who ask them to pray for their immortal souls. If the Church
was fully alive to God and awake to the real peril of the unconverted
all about it, and was in a thriving state, more sinners would be found
seeking the altars of the Church and crying out to praying people,
“Pray for my soul.”
Much so-called praying for sinners there may be, but it is cold,
formal, official praying, which goes nowhere, never reaches God, and
accomplishes nothing. Revivals begin when sinners seek the prayers of
praying people.
Several things stand out in bold relief as we look at those Old
Testament days:
First, the disposition of sinners against God to almost involuntarily
turn to praying men for help and refuge when trouble draws near, and
to invoke their prayers for relief and deliverance. “Pray for us” was
their cry.
Second, the readiness with which those praying men responded to these
appeals and prayed to God for those who desired this thing. Moreover,
we are impressed with the fact that these praying men were always in
the spirit of prayer and ready at any time to inquire of God. They were
always keyed up on prayer.
Third, we note the wonderful influence these men of prayer had with
God whenever they made their appeal to Him. God nearly always quickly
responded and heard their praying for others. So intercessory prayer
predominated in those early days of the Church.
It is a question worthy of earnest consideration, how far the
present-day Church is responsible for the unbelief of sinners of these
modern times in the value of prayer as an agency in averting God’s
wrath, in sparing barren lives and in giving deliverance. How far is
the Church responsible for the precious few mourners in Zion in these
times, who ignore your altar calls and treat with indifference your
appeals to come and be prayed for?
The first illustration we notice as showing the faith of wicked men
in prayer and their appeal for a man of God to intercede for them is
the case of the fiery serpents sent upon the Israelites. They were
journeying from Mount Hor by way of the Red Sea, seeking to compass the
land of Edom, when they spoke against God and Moses, after this fashion:
“Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the
wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and
our soul loatheth this light bread.”
The thing so sorely displeased God that He sent fiery serpents among
the people, and many of the people of Israel died.
“Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned because
we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the
Lord, that He take away the serpents from us.”
And Moses prayed for the people.
As far as these people had departed from God, and as great as was their
sin in complaining against God’s dealings with them, they had not lost
faith in prayer, neither did they forget that there was a leader in
Israel who had influence with God in prayer, and who could by that
means avert disaster and bring deliverance to them.
Jeroboam, first King of the ten tribes when the kingdom was divided,
was another case in point. This was a most noted case because of the
notoriety of his departure from God, which was often referred to in the
after history of Israel, as “the sin of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat,”
and shows that despite his great wickedness in the sight of God, he did
not lose his faith in the efficacy of prayer. This king on one occasion
presumed to take the place of the high priest, and stood by the altar
to burn incense. A man of God came out of Judah and cried against the
altar and proclaimed, “Behold the altar shall be rent, and the ashes
that are upon it shall be poured out.” This angered Jeroboam, who saw
that it was intended as a public rebuke for him, who had undertaken
contrary to the Levitical law to assume the office of God’s priest,
and the king put forth his hand with the apparent purpose of arresting
or doing violence to the man of God, saying, at the same time to those
about him, “Lay hold upon him.”
Immediately God smote the king with leprosy, so that he could not
pull his hand back again, and at the same time the altar was rent.
Astonished beyond measure at this sudden retribution for his sin,
coming like lightning from heaven, and very much afraid, he cried out
to the man of God, “Entreat now the face of the Lord thy God for me,
that my hand may be restored again.” And it is recorded that “the man
of God besought the Lord, and the king’s hand was restored him again,
and became as it was before.”
Let us keep in mind that we are not now considering the praying habits
of the man of God nor the possibilities of prayer, though both face
us here. But rather we are finding just here that a ruler in Israel,
guilty of a grievous sin, and departing from God, when God’s wrath
falls upon him, he immediately calls upon a praying man to intercede
with God in his behalf. It is but another case where a sinner against
God showed his faith in the virtue of the prayers of a man of God.
Sad is the day in a Christian land, not only where there is the decay
of prayer in the Church, but where sinners are so unaffected by the
religion of the Church that they have no faith in prayer and care
little about the prayers of praying men.
Another illustration follows this case very quickly. The son of King
Jeroboam fell sick, and was about to die. And this wicked, indifferent
king, posted his wife off to Ahijah, the prophet of God, to ask him to
say what would be the result of the illness of the child. She attempted
to practice a deception upon the old prophet who was nearly blind,
intending not to make herself known to him. But he had the vision of a
prophet even though dim in sight, and immediately revealed to her that
she was known to him. After telling her many things of vast importance
concerning the kingdom and charging her husband that he had not kept
God’s commandments, but had gone into idolatry, he said to her: “Arise,
therefore, and get thee down to thy house; and when thy feet enter into
the city, the child shall die.”
How natural for a father in trouble to appeal to a praying prophet for
relief? And as in the first mentioned case, his sin did not blind his
eyes to the value of having a man of God intercede for him. It availed
nothing as was proved, but it did prove our contention that in Old
Testament times sinners, while they were not themselves praying men,
believed strongly in the prayers of praying men.
Take the instance of Johanan, just as the Children of Israel began
their life of captivity in Babylon. Johanan and Jeremiah, with a small
company, had been left in their native land, and Ishmael had conspired
against Gedaliah, the appointed governor of the country, and had slain
him. Johanan came to the rescue and delivered the people from Ishmael
who was taking them away from their land. But Johanan wanted to
flee down into Egypt, which was contrary to the Divine plan. At this
particular juncture of affairs, he assembled all the people, and they
went to Jeremiah with the earnest appeal:
“We beseech thee, let our supplication be accepted before thee, and
pray for us unto the Lord thy God, that the Lord thy God may show us
the way wherein we may walk, and the thing that we may do.”
Like all other appeals to good men for prayer, Jeremiah interceded for
these inquirers after the right way, and after ten days the answer
came, and they were informed by Jeremiah what God would have them
do. This was to the effect that they should not go down to Egypt,
but remain in and about Jerusalem, but the people and Johanan played
Jeremiah false, and refused to do as God had told them in answer to
prayer. But it did not disprove the fact that they had faith in prayer
and in praying men.
Another case may be noticed as showing the truth of our proposition
that sinners had faith in prayer in the Old Testament dispensation,
thus indirectly proving the preëminence of prayer in those days, for
certainly prayer must have had a prominent place and its necessity must
have received general recognition, when even sinners by their actions
give endorsement to its virtue and necessity. Surely if sinners bore
testimony to its worth, and at that time displayed their need of
prayer, even by the prayers of some one else, Church people of this day
ought to have a deep sense of its need, and should have strong faith in
prayer and its virtue. And certainly if the men of Old Testament times
were such men of prayer, and had such a reputation as praying men, then
in this favored day, Christian men should be so given to prayer that
they also would have a wide reputation as praying men.
Zedekiah was king of Judah just as the captivity of God’s people began.
He was in charge of the kingdom when Jerusalem was besieged by the King
of Babylon. And it was just about this time that Zedekiah sent two
chosen men unto Jeremiah saying: “Inquire, I pray thee, of the Lord for
us; for Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, maketh war against us; if so
be that the Lord will deal with us according to all his wondrous works,
that he may go up from us.”
And God told Jeremiah in answer to this inquiry what to do, and what
would occur, but as in another case, that of Johanan, Zedekiah proved
false, and would not do as God instructed Jeremiah to tell him. At the
same time it proved conclusively that Zedekiah had not lost his faith
in prayer as a means of finding out the mind of God, nor did it affect
him in his belief in the virtue of the prayers of a praying man.
Verily, prayer must have had a preëminent place in all Old Testament
history when not only the men of God were noted for their praying
habits, but even men who departed from God and proved false bore
testimony to its virtue by appealing to the men of prayer to make
intercessions for them. This is so notorious in Old Testament history
that no careful reader of these old scriptures can fail to discover and
notice it.
