 
The   
Prayer   
Life

Persevering in Prayer

Andrew Murray

Contents

Foreword

Ch. 1: The Sin of Prayerlessness

Ch. 2: The Fight against Prayerlessness

Ch. 3: How to Be Delivered from Prayerlessness

Ch. 4: The Blessing of Victory

Ch. 5: The Example of Our Lord

Ch. 6: The Holy Spirit and Prayer

Ch. 7: The Holiness of God

Ch. 8: Obedience and the Victorious Life

Ch. 9: Time in Inner Chamber

Ch. 10: The Example of Paul

Ch. 11: Wholeheartedness in Preaching and Prayer

Ch. 12: Persevere in Prayer

Ch. 13: George Müller and Hudson Taylor

Ch. 14: The Spirit of the Cross

Ch. 15: Taking Up the Cross

Ch. 16: The Holy Spirit and the Cross

Epilogue

Andrew Murray – A Brief Biography
Foreword

A few words with regard to the origin of this book and why it was written will help you understand its teaching. It was the outcome of a conference of ministers at Stellenbosch, South Africa, April 11-14, 1912. The occasion of the conference was as follows: Professor de Vos, of our theological seminary, had written a long letter to the ministers of our church (Dutch Reformed Church) concerning the low state of spiritual life that marked the church (universal) generally, which he said ought to lead us to inquire as to how far that statement included our church, too.

What had been said in the letter, titled The State of the Church, called for deep searching of heart. Professor de Vos thought there could be no doubt about the truth of the statement in regard to the lack of spiritual power. He asked if it was time for us to come together and in God's presence to find out what might be the cause of the evil. He wrote, "If only we study the conditions in all sincerity, we will have to acknowledge that our unbelief and sin are the cause of the lack of spiritual power; that this condition is one of sin and guilt before God, and is nothing less than a direct grieving of God's Holy Spirit."

His invitation met with a heart-felt response. Our four theological professors, along with more than two hundred ministers, missionaries, and theological students, came together with the above words as the keynote of our meeting. From the very first speech, there was the tone of confession as the only way to repentance and restoration. At a subsequent meeting, the opportunity was given for testimony as to what the sins might be that made the life of the church so feeble. Some began to mention failings that they had seen in other ministers, either in conduct, doctrine, or service. It was soon felt that this was not the right way; each person must acknowledge the sins of which he himself is guilty.

The Lord graciously so directed it that we were gradually led to the sin of prayerlessness as one of the deepest roots of the evil. No one could plead himself free from this. Nothing so reveals the defective spiritual life in a pastor and the congregation as the lack of believing and unceasing prayer. Prayer is indeed the very pulse of the spiritual life. It is the great means of bringing to a pastor and the people the blessing and power of heaven. Persevering and believing prayer means a strong and abundant spiritual life.

When the spirit of confession began to prevail, the question arose as to if it would be indeed possible to expect to gain the victory over all that had hindered our prayer lives in the past. In smaller conferences held previously, it had been found that many were most anxious to make a new beginning, and yet did not have the courage to expect that they would be able to maintain that prayer life that they saw to be in accordance with the Word of God. They had often tried, but had failed. They did not dare to make any promise to the Lord to live and pray as He wanted them to; they felt that it was impossible.

Such confessions gradually led to the great truth that the only power for a new prayer life is to be found in an entirely new relationship with our blessed Savior. It is as we see in Him the Lord who saves us from sin – including the sin of prayerlessness – and our faith yields itself to a life of closer communion with Him, that a life in His love and fellowship will make prayer to Him the natural expression of our soul's life.

Before we parted, many were able to testify that they were returning home with new light and new hope to find in Jesus Christ strength for a new prayer life. Many felt that this was only a beginning. Satan, who had so long prevailed against the inner chamber (also known as the prayer closet – the place where we spend time alone in communion with God), would do his utmost with his temptations to make us yield once again to the power of the flesh and the world. Nothing but the teaching and the fellowship of Christ Himself could ever give the power to remain faithful.

The need was felt for some statement of the truths that had been dealt with at the conference, to remind those who had been present of what they had learned and of what would help them in their new pursuit of that prayer life that is so essential to a pastor's success. It was also needed for those who had not been able to attend, and also for the elders in our churches, who in many cases were deeply interested in hearing what the meetings that their ministers had attended were about. So, a book was put together.

Early copies of the book were sent out with the thought that if the leaders of the church, the ministers and elders, begin to see that in spiritual work everything depends upon prayer and that God Himself is the helper of those who wait on Him, it would indeed be a day of hope for our church as a whole. At the same time, it was meant for all believers who long for a life of entire separation to the Lord. For all who desired to pray more and pray better, it sought to point them to the glory of God in the inner chamber, and the way in which that glory can rest upon the soul.

When first asked to have the book translated into English, I felt as if it had been put together too quickly, and its language was too informal to make this book desirable. My own limited strength made it impossible for me to think of rewriting it. When, however, my friend Reverend W. M. Douglas asked permission to translate it, I gave my consent. If God has a message through the book to any of His servants, I would count it a privilege to tell what He has done here in our church, as a suggestion of what He may do in other churches.

I close with my greetings to all the ministers of the gospel and to the Christians who may read these pages. I pray fervently that the grace of God that very clearly brought conviction of sin among us and confession of our deep need and helplessness, resulting in the vision and faith of what Jesus Christ can do for those who trust Him, may give to those who read this book the courage to take counsel with his fellow Christians and to seek for and obtain that full fellowship with God in prayer that is the very essence of the Christian life.

It has been said that it is only the prayerless who are too proud to admit their prayerlessness. Let us believe that there are many hearts waiting for the call inviting them to united and wholehearted confession of shortcomings, as this is the only certain way of a return and restoration to God's favor and the experience of what He will do in answer to prayer.

I want to add one word more, in regard to the "Pentecostal prayer meetings" held throughout our church. These have had a very interesting and important place in our work. At the time of the great revival in America and Ireland in 1858 and the following years, some of our elder ministers issued a letter urging the churches to pray that God might visit us, too. In 1860, the revival broke out in various parishes. In April 1861, there was very deep interest shown in the Paarl, South Africa, in one of our oldest congregations. During the week preceding Pentecost Sunday, the minister, who ordinarily preached only once on a Sunday, announced that in the afternoon there would be a public prayer meeting in the church. The occasion was one of extraordinary interest, and many hearts were deeply touched. As one result, the minister suggested that in the future, the ten days between Ascension Day and Pentecost Sunday should be observed by daily prayer meetings. This took place the following year.

The blessing then received was such that all the neighboring congregations took up the suggestion, and now for fifty years, the ten days of prayer have been observed throughout the whole church. Each year, notes were issued as subjects of addresses and prayer, and the result has been that throughout our whole church, Christians have been educated in the knowledge of what God's Word teaches regarding the Holy Spirit, and they have been stirred to seek Him and to yield themselves to His blessed leading. These ten days have often proved the occasion for special effort with the unconverted, and of partial revival. They have been the means of untold blessing in leading ministers and people to recognize the place that the Holy Spirit ought to have as the executive of the Godhead in the heart of the believer, in dealing with souls, and in consecration to the service of the kingdom.

There is still very much indeed lacking of the full knowledge and power of the Holy Spirit, but we feel that we cannot be sufficiently grateful to God for what He has done in leading us to dedicate these days to special prayer for the moving of His Holy Spirit.

I have written this with the thought that there may be some who will be glad to know of it, and in their sphere to join with us in seeking God in prayer.

Andrew Murray

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Chapter 1

The Sin of Prayerlessness

If conscience is to do its work and the remorseful heart is to feel its misery, it is necessary that each individual should mention his sin by name. The confession must be extremely personal. In a meeting of pastors, there is probably no single sin which each of us ought to acknowledge with deeper shame than the sin of prayerlessness. We are guilty – truly guilty.

What is it, then, that makes prayerlessness such a great sin? At first, it is simply seen as a weakness. There is so much talk about lack of time and all sorts of distractions, that the deep guilt of the situation is not recognized. Let it be our honest desire that from now on the sin of prayerlessness will be truly sinful to us.

Consider the following points that help us see the seriousness of prayerlessness:

1. What a reproach it is to God. The holy and most glorious God invites us to come to Him, to speak with Him and hear from Him, to ask from Him such things as we need, and to experience what a blessing there is in fellowship with Him. He has created us in His own image and has redeemed us by His own Son, so that in communing with Him we might find our highest glory and salvation.

What use do we make of this heavenly privilege? How many there are who take only five minutes for prayer! They say that they have no time and that the heart's desire for prayer is lacking; they do not know how to spend even half an hour with God! It is not that they absolutely do not pray; they pray every day – but they have no joy in prayer, and joy in prayer is sign of communion with God that shows that God is everything to them.

If a friend comes to visit them, they have time, they make time – even at the cost of sacrifice, for the sake of enjoying conversation with the friend. Yes, they have time for everything that really interests them, but they have no time for fellowship with God and to delight themselves in Him! They find time for someone who can be of service to them; but day after day, month after month passes, and they find no time to spend even one hour with God.

Do not our hearts begin to acknowledge what a dishonor, what contempt for God this is, that I would dare say that I cannot find time for fellowship with Him? If this sin begins to appear plain to us, will we not cry out with deep shame, "Woe is me, for I am undone, O God; be merciful to me, and forgive my awful sin of prayerlessness"?

2. It is the cause of a deficient spiritual life. It is proof that, for the most part, our life is still under the power of the flesh. Prayer is the pulse of life; the doctor can tell the condition of our heart by our pulse. The sin of prayerlessness is proof for the ordinary Christian or pastor that the life of God in the soul is in deadly sickness and weakness.

Much is said and many complaints are made about the weakness of the church to fulfill her calling, to exercise an influence over her members, to deliver them from the power of the world, and to bring them to a life of holy consecration to God. Much is also spoken about the church's indifference to the millions of unsaved whom Christ entrusted to her that she might make known to them His love and salvation.

What is the reason that many thousands of Christian workers in the world do not have a greater influence? It is nothing except the prayerlessness of their service. In the midst of all their zeal in the study and in the work of the church, of all their faithfulness in preaching and speaking with the people, they lack that ceaseless prayer that has attached to it the sure promise of the Spirit and the power from on high. It is nothing but the sin of prayerlessness that is the cause of the lack of a powerful spiritual life!

