 
The Essentials of Prayer

How Christians Ought to Pray

E. M. Bounds

Contents

Editor's Foreword

Ch. 1: Prayer Takes in the Whole Person

Ch. 2: Prayer and Humility

Ch. 3: Prayer and Devotion

Ch. 4: Prayer, Praise, and Thanksgiving

Ch. 5: Prayer and Trouble

Ch. 6: Prayer and Tribulation

Ch. 7: Prayer and God's Work

Ch. 8: Prayer and Consecration

Ch. 9: Prayer and a Definite Religious Standard

Ch. 10: Prayer Born of Compassion

Ch. 11: Concerted Prayer

Ch. 12: The Universality of Prayer

Ch. 13: Prayer and Missions

E. M. Bounds – A Brief Biography
Editor's Foreword

Edward McKendree Bounds, known as E.M. Bounds, was a twentieth-century American author and pastor who wrote eleven books – nine of them on the subject of prayer. Only two of his books were published before he died. After Bounds' death, Reverend Claudius Lysias Chilton Jr. – a friend who deeply admired Bounds – and later Reverend Homer W. Hodge worked to prepare Bounds' manuscripts for publication. This is one of the works published posthumously.

It has been more than a century since E. M. Bounds stepped into glory, but his words are still relevant. We have edited and revised The Essentials of Prayer to update the language for today's readers, all while working to preserve the meaning of the original text. Except where otherwise noted, Scripture passages throughout the book have been changed to the Jubilee Bible.

In the original foreword to the book, Hodge wrote, "The work of editing the Bounds Spiritual Life Books (of which the present volume is the sixth) has been a labor of love which has brought great profit and blessing to my own soul. . . . It was my great privilege to know the author well and also to know that his intention in everything he wrote was for the salvation of his readers. The Essentials of Prayer is sent forth in this spirit. May God bless it to many hearts and use it for the upbuilding and strengthening of Christian character through the length and breadth of the land."

With this updated version of The Essentials of Prayer, we hope a new audience may experience be helped by the writings of one of the Lord's most faithful servants of recent history.

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Chapter 1

Prayer Takes in the Whole Person

Dr. Henry Clay Trumbull spoke forth the infinite in the terms of our world, and the eternal in the forms of our human life. Some years ago, on a ferryboat, I met a gentleman who knew him, and I told him that when I had last seen Dr. Trumbull a fortnight before, he had spoken of him.

"Oh, yes," said my friend, "he was a great Christian, so real, so intense. He was at my home years ago and we were talking about prayer."

"Why, Trumbull," I said, "you don't mean to say if you lost a pencil, you would pray about it and ask God to help you find it."

"Of course, I would; of course, I would," was his instant and excited reply.

Of course, he would. Wasn't his faith a real thing? Like the Savior, he put his doctrine strongly by taking an extreme illustration to embody his principle, but the principle was fundamental. He did trust God in everything. And the Father honored the trust of his child. – Robert E. Speer

Prayer has to do with the entire person. Prayer takes in a person in his or her whole being – mind, soul, and body. It takes the whole person to pray, and prayer affects the entire person in its gracious results. As the whole nature of a person enters into prayer, so also all that belongs to him or her is the beneficiary of prayer. All of a person receives benefits in prayer. The whole person must be given to God in praying. The greatest results in praying come to the one who gives himself, all of himself, and all that belongs to himself to God. This is the secret of full consecration, and this is a condition of successful praying – the sort of praying that brings the largest fruits.

The people of long ago who operated well in prayer, who brought the largest things to pass and moved God to do great things, were those who were entirely given over to God in their praying. God wants, and must have, all that there is in us in answering our prayers. We must be wholehearted people through whom he can work out his purposes and plans concerning us. God must have us in our entirety. No double-minded people need apply. No vacillating person can be used. No person with a divided allegiance to God, the world, and self can do the praying that is needed.

Holiness is wholeness, and so God wants holy people – wholehearted and true – for his service and for the work of praying. And the very God of peace sanctify you completely, that your spirit, soul, and body be preserved whole without reprehension for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:23). These are the sort of people God wants for leaders of the hosts of Israel, and these are the kind that form the praying class. Man is a trinity in one, and yet man is neither a trinity nor a dual creature when he prays, but a unit. A person is one in all the essentials and acts and attitudes of piety. Soul, spirit, and body are to unite in all things pertaining to life and godliness.

Prayer Posture

First of all, the body engages in prayer, since it assumes the praying attitude in prayer. Prostration (bowing or kneeling) of the body becomes us in praying as well as prostration of the soul. The attitude of the body counts in prayer, although it is true that the heart might be haughty and lifted up, the mind listless and wandering, and the praying a mere form, even while the knees are bent in prayer.

Daniel kneeled three times a day in prayer. Solomon kneeled in prayer at the dedication of the temple. In Gethsemane, our Lord prostrated himself in that memorable time of praying just before his betrayal. Where there is earnest and faithful praying, the body always takes on the form most suited to the state of the soul at the time. To that extent, the body joins the soul in praying.

The entire person must pray. The whole person – life, heart, temper, and mind – is in it. Each and all join in the prayer exercise. Doubt, double-mindedness, and division of the affections are all foreign to private prayer. Character and conduct, undefiled and made whiter than snow, are mighty powers and are the most becoming beauties for the prayer hour and for the struggles of prayer.

A loyal intellect must conspire and add the energy and fire of its undoubting and undivided faith to that kind of an hour, the hour of prayer. Necessarily, the mind enters into the praying. First of all, it takes thought to pray. The intellect teaches us we ought to pray. By serious thinking beforehand, the mind prepares itself for approaching a throne of grace. Thought goes before entrance into the prayer closet and prepares the way for true praying. It considers what will be asked for in the closet hour. True praying does not leave to the inspiration of the hour what the requests of that hour will be.

Thought and Prayer

Since praying is asking for something definite of God, so the thought arises beforehand, "What shall I ask for at this hour?" All useless and evil and frivolous thoughts are eliminated, and the mind is given over entirely to God, thinking of him, what is needed, and what has been received in the past. By every token, prayer, in taking hold of the entire person, does not leave out the mind. The very first step in prayer is a mental one. The disciples took that first step when they said to Jesus at one time, Lord, teach us to pray (Luke 11:1). We must be taught through the intellect, but only to the extent the intellect is given up to God in prayer will we be able to learn the lesson of prayer well and readily.

Paul spreads the nature of prayer over the whole person. This is how it must be. It takes the whole person to embrace in its god-like sympathies the entire race of man – the sorrows, the sins, and the death of Adam's fallen race. It takes the whole person to run parallel with God's high and awe-inspiring will in saving mankind. It takes the whole man to stand with our Lord Jesus Christ as the one mediator between God and sinful man. This is the doctrine Paul teaches in his prayer directory in the second chapter of his first epistle to Timothy.

Nowhere does it appear as clear as it does in this teaching of Paul that it requires the entire person, in all departments of their being, to pray. It takes the whole being to pray until all the storms that agitate the soul are calmed to a great calm, until the stormy winds and waves cease as by a godlike spell. It takes the whole being to pray until cruel tyrants and unjust rulers are changed in their natures and lives as well as in their governing qualities, or until they cease to rule. It requires the entire person in praying until high and proud and unspiritual clergy become gentle, lowly, and religious, and godliness and gravity bear rule in church and in state, in home and in business, in public as well as in private life.

It is man's business to pray, and it takes bold people to do it. It is godly business to pray, and it takes godly people to do it. And it is godly people who give themselves entirely to prayer. Prayer is far reaching in its influence and in its gracious effects. It is an intense and profound business that deals with God and his plans and purposes, and it takes wholehearted people to do it. No half-hearted, half-brained, or half-spirited effort will do for this serious, all-important, heavenly business. The whole heart, the whole brain, and the whole spirit must be in the matter of praying, which is so powerful to affect the characters and destinies of people. Jesus said this to the scribe when he asked what the first and greatest commandment was:

Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy thought and with all thy strength: this is the principal commandment. (Mark 12:29-30)

In one word, the entire person must love God, without reservation. It takes the same entire person to do the praying that God requires of people. All the powers of the person must be engaged in it. God cannot tolerate a divided heart in the love he requires of people, and neither can he bear with a divided person in praying.

Wholehearted People

The psalmist teaches this very truth in these words: Blessed are those that keep his testimonies and that seek him with their whole heart (Psalm 119:2).

It takes wholehearted people to keep God's commandments, and it demands the same sort of people to seek God. These are the ones who are counted blessed. Upon these wholehearted ones, God's approval rests.

Bringing the case closer home to himself, the psalmist makes this declaration about his practice: With my whole heart I have sought thee; O let me not err from thy commandments (Psalm 119:10).

And further on, giving us his prayer for a wise and understanding heart, he tells us his purposes concerning the keeping of God's law: Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart (Psalm 119:34).

Just as it requires a whole heart given to God to obey God's commandments gladly and fully, so it takes a whole heart to do effective praying. Because it requires the whole person to pray, praying is no easy task. Praying is far more than simply bending the knee and saying a few words by rote.

'Tis not enough to bend the knee,

And words of prayer to say;

The heart must with the lips agree,

Or else we do not pray.

Praying is no light and trivial exercise. While children should be taught early to pray, praying is no child's task. Prayer draws upon the whole nature of a person. Prayer engages all the powers of a person's moral and spiritual nature. This somewhat explains the praying of our Lord described here:

Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, was heard because of his reverent fear. (Hebrews 5:7)

It takes only a moment's thought to see how such praying of our Lord drew mightily on all the powers of his being and called into exercise every part of his nature. This is the praying that brings the soul close to God and brings God down to earth.

Body, soul, and spirit are taxed and brought under tribute to prayer. David Brainerd said of his praying, "God enabled me to agonize in prayer till I was wet with perspiration, though in the shade and in a cool place."

The Son of God in Gethsemane was in an agony of prayer that engaged his whole being:

And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he withdrew from them about a stone's cast and kneeled down and prayed, saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:40-44)

Here was praying that laid its hands on every part of our Lord's nature and called forth all the powers of his soul, his mind, and his body. This was praying that took in the entire man.

Paul was acquainted with this kind of praying. In writing to the Roman Christians, he urged them to pray with him in this way: But I beseech you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the charity of the Spirit, that ye help me with prayers to God for me (Romans 15:30).

The words that ye help me, or as it says in the King James version – strive together with me, tell of Paul's praying and how much he put into it. It is not a docile request, not a little thing, this sort of praying, this striving with me. It is of the nature of a great battle to be fought, a conflict to win. The praying Christian, as the soldier, fights a life-and-death struggle. His or her honor, immortality, and eternal life are all in it. This is praying as athletes who struggle for the mastery and the victory, as they wrestle or run a race. Everything depends on the strength they put in it. Energy, passion, swiftness, and every power of their nature is in it. Every power is quickened and strained to its very utmost. Littleness, half-heartedness, weakness, and laziness are all absent.

Blessing Through Prayer

Just as it takes the whole person to pray successfully, so in turn the whole person receives the benefits of such praying. As every part of one's complex being enters into true praying, so every part of that same nature receives blessings from God in answer to such praying. This kind of praying engages our undivided hearts, our full consent to be the Lord's, and our whole desires.

God sees to it that when the whole person prays, the whole person will be blessed. Our body takes in the good of praying, for much praying is done specifically for the body. Food and clothing, health and bodily strength come in answer to praying. Clear mental action, right thinking, an enlightened understanding, and safe reasoning powers come from praying. Divine guidance means God is moving and impressing the mind such that we will make wise and safe decisions. He will cause the humble to pass through the judgment, and the meek he will teach his way (Psalm 25:9).

Many a praying preacher has been greatly helped at this point. The fervor of the Holy One that comes upon the preacher invigorates the mind, loosens up thought, and gives expression. This is the explanation of former days when men of very limited education had such wonderful liberty of the Spirit in praying and in preaching. Their thoughts flowed as a stream of water. Their entire intellectual machinery felt the impulse of the divine Spirit's gracious influences.

And, of course, the soul receives large benefits in this sort of praying. Thousands can testify to this statement. So, we repeat, that as the entire person comes into play in true, earnest, and effective praying, so the entire person – soul, mind, and body – receives the benefits of prayer.

* * *

 A hymn by John Burton (1803-1877).
Chapter 2

Prayer and Humility

If two angels were to receive at the same moment a commission from God, one to go down and rule earth's grandest empire and the other to go and sweep the streets of its meanest village, it would be a matter of entire indifference to each which service fell to his lot, the post of ruler or the post of scavenger. For the joy of the angels lies only in obedience to God's will, and with equal joy they would lift a Lazarus in his rags to Abraham's bosom or be a chariot of fire to carry an Elijah home. – John Newton

To be humble is to have a low estimate of oneself. It is to be modest and lowly with a disposition to seek obscurity. Humility retires itself from the public gaze. It does not seek publicity nor hunt for high places or care for prominence. Humility is retiring in its nature. Self-abasement belongs to humility. It is given to self-deprecation. It never exalts itself in the eyes of others nor in the eyes of itself. Modesty is one of its most prominent characteristics.

Making Little of Self

In humility there is the total absence of pride, and it is at the furthest distance from anything like self-conceit. There is no self-praise in humility. Rather, it has the disposition to praise others. It is loving one another with brotherly love, with honour preferring one another (Romans 12:10). It is not given to self-exaltation. Humility does not love the uppermost seats and aspire to the high places. It is willing to take the lowliest seat and prefers those places where it will be unnoticed. The prayer of humility follows this example:

Never let the world break in,

Fix a mighty gulf between;

Keep me humble and unknown,

Prized and loved by God alone.

Humility does not have its eyes on self but rather on God and others. It is poor in spirit, meek in behavior, and lowly in heart. It is with all humility and meekness, with tolerance, forbearing one another in love (Ephesians 4:2).

The parable of the Pharisee and publican is a short sermon on humility and self-praise. The Pharisee, given over to self-conceit and wrapped up in himself, saw only his own self-righteous deeds, listed his virtues before God, and despised the poor publican who stood far off. He exalted himself, gave himself over to self-praise, was self-centered, and went away unjustified, condemned, and rejected by God.

The publican – a tax collector – saw no good in himself. He was overwhelmed with self-deprecation and far removed from anything that would take credit for any good in himself. He did not presume to lift his eyes to heaven, but with downcast countenance he struck himself on his breast and cried out, God, reconcile me, a sinner (Luke 18:13). The King James Version says, God be merciful to me a sinner.

With great preciseness our Lord gave us the sequel to the story of these two men – one utterly devoid of humility, the other utterly submerged in the spirit of self-deprecation and lowliness of mind. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for anyone that exalts himself shall be humbled, and he that humbles himself shall be exalted (Luke 18:14).

God puts a great price on humility of heart. It is good to be clothed with humility as with a garment. It is written, But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble (James 4:6). Humility of the heart is what brings the praying soul near to God. Lowliness of mind is what gives wings to prayer. Self-deprecation gives ready access to the throne of grace. Pride, self-esteem, and self-praise effectively shut the door of prayer. The ones who would come to God must approach him with self hidden from their own eyes. They must not be puffed up with self-conceit nor possessed with an overestimate of their virtues and good works.

Humility is a rare Christian grace of great price in the courts of heaven, entering into and being an inseparable condition of effective praying. It gives access to God when other qualities fail. It takes many descriptions to describe it and many definitions to define it. It is a rare and modest grace. Its full portrait is found only in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our prayers must be set low before they can ever rise high. Our prayers must have much of the dust on them before they can ever have much of the glory of the skies in them.

In our Lord's teaching, humility has such prominence in his system of religion and is such a distinguishing feature of his character that to leave it out of this lesson on prayer would be inappropriate, would not align with his character, and would not fit into his religious system.

The parable of the Pharisee and publican stands out in such bold relief that we must again refer to it. The Pharisee seemed to be accustomed to prayer. Certainly, he should have known by that time how to pray, but regrettably, like many others, he seemed to never have learned this invaluable lesson. He left business and business hours and walked with steady and fixed steps up to the house of prayer. The position and place were well chosen by him. There were the sacred place, the sacred hour, and the sacred name; each were invoked by this seemingly praying man. But this praying man of the church, though educated about prayer by training and by habit, did not pray. He uttered words, but the words were not prayer. God heard his words only to condemn him.

A death-chill came from those formal lips of prayer – a death-curse from God was on his words of prayer. An elixir of pride had entirely poisoned the prayer offering of that hour. His entire praying was saturated with self-praise, self-congratulation, and self-exaltation. That season of temple-going had had no worship whatsoever in it.

On the other hand, the publican, smitten with a deep sense of his sins and his inward sinfulness, realized how poor in spirit he was – utterly devoid of anything like righteousness, goodness, or any quality that would commend him to God. His pride within was utterly blasted and dead; he fell down with humiliation and despair before God, while he uttered a sharp cry for mercy for his sins and his guilt. A sense of sin and a realization of utter unworthiness had fixed the roots of humility deep down in his soul and oppressed his self, his eye, and his heart downward to the dust.

