A Model of Intercession
"And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall
go unto him at midnight, and shall say unto him, Friend, lend me
three loaves; for a friend of mine is come unto me from a journey,
and I have nothing to set before him; and he from within shall
answer and say, Trouble me not: I cannot rise and give thee? I say
unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his
friend, yet, because of his importunity, he will arise and give him
as many as he needeth."--LUKE xi. 5-8.
"I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never
hold their peace day nor night: ye that are the Lord's
remembrancers, keep not silence, and give Him no rest."--ISA. lxii.
6, 7.
We have seen in our previous chapter what power prayer has. It is the
one power on earth that commands the power of heaven. The story of the
early days of the Church is God's great object-lesson, to teach His
Church what prayer can do, how it alone, but it most surely, can draw
down the treasures and powers of heaven into the life of earth.
Just remember the lessons we learnt of how prayer is at once
indispensable and irresistible. Did we not see how unknown and untold
power and blessing is stored up for us in heaven?--how that power will
make us a blessing to men, and fit us to do any work or face any danger?
how it is to be sought in prayer continually and persistently? how they
who have the heavenly power can pray it down upon others? how in all the
intercourse of ministers and people, in all the ministrations of
Christ's Church, it is the one secret of success? how it can defy all
the power of the world, and fit men to conquer that world for Christ? It
is the power of the heavenly life, the power of God's own Spirit, the
power of Omnipotence, that waits for prayer to bring it down.
In all this prayer there was little thought of personal need or
happiness. It was the desire to witness for Christ and bring Him and His
salvation to others, it was the thought of God's kingdom and glory, that
possessed these disciples. If we would be delivered from the sin of
restraining prayer, we must enlarge our hearts for the work of
intercession. The attempt to pray constantly for ourselves must be a
failure; it is in intercession for others that our faith and love and
perseverance will be aroused, and that power of the Spirit be found
which can fit us for saving men. We are asking how we may become more
faithful and successful in prayer; let us see how the Master teaches us,
in the parable of the Friend at Midnight, that intercession for the
needy calls forth the highest exercise of our power of believing and
prevailing prayer. Intercession is the most perfect form of prayer: it
is the prayer Christ ever liveth to pray on His throne. Let us learn
what the elements of true intercession are.
1. Notice _the urgent need_: here intercession has its origin. The
friend came at midnight--an untimely hour. He was hungry, and could not
buy bread. If we are to learn to pray aright we must open eye and heart
to the need around us.
We hear continually of the thousand millions of heathen and Mohammedans
living in midnight darkness, perishing for lack of the bread of life.
We hear of five hundred millions of nominal Christians, the great
majority of them almost as ignorant and indifferent as the heathen. We
see millions in the Christian Church, not ignorant or indifferent, and
yet knowing little of a walk in the light of God or in the power of a
life fed by bread from heaven. We have each of us our own
circles--congregations, schools, friends, missions--in which the great
complaint is that the light and life of God are too little known.
Surely, if we believe what we profess, that God alone is able to help,
that God certainly will help in answer to prayer,--all this need ought
to make intercessors of us, people who give their lives to prayer for
those around them.
Let us take time to consider and realise the need. Each Christless soul
going down into outer darkness, perishing of hunger, with bread enough
and to spare! Thirty millions a year dying without the knowledge of
Christ! Our own neighbours and friends, souls intrusted to us, dying
without hope! Christians around us living a sickly, feeble, fruitless
life! Surely there is need for prayer. Nothing, nothing but prayer to
God for help, will avail.
2. Note _the willing love_.--The friend took his weary, hungry friend
into his house, and into his heart too. He did not excuse himself by
saying he had no bread: he gave himself at midnight to seek it for him.
He sacrificed his night's rest, his comfort, to find the needed bread.
"Love seeketh not its own." It is the very nature of love to give up and
forget itself for the sake of others. It takes their needs and makes
them its own, it finds its real joy in living and dying for others as
Christ did.
It is the love of a mother to her prodigal son that makes her pray for
him. True love to souls will become in us the spirit of intercession. It
is possible to do a great deal of faithful, earnest work for our
fellowmen without true love to them. Just as a lawyer or a physician,
from a love of his profession and a high sense of faithfulness to duty,
may interest himself most thoroughly in clients or patients without any
special love to each, so servants of Christ may give themselves to their
work with devotion and even self-sacrificing enthusiasm without the
Christlike love to souls being strong. It is this lack of love that
causes so much shortcoming in prayer. It is as love of our profession
and work, delight in thoroughness and diligence, sink away in the tender
compassion of Christ, that love will compel us to prayer, because we
cannot rest in our work if souls are not saved. True love must pray.
3. Note _the sense of impotence_.--We often speak of the power of love.
In one sense this is true; and yet the truth has its limitations, which
must not be forgotten. The strongest love may be utterly impotent. A
mother might be willing to give her life for her dying child, and yet
not be able to save it. The friend at midnight was most willing to give
his friend bread, but he had none. It was this sense of impotence, of
his inability to help, that sent him a-begging: "My friend is come to
me, and _I have nothing_ to set before him." It is this sense of
impotence with God's servants that is the very strength of the life of
intercession.
"I have nothing to set before them": as this consciousness takes
possession of the minister or missionary, the teacher or worker,
intercession will become their only hope and refuge. I may have
knowledge and truth, a loving heart, and the readiness to give myself
for those under my charge; but the bread of heaven I cannot give them.
With all my love and zeal, "I have nothing to set before them." Blessed
the man who has made that "I have nothing," the motto of his ministry.
