To recognize God's existence is to necessitate prayer to Him, by all
intelligent creatures, or, a consciously living in sin and under
condemnation of conscience, because they do not pray to Him. It would be
horrible to admit the existence of a Supreme Being, with power and
wisdom to create, and believe that the creatures he thought of
consequence and importance enough to bring into existence, are not of
enough consequence for him to pay any attention to in the troubles and
trials consequent upon that existence.
Surely such a statement is an impeachment of both the wisdom and
goodness of God.
It were far more sensible for those who deny the fitness and necessity
of prayer to take the ground of the atheist and say plainly "We do not
pray, for there is no God to pray to," for to deny prayer, is practical
atheism.
So in the very constitution of man's being there is the highest
reasonableness in prayer. And, if the position of man in his relation to
the earth he inhabits is recognized and understood, there is no
unreasonableness in a God-fearing man looking to God for help and
deliverance under any and all circumstances, in all the vicissitudes of
life. The earth was _made_ for man. One has said "there is nothing great
in the world but man; and there is nothing great in man but his soul."
With this in view, how absurd to talk about "fixed laws" and
"unchangeable order," in a way to keep man in his trouble from God. It
is all the twaddle of the conceit of man setting himself up to judge and
limit his maker. "To whom then will ye liken Me, or shall I be equal?
saith the Holy One." The Creator is greater than his creation; the law
giver is supreme over all law. He created the earth that it might be
inhabited by man, and He governs the earth in subordination to the
interests, the eternal and spiritual welfare of the race of immortal
beings that are here being prepared for glory and immortality.
Laws, indeed, are fixed in their operation and results as subserving the
highest good in the training and the disciplining of the race, giving
them hope in their labor and sure expectation of fruit from their toil.
But as set in operation for _man's good_, so, in an exigency that may
make necessary their suspension, to secure his deliverance from peril
and bring man back to the recognition of the personal God, as above,
law, is it unreasonable to believe that God has power thus to suspend or
overrule his own arrangements? A wise father will govern his children by
rules as securing their best good. But he will retain in his power the
suspending of those rules when special occasions arise, when the object
for which they exist can be better secured by their suspension. Shall
not the living God have the same right?
So much as to the reflections suggested by the dogmas of natural
religion. They sustain in reason our faith in prayer. The basis,
however, of our faith rests upon the unchanging and unchangeable
revelation of God, and not upon man's philosophy. Jesus taught his
disciples to pray, saying, "Our Father which art in Heaven." As
Christians, this is our authority for prayer. In the words, "OUR
FATHER," our Blessed Lord has given us the substance of all that can be
said, as to _the privilege of prayer, what to pray for_, and _how to
pray_. There can be no loftier exercise of soul ever given to created
intelligence than to come into conscious contact with the living God,
and be able to say "_My_ Father."
And surely, as my Father, with a loving father's heart, it must be his
desire that I should tell him _all_ my needs, _all_ my sorrows, _all_ my
desires. And, so his word commands, "Be careful for nothing, but _in
everything_, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your
requests be made known unto God." (Phil, iv., 6.) Under this verse there
is positively no exception of any request that may not be made known
unto God. So there is true faith and right Christian philosophy in the
remark, "if a _pin_ was needful to my happiness and I could not find one
I would pray to God for it."
The mistake of Christians is in _not_ praying over _little_ things. "The
hairs of your head are all numbered." Consult God about everything.
Expect His counsel, His guidance, His care, His provision, His
deliverance, His blessing, in everything. Does not the expression, "Our
_daily_ bread," mean just this? Can there be any true life of faith that
does not include this? Whatever will serve to help God's children to a
better understanding of the blessed privileges of prayer, and prove to
them the reality of God's answering prayer in the cares, trials and
troubles of _daily life_, will approve itself to all thoughtful minds as
a blessing to them and an honor to God. It is the purpose of this volume
to do this. We are more helped by testimony to _facts_ than by theories
and doctrines. When we have illustrations before our eyes of God's care
for his children, and His response to their faith, even in the minutest
things, we understand the meaning of His promises and the reality of His
providences.