This is the picture of humility against pride in praying. Here we see by sharp contrast the utter worthlessness of self-righteousness, self-exaltation, and self-praise in praying; we see the great value, the beauty, and the divine approval that comes with humility of heart, self-deprecation, and self-condemnation when a soul comes before God in prayer.

Happy are the ones who have no righteousness of their own to plead and no goodness of their own of which to boast. Humility flourishes in the soil of a true and deep sense of our sinfulness and our nothingness. Nowhere does humility grow so abundantly and so rapidly and shine so brilliantly as when it feels all guilt, confesses all sin, and trusts all grace. In his hymn, Charles Wesley wrote, "I the chief of sinners am, but Jesus died for me."

That is praying ground, the ground of humility, low down, seeming far away, but in reality brought near by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. God dwells in the lowly places. He makes such lowly places really the high places to the praying soul.

Let the world their virtue boast,

Their works of righteousness;

I, a wretch undone and lost,

Am freely saved by grace;

Other tide I disclaim,

This, only this, is all my plea,

I the chief of sinners am,

But Jesus died for me.

Humility is an indispensable requisite of true prayer. It must be an attribute and a characteristic of prayer. Humility must be in the praying character as light is in the sun. Prayer has no beginning, no ending, and no being without humility. As a ship is made for the sea, so prayer is made for humility, and so humility is made for prayer.

The Source of Humility

Humility is not abstraction from self, nor does it ignore thought about self. It is a many phased principle. Humility is born by looking at God and his holiness and then looking at self and man's unholiness. Humility loves obscurity and silence, dreads applause, esteems the virtues of others, excuses their faults with mildness, pardons injuries, fears contempt less and less, and sees wickedness and falsehood in pride. A true nobleness and greatness are in humility. It knows and reveres the immeasurable riches of the cross and the humiliations of Jesus Christ. It fears the luster of those virtues admired by people but loves those that are more secret and prized by God. It draws comfort from its own defects through the disgrace they bring about. It prefers any degree of penitence before all enlightenment in the world.

The definable grace of humility, which is so perfectly drawn in the publican's prayer and so entirely absent from the prayer of the Pharisee, is a portrait of this description. It takes many sessions with the artist to get a good depiction of it.

Humility holds the very life of prayer in its possession. Neither pride nor vanity can pray. Humility, though, is much more than the absence of vanity and pride. It is a positive quality, a substantial force that energizes prayer. There is no power in prayer to ascend without it. Humility springs from a lowly estimate of ourselves and of our rights. The Pharisee prayed – though well-schooled and accustomed to praying – not because there was humility in his praying. The publican prayed – though banned by the public and receiving no encouragement from church sentiment – because he prayed in humility.

To be clothed with humility is to be clothed with a praying garment. Humility is just feeling little because we are little. Humility is realizing our unworthiness because we are unworthy; it is feeling and declaring ourselves sinners because we are sinners. Kneeling suits us well as the attitude of prayer because it indicates humility.

The Pharisee's proud estimate of himself and his supreme contempt for his neighbor closed the gates of prayer to him, while humility opened wide those gates to the defamed and reviled publican.

Proud estimates of work and wrong estimates of prayer call out that fearful saying of our Lord in the latter part of the Sermon on the Mount about the works of big, religious workers:

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in the heavens. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7:21-23)

Christlike Qualities

Humility is the first and last attribute of Christlike religion and the first and last attribute of Christlike praying. There is no Christ without humility. There is no praying without humility. If you would learn well the art of praying, then learn well the lesson of humility.

How graceful and imperative the attitude of humility becomes to us! Humility is one of the unchanging and exacting attitudes of prayer. Dust, ashes, earth upon the head, sackcloth for the body, and fasting for the appetites were the symbols of humility for the Old Testament saints. Sackcloth, fasting, and ashes brought Daniel a lowliness before God and brought Gabriel to him. The angels are fond of the sackcloth-and-ashes people.

How lowly the attitude of Abraham, the friend of God, was when pleading for God to delay his wrath against Sodom! He said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, who am but dust and ashes (Genesis 18:27). What humility Solomon had when he appeared before God! His grandeur was diminished, and his glory and majesty were retired as he assumed the rightful attitude before God: I am but a tender young man; I do not know how to go out or come in (1 Kings 3:7).

The pride of doing sends its poison all through our praying. The same pride of being infects all our prayers, no matter how well-worded they may be. It was this lack of humility, this self-applauding, this self-exaltation that kept the most religious man of Christ's day from being accepted by God. And the same thing will keep us in this day from being accepted by him.

O that now I might decrease!

O that all I am might cease!

Let me into nothing fall!

Let my Lord be all in all.

* * *

 A hymn by Charles Wesley (1707-1788).

 From a hymn by Charles Wesley (1707-1788).

 A hymn by Charles Wesley.
Chapter 3

Prayer and Devotion

Once as I rode out into the woods for my health in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a retired place, as my manner commonly had been to walk for divine contemplation and prayer. I had a view that for me was extraordinary – of the glory of the Son of God. As near as I can judge, this continued about an hour and kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears and weeping aloud. I felt an ardency of soul to be what I know not otherwise how to express, emptied and annihilated, to love him with a holy and pure love, to serve and follow him, to be perfectly sanctified and made pure with a divine and heavenly purity. – Jonathan Edwards

Devotion has a religious significance. The root of devotion is to devote to a sacred use, so in its true sense devotion has to do with religious worship. It stands intimately connected with true prayer. Devotion is the particular frame of mind found in one who is entirely devoted to God. It is the spirit of reverence, awe, and godly fear. It is a state of heart that appears before God in prayer and worship. It is foreign to everything like lightness of spirit and is opposed to levity and noise and bluster. Devotion dwells in the realm of quietness and is still before God. It is serious, thoughtful, and meditative.

Devotion belongs to the inner life and lives in the prayer closet but also appears in the public services of the sanctuary. It is a part of the very spirit of true worship and is of the nature of the spirit of prayer.

Dedicated to Prayer

Devotion belongs to the devout person whose thoughts and feelings are devoted to God. Such a person has a mind given up wholly to religion and possesses a strong affection for God and an ardent love for his house. Cornelius was a devout man and one that feared God with all his house, who gave many alms to the people and prayed to God always (Acts 10:2). Devout men carried Stephen to his burial (Acts 8:2). And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, was sent unto Saul when he was blind to tell him what the Lord would have him do (Acts 22:12). God can wonderfully use such people, for devout people are his chosen agents in carrying forward his plans.

Prayer promotes the spirit of devotion, while devotion is favorable to the best praying. Devotion furthers prayer and helps to drive prayer home to the object it seeks. Prayer thrives in the atmosphere of true devotion. It is easy to pray when in the spirit of devotion. The attitude of mind and the state of heart implied in devotion make prayer effective in reaching the throne of grace. God dwells where the spirit of devotion resides. All the graces of the Spirit are nourished and grow well in the environment created by devotion. These graces grow nowhere else but here. The absence of a devotional spirit means death to the graces born in a renewed heart. True worship finds congeniality in the atmosphere made by a spirit of devotion. While prayer is helpful to devotion, at the same time devotion reacts on prayer and helps us to pray.

Devotion engages the heart in prayer. It is not an easy task for the lips to try to pray while the heart is absent from it. Therefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people sacrifice unto me and honour me with their lips, but have removed their heart far from me, and their worship with which they honour me was taught by the commandment of men (Isaiah 29:13). God charged ancient Israel at one time that they honored him with their lips while their hearts were far from him.

The very essence of prayer is the spirit of devotion. Without devotion, prayer is an empty form – a vain round of words. Sad to say, much of this kind of prayer prevails today in the church. This is a busy age, bustling and active, and this bustling spirit has invaded the church of God. Its religious performances are many. The church works at religion with the order, precision, and force of real machinery, but too often it works with the heartlessness of the machine. There is a lot of treadmill movement in our ceaseless sequence of events and routine of religious doings. We pray without praying. We sing without singing with the Spirit and the understanding. We have music without the praise of God being in it or near it. We go to church by habit and come home all too gladly when the benediction is pronounced. We read our accustomed chapter in the Bible and feel quite relieved when the task is done. We say our prayers by rote, as a schoolboy recites his lesson and are not sorry when the amen is uttered.

Religion has to do with everything but our hearts. It engages our hands and feet, it takes hold of our voices, and it lays its hands on our money. It affects even the postures of our bodies, but it does not take hold of our affections, our desires, or our zeal. It does not make us serious, desperately in earnest, and cause us to be quiet and worshipful in the presence of God. Social affinities attract us to the house of God but not to the spirit of the occasion. Church membership keeps us decent in outward conduct and with some shadow of loyalty to our baptismal vows to a certain extent, but the heart is not in it. The heart remains cold, formal, and unimpressed amid all this outward performance, while we give ourselves over to self-congratulation that we are doing wonderfully well religiously.

A Spirit of Devotion

Why all these sad defects in our piety? Why this modern perversion of the true nature of the religion of Jesus Christ? Why is the modern type of religion so much like a jewel case with the precious jewels gone? Why is there so much of this handling religion with the hands, often not too clean or unsoiled, and so little of it felt in the heart and witnessed in the life?

The great lack of modern religion is the spirit of devotion. We hear sermons in the same spirit with which we listen to a lecture or hear a speech. We visit the house of God just as if it were a common place on a level with the theater, the lecture room, or the forum. We look upon the minister of God, not as the divinely called person of God but merely as a sort of public speaker on a plane with the politician, the lawyer, the average speech maker, or the lecturer. Oh, how the spirit of true and genuine devotion would radically change all this for the better! We handle sacred things just as if they were the things of the world. Even the sacrament of the Lord's Supper becomes a mere religious performance with no preparation for it beforehand and no meditation and prayer afterward. Even the sacrament of baptism has lost much of its solemnity and has degenerated into a mere form with nothing significant about it.

We need the spirit of devotion not only to cure our worldliness but to pray real prayers. We need to put the spirit of devotion into Monday's business as well as in Sunday's worship. We need the spirit of devotion to always recollect the presence of God, to be always doing the will of God, and to direct all things to the glory of God.

The spirit of devotion puts God in all things. It puts God not merely in our praying and churchgoing but in all the concerns of life. Whether therefore ye eat or drink or whatever ye do, do everything for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). The spirit of devotion makes the common things of earth sacred and the little things great. With this spirit of devotion, we go to business on Monday, directed by the very same influence and inspired by the same influences by which we went to church on Sunday. The spirit of devotion makes a Sabbath out of Saturday and transforms the shop and the office into a temple of God.

The spirit of devotion removes religion from being a thin veneer and puts it into the very life and being of our souls. With it, religion ceases to be doing a mere work and becomes a heart sending its rich blood through every artery and beating with the pulsations of vigorous and radiant life.

The spirit of devotion is not merely the aroma of religion but the stalk and stem on which religion grows. It is the salt that penetrates and makes all religious acts savory. It is the sugar that sweetens duty, self-denial, and sacrifice. It is the bright coloring that relieves the dullness of religious performances. It dispels frivolity, drives away all skin-deep forms of worship, and makes worship a serious and deep-seated service, permeating body, soul, and spirit with its heavenly infusion. Let's ask in all seriousness – has this highest spirit of heaven, this heavenly spirit of devotion, this brightest and best of earth left us? When the spirit of devotion has gone, the spirit of prayer has lost its wings, and it becomes a deformed and loveless thing.

All Creatures Worship

The passion of devotion is in prayer. In Scripture we read, and they did not cease day or night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come (Revelation 4:8). The inspiration and center of their rapturous devotion is the holiness of God. That holiness of God claims their attention and inflames their devotion. There is nothing cold, nothing dull, and nothing wearisome about them or their heavenly worship. They did not cease day or night. What zeal! What never-fainting passion and ceaseless rapture! The ministry of prayer, if it is anything worthy of the name, is a ministry of intensity – a ministry of unwearied and intense longing after God and after his holiness.

The spirit of devotion pervades the saints in heaven and characterizes the worship of heaven's angelic intelligences. No creatures without devotion are in that heavenly world. God is there, and his very presence begets the spirit of reverence, of awe, and of familial fear. If we would be partakers with them after death, we must first learn the spirit of devotion on earth before we get there.

These living creatures in their restless, tireless attitude following after God and their rapt devotion to his holiness are the perfect symbols and illustrations of true prayer and its ardor. Prayer must be aflame. Its passion must consume. Prayer without fervor is as a sun without light or heat, or as a flower without beauty or fragrance. A soul devoted to God is a fervent soul, and prayer is the creature of that flame. The only one who can truly pray is the one all aglow for holiness, for God, and for heaven.

Busyness is not Devotion

Activity is not strength. Work is not zeal. Moving about is not devotion. Activity often is the unrecognized symptom of spiritual weakness. It may be hurtful to piety when made the substitute for real devotion in worship. The colt is much more active than its mother, but she is the wheel horse of the team, pulling the load without noise or bluster or show. The child is more active than the father, who may bear the rule and burdens of an empire on his heart and shoulders. Enthusiasm is more active than faith, though it cannot remove mountains nor call into action any of the omnipotent forces that faith can command.

A feeble, lively, showy religious activity may spring from many causes. There is much running around, much stirring about, and much going here and there in present-day church life, but sad to say, the spirit of genuine, heartfelt devotion is strangely lacking. If there is real spiritual life, a deep-toned activity will spring from it. But it is an activity springing from strength and not from weakness. It is an activity that has deep roots, many and strong.

In the nature of things, religion must show much of its growth above ground. Much will be seen and be evident to the eye. The flower and fruit of a holy life that abounds in good works must be seen. It cannot be otherwise. But the surface growth must be based on a vigorous growth of unseen life and hidden roots. The roots of religion must go deep down in the renewed nature that is seen on the outside. The external must have a deep internal groundwork. There must be much of the invisible and the underground growth, or the life will be feeble and short-lived and the external growth sickly and fruitless.

In the book of the prophet Isaiah these words are written:

But those that wait for the Lord shall have new strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

This is the genesis of the whole matter of activity and strength of the most energetic, exhaustless, and untiring nature. All this is the result of waiting on God.

There may be a lot of activity induced by drill and created by enthusiasm, the product of the weakness of the flesh and the inspiration of volatile, short-lived forces. Activity is often at the expense of more solid, useful elements – generally to the total neglect of prayer. To be too busy with God's work to commune with God or to be busy with doing church work without taking time to talk to God about his work is the highway to backsliding, and many people have walked there to the damage of their immortal souls.

Apart from great activity, great enthusiasm, and much hurrah for the work, the work and the activity will be blindness without the cultivation and the maturity of the graces of prayer.
Chapter 4

Prayer, Praise, and Thanksgiving

Dr. A. J. Gordon describes the impression made upon his mind by [a conversation] with Joseph Rabinowitz, whom Dr. Delitzsch considered the most remarkable Jewish convert since Saul of Tarsus: "We shall not soon forget the radiance that would come into his face as he expounded the Messianic Psalms at our morning or evening worship, and how, as here and there he caught a glimpse of the suffering or glorified Christ, he would suddenly lift his hands and his eyes to heaven in a burst of adoration, exclaiming with Thomas after he had seen the nail prints, 'My Lord, and my God.'" – D. M. McIntyre

Prayer, praise, and thanksgiving all go together. A close relationship exists between them. Praise and thanksgiving are so nearly alike that it is not easy to distinguish between them or to define them separately. The Scriptures join these three things together. Many are the causes for thanksgiving and praise. The Psalms are filled with many songs of praise and hymns of thanksgiving, often pointing back to the results of prayer. Thanksgiving includes gratitude. In fact, thanksgiving is the expression of an inward conscious gratitude to God for mercies received. Gratitude is an inward emotion of the soul, involuntarily arising there, while thanksgiving is the voluntary expression of gratitude.

Thanksgiving is oral, positive, and active. It is the giving out of something to God. Thanksgiving comes out into the open. Gratitude is secret, silent, neutral, and passive – not showing its being until expressed in praise and thanksgiving. Gratitude is felt in the heart; thanksgiving is the expression of that inward feeling.

Thanksgiving is just what the word itself signifies – the giving of thanks to God. It is giving something to God in words that we feel at heart for blessings received. Gratitude arises from a contemplation of the goodness of God. It is bred by serious meditation on what God has done for us. Both gratitude and thanksgiving point to and relate to God and his mercies. The heart is consciously grateful to God. The soul gives expression to that heartfelt gratitude to God in words or acts.

The Birth of Gratitude

Gratitude is born of meditation on God's grace and mercy. The Lord has done great things with us, of which we shall be glad (Psalm 126:3). Herein we see the value of serious meditation. My meditation of him shall be sweet (Psalm 104:34). Praise is begotten by gratitude and a conscious obligation to God for mercies given. As we think of mercies past, the heart is inwardly moved to gratitude.

I love to think on mercies past,

And future good implore;

And all my cares and sorrows cast

On him whom I adore.

Love is the child of gratitude. Love grows as gratitude is felt and then breaks out into praise and thanksgiving to God. The psalmist gives an example: I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my supplications (Psalm 116:1). Answered prayers cause gratitude, and gratitude brings forth a love that declares it will not cease praying: Because he has inclined his ear unto me, therefore I will call upon him all of my days (Psalm 116:2). Gratitude and love move to larger and increased praying.

Paul appealed to the Romans to dedicate themselves wholly to God, a living sacrifice; the constraining motive is the mercies of God:

Therefore, I beseech you brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies in living sacrifice, holy, well pleasing unto God, which is your rational worship. (Romans 12:1)

Consideration of God's mercies not only produces gratitude, but it induces a large consecration to God of all we have and are. So prayer, thanksgiving, and consecration are all linked together inseparably.

Gratitude and thanksgiving always look back at the past, though it may also take in the present. But prayer always looks to the future. Thanksgiving deals with things already received. Prayer deals with things desired, asked for, and expected. Prayer turns to gratitude and praise when the things asked for have been granted by God.

As prayer brings things to us that bring gratitude and thanksgiving, so praise and gratitude promote prayer, and they induce more praying and better praying.

Gratitude and thanksgiving forever stand opposed to all murmurings at God's dealings with us and all complaining about our lot in life. Gratitude and murmuring never inhabit the same heart at the same time. An unappreciative spirit has no standing beside gratitude and praise. And true prayer corrects complaining and promotes gratitude and thanksgiving. Dissatisfaction at one's lot and a disposition to be discontented with things that come to us in the providence of God are foes to gratitude and enemies to thanksgiving.

Thankful People

The murmurers are ungrateful people. Appreciative men and women have neither the time nor disposition to stop and complain. The downfall of the Israelites in the wilderness journey on their way to Canaan was their proneness to murmur and complain against God and Moses. For this, God was greatly grieved several times, and it took the strong praying of Moses to avert God's wrath because of these murmurings. The absence of gratitude left no room nor disposition for praise and thanksgiving, just as it always does. But when these same Israelites were brought through the Red Sea without getting their feet wet, while their enemies were destroyed, there was a song of praise led by Miriam, the sister of Moses. One of the leading sins of these Israelites was forgetfulness about God and his mercies and ingratitude of their souls. This brought forth murmurings and lack of praise, as it always does.

When Paul told the Colossians to let the word of Christ dwell in their hearts richly and to let the peace of God rule there, he wrote to them – and be ye thankful, and added, teaching you and exhorting you one to another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with grace singing in your hearts unto the Lord (Colossians 3:15-16).

Further on, in writing to these same Christians, he joined prayer and thanksgiving together: Persevere in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving (Colossians 4:2).

And writing to the Thessalonians, he again joined them in union: Always rejoice. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

We thank Thee, Lord of heaven and earth,

Who hast preserved us from our birth;

Redeemed us oft from death and dread,

And with Thy gifts our table spread.

Wherever there is true prayer, thanksgiving and gratitude stand firmly by, ready to respond to the answer when it comes. For as prayer brings the answer, so the answer brings forth gratitude and praise. As prayer sets God to work, so answered prayer sets thanksgiving to work. Thanksgiving follows answered prayer just as day follows night.

A Heart of Praise

True prayer and gratitude lead to full consecration, and consecration leads to more praying and better praying. A consecrated life is both a prayer life and a thanksgiving life.

The spirit of praise was once the boast of the primitive church. This spirit dwelled in the tabernacles of these early Christians as a cloud of glory out of which God shined and spoke. It filled their temples with the perfume of costly, flaming incense. It must be evident to every careful observer that this spirit of praise is sadly deficient in our present-day congregations. It must be equally evident that it is a mighty force in projecting the gospel and its body of vital forces. One of the main points with every true pastor should be to restore the spirit of praise to our congregations. The normal state of the church is set forth in this declaration made to God: Praise doth rest in thee, O God, in Sion and unto thee shall the vow be performed (Psalm 65:1).

Praise is so distinctly and definitely wedded to prayer – so inseparably joined – that they cannot be divorced. Praise is dependent on prayer for its full volume and its sweetest melody.

Singing is one method of praise, though it is not the highest; it is the ordinary and usual form. The singing service in our churches has much to do with praise, for the genuineness or the measure of praise will be according to the character of the singing. The singing may be so directed as to have elements in it that degrade and corrupt prayer. It may be so directed as to drive away everything like thanksgiving and praise. Much of modern singing in our churches is entirely foreign to anything like hearty, sincere praise to God.

The spirit of prayer and of true praise go hand in hand. Both are often entirely dissipated by the flippant, thoughtless, light singing in our congregations. Much of the singing lacks serious thought and is devoid of everything like a devotional spirit. Its lustiness and sparkle may not only dissipate all the essential features of worship but may substitute the flesh for the spirit.

Giving thanks is the very life of prayer. It is its fragrance and music, its poetry, and its crown. Prayer bringing the desired answer breaks out into praise and thanksgiving. So whatever interferes with and injures the spirit of prayer necessarily hurts and dissipates the spirit of praise.

The heart must have in it the grace of prayer to sing the praise of God. Spiritual singing is not to be done by musical taste or talent but by the grace of God in the heart. Nothing helps praise so mightily as a gracious revival of true religion in the church. The conscious presence of God inspires song. The angels and the glorified ones in heaven do not need artistic song leaders to lead them, nor do they care for paid choirs to chime in with their heavenly doxologies of praise and worship. They are not dependent on singing schools to teach them the notes and scale of singing. Their singing involuntarily breaks forth from the heart.

A Heavenly Melody

God is immediately present in the heavenly assemblies of the angels and the spirits of righteous people made perfect. His glorious presence creates the song, teaches the singing, and infuses their notes of praise. It is so on earth. God's presence produces singing and thanksgiving, while the absence of God from our congregations is the death of song, or that which amounts to the same, and makes the singing lifeless, cold, and formal. His conscious presence in our churches would bring back the days of praise and would restore the full chorus of song.

Where grace abounds, song abounds. When God is in the heart, heaven is present, and melody is there, and the lips overflow out of the abundance of the heart. This is as true in the private life of the believer as it is in the congregations of the saints. The decay of singing – the dying down and out of the spirit of praise in song – means the decline of grace in the heart and the absence of God's presence from the people.

The main design of all singing is for God's ear – to attract his attention and to please him. It is to the Lord for his glory and to his honor. Certainly, it is not for the glorification of the paid choir or to exalt the wonderful musical powers of the singers, nor is it to draw the people to the church, but it is for the glory of God and the good of the souls of the congregation. Regrettably, the singing of choirs in churches of modern times has far departed from this idea! It is no surprise that there is no life, no power, no fervor, and no spirit in much of the church singing heard in this day.

It is sacrilege for any but sanctified hearts and holy lips to direct the singing part of the service of God's house of prayer. Much of the singing in churches would do credit to the opera house and might satisfy as mere entertainment that is pleasing the ear, but as a part of real worship with the spirit of praise and prayer in it, it is a fraud – an imposition on spiritually minded people and entirely unacceptable to God. The cry should go out afresh: Let the peoples praise thee, O God; let all the peoples praise thee (Psalm 67:3). For it is good to sing praises unto our God; for praise is pleasant and beautiful (Psalm 147:1).

The music of praise – for there is real music of soul in praise – is too hopeful and happy to be denied. All these are in the giving of thanks. In Philippians, prayer is called "requests." Let your requests be made known unto God (Philippians 4:6). This describes prayer as asking for a gift, giving prominence to the thing asked for, making it emphatic, something to be given by God and received by us and not something to be done by us. And all this is closely connected with gratitude to God – with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.

Make Your Requests Known

God does much for us in answer to prayer, but we need many gifts from him, and we are to make special prayer for them. Our praying must be according to our special needs. We are to be special and particular and bring our particular requests to the knowledge of God by prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving – the things we need and the things we greatly desire. And with it all, accompanying all these requests, there must be thanksgiving.

It is indeed a pleasing thought that what we are called upon to do on earth – to praise and give thanks – the angels in heaven and the redeemed disembodied spirits of the saints are doing also. It is even more pleasing to contemplate the glorious hope that what God wants us to do on earth, we will be engaged in doing throughout an unending eternity. Praise and thanksgiving will be our blessed employment while we remain in heaven. Nor will we ever grow weary of this pleasing task.

Joseph Addison sets this pleasing prospect before us in a song:

Through every period of my life

Thy goodness I'll pursue;

And after death, in distant worlds,

The pleasing theme renew.

Through all eternity to Thee

A grateful song I'll raise;

But Oh! eternity's too short

To utter all Thy praise.

* * *

 From a hymn by Phoebe Hinsdale Brown (1783-1861).

 From a hymn written by English poet, Joseph Cottle (1770-1853).

 Joseph Addison (1672-1719).
Chapter 5

Prayer and Trouble

"He will." It may not be today,

That God Himself shall wipe our tears away,

Nor, hope deferred, may it be yet tomorrow

He'll take away our cup of earthly sorrow;

But, precious promise, He has said He will,

If we but trust Him fully – and be still.

We, too, as He, may fall, and die unknown;

And e'en the place we fell be all unshown,

But eyes omniscient will mark the spot

Till empires perish and the world's forgot.

Then they who bore the yoke and drank the cup

In fadeless glory shall the Lord raise up.

God's word is ever good; His will is best: –

The yoke, the heart all broken – and then rest.

– Claudius L. Chilton

Trouble and prayer are closely related to each other. Prayer is of great value to trouble. Trouble often drives people to God in prayer, while prayer is but the voice of those in trouble. There is great value in prayer in the time of trouble. Prayer often delivers out of trouble and even more often gives strength to bear trouble, ministers comfort in trouble, and brings about patience in the midst of trouble. The one who knows his or her true source of strength and who doesn't fail to pray is wise in the day of trouble.

Trouble belongs to the present state of people on earth. Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble (Job 14:1). Trouble is common to mankind. There is no exception in any age or climate or station. Rich and poor alike, the educated and the ignorant – one and all are partakers of this sad and painful inheritance of the fall of man. No temptation has taken you but such as is common to man (1 Corinthians 10:13). A day of trouble dawns on everyone at some time in his or her life. The evil days come, and the years draw near when the heart feels its heavy pressure.

When Trouble Comes

Those who expect nothing but sunshine and look only for ease, pleasure, and flowers have an entirely false view of life and show supreme ignorance. They are sadly disappointed and surprised when trouble breaks into their lives. These are the ones who do not know God, who know nothing of his disciplinary dealings with his people, and who are prayerless.

What an infinite variety there is in the troubles of life! How diversified the experiences of people in the school of trouble! No two people have the same troubles under similar environments. God deals with no two of his children in the same way. And as God varies his treatment of his children, so trouble is varied. God does not repeat himself. He does not run in a rut. He does not have one pattern for every child. Each trouble is proportioned to each child. Each one is dealt with according to their own peculiar case.

Trouble is God's servant that does his will unless he is defeated in the execution of that will. Trouble is under the control of Almighty God and is one of his most efficient agents in fulfilling his purposes and perfecting his saints. God's hand is in every trouble that breaks into the lives of humans. Not that he directly and arbitrarily orders every unpleasant experience of life. Not that he is personally responsible for every painful and afflicting thing that comes into the lives of his people. But no trouble is ever turned loose in this world and comes into the life of saint or sinner that doesn't come with divine permission. It is allowed to exist and do its painful work with God's hand in it or on it, carrying out his gracious designs of redemption.

All things are under divine control. Trouble is neither above God nor beyond his control. It is not something in life independent of God. No matter the source from which it springs or when it arises, God is sufficiently wise and able to lay his hand on it without assuming responsibility for its origin and work it into his plans and purposes to attain the highest welfare of his saints. This is the explanation of that gracious statement in Romans that is so often quoted, but the depth of its meaning has rarely been sounded: And we now know that unto those who love God, all things help them unto good, to those who according to the purpose are called to be saints (Romans 8:28).

Even the evils brought about by the forces of nature are his servants that carry out his will and fulfill his designs. God even claims the locusts, the inchworm, and the caterpillar are his servants; my great army, he calls them in Joel 2:25, used by him to correct his people and discipline them.

Trouble belongs to the disciplinary part of the moral government of God. This is a life of probation where the human race is on probation. It is a season of trial. Trouble is not punitive in its nature. It belongs to what the Scriptures call "chastening." For whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges everyone whom he receives as a son (Hebrews 12:6). Speaking accurately, punishment does not belong to this life. Punishment for sin will take place in the next world. God's dealings with people in this world are of the nature of discipline. They are corrective processes in his plans concerning man. It is because of this that prayer comes in when trouble arises. Prayer belongs to the discipline of life.

As trouble is not sinful in itself, neither is it the evidence of sin. Good and bad alike experience trouble. As the rain falls alike on the just and unjust, so drought comes to the righteous and the wicked. Trouble is no evidence whatsoever of the divine displeasure. Numerous Scripture instances disprove any such idea. Job is a case in point where God showed explicit testimony to his deep piety, and yet God permitted Satan to afflict Job beyond any other man for wise and benevolent purposes. Trouble has no power in itself to interfere with the relations of a saint to God. Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ? shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? (Romans 8:35).

Divine Discipline

Three words that are practically the same in the processes of divine discipline are listed in that passage: temptation, trial, and trouble. Yet there is a difference between them. Temptation is really a solicitation to evil that arises from the devil or is born in the carnal nature of man. Trial is testing. It is that which proves us, tests us, and makes us stronger and better when we submit to the trial and work together with God in it.

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into diverse trials, knowing that the proving of your faith works patience. (James 1:2-3)

Peter speaks along the same line:

In which ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are afflicted in diverse temptations, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold (which perishes, nevertheless it is tried with fire), might be found unto praise and glory and honour when Jesus, the Christ, is made manifest. (1 Peter 1:6-7)

This passage speaks of trouble itself, which covers all the painful, sorrowing, and grievous events of life. And yet temptations and trials might really become troubles. So that all evil days in life might well be classed under the head of the time of trouble. And such days of trouble are the lot of all people. It is enough to know that trouble – no matter from what source it comes – becomes in God's hand his own agent to accomplish his gracious work concerning those who submit patiently to him, who recognize him in prayer, and who work together with God.

Let's agree to the idea that trouble does not arise by chance and also does not occur by what men call accident. For the iniquity does not come forth out of the dust; neither does chastisement spring up out of the ground; yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward (Job 5:6-7). Trouble naturally belongs to God's moral government, and it is one of his invaluable agents in governing the world.

When we realize this, we can better understand much that is recorded in the Scriptures and can have a clearer concept of God's dealings with his ancient Israel. In God's dealings with them, we find what is called a history of divine providence, and providence always embraces trouble. We cannot understand the story of Joseph and his old father Jacob unless we take into account trouble and its varied offices. God took account of trouble when he urged his prophet Isaiah in this way:

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye according to the heart of Jerusalem and cry unto her that her time is now fulfilled that her iniquity is pardoned. (Isaiah 40:1-2)

There is a distinct note of comfort in the Gospel of John for the praying saints of the Lord, and the one who knows how to minister this comfort to the brokenhearted and sad ones of earth is a wise scribe in divine things. Jesus himself said to his sad disciples, I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you (John 14:18). In the King James Version it says, I will not leave you comfortless.

Troubles Moves Us to Prayer

All the above has been said that we may rightly appreciate the relationship of prayer to trouble. In the time of trouble, where does prayer come in? The psalmist tells us, call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me (Psalm 50:15). Prayer is the most appropriate thing for a soul to do in the time of trouble. Prayer recognizes God in the day of trouble. It is the Lord; let him do what seems good unto him (1 Samuel 3:18).

Prayer sees God's hand in trouble and prays about it. Nothing more truly shows us our helplessness than when trouble comes. It brings the strong person low, it discloses our weakness, and it brings a sense of helplessness. Blessed is the person who knows how to turn to God in the time of trouble. If trouble is from the Lord, then the most natural thing to do is to carry the trouble to the Lord, and seek grace and patience and submission. It is the time to inquire in the middle of trouble as Saul did: Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? (Acts 9:6). It is natural and reasonable for the soul – oppressed, broken, and bruised – to bow low at the footstool of mercy and seek the face of God. Where could a soul in trouble more likely find solace than in the prayer closet?

Unfortunately, trouble does not always drive people to God in prayer. It is a sad case for the ones who do not know the source of the trouble or how to pray about it when trouble bends their spirits down and grieves their hearts. Blessed are the ones who are driven by trouble to their knees in prayer!

Trials must and will befall;

But with humble faith to see

Love inscribed upon them all,

This is happiness to me.

Trials make the promise sweet,

Trials give new life to prayer;

Bring me to my Savior's feet,

Lay me low, and keep me there.

Prayer in the time of trouble brings comfort, help, hope, and blessings. While they don't remove the trouble, they do enable the saint to bear it better and submit to the will of God. Prayer opens the eyes to see God's hand in trouble. Prayer does not interpret God's providences, but it does justify them and recognize God in them. Prayer enables us to see wise ends in trouble. Prayer in times of trouble drives us away from unbelief, saves us from doubt, and delivers us from all vain and foolish questionings because of our painful experiences. Let's not lose sight of the tribute paid to Job when all his troubles came to the culminating point: In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with folly (Job 1:22).

How unfortunate are vain, ignorant people without faith in God who know nothing of God's disciplinary processes in dealing with people but charge God foolishly when troubles come and are tempted to curse God. How silly and vain are the complaining, the murmuring, and the rebellion of men and women in the time of trouble! They need to read the story of the children of Israel in the wilderness again. How useless all our fretting and our worrying over trouble, as if such unhappy doings on our part could change things.

And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit?

If ye then are not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest?

Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

If then God so clothes the grass, which is today in the field and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? (Luke 12:25-28)

Isn't it much wiser, much better, and much easier to bear life's troubles when we take everything to God in prayer? Trouble has wise purposes for those who pray. Happy is the one who, like the psalmist, finds his troubles have been blessings in disguise.

It was good for me that I have been humbled, that I might learn thy statutes.

I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me. (Psalm 119:71, 75)

O who could bear life's stormy doom,

Did not Thy wing of love

Come brightly wafting through the gloom

Our peace branch from above.

Then sorrow, touched by Thee, grows bright,

With more than rapture's ray;

As darkness shows us worlds of light

We never saw by day.

Self-Made Trouble

Of course, it may be conceded that some troubles are really imaginary. They have no existence other than in the mind. Some are anticipated troubles that never arrive at our door. Others are past troubles, and it is foolish to worry over them.

Present troubles are the ones that require attention and demand prayer. Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the affliction thereof (Matthew 6:34).

Some troubles are self-originated. We are their authors. Some of these originate involuntarily with us; some arise from our ignorance, and some come from our carelessness. All this can be readily admitted without breaking the force of the statement that they are the subjects of prayer and should drive us to prayer.

What father casts off his child who cries to him when the little one has stumbled and fallen and hurt itself by its own carelessness? Doesn't the cry of the child attract the ears of the father even though the child is to blame for the accident? Everything that ye ask for takes in every event of life, even though some events we are responsible for (Mark 11:24).

Some troubles are human in their origin. They arise from second causes. They originate with others and we are the sufferers. This is a world where the innocent often suffer the consequences of the acts of others. This is a part of life's incidents. Who hasn't at some time suffered at the hands of others? But even these are allowed to come according to God's providence, are permitted to break into our lives for beneficial purposes, and be prayed over. Why shouldn't we carry our hurts, our wrongs, and our hardships that are caused by the acts of others to God in prayer? Are such things outside the realm of prayer? Are they exceptions to the rule of prayer? Not at all. And God can and will lay his hand upon all such events in an exceeding and eternal weight of glory unto us (2 Corinthians 4:17).

Nearly all of Paul's troubles arose from wicked and unreasonable men. He lists them in 2 Corinthians 11:23-33:

Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more, in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths often.

Of the Jews five times I received forty stripes less one.

Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned; three times I suffered shipwreck, night and day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by those of my nation, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren: In labour and travail, in many watches, in hunger and thirst, in many fasts, in cold and nakedness.

Beside those things that are without, my daily combat is the welfare of all the congregations.

Who is sick, and I am not sick? Who stumbles, and I burn not?

If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern my weakness.

The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for evermore, knows that I do not lie.

In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me; And through a window in a basket I was let down by the wall and escaped his hands.

Spiritual Attack

Some troubles are directly of satanic origin. All of Job's troubles were the offspring of the devil's scheme to break down Job's integrity, to make him blame God foolishly, and to curse God. But aren't these to be recognized in prayer? Are they to be excluded from God's disciplinary processes? Job did not do so. Hear him in the familiar words: The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21).

Oh, what a comfort to see God in all of life's events! What a relief to a broken, sorrowing heart it is to see God's hand in sorrow. What a source of relief prayer is when one unburdens the heart in grief!

O Thou who driest the mourner's tear,

How dark this world would be,

If, when deceived and wounded here,

We could not fly to Thee?

The friends who in our sunshine live,

When winter comes are flown,

And he who has but tears to give,

Must weep those tears alone.

But Thou wilt heal the broken heart,

Which, like the plants that throw

Their fragrance from the wounded part,

Breathes sweetness out of woe.

When we survey all the sources from which trouble comes, it all resolves itself into two invaluable truths: first, that our troubles ultimately are of the Lord. They come with his consent. He is in all of them and is interested in us when they press and bruise us. And secondly, no matter what the cause, whether of ourselves, of men, of devils, or of God himself, we are permitted to take our troubles to God in prayer, praying over them and seeking to get the greatest spiritual benefits out of them.

Conforming to God's Will

Prayer in the time of trouble tends to bring the spirit into perfect subjection to the will of God and cause our will to be conformed to God's will. It saves us from all murmuring about our circumstance and delivers us from everything like a rebellious heart or a spirit critical of the Lord. Prayer sanctifies trouble to our highest good. Prayer so prepares the heart that it softens under the disciplining hand of God. Prayer places us where God can bring to us the greatest good – spiritual and eternal. Prayer allows God to freely work with us and in us in the day of trouble. Prayer removes everything in the way of trouble and brings us the sweetest, the highest, and the greatest good. Prayer permits trouble in the life of God's servant to accomplish its mission in us, with us, and for us.

The purpose of trouble is always good in the mind of God. If trouble fails in its mission, it is either because of prayerlessness or unbelief or both. Being in harmony with God in the allocation of his providence always makes trouble a blessing. The good or evil of trouble is always determined by the spirit in which it is received. Trouble proves a blessing or a curse, according to how it is received and treated by us. It either softens or hardens us. It either draws us to prayer and to God, or it drives us from God and from the prayer closet. Trouble hardened Pharaoh until it finally had no effect on him, except to make him more desperate and drive him further from God. The same sun softens the wax and hardens the clay. The same sun melts the ice and dries out the moisture from the earth.

As infinite as the variety of trouble is, there is also infinite variety in the relations of prayer to other things. There are so many things that are the subject of prayer! It relates to everything that concerns us and everybody we encounter at all times. But prayer especially has to do with trouble. This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles (Psalm 34:6). Oh the blessedness, the help, the comfort of prayer in the day of trouble! And how marvelous the promises of God are to us in the time of trouble!

Because he has set his will upon me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high because he has known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and glorify him. (Psalm 91:14-15)

If pain afflict, or wrongs oppress,

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 that 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, Do not fear, for I have redeemed thee, I have named thee; Thou art mine.

When thou dost pass through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou dost walk 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 Keeper. (Isaiah 43:1-3)

* * *

 From a hymn by William Cowper (1731-1800).

 From a hymn by Thomas Moore (1779-1852).

 Continued from Thomas Moore.

 From a hymn by Joseph Hart (1712-1768).
Chapter 6

Prayer and Tribulation

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 [God], 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. – Homer W. Hodge

In the New Testament there are three words used that deal with trouble. These are tribulation, suffering, and affliction – words differing somewhat but each of them practically meaning trouble of some kind. Our Lord put his disciples on notice that they might expect tribulation in this life, and he taught them that tribulation belonged to this world. They could not hope to escape it; they would not be carried through this life on flowery beds of ease. How hard it is to learn this plain and clear lesson! In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world (John 16:33). There is the encouragement. As he had overcome the world and its tribulations, so they might do the same.

Paul taught the same lesson throughout his ministry; when confirming the souls of the believers and urging them to continue in the faith, he told them, we must through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22). He himself knew this by his own experience, for his pathway was anything but smooth and flowery.

Temporary Affliction

Paul is the one who used the word suffering to describe the troubles of life in the comforting passage where he contrasted life's troubles with the final glory of heaven that will be the reward of all who patiently endure the ills of divine providence.

For I know with certainty that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory which shall be manifested in us. (Romans 8:18)

Paul spoke of the afflictions that come to the people of God in this world, and he regarded them as light afflictions as compared with the weight of glory awaiting all who are submissive, patient, and faithful in all their troubles:

For our tribulation, which is momentary and light, prepares an exceeding and eternal weight of glory unto us. (2 Corinthians 4:17)

But these present afflictions can work for us only as we cooperate with God in prayer. As God works through prayer, it is only through this means that he can accomplish his highest ends for us. His providence works the greatest result with his praying ones. These know the purpose of trouble and its gracious designs. The greatest value in trouble comes to those who bow lowest before the throne.

In urging patience in tribulation, Paul connected 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, constant in prayer (Romans 12:12). He paired tribulation and prayer; he showed their close relationship and the worth of prayer in creating and cultivating patience in tribulation. In fact, there can be no patience exemplified when trouble comes, except that it is secured through instant and continued prayer. Patience is learned and practiced in the school of prayer.

Prayer brings us into that state of grace where tribulation is not only endured, but where there is a spirit of rejoicing beneath it. To show the gracious benefits of justification, Paul said:

And not only this, but we even glory in the tribulations, knowing that the tribulation works patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope; and the hope shall not be ashamed, because the love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us. (Romans 5:3-5)

What a chain of graces are set forth here that flows from tribulation! What successive steps to a high state of religious experience. And what rich fruits result from even painful tribulation.

Grace in Suffering

The words of Peter in his first epistle are to the same effect as Paul's in his strong prayer for the Christians to whom he wrote; he also taught that suffering and the highest state of grace are closely connected. He affirmed that it is through suffering we are to be brought to those higher regions of Christian experience:

But the God of all grace, who has called us unto his eternal glory by Jesus, the Christ, after ye have suffered a little while, he himself perfects, confirms, strengthens, and establishes you. (1 Peter 5:10)

In the fires of suffering, God purifies his saints and brings them to the highest things. In the furnace is where their faith is tested, their patience is tried, and they are developed in all those rich virtues that make up Christian character. While they are passing through deep waters, 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 seeks to create in us the rich virtues that belong to our Lord Jesus Christ. He seeks to make us like himself, not necessarily to work or become great. He desires the presence in us of patience, meekness, submission to the divine will, and prayerfulness that brings everything to him. He seeks to create his own image in us; 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 clear design, just as it has an all-wise designer behind 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 worthwhile to be studied. Here is chastisement, another word for trouble that comes from a father's hand and shows 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 evidence of being his people – namely, the presence of chastisement. The ultimate end is that we might be partakers of his holiness (Hebrews 12:10), which is just another way of saying that all this disciplinary process is for the purpose that God may make us like himself. What an encouragement that chastisement is no evidence of anger or displeasure on God's part but is the strong proof of his love. Let's read the entire guide on this important subject:

And ye have quite forgotten the consolation which speaks unto you as unto sons, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art reproved of him: for whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges everyone whom he receives as a son.

If ye endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father does not chasten? But if ye are without chastisement, of which all the sons are partakers, then ye are bastards, and not sons.

Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we gave them reverence; is it not much better to be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and we shall live? For they verily for a few days chastened us as it seemed good unto them, but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. (Hebrews 12:5-10)

Revealing Our Need

Just as prayer is wide in its range as it takes in everything, so trouble is infinitely varied in its uses and designs. It takes trouble sometimes to get attention, to stop men and women in the busy rush of life, and to awaken us to a sense of their helplessness, their need, and their sinfulness. It wasn't until King Manasseh was bound with thorns, carried away into a foreign land, and got into deep trouble that he awakened and came back to God. It was then that 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 were gone and he was in need, he "came to himself." He decided to return to his father's house with prayer and confession on his lips. Trouble has stopped many who have forgotten God; it has compelled them to consider their ways and brought them to remember God and pray. Blessed is trouble when it accomplishes this in men and women!

It is for this among other reasons that Job said:

Behold, blessed is the man whom God chastens; therefore, do not despise the correction of the Almighty. For he makes sore, and binds up; he wounds, and his hands make whole. He shall deliver thee in six tribulations, and in the seventh no evil shall touch thee. (Job 5:17-19)

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 is set before our longing eyes that appeals to our hopes, as sorrows like a cyclone sweep over us! Hear John, as he talks about it and those who are there:

Who are these who are arrayed in long white robes? and where did they come from? ... And he said to me, These are those who came out of great tribulation and have washed their long robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb... and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. (Revelation 7:13-14, 17)

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, you who have suffered, who have been greatly 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 will work together for good if you will just be patient, submissive, and prayerful.

* * *

 From a hymn by Isaac Watts (1674-1748).
Chapter 7

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 savior, and a ruler for his people. Someone 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. Binderwolf

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 governs 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, an evil predisposition, unholy tendencies, sinful desires, and wicked inclinations. Man is unholy by nature and is born this way. They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies (Psalm 58:3).

The Path to Holiness

God's entire plan is to take hold of fallen men and women and seek to change them and make them holy. God's work is to make holy people out of unholy people. This is the reason Christ came into the world. For this purpose the Son of God appeared, that he might undo the works of the devil (1 John 3:8).

God is holy in nature and in all his ways, and he wants to make us like himself. As he who has called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; for it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy (1 Peter 1:15-16).

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 power 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 abundant provisions in the atoning work of our Lord and through the power 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 people? 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 by it? Are they really seeking to be holy men and women? Of course, people of intelligence are greatly needed in the pulpit, but prior to that and more important is that we need holy people to stand before dying men and women and proclaim the salvation of God to them.

Ministers, like laymen but not more so than laymen, must be holy people 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. We need people in the pulpit who are spotless in life, circumspect in behavior, people without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world (Philippians 2:15). Are our preachers this type of people? We are simply asking the question. Let the reader make up his or her own judgment. Is the work of holiness making progress among our preachers?

Leading by Holiness

Again let's ask – are our leading laymen examples of holiness? Are they seeking holiness of heart and life? Are they praying people, ever praying that God would fashion them according to his pattern of holiness? Are their business ways without the stain of sin and their gains free from the taint of wrongdoing? Do they have the foundation of solid honesty, and does uprightness bring them into elevation and influence? Does business integrity and morality run parallel with religious activity and church observance?

Then, while we pursue our investigation and seek light as to whether the work of God among his people is making progress, let's ask about our women. Are the leading women of our churches dead to the fashions of this world, separated from the world, and not conformed to the world's laws and customs? Does their behavior enhance holiness and teach the young women the lessons of soberness, obedience, and homemaking by word and life? Are our women noted for their praying habits? Are they patterns of prayer?

All these questions are so probing. Will anyone dare say they are impertinent and out of place? If God's work is to make men and women holy, and he has made ample provisions in the law of prayer for doing this very thing, why should it be thought impertinent and useless to offer such personal and pointed questions as these? They directly have to do with the work, 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 benefit in shutting our eyes to real facts. If the church does not do this sort of work and advance its members in holiness of heart and life, then all our show of activities and display of church work are a delusion and a snare.

But let's ask about another large and important class of people in our churches. They are the hope of the future church. All eyes are turned to them. Are our young men and women growing in sober-mindedness and reverence – in all those graces that have their root in the renewed heart that marks solid and permanent advance in the divine life? If we are not growing in holiness, then we are doing nothing religious nor abiding.

Spiritual Thriving

Material prosperity is not the infallible sign of spiritual prosperity. The former may exist while the latter is significantly absent. Material prosperity may blind the eyes of church leaders so much that they will make it a substitute for spiritual prosperity. The need to beware is great at that point! Prosperity in money matters does not signify growth in holiness. The seasons of material prosperity are rarely seasons of spiritual advance to the individual or to the church. It is easy to lose sight of God when goods increase. It is easy to lean on human agencies and cease praying and relying upon God when material prosperity comes to the church.

If we argue that the work of God is progressing and that we are growing in holiness, then some perplexing questions arise that will be hard to answer. If the church makes advances toward deep spirituality, if we pray as a people who are noted for our prayer habits, and if our people are hungering after holiness, then let's 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 from the life of our church? Is the Lord's hand shortened such that he cannot save? Is his ear heavy such 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 ministries 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 only 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 preoccupied with material things in the church. Unfortunately, whether by design or not, we have substituted the external for the internal. We have put that which is seen to the front and have shut out that which is unseen. It is all too true that in the church we are much further advanced in material matters than in spiritual matters.

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. We might excuse it, and we may justify the present state of things, yet it is all too clear 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 started 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.

The Work of the Church

At one time, John Wesley saw there was a perceptible decline in the work of holiness, and he interrupted to investigate the cause. If we are as honest and spiritual as he was, we will now see the same causes operating to delay God's work among us. In a letter to his brother Charles at one time, he came directly to the point, and made short, incisive work of it. Here is how he began his letter:

What has hindered the work? I want to consider this. And mustn't we first say, we are the chief. If we were more holy in heart and life, thoroughly devoted to God, wouldn't all the preachers catch fire and carry it with them throughout the land?

Isn't the next hindrance the littleness of grace (rather than of gifts) in a considerable part of our preachers? They haven't 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 isn't in such a degree as he surely would, were they holy as he that hath sent them is holy.

Isn't 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 savor, the little savor they once had. Wherewith then shall the rest of the land be seasoned? What wonder that their neighbors are as unholy as ever?

He strikes the spot. He hits the center. 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 color to the church. They largely determine its character and its work. What holiness should mark these chief men? What zeal should ever characterize them? Such prayerfulness should be seen in them. How influential they ought to be with God! If the head is 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 – maintain their advance in holiness, the panic will reach to the end of the line. As are the pastors, so the people will be, as a rule. If the pastors are prayerless, then the people will follow in their footsteps. If the preacher is silent about the work of holiness, then there will be no hungering and thirsting after holiness in the laymen. If the preacher is careless about obtaining the highest and best God has for him in religious experience, then the people will take after him.

One statement of Wesley needs to be repeated with emphasis – the littleness of grace, rather than the smallness of gifts, is largely the case with the preachers. It may be stated as a principle: as a general rule, the work of God fails more for the lack of grace than for the want of gifts. It is more than this, because 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.

The Work of Prayer

In carrying on his great work in the world, God works through human agents. He works through his church collectively and through his people individually. In order that they may be effective agents, each must be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and profitable for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work (2 Timothy 2:21). God works most effectively through holy men and women. His work makes progress in the hands of praying people. Peter tells us that husbands who might not be reached by the Word of God might be won by the conversation of their wives. It is those who are blameless and innocent, children of God, who can hold forth the word of life in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation (Philippians 2:15).

The world judges religion, not by what the Bible says but by how Christians live. Christians are the Bible that sinners read. These are the epistles to be read of all men and women. By their fruits ye shall know them (Matthew 7:20). The emphasis, then, is to be placed on holiness of life. But unfortunately, in the present-day church, emphasis has been placed elsewhere. In selecting church workers and choosing clerical officers, the quality of holiness is rarely considered. Their praying fitness does not seem to be taken into account though it was just the opposite in all of God's movements and in all of his plans. He looked for holy men, those noted for their praying habits. Prayer leaders are scarce. Prayer conduct is not counted as the highest qualification for offices in the church.

We cannot be surprised that so little is accomplished in the great work in the world that God has in hand. The truth is that it is surprising that so much has been done with such feeble, defective agents. "Holiness to the Lord" needs to be written again on the banners of the church. Once more it needs to be sounded out in the ears of modern Christians. Follow peace with everyone and holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14).

Let it be said and repeated that this is the divine standard of religion. Nothing short of this will satisfy the divine requirement. Oh, the danger of deception at this point! One can come so near to being right and yet be wrong! Some men and women can come very near to pronouncing the test word Shibboleth, but they miss it. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, says Jesus Christ, but he states that he will say to them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity (Matthew 7:22-23).

People can do many good things but not be holy in heart and righteous in conduct. They can do many good things and lack that spiritual quality of heart called holiness. How great the need for hearing the words of Paul that guard us against self-deception in the great work of personal salvation. Do not deceive yourselves; God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows that shall he also reap (Galatians 6:7).

O may I still from sin depart;

A wise and understanding heart,

Jesus, to me to be given;

And let me through thy Spirit know

To glorify my God below,

And find my way to heaven.

* * *

 From a hymn by Charles Wesley (1707-1788).

 From a hymn by Charles Wesley.
Chapter 8

Prayer and Consecration

Eudamidas, a citizen of Corinth, died in poverty, but having two wealthy friends, Arctæus and Carixenus, left the following testament: "In virtue of my last will, I bequeath to Arctæus my mother and to Carixenus my daughter to be taken home to their houses and supported for the remainder of their lives." This testament occasioned much mirth and laughter. The two legatees were pleased and affectionately executed the will. If heathens trusted each other, why should not I cherish a far greater confidence in my beloved Master, Jesus? I hereby, therefore, nominate him my sole heir, consigning to him my soul and my children and sisters, that he may adopt, protect, and provide for them by his mighty power unto salvation. The whole residue of the estate shall be entrusted to his holy counsel. – Gotthold

When we study the many-sidedness of prayer, we are surprised at the number of things with which it is connected. No phase of human life is unaffected, but it concerns everything affecting human salvation. Prayer and consecration are closely related. Prayer leads to and governs consecration. Prayer is precedent to consecration, accompanies it, and is a direct result of it. Much goes under the name of consecration that has no consecration in it. Much consecration of the present day is defective, superficial, and counterfeit – worth nothing as far as the work and purpose of consecration are concerned. Popular consecration is sadly at fault because it has little or no prayer in it. No consecration is worth a thought if it is not the direct fruit of much praying or if it fails to bring one into a life of prayer. Prayer is the one thing that is prominent in a consecrated life.

What is Consecration?

Consecration is much more than a life of so-called service. It is a life of personal holiness, first of all. It is that which brings spiritual power into the heart and enlivens the entire inner person. It is a life that forever recognizes God and a life given up to true prayer.

Full consecration is the highest type of a Christian life. It is the one divine standard of experience, living, and service. It is the one thing at which believers should aim. Nothing short of entire consecration must satisfy them.

Never are they to be contented until they are fully and entirely the Lord's by their own consent. Their praying naturally and involuntarily leads up to this one act.

Consecration is the voluntary, set dedication of oneself to God, an offering definitely made and made without any reservation whatsoever. It is the setting apart of all we are, all we have, and all we expect to have or be to God first of all. It is not so much the giving of ourselves to the church or the mere engaging in some line of church work. Almighty God is in view, and he is the end of all consecration. It is a separation of oneself to God, a dedication of all that one is and has to a sacred use. Some things may be devoted to a special purpose, but it is not consecration in the true sense. Consecration has a sacred nature. It is devoted to holy ends. It is the voluntary putting of oneself in God's hands to be used in a sacred and holy way with sanctifying ends in view.

Consecration is not so much setting oneself apart from sinful things and wicked ends, but rather it is separating from worldly, secular, and even legitimate things if they come in conflict with God's plans. It is the devoting of all we have to God for his own specific use. It is a separation from things questionable or even legitimate, when the choice is to be made between the things of this life and the claims of God.

Wholehearted Consecration

The consecration that meets God's demands and that he accepts is to be full, complete, and with no mental reservation – with nothing withheld. It cannot be partial any more than a whole burnt offering in Old Testament times could have been partial. The whole animal had to be offered in sacrifice. To reserve any part of the animal would have seriously corrupted the offering. So to make a half-hearted, partial consecration is to make no consecration at all and thus fail utterly in securing the divine acceptance. It involves our whole being, all we have and all that we are. Everything is definitely and voluntarily placed in God's hands for his supreme use.

Consecration is not all there is in holiness. Many make serious mistakes at this point. Consecration makes us relatively holy. We are holy only in the sense that we are now closely related to God in a way we were not related before this. Consecration is the human side of holiness. In this sense, it is self-sanctification but only in this sense. Sanctification or holiness in its truest and highest sense is divine – the act of the Holy Spirit working in the heart, making it clean, and putting in it a higher degree of the fruit of the Spirit.

This distinction is clearly set forth and kept in view by Moses in Leviticus where he shows the human and the divine side of sanctification or holiness:

Sanctify yourselves, therefore, and be ye holy, for I am the Lord your God. And keep my statutes and do them. I AM he who sanctifies you. (Leviticus 20:7-8)

Here we are to sanctify ourselves, and then in the next word we are taught that it is the Lord that sanctifies us. God does not consecrate us to his service. We do not sanctify ourselves in this highest sense. Here is the two-fold meaning of sanctification and a distinction that needs to be always kept in mind.

Consecration is the intelligent, voluntary act of the believer, and this act is the direct result of praying. No prayerless person ever conceives the idea of a full consecration. Prayerlessness and consecration have nothing whatsoever in common. A life of prayer naturally leads up to full consecration. It leads nowhere else. In fact, a life of prayer is satisfied with nothing else but an entire dedication of oneself to God. Consecration fully recognizes God's ownership to us. It cheerfully assents to the truth set forth by Paul:

For ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. (1 Corinthians 6:20)

True praying leads that way. It cannot reach any other destination. It is bound to run into this depot. This is its natural result. This is the sort of work that praying turns out. Praying makes consecrated people. It cannot make any other sort. It drives to this end. It aims at this very purpose.

As prayer leads to and brings forth full consecration, so prayer entirely permeates a consecrated life. The prayer life and the consecrated life are intimate companions. They are like Siamese twins – inseparable. Prayer enters into every phase of a consecrated life. A prayerless life that claims consecration is a misnomer, false, and counterfeit.

Consecration is really the setting apart of oneself to a life of prayer. It means not only to pray but to pray habitually and to pray more effectively. It is the consecrated men and women who accomplish most by their praying. God must hear the one who is wholly given up to God. God cannot deny the requests of the one who has renounced all claims to himself and who has wholly dedicated himself to God and his service. This act of the consecrated one puts him or her "on praying ground and pleading terms" with God.

It puts him in reach of God in prayer. It places him where he can get hold of God and where he can influence God to do things God would not otherwise do. Consecration brings answers to prayer. God can depend upon consecrated people. God can afford to commit himself through the prayer of those who have fully committed themselves to God. Those who give all to God will get all from God. Having given all to God, they can claim all that God has for them.

Genuine Dedication

As prayer is the condition of full consecration, so prayer is the habit, the rule of the one who has dedicated himself wholly to God. Prayer is attractive in the consecrated life. Prayer is no strange thing in such a life. There is a peculiar affinity between prayer and consecration, for both recognize God, both submit to God, and both have their aim and end in God. Prayer is part and parcel of the consecrated life. Prayer is the constant, the inseparable, the intimate companion of consecration. They walk and talk together.

There is much talk today of consecration, but many are called consecrated people who do not know its alphabet. Much modern consecration falls far below the Scripture standard. There is really no real consecration in it. Just as there is much praying without any real prayer in it, so there is much so-called consecration in the church today that has no real consecration in it. Much is called consecration in the church that receives the praise and applause of superficial, formal professors, but much is wide of the mark. There is much hurrying to and fro, here and there, much fuss and feathers, much going about and doing many things, and those who busy themselves after this fashion are called consecrated men and women.

The central trouble with all this false consecration is that there is no prayer in it, nor is it in any sense the direct result of praying. People can do many excellent and commendable things in the church and be utter strangers to a life of consecration, just as they can do many things and be prayerless.

Here is the true test of consecration. It is a life of prayer. Unless prayer is preeminent, and unless prayer is to the front, the consecration is faulty, deceptive, and falsely named. Does he pray? Does she pray? That is the test question of every so-called consecrated man or woman. Is he or she a person of prayer? No consecration is worth a thought if it is devoid of prayer. Even more – if theirs is not preeminently and primarily a life of prayer.

God wants consecrated men and women because they can pray and will pray. He can use consecrated people because he can use praying people. As prayerless people are in his way, hinder him, and prevent the success of his cause, so likewise unconsecrated people are useless to him and hinder him in carrying out his gracious plans and executing his noble purposes in redemption.

God wants consecrated people because he wants praying people. Consecration and prayer meet in the same person. Prayer is the tool with which the consecrated person works. Consecrated people are the agents through whom prayer works. Prayer helps the consecrated people in maintaining the attitude of consecration, keeps them alive to God, and aids in doing the work to which they are called and to which they have given themselves. Consecration helps with effective praying. Consecration enables one to get the most out of praying.

Let Him to whom we now belong

His sovereign right assert;

And take up every thankful song,

And every loving heart.

He justly claims us for His own,

Who bought us with a price;

The Christian lives to Christ alone,

To Christ alone he dies.

We must insist that the prime purpose of consecration is not service in the ordinary sense of that word. Service in the minds of many means nothing more than engaging in some of the numerous forms of modern church activities. There are a multitude of such activities – enough to engage the time and mind of anyone. Yes, even more than enough. Some of these may be good, others not so good. The present-day church is filled with systems, organizations, committees, and groups – so much so that the power the church has is altogether insufficient to run the systems or to provide sufficient life to do all this external work. Consecration has a much higher and nobler end than merely to expend itself in these external things.

Personal Holiness

Consecration aims at the right sort of service – the scriptural kind. It seeks to serve God, but in an entirely different sphere than that which is in the minds of present-day church leaders and workers. The very first sort of service mentioned by Zachariah, father of John the Baptist, in his wonderful prophecy and statement was this:

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and made redemption for his people

... that he would grant unto us, that without fear delivered out of the hand of our enemies, we might serve him in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life. (Luke 1:68, 74-75)

Here we have the idea of serving God in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life. The same kind of service is mentioned in Luke's strong tribute to the father and mother of John the Baptist before John's birth:

And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless. (Luke 1:6)

Likewise, in writing to the Philippians, Paul strikes the same keynote in putting the emphasis on blamelessness of life:

Do all things without murmurings and doubts, that ye may be blameless and innocent, children of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world. (Philippians 2:14-15)

We must mention a truth that is strangely overlooked in these days by what are called personal workers. In the epistles of Paul and others, it isn't what are called church activities that are brought to the front but rather the personal life. This life involves good behavior, righteous conduct, holy living, godly conversation, and right tempers – things that belong primarily to the personal life in religion. Everywhere this is emphasized, put in the forefront, made much of, and insisted on. Religion first of all teaches one to live right. Religion shows itself in the life. Thus, religion is to prove its reality, its sincerity, and its divinity.

So let our lips and lives express

The holy gospel we profess;

So let our works and virtues shine

To prove the doctrine all divine.

Thus shall we best proclaim abroad

The honors of our Savior God;

When the salvation reigns within

And grace subdues the power of sin.

The first great result of consecration is holiness of heart and of life. It is to glorify God, which can be done in no more effective way than by a holy life that flows from a heart cleansed from all sin. The great burden of heart pressed on every person who becomes a Christian lies right here. We are to keep this always in mind; to further this kind of life and this kind of heart, we are to watch, pray, and devote all our diligence to using all the means of grace. Those who are truly and fully consecrated live a holy life. They seek after holiness of heart. They are not satisfied without it. For this very purpose they consecrate themselves to God. They give themselves entirely over to God in order to be holy in heart and in life.

As holiness of heart and life is thoroughly saturated with prayer, so consecration and prayer are closely allied in personal faith. It takes prayer to bring one into such a consecrated life of holiness to the Lord, and it takes prayer to maintain such a life. Without much prayer, such a life of holiness will break down. Holy people are praying people. Holiness of heart and life drives people to pray. Consecration drives people to pray in earnest.

Prayerless people are strangers to anything like holiness of heart and cleanness of heart. Those who are unfamiliar with the prayer closet are not at all interested in consecration and holiness. Holiness thrives in the place of secret prayer. The environments of the closet of prayer are favorable to its being and its culture. Holiness is found in the closet. Consecration brings one into holiness of heart, and prayer stands firmly by when it is done.

A Harmony of Wills

The spirit of consecration is the spirit of prayer. The law of consecration is the law of prayer. Both laws work in perfect harmony without the slightest clash or discord. Consecration is the practical expression of true prayer. People who are consecrated are known by their praying habits. Consecration thus expresses itself in prayer. The one who is not interested in prayer has no interest in consecration.

Prayer creates an interest in consecration, then prayer brings one into a state of heart where consecration is a subject of delight, bringing joy of heart, satisfaction of soul, and contentment of spirit. The consecrated soul is the happiest soul. There is no friction whatsoever between God's will and the one who is fully given over to God. There is perfect harmony between the will of such a man and God's will. And having the two wills in perfect accord brings rest of soul, absence of friction, and the presence of perfect peace.

Lord, in the strength of grace,

With a glad heart and free,

Myself, my residue of days,

I consecrate to Thee.

Thy ransomed servant, I

Restore to Thee Thy own;

And from this moment, live or die,

To serve my God alone.

* * *

 Most likely a quote from Charles Spurgeon's sermon, "Praying and Pleading."

 From a hymn by Charles Wesley.

 From a hymn by Isaac Watts.

 From a hymn by Charles Wesley.
Chapter 9

Prayer and a Definite Religious Standard

The angel Gabriel described him as "that holy thing" before he was born. As he was, so are we, in our measure, in this world. – Dr. Alexander White

Much of the feebleness, barrenness, and scarcity of religion results from the failure to have a scriptural and reasonable standard in religion by which to shape character and measure results; this largely results from the omission of prayer or the failure to put prayer in the standard. We cannot possibly mark our advances in religion if there is no point to which we are definitely advancing. There must always be something definite before the mind's eye at which we are aiming and to which we are driving. We cannot contrast shapeliness with unshapeliness if there is no pattern after which to model. Neither can there be inspiration if there is no high end to motivate us.

Many Christians are disjointed and aimless because they have no pattern of conduct and character before them. They just move on aimlessly, their minds in a cloudy state, no pattern in view, no point in sight, and no standard to strive for. There is no standard by which to value and gauge their efforts. No magnet is there to fill their eyes, quicken their steps, and draw them and keep them steady.

All this vague idea of religion grows out of loose notions about prayer. Prayer is what helps to make the standard of religion clear and definite. Prayer aids in placing that standard high. The praying ones are those who have something definite in view. In fact, prayer itself is a very definite thing, aims at something specific, and has a mark at which it aims. Prayer aims at the most definite, the highest, and the sweetest religious experience. The praying ones want all that God has in store for them. They are not satisfied with anything like a low religious life – superficial, vague, and indefinite. The praying ones are not only after a "deeper work of grace," as others have called it, but want the very deepest work of grace that is possible and promised. They are not after being saved from some sin but saved from all sin, both inward and outward. They are after not only deliverance from sinning but from sin itself – from its being, its power, and its pollution. They are after holiness of heart and life.

Prayer, the Standard of Life

Prayer believes in and seeks for the very highest religious life set before us in the Word of God. Prayer is the condition of that life. Prayer points out the only pathway to such a life. The standard of a religious life is the standard of prayer. Prayer is so vital, so essential, and so far-reaching that it enters into all religion and sets the standard clear and definite before the eye. The degree of our estimate of prayer fixes our ideas of the standard of a religious life. The standard of Bible religion is the standard of prayer. The more there is of prayer in the life, the more definite and the higher our notions of religion.

The Scriptures alone make the standard of life and experience. When we make our own standard, there is delusion and falsity for our desires; convenience and pleasure form the rule, and that is always a fleshly and low rule. From it, all the fundamental principles of a Christlike religion are left out. Whatever standard of religion that makes provision for the flesh in it is unscriptural and hurtful.

Nor will it do to let others fix the standard of religion for us. When we allow others to make our standard of religion, it is generally deficient, because defects are transferred to the imitator more readily than virtues in imitations, and a second edition of a man is marred by its defects.

The most serious damage in determining what religion is by what others say is in allowing current opinion, the contagion of example, and the grade of religion current among us to shape our religious opinions and characters. Adoniram Judson once wrote to a friend, "Let me beg you not to rest contented with the commonplace religion that is now so prevalent."

Commonplace religion is pleasing to flesh and blood. There is no self-denial in it, no cross bearing, and no self-crucifixion. It is good enough for our neighbors. Why should we be different and straight-laced? Others are living on a low plane, on a compromising level; they live as the world lives. Why should we be peculiar or passionate about good works? Why should we fight to win heaven while so many are sailing there on "flowery beds of ease," as Isaac Watts put it in his hymn? Are the easy-going, careless, sauntering crowd, who live prayerless lives, going to heaven? Is heaven a fit place for non-praying, loose-living, ease-loving people? That is the supreme question.

Paul gives the following caution about making the standard of measurement for ourselves the jolly, pleasure-seeking religious company all around us:

For we dare not mix ourselves in with or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves, but they do not understand that they are measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves. But we will not glory of things beyond our measure, but according to the measure of the rule, of the measure which God has distributed to us, to reach even unto you. (2 Corinthians 10:12-13)

No standard of religion that leaves prayer out of the account is worth a moment's consideration. No standard that does not make prayer the main thing in religion is worth any thought. Prayer is so necessary – 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 and 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 to copy. Prayer fashions the pattern of a religious life. Prayer is the measure. Prayer molds the life.

Right Living Includes Prayer

The vague, indefinite, popular view of religion has no prayer in it. In its program, 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 near it.

It is God's standard at which we are to aim, not man's. It is not the opinions of people and 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 about the nature and need of prayer, the more definite our views of Christian experience and right living, and the less vague our views of religion. A low standard of religion coincides with a low standard of praying.

Everything in a religious life depends on 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 which it consists.

The Scriptures always 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 and 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 (Romans 12:1). A full renunciation of self, a free recognition of God's right to us, and a sincere offering of all to him is the divine requirement. There is nothing indefinite in that. Nothing in that is governed by the opinions of others or affected by how others around us live.

While a life of prayer is embraced in such a full consecration, at the same time prayer leads to the point where a complete consecration is made to God. Consecration is only 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 that 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 as stated in the Old Testament law. A consecration of this sort, following this divine measurement, has the business of praying in it as a basic principle. Consecration is made to God. Prayer has to do with God. Consecration is putting oneself 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. We cannot afford to seek less than this.

A scriptural standard of religion includes a clear religious experience. Religion is nothing if not experiential. 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 each to work out your own saving health with fear and trembling, but it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure (Philippians 2:12-13). There is a good work in you as well as a life outside to be lived.

The new birth is a definite Christian experience; it is proved by infallible marks and appeals 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. 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 and for which we earnestly seek, sluggishness will unnerve effort, and past experience will taint or exhale into mere sentiment or be hardened into cold, loveless principle.

Pressing On to Our Goal

We must go on. Therefore, leaving now the word of the beginning of the establishment of the Christ, let us go on unto perfection (Hebrews 6:1). 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.

This is critical. It is essential that in going on in religious experience, we have something definite in view and strike out for that one point. To forever go on and not know to which place we are going is altogether too vague and indefinite; it is like a man who starts out on a journey and does not have any destination in view. It is important that we don't lose sight of the starting point in a religious life, and that we measure the steps already trod. But it is also necessary to keep the end in view, and the steps needed to reach the standard should always be in sight.
Chapter 10

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 drought 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 White

We speak here more particularly of spiritual compassion that is born in a renewed heart and finds hospitality there. This compassion has the quality of mercy in it and is of the nature of pity; it 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 of indifference of spirit to the wants and woes of others, and it is far removed from insensibility and hardness of heart in the midst of want and trouble and wretchedness. Compassion stands in addition to sympathy for others, is interested in them, and is concerned about them.

The sight of multitudes in want and distress and of those helpless to relieve themselves excites and develops compassion and puts it to work. 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 produced in the heart. Prayer belongs to the compassionate person.

Compassion Moves People

There is a certain compassion that belongs to the natural person, which expends its force in simple gifts to those in need and is not to be despised. But spiritual compassion, the kind born in a renewed heart, which is Christlike in its nature, is deeper, broader, and more prayer-like. Christlike compassion always moves to prayer. This sort of compassion goes beyond the relief of simple physical needs that says, "Have a nice day; stay warm and be fed and clothed," to someone in need. It reaches deeper down and goes much farther.

Compassion is not blind. Actually, we should say compassion is not born of blindness. The one who has compassion of soul has eyes, first of all, to see the things that excite compassion. The one who has no eyes to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin or the needs and distress of humanity will never have compassion for humanity. It is written of our Lord that when he saw the multitude, he was moved with compassion on them (Matthew 9:36). First, he saw the multitudes with their hunger, their trouble, and their helpless condition; then came compassion. After that he told his disciples to pray for the multitudes. The one who sees the multitudes and is unmoved at the sight of their sad state, their unhappiness, and their peril is hard and far from being Christlike. He or she has no heart of prayer for people.

Compassion may not always move people, but it is always moved toward people. Compassion may not always turn people to God, but it will, and does, turn God to people. 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 to do with others alone. The one thing that appealed to our Lord's compassionate nature was the multitudes who were like sheep without a shepherd. 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 sympathizing breasts

That generous pleasure know;

Kindly to share in others' joy,

And weep for others' woe.

Meeting Needs

Compassion doesn't only have to do with the body and its disabilities and needs. The soul's distressing state and 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 doesn't see only the bodies of people but their immortal spirits, soiled by sin, unhappy in their condition without God, and in imminent danger of being forever lost. When compassion beholds this sight of dying people hurrying to the judgment of God, it breaks out into intercessions for sinful men. This is when compassion speaks out in this way:

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 that we are not consumed because his mercies never diminish. (Lamentations 3:22)

And it is this divine quality in us that makes us so much like God. So, we find the psalmist describing the righteous ones who are pronounced blessed by God as gracious and merciful and righteous (Psalm 112:4). And as giving great encouragement to penitent, praying sinners, the psalmist records some of the striking attributes of God's divine character: The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and of great mercy (Psalm 145:8).

It is no wonder, then, that we find it recorded several times about our Lord while on earth that he was moved with compassion. Can anyone 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; he was concerned over them, and his heart was strangely warmed with tender compassion for their salvation, even though he was mistreated and sorely persecuted by them. In writing to the Romans, we hear him express himself this way:

I say the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual pain in my heart. For I could wish that myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren, those who are my kinsmen according to the flesh. (Romans 9:1-3)

What marvelous compassion is described here for Paul's own nation! It isn't surprising that he records his desire and prayer a little later on:

Brethren, certainly the desire of my heart and my prayer to God regarding Israel, is for saving health. (Romans 10:1)

We have an interesting case in Matthew that gives us an account of what excited the compassion of our Lord so much:

And when he saw the multitude, he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then he said 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. (Matthew 9:36-38)

It seems from parallel statements that our Lord had called his disciples aside to rest awhile, since he and they were exhausted by the excessive burdens on them from the ceaseless contact with the people who were forever coming and going and from their exhaustive toil in ministering to the immense multitudes. But the multitudes preceded him; instead of finding wilderness solitude, quiet, and repose, he found great multitudes eager to see and hear and be healed. His compassions were moved. The ripened harvests needed laborers. He did not call these laborers at once by sovereign authority but charged the disciples to take themselves to God in prayer and ask him to send forth laborers into his harvest.

Here the urgency of prayer is enforced by the compassions of our Lord. It is prayer born of compassion for perishing humanity. Prayer for laborers to be sent into the harvest of the Lord is the work of the church. The harvest will go to waste and perish without the laborers, but the laborers must be God chosen, God sent, and God commissioned. But God does not send these laborers into his harvest without prayer. The failure of the laborers is due to the failure of prayer. The scarcity of laborers in the harvest is due to how the church fails to pray for laborers according to his command.

Prayer and Missions Work

The gathering in of the harvests of earth for the granaries of heaven is dependent on the prayers of God's people. Prayer secures sufficient laborers in quantity and in quality for all the needs of the harvest. God's chosen laborers, God's endowed laborers, and God's thrust-forth laborers are the only ones who will truly go, filled with Christlike compassion and infused with Christlike power. Their going will profit, but these laborers are secured by prayer. The guarantee of laborers in numbers and character to meet the needs of earth and the purposes of heaven is Christ's people on their knees with Christ's compassion in their hearts for dying people and for needy souls at risk of eternal peril.

God is sovereign of the earth and of heaven, and he delegates the choice of laborers in his harvest to no one else. Prayer honors him as sovereign and moves him to his wise and holy selection. We will have to put prayer to the front before the fields of paganism will be successfully tilled for Christ. God knows his people and he also knows full well his work. Prayer gets God to send forth the best, the most fit, and the best qualified men and women to work in the harvest. Promoting missionary work through our own strength instead of God's has been the church's deficiency, its weakness, and its failure. Compassion for the world of sinners – those fallen in Adam but redeemed in Christ – will move the church to pray for them and stir the church to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers 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 forever lives to intercede for us, because his mercies never diminish (Lamentations 3:22). Above everything else, we have a compassionate Savior, who can have compassion on the ignorant and on those that are in error; for he himself is also compassed with weakness (Hebrews 5:2). The compassion of our Lord fits him well 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 that are in error and exposed to divine wrath that would move us to pray for them. To the degree we are compassionate, we will be prayerful for others. Compassion does not apply its force in simply saying, be ye warmed and filled, as it says in James 2:16, 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 human. While he was the divine Son of God, at the same time he was the human Son of God. Christ had a preeminently human side, and here compassion reigned. He was tempted in all ways as we are, yet he was without sin. Days before his death, the flesh seemed to have weakened under the fearful strain upon him; how he must have inwardly shrunk under the pain and pull! In telling his disciples about his impending death, he said:

Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this have I come in this hour. (John 12:27)

In the garden of Gethsemane a few days later and just before he was arrested, he prayed:

O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. (Matthew 26:39)

He showed such strength and steadfastness in his spirit – for this have I come in this hour. The only one who can solve this mystery is one who has followed his Lord in distress and gloom and pain; he realized that the spirit is willing but the body is weak.

And he came unto the disciples and found them asleep and said unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. (Matthew 26:40-41)

All this qualified our Lord to be a compassionate Savior. It is no sin to feel the pain and realize the darkness on the path where 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 have I come in this hour. Shall I fail through the weakness of the body? No. Like Jesus, we cry, "Father, glorify (clarify) thy name."

Jesus spoke these words and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour is come; clarify thy Son, that thy Son may also clarify thee. (John 17:1)

It makes us strong and true to have one pole star to guide us to the glory of God!

* * *

 From a hymn by Philip Doddridge (1702-1751).

 From another hymn by Philip Doddridge.

 From a hymn by Charles Wesley.

 From a hymn by Benjamin Beddome (1717-1795).
Chapter 11

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 French theologian Pasquier Quesnel said, "God is found in union and agreement. Nothing is more efficacious than this in prayer." Intercessions combine with prayers and supplications. The word union does not necessarily mean 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.

Unified Gathering for Prayer

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 combination 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:

Therefore if thy brother shall sin against thee, go and reprove him 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 congregation; but if he neglects to hear the congregation, let him be unto thee as a worldly man and a publican.

Verily I say unto you, Whatever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in the heaven; and whatever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in the heaven.

Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father who is in the heavens.

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:15-20)

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 after cutting off a church offender. This last direction relating to a concert of prayer is that the whole matter should be referred to Almighty God for his approval and ratification.

All this means that the main, concluding, and all-powerful agency in the church is prayer. It may be as we have seen in Matthew 9 – to thrust out laborers into God's earthly harvest fields. Or it may be to exclude a violator of unity, law, and order from the church – the one who will neither listen to his brethren nor repent and confess his fault.

Church Purity

Church discipline, which is now a lost art in the modern church, must go hand in hand with prayer. The church that has no temperament to separate wrongdoers from the church and 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 that is careless about discipline will be careless in praying. A church that tolerates evildoers 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 for 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 and 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 was referenced above. Furthermore, Paul gives explicit directions about those who fall into sin in the church:

Brethren, if anyone is overtaken in a fault, ye who are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted. (Galatians 6:1)

The work of the church is not only 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; if they cannot be cured of their faults, then removal must take place. This is the doctrine our Lord lays down.

It is somewhat striking that the church at Ephesus mentioned in Revelation still received credit for this good quality even though it had left its first love and had sadly declined in vital godliness and in the things that make up spiritual life.

I know thy works and thy labour and thy patience and how thou canst not bear those who are evil. (Revelation 2:2)

In the same passage, the church at Pergamos was admonished because there had been some in its membership who taught hurtful doctrines that were a stumbling block to others. It was not so much that such characters were in the church, but that they were tolerated. The impression is that the church leaders were blind to the presence of such hurtful characters and therefore were indisposed to administer discipline. This condition was an unfailing sign of prayerlessness in the membership. There was no union of prayer effort looking to cleanse the church and keep it clean.

This disciplinary idea stands out prominently in the apostle Paul's writings to the churches. The church at Corinth had a notorious case of fornication where a man had married his stepmother, and this church had been careless about this sin. Paul rather sharply reproved this church and gave explicit command to this effect: Therefore, put away from among yourselves that wicked person (1 Corinthians 5:13). Here Paul demanded a concert of action on the part of the church.

Even the good church at Thessalonica needed instruction and caution on this matter of looking after disorderly persons. So we hear Paul saying to them:

Now we charge you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walks out of order, and not after the doctrine which ye received of us. (2 Thessalonians 3:6)

Mutual Praying and Order

Let me emphasize, it is not the mere presence of disorderly people in a church that merits the displeasure of God. It is when they are tolerated under the mistaken statement of "bearing with them," and no steps are taken either to cure them of their evil practices or exclude them from the fellowship of the church. And this glaring neglect on the part of the church toward its wayward members is a sad sign of a lack of praying. For a praying church that is accustomed to mutual praying – agreement praying – is keen to discern when a brother or sister is overtaken in a fault and seeks to either restore or to cut them off if they are unrepentant.

Much of this goes back to the lack of spiritual vision on the part of church leaders. By the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, the Lord once asked the very pertinent, suggestive question, Who is blind, but my slave? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? Who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the slave of the LORD, who sees many things and does not warn; who opens his ears and does not hear. (Isaiah 42:19-20). This blindness in leadership in the church is no more obvious than in this challenge to mark evildoers in the church and to care for them – and when the effort to restore them fails, to withdraw fellowship from them and let him be unto thee as a worldly man and a publican (Matthew 18:17).

The truth is that there is such a lust for members in the church that the officials and preachers have entirely lost sight of the members who have violated baptismal covenants and are living in open disregard of God's Word. The idea now is quantity in membership, not quality. The purity of the church is put in the background in the craze to secure numbers and to pad the church rolls and make large figures in numerical columns. Prayer, much prayer, and mutual prayer would bring the church back to scriptural standards and would purge the church of many wrongdoers; it might even cure not a few of their evil lives.

