_Let us often look at Brainerd in the woods of America pouring out
his very soul before God for the perishing heathen without whose
salvation nothing could make him happy. Prayer--secret, fervent,
believing prayer--lies at the root of all personal godliness. A
competent knowledge of the language where a missionary lives,
a mild and winning temper, a heart given up to God in closet
religion--these, these are the attainments which, more than all
knowledge, or all other gifts, will fit us to become the instruments
of God in the great work of human redemption._--CAREY’S BROTHERHOOD,
SERAMPORE.
There are two extreme tendencies in the ministry. The one is to shut
itself out from intercourse with the people. The monk, the hermit
were illustrations of this; they shut themselves out from men to be
more with God. They failed, of course. Our being with God is of use
only as we expend its priceless benefits on men. This age, neither
with preacher nor with people, is much intent on God. Our hankering
is not that way. We shut ourselves to our study, we become students,
bookworms, Bible worms, sermon makers, noted for literature, thought,
and sermons; but the people and God, where are they? Out of heart, out
of mind. Preachers who are great thinkers, great students must be the
greatest of prayers, or else they will be the greatest of backsliders,
heartless professionals, rationalistic, less than the least of
preachers in God’s estimate.
The other tendency is to thoroughly popularize the ministry. He is no
longer God’s man, but a man of affairs, of the people. He prays not,
because his mission is to the people. If he can move the people, create
an interest, a sensation in favor of religion, an interest in Church
work--he is satisfied. His personal relation to God is no factor in
his work. Prayer has little or no place in his plans. The disaster and
ruin of such a ministry cannot be computed by earthly arithmetic. What
the preacher is in prayer to God, for himself, for his people, so is
his power for real good to men, so is his true fruitfulness, his true
fidelity to God, to man, for time, for eternity.
It is impossible for the preacher to keep his spirit in harmony with
the divine nature of his high calling without much prayer. That the
preacher by dint of duty and laborious fidelity to the work and routine
of the ministry can keep himself in trim and fitness is a serious
mistake. Even sermon-making, incessant and taxing as an art, as a duty,
as a work, or as a pleasure, will engross and harden, will estrange
the heart, by neglect of prayer, from God. The scientist loses God in
nature. The preacher may lose God in his sermon.
Prayer freshens the heart of the preacher, keeps it in tune with God
and in sympathy with the people, lifts his ministry out of the chilly
air of a profession, fructifies routine and moves every wheel with the
facility and power of a divine unction.
Mr. Spurgeon says: “Of course the preacher is above all others
distinguished as a man of prayer. He prays as an ordinary Christian,
else he were a hypocrite. He prays more than ordinary Christians,
else he were disqualified for the office he has undertaken. If you as
ministers are not very prayerful, you are to be pitied. If you become
lax in sacred devotion, not only will you need to be pitied but your
people also, and the day cometh in which you shall be ashamed and
confounded. All our libraries and studies are mere emptiness compared
with our closets. Our seasons of fasting and prayer at the Tabernacle
have been high days indeed; never has heaven’s gate stood wider; never
have our hearts been nearer the central Glory.”
The praying which makes a prayerful ministry is not a little praying
put in as we put flavor to give it a pleasant smack, but the praying
must be in the body, and form the blood and bones. Prayer is no petty
duty, put into a corner; no piecemeal performance made out of the
fragments of time which have been snatched from business and other
engagements of life; but it means that the best of our time, the heart
of our time and strength must be given. It does not mean the closet
absorbed in the study or swallowed up in the activities of ministerial
duties; but it means the closet first, the study and activities second,
both study and activities freshened and made efficient by the closet.
Prayer that affects one’s ministry must give tone to one’s life. The
praying which gives color and bent to character is no pleasant, hurried
pastime. It must enter as strongly into the heart and life as Christ’s
“strong crying and tears” did; must draw out the soul into an agony
of desire as Paul’s did; must be an inwrought fire and force like the
“effectual, fervent prayer” of James; must be of that quality which,
when put into the golden censer and incensed before God, works mighty
spiritual throes and revolutions.
Prayer is not a little habit pinned on to us while we were tied to
our mother’s apron strings; neither is it a little decent quarter of
a minute’s grace said over an hour’s dinner, but it is a most serious
work of our most serious years. It engages more of time and appetite
than our longest dinings or richest feasts. The prayer that makes much
of our preaching must be made much of. The character of our praying
will determine the character of our preaching. Light praying will make
light preaching. Prayer makes preaching strong, gives it unction, and
makes it stick. In every ministry weighty for good, prayer has always
been a serious business.
The preacher must be preëminently a man of prayer. His heart must
graduate in the school of prayer. In the school of prayer only can the
heart learn to preach. No learning can make up for the failure to pray.
No earnestness, no diligence, no study, no gifts will supply its lack.
Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is
greater still. He will never talk well and with real success to men
for God who has not learned well how to talk to God for men. More than
this, prayerless words in the pulpit and out of it are deadening words.