compare ourselves with some that commend themselves; but
they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing
themselves among themselves, are not wise. But we will not
boast of things without our measure, but according to the
measure of the rule which God hath distributed to us, a
measure to reach even unto you.”
No standard of religion is worth a moment’s consideration which leaves
prayer out of the account. No standard is worth any thought which does
not make prayer the main thing in religion. So necessary is prayer,
so fundamental in God’s plan, so all important to everything like a
religious life, that it enters into all Bible religion. Prayer itself
is a standard, definite, emphatic, Scriptural. A life of prayer is the
Divine rule. This is the pattern, just as our Lord, being a man of
prayer, is the one pattern for us after whom to copy. Prayer fashions
the pattern of a religious life. Prayer is the measure. Prayer molds
the life.
The vague, indefinite, popular view of religion has no prayer in it. In
its programme, prayer is entirely left out or put so low down and made
so insignificant, that it hardly is worth mentioning. Man’s standard of
religion has no prayer about it.
It is God’s standard at which we are to aim, not man’s. It is not the
opinions of men, not what they say, but what the Scriptures say. Loose
notions of religion grow out of low notions of prayer. Prayerlessness
begets loose, cloudy and indefinite views of what religion is. Aimless
living and prayerlessness go hand in hand. Prayer sets something
definite in the mind. Prayer seeks after something specific. The more
definite our views as to the nature and need of prayer, the more
definite will be our views of Christian experience and right living,
and the less vague our views of religion. A low standard of religion
lives hard by a low standard of praying.
Everything in a religious life depends upon being definite. The
definiteness of our religious experiences and of our living will depend
upon the definiteness of our views of what religion is and of the
things of which it consists.
The Scriptures ever set before us the one standard of full consecration
to God. This is the Divine rule. This is the human side of this
standard. The sacrifice acceptable to God must be a complete one,
entire, a whole burnt offering. This is the measure laid down in
God’s Word. Nothing less than this can be pleasing to God. Nothing
half-hearted can please Him. “A living sacrifice,” holy, and perfect
in all its parts, is the measurement of our service to God. A full
renunciation of self, a free recognition of God’s right to us, and
a sincere offering of all to Him――this is the Divine requirement.
Nothing indefinite in that. Nothing is in that which is governed by the
opinions of others or affected by how men live about us.
And while a life of prayer is embraced in such a full consecration,
at the same time prayer leads up to the point where a complete
consecration is made to God. Consecration is but the silent expression
of prayer. And the highest religious standard is the measure of prayer
and self-dedication to God. The prayer-life and the consecrated life
are partners in religion. They are so closely allied they are never
separated. The prayer life is the direct fruit of entire consecration
to God. Prayer is the natural outflow of a really consecrated life. The
measure of consecration is the measure of real prayer. No consecration
is pleasing to God which is not perfect in all its parts, just as no
burnt offering of a Jew was ever acceptable to God unless it was a
“whole burnt offering.” And a consecration of this sort, after this
Divine measurement, has in it as a basic principle, the business of
praying. Consecration is made to God. Prayer has to do with God.
Consecration is putting one’s self entirely at the disposal of God. And
God wants and commands all His consecrated ones to be praying ones.
This is the one definite standard at which we must aim. Lower than this
we cannot afford to seek.
A Scriptural standard of religion includes a clear religious
experience. Religion is nothing if not experimental. Religion appeals
to the inner consciousness. It is an experience if anything at all, and
an experience in addition to a religious life. There is the internal
part of religion as well as the external. Not only are we to “work out
our salvation with fear and trembling,” but “it is God that worketh in
us to will and do of His good pleasure.” There is a “good work in you,”
as well as a life outside to be lived. The new birth is a definite
Christian experience, proved by infallible marks, appealing to the
inner consciousness. The witness of the Spirit is not an indefinite,
vague something, but is a definite, clear inward assurance given by
the Holy Spirit that we are the children of God. In fact everything
belonging to religious experience is clear and definite, bringing
conscious joy, peace and love. And this is the Divine standard of
religion, a standard attained by earnest, constant prayer, and a
religious experience kept alive and enlarged by the same means of
prayer.
An end to be gained, to which effort is to be directed, is important
in every pursuit in order to give unity, energy and steadiness to it.
In the Christian life, such an end is all important. Without a high
standard before us to be gained, for which we are earnestly seeking,
lassitude will unnerve effort, and past experience will taint or exhale
into mere sentiment, or be hardened into cold, loveless principle.
