and so much loss of life until it was called the Cape of Death. One
day in 1789 a bold navigator shoved the prow of his vessel into the
storms that thundered around it and found a calm sea. He then named
it the Cape of Good Hope. So there is a cape that jutted out from
earth into the sea of eternity called death. All were afraid of it.
All navigators, sooner or later, must contend with these murky
waters. But once upon a time, nearly two thousand years ago, a brave
navigator from heaven came and drove the prow of His frail humanity
bark down into the gloomy waters of this cape and lay under its
awful power for three days. Emerging therefrom, He found it to be
the door to endless calm and joy, and now we call it Good Hope._
—JOHN W. BAKER.
One of Christ’s most impassioned and sublime pæans of prayer and praise
is found recorded by both Matthew and Luke, with small verbal contrasts
and with some diversity of detail and environments. He is reviewing the
poor results of His ministry and remarking upon the feeble responses of
man to God’s vast outlay of love and mercy. He is arraigning the
ingratitude of men to God, and is showing the fearfully destructive
results of their indifference with their increased opportunities,
favours and responsibilities.
In the midst of these arraignments, denunciations and woes, the seventy
disciples return to report the results of their mission. They were full
of exhilaration at their success, and evinced it with no little
self-gratulation. The spirit of Jesus was diverted, relieved and
refreshed by their animation, catching somewhat the contagion of their
joy, and sharing in their triumph. He rejoiced, gave thanks, and prayed
a prayer wonderful for its brevity, its inspiration and its revelation:
“In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O
Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things
from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even
so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.
“All things are delivered to me of my Father; and no man knoweth who
the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and
he to whom the Son will reveal him.”
The Christ life was in the image of His Father. He was the “express
image of His person.” And so the spirit of prayer with Christ was to do
God’s will. His constant asseveration was that He “came to do His
Father’s will,” and not His own will. When the fearful crisis came in
His life in Gethsemane, and all its darkness, direness and dread, with
the crushing weight of man’s sins and sorrows which were pressing down
upon Him, His spirit and frame crushed, and almost expiring, then He
cried out for relief, yet it was not His will which was to be followed.
It was only an appeal out of weakness and death for God’s relief in
God’s way. God’s will was to be the law and the rule of His relief, if
relief came.
So he who follows Christ in prayer must have God’s will as his law, his
rule and his inspiration. In all praying, it is the man who prays. The
life and the character flow into the closet. There is a mutual action
and reaction. The closet has much to do with making the character, while
the character has much to do with making the closet. It is “the
effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man which availeth much.” It
is with them who “call upon the Lord out of a pure heart” we are to
consort. Christ was the greatest of pray-ers because He was the holiest
of men. His character is the praying character. His spirit is the life
and power of prayer. He is not the best pray-er who has the greatest
fluency, the most brilliant imagination, the richest gifts, and the most
fiery ardour, but he who has imbibed most of the spirit of Christ.
It is he whose character is the nearest to a facsimile of Christ. His
prayer referred to just named, in the form of thanksgiving, sets forth
the characters upon whom God’s power is bestowed and to whom God’s
person and will are revealed. “Hid these things from the wise and
prudent,” those, for instance, who are wise in their own eyes, skilled
in letters, cultured, learned, philosophers, scribes, doctors,
rabbis—“prudent”—one who can put things together, having insight,
comprehension, expression. God’s revelation of Himself and His will
cannot be sought out and understood by reason, intelligence nor great
learning. Great men and great minds are neither the channels nor
depositories of God’s revelation by virtue of their culture, braininess
nor wisdom. God’s system in redemption and providence is not to be
thought out, open only to the learned and wise. The learned and the
wise, following their learning and their wisdom, have always sadly and
darkly missed God’s thoughts and God’s ways.
The condition of receiving God’s revelation and of holding God’s truth
is one of the heart, not one of the head. The ability to receive and
search out is like that of the child, the babe, the synonym of docility,
innocence and simplicity. These are the conditions on which God reveals
Himself to men. The world by wisdom cannot know God. The world by wisdom
can never receive nor understand God, because God reveals Himself to
men’s hearts, not to their heads. Only hearts can ever know God, can
feel God, can see God, and can read God in His Book of Books. God is not
grasped by thought but by feeling. The world gets God by revelation, not
by philosophy. It is not apprehension, the mental ability to grasp God,
but plasticity, ability to be impressed, that men need. It is not by
hard, strong, stern, great reasoning that the world gets God or gets
hold of God, but by big, soft, pure hearts. Not so much do men need
light to see God as they need hearts to feel God.