CHAPTER XII
PAUL, THE TEACHER OF PRAYER
_Fletcher of Madeley, a great teacher of a century and a half ago,
used to lecture to the young theological students. He was one of the
fellow-workers with Wesley and a man of most saintly character. When
he had lectured on one of the great topics of the Word of God, such as
the Fullness of God’s Holy Spirit or on the power and blessing that He
meant His people to have, he would close the lecture and say, “That is
the theory; now will those who want the practice come along up to my
room?” And again and again they closed their books and went away to
his room, where the hour’s theory would be followed by one or two
hours of prayer._--REV. HUBERT BROOKE.
How instant, strenuous, persistent, and pathetic was Paul’s urgency
of prayer upon those to whom he wrote and spoke! “I exhort,” says
he, writing to Timothy, “first of all, that supplications, prayers,
intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men.” This he meant
was to be the prime deposit and truth for the Church. First of all,
before all things, to the front of all things, the Church of Christ was
to be a praying Church, was to pray for men, was to pray for all men.
He charged the Philippians to this effect: “Be careful for nothing,
but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let
your requests be made known unto God.” The Church must be anxious about
nothing. In everything prayer must be made. Nothing was too small about
which to pray. Nothing was too great for God to overcome.
Paul lays it down as a vital, all-essential injunction in writing to
the Church at Thessalonica, “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In
everything give thanks. For this is the will of God concerning you.”
The Church must give itself to unceasing prayer. Never was prayer to
cease in the Church. This was the will of God concerning His Church on
earth.
Paul was not only given to prayer himself, but he continually and
earnestly urged it in a way that showed its vital importance. He was
not only insistent in urging prayer upon the Church in his day, but he
urged persistent praying. “Continue in prayer and watch in the same,”
was the keynote of all his exhortations on prayer. “Praying always with
all prayer and supplication,” was the way he pressed this important
matter upon the people. “I will, therefore,” I exhort, this is my
desire, my mind upon this question, “that men pray everywhere, without
wrath and doubting.” As he prayed after this fashion himself, he could
afford to press it upon those to whom he ministered.
Paul was a leader by appointment and by universal recognition and
acceptance. He had many mighty forces in this ministry. His conversion,
so conspicuous and radical, was a great force, a perfect magazine of
aggressive and defensive warfare. His call to the apostleship was
clear, luminous and convincing. But these forces were not the divinest
energies which brought forth the largest results to his ministry.
Paul’s course was more distinctly shaped and his career rendered more
powerfully successful by prayer than by any other force.
It is no surprise then that he should give such prominence to prayer in
his preaching and writing. We could not expect it to be otherwise. As
prayer was the highest exercise in his personal life, so also prayer
assumed the same high place in his teaching. His example of prayer
added force to his teaching on prayer. His practice and his teaching
ran in parallel lines. There was no inconsistency in the two things.
Paul was the chiefest of the apostles as he was chief in prayer. If he
was the first of the apostles, prayer conspired to that end. Hence he
was all the better qualified to be a teacher on prayer. His praying
fitted him to teach others what prayer was and what prayer could do.
And for this reason he was competent to urge upon the people that they
must not neglect prayer. Too much depended upon it.
He was first in prayer for this cause. For the reason that on him
centered more saintly praying than on any one else, he became the first
in apostleship. The crown of martyrdom was the highest crown in the
royalty of heaven, but prayer put this crown of martyrdom on his head.
He who would teach the people to pray must first himself be given to
prayer. He who urges prayer on others must first tread the path of
prayer himself. And just in proportion as preachers pray, will they
be disposed to urge prayer upon those to whom they preach. Moreover,
just in proportion as preachers pray, will they be fitted to preach on
prayer. If that course of reasoning be true, would it be legitimate to
draw the conclusion that the reason why there is so little preaching on
prayer in these modern times is because preachers are not praying men?
We might stake the whole question of the absolute necessity and the
possibilities of prayer in this dispensation on Paul’s attitude
toward prayer. If personal force, if the energy of a strong will, if
profound convictions, if personal culture and talents, and if the
Divine call and the Divine empowerment,--if any one of these, or all
of them united, could direct the Church of God without prayer, then
logically prayer would be unnecessary. If profound piety and unswerving
consecration to a high purpose, if impassioned loyalty to Jesus
Christ, if any or all of these could exist without devoted prayer, or
lift a Church leader above the necessity of prayer, then Paul was above
its use. But if the great and gifted, the favored and devoted Paul felt
the necessity of unceasing prayer, and realized that it was urgent and
pressing in regard to its claims and necessity, and if he felt that
it was clamorous and insistent that the Church should pray without
ceasing, then he and his brethren in the apostolate should be aided by
universal and mighty praying.
Paul’s praying and his commands and the urgency with which he
pressed upon the Church to pray, is the most convincing proof of the
absolute necessity of prayer as a great moral force in the world, an
indispensable and inalienable factor in the progress and spread of the
Gospel, and in the development of personal piety. In Paul’s view, there
was no Church success without prayer, and no piety without prayer, in
fact without much prayer. A Church out of whose life streams prayer
as the incense flames went out of the censer, and a leadership out of
whose character, life and habits flames prayer as imposing, conspicuous
and spontaneous as the fragrant incense flamed, this was the leadership
for God.
To pray everywhere, to pray in everything, to continue instant in
prayer, and to pray without ceasing, thus Paul spoke as a commentator
on the Divine uses and the nature of prayer.
Timothy was very dear to Paul, and the attachment was mutual and
intensified by all their affinities. Paul found in Timothy those
elements which fitted him to be his spiritual successor, at least the
depository and the leader of the great spiritual principles and forces
which were essential to the establishment and prosperity of the Church.
These primary and vital truths he would enforce on and radicate in
Timothy. Paul regarded Timothy as one to whom fundamental and vital
truths might be committed, who would preserve them truly, and who
would commit them inviolate to the future. So he gives to Timothy this
deposit of prayer for all ages as found in 1st Timothy 2:1.
Let it be noted before we go any further that Paul wrote directly under
the superintendency of the Holy Spirit, who guarded Paul against error,
and who suggested the truths which Paul taught. We hold definitely
without compromise in the least to the plenary inspiration of the
Scriptures, and as Paul’s writings are part and parcel of those Sacred
Writings, then Paul’s Epistles are portions of the Scriptures or
the Word of God. This being true, the doctrine of prayer which Paul
affirmed is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. His Epistles are of the
Word of God, inspired, authentic and of Divine authority. So that
prayer as taught by Paul is the doctrine which Almighty God would have
His Church accept, believe, and practice.
These words to Timothy, therefore, were divinely inspired words. This
section of Holy Writ is much more than merely suggestive, and is far
more than a broad, bare outline on prayer. It is so instructive about
prayer, about how men ought to pray, how business men should pray, and
so forceful about the reasons why men ought to pray, that it needs to
be strongly and insistently pressed.
Here are Paul’s words to Timothy on prayer:
“I exhort, therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers,
intercessions and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
“For kings and all that are in authority that we may lead a quiet and
peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
“For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our Saviour;
“Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of
the truth.
“For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus;
“Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands,
without wrath and doubting.”
In this prayer section we have set forth by Paul the inheritance and
practice of every Christian in all ages. It is a _vade mecum_ in
the great business of praying. It gives us a view of the energy and
many-sidedness of prayer. First in point of time in all excellence of
all duties is prayer. It must be first in all occupations. So exacting
and imperative in its import and power is prayer that it stands first
among spiritual values. He that prays not, is not at all. He is naught,
less than naught. He is below zero, so far as Christ and God and heaven
are concerned. Not simply among the first things does prayer stand on a
level with other things, but first of the first, to the very forefront,
does Paul put prayer with all his heart. “I exhort that first of all.”
His teaching is that praying is the most important of all things on
earth. All else must be restrained, retired, to give it primacy. Put
it first, and keep its primacy. The conflict is about the primacy
of prayer. Defeat and victory lie in this one thing. To make prayer
secondary is to discrown it. It is to fetter and destroy prayer. If
prayer is put first, then God is put first, and victory is assured.
