If cares distract, or fears dismay;
If guilt deject, if sin distress,
In every case, still watch and pray.”
How rich in its sweetness, how far-reaching in the realm of trouble,
and how cheering to faith, are the words of promise which God delivers
to His believing, praying ones, by the mouth of Isaiah:
“But now, thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob,
and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have
redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art
mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with
thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee:
when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be
burned: neither shall the flame kindle upon thee…. For I am
the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour.”
VI
PRAYER AND TROUBLE (_Continued_)
“My first message for heavenly relief went singing over
millions of miles of space in 1869, and brought relief to
my troubled heart. But, thanks be to Him, I have received
many delightful and helpful answers during the last fifty
years. I would think the commerce of the skies had gone
into bankruptcy if I did not hear frequently, since I have
learned how to ask and how to receive.”――REV. H. W. HODGE.
In the New Testament there are three words used which embrace trouble.
These are tribulation, suffering and affliction, words differing
somewhat, and yet each of them practically meaning trouble of some
kind. Our Lord put His disciples on notice that they might expect
tribulation in this life, teaching them that tribulation belonged to
this world, and they could not hope to escape it; that they would
not be carried through this life on flowery beds of ease. How hard
to learn this plain and patent lesson! “In the world ye shall have
tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” There is
the encouragement. As He had overcome the world and its tribulations,
so might they do the same.
Paul taught the same lesson throughout his ministry, when in confirming
the souls of the brethren, and exhorting them to continue in the
faith, he told them that “we must, through much tribulation, enter into
the kingdom of God.” He himself knew this by his own experience, for
his pathway was anything but smooth and flowery.
He it is who uses the word “suffering” to describe the troubles of
life, in that comforting passage in which he contrasts life’s troubles
with the final glory of heaven, which shall be the reward of all who
patiently endure the ills of Divine Providence:
“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are
not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be
revealed in us.”
And he it is who speaks of the afflictions which come to the people
of God in this world, and regards them as light as compared with the
weight of glory awaiting all who are submissive, patient and faithful
in all their troubles:
“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment,
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of
glory.”
But these present afflictions can work for us only as we co-operate
with God in prayer. As God works through prayer, it is only through
this means He can accomplish His highest ends for us. His Providence
works with greatest effect with His praying ones. These know the uses
of trouble and its gracious designs. The greatest value in trouble
comes to those who bow lowest before the throne.
Paul, in urging patience in tribulation, connects it directly with
prayer, as if prayer alone would place us where we could be patient
when tribulation comes. “Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation,
continuing instant in prayer.” He here couples up tribulation and
prayer, showing their close relationship and the worth of prayer in
begetting and culturing patience in tribulation. In fact there can
be no patience exemplified when trouble comes, only as it is secured
through instant and continued prayer. In the school of prayer is where
patience is learned and practiced.
Prayer brings us into that state of grace where tribulation is not only
endured, but where there is under it a spirit of rejoicing. In showing
the gracious benefits of justification, in Romans 5:3, Paul says:
“And not only so, but we glory in tribulation also:
knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience,
experience; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not
ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our
hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
What a chain of graces are here set forth as flowing from tribulation!
What successive steps to a high state of religious experience! And
what rich fruits result from even painful tribulation!
To the same effect are the words of Peter in his First Epistle, in his
strong prayer for those Christians to whom he writes; thus showing that
suffering and the highest state of grace are closely connected; and
intimating that it is through suffering we are to be brought to those
higher regions of Christian experience:
“But the God of all grace, who hath called us into his
eternal glory, by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered
awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen and settle
you.”
It is in the fires of suffering that God purifies His saints and brings
them to the highest things. It is in the furnace their faith is tested,
their patience is tried, and they are developed in all those rich
virtues which make up Christian character. It is while they are passing
through deep waters that He shows how close He can come to His praying,
believing saints.
It takes faith of a high order and a Christian experience far above the
average religion of this day, to count it joy when we are called to
pass through tribulation. God’s highest aim in dealing with His people
is in developing Christian character. He is after begetting in us those
rich virtues which belong to our Lord Jesus Christ. He is seeking to
make us like Himself. It is not so much work that He wants in us. It
is not greatness. It is the presence in us of patience, meekness,
submission to the Divine will, prayerfulness which brings everything to
Him. He seeks to beget His own image in us. And trouble in some form
tends to do this very thing, for this is the end and aim of trouble.
This is its work. This is the task it is called to perform. It is not
a chance incident in life, but has a design in view, just as it has
an All-wise Designer back of it, who makes trouble His agent to bring
forth the largest results.
