IT may be said with emphasis that no lazy saint prays. Can there be a
lazy saint? Can there be a prayerless saint? Does not slack praying cut
short sainthood’s crown and kingdom? Can there be a cowardly soldier?
Can there be a saintly hypocrite? Can there be virtuous vice? It is only
when these impossibilities are brought into being that we then can find
a prayerless saint.
To go through the motion of praying is a dull business, though not a
hard one. To say prayers in a decent, delicate way is not heavy work.
But to pray really, to pray till hell feels the ponderous stroke, to
pray till the iron gates of difficulty are opened, till the mountains of
obstacles are removed, till the mists are exhaled and the clouds are
lifted, and the sunshine of a cloudless day brightens—this is hard
work, but it is God’s work and man’s best labour. Never was the toil of
hand, head and heart less spent in vain than when praying. It is hard to
wait and press and pray, and hear no voice, but stay till God answers.
The joy of answered prayer is the joy of a travailing mother when a man
child is born into the world, the joy of a slave whose chains have been
burst asunder and to whom new life and liberty have just come.
A bird’s-eye view of what has been accomplished by prayer shows what we
lost when the dispensation of real prayer was substituted by Pharisaical
pretence and sham; it shows, too, how imperative is the need for holy
men and women who will give themselves to earnest, Christlike praying.
It is not an easy thing to pray. Back of the praying there must lie all
the conditions of prayer. These conditions are possible, but they are
not to be seized on in a moment by the prayerless. Present they always
may be to the faithful and holy, but cannot exist in nor be met by a
frivolous, negligent, laggard spirit. Prayer does not stand alone. It is
not an isolated performance. Prayer stands in closest connection with
all the duties of an ardent piety. It is the issuance of a character
which is made up of the elements of a vigorous and commanding faith.
Prayer honours God, acknowledges His being, exalts His power, adores His
providence, secures His aid. A sneering half-rationalism cries out
against devotion, that it does nothing but pray. But to pray well is to
do all things well. If it be true that devotion does nothing but pray,
then it does nothing at all. To do nothing but pray fails to do the
praying, for the antecedent, coincident, and subsequent conditions of
prayer are but the sum of all the energised forces of a practical,
working piety.
The possibilities of prayer run parallel with the promises of God.
Prayer opens an outlet for the promises, removes the hindrances in the
way of their execution, puts them into working order, and secures their
gracious ends. More than this, prayer like faith, obtains promises,
enlarges their operation, and adds to the measure of their results.
God’s promises were to Abraham and to his seed, but many a barren womb,
and many a minor obstacle stood in the way of the fulfilment of these
promises; but prayer removed them all, made a highway for the promises,
added to the facility and speediness of their realisation, and by prayer
the promise shone bright and perfect in its execution.
The possibilities of prayer are found in its allying itself with the
purposes of God, for God’s purposes and man’s praying are the
combination of all potent and omnipotent forces. More than this, the
possibilities of prayer are seen in the fact that it changes the
purposes of God. It is in the very nature of prayer to plead and give
directions. Prayer is not a negation. It is a positive force. It never
rebels against the will of God, never comes into conflict with that
will, but that it does seek to change God’s purpose is evident. Christ
said, “The cup which My Father hath given Me shall I not drink it?” and
yet He had prayed that very night, “If it be possible let this cup pass
from Me.” Paul sought to change the purposes of God about the thorn in
his flesh. God’s purposes were fixed to destroy Israel, and the prayer
of Moses changed the purposes of God and saved Israel. In the time of
the Judges Israel were apostate and greatly oppressed. They repented and
cried unto God and He said: “Ye have forsaken Me and served other gods,
wherefore I will deliver you no more:” but they humbled themselves, put
away their strange gods, and God’s “soul was grieved for the misery of
Israel,” and he sent them deliverance by Jephthah.
God sent Isaiah to say to Hezekiah, “Set thine house in order: for thou
shalt die, and not live;” and Hezekiah prayed, and God sent Isaiah back
to say, “I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears; behold I will
add unto thy days fifteen years.” “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be
overthrown,” was God’s message by Jonah. But Nineveh cried mightily to
God, and “God repented of the evil that He had said He would do unto
them; and He did it not.”