Prayer must either reign in the life or must abdicate. Which shall it
be?
According to Paul, “supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving
of thanks” all these elements of prayer and forms of prayer are to be
offered for men. Prayer is offered for things, for all things, for
all temporal good, and for all spiritual good and grace, but in these
directions Paul rises to the highest results and purposes of prayer.
Men are to be affected by prayer. Their good, their character, conduct
and destiny are all involved in prayer. In this regard prayer moves
along the highest way, and pursues its loftiest end. We are cognizant
and consonant with things, with blessings, and bestowments, with
matters and things which touch men, but men themselves are here set
forth as the objects of prayer. This broadens and ennobles prayer. Men,
through the whole sweep and range of their conditions, are to be held
in the mighty grasp of prayer.
Paul’s teaching is to the effect that prayer is essentially a thing
of the inner nature. The spirit within us prays. So note Paul’s
directions: “I will therefore that men pray everywhere, without
wrath.” “Wrath” is a term which denotes the natural, internal motion
of plants and fruits, swelling with juice. The natural juices are
warmed into life, and rise by the warmth of Spring. Man has in him
natural juices which rise as does the sap. Warmth, heat, all stages
of passions and desires, every degree of feeling, these spontaneously
rise under provocation. Guard against and suppress them. Man cannot
pray with these natural feelings rising in him, cultivated, cherished
and continued there. Prayer is to be without these. “Without wrath.”
Higher, better, nobler inspiration are to lift prayer upward. “Wrath”
depresses prayer, hinders it, suppresses it.
The word “without” means making no use of, having no association with,
apart from, aloof from. The natural, unrenewed heart has no part in
praying. Its heat and all its nature juices poison and destroy praying.
The nature of prayer is deeper than nature. We cannot pray by nature,
even by the kindliest and the best nature.
Prayer is the true test of character. Fidelity to our conditions and
trueness to our relations are often evinced by our prayerfulness. Some
conditions give birth to prayer. They are the soil which germinates and
perfects prayer. To pray under some circumstances seems very fitting.
Not to pray in some conditions seems heartless and discordant. The
great storms of life, when we are helpless and without relief, or are
devoid of assuagement, are the natural and providential conditions of
prayer.
Widowhood is a great sorrow. It comes to saintly women as well as to
others. True widows there are who are saintly. They are to be honored
and their sorrow is divine. Their piety is aromatic and lightened by
their bruised hearts. Here is Paul’s description of such widows:
“Now she that is a widow indeed and desolate, trusteth in God, and
continueth in supplications and prayers night and day. But she that
liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.”
Here is the striking contrast between two classes of women. One gives
herself to supplications night and day. The other lives in pleasure
and is spiritually dead. So Paul describes a true widow as being
great in prayer. Her prayers, born of her faith and desolation, are a
mighty force. Day and night her prayers go up to God unceasingly. The
widowhood heart is a mighty appeal to God when that heart is found in
the way of prayer, intense, unwearied prayer.
One of Paul’s striking injunctions worthy of study is this one,
“continuing instant in prayer,” or as the Revised Version reads,
“Continuing steadfast in prayer,” which is his description of prayer.
The term means to tarry, to remain, to be steadfast and faithful in
prayer, to stick to it strong, to stay at it with strength to the end,
to give attention to it with vigor, devotion and constancy, to give
unremitting care to it.
Praying is a business, a life-long business, one to be followed
with diligence, fervor and toil. The Christian’s business by way of
preëminence is prayer. It is his most engaging, most heavenly, most
lucrative business. Prayer is a business of such high and deserved
dignity and import that it is to be followed “without ceasing.” That
is, with no let up nor break down, followed assiduously and without
intermission. To prayer we are to give all strength. It must cover all
things, be in every place, find itself in all seasons, and embrace
everything, always, and everywhere.
In the remarkable prayer in Ephesians, 3d chapter, he is praying for
wide reaches of religious experience. He is there bowing his knees unto
God, in the name of Jesus Christ, and asking that God would grant that
these Ephesian believers would in their experiences go far beyond the
utmost stretches of past sainthood. “Filled with all the fullness of
God,” an experience so great and so glorious that it makes the head
of the modern saint so dizzy that he is afraid to look up to those
supernal heights or peer down into the fathomless depths. Paul just
passes us on to Him, “who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all
that we can ask or think.” This is a specimen of his teaching on prayer.
In writing to the Philippian Church, Paul recounts the situation, and
shows the transmuting power of prayer as follows:
“Some indeed preach Christ of envy and strife; and some also of good
will;
“The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add
affliction to my bonds;
“But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the
Gospel.
“What then? Notwithstanding every way, whether in pretense or in
truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will
rejoice.
“For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through our prayer
and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
“According to my earnest expectation and my hope; that in nothing
shall I be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now
also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or
death.”
Boldness was to be secured by him and discomfiture and shame prevented
by their prayers, and Christ was to be gloriously magnified by and
through Paul, whether he lived or died.
It is to be remarked that in all these quotations in Corinthians,
Ephesians or Philippians, the Revised Version gives us the most
intense form of prayer, “supplications.” It is the intense, personal,
strenuous, persistent praying of the saints, that Paul requests, and
they must give special strength, interest, time and heart to their
praying to make it bear its largest golden fruit.
The general direction about prayer to the Colossian Christians is made
specific and is sharpened to the point of a personal appeal: “Continue
in prayer and watch in the same, with thanksgiving; withal praying
also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak
the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds; that I make it
manifest as I ought to speak.”
Paul is accredited with the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
We have it in a reference to the character of Christ’s praying, which
is illustrative, directory and authentative as to the elements of
true praying. How deep tones are his words! How heart-affecting and
how sublime was His praying who prayed as never man prayed before,
and yet prayed in order to teach man how to pray, “who in the days of
His flesh, when He had offered prayers and supplications, with strong
crying and tears, to Him that was able to save Him from death, and
was heard in that He feared.” The praying of Jesus Christ drew on
the mightiest forces of His being. His prayers were His sacrifices,
which He offered before He offered Himself on the cross for the
sins of mankind. Prayer-sacrifice is the forerunner and pledge of
self-sacrifice. We must die in our closets before we can die on the
cross.
CHAPTER XIII
PAUL AND HIS PRAYING
_In the life of Frank Crossley it is told how one day in 1888 he had
said good-bye at the station to his friends, General and Mrs. Booth;
but before they steamed out he handed a letter to them giving details
of a sacrifice he had resolved to make for the Army. He came home and
was praying alone. “As I was praying,” he said, “there came over me
the most extraordinary sense of joy. It was not exactly in my head,
nor in my heart, it was almost a grasping of my chest by some strange
hand that filled me with an ecstasy I never had before. It was borne
in on me that this was the joy of the Lord.” So this servant of God
made in his pilgrimage to God an advance from which he never fell
back. He thought it likely at the time that the Booths had read this
letter in the train and this was an answer to prayer of theirs;
afterwards he heard they had prayed for him in the train just after
getting well out of Manchester._--REV. EDWARD SHILLITO.
He who studies Paul’s praying, both his prayers and his commands about
prayer, will find what a wide, general, minute, and diversified area it
covers. It will appear that these men like Wesley, Brainerd, Luther,
and all their holy successors in the spiritual realms, were not guilty
of fanaticism nor superstition when they ordered all things by prayer
great and small, and committed all things, secular and religious,
natural and spiritual, to God in prayer. In this they were but
following the great exemplar and authority of the Apostle Paul.