We must go on. “Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of
Christ, let us go on unto perfection.” The present ground we occupy
must be held by making advances, and all the future must be covered and
brightened by it. In religion, we must not only go on. We must know
where we are going to. This is all important. It is essential that in
going on in religious experience, we have something definite in view,
and strike out for that one point. To ever go on and not to know to
which place we are going, is altogether too vague and indefinite,
and is like a man who starts out on a journey and does not have any
destination in view. It is important that we lose not sight of the
starting point in a religious life, and that we measure the steps
already trod. But it is likewise necessary that the end be kept in view
and that the steps necessary to reach the standard be always in the
eye.
X
PRAYER BORN OF COMPASSION
“Open your New Testament, take it with you to your knees,
and set Jesus Christ out of it before you. Are you like
David in the sixty-third Psalm? Is your soul thirsting
for God, and is your flesh longing for God in a dry and
thirsty land where no water is? Then set Jesus at the well
of Samaria before the eyes of your thirsty heart. And,
again set Him before your heart when He stood on the last
day, that great day of the feast, and cried, saying, ‘If
any man thirst let him come to me and drink.’ Or, are you
like David after the matter of Uriah? ‘For, day and night,
thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the
drouth of summer.’ Then set Him before you who says: ‘I am
not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are
sick.’… Or are you the unhappy father of a prodigal son?
Then, set your Father in heaven always before you: and
set the Son of God always before you as He composes and
preaches the parable of all parables for you and your son.”
――DR. ALEXANDER WHYTE.
We speak here more particularly of spiritual compassion, that which
is born in a renewed heart, and which finds hospitality there. This
compassion has in it the quality of mercy, is of the nature of pity,
and moves the soul with tenderness of feeling for others. Compassion is
moved at the sight of sin, sorrow and suffering. It stands at the other
extreme to indifference of spirit to the wants and woes of others,
and is far removed from insensibility and hardness of heart, in the
midst of want and trouble and wretchedness. Compassion stands besides
sympathy for others, is interested in them, and is concerned about them.
That which excites and develops compassion and puts it to work, is
the sight of multitudes in want and distress, and helpless to relieve
themselves. Helplessness especially appeals to compassion. Compassion
is silent but does not remain secluded. It goes out at the sight of
trouble, sin and need. Compassion runs out in earnest prayer, first of
all, for those for whom it feels, and has a sympathy for them. Prayer
for others is born of a sympathetic heart. Prayer is natural and almost
spontaneous when compassion is begotten in the heart. Prayer belongs to
the compassionate man.
There is a certain compassion which belongs to the natural man, which
expends its force in simple gifts to those in need, not to be despised.
But spiritual compassion, the kind born in a renewed heart, which
is Christly in its nature, is deeper, broader and more prayerlike.
Christly compassion always moves to prayer. This sort of compassion
goes beyond the relief of mere bodily wants, and saying, “Be ye
warmed――be ye clothed.” It reaches deeper down and goes much farther.
Compassion is not blind. Rather we should say, that compassion is not
born of blindness. He who has compassion of soul has eyes, first of
all, to see the things which excite compassion. He who has no eyes to
see the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the wants and woes of humanity,
will never have compassion for humanity. It is written of our Lord that
“when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them.”
First, seeing the multitudes, with their hunger, their woes and their
helpless condition, then compassion. Then prayer for the multitudes.
Hard is he, and far from being Christlike, who sees the multitudes, and
is unmoved at the sight of their sad state, their unhappiness and their
peril. He has no heart of prayer for men.
Compassion may not always move men, but is always moved _toward_ men.
Compassion may not always turn men to God, but it will, and does,
turn God to man. And where it is most helpless to relieve the needs
of others, it can at least break out into prayer to God for others.
Compassion is never indifferent, selfish, and forgetful of others.
Compassion has alone to do with others. The fact that the multitudes
were as sheep having no shepherd, was the one thing which appealed to
our Lord’s compassionate nature. Then their hunger moved Him, and the
sight of the sufferings and diseases of these multitudes stirred the
pity of His heart.
“Father of mercies, send Thy grace
All powerful from above,
To form in our obedient souls
The image of Thy love.
“O may our sympathising breasts
That generous pleasure know;
Kindly to share in others’ joy,
And weep for others’ woe.”
But compassion has not alone to do with the body and its disabilities
and needs. The soul’s distressing state, its needs and danger all
appeal to compassion. The highest state of grace is known by the
infallible mark of compassion for poor sinners. This sort of compassion
belongs to grace, and sees not alone the bodies of men, but their
immortal spirits, soiled by sin, unhappy in their condition without
God, and in imminent peril of being forever lost. When compassion
beholds this sight of dying men hurrying to the bar of God, then it is
that it breaks out into intercessions for sinful men. Then it is that
compassion speaks out after this fashion:
“But feeble my compassion proves,
And can but weep where most it loves;
Thy own all saving arm employ,
And turn these drops of grief to joy.”
The Prophet Jeremiah declares this about God, giving the reason why
sinners are not consumed by His wrath:
“It is of the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because
his compassions fail not.”