The possibilities of prayer are seen from the divers conditions it
reaches and the diverse ends it secures. Elijah prayed over a dead
child, and it came to life; Elisha did the same thing; Christ prayed at
Lazarus’s grave, and Lazarus came forth. Peter kneeled down and prayed
beside dead Dorcas, and she opened her eyes and sat up, and Peter
presented her alive to the distressed company. Paul prayed for Publius,
and healed him. Jacob’s praying changed Esau’s murderous hate into the
kisses of the tenderest brotherly embrace. God gave to Rebecca Jacob and
Esau because Isaac prayed for her. Joseph was the child of Rachel’s
prayers. Hannah’s praying gave Samuel to Israel. John the Baptist was
given to Elizabeth, barren and past age as she was, in answer to the
prayer of Zacharias. Elisha’s praying brought famine or harvest to
Israel; as he prayed so it was. Ezra’s praying carried the Spirit of God
in heart-breaking conviction to the entire city of Jerusalem, and
brought them in tears of repentance back to God. Isaiah’s praying
carried the shadow of the sun back ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz.
In answer to Hezekiah’s praying an angel slew one hundred and
eighty-five thousand of Sennacherib’s army in one night. Daniel’s
praying opened to him the vision of prophecy, helped him to administer
the affairs of a mighty kingdom, and sent an angel to shut the lions’
mouths. The angel was sent to Cornelius, and the Gospel opened through
him to the Gentile world, because his “prayers and alms had come up as a
memorial before God.” “And what shall I more say? for the time would
fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah;
of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets;” of Paul and Peter, and
John and the Apostles, and the holy company of saints, reformers, and
martyrs, who, through praying, “subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness,
obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of
fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong,
waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.”
Prayer puts God in the matter with commanding force: “Ask of Me things
to come concerning My sons,” says God, “and concerning the work of My
hands command ye Me.” We are charged in God’s Word “always to pray,” “in
everything by prayer,” “continuing instant in prayer,” to “pray
everywhere,” “praying always.” The promise is as illimitable as the
command is comprehensive. “All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer,
believing, ye shall receive,” “whatever ye shall ask,” “if ye shall ask
anything.” “Ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you.”
“Whatsoever ye ask the Father He will give it to you.” If there is
anything not involved in “All things whatsoever,” or not found in the
phrase “Ask anything,” then these things may be left out of prayer.
Language could not cover a wider range, nor involve more fully all
_minutia_. These statements are but samples of the all-comprehending
possibilities of prayer under the promises of God to those who meet the
conditions of right praying.
These passages, though, give but a general outline of the immense
regions over which prayer extends its sway. Beyond these the effects of
prayer reaches and secures good from regions which cannot be traversed
by language or thought. Paul exhausted language and thought in praying,
but conscious of necessities not covered and realms of good not reached
he covers these impenetrable and undiscovered regions by this general
plea, “unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that
we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.” The promise
is, “Call upon Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and
mighty things, which thou knowest not.”
James declares that “the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man
availeth much.” How much he could not tell, but illustrates it by the
power of Old Testament praying to stir up New Testament saints to
imitate by the fervour and influence of their praying the holy men of
old, and duplicate and surpass the power of their praying. Elijah, he
says, was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed
earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the
space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven
gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
In the Revelation of John the whole lower order of God’s creation and
His providential government, the Church and the angelic world, are in
the attitude of waiting on the efficiency of the prayers of the saintly
ones on earth to carry on the various interests of earth and heaven. The
angel takes the fire kindled by prayer and casts it earthward, “and
there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.”
Prayer is the force which creates all these alarms, stirs, and throes.
“Ask of Me,” says God to His Son, and to the Church of His Son, “and I
shall give thee the heathen for Thine inheritance and the uttermost
parts of the earth for Thy possessions.”
The men who have done mighty things for God have always been mighty in
prayer, have well understood the possibilities of prayer, and made most
of these possibilities. The Son of God, the first of all and the
mightiest of all, has shown us the all-potent and far-reaching
possibilities of prayer. Paul was mighty for God because he knew how to
use, and how to get others to use, the mighty spiritual forces of
prayer.