Prayer and church discipline are not new revelations of the Christian faith. These two things had a high place in the Jewish church. Instances are too numerous to mention all of them. Ezra is a case in point. When he returned from the captivity, he found a sad and distressing condition of things among the Lord's people who were left in the land. They had not separated themselves from the surrounding heathen people but had intermarried with them, contrary to divine commands. And those high in the church were involved – the priests and the Levites with others. Ezra was greatly moved at the account given to him, and he tore his garments and wept and prayed. Evildoers in the church did not meet his approval, nor did he shut his eyes to them or excuse them; he didn't compromise the situation either. When he had finished confessing the sins of the people and praying, the people assembled themselves before him and joined him in a covenant agreement to put away from them their evil doings, and they wept and prayed together with Ezra.

The result was that the people thoroughly repented of their transgressions, and Israel was reformed. Praying and a good man, who was neither blind nor unconcerned, accomplished the action.

Of Ezra it is written, and when he came there, he ate no bread, nor drank water; for he mourned because of the transgression of those that had been carried away (Ezra 10:6). This is how it is with every praying person in the church when they have eyes to see the transgression of evildoers in the church, a heart to grieve over them, and a spirit in them that is so concerned about the church that they pray about it.

Praying Leaders

Blessed is the church that has praying leaders who can see that which is disorderly in the church, who are grieved about it, and who put forth their hands to correct the evils that harm God's cause as a weight to its progress. One point in the indictment against those that are at ease in Zion, referred to by Amos, is that they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph (Amos 6:1, 6). This same indictment could be brought against church leaders of modern times. They are not grieved because the members are engulfed in a craze for worldly, carnal things, nor when there are those in the church walking openly in disorder, whose lives scandalize religion. Of course, such leaders do not pray over the matter, for praying would produce a spirit of concern in them for these evildoers and would drive away the spirit of unconcern that possesses them.

It would be well for prayerless church leaders and careless pastors to read the account in Ezekiel where God instructed the prophet to send certain men through the city who would destroy those in the city because of the great evils found therein. But certain persons were to be spared. These were those that sigh and that cry out because of all the abominations that are done in the midst of the city (Ezekiel 9:4). The man with the inkhorn was to mark every one of these sighers and mourners so they would escape the impending destruction. Please note that the instructions were that the slaying of those who did not mourn and sigh should begin from my sanctuary (Ezekiel 9:6).

What a lesson for non-praying, unconcerned officials of the modern church! How few there are who sigh and cry for present-day abominations in the land and who are grieved over the desolations of Zion! There is such a need for two or three to be gathered together (Matthew 18:20) in a concert of prayer over these conditions and in the secret place and weep and pray for the sins in Zion!

This concert of prayer, this agreement in praying, taught by our Lord in the eighteenth chapter of Matthew, finds proof and illustration elsewhere. This was the kind of prayer Paul referred to in his request to his Roman brethren:

But I beseech you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the charity of the Spirit, that ye help me with prayers to God for me that I may be delivered from the disobedient in Judaea and that the offering of my service to the saints in Jerusalem may be accepted. (Romans 15:30-31)

Here is unity in prayer, prayer by agreement, and prayer that drives directly at deliverance from unbelieving and evil men. The same kind of prayer was urged by our Lord, and the result was practically the same – deliverance from unbelieving people. That deliverance was brought about either by bringing them to repentance or by exclusion from the church. The same idea is found here:

Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified, even as it is with you. (2 Thessalonians 3:1)

Here is united prayer requested by an apostle, among other things, for deliverance from wicked men – the same that the church of God needs in this day. By joining their prayers to his, they desired to rid the church of those who were hurtful to the church of God and who were a hindrance to the flow of the Word of the Lord. Let's ask – aren't there those in the present-day church who are also a hindrance to the continuing of the Word of the Lord? Pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified, even as it is with you. (2 Thessalonians 3:1) What better course is there than to jointly pray over the question while using the Christ-given course of discipline first to save them? But if that course fails, to excise them from the body?

Does that seem like a harsh course of action? Then our Lord was guilty of harshness himself, for he ends these directions by saying:

And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the congregation; but if he neglects to hear the congregation, let him be unto thee as a worldly man and a publican. (Matthew 18:17)

This is no more harshness than the act of the skillful surgeon, who sees the whole body with parts endangered by a gangrenous limb and severs the limb from the body for the good of the whole body. It was no more harsh in the actions of the captain and crew of the vessel on which Jonah was found; when the storm arose and threatened destruction to all on board, they cast the fleeing prophet overboard. What seems harsh is obedience to God; it is for the welfare of the church and is wise in the extreme.

* * *

 (1634-1719).
Chapter 12

The Universality of Prayer

It takes more of the power of the Spirit to make the farm, the home, the office, the store, and the shop holy than it does to make the church holy. It takes more of the power of the Spirit to make Saturday holy than to make Sunday holy. It takes much more of the power of the Spirit to make money for God than it does to make a talk for God. Much more to live a great life for God than to preach a great sermon. – Edward M. Bounds

Prayer is far-reaching in its influence and worldwide in its effects. It affects all people, it affects them everywhere, and it affects them in all things. It touches man's interest in time and eternity. It lays hold upon God and moves him to interfere in the affairs of earth. It moves the angels to minister to people in this life. It restrains and defeats the devil in his schemes to ruin mankind. Prayer goes everywhere and lays its hand upon everything.

There is a universality in prayer. When we talk about prayer and its work, we must use universal terms. It is individual in its application and benefits, but it is general and worldwide at the same time in its good influences. It blesses people in every event of life, furnishes them help in every emergency, and gives them comfort in every trouble. There is no experience through which anyone is called to go where prayer is not there as a helper, a comforter, and a guide.

The Many Sides to Prayer

When we speak of the universality of prayer, we discover many sides to it. First, it may be said that all people ought to pray. Prayer is intended for all people, because all people need God and need what God has; they need that which only prayer can secure. Since people are called upon to pray everywhere, all people must pray because people are everywhere. Universal terms are used when people are commanded to pray, while there is a promise in universal terms to all who call upon God for pardon, for mercy, and for help:

For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. (Romans 10:12)

Since there is no difference in the state of sin in which people are found, all people need the saving grace of God that alone can bless them. This saving grace is obtained only in answer to prayer; therefore all people are called on to pray because of their precise needs.

It is a general rule of scriptural interpretation that whenever a command is issued with no limitation, the principle of the matter, the spiritual symbolism, is universal in binding force. So the words of the Lord in Isaiah are to the point:

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55:6-7)

Therefore, as wickedness is universal, and as pardon is needed by all people, so all people must seek the Lord while he may be found and must call upon him while he is near. To pray is a command for all people. It is a privilege for every person to pray, but it is also a binding duty for them to call upon God. No sinner is debarred from the mercy seat, all are commanded to repent and pray.

Come all the world, come, sinner thou,

All things in Christ are ready now.

Whenever a poor sinner turns his eyes to God, no matter where he is or what his guilt and sinfulness might be, the eye of God is upon him, and God's ear is opened to his prayers.

Pray Everywhere

Men and women may pray everywhere, since God is accessible in every place and under all circumstances.

I desire, therefore, that the men in every place, pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and strife. (1 Timothy 2:8)

No locality is too distant from God on earth to reach heaven. No place is so remote that God cannot see and hear one who looks toward him and seeks his face. Oliver Holden puts these words in a hymn:

Then, my soul, in every strait,

To Thy Father come and wait;

He will answer every prayer;

God is present everywhere.

There is just one modification of the idea that one can pray everywhere. Some places, because of the evil business carried on or the environments that belong there and grow out of the place itself or the moral character of those who carry on the business and of those who support it, are places where prayer would not be in place. We might give an example of the saloon, the theater, the opera, the card table, the dance, and other such places of worldly amusement. Prayer is so much out of place at such places that no one would ever presume to pray, except perhaps in emergency situations. Outside of that, prayer would be an intrusion, regarded that way by the owners, the patrons and the supporters of such places. Furthermore, those who attend such places are not praying people. They belong almost entirely to the prayerless crowd of worldly people.

While we are to pray everywhere, it unquestionably means that we are not to frequent places that hinder prayer. To pray everywhere is to pray in all legitimate places and to attend especially those places where prayer is welcome and given a gracious hospitality. To pray everywhere is to preserve the spirit of prayer in places of business, in our communication with other people, and in the privacy of the home amid all of its domestic cares.

The model prayer of our Lord, called The Lord's Prayer, is the universal prayer, because it is peculiarly adapted to all people everywhere in all circumstances and in all times of need. It can be put in the mouths of all people in all nations and in all times. It is a model of praying that needs no amendment or alteration for every family, people, and nation.

Pray for Everyone

Prayer also has its universal application in that all people are to be the subjects of prayer. All people everywhere are to be prayed for. Prayer must take in all of Adam's fallen race because all people are fallen in Adam, redeemed in Christ, and are benefited by prayers for them. This is Paul's doctrine in his prayer directory:

I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and integrity. (1 Timothy 2:1-2)

There is strong scriptural warrant, therefore, for reaching out and embracing all people in our prayers. We are not only commanded to pray for them this way, but the reason given is that Christ gave himself a ransom for all people. All people are provisionally beneficiaries of the atoning death of Jesus Christ.

Pray for Everything

Lastly, and more at length, prayer has a universal side in that all things that concern us are to be prayed about, while all things that are for our good – physical, social, intellectual, spiritual, and eternal – are subjects of prayer. However, before we consider this aspect of prayer, let's stop and again look at the universal prayer for all people.

As a special class to be prayed for, we may mention those who have control in government or who have rule in the church. Prayer has mighty power. It makes good rulers and makes them better rulers. It restrains the lawless and the authoritarian. Rulers are to be prayed for. They are not out of the reach and control of prayer, because they are not out of the reach and control of God. Wicked Nero was on the throne of Rome when Paul wrote the preceding words to Timothy, urging prayer for those in authority.

Christian lips are to breathe prayers for the cruel and infamous rulers in government as well as for the righteous and the benign governors and princes. Prayer is to be as far-reaching as the race – for all men. Humanity is to burden our hearts as we pray, and all people are to engage our thoughts in approaching a throne of grace. In our praying hours, all people must have a place. The needs and troubles of the entire race are to broaden our sympathies, make them tender, and inflame our petitions. No little person can pray. No person with narrow views of God, his plan to save men, and the universal needs of all men can pray effectively.

It takes a broad-minded person who understands God and his purposes in the atonement to pray well. No cynic can pray. Prayer is the divinest philanthropy, as well as giant great-heartedness. Prayer comes from a big heart, filled with thoughts about all people and with sympathies for all people.

Prayer runs parallel with the will of God, who desires that all men be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4).

Prayer reaches up to heaven and brings heaven down to earth. Prayer has in its hands a double blessing. It rewards the one who prays, and it blesses the one who is prayed for. It brings peace to warring passions and calms warring elements. Tranquility is the happy fruit of true praying. There is an inner calm that comes to the one who prays and an outer calm as well. Prayer creates quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and integrity (1 Timothy 2:2).

Touching Heaven, Moving Earth

Right praying not only makes life beautiful in peace but is perfumed in righteousness and weighty in influence. Honesty, gravity, integrity, and weight in character are the natural and essential fruits of prayer.

It is this kind of worldwide, large-hearted, unselfish praying that pleases God well. It is acceptable in his sight, because it cooperates with his will and runs in gracious streams to all people and to each individual. It is this kind of praying that the man Christ Jesus did when on earth, and the same kind he is now doing at his Father's right hand in heaven as our mighty Intercessor. He is the pattern of prayer. He is between God and man, the one Mediator, who gave himself as a ransom for all people – and for each individual.

So it is that true prayer links itself to the will of God and runs in streams of solicitude, compassion, and intercession for others. As Jesus Christ died for the world, so prayer encircles world and gives itself for the benefit of everyone who is called. Like Jesus Christ, our one Mediator between God and man, the person who prays stands midway between God and man, and offers up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears to God the Father (Hebrews 5:7). Prayer holds in its grasp the movements of the race of man and embraces the destinies of men for all eternity. The king and the beggar are both affected by it. It touches heaven and moves earth. Prayer holds earth to heaven and brings heaven in close contact with earth.

Your guides and brethren bear

Forever on your mind;

Extend the arms of mighty prayer

In grasping all mankind.

* * *

 From a hymn by Charles Wesley.

 Oliver Holden (1765-1844).

 From a hymn by Charles Wesley.
Chapter 13

Prayer and Missions

One day, about this time, I heard an unusual bleating amongst my few remaining goats, as if they were being killed or tortured. I rushed to the goat-house and found myself instantly surrounded by a band of armed men. The snare had caught me, their weapons were raised, and I expected the next moment to die. But God moved me to talk to them firmly and kindly; I warned them of their sin and its punishment; I showed them that only my love and pity led me to remain there seeking their good, and that if they killed me they killed their best friend. I further assured them I was not afraid to die, for at death my Savior would take me to heaven and that I would be far happier than on earth; and that my only desire to live was to make them happy by teaching them to love Jesus Christ my Lord. I then lifted up my hands and eyes to the heavens and prayed aloud for Jesus to bless all my Tannese and to protect me or take me to heaven as he saw to be for the best. One after another they slipped away from me and Jesus restrained them again. Did ever a mother run more quickly to protect her crying child in danger's hour than the Lord Jesus hastens to answer believing prayer and send help to his servants in his own good time and way, so far as it shall be for their good and his glory. – John G. Paton

Missions is the giving of the gospel to those of Adam's fallen race who have never heard of Christ and his atoning death. It means the giving to others the opportunity to hear of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ and allowing others to have a chance to receive and accept the blessings of the gospel, as we have it in Christianized lands. It means that those who enjoy the benefits of the gospel give these same religious advantages and gospel privileges to all of mankind. Prayer has a great deal to do with missions.

Prayer is the handmaid of missions. The success of all real missionary effort is dependent on prayer. The life and spirit of missions are the life and spirit of prayer. Both prayer and missions were born in the divine mind. Prayer and missions are bosom companions. Prayer creates and makes missions successful, while missions lean heavily on prayer. In a psalm that deals with the Messiah, it is stated that prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily he shall be given blessings (Psalm 72:15). Prayer would be made for his coming to save man, and prayer would be made for the success of the plan of salvation, which he would come to set on foot.

Christ's Work, Our Work

The Spirit of Jesus Christ is the spirit of missions. Our Lord Jesus Christ was himself the first missionary. His promise and advent composed the first missionary movement. The missionary spirit is not simply a phase of the gospel, not a mere feature of the plan of salvation, but it is its very spirit and life. The missionary movement is the church of Jesus Christ, marching in militant array with the strategy to possess the whole world of mankind for Christ. Whoever is touched by the Spirit of God is fired by the missionary spirit.

An anti-missionary Christian is a contradiction in terms. We might say that it would be impossible to be an anti-missionary Christian because of the impossibility for the divine and human forces to put people in such a state as not to align them with the missionary cause. Missionary impulse is the heartbeat of our Lord Jesus Christ, sending the vital forces of himself through the whole body of the church. The spiritual life of God's people rises or falls with the force of those heartbeats. When these life forces cease, then death ensues. So anti-missionary churches are dead churches, just as anti-missionary Christians are dead Christians.

The craftiest deception of Satan, if he cannot prevent a great movement for God, is to corrupt the movement. If he can put the movement first and the spirit of the movement in the background, he has materialized and thoroughly corrupted the movement. Only mighty prayer will save the movement from being materialized and keep the spirit of the movement strong.

The key of all missionary success is prayer. That key is in the hands of the home churches. The trophies won by our Lord in heathen lands will be won by praying missionaries, not by professional workers in foreign lands. This success will be won more so by saintly praying in the churches at home. The home church on her knees, fasting and praying, is the great base of spiritual supplies, the powers of war, and the pledge of victory in this dire and final conflict. Financial resources are not the real powers of war in this fight. Machinery in itself carries no power to break down heathen walls, open effectual doors, and win heathen hearts to Christ. Prayer alone can do the deed.

Victory to the Praying Church

Aaron and Hur did not give victory to Israel through Moses any more than a praying church through Jesus Christ will give victory on every battlefield in heathen lands. It is as true in foreign fields as it is in homelands. The praying church wins the contest. The home church has done an insignificant thing when she has furnished the money to establish missions and support her missionaries. Money is important, but money without prayer is powerless in the face of the darkness, the wretchedness, and the sin in un-Christianized lands. Prayerless giving breeds barrenness and death. Poor praying at home is the cause of poor results in the foreign field. Prayerless giving is the secret of all crises in the missionary movements of the day and is the circumstance of the accumulation of debts in missionary boards.