3. The church suffers incredible loss as a result of prayerlessness of the pastor. It is the business of a pastor to train believers up to live lives of prayer; but how can a leader do this if he himself does not understand the art of conversing with God and of receiving abundant grace out of heaven for himself and for his work every day from the Holy Spirit? A pastor cannot lead a congregation higher than he is himself. He cannot with enthusiasm point out a way or explain a work in which he is not himself walking or living.

How many thousands of Christians there are who know next to nothing about the blessedness of prayer fellowship with God! How many there are who know something of it and long for a further increase of this knowledge, but in the preaching of the Word they are not persistently urged to continue until they obtain the blessing! The reason is simply and only that the pastor understands so little about the secret of powerful prayer and does not give prayer the place in his duty which, in the will of God and in the necessities of pastoral life, is indispensably necessary. Oh, what a difference we would notice in our congregations if pastors could be brought to see the sin of prayerlessness in its proper light and were delivered from it!

4. It is impossible to preach the gospel to all people – as we are commanded by Christ to do – as long as this sin is not overcome and cast out.

Many feel that the great need of missions is to obtain men and women who will give themselves to the Lord to strive in prayer for the salvation of souls. It has also been said that God is eager and able to deliver and bless the world He has redeemed, if His people were only willing and ready to cry to Him day and night. But how can congregations be brought to that point unless there comes first an entire change in pastors, that they begin to see that the indispensable thing is not preaching or pastoral visitation or church work, but fellowship with God in prayer until they are clothed with power from on high?

Oh, that all thought and work and expectation concerning the kingdom might drive us to the acknowledgement of the sin of prayerlessness! God, help us to root it out! God, deliver us from it through the blood and power of Christ Jesus! God, teach every minister of the Word to see what a glorious place he can occupy if he is first of all delivered from this root of evils, so that with courage and joy, in faith and perseverance, he can go on with You!

The sin of prayerlessness! May the Lord make the burden of it so heavy on our hearts that we will not rest until it is taken far from us through the name and power of Jesus. He will make this possible for us.

A Witness from America

In 1898, there were two members of a church district in New York who attended the Northfield Conference for the deepening of the spiritual life. They returned to their work with the fire of a new enthusiasm. They aspired to bring about a revival in the entire district. In a meeting that they held, the chairman was guided to ask the men a question concerning their prayer life. "Brothers," he said, "let us today make confession before God and each other. It will do us good. Will everyone who spends half an hour every day with God in connection with his work hold up his hand?" One hand was held up. He made a further request: "All who spend fifteen minutes a day in communion with God, hold up a hand." Not half of the hands were held up.

Then he said: "Prayer is the working power of the church of Christ, and half of the workers make hardly any use of it! All who spend five minutes a day alone in communion with God, hold up your hands." All hands went up; but one man came later with the confession that he was not quite sure if he spent five minutes in prayer every day. "It is," he said, "a terrible revelation of how little time I spend with God."

The Cause of Prayerlessness

In an elders' prayer meeting, a brother asked the question, "What, then, is the cause of so much prayerlessness? Is it not unbelief?"

The answer was, "Certainly; but then comes the question – what is the cause of that unbelief?" The disciples asked the Lord Jesus why they could not cast the demon out. He answered that it was because of their unbelief. He went further and said that this kind does not go out but by prayer and fasting (Matthew 17:19-21).

If the life is not one of self-denial and of fasting – that is, of letting the world go; if it is not a life of prayer – that is, of laying hold of heaven, then faith cannot be exercised. It is in a life lived according to the flesh and not according to the Spirit that we find the origin of the prayerlessness of which we complain.

As we came out of the meeting, a brother said to me, "That is the whole difficulty; we want to pray in the Spirit and at the same time walk after the flesh, and this is impossible."

If someone is sick and desires healing, it is very important that the true cause of the sickness is discovered. This is always the first step toward recovery. If the specific cause is not recognized and attention is directed to secondary causes or to supposed but not real causes, healing is out of the question. In the same way, it is of the utmost importance for us to have a correct understanding of the cause of the sad condition of deadness and failure in prayer in our daily devotional times, which should be such blessed times for us. Let us seek to fully realize what is the root of this evil.

Scripture teaches us that there are only two conditions possible for the Christian. One is a walk according to the Spirit, and the other is a walk according to the flesh. These two powers are in irreconcilable conflict with each other. So it comes to pass, in the case of the majority of Christians, that, while they thank God that they are born again through the Spirit and have received the life of God – their ordinary daily lives are not lived according to the Spirit, but according to the flesh.

Paul writes to the Galatians, Are ye so foolish? having begun by the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? (Galatians 3:3). Their service rests in fleshly outward performances. They did not understand that where the flesh is permitted to influence their service of God, it soon results in open sin.

Paul mentions not only serious sins such as adultery, murder, and drunkenness as the work of the flesh, but also the more ordinary sins of daily life, such as wrath, strife, and variance (quarrelling). He gives the exhortation, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. . . . If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16, 25). The Spirit must be honored not only as the author of a new life, but also as the leader and director of our entire walk. Otherwise, we are what the apostle calls "carnal."

The majority of Christians have little understanding of this matter. They have no real knowledge of the deep sinfulness and godlessness of that carnal nature that belongs to them and to which they unconsciously yield. God . . . condemned sin in the flesh (Romans 8:3) – in the cross of Christ. Those that are of the Christ have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts (Galatians 5:24). The flesh cannot be improved or sanctified. The prudence of the flesh is enmity against God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, neither indeed can it (Romans 8:7). There is no means of dealing with the flesh except as Christ dealt with it, bearing it to the cross. Our old man is crucified with him (Romans 6:6); so we, by faith, also crucify it and regard and treat it daily as a detestable thing that finds its rightful place on the accursed cross.

It should make us sad to consider how many Christians there are who seldom think or speak earnestly about the deep and immeasurable sinfulness of the flesh. In me (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing (Romans 7:18). The person who truly believes this may well cry out, I see another law in my members . . . bringing [me] captive unto the law of sin . . . O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Romans 7:23-24). Happy is he who can go further and say, The grace of God, by Jesus, the Christ, our Lord. . . . For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ, Jesus, has made me free from the law of sin and death (Romans 7:25; 8:2).

It would be good if we would understand God's counsels of grace for us. The flesh should be on the cross, and the Spirit must be in the heart and controlling the life. This spiritual life is too little understood or sought after, yet it is literally what God has promised and will accomplish in those who unconditionally surrender themselves to Him for this purpose.

Here, then, we have the deep root of evil as the cause of a prayerless life. The flesh can say prayers well enough, calling itself religious for doing so and thus satisfying the conscience; but the flesh has no desire or strength for the prayer that strives after an intimate knowledge of God, that rejoices in fellowship with Him, and that continues to lay hold of His strength. So, finally, it comes to this: the flesh must be denied and crucified.

The Christian who is still carnal has neither character nor strength to follow after God. He rests satisfied with the prayer of habit or custom; but the glory, the blessedness, of secret prayer is a hidden thing to him, until one day his eyes are opened, and he begins to see that the flesh, in its eagerness to turn away from God, is the archenemy that makes powerful prayer impossible for him.

Once, at a conference, I had spoken on the subject of prayer and made use of strong expressions about the enmity of the flesh as a cause of prayerlessness. After the sermon, the pastor's wife said that she thought I had spoken too strongly. She realized that she had too little desire for prayer, but she believed that her heart was sincerely set on seeking God. I showed her what the Word of God said about the flesh, and that everything that prevents the reception of the Spirit is nothing else than a secret work of the flesh. Adam was created to have fellowship with God, and he enjoyed it before he fell. After he fell, however, there immediately came a deep-seated aversion to God, and Adam fled from Him. This incurable aversion is the characteristic of the unregenerate nature and is the main cause of our unwillingness to surrender ourselves to fellowship with God in prayer. The following day, the pastor's wife told me that God had opened her eyes; she confessed that the enmity and unwillingness of the flesh was the hidden hindrance in her defective prayer life.

O brothers and sisters, do not seek to find in circumstances the explanation of this prayerlessness over which we mourn; seek it where God's Word declares it to be – in the hidden aversion of the heart to a holy God.

When a Christian does not yield entirely to the leading of the Spirit – and this is certainly the will of God and the work of His grace – he lives, without knowing it, under the power of the flesh. This life of the flesh manifests itself in many different ways. It appears in the impatience of your spirit; in the anger that so unexpectedly arises in you; in the lack of love for which you have so often blamed yourself; in the pleasure found in eating and drinking, about which at times your conscience has scolded you; in seeking for your own will and honor; in your confidence in your own wisdom and power; and in your love of the pleasure in the world, of which you are sometimes ashamed before God. All this is life according to the flesh. Ye are yet carnal (1 Corinthians 3:3). That text, perhaps, disturbs you at times, for you do not have full peace and joy in God.

I urge you to take time and give an answer to the following question: Have I not found here the cause of my prayerlessness and of my powerlessness to bring about any change in the matter? I live in the Spirit and I have been born again, but I do not walk after the Spirit; the flesh seems to walk all over me. The carnal life cannot possibly pray in the spirit and power. May God forgive me. The carnal life is evidently the cause of my sad and shameful prayerlessness.

The Storm Center on the Battlefield

Mention was made in conference of the expression "strategic position," used so often in reference to the great strife between the kingdom of heaven and the powers of darkness.

When a general chooses the place from which he intends to strike the enemy, he pays most attention to those points that he thinks are most important in the fight. Thus, there was on the battlefield of Waterloo a farmhouse that Wellington immediately saw was the key to the situation. He did not spare his troops in his endeavor to hold that point; the victory depended on it. It is the same in the conflict between the believer and the powers of darkness. The place of prayer is the place where the decisive victory is obtained.

The enemy uses all his power to lead the Christian, and above all, the pastor, to neglect prayer. He knows that however admirable the sermon may be, however attractive the service, however faithful the pastoral visitation, none of these things can damage him or his kingdom if prayer is neglected. When the church shuts herself up to the power of fervent prayer, and the soldiers of the Lord have received on their knees power from on high, then the powers of darkness will be shaken and souls will be delivered. In the church, on the mission field, and with the pastor and his congregation, everything depends on the faithful exercise of the power of prayer.

During the week of our conference, I found the following in The Christian:

Two people quarrel over a certain point. Their names are Christian and Apollyon. Apollyon notices that Christian has a certain weapon that would give him certain victory. They meet in deadly strife, and Apollyon resolves to take away the weapon from his opponent and destroy it. For the moment, the main cause of the strife has become subordinate; the great point now is who will get possession of the weapon on which everything depends. It is of vital importance to get hold of that.

