Passing now from these preliminary counsels concerning prayer, let us
note how great is the importance which, both by His precepts and His
example, Christ attaches to the duty of intercessory prayer. I have been
much struck of late in reading several books on this subject, to note
how one writer after another judges it needful to warn his readers
against the idea that prayer is no more than petition. What they say is,
of course, true; prayer is much more than petition. But, unless I
misread the signs of the times, this is not the warning which just now
we most need to hear. Rather do we need to be told that prayer is more
than communion, that petition, simple asking that we may obtain, is a
part, and a very large part of prayer. "Who rises from prayer a better
man," says George Meredith, "his prayer is answered." This is true, but
it is far from being the whole truth. The duty of intercession, of
prayer for others, is writ large on every page of the New Testament; but
intercession has simply no meaning at all unless we believe that God
will grant our requests as may be most expedient for us and for them for
whom we pray. Let me illustrate the wealth of Christ's teaching on this
matter by two or three examples.
(1) We have all read Tennyson's question--
"What are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friends?"
For themselves and those who call them friends--but Christ will not
suffer us to stop there. "Bless them that curse you," He said; "pray for
them that despitefully use you." So He spoke, and on the Cross He made
the great word luminous for ever by His own prayer for His murderers:
"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."
(2) Christ prayed for His disciples and for His Church: "I pray for them
... neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that believe on
Me through their word." "I will pray the Father and He shall give you
----." Only once are the actual words recorded, but they cover, we are
sure, great stretches of Christ's intercourse with God. And when once in
their work for Him they had failed, He puts His finger on the secret of
their failure thus: "This kind can come out by nothing save by prayer."
Do we pray for our Church? We find fault with it; but do we pray for it?
We blame its office--bearers and criticize its ministers; but do we pray
for them? We go to the house of God on the Sabbath day; but no fire is
burning on the altar, the minister has no message for us, we come away
no whit better than we went. Whose is the blame? Let the man in the
pulpit take his share; but is it all his? Must not some of it be laid at
the door of his people? How many of them during the week had prayed for
him, that his eyes might be opened and his heart touched, that as he sat
and worked in his study he might get from God to give to them? Dr. Dale
used to say that if ever he preached a good sermon, a sermon that really
helped men, it was due to the prayers of his people as much as to
anything he had done himself. If in all our churches we would but
proclaim a truce to our bickerings and fault-findings, and try what
prayer can do!
(3) Christ prayed for the children: "Then were there brought unto Him
little children that He should lay His hands on them, and pray.... And
He took them in His arms, and blessed them, laying His hands upon them."
It is surely needless to dwell on this. What man is there who, if he
have a child, will not speak to God in his behalf? "And all the people
said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we
die not.... And Samuel said unto the people, God forbid that I should
sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you." God have mercy on him
who has little children who bear his name, but who never cries to heaven
in their behalf! "He blessed them," _i.e._ He invoked a blessing, God's
blessing, upon them. And we are sure the prayer was heard, and the
little ones were blessed. And will not God hear our prayers for our
children? When Monica, the saintly mother of Augustine, besought an
African bishop once and again to help her with her wilful, profligate
son, the good man answered her, "Woman, go in peace; it cannot be that
the child of such tears should be lost." "God's seed," wrote Samuel
Rutherford to Marion M'Naught about her daughter Grizel, "shall come to
God's harvest." It shall, for the promise holds, and what we have sown
we shall also reap.
(4) And, lastly, Christ prayed for individuals: "Simon, Simon, behold,
Satan asked to have you,--all of you," that is; the pronoun is plural--
"that he might sift you as wheat; but I made supplication for thee"--
"thee, Peter"; now the singular pronoun is used--"that thy faith fail
not." The words point to a definite crisis in the experience of Peter,
when the onset of the Tempter was met by the intercession of the
Saviour. To me Gethsemane itself is not more wonderful than this picture
of Christ on His knees before God, naming His loved disciple by name,
and praying that, in this supreme hour of his life, his faith should not
utterly break down. "Making mention of thee in my prayers"--does this
not bring us near to the secret of prevailing prayer? We are afraid to
be individual and particular; we lose ourselves in large generalities,
until our prayers die of very vagueness. There is surely a more
excellent way. "My God," Paul wrote to the Philippians, "shall
fulfil"--not merely "all your need," as the Authorized Version has it,
but--"every need of yours." There is a fine discrimination in the Divine
love which sifts and sorts men's needs, and applies itself to them one
by one, just as the need may be. And when in prayer we speak to God, let
it be not only of "all our need," flung in one great, careless heap
before Him, but of "every need of ours," each one named by its name, and
all spread out in order before Him.