IX. Prayer -- Facts and History (Continued)
The neglect of prayer is a grand hindrance to holiness. "We have
not because we ask not." Oh, how meek and gentle, how lowly in heart, how full
of love both to God and to man, might you have been at this day, if you had
only asked! If you had continued instant in prayer! Ask, that you may
thoroughly experience and perfectly practice the whole of that religion which
our Lord has so beautifully described in the Sermon on the Mount. -- JOHN
WESLEY
IT is to the closet Paul directs us to go. The unfailing remedy for all
carking, distressing care is prayer. The place where the Lord is at hand is the
closet of prayer. There He is always found, and there He is at hand to bless,
to deliver and to help. The one place where the Lord's presence and power will
be more fully realized than any other place is the closet of prayer.
Paul gives the various terms of prayer,
supplication and giving of thanks as the complement of true praying. The soul
must be in all of these spiritual exercises. There must be no half-hearted
praying, no abridging its nature, and no abating its force, if we would be
freed from this undue anxiety which causes friction and internal distress, and
if we would receive the rich fruit of that peace which passeth all
understanding. He who prays must be an earnest soul, all round in spiritual
attributes.
"In everything, let your requests be made known
unto God," says Paul. Nothing is too great to be handled in prayer, or to be
sought in prayer. Nothing is too small to be weighed in the secret councils of
the closet, and nothing is too little for its final arbitrament. As care comes
from every source, so prayer goes to every source. As there are no small things
in prayer, so there are no small things with God. He who counts the hairs of
our head, and who is not too lofty and high to notice the little sparrow which
falls to the ground, is not too great and high to note everything which
concerns the happiness, the needs and the safety of His children. Prayer brings
God into what men are pleased to term the little affairs of life. The lives of
people are made up of these small matters, and yet how often do great
consequences come from small beginnings?
"There is no
sorrow, Lord, too light
To
bring in prayer to Thee;
There is no anxious
care too slight
To
wake Thy sympathy.
"There is no secret
sigh we breathe,
But
meets Thine ear Divine,
And every cross
grows light beneath
The
shadow, Lord, of Thine."
As everything by prayer is to be brought to the
notice of Almighty God, so we are assured that whatever affects us concerns
Him. How comprehensive is this direction about prayer! "In everything by
prayer." There is no distinction here between temporal and spiritual things.
Such a distinction is against faith, wisdom and reverence. God rules everything
in nature and in grace. Man is affected for time and eternity by things secular
as well as by things spiritual. Man's salvation hangs on his business as well
as on his prayers. A man's business hangs on his prayers just as it hangs on
his diligence.
The chief hindrances to piety, the wiliest and
the deadliest temptations of the devil, are in business, and lie alongside the
things of time. The heaviest, the most confusing and the most stupefying cares
lie beside secular and worldly matters. So in everything which comes to us and
which concerns us, in everything which we want to come to us, and in everything
which we do not want to come to us, prayer is to be made for all. Prayer
blesses all things, brings all things, relieves all things and prevents all
things. Everything as well as every place and every hour is to be ordered by
prayer. Prayer has in it the possibility to affect everything which affects us.
Here are the vast possibilities of prayer.
How much is the bitter of life sweetened by
prayer! How are the feeble made strong by prayer! Sickness flees before the
health of prayer. Doubts, misgivings, and trembling fears retire before prayer.
Wisdom, knowledge, holiness and heaven are at the command of prayer. Nothing is
outside of prayer. It has the power to gain all things in the provision of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Paul covers all departments and sweeps the entire field of
human concernment, conditions, and happenings by saying, "In everything by
prayer."
Supplications and thanksgiving are to be joined
with prayer. It is not the dignity of worship, the gorgeousness of ceremonials,
the magnificence of its ritual, nor the plainness of its sacraments, which
avail. It is not simply the soul's hallowed and lowly abasement before God,
neither the speechless awe, which benefits in this prayer service, but the
intensity of supplication, the looking and the lifting of the soul in ardent
plea to God for the things desired and for which request is made.