So it is in the conflict between Satan and the believer. God's child can conquer everything by prayer. Is it any wonder that Satan does his utmost to take away that weapon from the Christian, or to hinder him in the use of it?

How does Satan hinder prayer? He does so by temptation to postpone or restrict it, by bringing in wandering thoughts and all sorts of distractions, or through unbelief and hopelessness. Happy is the prayer hero who, through it all, takes care to hold fast and use his weapon. Like our Lord in Gethsemane, the more violently the enemy attacked, the more earnestly He prayed and continued in prayer until He had obtained the victory. After all the other parts of the armor had been named, Paul adds, With all prayer and supplication in the Spirit (Ephesians 6:18). Without prayer, the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, and the sword of the Spirit, which is God's Word, have no power. All depends on prayer. May God teach us to firmly believe and live this!
Chapter 2

The Fight against Prayerlessness

As soon as the Christian becomes convinced of his sin in this matter, his first thought is that he must begin to strive, with God's help, to gain the victory over it. However, he soon experiences that his striving is worth little, and the discouraging thought comes over him, like a wave, that such a life is not for him – that he cannot remain faithful! At conferences on the subject of prayer held during the past years, many ministers have openly said that it seemed impossible for them to attain such a strict life.

Recently I received a letter from a minister, well known for his ability and devotion, in which he writes, "As far as I am concerned, it does not seem to help me to hear too much about the life of prayer, about the strenuous exertion for which we must prepare ourselves, and about all the time and trouble and endless effort it will cost us. These things discourage me; I have so often heard them. I have time after time put them to the test, and the result has always been sadly disappointing. It does not help me to be told, 'You must pray more, hold a closer watch over yourself, and become altogether a more earnest Christian.'"

My reply to him was as follows: "I think in all that I have said at the conference or elsewhere, I have never mentioned exertion or struggle, because I am so entirely convinced that our efforts are futile unless we first learn how to abide in Christ by a simple faith."

My correspondent wrote further, "The message I need is this: 'See that your relationship to the living Savior is what it ought to be. Live in His presence, rejoice in His love, and rest in Him.'"

A better message could not be given. Let it only be properly understood. "See that your relationship to the living Savior is what it ought to be." But this is just what will certainly make it possible for one to live the life of prayer.

We must not comfort ourselves with the thought of standing in a right relationship to the Lord Jesus while the sin of prayerlessness has power over us, and while we, along with the whole church, have to complain about our feeble lives that make us unfit to pray for ourselves, for the church, or for missions as we ought. If we recognize, in the first place, that a right relationship to the Lord Jesus, above all else includes prayer, with both the desire and power to pray according to God's will, then we have something that gives us the right to rejoice in Him and to rest in Him.

I have related this incident to point out how naturally discouragement will be the result of self-effort and will shut out all hope of improvement or victory. This indeed is the condition of many Christians when called on to persevere in prayer as intercessors. They feel it is something entirely beyond their reach – that they do not have the power for the self-sacrifice and consecration necessary for such prayer. They shrink from the effort and struggle that will, as they suppose, make them unhappy. They have tried in the power of the flesh to conquer the flesh – a wholly impossible thing. They have endeavored by Beelzebub to cast out Beelzebub – and this can never happen. It is Jesus alone who can subdue the flesh and the devil.

We have spoken of a struggle that will certainly result in disappointment and discouragement. This is the effort made in our own strength; but there is another struggle that will certainly lead to victory. The Bible speaks of the good fight of faith (1 Timothy 6:12); that is to say, it is a fight that springs from and is carried on by faith. We must get right understanding about faith, and we must stand fast in our faith. Jesus Christ is ever the Author and Finisher of faith.

It is when we come into a right relationship with Him that we can be sure of the help and power He bestows. We must first earnestly say, "Do not strive in your own strength; cast yourself at the feet of the Lord Jesus, and wait upon Him in the sure confidence that He is with you and works in you." Then we must say, "Strive in prayer; let faith fill your heart – and you will be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might" (Ephesians 6:10).

An illustration will help us to understand this. A devoted Christian woman who conducted a large Bible class with zeal and success was once troubled and went to her pastor. In her earlier years she had enjoyed much blessing in private prayer and in fellowship with the Lord and His Word; but this had gradually been lost, and no matter what she tried, she could not get right. The Lord had blessed her work, but the joy had gone out of her life. The pastor asked what she had done to regain the lost blessedness. "I have done everything," she said, "that I can think of, but all in vain."

He then questioned her about her experience in connection with her conversion. She gave an immediate and clear answer: "At first I spared no pains in my attempt to become better and to free myself from sin, but it was all useless. At last I began to understand that I must lay aside all my efforts and simply trust the Lord Jesus to bestow on me His life and peace, and He did it."

"Why don't you try this again, then?" asked the pastor. "As you go to your inner chamber – your quiet place of private prayer – however cold and dark your heart may be, do not try in your own might to force yourself into the right attitude. Bow before Him and tell Him that you know that He sees in what a sad state you are and that your only hope is in Him. Trust Him with a childlike trust to have mercy upon you, and wait upon Him. In such a trust you are in a right relationship to Him. You have nothing; He has everything."

A while later this lady told the pastor that his advice had helped her; she had learned that faith in the love of the Lord Jesus is the only method of getting into fellowship with God in prayer.

Do you not begin to see, my reader, that there are two kinds of warfare? The first is when we seek to conquer prayerlessness in our own strength. In that case, my advice to you is to give over your restlessness and effort; fall helpless at the feet of the Lord Jesus. He will speak the word, and your soul will live.

If you have done this, then comes the message: "This is but the beginning of everything. It will require deep earnestness, the exercise of all your power, and a watchfulness of the entire heart – eager to detect the least backsliding. Above all, it will require a surrender to a life of self-sacrifice that God really desires to see in us and that He will work out for us."
Chapter 3

How to Be Delivered from Prayerlessness

The greatest stumbling block in the way of victory over prayerlessness is the secret feeling that we will never obtain the blessing of being delivered from it. We have often put forth effort in this direction, but in vain. Old habits, the power of the flesh, and our surroundings, along with their attractions, have been too strong for us. What good is it to attempt that which our heart assures us is out of our reach? The change needed in the entire life is too great and too difficult.

If the question is asked, "Is a change possible?" our sighing heart says, "Sadly, for me it is entirely impossible!" Do you know why that reply comes? It is simply because you understand the call to prayer as the voice of Moses and as a command of the law. Moses and his law have never yet given anyone the power to obey.

Do you really desire the courage to believe that deliverance from a prayerless life is possible for you and may become a reality? Then you must learn the great lesson that such a deliverance is included in the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, that it is one of the blessings of the New Covenant that God Himself will impart to you through Christ Jesus. As you begin to understand this, you will find that the exhortation, Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17), conveys a new meaning. Hope begins to spring up in your heart that the Spirit – who has been bestowed on you to cry constantly, "Abba, Father" – will make a true life of prayer possible for you. Then you will listen, not in the spirit of discouragement, but in the gladness of hope, to the voice that calls you to repentance.

Many people have turned to their places of prayer in sorrow, confessing their lack of prayer and resolving to live differently in the future. Yet no blessing has come; they did not have the strength to continue to be faithful, and the call to repentance had no power, because their eyes were not fixed on the Lord Jesus. If they had only understood, they would have said, "Lord, You see how cold and dark my heart is. I know that I must pray, but I feel I cannot do so. I lack the urgency and desire to pray."

They did not know that at that moment, the Lord Jesus in His tender love was looking down upon them and saying, "You cannot pray; you feel that all is cold and dark. Why not give yourself over into My hands? Only believe that I am ready to help you even in prayer."

Many people will then acknowledge, "I see my mistake; I did not realize that the Lord Jesus must deliver and cleanse me from this sin, also. I did not understand that He was with me every day in my place of prayer, in His great love ready to keep and bless me, however sinful and guilty I felt myself to be. I had not realized that just as He will give all other grace in answer to prayer, so, above all and before all, He will bestow the grace of a praying heart. What foolishness to think that all other blessings must come from Him, but that prayer, whereon everything else depends, must be obtained by personal effort! Thank God that I am beginning to understand that the Lord Jesus Himself is in the inner chamber watching over me, holding Himself responsible to teach me how to approach the Father. He demands only this – that I, with childlike confidence, wait upon Him and glorify Him."

Brethren, have we not seriously forgotten this truth? Nothing better can be expected from a defective spiritual life than a defective prayer life. It is useless for us, with our defective spiritual lives, to try to pray more or better. It is an impossibility. Nothing less is necessary than that we should experience that he who is in Christ Jesus is a new creature. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are made new (2 Corinthians 5:17). This is literally true for the person who understands and experiences what it is to be in Jesus Christ.

Our whole relationship to the Lord Jesus must be a new thing. I must believe in His infinite love, which really desires to have communion with me every moment and to keep me in the enjoyment of His fellowship. I must believe in His divine power, which has conquered sin and will truly keep me from it. I must believe in Him who, as the great Intercessor, through the Spirit, will inspire each member of His Body with joy and power for communion with God in prayer. My prayer life must be brought entirely under the control of Christ and His love. Then, for the first time, prayer will become what it really is – the natural and joyous breathing of the spiritual life, by which the heavenly atmosphere is inhaled and then exhaled in prayer.

Do you not see that just as this faith possesses us, the call to a life of prayer that pleases God will be a welcome call? The cry, "Repent of the sin of prayerlessness," will not be responded to by a sigh of helplessness or by the unwillingness of the flesh. The voice of the Father will be heard as He sets before us a widely opened door and receives us into blessed fellowship with Himself. Prayer for the help of the Spirit to pray will no longer be in fear of an effort too great for our power; it will simply be falling down in utter weakness at the feet of the Lord Jesus, to find there that victory comes through the might and love that stream from His countenance.

If the question arises in our mind, "Will this continue?" or if the fear comes when we remember that we have often before tried and been disappointed, faith will find its strength – not in the thought of what you will or do – but in the changeless faithfulness and love of Christ, who afresh has helped you and assured you that those who wait on Him will not be ashamed.