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews gives us a perfect directory
of trouble, comprehensive, clear and worth while to be studied. Here
is “chastisement,” another word for trouble, coming from a Father’s
hand, showing God is in all the sad and afflictive events of life.
Here is its nature and its gracious design. It is not punishment
in the accurate meaning of that word, but the means God employs to
correct and discipline His children in dealing with them on earth.
Then we have the fact of the evidence of being His people, namely, the
presence of chastisement. The ultimate end is that we “may be partakers
of his holiness,” which is but another way of saying that all this
disciplinary process is to the end that God may make us like Himself.
What an encouragement, too, that, chastisement is no evidence of anger
or displeasure on God’s part, but is the strong proof of His love. Let
us read the entire directory on this important subject:
“And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh
unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the
chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of
him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth
every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God
dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the
father chasteneth not? But if ye are without chastisement,
whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not
sons.
“Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which
corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much
rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?
For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own
pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers
of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth
to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it
yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them which
are exercised thereby.”
Just as prayer is wide in its range, taking in everything, so trouble
is infinitely varied in its uses and designs. It takes trouble
sometimes to arrest attention, to stop men in the busy rush of life,
and to awaken them to a sense of their helplessness and their need and
sinfulness. Not till King Manasseh was bound with thorns and carried
away into a foreign land and got into deep trouble, was he awakened and
brought back to God. It was then he humbled himself and began to call
upon God.
The Prodigal Son was independent and self-sufficient when in
prosperity, but when money and friends departed, and he began to be in
want, then it was he “came to himself,” and decided to return to his
father’s house, with prayer and confession on his lips. Many a man who
has forgotten God has been arrested, caused to consider his ways, and
brought to remember God and pray by trouble. Blessed is trouble when it
accomplishes this in men!
It is for this among other reasons that Job says:
“Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth. Therefore,
despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty. For he
maketh sore, and bindeth up; he woundeth, and his hands
maketh whole. He shall deliver thee in six troubles; yea,
in seven there shall no evil touch thee.”
One thing more might be named. Trouble makes earth undesirable and
causes heaven to loom up large in the horizon of hope. There is a world
where trouble never comes. But the path of tribulation leads to that
world. Those who are there went there through tribulation. What a world
set before our longing eyes which appeals to our hopes, as sorrows like
a cyclone sweep over us! Hear John, as he talks about it and those who
are there:
“What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and
whence came they?… And he said to me, These are they which
came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb…. And God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”
“There I shall bathe my weary soul,
In seas of heavenly rest,
And not a wave of trouble roll,
Across my peaceful breast.”
Oh, children of God, ye who have suffered, who have been sorely tried,
whose sad experiences have often brought broken spirits and bleeding
hearts, cheer up! God is in all your troubles, and He will see that all
shall “work together for good,” if you will but be patient, submissive
and prayerful.
VII
PRAYER AND GOD’S WORK
“If Jacob’s desire had been given him in time for him to
get a good night’s sleep he might never have become the
prince of prayers we know today. If Hannah’s prayer for
a son had been answered at the time she set for herself,
the nation might never have known the mighty man of God it
found in Samuel. Hannah wanted only a son, but God wanted
more. He wanted a prophet, and a saviour, and a ruler for
His people. Some one said that ‘God had to get a woman
before He could get a man.’ This woman He got in Hannah
precisely by those weeks and months and years there came
a woman with a vision like God’s, with tempered soul and
gentle spirit and a seasoned will, prepared to be the kind
of a mother for the kind of a man God knew the nation
needed.”――W. E. BIEDERWOLF.
God has a great work on hand in this world. This work is involved in
the plan of salvation. It embraces redemption and providence. God is
governing this world, with its intelligent beings, for His own glory
and for their good. What, then, is God’s work in this world? Rather
what is the end He seeks in His great work? It is nothing short of
holiness of heart and life in the children of fallen Adam. Man is a
fallen creature, born with an evil nature, with an evil bent, unholy
propensities, sinful desires, wicked inclinations. Man is unholy by
nature, born so. “They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking
lies.”
God’s entire plan is to take hold of fallen man and to seek to change
him and make him holy. God’s work is to make holy men out of unholy
men. This is the very end of Christ coming into the world:
“For this purpose was the Son of God manifested that he
might destroy the works of the devil.”
God is holy in nature and in all His ways, and He wants to make man
like Himself.
“As he who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all
manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy,
for I am holy.”
