It reminds us that the ground of our confidence is in God's own
character. We do not need to make ourselves worthy to receive. We cannot
move Him, but He is self-moved, and so we do not need to be afraid. Nor
is our prayer to be an attempt to bend His will.
Our confidence digs deep down to build on the rock of the ever-living
God, whose 'is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.' We
flee to Him for a refuge against ourselves. We bring nothing. We look to
His own character, which will always be the same, and to His past, which
is the type and prophecy for all His future. He is His own reason, His
own motive, His own end.
When we ground our prayers on Him, then we touch ground, and in whatever
weltering sea of trouble we may be buffeted, we have found the bottom
and can stand firm.
But the 'Amen' which closes the doxology is not the empty form which it
has now become. It means not only, So may it be! but also, So will it
be! It is not only the last breathing of desire, but also the expression
of assured expectancy and confidence; not merely be it so, but confident
expression of assurance that it will be so.
How much of our prayer flies off into empty air because there is no
expectation in it! How much which has no certainty of being answered in
it! How much which is followed by no marking of the future to discern
the answer! We should stand praying like some Grecian statue of an
archer, with hand extended and lips parted and eye following the arrow
of our prayer on its flight till it touches the mark. We have a right
to be confident that we shall be heard. We should apply the Amen to all
the petitions of the prayer. So it becomes a prophecy, and the Christian
man is to live in the calm expectation that all the petitions will be
accomplished. For the world they will be, for us they may be. It is for
each of us to decide for ourselves whether they will be answered in and
for us.
The place of the doxology here suggests that all prayer should lead to
thankful contemplation of God's character.
We have seen how the prayer begins with contemplation, and then passes
into supplication. Thus all prayer should end as it began. It has a
circular motion, and starting from the highest heavens and coming down
to earth, is thither drawn again and rests at the throne of God, whence
it set out, like the strong Spirits before His throne who veil their
faces while they gaze upon the glory, and then fly forth to help human
sorrows and satisfy human hearts, and then on unwearied pinions winging
their way to their first station, meekly sink their wings of flight, and
veil their faces again with their wings. The rivers that flow through
broad lands, bringing blessing and doing humble service in drinking-cup
and domestic vessel, came in soft rain from heaven, and though their
bright waves are browned with soil and made opaque with many a stain,
yet their work done, they rest in the great ocean, and thence are drawn
up once more to the clouds of heaven. So with our prayers; they ought to
start from the contemplation of our God, and they ought to return
thither again.
And as this is the last word of our prayers, so may we not say that it
represents the perpetual form of fellowship with God? Prayers for bread,
and pardon, and help, and deliverance, are for the wilderness. Prayers
for the hallowing of His name, and the coming of His kingdom, and the
doing of His will, are out of date when they are fulfilled; but for ever
this voice shall rise before His throne, and that last new song, which
shall ring with might as of thunder and sweetness as of many harps from
the thousand times ten thousand, shall be but the expansion and the
deepening of the praise of earth. Then 'every creature which is in
heaven, and on the earth and under the earth and in the sea, shall be
heard saying, "Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him
that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever."'
So we finish these meditations. I have felt all along how poorly my
words served me to say even what I saw, and how poorly my vision saw
into the clear depths of the divine prayer. But I hope that they may
have helped you half as much as they have myself, to feel more strongly
how all-comprehensive it is. I said at the beginning, and I repeat with
more emphasis now, that there is everything in this prayer--God's
relations to man, man's to God and his fellows, the foundation stones of
Christian theology, of Christian morals, of Christian society, of
Christian politics. There is help for the smallest wants and light for
daily duties; there is strength for the hour of death and the day of
judgment. There is the revelation of the timeless depths of our Father's
heart; there is the prophecy of the furthest future for ourselves and
our brethren. No man can exhaust it. Every age may find in its simple
syllables lessons for their new perplexities and duties. It will not be
outgrown in heaven. But, thank God, we do not need to exhaust its
meaning in order to use it aright. Jesus interprets our prayers, and
many a dumb yearning, and many a broken sob, and many a passionate
fragment of a cry, and many an ignorant desire that may appear to us
very unlike His pattern for all ages, will be accepted by Him. He
inspires, presents and answers every prayer offered through Him to the
Father in heaven. He counts the poorest prayer to be 'after this
manner,' if it comes from a heart seeking the Father, owning its sin,
longing dimly for deliverance and purity, and hoping through its tears
in the great and loving tenderness of the Father in heaven who has sent
His Son, that through Him we might cry Abba, Father.