The seraphim, burning, sleepless, adoring, is the figure of prayer. It
is resistless in its ardour, devoted and tireless. There are hindrances
to prayer that nothing but pure, intense flame can surmount. There are
toils and outlays and endurance which nothing but the strongest, most
ardent flame can abide. Prayer may be low-tongued, but it cannot be
cold-tongued. Its words may be few, but they must be on fire. Its
feelings may not be impetuous, but they must be white with heat. It is
the effectual, fervent prayer that influences God.
God’s house is the house of prayer; God’s work is the work of prayer. It
is the zeal for God’s house and the zeal for God’s work that makes God’s
house glorious and His work abide.
When the prayer-chambers of saints are closed or are entered casually or
coldly, then Church rulers are secular, fleshly, materialised; spiritual
character sinks to a low level, and the ministry becomes restrained and
enfeebled.
When prayer fails, the world prevails. When prayer fails the Church
loses its Divine characteristics, its Divine power; the Church is
swallowed up by a proud ecclesiasticism, and the world scoffs at its
obvious impotence.
————————————————————————————————
_I look upon all the four Gospels as thoroughly genuine, for there
is in them the reflection of a greatness which emanated from the
person of Jesus and which was of as Divine a kind as ever was seen
on earth._
—GOETHE.
_There are no possibilities, no necessity for prayerless praying, a
heartless performance, a senseless routine, a dead habit, a hasty,
careless performance—it justifies nothing. Prayerless praying has
no life, gives no life, is dead, breathes out death. Not a
battle-axe but a child’s toy, for play not for service. Prayerless
praying does not come up to the importance and aims of a
recreation. Prayerless praying is only a weight, an impediment in
the hour of struggle, of intense conflict, a call to retreat in the
moment of battle and victory._
X
WHY do we not pray? What are the hindrances to prayer? This is not a
curious nor trivial question. It goes not only to the whole matter of
our praying, but to the whole matter of our religion. Religion is bound
to decline when praying is hindered. That which hinders praying, hinders
religion. He who is too busy to pray will be too busy to live a holy
life.
Other duties become pressing and absorbing and crowd out prayer. Choked
to death, would be the coroner’s verdict in many cases of dead praying,
if an inquest could be secured on this dire, spiritual calamity. This
way of hindering prayer becomes so natural, so easy, so innocent that it
comes on us all unawares. If we will allow our praying to be crowded
out, it will always be done. Satan had rather we let the grass grow on
the path to our prayer-chamber than anything else. A closed chamber of
prayer means gone out of business religiously, or what is worse, made an
assignment and carrying on our religion in some other name than God’s
and to somebody else’s glory. God’s glory is only secured in the
business of religion by carrying that religion on with a large capital
of prayer. The apostles understood this when they declared that their
time must not be employed in even the sacred duties of alms-giving; they
must give themselves, they said, “continually to prayer and to the
ministry of the Word,” prayer being put first with them and the ministry
of the Word having its efficiency and life from prayer.
The process of hindering prayer by crowding out is simple and goes by
advancing stages. First, prayer is hurried through. Unrest and
agitation, fatal to all devout exercises, come in. Then the time is
shortened, relish for the exercise palls. Then it is crowded into a
corner and depends on the fragments of time for its exercise. Its value
depreciates. The duty has lost its importance. It no longer commands
respect nor brings benefit. It has fallen out of estimate, out of the
heart, out of the habits, out of the life. We cease to pray and cease to
live spiritually.
There is no stay to the desolating floods of worldliness and business
and cares, but prayer. Christ meant this when He charged us to watch and
pray. There is no pioneering corps for the Gospel but prayer. Paul knew
that when he declared that “night and day he prayed exceedingly that we
might see your face and might perfect that which is lacking in your
faith.” There is no arriving at a high state of grace without much
praying and no staying in those high altitudes without great praying.
Epaphras knew this when he “laboured fervently in prayers” for the
Colossian Church, “that they might stand perfect and complete in all the
will of God.”