The radiance and gratitude and utterance of
thanksgiving must be there. This is not simply the poetry of praise, but the
deep-toned words and the prose of thanks. There must be hearty thanks, which
remembers the past, sees God in it, and voices that recognition in sincere
thanksgiving. The hidden depths within must have utterance. The lips must speak
the music of the soul. A heart enthused of God, a heart illumined by His
presence, a life guided by His right hand, must have something to say for God
in gratitude. Such is to recognize God in the events of past life, to exalt God
for His goodness, and to honour God who has honoured it.
"Make known your requests unto God." The
"requests" must be made known unto God. Silence is not prayer. Prayer is asking
God for something which we have not, which we desire, and which He has promised
to give in answer to prayer. Prayer is really verbal asking. Words are in
prayer. Strong words and true words are found in prayer. Desires in prayer are
put in words. The praying one is a pleader. He urges his prayer by arguments,
promises, and needs.
Sometimes loud words are in prayer. The Psalmist
said, "Evening, morning and at noon will I pray, and cry aloud." The praying
one wants something which he has not got. He wants something which God has in
His possession, and which he can get by praying. He is beggared, bewildered,
oppressed and confused. He is before God in supplication, in prayer, and in
thanksgiving. These are the attitudes, the incense, the paraphernalia, and the
fashion of this hour, the court attendance of his soul before God.
"Requests" mean to ask for one's self. The man is
in a strait. He needs something, and he needs it badly. Other help has failed.
It means a plea for something to be given which has not been done. The request
is for the Giver, -- not alone His gifts but Himself. The requests of the
praying one are to be made known unto God. The requests are to be brought to
the knowledge of God. It is then that cares fly away, anxieties disappear,
worries depart, and the soul gets at ease. Then it is there steals into the
heart "the peace of God that passeth all understanding."
"Peace! doubting
heart, my God's I am,
Who
formed me man, forbids my fear;
The Lord hath
called me by my name;
The
Lord protects, forever near;
His blood for me
did once atone,
And still He loves and guards His
own."
In James, chapter five, we have another
marvellous description of prayer and its possibilities. It has to do with
sickness and health, sin and forgiveness, and rain and drouth. Here we have
James' directory for praying:
"Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any
merry? Let him sing psalms.
"Is any sick among you? Let him call for the
elders of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the
name of the Lord.
"And the prayer of faith shall save the sick; and
the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be
forgiven him.
"Confess your faults one to another, and pray one
for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer of a
righteous man availeth much.
"Elias was a man subject to like passions as we
are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the
earth by the space of three years and six months.
"And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain,
and the earth brought forth her fruit."
Here is prayer for one's own needs and
intercessory prayer for others; prayer for physical needs and prayer for
spiritual needs; prayer for drouth and prayer for rain; prayer for temporal
matters and prayer for spiritual things. How vast the reach of prayer! How
wonderful under these words its possibilities!
Here is the remedy for affliction and depression
of every sort, and here we find the remedy for sickness and for rain in the
time of drouth. Here is the way to obtain forgiveness of sins. A stroke of
prayer paralyzes the energies of nature, stays its clouds, rain and dew, and
blasts field and farm like the simoon. Prayer brings clouds, and rain and
fertility to the famished and wasted earth.
The general statement, "The effectual, fervent
prayer of a righteous man availeth much," is a statement of prayer as an
energetic force. Two words are used. One signifies power in exercise, operative
power, while the other is power as an endowment. Prayer is power and strength,
a power and strength which influences God, and is most salutary, widespread and
marvellous in its gracious benefits to man. Prayer influences God. The ability
of God to do for man is the measure of the possibility of prayer.
"Thou art coming to
a king,
Large petitions with thee bring;
For His grace and power are such
None can ever ask too much."