If fear and hesitation still remain, I urge you by the mercies of God in Jesus Christ, and by the unspeakable faithfulness of His tender love, to cast yourselves at His feet. Only believe with your whole heart that there is deliverance from the sin of prayerlessness. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). In His blood and grace there is complete deliverance from all unrighteousness and from all prayerlessness. Praised be His name forever!

How Deliverance from Prayerlessness May Continue

What we have said about deliverance from the sin of prayerlessness also has application as an answer to the following question: "How can the experience of deliverance be maintained?" Redemption is not granted to us a little at a time, or as something of which we may make use from time to time. It is given as fullness of grace stored up in the Lord Jesus, which may be enjoyed in new fellowship with Him every day. It is so necessary that this great truth should be driven home and fastened in our minds that I will mention it once more. Nothing can preserve you from carelessness or make it possible for you to continue in living, powerful prayer except a daily close fellowship with Jesus our Lord.

He said to His disciples: Ye believe in God, believe also in me. . . . Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me. . . . He that believes in me, the works that I do he shall do also; and greater works than these shall he do because I go unto my Father (John 14:1, 11-12). The Lord wanted to teach His disciples that all they had learned from the Old Testament concerning the power and holiness and love of God must now be transferred to Him. They must not believe merely in certain written documents, but in Him personally. They must believe that He was in the Father, and the Father in Him, in such a sense that they had one life and one glory.

All that they knew about Christ they would find in God. He put much emphasis on this, because it was only through such a faith in Him and His divine glory that they could do the works that He did, or even greater works. This faith would lead them to know that just as Jesus and the Father are one, so also they were in Jesus and Jesus was in them.

It is this intimate, spiritual, personal, uninterrupted relationship to the Lord Jesus that manifests itself powerfully in our lives, and especially in our prayer lives. Let us consider and see what it means that all the glorious attributes of God are in our Lord Jesus Christ. Consider the following characteristics of God and let them motivate you to draw nearer to Him.

God's omnipresence. With this He fills the world, and every moment is present everywhere. Just as it is with the Father, so now our Lord Jesus is everywhere present, and above all, He is with each of His redeemed ones. This is one of the greatest and most important lessons that our faith must learn. We can clearly understand this from the example of our Lord's disciples.

What was the distinct privilege of these disciples, who were always in fellowship with Him? It was uninterrupted enjoyment of the presence of the Lord Jesus. It was because of this that they were so sorrowful at the thought of His death. They would be deprived of His presence. He would no longer be with them. How, under these circumstances, did the Lord Jesus comfort them? He promised that the Holy Spirit from heaven would so work in them a sense of the fullness of His life and of His personal presence that He would be even more intimately near and have more unbroken fellowship with them than ever they experienced while He was upon earth.

This great promise is now the inheritance of every believer, although so many of them know little about it. Jesus Christ, in His divine personality, in that eternal love that led Him to the cross, longs to have fellowship with us every moment of the day and to keep us in the enjoyment of that fellowship. This ought to be explained to every new convert. The Lord loves you so much that He wants you near Him always, that you can more closely experience His love. This is what every believer must learn who has felt his powerlessness for a life of prayer, of obedience, and of holiness. This alone will give us power as intercessors to conquer the world and to win souls for our Lord.

The omnipotence of God. How wonderful is God's power! We see it in creation. We see it in the wonders of redemption recorded in the Old Testament. We see it in the wonderful works of Christ that the Father worked in and through Him, and above all, in His resurrection from the dead. We are called on to believe in the Son, just as we believe in the Father.

Yes, the Lord Jesus who, in His love, is so unspeakably near us, is the almighty one with whom nothing is impossible. Whatever may be in our hearts or flesh that will not submit to us, He can and will conquer. Everything that is promised in God's Word, all that is our inheritance as children of the New Covenant, the almighty Jesus can bestow upon us. If I bow before Him in my inner chamber, then I am in contact with the eternal, unchanging power of God. If I commit myself for the day to the Lord Jesus, then I may rest assured that it is His eternal almighty power that has taken me under its protection and that will accomplish everything for me.

Oh, if only we would take time for the inner chamber so that we might experience in full reality the presence of this almighty Jesus! What a blessedness would be ours through faith – an unbroken fellowship with the omnipotent and almighty Lord.

The holy love of God. This means that He, with His whole heart, offers all His divine attributes for our service and is prepared to impart Himself to us. Christ is the revelation of His love. He is the Son of His love – the gift of His love – the power of His love; and this Jesus, who has sought on the cross to give an overwhelming proof of His love in His death and in His shedding of blood, so as to make it impossible for us not to believe in that love – this Jesus is He who comes to meet us in the inner chamber and gives the positive assurance that unbroken fellowship with Him is our inheritance, and will, through Him, become our experience. The holy love of God that sacrificed everything to conquer sin and bring it to nothing comes to us in Christ to save us from every sin.

Brethren, take time to think over that word of our Lord: Ye believe in God, believe also in me (John 14:1). "Believe Me that I am in the Father, and you are in Me, and I in you." That is the secret of the life of prayer. Take time in the inner chamber to bow down and worship. Wait on Him until he unveils Himself, takes possession of you, and goes out with you to show how a person can live and walk in abiding fellowship with an unseen Lord.

Do you desire to know how you can always experience deliverance from the sin of prayerlessness? Here you have the secret. Believe in the Son of God and give Him time in the inner chamber to reveal Himself in His ever-present nearness as the eternal and almighty one, the Eternal Love who watches over you. You will experience what, up until now, you have perhaps not known – that it has not entered into the heart of man what God can do for those who love Him (see 1 Corinthians 2:9).
Chapter 4

The Blessing of Victory

If now we are delivered from the sin of prayerlessness and understand how this deliverance may continue to be experienced, what will be the fruit of our liberty? He who sees this properly will, with renewed earnestness and perseverance, seek after this liberty. His life and experience will indeed be an evidence that he has obtained something of unspeakable worth. He will be a living witness of the blessing that victory has brought.

Consider the following points:

1. The blessedness of unbroken fellowship with God. Think of the confidence in the Father that will take the place of the reproach and self-condemnation that was the earlier characteristic of our lives. Think of the deep consciousness that God's almighty grace has accomplished something in us, to prove that we really bear His image and are prepared for a life of communion with Him and prepared to glorify Him. Think how we, notwithstanding our conviction of our nothingness, may live as true children of the King, in communion with our Father, and may demonstrate something of the character of our Lord Jesus in the holy fellowship with His Father that He had when on earth. Think how in the inner chamber the hour of prayer may become the happiest time in the whole day for us, and how God may use us to share a part in carrying out His plans and make us fountains of blessing for the world around us.

2. The power that we can have for the work to which we are called. The preacher will learn to receive his message really from God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and to deliver it in that power to the congregation. He will know where he can be filled with the love and zeal that will enable him, in his rounds of pastoral visiting, to meet and help each individual in a spirit of tender compassion. He will be able to say with Paul, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13). We are more than conquerors through him that loved us (Romans 8:37). We are ambassadors for Christ; . . . we beseech you in Christ's name, be ye reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:20). These are no empty dreams or pictures of a foolish imagination. God has given us Paul as an illustration, so that however we may differ from him in gifts or calling, yet in inner experience we may know the all-sufficiency of grace that can do all things for us as it did for him.

3. The prospect that opens before us for the future. This prospect is that we can be consecrated to take part as intercessors in the great work of bearing on our hearts the need of the entire church and world. Paul sought to arouse Christians to pray for all saints, and he tells us what a conflict he had for those who had not yet seen his face. In his personal presence, he was subject to conditions of time and place; but in the Spirit, he had power in the name of Christ to pray for blessing on those who had not yet heard of the Savior. In addition to his life in connection with those here on earth, far or near, he lived another life, a heavenly life – one of love and of wonderful power in prayer, which he continually exercised. We can hardly form a conception of the power God will bestow if we only get freed from the sin of prayerlessness and begin to pray with the boldness that reaches heaven and brings down blessing in the almighty name of Christ.

What a prospect! Minister and missionaries can be brought by God's grace to pray twice as much as before, with twice as much faith and joy! What a difference it would make in the preaching, in the prayer meeting, and in fellowship with others! What a gentle power would come down in the inner chamber, sanctified by communion with God and His love in Christ! What an influence would be exercised on believers, in urging them forward to the work of intercession! How greatly would this influence be felt in the church and among the unsaved! What power might be exercised over ministers of other churches, and who knows how God might use us for His church through the whole world! Is it not worthwhile to sacrifice everything, and to ask God without ceasing to give us real and full victory over the prayerlessness that has covered us with such shame?

Why do I now write these things and extol so highly the blessedness of victory over the sin that so easily causes us to fall (see Hebrews 12:1) and that has so terribly robbed us of the power that God has intended for us? I can give an answer. I know all too well what low thoughts we have concerning the promises and the power of God and how prone we are always to backslide, to limit God's power, and to consider it impossible for Him to do greater things than we have seen. It is a glorious thing to get to know God in a new way in the inner chamber.

That, however, is but the beginning. It is something still greater and more glorious to know God as the all-sufficient one and to wait on His Spirit to open our hearts and minds wide to receive the great things, the new things, that He really desires to bestow on those who wait for Him.

God's object is to encourage faith and to make His children and servants see that they must take the effort to understand and rely upon the unspeakable greatness and omnipotence of God, so that they might literally and in a childlike spirit take and believe this word: Unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think . . . be glory . . . throughout all ages (Ephesians 3:20-21). Oh, that we knew what a great and glorious God we have!

Someone may ask, "May not this note of certain victory become a snare and lead to levity and pride?" Undoubtedly. That which is the highest and best on earth is always liable to abuse. How, then, can we be saved from this? We can be saved from this through true prayer, which really brings us into contact with God. The holiness of God, sought for in persistent prayer, will cover our sinfulness. The omnipotence and greatness of God will make us feel our nothingness. Fellowship with God in Jesus Christ will lead us to the experience that there is nothing good in us, and that we can have fellowship with God only as our faith becomes a humbling of ourselves as Christ humbled Himself, and as we truly live in Him as He is in the Father.

Prayer is not merely coming to God to ask something from Him. It is, above all else, fellowship with God and being brought under the power of His holiness and love, until He takes possession of us and stamps our entire nature with the lowliness of Christ, which is the secret of all true worship.