The only way to preserve our praying from being hindered is to estimate
prayer at its true and great value. Estimate it as Daniel did, who, when
he “knew that the writing was signed he went into his house, and his
windows being opened to Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times
a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he did aforetime.”
Put praying into the high values as Daniel did, above place, honour,
ease, wealth, life. Put praying into the habits as Daniel did. “As he
did aforetime” has much in it to give firmness and fidelity in the hour
of trial; much in it to remove hindrances and master opposing
circumstances.
One of Satan’s wiliest tricks is to destroy the best by the good.
Business and other duties are good, but we are so filled with these that
they crowd out and destroy the best. Prayer holds the citadel for God,
and if Satan can by any means weaken prayer he is a gainer so far, and
when prayer is dead the citadel is taken. We must keep prayer as the
faithful sentinel keeps guard, with sleepless vigilance. We must not
keep it half-starved and feeble as a baby, but we must keep it in giant
strength. Our prayer-chamber should have our freshest strength, our
calmest time, its hours unfettered, without obtrusion, without haste.
Private place and plenty of time are the life of prayer. “To kneel upon
our knees three times a day and pray and give thanks before God as we
did aforetime,” is the very heart and soul of religion, and makes men,
like Daniel, of “an excellent spirit,” “greatly beloved in heaven.”
The greatness of prayer, involving as it does the whole man, in the
intensest form, is not realised without spiritual discipline. This makes
it hard work, and before this exacting and consuming effort our
spiritual sloth or feebleness stands abashed.
The simplicity of prayer, its child-like elements form a great obstacle
to true praying. Intellect gets in the way of the heart. The child
spirit only is the spirit of prayer. It is no holiday occupation to make
the man a child again. In song, in poetry, in memory he may wish himself
a child again, but in prayer he must be a child again in reality. At his
mother’s knee, artless, sweet, intense, direct, trustful. With no shade
of doubt, no temper to be denied. A desire which burns and consumes
which can only be voiced by a cry. It is no easy work to have this
child-like spirit of prayer.
If praying were but an hour in the closet, difficulties would face and
hinder even that hour, but praying is the whole life preparing for the
closet. How difficult it is to cover home and business, all the sweets
and all the bitters of life, with the holy atmosphere of the closet! A
holy life is the only preparation for prayer. It is just as difficult to
pray, as it is to live a holy life. In this we find a wall of exclusion
built around our closets; men do not love holy praying, because they do
not love and will not do holy living. Montgomery sets forth the
difficulties of true praying when he declares the sublimity and
simplicity of prayer.
Prayer is the simplest form of speech
That infant lips can try.
Prayer is the sublimest strains that reach
The Majesty on high.
This is not only good poetry, but a profound truth as to the loftiness
and simplicity of prayer. There are great difficulties in reaching the
exalted, angelic strains of prayer. The difficulty of coming down to the
simplicity of infant lips is not much less.
Prayer in the Old Testament is called wrestling. Conflict and skill,
strenuous, exhaustive effort are involved. In the New Testament we have
the terms striving, labouring fervently, fervent, effectual, agony, all
indicating intense effort put forth, difficulties overcome. We, in our
praises sing out—
“What various hindrances we meet
In coming to a mercy seat.”
We also have learned that the gracious results secured by prayer are
generally proportioned to the outlay in removing the hindrances which
obstruct our soul’s high communion with God.
Christ spake a parable to this end, that men ought always to pray and
not to faint. The parable of the importunate widow teaches the
difficulties in praying, how they are to be surmounted, and the happy
results which follow from valorous praying. Difficulties will always
obstruct the way to the closet as long as it remains true,
“That Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.”
Courageous faith is made stronger and purer by mastering difficulties.
These difficulties but couch the eye of faith to the glorious prize
which is to be won by the successful wrestler in prayer. Men must not
faint in the contest of prayer, but to this high and holy work they must
give themselves, defying the difficulties in the way, and experience
more than an angel’s happiness in the results. Luther said: “To have
prayed well is to have studied well.” More than that, to have prayed
well is to have fought well. To have prayed well is to have lived well.
To pray well is to die well.