The writer had many thoughts in this line suggested to him by an
incident, with which he was connected, in the life of George Muller. It
was my happiness to cross the Atlantic in the company of this dear
brother on the steamship Sardinian, from Quebec to Liverpool, in June,
1880.
I met Mr. Muller in the express office the morning of sailing, about
half an hour before the tender was to take the passengers to the ship.
He asked of the agent if a deck chair had arrived for him from New York.
He was answered, No, and told that it could not possibly come in time
for the steamer. I had with me a chair I had just purchased and told Mr.
Muller of the place near by, where I had obtained it, and suggested that
as but a few moments remained he had better buy one at once. His reply
was, "No, my brother, Our Heavenly Father will send the chair from New
York. It is one used by Mrs. Muller, as we came over, and left in New
York when we landed. I wrote ten days ago to a brother who promised to
see it forwarded here last week. He has not been prompt as I would have
desired, but I am sure Our Heavenly Father will send the chair. Mrs.
Muller is very sick upon the sea, and has particularly desired to have
this same chair, and not finding it here yesterday when we arrived, as
we expected, we have made special prayer that Our Heavenly Father would
be pleased to provide it for us, and we will trust Him to do so." As
this dear man of God went peacefully on board the tender, running the
risk of Mrs. Muller making the voyage without a chair, when for a couple
of dollars she could have been provided for, I confess I feared Mr.
Muller was carrying his faith principles too far and not acting wisely.
I was kept at the express office ten minutes after Mr. Muller left. Just
as I started to hurry to the wharf a team drove up the street, and on
top of a load just arrived from New York, _was Mr. Muller's chair_! It
was sent at once to the tender and placed in _my hands_ to take to Mr.
Muller (the Lord having a lesson for me) just as the boat was leaving
the dock. I found Mr. and Mrs. Muller in a retired spot on one side of
the tender and handed him the chair. He took it with the happy, pleased
expression of a child who has just received a kindness deeply
appreciated, and reverently removing his hat and folding his hands over
it, he thanked his Heavenly Father for sending the chair. "In
_everything_ by prayer and supplication let your requests be made known
unto God." "Casting _all_ your care upon Him, for He careth for you."
So the word of God teaches us as His children (_inviting_ us to pray,
_commanding_ us to pray, and _teaching us_ how to pray), that there is a
divine reality in prayer. Experience abundantly corroborates the
teaching.
Every truly converted man knows from this experience that God answers
prayer. He has verified the promise. "Call unto me, and I will answer
thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not."
(Jer. xxxiii., 8.) His life is a life of prayer, and grows more and more
to be a life of almost unconscious dependence upon God, as he becomes
fixed in the habit of prayer. This, and it is the purpose of God, is the
result secured by prayer. With this in view, it will not be so much what
we expect to get by praying, as a consciousness of coming into closer
relations to God, the giver of all, in our prayers, that will give us
true joy.
Often God's children are driven to the throne of grace by some desperate
need of help and definite supply of an absolute want, and, as they cry
to God and plead their case with tears before him, he so manifests his
presence to them and so fills them with a consciousness of his love and
power, that the burden is gone and _without the want being supplied_
that drove them to God, they rejoice in _God himself_ and care not for
the deprivation. This was Paul's experience when he went thus to God
about the thorn, and came away without the specific relief he had prayed
for, but with such a blessing as a result of his drawing near to God,
that he little cared whether the thorn remained or not--or, rather,
rejoiced that it was not removed; that it might be used to keep him near
to God, whose love so filled his soul.
A widow once told the writer of the turning point in her Christian life,
when God's love was so shed abroad in her heart that she had been
enabled to go on through all her trials rejoicingly conscious of God's
presence, and casting all her burdens upon Him. She was driven to seek
God by great need. Her husband's death left her destitute, with little
children to provide for, and few friends from whom to look for
continuous aid. Winter drew on, and, one day, her little boy came in
shivering with cold and asked if he could not have a fur cap, as his
straw hat was very cold and none of the boys at school wore straw hats.