To seek God as Paul did by prayer, to commune with God as Paul did, to
supplicate Jesus Christ as Paul did, to seek the Holy Spirit by prayer
as Paul did, to do this without ceasing, to be always a racer, and to
win Christ as Paul did by prayer--all this makes a saint, an apostle,
and a leader for God. This kind of a life engages, absorbs, enriches,
and empowers with God and for God. Prayer, if successful, must always
engage and absorb us. This kind of praying brings Pauline days and
secures Pauline gifts. Pauline days are good, Pauline gifts are better,
but Pauline praying is best of all, for it brings Pauline days, and
secures Pauline gifts. Pauline praying costs much, is death to self,
the flesh and the world. Pauline praying is worth all it costs. Prayer
which costs nothing gets nothing. It is beggarly business at best.
Paul’s estimate of prayer is seen and enforced by the fact that Paul
was a man of prayer. His high position in the Church was not one of
dignity and position to enjoy and luxuriate in. It was not one of
officialism, nor was it one of arduous and exhaustless toil, for Paul
was preëminently a praying man.
He began his great career for Christ in the great struggle and school
of prayer. God’s convincing and wonderful argument to assure Ananias
was, “Behold he prayeth.” Three days was he without sight, neither
eating nor drinking, but the lesson was learned well.
He went out on his first great missionary trip under the power of
fasting and prayer, and they, Paul and Barnabas, established every
Church by the very same means, by fasting and prayer. He began his
work in Philippi “where prayer was wont to be made.” As “they went to
prayer,” the spirit of divination was cast out of the young woman. And
when Paul and Silas were put in prison, at midnight they prayed and
sang praises to God.
Paul made praying a habit, a business and a life. He literally gave
himself to prayer. So with him praying was not an outer garb, a mere
coloring, a paint, a polish. Praying made up the substance, the bone,
the marrow, and the very being of his religious life. His conversion
was a marvel of grace and power. His apostolic commission was full
and royal. But he did not vainly expect to make full proof of his
ministry, by the marvels of conditions and by wonderful results in
the conversion, nor by the apostolic commission signed and sealed by
Divine authority, and carrying with it all highest gifts and apostolic
enrichments, but by prayer, by ceaseless, wrestling, agonizing and
Holy Spirit praying. Thus did Paul work his work, and crown his work,
his life and the death with martyr principles and with martyr glory.
Paul had a spiritual trait which was very marked and especially
promised, and it was that of prayer. He had a profound conviction that
prayer was a great as well as a solemn duty; that prayer was a royal
privilege; that prayer was a mighty force; that prayer gauges piety,
makes faith mighty and mightier; that much prayer was necessary to
Christian success; that prayer was a great factor in the ongoing of
God’s kingdom on earth; and that God and heaven expected to pray.
Somehow we are dependent on prayer for great triumphs of holiness over
sin, of heaven over hell, and of Christ over Satan. Paul took it for
granted that men who knew God would pray; that men who lived for God
would pray much, and that men could not live for God who did not pray.
So Paul prayed much. He was in the habit of praying. He was used to
praying, and that formed the habit of prayer. He estimated prayer so
greatly that he fully knew its value, and that fastened the habit on
him. Paul was in the habit of praying because he loved God, and such
love in the heart always finds its expression in regular habits of
prayer. He felt the need of much grace, and of more and more grace,
and grace only comes through the channels of prayer, and only abounds
more and more as prayer abounds more and more.
Paul was in the habit of praying, but he prayed not by mere force of
habit. Man is such a creature of habit that he is always in danger of
doing things simply by heart, in a routine, perfunctory manner. Paul’s
habit was regular and hearty. To the Romans he writes, “For God is
my witness, that without ceasing, I make mention of you always in my
prayers.” Prison doors are opened and earthquakes take place by such
praying as Paul did, even by such melodious Pauline praying. All things
are opened to the kind of praying which was done by Paul and Silas. All
things are opened by prayer. They could shut up Paul from preaching,
but this could not shut him up from praying. And the Gospel could win
its way by Paul’s praying as well as by Paul’s preaching. The apostle
might be in prison, but the Word of God was free, and went like the
mountain air, while the apostle is bound in prison and abounds in
prayer.
How profound their joy in Jesus which expressed itself so happily and
so sweetly in praise and prayer, under conditions so painful and so
depressing! Prayer brought them into full communion with God which
made all things radiant with the Divine presence which enabled them to
“rejoice that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name,
and to count it all joy when they fell into divers trials.” Prayer
sweetens all things and sanctifies all things. The prayerful saint will
be a suffering saint. Suffering prayerfully he will be a sweet saint.
A praying saint will be a praising saint. Praise is but prayer set to
music and song.
After that notable charge to the elders at Ephesus, as he tarried there
while on his way to Jerusalem, this characteristic record is made in
Acts:
“And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down and prayed with them.
And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul’s neck and kissed him.”
“He kneeled down and prayed.” Note those words. Kneeling in prayer was
Paul’s favorite attitude, the fitting posture of an earnest, humble
suppliant. Humility and intensity are in such a position in prayer
before Almighty God. It is the proper attitude of man before God, of a
sinner before a Saviour, and of a beggar before his benefactor. To seal
his sacred and living charge to those Ephesian elders by prayer was
that which made the charge efficient, benignant and abiding.
Paul’s religion was born in the throes of that three days’ struggle of
prayer, while he was in the house of Ananias, and there he received a
divine impetus which never slackened till it brought him to the gates
of the eternal city. That spiritual history and religious experience
projected along the line of unceasing prayer, brought him to the
highest spiritual altitudes and yields the largest spiritual results.
Paul lived in the very atmosphere of prayer. His first missionary trip
was projected by prayer. It was by prayer and fasting that he was
called into the foreign missionary field, and by the same means the
Church at Antioch was moved to send forth Paul and Barnabas on their
first missionary journey. Here is the Scripture record of it:
“Now there were in the Church which was at Antioch certain prophets
and teachers, as Barnabas and Simeon, that was called Niger; and
Lucius of Cyrene, and Manean, which had been brought up with Herod
the tetrarch, and Saul.
“And as they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said,
Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called
them.
“And when they had fasted and prayed, and had laid their hands on
them, they sent them away.”
Here is a model for all missionary outgoings, a presage of success.
Here was the Holy Spirit directing a prayerful Church obedient to the
Divine leadership, and this condition of things brought forth the very
largest possible results in the mission of these two men of God. We may
confidently assert that no Church in which Paul was prominent would be
a prayerless Church. Paul lived, toiled and suffered in an atmosphere
of prayer. To him, prayer was the very heart and life of religion, its
bone and marrow, the motor of the Gospel, and the sign by which it
conquered. We are not left in ignorance, for that spirit established
churches, putting in them the everlasting requisite of self-denial, in
the shape of fasting, and in the practice of prayer. Here is the Divine
record of Paul’s work on this line:
“Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to
continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation
enter into the kingdom of God.
“And when they had ordained them elders in every Church, and had
prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they
believed.”
In obedience to a heavenly vision, Paul lands in Europe, and finds
himself at Philippi. There is no synagogue, and few if any Jews are
there. A few pious women, however, have a meeting place for prayer,
and Paul is drawn by spiritual attraction and spiritual affinities to
the place “where prayer is wont to be made.” And Paul’s first planting
of the Gospel in Europe is at that little prayer meeting. He is there
the chief pray-er and the leading talker. Lydia was the first convert
at that prayer meeting. They protracted the meeting. They called it a
meeting for prayer.
It was while they were going to that protracted prayer meeting that
Paul performed the miracle of casting the devil of divination out of
a poor demon-possessed girl, who had been made a source of gain by
some covetous men, the results of which, by the magistrate’s orders,
were his scourging and imprisonment. The result by God’s orders was
the conversion of the jailer and his whole household. To the praying
apostle no discouragements are allowed. A few praying women are enough
for an apostolical field of labor.
In this last incident we have a picture of Paul at midnight. He is in
the inner prison, dark and deadly. He has been severely and painfully
scourged, his clothing is covered with blood, while there are blood
clots on his gnashed and torn body. His feet are in the stocks, every
nerve is feverish and swollen, sensitive and painful. But we find him
under these very unfavorable and suffering conditions at his favorite
pursuit. Paul is praying with Silas, his companion, in a joyous,
triumphant strain. “And at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang
praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was
an earthquake, so that the foundation of the prison was shaken, and
immediately all the doors were shaken; and every one’s ban was loosed.
