All
the greatest needs, both of the Church and of the world, may beincluded
in one: the need of a higher standard of godliness; and the all embracingsecret
of a truly godly life is close and constant contact with theunseen
God; that contact is learned and practiced, as nowhere else, in thesecret
place of supplication and intercession.
Our
Lord’s first lesson in the school of prayer
was, and still is: "ENTERINTO THY CLOSET" (Matthew 6:6). The
"closet" is the closed place,where we are shut in alone with God,
where the human spirit waits uponan unseen Presence, learns to recognize
Him who is a Spirit, and cultivatesHis acquaintance, fellowship, and
friendship.
Everything
else, therefore, depends upon prayer. To the praying soul therebecomes
possible the faith which is the grasp of the human spirit upon therealities
and verities of the unseen world. To the praying soul therebecomes
possible and natural the obedience which is the daily walk of thedisciple
with the unseen God. To the praying soul there becomes possiblethe
patience, which is the habit of waiting for results yet unseen and hopesyet
unrealized. To the praying soul there becomes possible the love that,like
a celestial flood, drowns out evil tempers and hateful dispositions, andintroduces
us to a new world of gentle and generous frames. To thepraying
soul there becomes possible and increasingly real the holinesswhich
is personal conformity to an unseen Divine image and ideal, and theinnermost
secret of a heavenly bliss.
Those
who yearn for revivals naturally lay much stress on preaching. Butwhat
is preaching without praying! Sermons are but pulpit performances,learned
essays, rhetorical orations, popular lectures, or it may be politicalharangues,
until God gives, in answer to earnest prayer, the preparation ofthe
heart, and the answer of the tongue. It is only he who prays that cantruly
preach. Many a sermon that has shown no intellectual genius and hasviolated
all homiletic rules and standards has had dynamic spiritual force.
Somehow
it has moved men, melted them, molded them. The man whoselips
are touched by God’s living coal from off
the altar may even stammer,but his hearers soon find out that he is on fire
with one consuming passionto save souls. We need saints in the pew as well
as in the pulpit, andsaintship everywhere is fed and nourished on
prayer. The man of businesswho prays, learns to abide in his calling with
God; his secular affairs andtransactions become sacred by being brought into
the searchlight of God’spresence.
His own business becomes his Father’s
business. He does nottrample on God’s
commands in order to make money, nor does he drivehis
trade and traffic through the sacred limits of the Lord’s
day, or defraudhis customers, "breaking God’s
law for a dividend."
Praying
souls become prevailing saints. Those who get farthest on in theschool
of prayer and learn most of its hidden secrets often develop a sort ofprescience
which comes nearest to the prophetic spirit, the Holy Spiritshowing
them "things to come." They seem, like Savonarola, to knowsomething
of the purpose of God, to anticipate His plans, and to forecastthe
history of their own times. The great supplicators have been also theseers.
There
is no higher virtue in a church than that it should be a prayingchurch,
for it is prayer that makes eternal realities both prominent anddominant.
A church and a pastor may have any one of the current, populartypes
of "religious" life, and souls may not be saved; but, as the late Dr.Skinner,
of New York, used to say: "If the peculiar type of piety is thatwhich
is inspired by a sense of the powers of the world to come; sinnerswill
be saved and saints edified." Even the world that now is will feel thepower
of such piety.
Praying
feeds missions at home and abroad. It promotes giving. Parsimonyis
stifled in the atmosphere of God’s
presence. Gifts are multiplied andmagnified when the giver is consecrated.
When disciples begin to pray forsouls they begin to yearn over them and
to be willing to make sacrifices fortheir salvation. The key that can unlock
the treasury of God’s promises hasmarvelous
power also to unlock the treasures of hoarded wealth, andmakes
even the abundance of deep poverty to abound into the riches ofliberality
till the widow’s mites drop into the
Lord’s hands even morefrequently
than the millions of merchant princes. No man can breathe freelyin
the atmosphere of prayer while he stifles benevolent impulses. Thegiving
of money prepares for the giving of self, and thus prayer makesmissionary
workers as well as missionary givers and supporters.Few,
even amongst the most devout, have ever fully felt how far workersin
"the mine of heathendom" depend on those who "hold the
ropes." JamesGilmour, whose rare and radiant spirit so impressed the rude
Mongolians,said
that, un-prayed for, he would feel like a diver in the river bottom withno
air to breathe, or like a fireman on a blazing building with no water inhis
empty hose.
Prayer
is not to be thought the less of because we are so often driven to thethrone
of grace as a last resort. It is part of the philosophy of prayer that itshall
reveal its full efficacy only when and where all beside fails us. Here, asin
all else, it is only at the end of self with all its inventions. that we find
thebeginning
of God with all His interpositions. A praying heart is the onething
that the devil cannot easily counterfeit. It is easy enough to imitatepraying
lips, so that hypocrites and Pharisees feign devoutness. But onlyGod
can open in the heart’s depths those springs
of supplication that oftenfind no channel in language, but flow out in
groanings which cannot beuttered.
