'I will therefore that men pray every where,
lifting up holy hands without wrath and
doubting.'--1 TIM. ii. 8.
The context shows that this is part of the Apostle's directory for
public worship, and that, therefore, the terms of the first clause are
to be taken somewhat restrictedly. They teach the duty of the male
members of the Church to take public, audible part in its worship.
Everywhere, therefore, must here properly be taken in the restricted
signification of 'every place of Christian assembly.' And from the whole
passage there comes a picture of what sort of thing a meeting of the
primitive Church for worship was, very different from anything that we
see nowadays. 'Every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath an
exhortation.' I fancy that some of the eminently respectable and utterly
dead congregations which call themselves Christian Churches would be
very much astonished if they could see what used to be the manner of
Christian worship nineteen hundred years ago, and would get a new notion
of what was meant by 'decently, and in order.'
But we may fairly, I suppose, if once we confess that this is so, widen
somewhat the scope of these words, and take them rather as expressive of
the Apostle's desire and injunction, for the word that he used here, 'I
will,' is a very strong one, to all Christian people, be they men or
women, that they pray 'everywhere,' in the widest sense of that
expression, 'lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubting.'
I do not attempt anything more than just to go, step by step, through
the Apostle's words and gather up the duties which each enjoins.
'I will that men pray everywhere.' That is the same in spirit as the
Apostle's other command: 'Pray without ceasing; in everything give
thanks.' A very high ideal, but a very reasonable one, for unless we can
find some place where God is not, and where the telegraph between heaven
and earth is beyond our reach, there is no place where we should not
pray. And unless we can find a place where we do not want God, nor need
Him, there is no place where we should not pray. Because, then,
'everywhere' is equally near Him, and the straight road to His throne is
of the same length from every hole and corner of the world; therefore,
wherever men are, they ought to be clinging to His skirts, and reaching
out their open hands for His benefits; and because, wherever a man is,
there he utterly depends upon God, and needs the actual intervention of
His love, and the energising of His power for everything, even for his
physical life, so that he cannot wink his eyelashes without God's help,
therefore, 'In every place I will that men pray.'
And how is that to be done? First of all, by keeping out of all places
where it is impossible that we should pray; for although He is
everywhere, and we want Him everywhere, there are places--and some of us
know the roads to them but too well, and are but too often in
them--where prayer would be a strange incongruity. A man will not pray
over the counter of a public-house. A man will not pray over a sharp
bargain. A man will not pray that God may bless his outbursts of anger,
or sensuality and the like. A man will not pray when he feels that he is
deep down in some pit of self-caused alienation from God. The
possibility of praying in given circumstances is a sharp test, although
a very rough and ready one, whether we ought to be in these
circumstances or not. Do not let us go where we cannot take God with us;
and if we feel that it would be something like blasphemy to call to Him
from such a place, do not let us trust ourselves there. Jonah could pray
out of the belly of the fish, and there was no incongruity in that; but
many a professing Christian man gets swallowed up by monsters of the
deep, and durst not for very shame send up a prayer to God. Get out of
all such false positions.
But if the Apostle wills 'that men pray alway,' it must be possible
while going about business, study, daily work, work at home amongst the
children, work in the factory amongst spindles, work in the
counting-house amongst ledgers, work in the study amongst lexicons, not
only to pray whilst we are working, but to make work prayer, which is
even better. The old saying that is often quoted with admiration, 'work
is worship,' is only half true. There is a great deal of work that is
anything but worship. But it is true that if, in all that I do, I try to
realise my dependence on God for power; to look to Him for direction,
and to trust to Him for issue, then, whether I eat, or drink, or pray,
or study, or buy and sell, or marry or am given in marriage, all will be
worship of God. 'I will that men pray everywhere.' What a noble ideal,
and not an impossible or absurd one! This was not the false ideal of a
man that had withdrawn himself from duty in order to cultivate his own
soul, but the true ideal of one of the hardest workers that ever lived.
Paul could say 'I am pressed above measure, insomuch that I despair of
life, and that which cometh upon me daily is the care of all the
churches,' and yet driven, harassed beyond his strength with business
and cares as he was, he did himself what he bids us do. His life was
prayer, therefore his life was Christ, therefore he was equal to all
demands. None of us are as hard-worked, as heavily pressed, as much
hunted by imperative and baying dogs of duties as Paul was. It is
possible for us to obey this commandment and to pray everywhere. A
servant girl down on her knees doing the doorsteps may do that task from
such a motive, and with such accompaniments, as she dips her cloth into
the hot-water bucket, as to make even it prayer to God. We each can lift
all the littlenesses of our lives into a lofty region, if only we will
link them on to the throne of God by prayer.
There is another way by which this ideal can be attained, and that is to
cultivate the habit, which I think many Christian people do not
cultivate, of little short swallow-flights of prayer in the midst of our
daily work. 'They cried unto God in the battle, and He was entreated of
them.' If a Philistine sword was hanging over the man's head, do you
think he would have much time to drop down upon his knees, to make a
petition, divided into all the parts which divines tell us go to make up
the complete idea of prayer? I should think not; but he could say, 'Save
me, O Lord!' 'They cried to God in the battle--little, sharp, short
shrieks of prayer--and He was entreated of them.' If you would cast
swift electric flashes of that kind more frequently up to heaven, you
would bring down the blessings that very often do not come after the
most elaborate and proper and formal petitions. 'Lord, save or I
perish!' It did not take long to say that, but it made the difference
between drowning and deliverance.
Still further, notice the conditions of true prayer that are here
required. I will that men pray everywhere 'lifting up _holy_ hands.'
