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INTERCESSION

There is one aspect of prayer to which particular attention needs to be called, because it is strongly emphasized in the Word, and because it is least used in our daily life, namely, intercession. This word, with what underlies it, has a very unique use and meaning in Scripture. It differs from supplication, first this, that supplication has mainly reference to the suppliant and his own supply; and again, because intercession not only concerns others, but largely implies the need of direct Divine interposition. There are many prayers that, in their answer, allow our co-operation and imply our activity. When we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," we go to work to earn the bread for which we pray. That is God’s law. When we ask God to deliver us from the evil one, we expect to be sober and vigilant, and resist the adversary. This is right; but our activity in many other matters hinders the full display of God’s power, and hence also our impression of His working. The deepest convictions of God’s prayer-answering are therefore wrought in cases where, in the nature of things, we are precluded from all activity in promoting the result.

The Word of God teaches us that intercession with God is most necessary in cases where man is most powerless. Elijah is held before us as a great intercessor, and the one example given is his prayer for rain. Yet in this case he could only pray; there was nothing else he could do to unlock the heavens after three years and a half of drought. And is there not a touch of Divine poetry in the form in which the answer came? The rising cloud took the shape of "a man’s hand," as though to assure the prophet how God saw and heeded the suppliant hand raised to Him in prayer! Daniel was powerless to move the king or reverse his decree; all he could do was to "desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret;" and it was because he could do nothing else, could not even guess at the interpretation, inasmuch as he knew not even the dream — that it became absolutely sure, when both the dream and its meaning were made known, that God had interposed, and so even the heathen king himself saw, felt and confessed.

All through history certain crises have arisen when the help of man was utterly vain. To the formal Christian, the carnal disciple, the unbelieving soul, this fact, that there is nothing that man could do, makes prayer seem almost a folly, perhaps a farce, a waste of breath. But to those who best know God, man’s extremity is God’s opportunity, and human helplessness becomes not a reason for the silence of despair, but the argument for praying in faith. Invariably those whose faith in prayer is supernaturally strong are those who have most proved that God has wrought, by their conscious compulsory cessation of all their own efforts as vain and hopeless.

George Muller set out to prove to a half-believing Church and an unbelieving world that God does directly answer prayer; and to do this he purposely abstained from all the ordinary and otherwise legitimate methods of appeal, or of active effort to secure the housing, clothing and feeding of thousands of orphans. Hudson Taylor undertook to put missionaries into Inland China by dependence solely upon God, asking no collections and even refusing them in connection with public meetings, lest such meetings should be construed as appeals for help. He and his co-workers accustomed themselves to lay all wants before the Lord, and to expect the answer, and answer always came and still comes. The study of missionary history reveals the fact that, at the very times when, in utter despair of any help but God’s there has been believing prayer, the interposition of God has been most conspicuously seen how could it be most conspicuous except amid such conditions?

Every church ought to be a prayer circle; but this will not be so long as we wait for the whole Church, as a body, to move together. The mass of professing Christians have too little hold on God to enter heartily into such holy agreement. To all who yearn for a revival of the prayer-spirit we suggest that in every congregation a prayer circle be formed, without regard to number. Let any pastor unite with himself any man or woman in whom he discerns marks of peculiar spiritual life and power, and without publicity or any direct effort to enlarge the little company, begin with such to lay before God any matter demanding special Divine guidance and help.

Without any’ public invitation which might draw unprepared people into a formal association — it will be found that the Holy Spirit will enlarge the circle as He fits others, or finds others fit, to enter it — and thus, quietly and without Observation, the little company of praying souls will grow as fast as God means it shall. Let a record be kept of every definite petition laid before God — for such a prayer circle should be only with reference to very definite matters and as God interposes and answers follow let the record of His interposition be carefully kept, that it may become a new inspiration both to praise and to believing prayer. Such a resort to united intercession we have ourselves known to transform a whole church, remove dissensions, rectify errors, secure harmony and unity, and promote Holy Spirit administration and spiritual life and growth beyond all other possible devices. If in any church the pastor is unhappily not a man who could or would lead in such a movement, let two or three disciples who feel the need and have the faith meet and begin, perhaps, by praying for him. In this matter there should be no waiting for anybody else; if there be but one believer who has power with God let such a one begin intercessory prayer. God will bring to the side of such an intercessor, in His own time and way, others whom He has made ready to act as supplicators.