As he thinks of the judgment day and the danger of souls, as he sees
what a supernatural power and life is needed to save men from sin, as he
feels how utterly insufficient all he can ever do is to give them life,
that "_I have nothing_" urges him to pray. Intercession appears to him,
as he thinks of the midnight darkness and the hungry souls, as his only
hope, the one thing in which his love can take refuge.
Let us take the lesson to heart, for a warning to all who are strong and
wise to work, for the encouragement of all who are feeble. The sense of
our impotence is the soul of intercession. The simplest, feeblest
Christian can pray down blessing from an Almighty God.
4. Note _the faith in prayer_.--What he has not himself, another can
supply. He has a rich friend near, who will be both able and willing to
give the bread. He is sure that if he only asks, he will receive. This
faith makes him leave his home at midnight: if he has not the bread
himself to give, he can ask another.
It is this simple, confident faith that God will give, that we need:
where it really exists, there will surely be no mistake about our not
praying. And in God's word we have everything that can stir and
strengthen such faith in us. Just as the heaven our natural eye can see
is one great ocean of sunshine, with its light and heat, giving beauty
and fruitfulness to earth, Scripture shows us God's true heaven, filled
with all spiritual blessings,--divine light and love and life, heavenly
joy and peace and power, all shining down upon us. It reveals to us God
waiting, delighting to bestow these blessings _in answer to prayer_. By
a thousand promises and testimonies it calls and urges us to believe
that prayer will be heard, that what we cannot possibly do ourselves for
those whom we want to help, _can be got by prayer_. Surely there can be
no question as to our believing that prayer will be heard, that through
prayer the poorest and feeblest can dispense blessings to the needy, and
each of us, though poor, may yet be making many rich.
5. Note _the importunity that prevails_.--The faith of the friend met a
sudden and unexpected check: the rich friend refuses to hear--"I cannot
rise and give thee." How little the loving heart had counted on this
disappointment; it cannot consent to accept it. The supplicant presses
his threefold plea: here is my needy friend, you have abundance, I am
your friend; and refuses to accept a denial. The love that opened his
house at midnight, and then left it to seek help, must win.
This is the central lesson of the parable. In our intercession we may
find that there is difficulty and delay with the answer. It may be as if
God says, "I cannot give thee." It is not easy, against all appearances,
to hold fast our confidence that He will hear, and to persevere in full
assurance that we shall have what we ask. And yet this is what God looks
for from us. He so highly prizes our confidence in Him, it is so
essentially the highest honour the creature can render the Creator, that
He will do anything to train us in the exercise of this trust in Him.
Blessed the man who is not staggered by God's delay, or silence, or
apparent refusal, but is strong in faith, giving glory to God. Such
faith perseveres, importunately, if need be, and cannot fail to inherit
the blessing.
6. Note, last, _the certainty of a rich reward_.--"I say unto you,
because of his importunity, he will give him as many as he needeth." Oh
that we might learn to believe in the certainty of an abundant answer. A
prophet said of old: "Let not your hands be weak; _your work shall be
rewarded_." Would that all who feel it difficult to pray much, would fix
their eye on the recompense of the reward, and in faith learn to count
upon the Divine assurance that their prayer cannot be vain. If we will
but believe in God and His faithfulness, intercession will become to us
the very first thing we take refuge in when we seek blessing for others,
and the very last thing for which we cannot find time. And it will
become a thing of joy and hope, because, all the time we pray, we know
that we are sowing seed that will bring forth fruit an hundredfold.
Disappointment is impossible: "I say unto you, He will rise and give him
as many as he needeth."
Let all lovers of souls, and all workers in the service of the gospel,
take courage. Time spent in prayer will yield more than that given to
work. Prayer alone gives work its worth and its success. Prayer opens
the way for God Himself to do His work in us and through us. Let our
chief work, as God's messengers, be intercession: in it we secure the
presence and power of God to go with us.
"Which of you shall have a friend at midnight, and shall say to him,
Friend, lend me three loaves?" This friend is none other but our God. Do
let us learn that in the darkness of midnight, at the most unlikely
time, and in the greatest need, when we have to say of those we love and
care for, "I have nothing to set before them," we have a rich Friend in
heaven, the Everlasting God and Father, who only waits to be asked
aright. Let us confess before Him our lack of prayer. Let us admit that
the lack of faith, of which it is the proof, is the symptom of a life
that is not spiritual, that is yet all too much under the power of self
and the flesh and the world. Let us in the faith of the Lord Jesus, who
spake this parable, and Himself waits to make every trait of it true in
us, give ourselves to be intercessors. Let every sight of souls needing
help, let every stirring of the spirit of compassion, let every sense of
our own impotence to bless, let every difficulty in the way of our
getting an answer, just combine to urge us to do this one thing: with
importunity to cry to the God who alone can help, who, in answer to our
prayer, will help. And let us, if we indeed feel that we have failed, do
our utmost to train a young generation of Christians, who profit by our
mistake and avoid it. Moses could not enter the land of Canaan, but
there was one thing he could do: he could at God's bidding "charge
Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him" (Deut. iii. 28). If it is
too late for us to make good our failure, let us at least encourage
those who come after us to enter into the good land, the blessed life of
unceasing prayer.
The Model Intercessor is the Model Christian Worker. First to get from
God, and then to give to men what we ourselves secure from day to day,
is the secret of successful work. Between our Impotence and God's
Omnipotence intercession is the blessed link.
A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER