PAUL AND HIS REQUESTS FOR PRAYER
_I desire above all things to learn to pray. We want to sound the
reveille for the Christian warriors. We desire to find truth of the
lack of real praying. What is it? Why is it? Why so little time spent
in prayer when Christ, who had command of His time, chose to spend
great part of it in INTERCESSION? “He ever liveth to make intercession
for us.” We believe the answer to be the desire is in the heart, but
the will is undisciplined, the motive is present, but the affections
have not melted under hours of heavenly meditation; the intellect
is keen, yet not for hours of tireless research. The intellect and
the affections have never been linked together by the sealing of the
blessed Holy Ghost to do or die for God’s glory in the secret places,
with doors shut, lusts crucified._--REV. HOMER W. HODGE.
The many requests of Paul for prayer for himself, made to those to
whom he ministered, put prayer to the front in Paul’s estimate of its
possibilities. Paul prayed much himself, and tried hard to arouse
Christians to the imperative importance of the work of prayer. He
so deeply felt the need of prayer that he was given to the habit
of personal praying. Realizing this for himself, he pressed this
invaluable duty upon others. Intercessory prayer, or prayer for
others, occupied a high place in his estimate of prayer. It is no
surprise, therefore, when we find him throwing himself upon the prayers
of the churches to whom he wrote.
By all their devotion to Jesus Christ, by all their interest in the
advance of God’s kingdom on earth, by all the ardor of their personal
attachment to Jesus, he charges them to pray much, to pray unceasingly,
to pray at all times, to pray in all things, and to make praying a
business of praying. And then realizing his own dependence upon prayer
for his arduous duties, his sore trials and his heavy responsibilities,
he urges those to whom he wrote to pray especially for him.
The chief of the Apostles needed prayer. He needed the prayers of
others, for this he practically admitted in asking for their prayers.
His call to the apostleship did not lift him above this need. He
realized and acknowledged his dependence on prayer. He craved and
prized the prayers of all good people. He was not ashamed to solicit
prayers for himself nor to urge the brethren everywhere to pray for him.
In writing to the Hebrews, he bases his request for prayer on two
reasons, his honesty and his anxiety to visit them. If he were
insincere, he could lay no claim to their prayers. Praying for him, it
would be a powerful agent in facilitating his visit to them. They would
touch the secret place of the wind and the waves, and arrange all
secondary agencies and make them minister to this end. Praying puts God
in haste to do for us the things which we wish at His hands.
Paul’s frequent request of his brethren was that they would “pray
for him.” We are to judge of the value of a thing by the frequency
of asking for it, and by the special and urgent plea made for it. If
that be true, then with Paul the prayers of the saints were among his
greatest assets. By the urgency, iteration and reiteration of the
request, “Pray for me,” Paul showed conclusively the great value he put
upon prayer as a means of grace. Paul had no need so pressing as the
need of prayer. There were no values so appreciated and appreciable as
the prayers of the faithful.
Paul put the great factor of prayer as the great factor in his work.
The most powerful and far-reaching energy in Paul’s estimate is prayer.
He covets it and hoards it as he seeks the prayers of God’s people. The
earnestness of his soul goes out in these requests. Hear him in this
entreaty for prayer he is writing to the Romans:
“I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for
the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your
prayers for me.”
Prayers by others for Paul were valuable because they helped him. Great
helpers are prayers. Nothing gives so much aid to us in our needs
as real prayers. They supply needs and deliver from straits. Paul’s
faith, so he writes to the Corinthians, had been much tried, and he had
been much helped and much strengthened by God’s deliverance. “Ye also
helping by prayer.” What marvelous things has God done for His favored
saints through the prayers of others! The saints can help the saints
more by fervent praying than in any other way.
In the midst of envy and detraction, and in perils by false brethren,
he writes thus to the Philippians:
“For I know that this shall turn to my salvation though your prayer,
and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
“According to my expectation, and my hope, that in nothing I shall be
ashamed, but with all boldness as always, so now also Christ shall be
magnified in my body, whether it be by life or death.”
Shame was taken away, holy boldness secured, and life and death made
glorious by the prayers of the saints at Philippi for Paul.
Paul had many mighty forces in his ministry. His remarkable conversion
was a great force, a point of mighty projecting and propelling power,
and yet he did not in his ministry secure its results by the force
of his epochal conversion. His call to the apostleship was clear,
luminous, and all-convincing, but he did not depend on that for the
largest results in his ministry.