Not long since, in a church in Scotland, a minister suddenly began to preach with unprecedented power. The whole congregation was aroused and sinners marvelously saved. He himself did not understand the new enduement. In a dream of the night it was strangely suggested to him that the whole blessing was traceable to one poor old woman who was stone deaf, but who came regularly to church, and being unable to hear a word, spent all the time in prayer for the preacher and individual hearers. In the biography of Charles G. Finney similar facts are recorded of "Father Nash," Abel Cleary, and others.

Examples might be multiplied indefinitely. But the one thing we would make prominent is this: God is summoning His people to prayer. He wills that "men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting"; that, first of all, supplication, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. (1 Timothy 2:8). If this be done first of all, every other most blessed result will follow. God waits to be asked. In Him are the fountains of blessing and He puts at the disposal of His praying saints all their abundance; they are, however, sealed fountains to the ungodly and the unbelieving. There is one key that always unlocks even heaven’s gates; one secret that puts connecting channels between those eternal fountains and ourselves. That key, that secret, is prevailing prayer.

God has no greater controversy with His people today than this, that with boundless promises to believing prayer there are so few who actually give themselves unto intercession. This is represented as being a matter even of Divine wonderment: "And there is none that calleth upon Thy name, That stirreth up himself to take hold of Thee" (Isaiah 64:7). The very fact that so many disciples, and in so many parts of the world, are forming prayer circles or unions is itself a great incentive to increased and united prayer.

TRUE PRAYER

Our Lord taught a great lesson in Matthew 18:19. He said: "If two of you shall agree [symphonize] on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven."

The agreement referred to is not that of a mere human covenant, nor even sympathy; it is symphony. Symphony is agreement of sounds in a musical chord, and depends upon fixed laws of harmony. It can not be secured by any arbitrary arrangement. One cannot lay his fingers accidentally or carelessly upon the keys of a musical instrument and produce symphony of sounds. Such touch may evoke only intolerable discord, unless regulated by a knowledge of the principles of harmony. Nay, there is even a deeper necessity, namely, that the keys touched shall themselves be in tune with the whole instrument. Two conditions, then, are needful; first, that a skilful hand shall put the whole instrument in tune; and then that an equally skilful hand shall touch keys which are capable of producing together what is called "a true chord."

This language evinces Divine design. He is teaching a great lesson on the mystery of prayer, which likewise demands two great conditions; first, that the praying soul shall be in harmony with God Himself; and then that those who unite in prayer shall, because of such unity with Him, be in harmony with each other. There must be, therefore, back of all prevailing supplication and intercession One who, with infinite skill, tunes the keys into accord with His own ear; and then touches them, like a master musician, so that they respond together to His will and give forth the chord which is in His mind.

No true philosophy of prayer can ever be framed which does not include these conditions. Many have false conception of what prayer is. To them it is merely asking for what one wants. But this may be so far from God’s standard as to lack the first essentials of prayer. It may be asking something to consume it upon our own lusts. We are to ask "in the name" of Christ.

But that is not simply using His name in prayer. The name is the nature; it expresses the character, and is equivalent to the person. To ask in Christ’s name is to come to God, as identified with the very person of Christ. A wife makes a purchase in her husband’s name. Literally, she uses his name, not her own. She says, "I am Mrs. A ————-," which means, "I am his wife, identified with his personality, character, wealth, commercial credit, and business standing." To go to God in Christ’s name is to claim identity with Christ as a member of His body, one with Him before the Father, and having in Him a right to the Father’s gifts, a right to draw on the Father’s infinite resources.

Again, we are told that, if we ask anything "according to His will," He heareth us. But what is asking according to His will but ceasing to ask according to our own self-will? Here the impulse is not human, but essentially Divine. It implies a knowledge of His will, an insight into His own mind, and a sympathy with His purpose. Now is this possible unless by the Holy Spirit we are brought into such fellowship with God as that He can guide us in judgment and yearning, and teach us His way? He is indeed "able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think," but it is "according to His power which worketh in us." If that power work not in us first, how can it work for us, in answered prayer?

In order to gain higher results, wrought for the Church or the world, in answer to supplication, there must first be deeper results wrought in the believer by the Holy Spirit. In other words, there must be a higher type of personal holiness if there is to be a higher measure of power in prayer. The carnal mind does not fall into harmony with God, does not even see and perceive His mind, and hence the carnally-minded disciple can not discern the will of God in prayer, but is continually hindered and hampered by mistaking self-impelled petitions for divinely inspired prayers, confounding what self-will craves with what is spiritually needful and Scripturally warranted.