Yes, it is in Christ Jesus that we draw near to the Father, as those who have died with Christ and are entirely dead to the world and the flesh, and as those in whom He lives and whom He enables to say, Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:20). What we have said about the work that the Lord Jesus does in us to deliver us from prayerlessness is true not only of the beginning of the life of prayer and of the joy that a new experience of power in prayer causes us, but it is also true for the whole life of prayer all day long. Through Him we have access to the Father. In this always, as in the whole spiritual life, Christ is all. They saw no one except Jesus only (Matthew 17:8).

May God strengthen us to believe that there is certain victory prepared for us, and that the blessing will be what the heart of man has not conceived! God will do this for those who love Him. This does not come to us all at once. God has great patience with His children. He bears with us in our slow progress with Fatherly patience. Let each child of God rejoice in all that God's Word promises. The stronger our faith, the more earnestly we will persevere to the end.

The More Abundant Life

Our Lord spoke this word concerning the more abundant life when He said that He had come to give His life for His sheep: I am come that they might have life and that they might have it in abundance (John 10:10). A person may have life, and yet, through lack of nourishment or through illness, there may be no abundance of life or power. This was the distinction between the Old Testament and the New. In the former, there was indeed life, under the law, but not the abundance of grace of the New Testament. Christ had given life to His disciples, but they could receive the abundant life only through His resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

All true Christians have received life from Christ. The greater portion of them, however, know nothing about the more abundant life that He is willing to bestow. Paul speaks constantly about this. He says about himself that the grace of God was exceedingly abundant (1 Timothy 1:14). I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13). Thanks be unto God, who always causes us to triumph in the Christ (2 Corinthians 2:14). We are more than conquerors through him that loved us (Romans 8:37).

We have spoken of the sin of prayerlessness, the means of deliverance, and how to be kept free from this sin. All that has been said on these points is included in that expression of Christ, I am come that they might have life and that they might have it in abundance. It is of the utmost importance for us to understand this abundant life so that we can clearly see that for a true life of prayer, nothing less is necessary than that we should walk in an ever-increasing experience of that overflowing life.

It is possible for us to begin this conflict against prayerlessness in dependence on Christ and by looking to Him to be assisted and kept in it, and yet to be disappointed. This is the case when prayerlessness is looked upon as the one sin against which we must strive. It must be recognized as part of the whole life of the flesh and as closely connected with other sins that spring from the same source. We forget that the entire flesh with all its affections, whether manifested in the body or soul, must be regarded as crucified and must be handed over to death. We must not be satisfied with a feeble life, but we must seek for an abundant life. We must surrender ourselves entirely so that the Spirit can take full possession of us, manifesting that life in us so that there may come an entire transformation in our spiritual being by which the complete mastery of Christ and the Spirit is recognized.

What is it, then, that specifically constitutes this abundant life? We cannot too often repeat, or in different ways too often set it forth, that the abundant life is nothing less than the full Jesus having the full mastery over our entire being, through the power of the Holy Spirit. As the Spirit makes known in us the fullness of Christ and the abundant life that He gives, it will be mainly in three aspects:

As the crucified one. This is not merely as the one who died for us to atone for our sins, but as He who has taken us up with Himself on the cross to die with Him, and who now works out in us the power of His cross and death. You have true fellowship with Christ when you can say, "I have been crucified with Christ; He, the crucified one, lives in me." The feelings and the nature that were in Him, His humility and obedience even to the death of the cross – these were what He referred to when He said of the Holy Spirit, He shall take of that which is mine and shall cause you to know it (John 16:14) – not as an instruction, but as childlike participation of the same life that was in Him.

Do you desire that the Holy Spirit should take full possession of you, so as to cause the crucified Christ to dwell in you? Understand, then, that this is just the purpose for which He has been given, and He will surely accomplish this in all who yield themselves to Him.

As the risen one. The Bible frequently mentions the resurrection in connection with the wonder-working power of God by which Christ was raised from the dead and from which comes the assurance of the exceeding greatness of his power in us who believe, by the operation of the power of his strength, which operated in the Christ, raising him from the dead (Ephesians 1:19- 20). Do not quickly pass by these words. Turn back and read them once more and learn the great lesson that however powerless and weak you feel, the omnipotence of God is working in you. If you only believe, He will give you in daily life a share in the resurrection of His Son.

Yes, the Holy Spirit can fill you with the joy and victory of the resurrection of Christ as the power of your daily life here in the midst of the trials and temptations of this world. Let the cross humble you to death. God will work out the heavenly life in you through His Spirit. Oh, how little have we understood that it is entirely the work of the Holy Spirit to make us partakers of the crucified and risen Christ and to conform us to His life and death!

As the glorified one. The glorified Christ is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. When the Lord Jesus Himself was baptized with the Spirit, it was because He had humbled Himself and offered Himself to take part in John's baptism of repentance – a baptism for sinners – in the Jordan River. Even so, when He took upon Himself the work of redemption, He received the Holy Spirit to make Him ready for His work from that very hour, until on the cross He offered himself without spot to God (Hebrews 9:14). Do you desire that this glorified Christ should baptize you with the Holy Spirit? Then offer yourself to Him for His service, to further His great work of making known to sinners the love of the Father.

May God help us to understand what a great thing it is to receive the Holy Spirit with power from the glorified Jesus! It means a willingness – a longing of the soul – to work for Him, and if need be, to suffer for Him. You have known and loved your Lord. You have worked for Him and have had blessing in that work, but the Lord has more than that to bestow. He can so work in us, in our brothers and sisters around us, and in the ministers of the church, by the power of the Holy Spirit, as to fill our hearts with adoring wonder.

Have you laid hold of it, my reader? The abundant life is neither more nor less than the full life of Christ as the crucified, the risen, the glorified one, who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and reveals Himself in our hearts and lives as Lord of all within us.

Not long ago I read an expression, "Live in what must be." Do not live in your human imagination of what is possible. Live in the Word; live in the love and infinite faithfulness of the Lord Jesus. Even though we may progress slowly and may often stumble, the faith that always thanks Him – not for experiences, but for the promises on which it can rely – goes on from strength to strength, still increasing in the blessed assurance that God Himself will perfect His work in us.
Chapter 5

The Example of Our Lord

The connection between the prayer life and the Spirit life is close and lasting. It is not merely that we can receive the Spirit through prayer, but the Spirit life requires, as an indispensable thing, a continuous prayer life. I can be led continually by the Spirit only as I continually give myself to prayer. This was very evident in the life of our Lord. A study of His life will give us a wonderful view of the power and holiness of prayer.

Consider His baptism. It was when He was baptized and prayed that heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit came down upon Him. God desired to crown Christ's surrender of Himself to the sinner's baptism in Jordan (which was also a surrender of Himself to the sinner's death) with the gift of the Spirit for the work that He must accomplish. But this could not have taken place had He not prayed. In the fellowship of worship, the Spirit was bestowed on Him to lead Him out into the desert to spend forty days there in prayer and fasting.

Read Mark 1:32-35: In the evening, when the sun was down, they brought unto him all that were diseased and those that were possessed with devils. And all the city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many that were sick of diverse diseases and cast out many devils and suffered not the devils to speak because they knew him. And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed into a solitary place and prayed there.

The work of the day and evening had exhausted Him. In His healing the sick and casting out devils, power had gone out of Him. While others still slept, He went away to pray and to renew His strength in communion with His Father. He had need of this; otherwise, He would not have been ready for the new day. The holy work of delivering souls demands constant renewal through fellowship with God.

Think again of the calling of the apostles as given in Luke 6:12-13: And it came to pass in those days that he went out into the mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples; and of them he chose twelve, whom he also named apostles. Is it not clear that if anyone wants to do God's work, he must take time for fellowship with Him and to receive His wisdom and power? The dependence and helplessness of which this is evidence open the way and give God the opportunity of revealing His power. How great was the importance of choosing the apostles for Christ's own work, for the early church, and for all time! It had God's blessing and seal; the stamp of prayer was on it.

Read Luke 9:18, 20: And it came to pass as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him, and he asked them, saying, Who do the people say that I am? . . . Peter answering said, The Christ of God. The Lord had intended that the Father would reveal to them who He was, and for this purpose He had chosen the twelve apostles (see John 17:6-8). After a night of prayer, he chose twelve, whom he also named apostles. It was one of these, Peter, who said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. The Lord then said, Flesh and blood has not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in the heavens (Matthew 16:16-17). This great confession was the fruit of prayer.

Read also Luke 9:28-29, 35: He took Peter and John and James and went up into the mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered. . . . And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son; hear him. Christ had desired that, for the strengthening of their faith, God might give them assurance from heaven that He was the Son of God. Prayer obtained for our Lord Jesus Himself, as well as for His disciples, resulted in what happened on the Mount of Transfiguration.

Does it not become still more clear that what God wants to accomplish on earth needs prayer as its indispensable condition? There is but one way for Christ and believers. A heart and mouth open toward heaven in believing prayer will certainly not be put to shame.

Read Luke 11:1-13. It begins like this: As he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray. . . . Then Jesus gave them that limitless prayer, Our Father who art in the heavens. . . . In this He showed what was going on in His heart, when He prayed that God's name might be hallowed, His kingdom come, and His will be done, and all of this on earth as it is in heaven. How will this ever come to pass? Through prayer. This prayer has been spoken through the ages by countless millions to their unspeakable comfort. Do not forget this, though – it was born out of the prayer of our Lord Jesus. He had been praying, and therefore was able to give that glorious answer.

Read John 14:16: I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter. The entire New Testament methods and arrangement, with the wonderful outpouring of the Holy Spirit, is the outcome of the prayer of the Lord Jesus. It is as though God had impressed on the gift of the Holy Spirit this seal – in answer to the prayer of the Lord Jesus, and later of His disciples – that the Holy Spirit will surely come; but it will be in answer to prayer like that of our Lord, in which He took time to be alone with God, and in that prayer He offered Himself wholly to God.

Read John 17, the high priestly, most holy prayer! Here the Son prays first for Himself, that the Father will glorify Him by giving Him power for the cross, by raising Him from the dead, and by setting Him at God's right hand. These great things could not take place except through prayer. Prayer had power to obtain them.

Afterward, He prayed for His disciples, that the Father might preserve them from the evil one, might keep them from the world, and might sanctify them. Then, further, He prayed for all those who through their word might believe on Him, that all might be one in love, even as the Father and the Son were one. This prayer gives us a glimpse into the wonderful relationship between the Father and the Son, and it teaches us that all the blessings of heaven come continually through the prayer of Him who is at God's right hand and ever prays for us. It teaches us, also, that all these blessings must in the same manner be desired and asked for by us. The whole nature and glory of God's blessings consist in this – they must be obtained in answer to prayer by hearts entirely surrendered to Him, and by hearts that believe in the power of prayer.