She was without a cent in the world. She gave a hopeful answer to the
boy and sent him out to play, and then went to her bedroom and knelt and
wept in utter desolation of heart before God, praying most earnestly
that God would give her a token that He _was_ her God and was caring for
her by sending her a cap for her boy. While she prayed the peace of God
filled her soul. She was made to feel the presence of her Saviour in
such a way that all doubts as to his love for her and his fulfillment of
all his promises to care for her vanished away, and she went out of her
room, rejoicing in the Lord and singing his praise. She had no burden
about the cap, and was quite content for God to send it or not as it
pleased Him; and, in the afternoon, when a neighbor called, occupied
with the Lord and his wonderful love, the thought of the cap had gone
from her mind. When the neighbor rose to depart, she said, "You know my
little boy died last fall. Just before he died I bought him a fur cap:
he only wore it two or three times. After his death I put away all his
things and thought I could never part with any of them. But, this
morning, as I went to the drawer to look them over, I felt that I should
give you this cap for your little boy. Will you take it of me?" As she
took the cap and told her neighbor of the morning trial, prayer and
blessing, two souls were filled with the sense of the reality of prayer
and the love of God for his children. "My little boy," said the widow,
"wore that cap for three winters. And often, when sorely tried by my
circumstances, has God lifted the burden from my heart, by my just
looking at it, and remembering the blessing that came with it."
Experiences like this God gives to all his children, not for the purpose
of leading them to look to Him for supplying their physical necessities,
as an end, but to make Himself known to them, and to secure their
confidence and love, for "this is life eternal, that they might know
Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." (Jno.
xvii, 8.)
The use of prayer is to bring us into communion with God, for the growth
of the spiritual life, that is ours by faith in Christ Jesus. To leave
it upon any lower plane than this, is to rob it of its highest functions
and to paralyze it of lasting power for good in any direction. The
promises of God are conditioned upon our being in this state of heart
toward God. "If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask
what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." (Jno. xv., 7.) Abiding in
Christ, our will will be His will, as to desiring that which will most
advance the divine life and promote confidence in God, and all our
desires for material blessings will be subordinated to this motive.
Right here must come in a line of truth that will lead us from the
spirit of dictation in our prayers to God in all matters pertaining to
our worldly concerns. We cannot tell what is for our highest spiritual
good. The saving of our property or the taking it away. The recovery
from sickness or the continuance of it; the restoration of the health of
our loved one, or his departing to be with Christ; the removing the
thorn or the permitting it to remain. "_In everything_" it is indeed our
blessed privilege to let _our requests_ be make known unto God, but,
praise his name, he has not passed over to us the awful responsibility
of the assurance that _in everything_ the requests we make known will be
granted. He has reserved the decision, where we should rejoice to leave
it, to his infinite wisdom and his infinite love.
There is a danger to be carefully guarded against in the reading of this
book and in the consideration of the precious truth. The incidents it
relates bring before the mind, of the unlimited resources and the
unquenchable love of God, that are made available to believing prayer.
That danger has been suggested by what has been said, that the highest
use of prayer is to bring the soul nearer to God, and _not the making of
it a mere matter of convenience to escape physical ills or supply
physical necessities_.
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh" and continues flesh until the
end. "Have no confidence in the flesh" is always a much needed
exhortation. Now, unquestionably, the desires of the natural heart may
and do deceive us, and often lead as to believe that our fervent earnest
prayer for temporal blessing is led of the Spirit, when the mind of the
Spirit is, that we will be made more humble, more Christ-like and more
useful by being denied than by being granted. Again, we are in danger of
disobeying the plain commands of _God's word_ in allowing prayer ever to
take the place of anything _in our power_ to do, and _that we are
commanded to do as a means to secure needed good_. He who has said "pray
always," has also said, "Be ambitious to be quiet and to do your own
business, and to work with your hands, even as we charged you; that ye
may walk honestly toward them that are without, and may have need of
nothing." (1 Thess., iv., 11, 12; R.V.)