And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the
prison doors opened, he drew out his sword, and would have killed
himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled.
“But Paul cried out with a loud voice saying, Do thyself no harm; for
we are all here.”
Never was prayer so beautiful, never more resultful. Paul was an
adept at prayer, a lover of prayer, a wondrous devotee of prayer, who
could pursue it with such joyous strains, under such conditions of
despondency and despair. What a mighty weapon of defense was prayer
to Paul! How songful! The angels doubtless stilled their highest and
sweetest notes to listen to the music which bore those prayers to
heaven. The earthquake trod along the path made by the mighty forces
of Paul’s praying. He did not go out when his chains were loosed,
and the stocks fell off. His praying taught him that God had nobler
purposes that night than his own individual freedom. His praying and
the earthquake alarm were to bring salvation to that prison, freedom
from the thraldom and prison house of sin which was prefigured to him
by his body emancipation. God’s mighty providence had opened his prison
door and had broken his prison bonds, not to give freedom, but to give
freedom to the jailer. God’s providential openings are often to test
our ability to stay rather than to go. It tested Paul’s ability to
stay.
CHAPTER XIV
PAUL AND HIS PRAYING
(_Continued_)
_William Law has this very pertinent word in his “Devout Life”: “When
you begin your petitions use such various expressions of the
attributes of God as may make you most sensible of the greatness and
power of the Divine nature.” And then William Law gives various
examples, which I am bound to say would not be helpful to me, as they
would imprison my spirit in a coat of mail. But I want to emphasize
and commend the principle of it, which is, that our fellowship should
begin with the primary elements of adoration and praise._--REV. J. H.
JOWETT.
There are two occasions with wonderful results where the statement
is not explicit that Paul was in prayer, but the circumstances and
the results, and Paul’s universal and intense praying habit, make it
most evident that the key to the results of both occasions is prayer.
The first occasion is when Paul sailed away from Philippi and came to
Troas, where he abode seven days. On the first day of the week, when
the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them,
expecting to depart on the morrow, and continued his preaching till
late in the night.
There was sitting in the window a young man named Eutychus, who
naturally fell asleep, and as Paul was rather long in speaking, the
young man fell out of the high window, and was taken up for dead. Paul
went down to the place where the young man had fallen, and embracing
him, told the people about him that they need not be troubled, for life
was still in the body. Paul returned to the upper room, where he had
been preaching, and talked with the disciples till break of day. And
the young man was brought alive, and as a consequence all were greatly
comforted.
The very natural conclusion without the fact being specially stated is
that Paul must have prayed for the young man when he embraced him, and
his prayer was answered in the quick recovery of the young man.
The second occasion was in the perilous and protracted storm which
overtook the vessel in which Paul was being carried as a prisoner to
Rome. They were being exceedingly tossed about with the great tempest,
and neither sun nor stars appeared as they were beset and struggled
against wind and storm. All hope that they would be saved seemed gone.
But after long abstinence, Paul stood in the midst of those on board,
and speaking more particularly to the officers of the vessel, said,
“Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from
Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you, to
be of good cheer, for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among
you, but of the ship. For there stood by this night the angel of God,
whose I am and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be
brought before Cæsar, and lo, God hath given thee all them that sail
with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer; for I believe God, that
it shall be even as God hath told me.”
It requires no strained interpretation to read into this simple record
the fact that Paul must have been praying when the angel appeared unto
him with that message of encouragement and assurance of safety. Paul’s
habit of prayer and his strong belief in prayer must have driven him
to his knees. Such an emergency with him would necessarily move him to
pray under such crucial circumstances.
After the shipwreck, while on the island of Melita, we have another
representation of Paul at prayer. He is at his work of praying for a
very ill man. While a fire was being made, a deadly poisonous viper
fastened itself on his hand, and the barbarians immediately concluded
it was a case of retribution for some crime Paul had committed, but
they soon discovered that Paul did not die, and changed their minds and
concluded that he was a sort of god.
In the same quarter at the time, was the father of Publius, who was
very ill of a fever, and bloody flux, approaching seemingly his
end. Paul went to him, and laid his hands upon him, and with simple
confidence in God he prayed, and immediately the disease was rebuked,
and the man was healed. When the natives of the island beheld this
remarkable incident, they brought others to Paul, and they were healed,
after the same fashion, by Paul’s praying.
Turning back in Paul’s life to the time he was at Ephesus on his way to
Jerusalem, we find him stopping at Tyre after he departed from Ephesus.
Before leaving Ephesus he had prayed with them all. But he did not
trust in his words howsoever strong, fitting and solemn they might have
been. God must be recognized, invoked and sought. Paul did not take it
for granted, after he had done his best, that God as a matter of course
would bless his efforts to do good, but he sought God. God does not do
things in a matter-of-course sort of way. God must be invoked, sought
unto, and put into things by prayer.
Following his visit to Ephesus, he arrived at Tyre, where he stopped a
few days. Here he found some disciples, who begged Paul not to go to
Jerusalem, saying through the Spirit that he should not go up to that
city. But Paul adhered to his original purpose to go to Jerusalem. The
account says:
“And when we had accomplished those days, we departed, and went
our way; and they all brought us on our way with their wives and
children, till we were out of the city; and we kneeled down on the
shore and prayed.”
What a sight to behold on that seashore! Here is a family picture of
love and devotion, where husbands, wives and even children are present,
and prayer is made out in the open air. What an impression it must have
made upon those children! The vessel was ready to depart, but prayer
must cement their affections and sanctify wives and children, and bless
their parting--a parting which was to be final so far as this world was
concerned. The scene is beautiful and does honor to the head and heart
of Paul, to his person and his piety, and shows the tender affection
in which he was held. His devoted habit of sanctifying all things by
prayer comes directly to the light. “We kneeled down on the shore
and prayed.” Never did sea strand see a grander picture or witness a
lovelier sight--Paul on his knees on the sands of that shore, invoking
God’s blessing upon these men, women and children.
When Paul was arraigned at Jerusalem, in making his public defense,
he refers to two instances of his praying. One was when he was in the
house of Judas, in Damascus, after he had been stricken to the earth
and brought under conviction. He was there three days, and to him was
Ananias sent, to lay his hand upon him, at the time of his blindness
and darkness. It was during those three days of prayer. This is the
Scriptural record, and the words are those of Ananias addressed to him:
“And now why tarriest thou? Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy
sins, calling on the name of the Lord.”
The Lord had emboldened the timid Ananias to go and minister to Paul,
by telling him, “Behold he prayeth.” And so we have in this reference
Paul’s prayerfulness intensified by the exhortation of Ananias. Prayer
precedes pardon of sins. Prayer becomes those who seek God. Prayer
belongs to the earnest, sincere inquirer after God. Pardon of sin and
acceptance with God always come at the end of earnest praying. The
evidence of sincerity in a true seeker of religion is that it can be
said of him, “Behold he prayeth.”
The other reference in his defense lets us into the prayerful
intenseness into which his whole religious life had been fashioned and
shows us how in the absorbing ecstasy of prayer, the vision came and
directions were received by which his toilsome life was to be guided.
Also we see the familiar terms on which he stood and talked with his
Lord:
“And it came to pass when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I
prayed in the temple, I was in a trance;
“And saw him saying unto me, Make haste and get thee quickly out of
Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me.
“And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every
synagogue them that believed on thee.
“And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was
standing by, and consenting to his death, and kept the raiment of
them that slew him.
“And he said unto me, Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the
Gentiles.”
