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_My Creed leads me to think that prayer is efficacious, and surely
a day’s asking God to overrule all events for good is not lost.
Still there is a great feeling that when a man is praying he is
doing nothing, and this feeling makes us give undue importance to
work, sometimes even to the hurrying over or even to the neglect of
prayer._
_Do not we rest in our day too much on the arm of flesh? Cannot the
same wonders be done now as of old? Do not the eyes of the Lord run
to and fro throughout the whole earth still to show Himself strong
on behalf of those who put their trust in Him? Oh that God would
give me more practical faith in Him! Where is now the Lord God of
Elijah? He is waiting for Elijah to call on Him._
—JAMES GILMOUR OF MONGOLIA.
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I
THE more praying there is in the world the better the world will be, the
mightier the forces against evil everywhere. Prayer, in one phase of its
operation, is a disinfectant and a preventive. It purifies the air; it
destroys the contagion of evil. Prayer is no fitful, shortlived thing.
It is no voice crying unheard and unheeded in the silence. It is a voice
which goes into God’s ear, and it lives as long as God’s ear is open to
holy pleas, as long as God’s heart is alive to holy things.
God shapes the world by prayer. Prayers are deathless. The lips that
uttered them may be closed in death, the heart that felt them may have
ceased to beat, but the prayers live before God, and God’s heart is set
on them and prayers outlive the lives of those who uttered them; outlive
a generation, outlive an age, outlive a world.
That man is the most immortal who has done the most and the best
praying. They are God’s heroes, God’s saints, God’s servants, God’s
vicegerents. A man can pray better because of the prayers of the past; a
man can live holier because of the prayers of the past, the man of many
and acceptable prayers has done the truest and greatest service to the
incoming generation. The prayers of God’s saints strengthen the unborn
generation against the desolating waves of sin and evil. Woe to the
generation of sons who find their censers empty of the rich incense of
prayer; whose fathers have been too busy or too unbelieving to pray, and
perils inexpressible and consequences untold are their unhappy heritage.
Fortunate are they whose fathers and mothers have left them a wealthy
patrimony of prayer.
The prayers of God’s saints are the capital stock in heaven by which
Christ carries on His great work upon earth. The great throes and mighty
convulsions on earth are the results of these prayers. Earth is changed,
revolutionised, angels move on more powerful, more rapid wing, and God’s
policy is shaped as the prayers are more numerous, more efficient.
It is true that the mightiest successes that come to God’s cause are
created and carried on by prayer. God’s day of power; the angelic days
of activity and power are when God’s Church comes into its mightiest
inheritance of mightiest faith and mightiest prayer. God’s conquering
days are when the saints have given themselves to mightiest prayer. When
God’s house on earth is a house of prayer, then God’s house in heaven is
busy and all potent in its plans and movements, then His earthly armies
are clothed with the triumphs and spoils of victory and His enemies
defeated on every hand.
God conditions the very life and prosperity of His cause on prayer. The
condition was put in the very existence of God’s cause in this world.
_Ask of Me_ is the one condition God puts in the very advance and
triumph of His cause.
Men are to pray—to pray for the advance of God’s cause. Prayer puts God
in full force in the world. To a prayerful man God is present in
realised force; to a prayerful Church God is present in glorious power,
and the Second Psalm is the Divine description of the establishment of
God’s cause through Jesus Christ. All inferior dispensations have merged
in the enthronement of Jesus Christ. God declares the enthronement of
His Son. The nations are incensed with bitter hatred against His cause.
God is described as laughing at their enfeebled hate. The Lord will
laugh; The Lord will have them in derision. “Yet have I set My King upon
My holy hill of Zion.” The decree has passed immutable and eternal:
I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said unto Me, Thou art My Son;
This day have I begotten Thee.
_Ask of Me_, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance,
And the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron;
Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
_Ask of Me_ is the condition—a praying people willing and obedient.
“And men shall pray for Him continually.” Under this universal and
simple promise men and women of old laid themselves out for God. They
prayed and God answered their prayers, and the cause of God was kept
alive in the world by the flame of their praying.
Prayer became a settled and only condition to move His Son’s Kingdom.
“Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall
be opened.” The strongest one in Christ’s kingdom is he who is the best
knocker. The secret of success in Christ’s Kingdom is the ability to
pray. The one who can wield the power of prayer is the strong one, the
holy one in Christ’s Kingdom. The most important lesson we can learn is
how to pray.
Prayer is the keynote of the most sanctified life, of the holiest
ministry. He does the most for God who is the highest skilled in prayer.
Jesus Christ exercised His ministry after this order.
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_That we ought to give ourselves to God with regard to things both
temporal and spiritual, and seek our satisfaction only in the
fulfilling His will, whether He lead us by suffering, or by
consolation, for all would be equal to a soul truly resigned.
Prayer is nothing else but a sense of God’s presence._
—BROTHER LAWRENCE.
_Be sure you look to your secret duty; keep that up whatever you
do. The soul cannot prosper in the neglect of it. Apostasy
generally begins at the closet door. Be much in secret fellowship
with God. It is secret trading that enriches the Christian._
_Pray alone. Let prayer be the key of the morning and the bolt at
night. The best way to fight against sin is to fight it on our
knees._
—PHILIP HENRY.
_The prayer of faith is the only power in the universe to which the
Great Jehovah yields. Prayer is the sovereign remedy._
—ROBERT HALL.
_An hour of solitude passed in sincere and earnest prayer, or the
conflict with and conquest over a single passion or subtle bosom
sin will teach us more of thought, will more effectually awaken the
faculty and form the habit of reflection than a year’s study in the
schools without them._
—COLERIDGE.
_A man may pray night and day and deceive himself, but no man can
be assured of his sincerity who does not pray. Prayer is faith
passing into act. A union of the will and intellect realising in an
intellectual act. It is the whole man that prays. Less than this is
wishing or lip work, a sham or a mummery._
_If God should restore me again to health I have determined to
study nothing but the Bible. Literature is inimical to spirituality
if it be not kept under with a firm hand._
—RICHARD CECIL.
_Our sanctification does not depend upon changing our works, but in
doing that for God’s sake which we commonly do for our own. The
time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer.
Prayer is nothing else but a sense of the presence of God._
—BROTHER LAWRENCE.
_Let me burn out for God. After all, whatever God may appoint,
prayer is the great thing. Oh that I may be a man of prayer._
—HENRY MARTYN.