Prayer is a rare gift, not a popular, ready gift. Prayer is not the
fruit of natural talents; it is the product of faith, of holiness, of
deeply spiritual character. Men learn to pray as they learn to love.
Perfection in simplicity, in humility in faith—these form its chief
ingredients. Novices in these graces are not adepts in prayer. It cannot
be seized upon by untrained hands; graduates in heaven’s highest school
of art can alone touch its finest keys, raise its sweetest, highest
notes. Fine material, fine finish are requisite. Master workmen are
required, for mere journeymen cannot execute the work of prayer.
The spirit of prayer should rule our spirits and our conduct. The spirit
of the prayer-chamber must control our lives or the closest hour will be
dull and sapless. Always praying in spirit; always acting in the spirit
of praying; these make our praying strong. The spirit of every moment is
that which imparts strength to the closet communion. It is what we are
out of the closet which gives victory or brings defeat to the closet. If
the spirit of the world prevails in our non-closet hours, the spirit of
the world will prevail in our closet hours, and that will be a vain and
idle farce.
We must live for God out of the closet if we would meet God in the
closet. We must bless God by praying lives if we would have God’s
blessing in the closet. We must do God’s will in our lives if we would
have God’s ear in the closet. We must listen to God’s voice in public if
we would have God listen to our voice in private. God must have our
hearts out of the closet, if we would have God’s presence in the closet.
If we would have God in the closet, God must have us out of the closet.
There is no way of praying to God, but by living to God. The closet is
not a confessional, simply, but the hour of holy communion and high and
sweet intercourse and of intense intercession.
Men would pray better if they lived better. They would get more from God
if they lived more obedient and well pleasing to God. We would have more
strength and time for the Divine work of intercession if we did not have
to expend so much strength and time settling up old scores and paying
our delinquent taxes. Our spiritual liabilities are so greatly in excess
of our spiritual assets that our closet time is spent in taking out a
decree of bankruptcy instead of being the time of great spiritual wealth
for us and for others. Our closets are too much like the sign, “Closed
for Repairs.”
John said of primitive Christian praying, “Whatsoever we ask we receive
of Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things which are
pleasing in His sight.” We should note what illimitable grounds were
covered, what illimitable gifts were received by their strong praying:
“Whatsoever”—how comprehensive the range and reception of mighty
praying; how suggestive the reasons for the ability to pray and to have
prayers answered. Obedience, but more than mere obedience, doing the
things which please God well. They went to their closets made strong by
their strict obedience and loving fidelity to God in their conduct.
Their lives were not only true and obedient, but they were thinking
about things above obedience, searching for and doing things to make God
glad. These can come with eager step and radiant countenance to meet
their Father in the closet, not simply to be forgiven, but to be
approved and to receive.
It makes much difference whether we come to God as a criminal or a
child; to be pardoned or to be approved; to settle scores or to be
embraced; for punishment or for favour. Our praying to be strong must be
buttressed by holy living. The name of Christ must be honoured by our
lives before it will honour our intercessions. The life of faith
perfects the prayer of faith.
Our lives not only give colour to our praying, but they give body to it
as well. Bad living makes bad praying. We pray feebly because we live
feebly. The stream of praying cannot rise higher than the fountain of
living. The closet force is made up of the energy which flows from the
confluent streams of living. The feebleness of living throws its
faintness into closet homes. We cannot talk to God strongly when we have
not lived for God strongly. The closet cannot be made holy to God when
the life has not been holy to God. The Word of God emphasises our
conduct as giving value to our praying. “Then shalt thou call and the
Lord shalt answer, Thou shalt cry and He shall say, Here I am. If thou
take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth the finger,
and speaking vanity.”
Men are to pray “lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.” We
are to pass the time of our sojourning here in fear if we would call on
the Father. We cannot divorce praying from conduct. “Whatsoever we ask
we receive of Him because we keep His commandments and do those things
that are pleasing in His sight.” “Ye ask and receive not because ye ask
amiss that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” The injunction of Christ,
“Watch and pray,” is to cover and guard conduct that we may come to our
closets with all the force secured by a vigilant guard over our lives.
Our religion breaks down oftenest and most sadly in our conduct.