It
is not worth while to waste much time in defending or advocatingprayer.
Experiment makes argument needless. This is not so much ascience
to be mastered by study as an art to be learned by practice. Like theBible,
prayer is self-evidencing. It is a mysterious union of Divine andhuman
elements not easy of explanation; but to him who prays and putsGod
to the test along the lines of His own precepts and promises, Godproves
how real a force prayer is in His moral universe. The best way toprop
up prayer is to practice it.
The
pivot of piety, therefore, is prayer. A pivot is of double use, it acts as afastener
and as a center; it holds other parts in place, and it is the axis ofrevolution.
Prayer likewise, keeps one steadfast in faith and helps to allholy
activity. Hence, as surely as God is lifting His people to a higher levelof
spirituality, and moving them to a more unselfish and self-denyingservice,
there will be new emphasis laid by them upon supplication, andespecially
upon intercession.
The
revival of the praying-spirit is not only first in order of development,but
it is first in order of importance, for without it there is no advance.Generally,
if not uniformly prayer is both starting-point and goal to everymovement
in which are the elements of permanent progress. Whenever theChurch’s
sluggishness is aroused and the world’s
wickedness arrested,somebody has been praying. If the secret history
of all true spiritualadvance could be written and read. there would
be found some intercessorswho, like Job, Samuel. Daniel, Elijah, Paul and
James; like JonathanEdwards, William Carey, George Muller, and
Hudson Taylor, have beenled to shut themselves in the secret place with
God, and have laboredfervently in prayer. And as the starting-point
is thus found in supplicationand intercession, so the final outcome must be
that God’s people shall havelearned
to pray; otherwise there will be rapid reaction and disastrousrelapse
from the better conditions secured.
PRAYER
PUTS MEN IN TOUCH WITH GOD
There
is a divine philosophy behind this fact. The greatest need is to keepin
close touch with God; the greatest risk is the loss of the sense of theDivine.
In a world where every appeal is to the physical senses and throughthem,
reality is in direct proportion to the power and freedom of contact.
What
we see, hear, taste, touch or smell —
what is material and sensible — we can not doubt. The
present and material absorbs a but the future, theimmaterial,
the invisible, the spiritual, seem vague, distant, illusive,imaginary.
Practically the unseen has little or no reality and influence withthe
vast majority of mankind. Even the unseen God Himself is to most menless
a verity than the commonest object of vision; to many He, the highestverity,
is really vanity, while the world’s
vanities are practically the highestverities.
God’s
great corrective for this most disastrous inversion and perversion ofthe
true relation of things is prayer. "Enter into thy closet." There all
issilence,
secrecy, solitude, seclusion. Within that holy of holies the discipleis
left alone — all others shut out,
that the suppliant may be shut in —
withGod.
The silence is in order to the hearing of the still, small voice that isdrowned
in worldly clamor, and which even a human voice may cause tobe
unheard or indistinct. The secrecy is in order to a meeting with Himwho
seeth in secret and is best seen in secret. The solitude is for thepurpose
of being alone with One who can fully impress with His presenceonly
when there is no other presence to divert thought. the place ofseclusion
with God is the one school where we learn that He is, and is therewarder
of those that diligently seek Him. The closet is "not only theoratory,
it is the observatory," not for prayer only, but for prospect —
thewide-reaching,
clear-seeing, outlook upon the eternal! The decline ofprayer
is therefore the decay of piety; and, for prayer to cease altogether,would
be spiritual death, for it is to every child of God the breath of life.
We
cannot too strongly emphasize this fact, that to keep in dose touchwith
God in the secret chamber of His presence is the great fundamentalunderlying
purpose of prayer. To speak with God is a priceless privilege;but
what shall be said of having and hearing Him speak with us! We cantell
Him nothing He does not know; but He can tell us what we do notknow,
no imagination has ever conceived, no research ever unveiled. Thehighest
of all possible attainments is the knowledge of God, and this is thepractical
mode of His revelation of Himself. Even His holy Word needs tobe
read in the light of His own presence if it is to be understood. Thepraying
soul hears God speak.
"And
when Moses was gone into the tabernacle of the congregationto
speak with Him, then he heard the voice of One speaking untohim
from off the mercy seat that was upon the ark of testimony —from
between the two cherubim, and He spake unto him"(Numbers
7:89).
Where
there is this close touch with God, and this clear insight into Hisname
which is His nature, and into His Word which is His will madeknown,
there will be a new power to walk with Him in holiness, and workwith
Him in service. "He made known His ways unto Moses, His acts untothe
children of Israel."