Prayer always brings directions from heaven as to what God would have
us to do. If we prayed more and more directly, we should make fewer
mistakes in life as to duty. God’s will concerning us is revealed in
answer to prayer. If we prayed more and prayed better and sweeter,
then clearer and more entrancing visions would be given us, and our
intercourse with God, would be of the most intimate, free, and bold
order.
It is difficult to itemize or classify Paul’s praying. It is so
comprehensive, so discursive, and so minute, that it is no easy task to
do so. Paul teaches much about prayer in his didactics. He specifically
enforces the duty and necessity of prayer upon the Church, but that
which was better for Paul and better for us is that he himself prayed
much and illustrated his own teaching. He practiced what he preached.
He put to the test the exercise of prayer which he urged upon the
people of his day.
To the Church at Rome he plainly and specifically asseverated with
solemnity his habit of praying. This he wrote to those Roman believers:
“For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the Gospel
of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my
prayers.”
Paul not only prayed for himself. He made a practice of praying for
others. He was preëminently an intercessor. As he urged intercessory
prayer on others, so he interceded himself for others beside himself.
He begins that remarkable Epistle to the Romans in the spirit of
prayer: He closes it with this solemn charge: “Now I beseech you,
brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the
Spirit, that ye strive with me in your prayers to God for me.”
But this is not all. In the very heart of that Epistle, he commands
“Continuing instant in prayer.” That is, give constant attention to
prayer. Make it the business of life. Be devoted to it. Just what he
did himself, for Paul was a standing example of the doctrine of prayer
which he advocated and pressed upon the people.
In his Epistles to the Thessalonians, how all-inclusive and wonderful
the praying! Says he in writing his First Epistle to this Church:
“We give thanks to God always for you, making mention of you in my
prayers; remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of
love, and patience of hope.”
Not to quote all he says, it is worth while to read his words to this
same Church of true believers further on:
“Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and
might perfect that which is lacking in your faith. Now God himself
direct our way unto you. And the Lord make you to increase and abound
in love one toward another, even as we do toward you, to the end he
may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even
our Father.”
And this sort of praying for these Thessalonian Christians is in direct
line with that closing prayer for these same believers in this Epistle,
where he records that striking prayer for their entire sanctification:
“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your
whole spirit, and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
How Paul did pray for those early Christians! They were in his mind
and on his heart, and he was continually at it, “night and day praying
exceedingly.” Oh, if we had a legion of preachers in these days of
superficial piety and these times of prayerlessness, who were given to
praying for their churches as Paul did for those to whom he ministered
in his day! Praying men are needed. Likewise praying preachers are
demanded in this age.
At the conclusion of that remarkable prayer in the third chapter of
Ephesians, he declared that “God was able to do exceeding abundantly
above all that we could ask or think,” now he declares he is praying
exceeding abundantly, striving after the most earnest order, to have
his prayers run parallel with God’s power, and that they may not limit
that power nor exhaust that power, but get all there is in it to bless
and greatly enrich His Church.
Paul and his compeers prayed for the saints everywhere. It may be
referred to again. With what solemnity does Paul call the attention
of the Roman Christians to the important fact of praying for them,
believers whom he had never seen! “God is my witness that without
ceasing, I make mention of you in my prayers.” To the churches he says,
“Praying always for you.”
Again on the same line, we hear him articulating clearly, “Always in
every prayer of mine for you all, making request with joy.” Again he
writes thus: “I do not cease to pray for you.” Once more we read the
record, “Wherefore we pray always for you.” And again it is written,
“Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my
prayers.” And then he says, “Remembrance of thee in my prayers night
and day.”
His declaration, “night and day praying exceedingly,” is a condensed
record of the engrossing nature of the praying done by this praying
apostle. It shows conclusively how important prayer was in his estimate
and in his ministry, and further shows how to him prayer was an agony
of earnest striving in seeking from God blessings which could be
secured in no other way.
The unselfishness of his praying is seen in his writing to the
Romans where he tells them, “Making request if by any means I might
have a prosperous journey to come to you. For I long to see you
that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to the end ye may be
established.” The object of his desire to visit Rome was not for
selfish gratification, the pleasure of a trip, or for other reasons,
but that he might be the means under God of “imparting to them some
spiritual gift,” in order that they “might be established” in their
hearts, unblameably in love. It was that his visit might give to them
some spiritual gift which they had not received and that they might
be established at those points where they needed to be rooted, and
grounded in faith, in love, and in all that made up Christian life and
character.
CHAPTER XV
PAUL AND HIS REQUESTS FOR PRAYER
_I desire above all things to learn to pray. We want to sound the
reveille for the Christian warriors. We desire to find truth of the
lack of real praying. What is it? Why is it? Why so little time spent
in prayer when Christ, who had command of His time, chose to spend
great part of it in INTERCESSION? “He ever liveth to make intercession
for us.” We believe the answer to be the desire is in the heart, but
the will is undisciplined, the motive is present, but the affections
have not melted under hours of heavenly meditation; the intellect
is keen, yet not for hours of tireless research. The intellect and
the affections have never been linked together by the sealing of the
blessed Holy Ghost to do or die for God’s glory in the secret places,
with doors shut, lusts crucified._--REV. HOMER W. HODGE.
The many requests of Paul for prayer for himself, made to those to
whom he ministered, put prayer to the front in Paul’s estimate of its
possibilities. Paul prayed much himself, and tried hard to arouse
Christians to the imperative importance of the work of prayer. He
so deeply felt the need of prayer that he was given to the habit
of personal praying. Realizing this for himself, he pressed this
invaluable duty upon others. Intercessory prayer, or prayer for
others, occupied a high place in his estimate of prayer. It is no
surprise, therefore, when we find him throwing himself upon the prayers
of the churches to whom he wrote.
By all their devotion to Jesus Christ, by all their interest in the
advance of God’s kingdom on earth, by all the ardor of their personal
attachment to Jesus, he charges them to pray much, to pray unceasingly,
to pray at all times, to pray in all things, and to make praying a
business of praying. And then realizing his own dependence upon prayer
for his arduous duties, his sore trials and his heavy responsibilities,
he urges those to whom he wrote to pray especially for him.
The chief of the Apostles needed prayer. He needed the prayers of
others, for this he practically admitted in asking for their prayers.
His call to the apostleship did not lift him above this need. He
realized and acknowledged his dependence on prayer. He craved and
prized the prayers of all good people. He was not ashamed to solicit
prayers for himself nor to urge the brethren everywhere to pray for him.
In writing to the Hebrews, he bases his request for prayer on two
reasons, his honesty and his anxiety to visit them. If he were
insincere, he could lay no claim to their prayers. Praying for him, it
would be a powerful agent in facilitating his visit to them. They would
touch the secret place of the wind and the waves, and arrange all
secondary agencies and make them minister to this end. Praying puts God
in haste to do for us the things which we wish at His hands.
Paul’s frequent request of his brethren was that they would “pray
for him.” We are to judge of the value of a thing by the frequency
of asking for it, and by the special and urgent plea made for it. If
that be true, then with Paul the prayers of the saints were among his
greatest assets. By the urgency, iteration and reiteration of the
request, “Pray for me,” Paul showed conclusively the great value he put
upon prayer as a means of grace. Paul had no need so pressing as the
need of prayer. There were no values so appreciated and appreciable as
the prayers of the faithful.
Paul put the great factor of prayer as the great factor in his work.
The most powerful and far-reaching energy in Paul’s estimate is prayer.
He covets it and hoards it as he seeks the prayers of God’s people. The
earnestness of his soul goes out in these requests. Hear him in this
entreaty for prayer he is writing to the Romans:
“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 for me.”
Prayers by others for Paul were valuable because they helped him. Great
helpers are prayers. Nothing gives so much aid to us in our needs
as real prayers. They supply needs and deliver from straits. Paul’s
faith, so he writes to the Corinthians, had been much tried, and he had
been much helped and much strengthened by God’s deliverance. “Ye also
helping by prayer.” What marvelous things has God done for His favored
saints through the prayers of others! The saints can help the saints
more by fervent praying than in any other way.