This is being Christlike. This is following Jesus Christ. This is the
aim of all Christian effort. This is the earnest, heartfelt desire of
every truly regenerated soul. This is what is to be constantly and
earnestly prayed for. It is that we may be made holy. Not that we
must make ourselves holy, but we must be cleansed from all sin by the
precious atoning blood of Christ, and be made holy by the direct agency
of the Holy Spirit. Not that we are to _do_ holy, but rather to _be_
holy. Being must precede doing. First be, then do. First, obtain a holy
heart, then live a holy life. And for this high and gracious end God
has made the most ample provisions in the atoning work of our Lord and
through the agency of the Holy Spirit.
The work of God in the world is the implantation, the growth and
the perfection of holiness in His people. Keep this ever in mind.
But we might ask just now, Is this work advancing in the Church? Are
men and women being made holy? Is the present-day Church engaged in
the business of making holy men and women? This is not a vain and
speculative question. It is practical, pertinent and all important.
The present-day Church has vast machinery. Her activities are great,
and her material prosperity is unparalleled. The name of religion is
widely-spread and well-known. Much money comes into the Lord’s treasury
and is paid out. But here is the question: Does the work of holiness
keep pace with all this? Is the burden of the prayers of Church people
to be made holy? Are our preachers really holy men? Or to go back a
little further, are they hungering and thirsting after righteousness,
desiring the sincere milk of the Word that they may grow thereby? Are
they really seeking to be holy men? Of course men of intelligence are
greatly needed in the pulpit, but prior to that, and primary to it, is
the fact that we need holy men to stand before dying men and proclaim
the salvation of God to them.
Ministers, like laymen, and no more so than laymen, must be holy men
in life, in conversation and in temper. They must be examples to the
flock of God in all things. By their lives they are to preach as well
as to speak. Men in the pulpit are needed who are spotless in life,
circumspect in behaviour, “without rebuke and blameless in the midst
of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom they are to shine in the
world.” Are our preachers of this type of men? We are simply asking
the question. Let the reader make up his own judgment. Is the work of
holiness making progress among our preachers?
Again let us ask: Are our leading laymen examples of holiness? Are they
seeking holiness of heart and life? Are they praying men, ever praying
that God would fashion them according to His pattern of holiness? Are
their business ways without stain of sin, and their gains free from the
taint of wrong-doing? Have they the foundation of solid honesty, and
does uprightness bring them into elevation and influence? Does business
integrity and probity run parallel with religious activity, and with
churchly observance?
Then, while we are pursuing our investigation, seeking light as to
whether the work of God among His people is making progress, let us ask
further as to our women. Are the leading women of our churches dead to
the fashions of this world, separated from the world, not conformed
to the world’s maxims and customs? Are they in behaviour as becometh
holiness, teaching the young women by word and life the lessons of
soberness, obedience, and home-keeping? Are our women noted for their
praying habits? Are they patterns of prayer?
How searching are all these questions? And will any one dare say they
are impertinent and out of place? If God’s work be to make men and
women holy, and He has made ample provisions in the law of prayer of
doing this very thing, why should it be thought impertinent and useless
to propound such personal and pointed questions as these? They have to
do directly with the work and with its progress and its perfection.
They go to the very seat of the disease. They hit the spot.
We might as well face the situation first as last. There is no use to
shut our eyes to real facts. If the Church does not do this sort of
work――if the Church does not advance its members in holiness of heart
and life――then all our show of activities and all our display of Church
work are a delusion and a snare.
But let us ask as to another large and important class of people in our
churches. They are the hope of the future Church. To them all eyes are
turned. Are our young men and women growing in sober-mindedness and
reverence, and in all those graces which have their root in the renewed
heart, which mark solid and permanent advance in the Divine life? If we
are not growing in holiness, then we are doing nothing religious nor
abiding.
Material prosperity is not the infallible sign of spiritual prosperity.
The former may exist while the latter is significantly absent. Material
prosperity may easily blind the eyes of Church leaders, so much so
that they will make it a substitute for spiritual prosperity. How great
the need to watch at that point! Prosperity in money matters does not
signify growth in holiness. The seasons of material prosperity are
rarely seasons of spiritual advance, either to the individual or to the
Church. It is so easy to lose sight of God when goods increase. It is
so easy to lean on human agencies and cease praying and relying upon
God when material prosperity comes to the Church.