And it is this Divine quality in us which makes us so much like God.
So we find the Psalmist describing the righteous man who is pronounced
blessed by God: “He is gracious and full of compassion, and righteous.”
And as giving great encouragement to penitent praying sinners, the
Psalmist thus records some of the striking attributes of the Divine
character: “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger,
and of great mercy.”
It is no wonder, then, that we find it recorded several times of our
Lord while on earth that “he was moved with compassion.” Can any one
doubt that His compassion moved Him to pray for those suffering,
sorrowing ones who came across His pathway?
Paul was wonderfully interested in the religious welfare of his Jewish
brethren, was concerned over them, and his heart was strangely warmed
with tender compassion for their salvation, even though mistreated and
sorely persecuted by them. In writing to the Romans, we hear him thus
express himself:
“I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also
bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great
heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart; for I could
wish that myself were accursed for my brethren, my kinsmen
according to the flesh.”
What marvellous compassion is here described for Paul’s own nation!
What wonder that a little later on he records his desire and prayer:
“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel
is that they might be saved.”
We have an interesting case in Matthew which gives us an account of
what excited so largely the compassion of our Lord at one time:
“But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with
compassion on them, because they fainted, and were
scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith
he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous,
but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of
the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his
harvest.”
It seems from parallel statements that our Lord had called His
disciples aside to rest awhile, exhausted as He and they were by the
excessive drafts on them, by the ceaseless contact with the persons who
were ever coming and going, and by their exhaustive toil in ministering
to the immense multitudes. But the multitudes precede Him, and instead
of finding wilderness-solitude, quiet and repose, He finds great
multitudes eager to see and hear, and to be healed. His compassions
are moved. The ripened harvests need labourers. He did not call these
labourers at once, by sovereign authority, but charges the disciples to
betake themselves to God in prayer, asking Him to send forth labourers
into His harvest.
Here is the urgency of prayer enforced by the compassions of our Lord.
It is prayer born of compassion for perishing humanity. Prayer is
pressed on the Church for labourers to be sent into the harvest of the
Lord. The harvest will go to waste and perish without the labourers,
while the labourers must be God-chosen, God-sent, and God-commissioned.
But God does not send these labourers into His harvest without prayer.
The failure of the labourers is owing to the failure of prayer. The
scarcity of labourers in the harvest is due to the fact that the Church
fails to pray for labourers according to His command.
The ingathering of the harvests of earth for the granaries of heaven is
dependent on the prayers of God’s people. Prayer secures the labourers
sufficient in quantity and in quality for all the needs of the harvest.
God’s chosen labourers, God’s endowed labourers, and God’s thrust-forth
labourers, are the only ones who will truly go, filled with Christly
compassion and endued with Christly power, whose going will avail,
and these are secured by prayer. Christ’s people on their knees with
Christ’s compassion in their hearts for dying men and for needy souls,
exposed to eternal peril, is the pledge of labourers in numbers and
character to meet the wants of earth and the purposes of heaven.
God is sovereign of the earth and of heaven, and the choice of
labourers in His harvest He delegates to no one else. Prayer honours
Him as sovereign and moves Him to His wise and holy selection. We
will have to put prayer to the front ere the fields of paganism will
be successfully tilled for Christ. God knows His men, and He likewise
knows full well His work. Prayer gets God to send forth the best
men and the most fit men and the men best qualified to work in the
harvest. Moving the missionary cause by forces this side of God has
been its bane, its weakness and its failure. Compassion for the world
of sinners, fallen in Adam, but redeemed in Christ will move the Church
to pray for them and stir the Church to pray the Lord of the harvest to
send forth labourers into the harvest.
“Lord of the harvest hear
Thy needy servants’ cry;
Answer our faith’s effectual prayer,
And all our wants supply.
“Convert and send forth more
Into Thy Church abroad;
And let them speak Thy word of power,
As workers with their God.”
What a comfort and what hope there is to fill our breasts when we think
of one in Heaven who ever liveth to intercede for us, because “His
compassion fails not!” Above everything else, we have a compassionate
Saviour, one “who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them
who are out of the way, for that he himself is compassed about with
infirmity.” The compassion of our Lord well fits Him for being the
Great High Priest of Adam’s fallen, lost and helpless race.
And if He is filled with such compassion that it moves Him at the
Father’s right hand to intercede for us, then by every token we should
have the same compassion on the ignorant and those out of the way,
exposed to Divine wrath, as would move us to pray for them. Just
in so far as we are compassionate will we be prayerful for others.
Compassion does not expend its force in simply saying, “Be ye warmed;
be ye clothed,” but drives us to our knees in prayer for those who need
Christ and His grace.
“The Son of God in tears
The wondering angels see;
Be thou astonished, O my soul!