In the midst of envy and detraction, and in perils by false brethren,
he writes thus to the Philippians:
“For I know that this shall turn to my salvation though your prayer,
and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
“According to my expectation, and my hope, that in nothing I shall be
ashamed, but with all boldness as always, so now also Christ shall be
magnified in my body, whether it be by life or death.”
Shame was taken away, holy boldness secured, and life and death made
glorious by the prayers of the saints at Philippi for Paul.
Paul had many mighty forces in his ministry. His remarkable conversion
was a great force, a point of mighty projecting and propelling power,
and yet he did not in his ministry secure its results by the force
of his epochal conversion. His call to the apostleship was clear,
luminous, and all-convincing, but he did not depend on that for the
largest results in his ministry.
Paul’s course was more clearly marked out and his career rendered more
powerfully successful by prayer than by any other force.
Paul urges the Roman Christians to pray for him that he may be
delivered from unbelieving men. Prayer is a defense and protection
against the malignity and machinations of evil men. It can affect men
because God can affect them. Paul had not only unbelieving enemies
with whom to contend, but many Christians were prejudiced against him
to an extent which rendered it questionable whether they would accept
any Christian service at his hands. Especially was this the case at
Jerusalem, and so prayer, powerful prayer, must be used to remove the
mighty and pernicious force of prejudice, inflamed and deep-seated.
Prayer on their part for him must be used for his safety, and also that
a prosperous journey and God’s will might bring him speedily and surely
to them, in order to bless and refresh mutually the Roman Christians.
These prayer requests of Paul are many-sided and all-comprehensive.
How many things does his request to the Roman Church include! The
request for their prayers, like the Church to whom it is directed,
is cosmopolitan. He beseeches them, entreats them, a term indicating
intensity and earnestness, “for the sake of Jesus Christ, to strive
with him in their prayers for him.” This he desires that he may be
delivered from evil and designing men, who might hinder and embarrass
him in his mission, then further that his service for the poor saints
might be accepted by the saints, and that he might ultimately come unto
them with joy that they might be refreshed.
How full of heart earnestness is his request! How tender and loving
is his appeal! How touching and high is the motive to the highest
and truest form of prayer, “for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake!” Also
for the love we bear to the Spirit, or for the love which the Spirit
bears to us; by the ties of the holy brotherhood. By these lofty
and constraining motives does he urge them to pray for him and to
“strive with him” in their mutual praying. Paul is in the great prayer
struggle, a struggle in which the mightiest issues are involved and
imperiled; and he is in the midst of this struggle. He is committed
to it because Christ is in it. He needs help, help which comes alone
through prayer. So he pleads with his brethren to pray for him and with
him.
By prayer enemies are to be swept out of the way. By prayer prejudices
are to be driven out of the hearts of good men. His way to Jerusalem
would be cleared of difficulties, the success of his mission would
be secured, and the will of God and the good of the saints would be
accomplished. All these marvelous ends would be secured by marvelous
praying. Wonderful and world-wide are the results to be gained by
mighty praying. If all apostolic successors had prayed as Paul did, if
all Christians in all these ages had been one with apostolical men in
the mighty wrestlings of prayer, how marvelous and divine would have
been the history of God’s Church! How unparalleled would have been its
success! The glory of its millennium would have brightened and blessed
the world ages ago.
We see in Paul’s requests his estimate of the far-reaching power of
prayer. Not that prayer has in it any talismanic force, nor that it is
a fetish, but that it moves God to do things that it nominates. Prayer
has no magic, potent charm in itself, but is only all potent because it
gets the Omnipotent God to grant its request. A precedent basis in all
prayer as expressed or understood by Paul is that “Ye strive together
with me in your prayers for me.” It is of the nature of a severe
conflict in which Paul’s soul is engaged, a wrestle, a hand-to-hand
fight. The strain is severe and exhaustive to all the energies of the
soul, and the issue is tossed in uncertainty. Paul in this prayer
struggle needs reënforcements and divine help in his striving. He is in
the midst of the struggle, and will bear the brunt, but he solicits and
pleads for the help of others. Their prayers are just now needed. He
needs help to offer intense prayers.
Prayer is not inaptly called “wrestling,” because it is a most intense
struggle. To prayer there are the greatest hindrances and the most
inveterate foes. Mighty evil forces surge around the closets of prayer.
Enemies strong and strongly entrenched are about the closets where
praying is done. No feeble, listless act is this praying done by Paul.
In this thing he has “put away childish things.” The commonplace and
the tame have been retired. Paul must do this praying mightily or not
do it at all. Hell must feel and stagger under the mightiness of his
prayer stroke, or he strikes not at all. The strongest graces and
the manliest efforts are requisite here. Strength is demanded in the
praying done by Paul. Courage is at a premium in it. Timid touches
and faint-hearted desires avail nothing in the mind of Paul which we
are considering. Enemies are to be faced and routed and fields are to
be won. The most unflagging and invincible bravery and the highest
qualities of Christian soldierhood are demanded for prayer. It is a
trumpet call to prayer, a chieftain’s clarion note, sounded out for
earnest, persistent prayer as the great spiritual conflict rages.
CHAPTER XVI
PAUL AND HIS REQUESTS FOR PRAYER
(_Continued_)
_We announce the law of prayer as follows: A Christian’s prayer is
a joint agreement of the will and his cabinet, the emotions, the
conscience, the intellect, working in harmony at white heat, while the
body co-operates under certain hygienic conditions to make the prayer
long enough sustained at high voltage to insure tremendous results,
supernatural and unearthly._--REV. HOMER W. HODGE.
We come to the request of Paul made to the Church at Ephesus, found in
the latter part of chapter 6 of the Epistle to those Christians:
“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and
watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all
saints;
“And for me that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my
mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the Gospel,
“For which I am an ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak
boldly as I ought to speak.”
For this Church he had labored and prayed night and day, with many
watchings and tears and much humility. As he drew a vivid picture of
the Christian soldier, with his foes besetting him, he gave them this
charge of praying specially for him.
To these Ephesian Christians he gave a comprehensive statement of the
necessity, nature and special benefits of prayer. It was to be urgent,
covering all times and embracing all manner of places. Supplication
must give intensity, the Holy Spirit must be invoked, vigilance and
perseverance must be added, and the whole family of saints were
involved.
The force of his request for prayer centered on him, that he might be
able to talk with force, fluency, directness and courage. Paul did not
depend upon his natural gifts, but on those which came to him in answer
to prayer. He was afraid he would be a coward, a dull, dry speaker, or
a hesitating stammerer, and he urged these believers to pray that he
might have courage, not only to speak clearly, but freely and fully.
He desired them to pray that he might have boldness. No quality seems
more important to the preacher than that of boldness. It is that
positive quality which does not reckon consequences, but with freedom
and fullness meets the crisis, faces a present danger, and discharges
unawed a present duty. It was one of the marked characteristics of
apostolic preachers and apostolic preaching. They were bold men,
they were bold preachers. The reference to the manifestation of the
principle by them is almost the record of their trials. It is the
applause of their faith.
There are many chains which enslave the preacher. His very tenderness
makes him weak. His attachments to the people tend to bring him into
bondage. His personal intercourse, his obligations to his people, his
love for them, all tend to hamper his freedom and restrain his pulpit
deliverances. What great need to be continually praying for boldness to
speak boldly as he ought to speak!
The prophets of old were charged not to be afraid of the faces of men.
Unawed by the frowns of men, they were to declare the truth of God
without apology, timidity, hesitancy or compromise. The warmth and
freedom of conviction and of sincerity, the fearlessness of a vigorous
faith, and above all the power of the Holy Ghost, are all wonderful
helpers and elements of boldness. How all this should be coveted and
sought with all earnestness by ministers of the Gospel in this day!
Meekness and humility are high virtues of the first importance in the
preacher, but these qualities do not at all militate against boldness.