If it be contended that the work of God is progressing, and that we
are growing in holiness, then some perplexing questions arise which
will be hard to answer. If the Church is making advances on the lines
of deep spirituality――if we are a praying people, noted for our prayer
habits――if our people are hungering after holiness――then let us ask,
why do we now have so few mighty outpourings of the Holy Spirit on
our chief churches and our principal appointments? Why is it that so
few of our revivals spring from the life of the pastor, who is noted
for his deep spirituality, or the life of our church? Is the Lord’s
hand shortened that He cannot save? Is His ear heavy that He cannot
hear? Why is it that in order to have so-called revivals, we must have
outside pressure, by the reputation and sensation of some renowned
evangelist? This is largely true in our larger charges and with our
leading men. Why is it that the pastor is not sufficiently spiritual,
holy and in communion with God, that he cannot hold his own revival
services, and have large outpourings of the Holy Spirit on the Church,
the community and upon himself? There can be but one solution for all
this state of things. We have cultivated other things to the neglect of
the work of holiness. We have permitted our minds to be pre-occupied
with material things in the Church. Unfortunately, whether designedly
or not, we have substituted the external for the internal. We have put
that which is seen to the front and shut out that which is unseen. It
is all too true as to the Church, that we are much further advanced in
material matters than in matters spiritual.
But the cause of this sad state of things may be traced further back.
It is largely due to the decay of prayer. For with the decline of the
work of holiness there has come the decline of the business of praying.
As praying and holiness go together, so the decline of one, means the
decay of the other. Excuse it if we may, justify the present state of
things if we will, yet it is all too patent that the emphasis in the
work of the present-day Church is not put on prayer. And just as this
has occurred, the emphasis has been taken from the great work of God
set on foot in the atonement, holiness of heart and life. The Church
is not turning out praying men and women, because the Church is not
intently engaged in the one great work of holiness.
At one time, John Wesley saw that there was a perceptible decline in
the work of holiness, and he stopped short to inquire into the cause,
and if we are as honest and spiritual as he was, we will now see the
same causes operating to stay God’s work among us. In a letter to his
brother, Charles, at one time, he comes directly to the point, and
makes short, incisive work of it. Here is how he begins his letter:
“What has hindered the work? I want to consider this. And
must we not first say, we are the chief. If we were more
holy in heart and life, thoroughly devoted to God, would
not all the preachers catch fire, and carry it with them,
throughout the land?
“Is not the next hindrance the littleness of grace (rather
than of gifts) in a considerable part of our preachers?
They have not the whole mind that was in Christ. They do
not steadily walk as He walked. And, therefore, the hand of
the Lord is stayed, though not altogether; though He does
work still. But it is not in such a degree as He surely
would, were they holy as He that hath sent them is holy.
“Is not the third hindrance the littleness of grace in the
generality of our people? Therefore, they pray little,
and with little fervency for a general blessing. And,
therefore, their prayer has little power with God. It does
not, as once, shut and open heaven.
“Add to this, that as there is much of the spirit of the
world in their hearts, so there is much conformity to the
world in their lives. They ought to be bright and shining
lights, but they neither burn nor shine. They are not true
to the rules they profess to observe. They are not holy
in all manner of conversation. Nay, many of them are salt
that has lost its savour, the little savour they once had.
Wherewith then shall the rest of the land be seasoned?
What wonder that their neighbours are as unholy as ever?”
He strikes the spot. He hits the centre. He grades the cause. He freely
confesses that he and Charles are the first cause, in this decline of
holiness. The chief ones occupy positions of responsibility. As they
go, so goes the Church. They give colour to the Church. They largely
determine its character and its work. What holiness should mark these
chief men? What zeal should ever characterise them? What prayerfulness
should be seen in them! How influential they ought to be with God! If
the head be weak, then the whole body will feel the stroke.
The pastors come next in his catalogue. When the chief shepherds and
those who are under them, the immediate pastors, stay their advance
in holiness, the panic will reach to the end of the line. As are
the pastors, so will the people be as a rule. If the pastors are
prayerless, then will the people follow in their footsteps. If the
preacher be silent upon the work of holiness, then will there be no
hungering and thirsting after holiness in the laymen. If the preacher
be careless about obtaining the highest and best God has for him in
religious experience, then will the people take after him.
One statement of Wesley needs to be repeated with emphasis. The
littleness of grace, rather than the smallness of gifts,――this is
largely the case with the preachers. It may be stated as an axiom: That
the work of God fails as a general rule, more for the lack of grace,
than for the want of gifts. It is more than this. It is more than this,
for a full supply of grace brings an increase of gifts. It may be
repeated that small results, a low experience, a low religious life,
and pointless, powerless preaching always flow from a lack of grace.
And a lack of grace flows from a lack of praying. Great grace comes
from great praying.
“What is our calling’s glorious hope
But inward holiness?
For this to Jesus I look up,
I calmly wait for this.
“I wait till He shall touch me clean,
Shall life and power impart;
Give me the faith that casts out sin,
And purifies the heart.”