That is a piece of symbolism, of course. Apparently the Jewish attitude
of prayer was unlike ours. They seem to have stood during devotion and
to have elevated their hands with open, empty, upturned palms to heaven.
We clasp ours in entreaty, or fold them as a symbol of resignation and
submission. They lifted them, with the double idea, I suppose, of
offering themselves to God thereby, and of asking Him to put something
into the empty hand, just as a beggar says nothing, but holds out a
battered hat, in order to get a copper from a passer-by. The psalmist
desired that the lifting up of his hands might be as the 'evening
sacrifice.'
If a man stands with his open, empty palm held up to God, it is as much
as to say 'I need, I desire, I expect.' And these elements are what we
must have in our prayers; the sense of want, the longing for supply, the
anticipation of an answer. What do you hold out your hand for? Because
you expect me to drop something into it, because you want to get
something. How do you hold out your hand? Empty. And if I am clasping my
five fingers round some earthly good it is of no use to hold up that
hand to God. Nothing will come into it. How can it? He must first take
the imitation diamonds out of it or we must turn it round and shake them
out before He can fill it with real jewels. As for him who continues to
clutch worldly goods, 'let not that man think that he shall receive
anything of the Lord.' Empty the palm before you lift it.
Still further, says Paul, 'lifting up _holy_ hands.' That, of course,
needs no explanation. One of the psalms, you may remember, says 'I will
wash mine hands in innocency, so will I compass Thine altar.' The
psalmist felt that unless there was a previous lustration and cleansing,
it was vain for him to go round the altar. And you may remember how
sternly and eloquently the prophet Isaiah rebukes the hypocritical
worshippers in Jerusalem when he says to them, 'Your hands are full of
blood. Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings,' and
_then_ come and pray. A foul hand gets nothing from God. How can it?
God's best gift is of such a sort as cannot be laid upon a dirty palm. A
little sin dams back the whole of God's grace, and there are too many
men that pray, pray, pray, and never get any of the things that we pray
for, because there is something stopping the pipe, and they do not know
what it is, and perhaps would be very sorry to clear it out if they did.
But all the same, the channel of communication is blocked and stopped,
and it is impossible that any blessing should come. Geographers tell us
that a microscopic vegetable grows rapidly in one of the upper affluents
of the Nile, and makes a great dam across the river which keeps back the
water, and so makes one of the lakes which have recently been explored;
and then, when the dam breaks, the rising of the Nile fertilises Egypt.
Some of us have growing, unchecked, and unnoticed, in the innermost
channels of our hearts, little sins that mat themselves together and
keep increasing until the grace of God is utterly kept from permeating
the parched recesses of our spirits. 'I will that men pray, lifting up
holy hands,' and unless we do, alas! for us.
If these are the requirements, you will say, 'How can I pray at all?'
Well, do you remember what the Psalmist says? 'If I regard iniquity in
my heart, the Lord will not hear me,' but then he goes on, 'Blessed be
God, who hath not turned away my prayer nor His mercy from me.' It is
always true that if we regard iniquity in our hearts, if in our inmost
nature we love the sin, that stops the prayer from being answered. But,
blessed be God, it is not true that our having done the sin prevents our
petitions being granted. For the sin that is not regarded in the heart,
but is turned away from with loathing hath no intercepting power. So,
though the uplifted hands art stained, He will cleanse them if, as we
lift them to Him, we say, 'Lord, they are foul, if thou wilt Thou canst
make them clean.'
But the final requirement is: 'Without wrath or doubting.' I do not
think that Christian people generally recognise with sufficient
clearness the close and inseparable connection which subsists between
their right feelings towards their fellow-men and the acceptance of
their prayers with God. It is very instructive that here, alongside of
requirements which apply to our relations to God, the Apostle should put
so emphatically and plainly one which refers to our relations to our
fellows. An angry man is a very unfit man to pray, and a man who
cherishes in his heart any feelings of that nature towards anybody may
be quite sure that he is thereby shutting himself out from blessings
which otherwise might be his. We do not sufficiently realise, or act on
the importance, in regard to our relations with God, of our living in
charity with all men. 'First, go and be reconciled to thy brother,' is
as needful to-day as when the word was spoken.
'Without . . . doubting.' Have I the right to be perfectly sure that my
prayer will be answered? Yes and no. If my prayer is, as all true prayer
ought to be, the submission of my will to God's and not the forcing of
my will upon God, then I have the right to be perfectly sure. But if I
am only asking in self-will, for things that my own heart craves, that
is not prayer; that is dictation. That is sending instructions to
heaven; that is telling God what He ought to do. That is not the kind of
prayer that may be offered 'without doubting.' It might, indeed, be
offered, if offered at all, with the certainty that it will not be
answered. For this is the assurance on which we are to rest--and some of
us may think it is a very poor one--'we know that, if we ask anything
_according to His will_, He heareth us.' To get what we want would often
be our ruin. God loves His children a great deal too well to give them
serpents when they ask for them, thinking they are fish, or to give them
stones when they beseech Him for them, believing them to be bread. He
will never hand you a scorpion when you ask Him to give it you, because,
with its legs and its sting tucked under its body, it is like an egg.
We make mistakes in our naming of things and in our desires after
things, and it is only when we have learned to say 'Not my will but
Thine be done,' that we have the right to pray, 'without doubting.' If
we do so pray, certainly we receive. But a tremulous faith brings little
blessing, and small answer. An unsteady hand cannot hold the cup still
for Him to pour in the wine of His grace, but as the hand shakes, the
cup moves, and the precious gift is spilled. The still, submissive soul
will be filled, and the answer to its prayer will be, 'Whatsoever things
ye desire believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.'