This boldness is not the freedom of passionate utterances. It is not
scolding nor rashness. It speaks the truth in love. Boldness is not
rudeness. Roughness dishonors boldness. It is as gentle as a mother
with a babe, but as fearless as a lion standing before a foe. Fear,
in the mild and innocent form of timidity, or in the criminal form of
cowardice, has no place in the true ministry. Humble but holy boldness
is of the very first importance.
What hidden, mysterious mighty force can add courage to apostolical
preaching, and give bolder utterances to apostolic lips? There is one
answer, and it is that prayer can do the deed.
What force can so affect and dominate evil that the very results of
evil will be changed into good? We have the answer in Paul’s words
again, in connection with prayers made for him:
“Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver; in whom we
trust that he will yet deliver us; Ye also helping together in prayer
for us. What then? Notwithstanding every way, whether in pretense or
in truth, Christ is preached, and therein I do rejoice, yea, and will
rejoice.”
We can see how the promises of God are made real and personal by
prayer. “All things work together for good to them that love God.” Here
is a jeweled promise. Paul loved God, but he did not leave the promise
alone, as a matter of course, to work out its blessed results. So he
wrote to the Corinthians as we have before seen, “I am in trouble. I
trust in God to deliver. Ye also helping together by prayer.” Helping
me by prayer, you help God to make the promise strong and rich in
realization.
Paul’s prayer requests embraced “supplication for all saints,” but
especially for apostolic courage for himself. How much he needed this
courage just as all true preachers, called of God, need it! Prayer was
to open doors for apostolical labors, but at the same time it was to
open apostolic lips to utter bravely and truly the apostolic message.
Hear him as he speaks to the Church at Colosses:
“Withal praying also for us, that God would open to us a door of
utterance to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in
bonds;
“That I may make it manifest as I ought to speak.”
How appropriate such a request to be made by a present-day preacher to
his congregation! How great the need of those things by the present-day
preacher which Paul desired for himself!
As in the request to the Ephesians, Paul wants a “door of utterance”
given him, that he may preach with the liberty of the Spirit, be
delivered from being straitened in thought or hampered in delivery.
Furthermore, he desires the ability to make manifest in the clearest
terms, without confusion of thought, and with force of utterance, the
Gospel “as he ought to speak,” and just as every preacher should speak.
Happy that preacher who ministers to a people who pray thus for him!
And happier still if he inwardly feels, as he faces his responsible
task and realizes how much he needs these things to preach clearly,
forcibly and effectively, that he has urged his people to pray for him!
Prayer transmutes crosses, trials and oppositions into blessings,
and causes them to work together for good. “These shall turn to my
salvation through your prayers,” says Paul. Just as the same things
to-day in the life of the preacher are transmuted into gracious
blessings in the end, “ye also helping together by prayer.” Saintly
praying mightily helped Apostolic preaching and rescued apostolic men
from many sore straits. So just such praying in these days will effect
like results in faithful preaching done by brave, fearless ministers.
Prayer for the preacher avails just as prayer by the preacher avails.
Two things are always factors in the life and work of a true preacher:
First when he prays constantly, fervently and persistently for those to
whom he preaches; and secondly, when those to whom he ministers pray
for their preacher. Happy is the preacher so situated. Blessed is that
congregation thus favored.
To the Church at Thessalonica Paul sends this pressing request,
pointed, clear, and forcible:
“Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have
free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you;
“And that we may be delivered from wicked and unreasonable men.”
He has in mind a race-course, on which the racer is exerting himself to
reach the goal. Hindrances are in the way of his success and must be
removed, so that the racer may finally succeed and obtain the reward.
The “Word of the Lord” is this racer, as preached by Paul. This Word
is personified and there are serious impediments which embarrass the
running of the Word. It must have “free course.” Everything in the
way and opposing its running must be taken out of its roadway. These
impediments in the way of the Word of the Lord “running and being
glorified” are found in the preacher himself, in the Church to whom
he ministers, and in the sinners around him. The Word runs and is
glorified when it has unobstructed access to the minds and hearts of
those to whom it is preached, when sinners are convicted for sin, when
they seriously consider the claims of God’s Word on them, and when they
are induced to pray for themselves, asking for pardoning mercy. It is
glorified when saints are instructed in religious experience, corrected
of errors of doctrine and mistakes in practice, and when they are led
to seek for higher things and to pray for deeper experiences in the
Divine life.
Mark you. It is not when the preacher is glorified because of the
wonderful success wrought by the Word. It is not when people praise
him unduly, and make much of him because of his wonderful sermons,
his great eloquence and his remarkable gifts. The preacher is kept in
the background in all this work of glorification, even though he is
foremost as being the object of all this praying.
Prayer is to do all these things. So Paul urges, entreats, insists,
“Pray for us.” And it is not so much prayer for Paul personally in his
Christian life and religious experience. All this needed much prayer.
It was really for him officially, prayer for him in the office and
work of a Gospel minister. His tongue must be unloosed in preaching,
his mouth unstopped, and his mind set free. Prayer must help in his
religious life not so much because it would help to “work out his own
salvation,” but rather because right living would give strength to the
Word of the Lord, and would save him from being a hindrance to the
Word which he preached. And as he desires that no hindrance should
be in himself which would defeat his own preaching, so he wants all
hindrances taken away from the churches to whom he ministers that
Church people may not stand in the way or weigh down the Word as it
runs on the race-course attempting to reach the goal, even the minds
and hearts of the people. Furthermore, he wishes hindrances in the
unsaved to be set aside that God’s Word as preached by him may reach
their hearts and be glorified in their salvation.
With all this before him, Paul sends this pressing request to these
believers at Thessalonica, “Pray for us,” because praying by true
Christians would greatly help in the running of the Word of the Lord.
Wise that preacher who has the eyes to see these things, and who
realizes that his success largely depends upon praying of this kind on
the part of his people for him. How much do we need churches now who,
having the preacher in mind and the preached Word on their hearts,
pray for him that “the Word of the Lord may have free course, and be
glorified.”
One other item in this request is worth noting: “That we may be
delivered from wicked and unreasonable men.” Such men are hindrances
in the way of the Word of the Lord. Few preachers but are harassed by
them and need to be delivered from them. Prayer helps to bring such a
deliverance to preachers from “unreasonable and wicked men.” Paul was
annoyed by such characters, and for this very reason he urged prayer
for him that he might find deliverance from them.
Summing it all up, we find that Paul feels that the success of the
Word, its liberty and largeness, are bound up in their prayers, and
that their failure to pray would restrict its influence and its
glory. His deliverance from unreasonable and wicked men as well as
his safety, he asserts, are in some way dependent upon their prayers.
These prayers, while they greatly helped him to preach, would at the
same time protect his person from the cruel purposes of wicked and
unreasonable men.
In Hebrews 13:9, Paul thus opens his heart to those Hebrew Christians
in asking them to pray for him:
“Pray for us, for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things
willing to live honestly.”
In this prayer request, Paul’s inward consciousness of his integrity
of heart and his internal witness to his personal honesty come out and
are a basic truth of his Christian character. No room for blame does
he find in himself. “Pray for us.” Your prayers for us will find in me
honest integrity and honest execution and honest administration of all
prayer results.
The request is intended to stir up the saints to more earnest praying,
more devotion to prayer, and more urgency in prayer. Prayer must affect
his visit to them, would hasten it and enlarge its beneficial results.
Paul is on the most cordial and freest terms with Philemon. He is
anxious and expects to visit him at some future day and makes the
appointment. He takes it for granted that Philemon is praying, for as
this man had been converted under his ministry, it is assumed that he
has been taught the Pauline lesson of prayer. He assumes also that
prayer will open up the way for his visit, remove the hindrances and
bring them graciously together. So he requests Philemon to prepare a
lodging place for him, adding, “I trust through your prayers I shall be
given to you.” Paul had the idea that his movements were hindered or
helped by the prayers of his brethren.
THE END
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