Human wisdom, great natural talents, and the culture of the schools,
howsoever good they may be, can neither be the repositories nor
conservors of God’s revealed truth. The tree of knowledge has been the
bane of faith, ever essaying to reduce revelation to a philosophy and to
measure God by man. In its pride, it puts God out and puts man into
God’s truth. To become babes again, on our mother’s bosom, quieted,
weaned, without clamour or protest, is the only position in which to
know God. A calmness on the surface, and in the depths of the soul, in
which God can mirror His will, His Word and Himself—this is the attitude
toward Him through which He can reveal Himself, and this attitude is the
right attitude of prayer.
Our Lord taught us the lesson of prayer by putting into practice in His
life what He taught by His lips. Here is a simple but important
statement, full of meaning: “And when he had sent the multitudes away,
he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come
He was there alone.”
The multitudes had been fed and were dismissed by our Lord.
The Divine work of healing and teaching must be stayed awhile in order
that time, place and opportunity for prayer might be secured,—Prayer,
the divinest of all labour, the most important of all ministries. Away
from the eager, anxious, seeking multitudes, He has gone while the day
is yet bright, to be alone with God. The multitudes tax and exhaust Him.
The disciples are tossed on the sea, but calmness reigns on the mountain
top where our Lord is kneeling in secret prayer—where prayer rules.
“When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by
force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain alone.”
He must be alone in that moment with God. Temptation was in that hour.
The multitude had feasted on the five loaves and the two fishes. Filled
with food and excited beyond measure, they would fain make Him king. He
flees from the temptation to secret prayer, for here is the source of
His strength to resist evil. What a refuge was secret prayer even to
Him! What a refuge to us from the world’s dazzling and delusive crowns!
What safety there is to be alone with God when the world tempts us,
allures us, attracts us!
The prayers of our Lord were prophetic and illustrative of the great
truth that the greatest measure of the Holy Spirit, the attesting voice
and opening Heavens are only secured by prayer. This is suggested by His
baptism by John the Baptist, when He prayed as He was baptised, and
immediately the Holy Spirit descended upon Him like a dove. More than
prophetic and illustrative is this hour to Him. This critical hour is
real and personal, consecrating and qualifying Him for God’s highest
purposes. Prayer to Him, just as it is to us, was a necessity, an
absolute, invariable condition of securing God’s fullest, consecrating
and qualifying power. The Holy Spirit came upon Him in fullness of
measure and power in the very act of prayer.
And so the Holy Spirit comes upon _us_ in fullness of measure and power
only in answer to ardent and intense praying. The heavens were opened to
Christ, and access and communion established and enlarged by prayer.
Freedom and fullness of access and closeness of communion are secured to
us as the heritage of prayer. The voice attesting His Sonship came to
Christ in prayer. The witness of our sonship, clear and indubitable, is
secured only by praying. The constant witness of our sonship can only be
retained by those who pray without ceasing. When the stream of prayer is
shallow and arrested, the evidence of our sonship becomes faint and
inaudible.
IX
PRAYER INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF OUR LORD (_Continued_)
_Sin is so unspeakably awful in its evil that it struck down, as to
death and hell, the very Son of God Himself. He had been amazed
enough at sin before. He had seen sin making angels of heaven into
devils of hell. Death and all its terrors did not much move or
disconcert our Lord. No. It was not death: It was sin. It was
hell-fire in His soul. It was the coals, and the oil, and the rosin,
and the juniper, and the turpentine of the fire that is not
quenched._
—ALEXANDER WHYTE, D.D.
We note that from the revelation and inspiration of a transporting
prayer-hour of Christ, as its natural sequence, there sounds out that
gracious encouraging proclamation for heavy-hearted, restless, weary
souls of earth, which has so impressed, arrested and drawn humanity as
it has fallen on the ears of heavy-laden souls, which has so sweetened
and relieved men of their toils and burdens:
“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in
heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
At the grave of Lazarus and as preparatory to and as a condition of
calling him back to life, we have our Lord calling upon His Father in
Heaven. “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me, and I know that
thou hearest me always.” The lifting to Heaven of Christ’s eyes—how much
was there in it! How much of confidence and plea was in that look to
Heaven! His very look, the lifting up of His eyes, carried His whole
being Heaven-ward, and caused a pause in that world, and drew attention
and help. All Heaven was engaged, pledged and moved when the Son of God
looked up at this grave. O for a people with the Christly eye, Heaven
lifted and Heaven arresting! As it was with Christ, so ought we to be so
perfected in faith, so skilled in praying, that we could lift our eyes
to Heaven and say with Him, with deepest humility, and with commanding
confidence, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.”
Once more we have a very touching and beautiful and instructive incident
in Christ’s praying, this time having to do with infants in their
mothers’ arms, parabolic as well as historical:
“Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should
put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them.
“But when Jesus saw it he was much displeased, and said unto them,
Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for
of such is the kingdom of God.
“Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of
God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.
“And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them and
blessed them.”
This was one of the few times when stupid ignorance and unspiritual
views aroused His indignation and displeasure. Vital principles were
involved. The foundations were being destroyed, and worldly views
actuated the disciples. Their temper and their words in rebuking those
who brought their infants to Christ were exceedingly wrong. The very
principles which He came to illustrate and propagate were being
violated. Christ received the little ones. The big ones must become
little ones. The old ones must become young ones ere Christ will receive
them. Prayer helps the little ones. The cradle must be invested with
prayer. We are to pray for our little ones. The children are now to be
brought to Jesus Christ by prayer, as He is in Heaven and not on earth.
They are to be brought to Him early for His blessing, even when they are
infants. His blessing descends upon these little ones in answer to the
prayers of those who bring them. With untiring importunity are they to
be brought to Christ in earnest, persevering prayer by their fathers and
mothers. Before they know, themselves, anything about coming of their
own accord, parents are to present them to God in prayer, seeking His
blessing upon their offspring and at the same time asking for wisdom,
for grace and Divine help to rear them that they may come to Christ when
they arrive at the years of accountability of their own accord.
Holy hands and holy praying have much to do with guarding and training
young lives and to form young characters for righteousness and Heaven.
What benignity, simplicity, kindness, unworldliness and condescension
and meekness, linked with prayerfulness, are in this act of this Divine
Teacher!
It was as Jesus was praying that Peter made that wonderful confession of
his faith that Jesus was the Son of God:
“And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples were
with him; and he asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am?
“And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some,
Elias; and others, Jeremias or one of the prophets.
“He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
“And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of
the living God.
“And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon
Bar-jona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my
Father which is in heaven.
“And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I
will build my church: and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it.
“And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven; and
whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
It was after our Lord had made large promises to His disciples that He
had appointed unto each of them a kingdom, and that they should sit at
His table in His kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of
Israel, that He gave those words of warning to Simon Peter, telling him
that He had prayed for Peter. “And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold
Satan hath desired to have you, so that he may sift you as wheat. But I
have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. And when thou art
converted, strengthen thy brethren.”
Happy Peter, to have such an one as the Son of God to pray for him!
Unhappy Peter, to be so in the toils of Satan as to demand so much of
Christ’s solicitude! How intense are the demands upon our prayers for
some specific cases! Prayer must be personal in order to be to the
fullest extent beneficial. Peter drew on Christ’s praying more than any
other disciple because of his exposure to greater perils. Pray for the
most impulsive, the most imperilled ones by name. Our love and their
danger give frequency, inspiration, intensity and personality to
praying.
We have seen how Christ had to flee from the multitude after the
magnificent miracle of feeding the five thousand as they sought to make
Him king. Then prayer was His escape and His refuge from this strong
worldly temptation. He returns from that night of prayer with strength
and calmness, and with a power to perform that other remarkable miracle
of great wonder of walking on the sea.
Even the loaves and fishes were sanctified by prayer before He served
them to the multitude. “He looked up to Heaven and gave thanks.” Prayer
should sanctify our daily bread and multiply our seed sown.
He looked up to heaven and heaved a sigh when He touched the tongue of
the deaf man who had an impediment in his speech. Much akin was this
sigh to that groaning in spirit which He evinced at the grave of
Lazarus. “Jesus therefore again groaning in himself, cometh to the
grave.” Here was the sigh and groan of the Son of God over a human
wreck, groaning that sin and hell had such a mastery over man; troubled
that such a desolation and ruin were man’s sad inheritance. This is a
lesson to be ever learned by us. Here is a fact ever to be kept in mind
and heart and which must ever, in some measure, weigh upon the inner
spirits of God’s children. We who have received the first fruit of the
Spirit groan within ourselves at sin’s waste, and death, and are filled
with longings for the coming of a better day.
Present in all great praying, making and marking it, is the man. It is
impossible to separate the praying from the man. The constituent
elements of the man are the constituents of his praying. The man flows
through his praying. Only the fiery Elijah could do Elijah’s fiery
praying. We can get holy praying only from a holy man. Holy being can
never exist without holy doing. Being is first, doing comes afterward.
What we are gives being, force and inspiration to what we do. Character,
that which is graven deep, ineradicably, imperishably within us, colours
all we do.
The praying of Christ, then, is not to be separated from the character
of Christ. If He prayed more unweariedly, more self-denyingly, more
holily, more simply and directly than other men, it was because these
elements entered more largely into His character than into that of
others.
The transfiguration marks another epoch in His life, and that was
pre-eminently a prayer epoch. Luke gives an account with the animus and
aim of the event:
“And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he
took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray.
“And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and
his raiment was white and glistering.