He shed those tears for thee.
“He wept that we might weep;
Each sin demands a tear;
In heaven alone no sin is found,
And there’s no weeping there.”
Jesus Christ was altogether man. While He was the Divine Son of
God yet at the same time, He was the human Son of God. Christ had
a pre-eminently human side, and, here, compassion reigned. He was
tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin. At one time how the
flesh seems to have weakened under the fearful strain upon Him, and
how He must have inwardly shrunk under the pain and pull! Looking up
to heaven, He prays, “Father, save me from this hour.” How the spirit
nerves and holds――“but for this cause came I to this hour.” Only he can
solve this mystery who has followed His Lord in straits and gloom and
pain, and realised that the “spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”
All this but fitted our Lord to be a compassionate Saviour. It is no
sin to feel the pain and realise the darkness on the path into which
God leads. It is only human to cry out against the pain, the terror,
and desolation of that hour. It is Divine to cry out to God in that
hour, even while shrinking and sinking down, “For this cause came I
unto this hour.” Shall I fail through the weakness of the flesh? No.
“Father, glorify thy name.” How strong it makes us, and how true, to
have one pole star to guide us to the glory of God!
XI
CONCERTED PRAYER
“A tourist, in climbing an Alpine summit, finds himself
tied by a strong rope to his trusty guide, and to three of
his fellow-tourists. As they skirt a perilous precipice
he cannot pray, ‘Lord, hold up _my_ goings in a safe
path, that _my_ footsteps slip not, but as to my guide
and companions, they must look out for themselves.’ The
only proper prayer in such a case is, ‘Lord, hold up _our_
goings in a safe path; for if one slips all of us may
perish.’”――H. CLAY TRUMBULL.
The pious Quesnel says that “God is found in union and agreement.
Nothing is more efficacious than this in prayer.”
Intercessions combine with prayers and supplications. The word
does not mean necessarily prayer in relation to others. It means a
coming together, a falling in with a most intimate friend for free,
unrestrained communion. It implies prayer, free, familiar and bold.
Our Lord deals with this question of the concert of prayer in the
eighteenth chapter of Matthew. He deals with the benefit and energy
resulting from the aggregation of prayer forces. The prayer principle
and the prayer promise will be best understood in the connection in
which it was made by our Lord:
“Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go
and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he
shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he
will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more,
that in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may
be established.
“And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the
church; but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be
unto thee as an heathen and a publican.
“Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth,
shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on
earth, shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you,
That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any
thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of
my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are
gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of
them.”
This represents the Church in prayer to enforce discipline in order
that its members who have been overtaken by faults, may yield readily
to the disciplinary process. In addition, it is the Church called
together in a concert of prayer in order to repair the waste and
friction ensuing upon the cutting off of a Church offender. This last
direction as to a concert of prayer is that the whole matter may be
referred to Almighty God for His approval and ratification.
All this means that the main, the concluding and the all powerful
agency in the Church is prayer, whether it be, as we have seen in
Matthew, 9th chapter, to thrust out labourers into God’s earthly
harvest fields, or to exclude from the Church a violator of unity,
law and order, who will neither listen to his brethren nor repent and
confess his fault.
It means that Church discipline, now a lost art in the modern Church,
must go hand in hand with prayer, and that the Church which has no
disposition to separate wrong doers from the Church, and which has
no excommunication spirit for incorrigible offenders against law and
order, will have no communication with God. Church purity must precede
the Church’s prayers. The unity of discipline in the Church precedes
the unity of prayers by the Church.
Let it be noted with emphasis that a Church which is careless of
discipline will be careless in praying. A Church which tolerates evil
doers in its communion, will cease to pray, will cease to pray with
agreement, and will cease to be a Church gathered together in prayer in
Christ’s name.
This matter of Church discipline is an important one in the Scriptures.
The need of watchfulness over the lives of its members belongs to the
Church of God. The Church is an organization for mutual help, and it is
charged with the watch care of all of its members. Disorderly conduct
cannot be passed by unnoticed. The course of procedure in such cases
is clearly given in the eighteenth chapter of Matthew, which has been
heretofore referred to. Furthermore, Paul, in Galatians 6:1, gives
explicit directions as to those who fall into sin in the Church:
“Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are
spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness,
considering thyself lest thou also be tempted.”
The work of the Church is not alone to seek members but it is to watch
over and guard them after they have entered the Church. And if any are
overtaken by sin, they must be sought out, and if they cannot be cured
of their faults, then excision must take place. This is the doctrine
our Lord lays down.
It is somewhat striking that the Church at Ephesus, (Rev. 2) though it
had left its first love, and had sadly declined in vital godliness and
in those things which make up spiritual life, yet it receives credit
for this good quality: “Thou canst not bear them that are evil.”