Beautiful theories are marred by ugly lives. The most difficult as well
as the most impressive point in piety is to live it. Our praying suffers
as much as our religion from bad living. Preachers were charged in
primitive times to preach by their lives or preach not at all. So
Christians everywhere ought to be charged to pray by their lives or pray
not at all. Of course, the prayer of repentance is acceptable. But
repentance means to quit doing wrong and learn to do well. A repentance
which does not produce a change in conduct is a sham. Praying which does
not result in pure conduct is a delusion. We have missed the whole
office and virtue of praying if it does not rectify conduct. It is in
the very nature of things that we must quit praying or quit bad conduct.
Cold, dead praying may exist with bad conduct, but cold, dead praying is
no praying in God’s esteem. Our praying advances in power as it
rectifies the life. A life growing in its purity and devotion will be a
more prayerful life.
The pity is that so much of our praying is without object or aim. It is
without purpose. How much praying there is by men and women who never
abide in Christ—hasty praying, sweet praying full of sentiment,
pleasing praying, but not backed by a life wedded to Christ. Popular
praying! How much of this praying is from unsanctified hearts and
unhallowed lips! Prayers spring into life under the influence of some
great excitement, by some pressing emergency, through some popular
clamour, some great peril. But the conditions of prayer are not there.
We rush into God’s presence and try to link Him to our cause, inflame
Him with our passions, move Him by our peril. All things are to be
prayed for—but with clean hands, with absolute deference to God’s will
and abiding in Christ. Prayerless praying by lips and hearts untrained
to prayer, by lives out of harmony with Jesus Christ; prayerless
praying, which has the form and motion of prayer but is without the true
heart of prayer, never moves God to an answer. It is of such praying
that James says: “Ye have not because ye ask not; ye ask and receive
not, because ye ask amiss.”
The two great evils—not asking, and asking in a wrong way. Perhaps the
greater evil is wrong asking, for it has in it the show of duty done, of
praying when there has been no praying—a deceit, a fraud, a sham. The
times of the most praying are not really the times of the best praying.
The Pharisees prayed much, but they were actuated by vanity; their
praying was the symbol of their hypocrisy by which they made God’s house
of prayer a den of robbers. Theirs was praying on state
occasions—mechanical, perfunctory, professional, beautiful in words,
fragrant in sentiment, well ordered, well received by the ears that
heard, but utterly devoid of every element of real prayer.
The conditions of prayer are well ordered and clear—abiding in Christ;
in His name. One of the first necessities, if we are to grasp the
infinite possibilities of prayer, is to get rid of prayerless praying.
It is often beautiful in words and in execution; it has the drapery of
prayer in rich and costly form, but it lacks the soul of praying. We
fall so easily into the habit of prayerless service, of merely filling a
programme.
If men only prayed on all occasions and in every place where they go
through the motion! If there were only holy inflamed hearts back of all
these beautiful words and gracious forms! If there were always uplifted
hearts in these erect men who are uttering flawless but vain words
before God! If there were always reverent bended hearts when bended
knees are uttering words before God to please men’s ears!
There is nothing that will preserve the life of prayer; its vigour,
sweetness, obligations, seriousness and value, so much as a deep
conviction that prayer is an approach to God, a pleading with God, an
asking of God. Reality will then be in it; reverence will then be in the
attitude, in the place, and in the air. Faith will draw, kindle and
open. Formality and deadness cannot live in this high and all-serious
home of the soul.
Prayerless praying lacks the essential element of true praying; it is
not based on desire, and is devoid of earnestness and faith. Desire
burdens the chariot of prayer, and faith drives its wheels. Prayerless
praying has no burden, because no sense of need; no ardency, because
none of the vision, strength, or glow of faith. No mighty pressure to
prayer, no holding on to God with the deathless, despairing grasp, “I
will not let Thee go except Thou bless me.” No utter self-abandon, lost
in the throes of a desperate, pertinacious, and consuming plea: “Yet now
if Thou wilt forgive their sin—if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of Thy
book;” or, “Give me Scotland, or I die.” Prayerless praying stakes
nothing on the issue, for it has nothing to stake. It comes with empty
hands, indeed, but they are listless hands as well as empty. They have
never learned the lesson of empty hands clinging to the cross; this
lesson to them has no form nor comeliness.