God is calling His people to a revival of faith in the Divine efficacy of prayer.

Our Lord teaches us that the prayer of faith has the power of a fiat or a Divine decree. God said sublimely, "Let light be!" and light was. The Lord Jesus Christ says: "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed" in which, however small, is the possibility and potency of life — "ye shall say to this mountain, Be thou removed; or to this sycamore tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and it shall obey you." This is the language not of petition, but of decree. It is, in some sort, a laying hold on Omnipotence, so that nothing is impossible to the praying soul.

When we reach such heights of teaching and compare them with the low level of our life we are struck dumb with amazement, first at the astounding possibilities of faith, as put before us, and then at the equally astounding impossibilities which unbelief substitutes for the offered omnipotence of supplication. When we think of the possible heights of intercession we seem again to hear the saintly McCheyne crying out: "Do everything in earnest! If it is worth doing, then do it with all your might.

Above all, keep much in the presence of God; never see the face of man till you have seen His face." That is the preparation of prayer, prevailing first with God to enable us to prevail with man. Jacobi must have been thinking along these lines when he said: "My watchword, and that of my reason, is not I, but One who is more and better than I; One who is entirely different from what I am — I mean God. I neither am, nor care to be, If He is not!"

It is prayer that makes God real — the highest reality and verity; and that sends us back into the world with the conviction and consciousness that lie is, and is in us, mighty to work in us, and through us, as instruments, so that nothing shall be impossible to the instrument, because of the Workman, back of it, who holds and wields the weapon. The power of such prayer defies all competition or imitation by the most perfect forms of liturgy. Who can copy or canvass the imprisoned flame of a priceless gem with mere brush and pigments! Or counterfeit the photosphere of the sun with yellow chalk! There is a flame of God which prayer lights within; there is a glow and light and heat in the life which can be kindled only by a coal from the golden altar which is before the throne.

It is only the few who find their way thither and know the enkindling power; but to those few the Church and the world owe mighty upheavals and outpourings. (Revelation 8). Chemical galvanism possesses this peculiarity, that an increase of its powers cannot be gained by increasing the dimensions of the cells of the battery, but can be by increasing their number. We need more intercessors if we are to have greatly increased power. The number of cells must be increased. More of God’s people must learn to pray. The foes are too many for a few to cope with them, however empowered of God. The variety of human want and woe, the scattered millions of the unsaved, the wide territory to be covered with intercession — all these and other like considerations demand multiplied forces. Each human being has only a very limited knowledge of human need. Our individual circle of acquaintance is so comparatively narrow that even the most prayerful spirit cannot survey the whole field. But when in all parts of the destitute territory supplicators multiply, even these narrow circles, placed side by side and largely overlapping, cover the whole broad field of need. Our own personal and limited knowledge and range of intelligent sympathy meet and touch similar and sympathetic souls, so that what we do not see or feel or pray for, appeals to others of our fellow disciples; and so, in proportion as the intercessors multiply, every interest of mankind finds its representatives in the secret place and at the throne.

We cannot make up for lack of praying by excess of working. In fact working without praying is a sort of practical atheism, for it leaves out God. It is the prayer that prepares for work, that arms us for the warfare, that furnishes us for the activity. It behooves us, studying intently the promises to prayer, to say unto the Lord: "This being Thy word, I will henceforth live as a man of prayer and claim my privilege and use my power as an intercessor."

Here is the highest identification with the Son of God. It is almost being admitted to a sort of fellowship in His mediatory work! During this dispensation His work is mainly intercession. He calls us to take a subordinate part in the holy office, standing, like Phinehas, between the living and the dead to stay the plague; like Elijah, between heaven and earth to unlock heaven’s flood-gates of blessing and command the fire and flood of God! Is this true? Then what can be more awful and august than such dignity and majesty of privilege! Ignatius welcomes the Numidian lion in the arena, saying: "I am grain of God; I must be ground between the teeth of lions to make bread for God’s people." He felt in the hour of martyrdom the privilege of joining his dying Lord in a sacrifice that Bushnell would call "vicarious."

Who will join the risen Lord in a service of intercession? The greatest difficulty in the way of practical conversion of men may not be in God’s eyes so much a barrier of ungodliness among the heathen as a barrier of unbelief among His own disciples!