Now we come to the most remarkable instance of all. In Gethsemane, we see that our Lord, according to His constant habit, consulted and arranged with the Father the work He had to do on earth. First, He pleaded with Him in agony and bloody sweat to let the cup pass from Him; when He understood that this could not be, He prayed for strength to drink it, and He surrendered Himself with the words, Not my will, but thine, be done (Matthew 22:42). Jesus was able to meet the enemy full of courage, and in the power of God He gave Himself over to the death of the cross. He had prayed.

Oh, why is it that God's children have so little faith in the glory of prayer as the great power for subjecting our own wills to that of God, as well as for the confident carrying out of the work of God despite our great weakness? It would be good if we would learn from our Lord Jesus how impossible it is to walk with God, to obtain God's blessing or leading, or to do His work joyously and fruitfully, apart from close unbroken fellowship with Him who is ever a living fountain of spiritual life and power!

Let every Christian think over this simple study of the prayer life of our Lord Jesus. Let every Christian endeavor from God's Word, with prayer for the leading of the Holy Spirit, to learn what the life is that the Lord Jesus Christ bestows upon him and supports in him. It is nothing else than a life of daily prayer. Let each minister especially recognize how entirely futile it is to attempt to do the work of our Lord in any other way than that in which He did it. Let us, as Christian workers, begin to believe that we are set free from the ordinary business of the world, that we may, above everything, have time in our Savior's name, with His Spirit and in oneness with Him, to ask for and obtain blessings for the world.
Chapter 6

The Holy Spirit and Prayer

Is it not sad that our thoughts about the Holy Spirit are often coupled with grief and self-reproach? He bears the name of Comforter, and He is given to lead us to find in Christ our main delight and joy. There is something still more sad, though. He who dwells within us to comfort us is often grieved by us because we will not permit Him to accomplish His work of love. What a cause of inexpressible pain to the Holy Spirit is all this prayerlessness in the church! It is also the cause of the low vitality and utter ineffectiveness that are so often found in us, because we are not prepared to permit the Holy Spirit to lead us.

May God grant that our meditation on the work of the Holy Spirit becomes a matter for rejoicing and for strengthening our faith!

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of prayer. He is definitely called by this name in Zechariah 12:10: The Spirit of grace and of prayer. Twice in Paul's epistles there is a remarkable reference to Him in the matter of prayer: Ye have received the Spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry, Abba, Father (Romans 8:15); God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father (Galatians 4:6).

Have you ever meditated on these words: Abba, Father? In that name, our Savior offered His greatest prayer to the Father, accompanied by the entire surrender and sacrifice of His life and love. The Holy Spirit is given for the specific purpose of teaching us, from the very beginning of our Christian life onward, to utter that word in childlike trust and surrender. In one of these passages we read that we cry, and in the other, that He cries. What a wonderful blending of divine and human cooperation in prayer. What a proof that God – if I may say so – has done His utmost to make prayer as natural and effective as though it were the cry of a child to an earthly father, as he says, Abba, Father.

Is it not proof that the Holy Spirit is to a great extent a stranger in the church, when prayer, for which God has made such provisions, is regarded as a task and a burden? Should not this teach us to seek for the deep root of prayerlessness in our ignorance of and disobedience to the divine instructor whom the Father has commissioned to teach us to pray?

If we desire to understand this truth still more clearly, we must notice what is written in Romans 8:26-27: And likewise also the Spirit helps our weakness; for we know not how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself makes entreaty for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. But he that searches the hearts knows what is the desire of the Spirit, that according to the will of God, he makes entreaty for the saints. Is it not clear from this that the Christian, if left to himself, does not know how to pray, or how he ought to pray; and that God has come down to meet us in this helplessness of ours by giving us the Holy Spirit Himself to pray for us; and that His operation is deeper than our thought or feeling, but is noticed and answered by God?

Our first work, therefore, ought to be to come into God's presence – not with our ignorant prayers or with many words and thoughts, but in the confidence that the divine work of the Holy Spirit is being carried on within us. This confidence will encourage reverence and quietness, and will also enable us, in dependence on the help that the Spirit gives, to lay our desires and heart-needs before God. The great lesson for every prayer is, first of all, to commit yourself to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and with entire dependence on Him, give Him the first place; for through Him your prayer will have a value you cannot imagine, and through Him also you will learn to speak out your desires in the name of Christ.

What a protection this faith would be against deadness and despondency in the inner chamber! Only think of it! The triune God takes part in every prayer: the Father who hears, the Son in whose name we pray, and the Spirit who prays for us and in us. How important it is that we should be in right relationship to the Holy Spirit and understand His work!

The following points demand serious consideration:

1. Let us firmly believe, as a divine reality, that the Spirit of God's Son, the Holy Spirit, is in us. Do not imagine that you know this and have no need to consider it. It is a thought so great and divine that it can gain an entrance to our hearts and be retained there only by the Holy Spirit Himself. The Spirit bears witness unto our spirit (Romans 8:16). Our position ought to be that of believing with full assurance of faith that our heart is His temple and that He dwells within us and reigns in our soul and body. Let us thank God wholeheartedly as often as we pray, that we have His Spirit in us to teach us to pray. Thanksgiving will draw our hearts out to God and keep us engaged with Him; it will take our attention from ourselves and give the Spirit room in our hearts.

Oh, it is no wonder that we have been prayerless and have felt this work to be too heavy for us, if we have tried to hold fellowship with the eternal God apart from His Spirit, who reveals the Father and the Son.

2. In the practice of this faith in the certainty that the Holy Spirit dwells and works in us, we must also understand all that He desires to accomplish in us. His work in prayer is closely connected with His other work. We saw in an earlier chapter that His first and greatest work is to reveal Christ in His omnipresent love and power. The Holy Spirit will, in prayer, constantly remind us of Christ and of His blood and name, as the sure ground of our being heard.

He will, further, as the Spirit of holiness (Romans 1:4), teach us to recognize, hate, and be done with sin. He is the Spirit of light and wisdom who leads us into the heavenly secret of God's overflowing grace. He is the Spirit of love and power who teaches us to witness for Christ and to labor for souls with tender compassion. The more closely I associate all these blessings with the Spirit, the more I will be convinced of His deity and will be readier to commit myself to His guidance as I give myself to prayer. What a different life mine would be if I knew the Spirit as the Spirit of prayer!

3. There is still another thing that I need constantly to learn afresh, and that is:

The Spirit desires to have full possession of my life. We pray for more of the Spirit, and we pray well, if alongside this prayer we set the truth that the Spirit wants more of us. The Spirit wants to possess me entirely. Just as my soul has my whole body for its dwelling place and service, so the Holy Spirit desires to have my body and soul as His dwelling place, entirely under His control.

We cannot continue long and earnestly in prayer without beginning to perceive that the Spirit is gently leading us to an entirely new consecration, of which previously we knew nothing. We should say, similar to Psalm 119:10, "I seek You with my whole heart." The Spirit will make such words more and more the motto of our lives. He will cause us to recognize that what remains in us of doublemindedness is truly sinful. He will reveal Christ as the almighty deliverer from all sin, who is always near to defend us. He will lead us in this way in prayer, to forget ourselves and to make us willing to offer ourselves for training as intercessors to whom God can entrust the carrying out of His plans, and who day and night cry to Him to avenge His church of her adversary.

May God help us to know the Spirit and to reverence Him as the Spirit of prayer!
Chapter 7

The Holiness of God

To understand grace and to understand Christ properly, we must understand what sin is. How else can we come to this understanding than through the light of God and His Word?

Come with me to the beginning of the Bible. See where man created by God, after His image, and pronounced by his Creator to be very good. Then sin entered, as rebellion against God. Adam was driven out of paradise and was brought, along with the untold millions of following generations, under curse and ruin. That was the work of sin. Here we learn its nature and power.

Come further on and see the ark of Noah on Ararat. So terrible had godlessness become among men, that God saw nothing for it but to destroy mankind from off the earth. That was the work of sin.

Come again with me to Sinai. God wanted to establish His covenant with a new nation – with the people of Israel. However, because of man's sinfulness, He could do this only by appearing in darkness and lightning so terrible that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake (Hebrews 12:21). Before the end of giving the law, that awful message came: Cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them (Galatians 3:10). It was sin that made that necessary.

Come once more with me, and this time to Calvary. See there what sin is, and the hatred and enmity with which the world cast out and crucified the Son of God. Sin reached its peak there. There Christ was, made sin by God Himself, and became a curse, as the only way to destroy sin. In the agony in which He prayed in Gethsemane that He might not drink the terrible cup, and in the agony in which on the cross, in the deep darkness of desertion, He cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46), we obtain at least some slight idea of the curse and indescribable suffering that sin brings. If anything can make us hate and detest sin, it is considering Christ on the cross.

Come once again with me to the judgment seat of the Great Day, and see the bottomless pit of darkness wherein countless souls will be plunged under the sentence, Depart from me, ye cursed, into eternal fire (Matthew 25:41). Oh, will not these words soften our hearts and fill us with a never-to-be-forgotten horror of sin, so that we may hate it with a perfect hatred?

Is there anything else that can help us to understand what sin is? Yes, there is. Turn your eyes inward, behold your own heart, and see sin there. Remember that all you have already seen of the hatefulness and godlessness of sin should teach you what sin in your own heart means; all the enmity against God, all the ruin of men, and all of its inner nature of hatefulness lie hidden in the sin you have committed, guilt of every transgression against God. When you acknowledge that you are a child of God and yet commit sin, allowing it sometimes to fulfill its lusts, it is right that you should cry out with Isaiah in shame, "Woe is me, because of my sin!" (see Isaiah 6:5). It is right to say with Peter, Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man (Luke 5:8).

One great power of sin is that it blinds us so that we do not recognize its true character. Even the Christian himself finds an excuse in the thought that he can never be perfect and that daily sin is a necessity. He is so accustomed to the thought of sinning that he has almost lost the power and ability of mourning over sin; yet there can be no real progress in grace apart from an increased consciousness of the sin and guilt of every transgression against God. There cannot be a more important question than this: "How can I regain the lost tenderness of conscience and become prepared to really offer to God the sacrifice of a broken heart?"