Prayerless praying has no heart in its praying. The lack of heart
deprives praying of its reality, and makes it an empty and unfit vessel.
Heart, soul, life must be in our praying; the heavens must feel the
force of our crying, and must be brought into oppressed sympathy for our
bitter and needy state. A need that oppresses us, and has no relief but
in our crying to God, must voice our praying.
Prayerless praying is insincere. It has no honesty at heart. We name in
words what we do not want in heart. Our prayers give formal utterance to
the things for which our hearts are not only not hungry, but for which
they really have no taste. We once heard an eminent and saintly
preacher, now in heaven, come abruptly and sharply on a congregation
that had just risen from prayer, with the question and statement, “What
did you pray for? If God should take hold of you and shake you, and
demand what you prayed for, you could not tell Him to save your life
what the prayer was that has just died from your lips.” So it always is,
prayerless praying has neither memory nor heart. A mere form, a
heterogeneous mass, an insipid compound, a mixture thrown together for
sound and to fill up, but with neither heart nor aim, is prayerless
praying. A dry routine, a dreary drudge, a dull and heavy task is this
prayerless praying.
But prayerless praying is much worse than either task or drudge, it
divorces praying from living; it utters its words against the world, but
with heart and life runs into the world; it prays for humility, but
nurtures pride; prays for self-denial, while indulging the flesh.
Nothing exceeds in gracious results true praying, but better not to pray
at all than to pray prayerless prayers, for they are but sinning, and
the worst of sinning is to sin on our knees.
The prayer habit is a good habit, but praying by dint of habit only is a
very bad habit. This kind of praying is not conditioned after God’s
order, nor generated by God’s power. It is not only a waste, a
perversion, and a delusion, but it is a prolific source of unbelief.
Prayerless praying gets no results. God is not reached, self is not
helped. It is better not to pray at all than to secure no results from
praying. Better for the one who prays, better for others. Men hear of
the prodigious results which are to be secured by prayer: the matchless
good promised in God’s Word to prayer. These keen-eyed worldlings or
timid little faith ones mark the great discrepancy between the results
promised and results realised, and are led necessarily to doubt the
truth and worth of that which is so big in promise and so beggarly in
results. Religion and God are dishonoured, doubt and unbelief are
strengthened by much asking and no getting.
In contrast with this, what a mighty force prayerful praying is. Real
prayer helps God and man. God’s Kingdom is advanced by it. The greatest
good comes to man by it. Prayer can do anything that God can do. The
pity is that we do not believe this as we ought, and we do not put it to
the test.
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_The deepest need of the Church to-day is not for any material or
external thing, but the deepest need is spiritual. Prayerless work
will never bring in the kingdom. We neglect to pray in the
prescribed way. We seldom enter the closet and shut the door for a
season of prayer. Kingdom interests are pressing on us thick and
fast and we must pray. Prayerless giving will never evangelise the
world._
—DR. A. J. GORDON.
_The great subject of prayer, that comprehensive need of the
Christian’s life, is intimately bound up in the personal fulness of
the Holy Spirit. It is “by the One Spirit we have access unto the
Father” (Eph. ii. 18), and by the same Spirit, having entered the
audience chamber through the “new and living way,” we are enabled
to pray in the will of God (Rom. viii. 15, 26-27; Gal. iv. 6; Eph.
vi. 18; Jude 20-21)._
_Here is the secret of prevailing prayer, to pray under a direct
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, whose petitions for us and through
us are always according to the Divine purpose, and hence certain of
answer. “Praying in the Holy Ghost” is but co-operating with the
will of God, and such prayer is always victorious. How many
Christians there are who cannot pray, and who seek by effort,
resolve, joining prayer circles, etc., to cultivate in themselves
the “holy art of intercession,” and all to no purpose. Here for
them and for all is the only secret of a real prayer life—“Be
filled with the Spirit,” who is “the Spirit of grace and
supplication.”_
—REV. J. STUART HOLDEN, M.A.