“And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and
Elias:
“Who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should
accomplish at Jerusalem.”
The selection was made of three of His disciples for an inner circle of
associates, in prayer. Few there be who have the spiritual tastes or
aptitude for this inner circle. Even these three favoured ones could
scarcely stand the strain of that long night of praying. We know that He
went up on that mountain to pray, not to be transfigured. But it was as
He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered and His raiment
became white and glistering. There is nothing like prayer to change
character and whiten conduct. There is nothing like prayer to bring
heavenly visitants and to gild with heavenly glory earth’s mountain to
us, dull and drear. Peter calls it the holy mount, made so by prayer.
Three times did the voice of God bear witness to the presence and person
of His Son, Jesus Christ—at His baptism by John the Baptist, and then at
His transfiguration the approving, consoling and witnessing voice of His
Father was heard. He was found in prayer both of these times. The third
time the attesting voice came, it was not on the heights of His
transfigured glory, nor was it as He was girding Himself to begin His
conflict and to enter upon His ministry, but it was when He was
hastening to the awful end. He was entering the dark mystery of His last
agony, and looking forward to it. The shadows were deepening, a dire
calamity was approaching and an unknown and untried dread was before
Him. Ruminating on His approaching death, prophesying about it, and
forecasting the glory which would follow, in the midst of His high and
mysterious discourse, the shadows come like a dread eclipse and He
bursts out in an agony of prayer:
“Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from
this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.
“Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven,
saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.
“The people therefore that stood by, and heard it, said that it
thundered: others said, An angel spake to him.
“Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for
your sakes.”
But let it be noted that Christ is meeting and illuminating this fateful
and distressing hour with prayer. How even thus early the flesh
reluctantly shrank from the contemplated end!
How fully does His prayer on the cross for His enemies synchronise with
all He taught about love to our enemies, and with mercy and forgiveness
to those who have trespassed against us! “Then said Jesus, Father,
forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Apologising for His
murderers and praying for them, while they were jeering and mocking Him
at His death pains and their hands were reeking with His blood! What
amazing generosity, pity and love!
Again, take another one of the prayers on the cross. How touching the
prayer and how bitter the cup! How dark and desolate the hour as He
exclaims, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” This is the last
stroke that rends in twain His heart, more exquisite in its bitterness
and its anguish and more heart-piercing than the kiss of Judas. All else
was looked for, all else was put in His book of sorrows. But to have His
Father’s face withdrawn, God-forsaken, the hour when these distressing
words escaped the lips of the dying Son of God! And yet how truthful He
is! How childlike we find Him! And so when the end really comes, we hear
Him again speaking to His Father: “Father, into thy hands I commit my
spirit. And having said this, he gave up the ghost.”
X
OUR LORD’S MODEL PRAYER
_What satisfaction must it be to learn from God Himself with what
words and in what manner, He would have us pray to Him so as not to
pray in vain! We do not sufficiently consider the value of this
prayer; the respect and attention which it requires; the preference
to be given to it; its fulness and perfection; the frequent use we
should make of it; and the spirit which we should bring with it.
“Lord, teach us how to pray.”_—ADAM CLARK.
Jesus gives us the pattern prayer in what is commonly known as “The
Lord’s Prayer.” In this model, perfect prayer He gives us a law form to
be followed, and yet one to be filled in and enlarged as we may decide
when we pray. The outlines and form are complete, yet it is but an
outline, with many a blank, which our needs and convictions are to fill
in.
Christ puts words on our lips, words which are to be uttered by holy
lives. Words belong to the life of prayer. Wordless prayers are like
human spirits; pure and high they may be, but too ethereal and
impalpable for earthly conflicts and earthly needs and uses. We must
have spirits clothed in flesh and blood, and our prayers must be
likewise clothed in words to give them point and power, a local
habitation, and a name.
This lesson of “The Lord’s Prayer,” drawn forth by the request of the
disciples, “Lord, teach us to pray,” has something in form and verbiage
like the prayer sections of the Sermon on the Mount. It is the same
great lesson of praying to “Our Father which art in Heaven,” and is one
of insistent importunity. No prayer lesson would be complete without it.
It belongs to the first and last lessons in prayer. God’s Fatherhood
gives shape, value and confidence to all our praying.
He teaches us that to hallow God’s name is the first and the greatest of
prayers. A desire for the glorious coming and the glorious establishment
of God’s glorious kingdom follows in value and in sequence the hallowing
of God’s name. He who really hallows God’s name will hail the coming of
the Kingdom of God, and will labour and pray to bring that kingdom to
pass and to establish it. Christ’s pupils in the school of prayer are to
be taught diligently to hallow God’s name, to work for God’s kingdom,
and to do God’s will perfectly, completely and gladly, as it is done in
Heaven.