The Bible teaches us the way. Let the Christian remember what God thinks about sin – the hatred with which His holiness burns against it and the solemn sacrifice that He made to conquer sin and deliver us from it. Let him wait patiently in God's presence until His holiness shines upon him and he cries out with Isaiah, Woe is me! for I am dead because I am a man of unclean lips. (Isaiah 6:5).

Let him remember the cross and what the love of Christ had to endure there through the unspeakable pain that sin caused Him. Let him ask if this will not teach him to listen to the voice that says, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate (Jeremiah 44:4). Let him take time, so that the blood and love of the cross may exercise their full influence on him, and let him think of sin as nothing less than giving his hand to Satan and to his power. Is not this a terrible result of our prayerlessness and of our short and hurried waiting before God – that the true knowledge of sin is almost lost?

Let the believer think not only of what redemption has cost Christ, but also of the fact that Christ is offered to him by the Holy Spirit as a gift of inconceivable grace, through whom divine forgiveness and purification and renewing have taken possession of him. Let him ask himself with what return such love should be repaid. If only time were taken to wait in God's presence and ask such questions, the Spirit of God would accomplish His work of conviction of sin in us, would teach us to take an entirely new attitude, and would give us a new view of sin. The thought would begin to arise in our hearts that we have indeed been redeemed, so that in the power of Christ we can live every day as partners in the great victory that Christ obtained over sin on the cross, and manifest it in our walk.

What do you think? Do you not begin to see that the sin of prayerlessness has had a more terrible effect than you at first supposed? It is because of this hurried and superficial time with God that the sense of sin is so weak and that no motives have power to help you hate and flee from sin as you should. Nothing except hidden, humble, constant fellowship with God can teach you, as a child of God, to hate sin as God wants you to hate it. Nothing but the constant nearness and unceasing power of the living Christ can make it possible for you to properly understand what sin is and to detest it. Without this deeper understanding of sin, there will be no thought of appropriating the victory that is made possible for you in Christ Jesus, and that will be worked in you by the Holy Spirit.

O my God, cause me to know my sin and teach me to wait before You and to wait on You until Your Spirit causes something of Your holiness to rest upon me! O my God, cause me to know my sin, and let this drive me to listen to the promise, Whosoever abides in him does not sin [1 John 3:6], and to expect the fulfillment from You!

The Holiness of God

It has often been said that the comprehension of sin and of the holiness of God has been lost in the church. In the inner chamber, we have the place where we can learn again how to give God's holiness the position it should have in our faith and life. If you do not know how to spend half an hour in prayer, take up the subject of God's holiness. Bow before Him. Give yourself time, and also give God time, that He and you may come into communion with one another. It is a great work, but one accompanied by great blessing.

If you want to strengthen yourself in the practice of this Holy Presence, take up the Holy Word. Take, for example, the book of Leviticus; notice how God seven times gives the command, Ye shall be holy; for I am holy (11:44, 45; 19:2; 20:7, 26; 21:8; 22:32). Still more frequent in the Bible is the expression, I am the Lord that doth sanctify you (see, for example, Exodus 31:13).

This great thought is taken over into the New Testament. Peter says, Be ye holy in all manner of conversation; for it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy (1 Peter 1:15-16). Paul writes in his first epistle, that your hearts may be confirmed in holiness, irreprehensible before God (1 Thessalonians 3:13); God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:7); and Faithful is he that has called you, who will also do it (1 Thessalonians 5:24).

Nothing but the knowledge of God, as the Holy One, will make us holy. How are we to obtain that knowledge of God, except in the inner chamber? It is utterly impossible unless we take time and allow the holiness of God to shine on us. How can any person on earth obtain intimate knowledge of another person of remarkable wisdom if he does not associate with him and place himself under his influence? How can God Himself sanctify us if we do not take time to be brought under the power of the glory of His holiness? Nowhere can we get to know the holiness of God and come under its influence and power except in the inner chamber. No man can expect to make progress in holiness who is not often and long alone with God.

What is this holiness of God? It is the highest and most glorious and most all-embracing of all the attributes of God. Holiness is the most profound word in the Bible. It is a word that is at home in heaven. Both the Old and New Testaments tell us this. Isaiah heard the seraphs with veiled faces cry out, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts (Isaiah 6:3). John heard the four living creatures say, Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come (Revelation 4:8).

This is the highest expression of God's glory in heaven, by beings who live in His immediate presence and bow low before Him. Dare we imagine that we, by thinking and reading and hearing, can understand or become partakers of the holiness of God? What foolishness! Oh, that we might begin to thank God that we have a place in the inner chamber, a place where we can be alone with Him and take time to pray, "Let Your holiness, O Lord, shine more and more into our hearts, that they may become holy."

Let our hearts be deeply ashamed of our prayerlessness, through which we have made it impossible for God to impart His holiness to us. Let us fervently plead with God to forgive us this sin, to draw us by His heavenly grace, and to strengthen us to have fellowship with Him, the holy God.

I have said that the meaning of the words, "the holiness of God," is not easily expressed. But we may begin by saying that they imply the unspeakable abhorrence and hatred with which God regards sin. If you want to understand what that means, remember that He preferred to see His Son die rather than that sin should reign. Think of the Son of God, who gave up His life rather than act in the least matter against the will of the Father. Still further, He had such a hatred of sin that He preferred to die rather than that people should be held in its power.

That is something of the holiness of God, which is a pledge that He will do everything for us to deliver us from sin. Holiness is the fire of God that will consume sin in us and make us holy sacrifices, pure and acceptable before Him. It was for this reason that the Spirit came down as fire. He is the Spirit of God's holiness, the Spirit of sanctification in us.

Oh, think over the holiness of God and bow in lowliness before Him, until your heart is filled with the assurance of what the Holy One will do for you. Take a week, if necessary, to read and re-read the words of God on this great truth, until your heart is brought under the conviction that the glory of the inner chamber is to converse with God, the Holy One – to bow in deep humility and shame before Him, because we have so despised Him and His love through our prayerlessness. There we will receive the assurance that He will again take us into fellowship with Himself. No one can expect to understand and receive the holiness of God who is not often and long alone with God.

Someone has said that the holiness of God is the expression of the unspeakable distance by which He in His righteousness is separated from us, and yet also of the unspeakable nearness in which He in His love longs to hold fellowship with us and dwell in us. Bow in humble reverence, as you think of the immeasurable distance between you and God. Bow in childlike confidence in the unspeakable desire of His love to be united with you in the deepest intimacy. Believe most confidently on Him to reveal something of His holiness to the soul that thirsts after Him, waits upon Him, and is quiet before Him.

Notice how the two sides of the holiness of God are united in the cross. So fierce was the abhorrence and anger of God against our sin, that Christ was left in the thick darkness, because God, when sin was laid upon Him, had to hide His face from Him. Yet so deep was the love of God toward us, and He so desired to be united to us, that He spared not His Son, but gave Him over to unutterable sufferings so that He might receive us, in union with Christ, into His holiness, and press us to His heart as His beloved children. It was of this suffering that our Lord Jesus said, I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified in the truth (John 17:19). Thus, He is become of God our sanctification, and we are holy in Him.

I urge you not to think little of the grace that you have a holy God who wants to make you holy. Think not little of the voice of God that calls you to give time to Him in the stillness of the inner chamber so that He can cause His holiness to rest on you. Let it be your business every day, in the secrecy of the inner chamber, to meet the holy God. You will be repaid for the trouble it may cost you. The reward will be certain and rich. You will learn to hate sin and to regard it as accursed and conquered. The new nature will give you a horror of sin. The living Jesus, the holy God, will, as conqueror, be your power and strength; and you will begin to believe the great promise contained in 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24: The very God of peace sanctify you completely. . . . Faithful is he that has called you, who will also do it.
Chapter 8

Obedience and the Victorious Life

Sin stands in opposition to obedience. For as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous (Romans 5:19). Ye are become the slaves of righteousness (Romans 6:18). In connection with all that has been said about sin, the new life, and the reception of the Holy Spirit, we must always give to obedience the place assigned to it by God.

It was because Christ humbled Himself and became obedient unto death – the death on the cross – that God so highly exalted Him. Paul, in this connection, exhorts us, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). We see, above everything else, that the obedience of Christ, which was so pleasing to God, must really become the characteristic of our nature and of our entire walk. Just as a servant knows that he must first obey his master in all things, so the surrender to a complete and unquestionable obedience must become the essential characteristic of our lives.

How little this is understood by Christians! How many there are who allow themselves to be misled, and who rest satisfied with the thought that sin is a necessity, that one must sin every day! It would be difficult to say how great the harm is that has been done by this mistake. It is one of the chief causes why the sin of disobedience is so little recognized. I have heard Christians speaking about the cause of darkness and weakness, who say, half-laughingly, "Yes, it is just disobedience again." We try to get rid of a servant as quickly as possible who is habitually disobedient, but it is not regarded as anything extraordinary if a child of God is disobedient every day. Disobedience is acknowledged daily, yet there is no turning away from it.

Is not this the reason why so much prayer for the power of the Holy Spirit is offered, and yet so few answers come? Do we not read that God has given his Holy Spirit to them that obey him (Acts 5:32)? Every child of God has received the Holy Spirit. If he uses the measure of the Holy Spirit that he has, with the specific purpose of being obedient to the utmost, then God can and will favor him with further manifestations of the Spirit's power; but if he permits disobedience to get the upper hand every day, he does not need to wonder if his prayer for more of the Spirit remains unanswered.

We have already said that we must not forget that the Holy Spirit desires to possess more of us. How can we wholly surrender ourselves to Him other than by being obedient? The Bible says that we must be led by the Spirit and we must walk by the Spirit. My right relationship to the Holy Spirit is that I allow myself to be guided and ruled by Him. Obedience is the great factor in our whole relationship to God. Hear My voice, and I will be your God (Jeremiah 7:23).

Notice how the Lord Jesus, on the last night, when giving His great promise about the Holy Spirit, lays emphasis on this point: If ye love me, keep my commandments; and I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter (John 14:15-16). Obedience is essential as a preparation for the reception of the Spirit. This thought is often repeated by Jesus: He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me; and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him (John 14:21). This is also seen in John 14:23: He who loves me will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and dwell with him. Also see John 15: If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you (15:7); If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love (15:10); Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you (15:14).

