_You know the value of prayer: it is precious beyond all price.
Never, never neglect it._--SIR THOMAS BUXTON.
_Prayer is the first thing, the second thing, the third thing
necessary to a minister. Pray, then, my dear brother; pray, pray,
pray._--EDWARD PAYSON.
Prayer, in the preacher’s life, in the preacher’s study, in the
preacher’s pulpit, must be a conspicuous and an all-impregnating force
and an all-coloring ingredient. It must play no secondary part, be no
mere coating. To him it is given to be with his Lord “all night in
prayer.” The preacher, to train himself in self-denying prayer, is
charged to look to his Master, who, “rising up a great while before
day, went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.”
The preacher’s study ought to be a closet, a Bethel, an altar, a
vision, and a ladder, that every thought might ascend heavenward ere it
went manward; that every part of the sermon might be scented by the air
of heaven and made serious, because God was in the study.
As the engine never moves until the fire is kindled, so preaching, with
all its machinery, perfection, and polish, is at a dead standstill, as
far as spiritual results are concerned, till prayer has kindled and
created the steam. The texture, fineness, and strength of the sermon
is as so much rubbish unless the mighty impulse of prayer is in it,
through it, and behind it. The preacher must, by prayer, put God in the
sermon. The preacher must, by prayer, move God toward the people before
he can move the people to God by his words. The preacher must have
had audience and ready access to God before he can have access to the
people. An open way to God for the preacher is the surest pledge of an
open way to the people.
It is necessary to iterate and reiterate that prayer, as a mere habit,
as a performance gone through by routine or in a professional way, is a
dead and rotten thing. Such praying has no connection with the praying
for which we plead. We are stressing true praying, which engages
and sets on fire every high element of the preacher’s being--prayer
which is born of vital oneness with Christ and the fullness of the
Holy Ghost, which springs from the deep, overflowing fountains of
tender compassion, deathless solicitude for man’s eternal good; a
consuming zeal for the glory of God; a thorough conviction of the
preacher’s difficult and delicate work and of the imperative need of
God’s mightiest help. Praying grounded on these solemn and profound
convictions is the only true praying. Preaching backed by such praying
is the only preaching which sows the seeds of eternal life in human
hearts and builds men up for heaven.
It is true that there may be popular preaching, pleasant preaching,
taking preaching, preaching of much intellectual, literary, and brainy
force, with its measure and form of good, with little or no praying;
but the preaching which secures God’s end in preaching must be born of
prayer from text to exordium, delivered with the energy and spirit
of prayer, followed and made to germinate, and kept in vital force in
the hearts of the hearers by the preacher’s prayers, long after the
occasion has past.
We may excuse the spiritual poverty of our preaching in many ways,
but the true secret will be found in the lack of urgent prayer for
God’s presence in the power of the Holy Spirit. There are preachers
innumerable who can deliver masterful sermons after their order; but
the effects are short-lived and do not enter as a factor at all into
the regions of the spirit where the fearful war between God and Satan,
heaven and hell, is being waged because they are not made powerfully
militant and spiritually victorious by prayer.
The preachers who gain mighty results for God are the men who have
prevailed in their pleadings with God ere venturing to plead with men.
The preachers who are the mightiest in their closets with God are the
mightiest in their pulpits with men.
Preachers are human folks, and are exposed to and often caught by the
strong driftings of human currents. Praying is spiritual work; and
human nature does not like taxing, spiritual work. Human nature wants
to sail to heaven under a favoring breeze, a full, smooth sea. Prayer
is humbling work. It abases intellect and pride, crucifies vainglory,
and signs our spiritual bankruptcy, and all these are hard for flesh
and blood to bear. It is easier not to pray than to bear them. So
we come to one of the crying evils of these times, maybe of all
times--little or no praying. Of these two evils, perhaps little praying
is worse than no praying. Little praying is a kind of make-believe, a
salvo for the conscience, a farce and a delusion.
The little estimate we put on prayer is evident from the little time
we give to it. The time given to prayer by the average preacher
scarcely counts in the sum of the daily aggregate. Not infrequently
the preacher’s only praying is by his bedside in his nightdress, ready
for bed and soon in it, with, perchance, the addition of a few hasty
snatches of prayer ere he is dressed in the morning. How feeble, vain,
and little is such praying compared with the time and energy devoted
to praying by holy men in and out of the Bible! How poor and mean our
petty, childish praying is beside the habits of the true men of God in
all ages! To men who think praying their main business and devote time
to it according to this high estimate of its importance does God commit
the keys of his kingdom, and by them does he work his spiritual wonders
in this world. Great praying is the sign and seal of God’s great
leaders and the earnest of the conquering forces with which God will
crown their labors.
The preacher is commissioned to pray as well as to preach. His mission
is incomplete if he does not do both well. The preacher may speak
with all the eloquence of men and of angels; but unless he can pray
with a faith which draws all heaven to his aid, his preaching will be
“as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal” for permanent God-honoring,
soul-saving uses.