How often the _flesh_ has led men to read (Phil, iv., 19): "My God shall
supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus,"
in a spirit entirely opposed to this exhortation. They have ceased to
labor with their hands, and, without warrant in the providences of God
and the judgment of brethren, have turned from doing their own business,
expecting the Lord to pay their debts and provide for their necessities.
The quotations of Scripture made by our Lord to Satan, "Thou shalt not
tempt the Lord, thy God," is surely applicable in all such cases. The
spirit of a "sound mind" (see 2 Tim. i., 7) will surely recognize this.
So in _all_ things, that which God has given me intelligence and power
to do, in avoiding evil or securing good, I am under direct command from
him to do, always depending upon His blessing to secure the needed
result. A _true faith_ in God will be made manifest by careful obedience
to known commands. An _intelligent_ faith can never allow dependence
upon means used to take the place of dependence upon the living God, who
alone makes them efficacious.
It must result in _presumptions_ faith, if obedience is neglected, and
the results only promised to obedience are expected. That God _can_ give
blessing, without the use of the ordinary means, on man's part, there is
no question. That he _has_ done so is a matter of record. Yet we should
remember that there were but _two_ miraculous draughts of fishes, and
_only twice_ did our Lord make bread without the use of seed-time,
harvest, grinding and baking. The _rule_ of Christ in his earthly
ministry was, most certainly, to receive the supply of his physical
wants from His Heavenly Father, in the use of means to secure the
results offered in the ordinary operation of the laws of God. He went
into the corn-field at autumn and visited the olive tree for sustenance
as did other men. And the question for his disciples is not what God
_can_ do, and not what he _has_ done (that he may be known as God over
all creation, blessed for evermore) in the suspension of natural laws,
but what has he revealed to us as his will during the time of the
present dispensation of the church on this earth, as to his children
using means for the avoidance of evil and securing of good, or depending
entirely upon miraculous interference in answer to the prayer of faith
for all need without reference to use of means.
Does the prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread," mean that we are to
do nothing to secure our bread, lest we show no faith in God, and simply
wait in idleness for God to repeat the miracle of sending it by a
raven? or, does it mean that with thankful hearts to God for the ability
he has given us to work, that we go forth diligently fulfilling our task
in the use of all appropriate means to secure that which his loving
bounty has made possible for us in the fruitful seasons of the earth,
and return with devout recognition that He is the Creator, Upholder and
Giver of all, bringing our sheaves with us. When seed-time and harvest
fail and death is on the land, when corn fails in Egypt and there is no
bread, when _we have obeyed him_ and sought to toil with our hands and
no man has given unto us, then we will expect his interposition and will
have faith that he who has fed us by use of means, will supply us
without means, and that He alone is the living God.
It is noticeable that the prophet Elisha, whose prayers God heard in the
multiplication of the twenty loaves during the dearth at Gilgal, was
made Elijah's successor when following his twelve yoke of oxen at the
plough in the field, diligently using means to obtain bread, and
undoubtedly communing with God all the while and recognizing the
evidences of his love and power in every upturned daisy as he ploughed
the sod, and in every seed that he dropped into the fertile earth, and
thought it grand to be a fellow worker with God in the husbandry of the
earth and not one to be fed in idleness, neglecting the toil appointed
to man, and losing the blessing that is promised in the word of God, in
the discipline and the knowledge of God in the operations of His laws,
that comes in a greater or less degree to all of earth's honest toilers.