The mass of the people stood afar off and saw Hisdeeds, such as the
overthrowing of Pharaoh’s hosts in the Red
Sea; butMoses
drew near into the thick darkness where God was, and in that thickdarkness
he found a light such as never shone elsewhere, and in that lighthe
read God’s secret plans and
purposes and interpreted His wondrousways of working.
All
practical power over sin and over men depends on maintaining thissecret
communion. Elijah was bidden, first, "go, hide thyself," and then,"go
shew thyself." Those who abide in the secret place with God comeforth
to show themselves mighty to conquer evil, and strong to work andto
walk for God. They are permitted to read the secrets of His covenant;they
know His will; they are the meek whom He guides in judgment andteaches
His way. They are His prophets, who speak for Him to others;because
they watch the signs of the times, discern. His tokens, and read Hissignals.
We sometimes count as mystics those who, like Savonarola andCatherine
of Siena, claim to have communications from God; to haverevelations
of a definite plan of God for His Church, or for themselves asindividuals,
like the reformer of Erfurt,
the founder of the BristolOrphanages, or the leader of the China Inland
Mission. But may it not bethat if we stumble at these experiences it is
because we do not have themourselves? Have not many of these men and women
afterward proved bytheir lives that they were not mistaken, and
that God has led them by a waythat no other eye could trace?
PRAYER
IMPARTS GOD’S POWER
In
favor of close contact with the living God in prayer, there is anotherreason
that rises perhaps to a still higher level. Prayer not only puts us intouch
with God, and gives knowledge of Him and His ways, but it impartsto
us His power. It is the touch which brings virtue out of Him. It is thehand
upon the pole of a celestial battery, which charges us with His secretlife,
energy, efficiency. Things which are impossible with man are possiblewith
God, and with a man in whom God is. Prayer is the secret of impartedpower
from God, and nothing else can take its place. Absolute weaknessfollows
the neglect of secret communion with God —
and the weakness isthe more deplorable, because it is often
unconscious and unsuspected,especially when one has never yet known what
true power is.
We
see men of prayer quietly achieving results of the most surprisingcharacter.
They have the calm of God, no hurry, or worry, or flurry; noanxiety,
or care, no excitement or hustle or bustle —
they do great thingsfor God, and, like John the Baptist, are great
in His eyes, yet they are littlein their own eyes; they carry great
loads, and yet are not weary nor faint;they face great crises, and yet are not
troubled. And those who know notwhat treasures of wisdom and strength and
courage and power are hiddenin God’s
pavilion wonder how it is. They try to account for all this bysomething
in the man — his talent, or tact,
original methods, or favoringcircumstances. Perhaps they try to imitate such
a career by securing thepatronage of the rich and mighty, or by
dependence on organization, orfleshly energy —
or what men call "determination to succeed" —
theybustle
about, labor incessantly, appeal for money and co-operation, andwork
out an apparent success, but there is none of that power of God in itwhich
cannot be imitated. They compass themselves about with sparks, butthere
is no fire of God; they build up a great structure, but it is wood, hay,stubble;
they make a great noise, but God is not in the clamor.
Nothing
is at once so undisputable and so over-awing as the way in whicha
few men of God have lived in Him and He in them. The fact is, that in thedisciple’s
life the fundamental law is, "Not I, but Christ in me." In agrandly
true sense there is but one Worker, one Agent, and He Divine; andall
other so-called "workers" are instruments, and instruments only, in
Hishands.
The first quality of a true instrument is passivity. An activeinstrument
would defeat its own purpose; all its activity must be dependentupon
the man who uses it. Sometimes a machine becomes uncontrollable,and
then it not only becomes useless, but it becomes dangerous, and worksdamage
and disaster. What would a man do with a plane, a knife, an axe, asaw,
a bow, that had any will of its own and moved of itself? Does it meannothing
when, in the Word of God, we meet so frequently the symbols ofpassive
service — the rod, the staff,
the saw, the hammer, the sword, thespear, the threshing instrument, the
flail; and, in the New Testament, thevessel? Does it mean that in proportion
as a man is willful God can not usehim; that the first condition of service
is that the human will is to be lost inGod’s
so that it presents no resistance to His, no persistence beyond orapart
from His, and even ventures to offer no assistance to His? GeorgeMuller
well taught that we are to wait to know whether a certain work isGod’s;
then whether it is ours, as being committed to us; but, even then,we
need to wait for God’s way and God’s
time to do His own work,otherwise we rush precipitately into that which
He means us to do, butonly at His signal; or else, perhaps, we go on
doing when He calls a halt.Many a true servant of God has, like Moses,
begun before his Master wasready, or kept on working when his Master’s
time was past.