Conflicting Prayers
This chapter leads into the wilderness. Just beyond it is the insane
asylum. The most bewildering, confusing, and dangerous region is the
morass of conflicting prayers. No human theory concerning them is even
helpful. The labyrinth is absolutely trackless to the human mind when
once the worshiper becomes entangled therein. So we will not attempt to
explain any of the even unthinkable intricacies of its strange region.
Nowhere in the Bible does the Lord answer the questions which millions
have asked about it. Two persons, equally sincere, pray for success in a
matter where the victory of one must be the defeat of the other. Nations
at war pray hard and long for victory, and not even God can answer both.
Something must be taken from one to give to another, while the one in
possession is praying that he may keep it. One's loss is another's gain.
The employer prays for a profit on his business, and the laborer prays
for higher wages. The white man and the colored man prays for his own
tribe. The Samaritan and Jew, worshiping the same God and having the
same family inheritance, believe it is a duty to hate each other, and
each calls for God's curses on the other. Many an honest investigator
has entered this region of doubt and mystery and managed to back out
while still in his right mind. But he has returned the worse for the
experience. All sorts of foolish speculations have been given creedal
expression until men have declared, with strange assurance, that man
cannot trust his reason or his conscience in any matter. They have tried
to prove that the laws of nature are inflexible and that prayer cannot
have any influence whatever in current events. Gifted men and women of
culture and high purpose have convinced themselves that there is no
evil, that men never sin, that the Bible theories concerning prayer are
fanciful and too miraculous to be possible. "Too much study hath made
thee mad," said the practical Roman to the Apostle Paul. The old Roman
had probably seen so many religions that he had no faith in any. The
religious maniacs are those men who have broken down their brains by
laborious study over these insoluble problems. Therefore, while no one
should discourage reasonable research anywhere, and while it is not
sacrilegious or foolish to think on these things, it does seem best to
admit that to the most faithful Christian there are unsearchable things
of God which he cannot sanely hope to understand in this life. "My
thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the
Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." We
cannot expect to achieve a knowledge as great and extensive as that of
the Creator, and must be content with our reasonable limitations. "What
I do ye know not now, but ye shall know hereafter." Satisfied, then,
with the promise of that future full revelation we should study all that
Providence places before us for investigation and never let go of what
we are sure we do know. We will distinguish, as clearly as possible,
between our imagination and our knowledge, and with a level head and our
feet on solid ground we will live by a faith that is reasonable and
never become blindly reckless.
The lightning struck a tree near a neighbor's residence last week. He
knows that to be a hard fact. He does not know much about the electric
currents in the atmosphere, neither does the most experienced scientist;
but the neighbor knows that the lightning did splinter that tree. From
that fact he entertains a faith in a possible return of that event and
by faith he puts up a lightning rod on his barn.
The observer notices that sin brings its own punishment in many cases,
and he has faith that such will be the universal experience of the
future. So he keeps his soul insured by safe and sane investment in
righteousness. Every sane man knows that we must at all times walk
largely by faith. Faith is a constituent part of the natural human
constitution. The degree of faith determines the character of the
individual. Faith, like water, seeks its level. But the greater its safe
elevation, the greater its power. Faith must grow reasonably, like a
grain of mustard seed. It also develops mysteriously by natural increase
until the fowls of the air nest in its branches and its growing root
will cleave off the side of the mountain. The patriot, earnestly seeking
victory, lets no possible agency pass unused to overcome the enemy. When
he has prepared fully and laboriously for the battle he will then pray
for the help which God may give him. Even should he strongly doubt that
the Great Power moving on events beyond his knowledge can or will hear
him, yet he will not fail to pray. Any man who calls on the Christian's
God will not ask him to aid an unholy cause. A murderer seeking an
opportunity to kill will not call on God for aid. The thief ever fears
some providential interference with his plans. The Christian ever hopes
for God's aid, and asks for it because his aim is a godly one.
Herein is found the safe position for the believer to take. We can pray
for the heathen, although they do pray against their own good. We can
pray for victory in some holy war, because the enemy are praying really
against their own good. Because their cause is unrighteous, their
victory would be a great loss to them. Hence, even the great prayers
which sublimely petition for the nations, and which include the whole
world in their range of vision, are consistent only when man realizes
his weakness and his ignorance, and adds to every prayer the
reservation, "nevertheless, not my will but thine be done."
He is the wisest servant of God who can pray from the camp that he may
conquer if his cause be really just. The preacher who enters his pulpit
with an almost agonizing prayer that God would aid him in his
presentation of the Christ to men must ever ask that God will turn aside
any arrow which would do harm to the cause. In his ignorance or weakness
he may mistake the Gospel message, or may not present the whole truth,
and he must ever ask that, whether he gain or lose in the esteem of his
congregation, the truth shall always prevail. Christian nations are
often wrong in their diplomacy or in their wars, as they discover after
a while. The Lord, therefore, gave them that for which they would have
asked had their hearts been right with God and their intentions been
Christlike toward men.
Sometime we shall understand. But now the seeming inconsistency of
asking the Lord to aid his own cause, or praying that Christ may soon
come into his own kingdom, is ever a stumbling block to the doubtful
ones. If the Lord has all power and has a sincere desire to make the
world good, why does he not do it by one sweep of his hand or by one
magic word? What is the reason for his commandment to pray to him and to
ask him to do that which he wishes to do and can do himself? All these
questions lead into the wilderness. We do not know. We cannot suggest
any hypothesis which would make the sovereignty of God and the free will
of man reconcilable. Man's mind is so constructed that it is impossible
to believe that the Creator controls all things and arranges the details
of even our thoughts and yet leaves man free to choose to defeat the
Lord by his own thoughts and actions. It is impossible fully to believe
that man can voluntarily do evil without in some way interfering with
the designs and power of God. If God undertakes to save the world, and
"would not that any should perish," but that all should come unto him
and live, and yet sinful man can defeat or hinder the accomplishment of
his purpose, then the thinker must conclude that God is not supreme. Yet
when we keep our minds within their reasonable limits and fall back on
our common sense we must believe that God is all-powerful and also that
man is free to be sinful. The facts are actual facts, although we cannot
reconcile them. There is but little we frail mortals can understand
about such matters. Let us, therefore, carefully hold to the facts which
we can comprehend, and never assume that things which are, surely are
not, or that things which are not, most surely are. There was a bowlder
in the highway yesterday. We don't know how it came to be there. We know
it should not be there. But there it is, and he would be idiotic who
tried to go on as if the stone were not there. Behold! there is set
before every man good and evil. "Choose good that thou and thy seed may
live." We know that in a thousand matters we can choose the good or
choose the evil. We see also that liberty is limited by great laws and
there are a myriad of things a man cannot possibly do and about which
he has no choice. When a man reaches those limitations his
responsibility for choosing ceases.
With these simple facts the teaching of the Bible is fully in accord.
The necessity for sustenance and protection beyond our ability to supply
is ever a great apparent fact. The recognition of that fact leads the
thoughtful man to prayer. Let us, therefore, have a care not to venture
too far into the wilderness of the seeming theological inconsistencies.
That God does answer men and women, thousands can testify. They have
tried it fully. They cannot explain why God thus works out his
complicated schemes, but they know that he does work in that way. It is
established fact. The Great Teacher and Saviour also prayed. That is
enough.