Paul’s course was more clearly marked out and his career rendered more
powerfully successful by prayer than by any other force.
Paul urges the Roman Christians to pray for him that he may be
delivered from unbelieving men. Prayer is a defense and protection
against the malignity and machinations of evil men. It can affect men
because God can affect them. Paul had not only unbelieving enemies
with whom to contend, but many Christians were prejudiced against him
to an extent which rendered it questionable whether they would accept
any Christian service at his hands. Especially was this the case at
Jerusalem, and so prayer, powerful prayer, must be used to remove the
mighty and pernicious force of prejudice, inflamed and deep-seated.
Prayer on their part for him must be used for his safety, and also that
a prosperous journey and God’s will might bring him speedily and surely
to them, in order to bless and refresh mutually the Roman Christians.
These prayer requests of Paul are many-sided and all-comprehensive.
How many things does his request to the Roman Church include! The
request for their prayers, like the Church to whom it is directed,
is cosmopolitan. He beseeches them, entreats them, a term indicating
intensity and earnestness, “for the sake of Jesus Christ, to strive
with him in their prayers for him.” This he desires that he may be
delivered from evil and designing men, who might hinder and embarrass
him in his mission, then further that his service for the poor saints
might be accepted by the saints, and that he might ultimately come unto
them with joy that they might be refreshed.
How full of heart earnestness is his request! How tender and loving
is his appeal! How touching and high is the motive to the highest
and truest form of prayer, “for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake!” Also
for the love we bear to the Spirit, or for the love which the Spirit
bears to us; by the ties of the holy brotherhood. By these lofty
and constraining motives does he urge them to pray for him and to
“strive with him” in their mutual praying. Paul is in the great prayer
struggle, a struggle in which the mightiest issues are involved and
imperiled; and he is in the midst of this struggle. He is committed
to it because Christ is in it. He needs help, help which comes alone
through prayer. So he pleads with his brethren to pray for him and with
him.
By prayer enemies are to be swept out of the way. By prayer prejudices
are to be driven out of the hearts of good men. His way to Jerusalem
would be cleared of difficulties, the success of his mission would
be secured, and the will of God and the good of the saints would be
accomplished. All these marvelous ends would be secured by marvelous
praying. Wonderful and world-wide are the results to be gained by
mighty praying. If all apostolic successors had prayed as Paul did, if
all Christians in all these ages had been one with apostolical men in
the mighty wrestlings of prayer, how marvelous and divine would have
been the history of God’s Church! How unparalleled would have been its
success! The glory of its millennium would have brightened and blessed
the world ages ago.
We see in Paul’s requests his estimate of the far-reaching power of
prayer. Not that prayer has in it any talismanic force, nor that it is
a fetish, but that it moves God to do things that it nominates. Prayer
has no magic, potent charm in itself, but is only all potent because it
gets the Omnipotent God to grant its request. A precedent basis in all
prayer as expressed or understood by Paul is that “Ye strive together
with me in your prayers for me.” It is of the nature of a severe
conflict in which Paul’s soul is engaged, a wrestle, a hand-to-hand
fight. The strain is severe and exhaustive to all the energies of the
soul, and the issue is tossed in uncertainty. Paul in this prayer
struggle needs reënforcements and divine help in his striving. He is in
the midst of the struggle, and will bear the brunt, but he solicits and
pleads for the help of others. Their prayers are just now needed. He
needs help to offer intense prayers.
Prayer is not inaptly called “wrestling,” because it is a most intense
struggle. To prayer there are the greatest hindrances and the most
inveterate foes. Mighty evil forces surge around the closets of prayer.
Enemies strong and strongly entrenched are about the closets where
praying is done. No feeble, listless act is this praying done by Paul.
In this thing he has “put away childish things.” The commonplace and
the tame have been retired. Paul must do this praying mightily or not
do it at all. Hell must feel and stagger under the mightiness of his
prayer stroke, or he strikes not at all. The strongest graces and
the manliest efforts are requisite here. Strength is demanded in the
praying done by Paul. Courage is at a premium in it. Timid touches
and faint-hearted desires avail nothing in the mind of Paul which we
are considering. Enemies are to be faced and routed and fields are to
be won. The most unflagging and invincible bravery and the highest
qualities of Christian soldierhood are demanded for prayer. It is a
trumpet call to prayer, a chieftain’s clarion note, sounded out for
earnest, persistent prayer as the great spiritual conflict rages.