_If some Christians that have been complaining of their ministers had
said and acted less before men and had applied themselves with all
their might to cry to God for their ministers—had, as it were, risen
and stormed heaven with their humble, fervent, and incessant prayers
for them—they would have been much more in the way of
success._—JONATHAN EDWARDS.
Somehow the practice of praying in particular for the preacher has
fallen into disuse or become discounted. Occasionally have we heard the
practice arraigned as a disparagement of the ministry, being a public
declaration by those who do it of the inefficiency of the ministry. It
offends the pride of learning and self-sufficiency, perhaps, and these
ought to be offended and rebuked in a ministry that is so derelict as to
allow them to exist.
Prayer, to the preacher, is not simply the duty of his profession, a
privilege, but it is a necessity. Air is not more necessary to the lungs
than prayer is to the preacher. It is absolutely necessary for the
preacher to pray. It is an absolute necessity that the preacher be
prayed for. These two propositions are wedded into a union which ought
never to know any divorce: _the preacher must pray; the preacher must be
prayed for_. It will take all the praying he can do, and all the praying
he can get done, to meet the fearful responsibilities and gain the
largest, truest success in his great work. The true preacher, next to
the cultivation of the spirit and fact of prayer in himself, in their
intensest form, covets with a great covetousness the prayers of God's
people.
The holier a man is, the more does he estimate prayer; the clearer does
he see that God gives Himself to the praying ones, and that the measure
of God's revelation to the soul is the measure of the soul's longing,
importunate prayer for God. Salvation never finds its way to a
prayerless heart. The Holy Spirit never abides in a prayerless spirit.
Preaching never edifies a prayerless soul. Christ knows nothing of
prayerless Christians. The gospel cannot be extended by a prayerless
preacher. Gifts, talents, education, eloquence, God's call, cannot abate
the demand of prayer, but only intensify the necessity for the preacher
to pray and to be prayed for. The more the preacher's eyes are opened to
the nature, responsibility, and difficulties in his work, the more will
he see, and if he be a true preacher the more will he feel, the
necessity of prayer; not only the increasing demand to pray himself, but
to call on others to help him by their prayers.
Paul is an illustration of this. If any man could extend or advance the
gospel by dint of personal force, by brain power, by culture, by
personal grace, by God's apostolic commission, God's extraordinary call,
that man was Paul. That the preacher must be a man given to prayer, Paul
is an eminent example. That the true apostolic preacher must have the
prayers of other good people to give to his ministry its full quota of
success, Paul is a pre-eminent example. He asks, he covets, he pleads in
an impassioned way for the help of all God's saints. He knew that in the
spiritual realm, as elsewhere, in union there is strength; that the
concentration and aggregation of faith, desire, and prayer increased the
volume of spiritual force until it became overwhelming and irresistible
in its power. Units of prayer combined, like drops of water, make an
ocean which defies resistance. So Paul, with his clear and full
apprehension of spiritual dynamics, determined to make his ministry as
impressive, as eternal, as irresistible as the ocean, by gathering all
the scattered units of prayer and precipitating them on his ministry.
May not the solution of Paul's pre-eminence in labours and results, and
impress on the Church and the world, be found in this fact that he was
able to centre on himself and his ministry more of prayer than others?
To his brethren at Rome he wrote: "Now I beseech you, brethren, for the
Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive
together with me in prayers to God for me." To the Ephesians he says:
"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and
watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all
saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open
my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel." To the
Colossians he emphasizes: "Withal praying also for us, that God would
open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for
which I am also in bonds: that I may make it manifest as I ought to
speak." To the Thessalonians he says sharply, strongly: "Brethren, pray
for us." Paul calls on the Corinthian Church to help him: "Ye also
helping together by prayer for us." This was to be part of their work.
They were to lay to the helping hand of prayer. He in an additional and
closing charge to the Thessalonian Church about the importance and
necessity of their prayers says: "Finally, brethren, pray for us, that
the Word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it
is with you: and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked
men." He impresses the Philippians that all his trials and opposition
can be made subservient to the spread of the gospel by the efficiency of
their prayers for him. Philemon was to prepare a lodging for him, for
through Philemon's prayer Paul was to be his guest.
Paul's attitude on this question illustrates his humility and his deep
insight into the spiritual forces which project the gospel. More than
this, it teaches a lesson for all times, that if Paul was so dependent
on the prayers of God's saints to give his ministry success, how much
greater the necessity that the prayers of God's saints be centred on the
ministry of to-day!
Paul did not feel that this urgent plea for prayer was to lower his
dignity, lessen his influence, or depreciate his piety. What if it did?
Let dignity go, let influence be destroyed, let his reputation be
marred—he must have their prayers. Called, commissioned, chief of the
Apostles as he was, all his equipment was imperfect without the prayers
of his people. He wrote letters everywhere, urging them to pray for him.
Do you pray for your preacher? Do you pray for him in secret? Public
prayers are of little worth unless they are founded on or followed up by
private praying. The praying ones are to the preacher as Aaron and Hur
were to Moses. They hold up his hands and decide the issue that is so
fiercely raging around them.
The plea and purpose of the apostles were to put the Church to praying.
They did not ignore the grace of cheerful giving. They were not ignorant
of the place which religious activity and work occupied in the spiritual
life; but not one or all of these, in apostolic estimate or urgency,
could at all compare in necessity and importance with prayer. The most
sacred and urgent pleas were used, the most fervid exhortations, the
most comprehensive and arousing words were uttered to enforce the
all-important obligation and necessity of prayer.
"Put the saints everywhere to praying" is the burden of the apostolic
effort and the keynote of apostolic success. Jesus Christ had striven to
do this in the days of His personal ministry. As He was moved by
infinite compassion at the ripened fields of earth perishing for lack of
labourers—and pausing in His own praying—He tries to awaken the stupid
sensibilities of His disciples to the duty of prayer as He charges them,
"Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth labourers into
His harvest." "And He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men
ought always to pray and not to faint."