It is all right to urge people to give what they can to the missionary cause. But it is much more important to urge them to give their prayers to the movement. Foreign missions today need the power of prayer more than the power of money. Prayer can make even poverty in the missionary cause cease amid difficulties and hindrances. A lot of money without prayer is helpless and powerless in the face of the utter darkness and sin and wretchedness on the foreign field.

This is especially a missionary age. Protestant Christianity is stirred as it never was before in the line of aggression in pagan lands. The missionary movement has taken on proportions that awaken hope, kindle enthusiasm, and demand the attention, if not the interest, of the coldest and the most lifeless. Nearly every church has caught the bug, and the sails of their proposed missionary movements are spread wide to catch the favoring breezes. Herein is the danger just now – the missionary movement will go ahead of the missionary spirit. This has always been the peril of the church – losing the substance in the shade, losing the spirit in the outward shell, and contenting itself in the mere parade of the movement – putting the force of effort in the movement and not in the spirit.

The magnificence of this movement may not only blind us to the spirit of it, but the spirit that should give life and shape to the movement may be lost in the wealth of the movement, as the ship that is carried by favoring winds is lost when these winds swell to a storm.

Many of us have heard eloquent and earnest speeches stressing the imperative need of money for missions but rarely have we heard one stressing the imperative need of prayer. All our plans and devices drive to the purpose of raising money, not to accelerate faith and promote prayer. The common idea among church leaders is that if we get the money, prayer will come naturally.

The very reverse is the truth. If we get the church at the business of praying and thus secure the spirit of missions, money will more than likely come naturally. Spiritual agencies and spiritual forces never come naturally. Spiritual duties and spiritual factors, left to the natural law, will surely fall out and die. Only the things that are stressed live and rule in the spiritual realm.

Giving and Praying Inseparable

Those who give will not necessarily pray. Many in our churches are liberal givers but the same ones are often noted for their prayerlessness. One of the evils of the present-day missionary movement lies exactly there. Giving is entirely removed from prayer. Prayer receives scant attention, while giving stands out prominently. Those who truly pray will be moved to give. Praying creates the giving spirit. The praying ones will give liberally and in self-denial. The one who enters his prayer closet to God will also open his purse to God. But perfunctory, grudging, assessment giving kills the very spirit of prayer. Emphasizing the material to the neglect of the spiritual by an inflexible law retires and discounts the spiritual.

It is astonishing how money plays such a great part in the modern religious movements and how little prayer plays in them. In striking contrast with that statement, it is curious what a small part money played in primitive Christianity as a factor in spreading the gospel and what a wonderful part prayer played in it.

The grace of giving is nowhere cultured to a richer growth than in the prayer closet. If all our missionary boards and positions of office were turned into praying bands until the agony of real prayer and labor with Christ for a perishing world came on them, real estate, bank stocks, and United States bonds would be in the market for the spreading of Christ's gospel among people. If the spirit of prayer prevailed, missionary boards whose individual members are worth millions would not be staggering under a load of debt. Great churches would not have a yearly deficit and a yearly grumbling, grudging, and pressure to pay a meager charge to support a mere handful of missionaries, with the additional humiliation of debating the question of recalling some of them. The advancement of Christ's kingdom is locked up in the closet of prayer by Christ himself and not in the contribution box.

Thy Kingdom Come

Looking down the centuries with the vision of a seer, the prophet Isaiah expressed his purpose to continue in prayer and give God no rest until Christ's kingdom is established among men:

For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace; and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest until her righteousness goes forth as brightness and her saving health is lit as a flaming torch. (Isaiah 62:1)

Then, foretelling the final success of the Christian church, he spoke:

And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness and all the kings thy glory; and thou shalt be given a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name. (Isaiah 62:2)

Then the Lord himself, by the mouth of this evangelical prophet, declared:

I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night; ye that make mention of the Lord, do not keep silent and give him no rest, until he establishes and until he makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth. (Isaiah 62:6-7)

The English Revised Version of the Bible reads, Ye that are the Lord's remembrancers. The idea is that these praying ones are those who are the Lord's remembrancers – those who remind him of what he has promised and who give him no rest until God's church is established in the earth.

One of the leading petitions in the Lord's Prayer deals with this same question of the establishing of God's kingdom and the progress of the gospel with the short, pointed petition, Thy kingdom come and the added words, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.

Paul and Barnabas were definitely called and set apart to the missionary field at Antioch when that church had fasted and prayed. It was then that the Holy Spirit answered from heaven, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work unto which I have called them (Acts 13:2).

Please note this was not the call to the ministry of Paul and Barnabas but more particularly their definite call to the foreign field. Paul had been called to the ministry years before this – even at his conversion. This was a subsequent call to a work born of special and continued prayer in the church at Antioch. God calls people not only to the ministry but to be missionaries. Missionary work is God's work. And the God-called people are to do it. These are the kind of missionaries that have done well and have been successful in the foreign field in the past, and the same kind will do the work in the future, or it will not be done.

Praying missionaries are needed for the work, and a praying church sends them out, which are prophecies of the success that is promised. The sort of religion to be exported by missionaries is of the praying sort. The religion to which the heathen world is to be converted is a religion of prayer – a religion of prayer to the true God. The heathen world already prays to its idols and false gods. But they are to be taught by praying missionaries, sent out by a praying church, to cast away their idols and to begin to call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

No prayerless church can transport a praying religion to heathen lands. No prayerless missionary can bring heathen idolaters who do not know our God to their knees in true prayer until he or she becomes preeminently a person of prayer. As it takes praying men at home to do God's work, nonetheless does it take praying missionaries to bring those who sit in darkness to the light.

The most noted and most successful missionaries have been preeminently men of prayer. David Livingstone, William Taylor, Adoniram Judson, Henry Martyn, Hudson Taylor, and many more form a band of illustrious praying men whose impact and influence still abide where they labored. No prayerless man or woman is wanted for this job. Above everything else, the primary qualification for every missionary is prayer. Let them be, above everything else, people of prayer. And when the crowning day comes and the records are made up and read at the great judgment day, then it will appear how well praying men and women wrought in the hard fields of heathendom and how much was due to them in laying the foundations of Christianity in those fields.

The only condition that is to give worldwide power to this gospel is prayer, and the spread of this gospel will depend on prayer. The energy that was to give it marvelous momentum and conquering power over all its malignant and powerful foes is prayer.

The fortunes of the kingdom of Jesus Christ are not made by the feebleness of its foes. They are strong and bitter and have always been strong and always will be. But mighty prayer – this is the one great spiritual force that will enable the Lord Jesus Christ to enter into full possession of his kingdom and secure for him the heathen as his inheritance and the farthest ends of the earth for his possession.

Prayer, the Mighty Weapon

Prayer will enable God to break his foes with a rod of iron and will make these foes tremble in their pride and power; they are just frail potter's vessels to be broken in pieces by one stroke of his hand. A person who can pray is the mightiest instrument Christ has in this world. A praying church is stronger than all the gates of hell.

God's decree for the glory of his Son's kingdom is dependent on prayer for its fulfilment:

Ask of me, and I shall give thee the Gentiles for thine inheritance and unto the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. (Psalm 2:8)

The primary reason the church has not received more in the missionary work in which it is engaged is the lack of prayer. You have not that which ye desire because ye ask not (James 4:2). Every dispensation foreshadowing the coming of Christ at the end of time when the world has been evangelized rests on these legitimate provisions – God's decree, his promises, and prayer. However far away that day of victory is by distance or time, or however difficult it is to see the foreshadowed events, prayer is the essential condition on which the revelation becomes strong, typical, and representative. From Abraham, the first of the nation of the Israelites, the friend of God, down to this manifestation of the Holy Spirit, this has been true.

The nations call! From sea to sea

Extends the thrilling cry,

"Come over, Christians, if there be,

And help us, ere we die."

Our hearts, O Lord, the summons feel;

Let hand with heart combine,

And answer to the world's appeal,

By giving "that is thine."

Our Lord's plan for securing workers in the foreign missionary field is the same plan he established for obtaining preachers. It is by the process of praying. It is the prayer plan as distinguished from all manmade plans. These mission workers are to be "sent men." God must send them. They are God-called, divinely moved to this great work. They are inwardly moved to enter the harvest fields of the world and gather sheaves for the heavenly garners. Men and women do not choose to be missionaries any more than they choose to be preachers. God sends out laborers in his harvest field in answer to the prayers of his church. Here is the divine plan as revealed by our Lord:

And when he saw the multitude, he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.

Then he said 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. (Matthew 9:36-38)

Prayer Sends Forth Workers

It is the business of the home church to do the praying. It is the Lord's business to call and send forth the laborers. The Lord does not do the praying. The church does not do the calling. Our Lord's compassion was stirred by the sight of multitudes who were weary, hungry, scattered, exposed to evils, and as sheep with no shepherd. In the same way, whenever the church has eyes to see the vast multitudes of the earth's inhabitants – descendants of Adam, weary in soul, living in darkness, wretched, and sinful – it will be moved to compassion. It will begin to pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into his harvest.

Missionaries, like ministers, are born of praying people. A praying church begets laborers in the harvest field of the world. The scarcity of missionaries attests to a non-praying church. It is acceptable to send trained people to the foreign field, but first of all, they must be God-sent people. The sending is the fruit of prayer. As praying people are the reason for sending them, likewise the workers must be praying people. And the prime mission of these praying missionaries is to convert prayerless heathen people into believing and praying people. Prayer is the proof of their calling, their divine credentials, and their work.

Those who are not praying people at home, need the one qualification to become mission workers abroad. Those who do not have the spirit that moves them toward sinners at home will hardly have a spirit of compassion for sinners abroad. Missionaries are not made of people who are failures at home. Those who will be people of prayer abroad must, before anything else, be people of prayer in their home church. If they are not engaged in turning sinners from their prayerless ways at home, they will hardly succeed in turning the heathen from their prayerless ways. In other words, it takes the same spiritual qualifications for being a home worker as it does for being a foreign worker.

In his own way, God calls men into his harvest fields in answer to the prayers of his church. It will be a sad day when missionary boards and churches overlook that fundamental fact and send out their own chosen people independent of God.

Is the harvest great? Are the laborers few? Then ask the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into his harvest. Oh, that a great wave of prayer would sweep over the church, asking God to send out a great army of laborers into the needy harvest fields of the earth! There is no danger of the Lord of the harvest sending out too many laborers and crowding the fields. The one who calls will most certainly provide the means for supporting those whom he calls and sends forth.

The one great need in the modern missionary movement is intercessors. They were scarce in the days of Isaiah, as well. This was his complaint:

And he saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no intercessor. (Isaiah 59:16)

So today there is great need of intercessors – first, for the needy harvest fields of earth, born of a Christlike compassion for the thousands without the gospel, and then intercessors for laborers to be sent forth by God into the needy fields of the earth.

* * *

 From a hymn by Ann Taylor Gilbert (1782-1866).
E. M. Bounds – A Brief Biography

Edward McKendree Bounds was born in Shelby County, Missouri, on August 15, 1835, and died on August 24, 1913, in Washington, Georgia. He was admitted to the bar in 1854 at the age of nineteen, but left the profession five years later when he answered the call of God to the ministry. Beginning in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, he became the chaplain of the Fifth Missouri Regiment of the Confederacy.

Bounds married Miss Emmie Barnett of Eufaula, Alabama, in 1876. By this union, he became the father of two daughters, Celeste and Corneille, and a son, Edward, who died at the age of six. His wife Emmie died in 1886, and later Bounds married Miss Hattie Barnett, Emmie's cousin. Together they had six children: Samuel, Charles, Osborne, Elizabeth, Mary, and Emmie. However, Charles died at the age of one, so in the end, the family consisted of seven children.

After serving several important churches in St. Louis and other places to the south, Bounds became editor of the St. Louis Christian Advocate for eight years and, later, associate editor of The Nashville Christian Advocate for four years. The trial of his faith came while he was in Nashville, and he quietly retired to his home without even asking for a pension. His principal work in Washington, Georgia (his home), was rising at four o'clock in the morning and praying until seven o'clock. He filled a few engagements as an evangelist during the eighteen years of his life work in Washington, Georgia.

* * * *

While I was a pastor in Atlanta, in 1905, I was informed that there was an apostolic man of prayer in Georgia who would aid the church in attaining a high level in spiritual things. The next mail carried a letter asking that apostolic man – Mr. Bounds – to come to our convention for ten days of preaching. Naturally, we expected to see a man of imposing physique. But when he came, we discovered that he was only about five and a half feet tall, but in him, we met one of the greatest saints that, in our humble opinion, has appeared on the spiritual horizon in the last hundred years.

He spoke the first afternoon on prayer. No one seemed to be particularly impressed. The next morning at four o'clock, we were amazed to hear him engaged in the most wonderful prayer we have ever heard – a prayer that seemed to take in both heaven and earth. His sermons were all about prayer and heaven. Not one morning during his stay did he fail to make his prayers a great while before day (Mark 1:35). He didn't care when the other occupants of his room protested for waking them at that unheard-of hour. No man could have made more melting appeals for lost souls and backslidden ministers than did Bounds. Tears ran down his face as he pleaded for us in that room. I know of no other man on earth today who would have gone away defeated, if he had followed the same practice at the same place, in the same room. But Bounds was all powerful, all commanding, and all victorious, when once he knew his cause was just.

After that convention, we took him to our heart and never let him go. God sent him in answer to our prayer to settle and establish this writer in the things of God that are foremost and supreme – prayer, preaching, and the study of the Bible.

We were constantly with him in prayer and preaching for eight precious years. Not a foolish word did we ever hear him utter. He was one of the most intense eagles of God that ever penetrated the spiritual realm. He could not tolerate delay in rising or being late for dinner. He would often go with me to street meetings in Brooklyn, listen to the preaching, and sing those beautiful songs of Wesley and Watts with us, but reprimanded me for asking the unconverted to sing of heaven. He said, "They have no heart to sing; they do not know God, and God does not hear them. Quit asking sinners to sing the songs of Zion and the Lamb." To what mysterious order of men did Bounds belong, anyway? Have they disappeared from the world?

Few subjects create more interest in the mind of the fervent Christian reader than the subject Bounds has named: heaven – a state, a city, and a home. He was so full of the "heavenly manna" that God produced through him that the spiritual splendor shone out of every chapter of his wonderful books.

In 1912, I wrote to him to come to Brooklyn, New York, to pray for me and my church. Here are a few excerpts from his personal letters to us at this time, which show the depths of his thought for a home in heaven.

"Washington, July 1, 1912: I am thinking more of going to heaven than to New York. It is far better. But it is in God's will. I would enjoy being with you. God seems to have opened the way. I will have to wait on God for New York or heaven as I am now very weak. With all love and prayer."

"December 12 and 13, 1912: You will pray much. I am turning to you and Chilton. One of you must help me to do the work on my manuscripts that I want finished and published. I could go to you, and then you could help me in odd times by prayer and consultation. We would then be together as long as God lets me live for His great work. We can issue the books together, and you can keep them if necessary until I die – until God's fitting time to publish."

On January 6, 1913, he writes, "Dearly Beloved: A good time praying for you. Be at it early and late. Let your mind live in the spirit of prayer. The thought of heaven is sweet. I am very weak, but will strive to work on and wait for God's time for heaven."

He was growing weaker and nearing the other shore when he wrote this letter:

"April 21, 1913: God will manage our affairs if we will be filled with His affairs. I am trying to get matters in shape for my manuscripts. I am very weak. I want to live for God, and then depart and be with Christ. I have an unspeakable desire to know the future, to see it and enjoy it, and to be there – to see and enjoy. God bless you."

The following letters I call "dying messages to one whom he loved":

"Washington, May 10, 1913: With all love and longing and prayers. God bless and keep you until eternal life. With many trials and tears, I am pressing on. I am still weak, but by sleeping in the day I can get through. When He is ready, I long for the heavenlies through Christ."

"Washington, Georgia, May 22, 1913: Yours came. I have you in prayer – at it early and trying to be at it all the day. God bless you with eternal life and hasten the day. Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in. Bear your boys on your prayers to the doors of heaven. I am getting the book ready to send to England. Pray God will open the way for it – to His glory. In love and faithful prayer as my strength will allow."

He wrote one card dated June 26, 1913:

"Washington, Georgia: In prayerful sympathy and love. Hold to the old truth – double distilled (purified and concentrated)."

The above card was the last word written to us in his own hand. On August 9, shortly before he died, his wife writes: "He was glad to hear from you but soon forgets. My physician says he will never be well again. His last message to you is characteristic: 'Tell him he is on the right track; press it. Have a high standard and hold to it.'"

Then came the telegram announcing his home-going:

"Washington, Georgia, August 24, 1913: Doctor Bounds went home this afternoon; funeral here tomorrow afternoon. – Hattie Bounds."

– Homer W. Hodge

* * *

 Lyle Wesley Dorsett, E. M. Bounds: Man of Prayer (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1991), 30-39, 50.
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The Essentials of Prayer – E. M. Bounds

Revised Edition Copyright © 2018

First edition published 1925

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