It is the opinion of many of God's children that as the present
dispensation draws to its close, there will be among the spiritually
minded and consecrated ones of the church, a reproduction of the gifts
of Pentecost for a last testimony to the world before Christ comes in
glory. There is much Scripture that might be quoted to sustain this
opinion. God grant in His grace and mercy that it may be so. But neither
the church or the world have any _claim_ upon God for it. The church has
abused grace and the world has despised mercy. All the promises as to
miracles wrought for a testimony as to the truth of Christ's
resurrection, have been fulfilled. If Christ were to come to-day, the
world would be without excuse in having rejected him, and could not
plead that signs and wonders had been abundantly wrought in His name in
the establishing of His church upon the earth.
The question of our Lord in Luke xviii., 8, "When the son of man cometh
shall he find faith on the earth?" suggests to many minds that there may
not be vouchsafed during the time immediately preceding his
manifestations, any marked interference by God in the way of miracles or
signs among his children, but that their faith in Him as the unseen God,
and their trust in the truth and verify of His word, will be brought
forth to the praise and glory of God and their joy, by their being left
to the _word alone_ and the operations of the Holy Ghost by and through
the word for their comfort and stability in the faith.
Coupled with this thought let it ever be borne in mind by the believer
that the testimony of God's word as to miracles, signs and wonders
wrought by _Satanic agency_ in the church, during the last day, is clear
and unmistakable, and warnings abound as to our danger from them.
"The Spirit saith expressly that in later times some shall fall away
from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of
devils." 1 Tim. iv., 1.
"But know this, that in the last days grievous times shall come." "Evil
men and impostors shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being
deceived." 2 Tim. iii., 1 and 13.
"Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no
great thing if his ministers be transformed as the ministers of
righteousness. 2 Cor. xi., 14.
"And then shall that wicked be revealed. Even him whose coming is after
the working of Satan, _with all power, and signs_, and _lying wonders_;
and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish,
because they received not the love of the truth that they might be
saved." 2 Thess. ii., 8 to 10.
By these passages it is plain that a sign or a wonder does not establish
a doctrine or endorse a man as certainly being _from God_. The doctrine
and the man must be judged by the written word of God.
If there is ought in the doctrine that denies that Jesus is the Son of
God, that derogates in the slightest degree from the merit of His
atonement on the cross for our sins, or that takes the eye off from Him
as the risen and coming Lord, the alone object of our faith and hope, or
that dishonors in any way God's holy word, taking from or adding to it,
_then_ the more signs and wonders and manifestations of mysterious power
that there may be connected with it, then the more certainly we may know
that it is of Satan and not of God.
And if, in the man who exhibits signs and wonders, there is a spirit
contrary to the spirit of Christ, in his seeking honor from man, and
using his power to establish a claim to such honor, "speaking of himself
as some great one," and not walking in humility as a sinner saved from
hell and kept day by day by the power of God through faith in Christ,
And if the purpose of his signs be to establish revelations he is
receiving in any form apart from the written word, then, though his
signs be as marvelous as those of the magicians in Egypt, or Simon
Magnus in Samaria, he is, like them, a minister of Satan and not a
minister of Jesus Christ.
The age abounds in doctrines and men of this kind. The life of faith
lays the soul open to assaults of the Devil by their agency.
"Beloved try the spirits whether they be of God."
Let us not waver in our faith in God's overruling providence, and in the
reality of His interposition in answer to prayer for the deliverance and
help of his people under any and all circumstances. "In _everything_, by
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let our requests be made
known unto God," but let our first request be that we be kept in a sound
mind obedient to the word, and let _all of_ our requests close with the
utterance, from a sincere heart, of the words, "Thy will be done." If
this be the attitude of our hearts our prayers shall be abundantly and
graciously answered, and God shall guide us from the wiles of the Evil
One for the sake of His dear Son Jesus Christ our Lord, through whose
precious blood we have all grace and all blessing. Amen.
LAKE VIEW, July 24th, 1885.
* * * * *
A MAN CAN RECEIVE NOTHING EXCEPT IT BE GIVEN HIM FROM HEAVEN. JOHN 3:
27.
* * * * *