VII. Prayer -- Its Wide Range
Nothing so pleases God in connection with our prayer as our
praise, . . . and nothing so blesses the man who prays as the praise which he
offers. I got a great blessing once in China in this connection. I had received
bad and sad news from home, and deep shadows had covered my soul. I prayed, but
the darkness did not vanish. I summoned myself to endure, but the darkness only
deepened. Just then I went to an inland station and saw on the wall of the
mission home these words: "Try Thanksgiving." I did, and in a moment every
shadow was gone, not to return. Yes, the Psalmist was right, "It is a good
thing to give thanks unto the Lord." -- HENRY W.
FROST
THE possibilities of prayer are gauged by faith in God's ability to do. Faith
is the one prime condition by which God works. Faith is the one prime condition
by which man prays. Faith draws on God to its full extent. Faith gives
character to prayer. A feeble faith has always brought forth feeble praying.
Vigorous faith creates vigorous praying. At the close of a parable, "And he
spake a parable unto them to this end, that men always ought to pray, and not
to faint," in which He stressed the necessity of vigorous praying, Christ asks
this pointed question, "When the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the
earth?"
In the case of the lunatic child which the
father brought first to the disciples, who could not cure him, and then to the
Lord Jesus Christ, the father cried out with all the pathos of a declining
faith and of a great sorrow, "If thou canst do anything for us, have compassion
on us and help us." And Jesus said unto him, "If thou canst believe, all things
are possible to him that believeth." The healing turned on the faith in the
ability of Christ to heal the boy. The ability to do was in Christ essentially
and eternally, but the doing of the thing turned on the ability of the faith.
Great faith enables Christ to do great things.
We need a quickening faith in God's power. We
have hedged God in till we have little faith in His power. We have conditioned
the exercise of His power till we have a little God, and a little faith in a
little God.
The only condition which restrains God's power,
and which disables Him to act, is unfaith. He is not limited in action nor
restrained by the conditions which limit men.
The conditions of time, place, nearness, ability
and all others which could possibly be named, upon which the actions of men
hinge, have no bearing on God. If men will look to God and cry to Him with true
prayer, He will hear and can deliver, no matter how dire soever may be the
state, how remediless their conditions may be.
Strange how God has to school His people in His
ability to do! He made a promise to Abraham and Sarah that Isaac would be born.
Abraham was then nearly one hundred years old, and Sarah was barren by natural
defect, and had passed into a barren, wombless age. She laughed at the thought
of having a child as preposterous. God asked, "Why did Sarah laugh? Is anything
too hard for the Lord?" And God fulfilled His promise to these old people to
the letter.
Moses hesitated to undertake God's purpose to
liberate Israel from Egyptian bondage, because of his inability to talk well.
God checks him at once by an inquiry:
"And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am
not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant;
but I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue.
"And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's
mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I
the Lord?
"Now, therefore, go, and I will be with thy
mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say."
When God said He would feed the children of
Israel a whole month with meat, Moses questioned His ability to do it. The Lord
said unto Moses, "Is the Lord's hand waxed short? Thou shalt see now whether my
word shall come to pass unto thee or not."
Nothing is too hard for the Lord to do. As Paul
declared, "He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or
think." Prayer has to do with God, with His ability to do. The possibility of
prayer is the measure of God's ability to do.
The "all things," the "all things whatsoever,"
and the "anything," are all covered by the ability of God. The urgent entreaty
reads, "Ask whatsoever ye will," because God is able to do anything and all
things that my desires may crave, and that He has promised. In God's ability to
do, He goes far beyond man's ability to ask. Human thoughts, human words, human
imaginations, human desires and human needs, cannot in any way measure God's
ability to do.
Prayer in its legitimate possibilities goes out
on God Himself. Prayer goes out with faith not only in the promise of God, but
faith in God Himself, and in God's ability to do. Prayer goes out not on the
promise merely, but "obtains promises," and creates promises.
Elijah had the promise that God would send the
rain, but no promise that He would send the fire. But by faith and prayer he
obtained the fire, as well as the rain, but the fire came first.
Daniel had no specific promise that God would
make known to him the dream of the king, but he and his associates joined in
united prayer, and God revealed to Daniel the king's dream and the
interpretation, and their lives were spared thereby.
Hezekiah had no promise that God would cure him
of his desperate sickness which threatened his life. On the contrary the word
of the Lord came to him by the mouth of the prophet, that he should die.
However, he prayed against this decree of Almighty God, with faith, and he
succeeded in obtaining a reversal of God's word and lived.
God makes it marvellous when He says by the mouth
of His prophet: "Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel and his Maker: Ask
me of things to come, concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands,
command ye me." And in this strong promise in which He commits Himself into the
hands of His praying people, He appeals in it to His great creative power: "I
have created the earth and made man upon it. I, even my hands, have stretched
out the heavens, and all their hosts have I commanded."
The majesty and power of God in making man and
man's world, and constantly upholding all things, are ever kept before us as
the basis of our faith in God, and as an assurance and urgency to prayer. Then
God calls us away from what He Himself has done, and turns our minds to Himself
personally. The infinite glory and power of His Person are set before our
contemplation: "Remember ye not the former things neither consider the things
of old?" He declares that He will do a "new thing," that He does not have to
repeat Himself, that all He has done neither limits His doing nor the manner of
His doing, and that if we have prayer and faith, He will so answer our prayers
and so work for us, that His former work shall not be remembered nor come into
mind. If men would pray as they ought to pray, the marvels of the past would be
more than reproduced. The Gospel would advance with a facility and power it has
never known. Doors would be thrown open to the Gospel, and the Word of God
would have a conquering force rarely if ever known before.
If Christians prayed as Christians ought, with
strong commanding faith, with earnestness and sincerity, men, God-called men,
God-empowered men everywhere, would be all burning to go and spread the Gospel
world-wide. The Word of the Lord would run and be glorified as never known
heretofore. The God-influenced men, the God-inspired men, the God-commissioned
men, would go and kindle the flame of sacred fire for Christ, salvation and
heaven, everywhere in all nations, and soon all men would hear the glad tidings
of salvation and have an opportunity to receive Jesus Christ as their personal
Saviour. Let us read another one of those large illimitable statements in God's
Word, which are a direct challenge to prayer and faith:
"He that spared not his own Son, but delivered
him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things?"
What a basis have we here for prayer and faith,
illimitable, measureless in breadth, in depth and in height! The promise to
give us all things is backed up by the calling to our remembrance of the fact
that God freely gave His only Begotten Son for our redemption. His giving His
Son is the assurance and guarantee that He will freely give all things to him
who believes and prays.
What confidence have we in this Divine statement
for inspired asking! What holy boldness we have here for the largest asking! No
commonplace tameness should restrain our largest asking. Large, larger, and
largest asking magnifies grace and adds to God's glory. Feeble asking
impoverishes the asker, and restrains God's purposes for the greatest good and
obscures His glory.
How enthroned, magnificent and royal the
intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ at His Father's right hand in heaven! The
benefits of His intercession flow to us through our intercessions. Our
intercession ought to catch by contagion, and by necessity the inspiration and
largeness of Christ's great work at His Father's right hand. His business and
His life are to pray. Our business and our lives ought to be to pray, and to
pray without ceasing.
Failure in our intercession affects the fruits
His intercession. Lazy, heartless, feeble, and indifferent praying by us mars
and hinders the effects of Christ's praying.