Can words more plainly or more impressively declare that the whole life, in the new dispensation following the resurrection of Christ, depends on obedience? That is the Spirit of Christ. He did not live to do His own will, but the will of the Father. He cannot with His Spirit make an abiding home in the heart of one who does not surrender himself completely to a life of obedience.

Alas, how few there are who are truly concerned because of this disobedience! How little it is believed that Jesus Christ really asks for and expects this from us because He has undertaken to make it possible for us. How much is it manifested in prayer, in our walk, or in the depths of the soul-life that we really endeavor to be well-pleasing to the Lord in all things? We say too little in regard to our disobedience. I will be sorry for my sin (Psalm 38:18).

Is obedience really possible? Yes. It is certain for the person who believes that Christ Jesus is his sanctification and who relies on Him.

Just as it is impossible for someone whose eyes have not yet been opened to see that Christ can at once forgive his sin, so it is also with faith in the assurance that there is in Christ a sure promise of power to accomplish all that God desires from His child. Just as through faith we found the fullness of forgiveness, so through a new act of faith, a real deliverance from the dominion of the sin that has so easily beset us is obtained, and the abiding blessing of the continuous experience of the keeping power of Christ becomes ours. This faith obtains a new insight into promises, the meaning of which was not previously understood. The God of peace . . . make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ (Hebrews 13:20-21). Unto him that is powerful to keep you without sin and to present you faultless . . . be glory and majesty (Jude 24-25). Give all the more diligence to make your calling and election sure; for doing these things, ye shall never fall (2 Peter 1:10). That your hearts may be confirmed in holiness (1 Thessalonians 3:13). But the Lord is faithful, who shall confirm you and keep you from evil (2 Thessalonians 3:3).

When the soul understands that the fulfillment of these and other promises is secured for us in Christ, and that as certainly as the forgiveness of sin is assured to us in Him, so also is power against new or fresh attacks of sin assured to us. Then, for the first time, the lesson is properly learned that faith can confidently rely upon a full Christ and His abiding protection.

This faith sheds an entirely new light on the life of obedience. Christ holds Himself responsible to work this out in me every moment, if I only trust Him for it. Then I begin to understand the important phrase with which Paul begins and closes his epistle to the Romans: the obedience of faith (see Romans 1:5; 16:26).

Faith brings me to the Lord Jesus, not only to obtain the forgiveness of sin, but also that I may every moment enjoy the power that will make it possible for me, as a child of God, to abide in Him and to be numbered among His obedient children – of whom it is written that, as He who has called them is holy, so they also may be holy in all manner of conversation (1 Peter 1:15). Everything depends on whether or not I believe on the whole Christ, with the fullness of His grace that He will, not now and then, but every moment, be the strength of my life. Such faith will lead to an obedience that will enable me to walk worthy of the Lord, pleasing him in everything, being fruitful in every good work, and growing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might, according to the power of his glory (Colossians 1:10-11).

The soul that feeds on such promises will experience what the obedience of faith means instead of the disobedience of self-effort. All such promises have their measure, their certainty, and their strength in the living Christ.

The Victorious Life

In the chapter on the more abundant life (chapter 4), we viewed the matter mainly from the side of our Lord Jesus. We saw that there is to be found in Him – the crucified, risen, and glorified one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit – all that is needful for a life of abundant grace. In speaking of the victorious life, we will now look at the matter from another standpoint. We want to see how a Christian can really live in victory. We have already often said that the prayer life is not something that can be improved by itself. It is so intimately bound up with the entire spiritual life, that it is only when that whole life (previously marked by lack of prayer) becomes renewed and sanctified that prayer can have its rightful place of power. We must not be satisfied with less than the victorious life to which God calls His children.

You remember how our Lord, in the seven epistles in the Revelation of John, concludes with a promise to those who overcome. Take the trouble of going over that phrase that is repeated seven times, him that overcomes, and notice what unspeakably glorious promises are there given. They were given even to churches like Ephesus, which had lost its first love; and Sardis, which had a name to live, but was dead; and Laodicea, with her lukewarmness and self-satisfaction – as proof that, if only they would repent, they would win the crown of victory. The call comes to every Christian to strive for the crown. It is impossible to be a healthy Christian, and still more impossible to be a preacher in the power of God, if everything is not sacrificed to gain the victory.

The answer to the question as to how we attain it is simple. All is in Christ. Thanks be unto God, who always causes us to triumph in the Christ (2 Corinthians 2:14). In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us (Romans 8:37). It all depends on our right relationship to Christ, our entire surrender, perfect faith, and unbroken fellowship with Him.

Do you want to know how to attain all this? Listen once more to the simple directions as to the way by which the full enjoyment of what is prepared for you in Christ may be yours. You need a new discovery of sin, a new surrender to Christ, and a new faith in the power that will make it possible for you to persevere.

1. A new discovery of sin. In Romans 3, you find the knowledge of sin described that is necessary, in repentance, for forgiveness: That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may submit themselves unto God (Romans 3:19). There you took your stand, recognized your sin more or less consciously, confessed it, and you obtained mercy. But if you want to lead the victorious life, something more is needful. This comes with the experience that in you, that is, in your flesh, there dwells no good thing (Romans 7:18).

You delight in the law of God after the inner man, but you see another law in you that is bringing you into captivity to the law of sin and compelling you to cry out, O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Romans 7:23-24). It is not, as it was at conversion, when you thought over your few or many sins. This work goes much deeper. You find that, as a Christian, you have no power to do the good that you want to do. You must be brought to a new and deeper insight into the sin of your nature and into your utter weakness, even though you are a Christian, to live as you ought. You will learn to cry out, "Who will deliver me – I, a wretched man, a prisoner bound under the law of sin?"

The answer to this question is, The grace of God, by Jesus, the Christ, our Lord (Romans 7:25). Then follows the revelation of what there is in Christ. It is not just as it is given in Romans 3. It is more: I am in Christ Jesus, and the law of the Spirit of life in Christ, Jesus, has made me free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2), under which I was bound. It is the experience that the law or power of the life of the Spirit in Christ has made me free and now calls on me, in a new sense and by a new surrender, to acknowledge Jesus Christ as the one who gives the victory.

2. A new surrender to Christ. You may have used these words "surrender" and "consecration" many times, but without properly understanding what they meant. As you have been brought by the teaching of Romans 7 to a complete sense of the hopelessness of leading a true Christian life or a true prayer life by your own efforts, so you feel that the Lord Jesus must take you up, by His own power, in an entirely new way, and must take possession of you, by His Spirit, in an entirely new level. This alone can preserve you from constantly sinning anew. Only this only can make you really victorious. This leads you to look away from yourself, really to get free from yourself, and to expect everything from the Lord Jesus.

If we begin to understand this, we are prepared to admit that in our nature there is nothing good, that it is under a curse, and it is nailed with Christ to His cross. We come to see what Paul means when he says that we are dead to sin by the death of Christ. Thus, we obtain a share of the glorious resurrection life there is in Him. By such an insight, we are encouraged to believe that Jesus, through His life in us through His continual indwelling, can keep us.

Just as at our conversion, we had no rest until we knew He had received us, so now we feel the need of coming to Him to receive from Him the assurance that He has really undertaken to keep us by the power of His resurrection life. We feel that there must be an act as definite as His reception of us at conversion, by which He gives us the assurance of victory. Although it appears to us to be too great and too much, yet the man who casts himself, without plea, into the arms of Christ, will experience that He does indeed receive us into such a fellowship as will make us, from the beginning onward, more than conquerors (Romans 8:37).

3. A new faith in the power that will make it possible for you to persevere in your surrender. You have heard of Keswick and the truth for which it stands. It is that Christ is prepared to take upon Himself the care and preservation of our lives every day, all day long, if we trust Him to do it. In the testimony given by many, this thought is emphasized. They have told us that they felt themselves called to a new surrender, to an entire consecration of life to Christ, reaching to the smallest things – but they were hindered by the fear of failure. The thirst after holiness, the thirst after an unbroken fellowship with Jesus, and the thirst after a life of persevering childlike obedience drew them one way; but the question arose, "Will I remain faithful?" To this question there came no answer until they believed that the surrender must be made, not in their own strength, but in a power that was given by a glorified Lord. He would not only keep them for the future, but He must first make possible for them the surrender of faith that expects that future grace. It was in the power of Christ Himself that they were able to present themselves to Him.

O Christian, believe that there is a victorious life! Christ, the victor, is your Lord, who will undertake for you in everything and will enable you to do all that the Father expects from you. Be of good courage. Will you not trust Him to do this great work for you who has given His life for you and has forgiven your sins? Only dare, in His power, to surrender yourself to the life of those who are kept from sin by the power of God. Along with the deepest conviction that there is no good in you, confess that you see in the Lord Jesus all the goodness of which you have need for the life of a child of God, and begin literally to live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20).

Let me, for your encouragement, give the testimony of Bishop Moule, a man of deep humility and tender piety. When he first heard of Keswick, he was afraid of perfectionism and wanted nothing to do with it. Unexpectedly, during a vacation in Scotland, he came in contact with some friends at a small convention. There he heard an address by which he was convinced how entirely the teaching was according to Scripture. There was no word about sinlessness in the flesh or in man. It was a setting forth of how Jesus can keep from sin a person with a sinful nature. The light shone into his heart. He who had always been counted a tender Christian came into touch now with a new experience of what Christ is willing to do for someone who gives himself entirely to Him.

Listen to what Bishop Moule says about the text, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13):

I dare say that it is possible for those who really are willing to believe in the power of the Lord for keeping and victory, to lead a life in which His promises are taken as they stand and are found to be true. It is possible to cast all our care on Him daily and to enjoy deep peace in doing it. It is possible to have the thoughts and imaginations of our hearts purified in the deepest meaning of the word, through faith. It is possible to see the will of God in everything, and to receive it, not with sighing, but with singing. It is possible, in the inner life of desire and feeling, to lay aside all bitterness, wrath, anger, and evil-speaking, every day and every hour. It is possible, by taking complete refuge in divine power, to become strong through and through; and where previously our greatest weakness lay, to find that the things that formerly upset all our resolves to be patient or pure or humble, furnish today an opportunity – through Him who loved us, and works in us an agreement with His will and a blessed sense of His presence and His power – to make sin powerless. These things are divine possibilities, and because they are His work, the true experience of them will always cause us to bow lower at His feet and to learn to thirst and long for more. We cannot possibly be satisfied with anything less than to walk with God – each day, each hour, and each moment, in Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Thank God, a life of victory is certain for those who have a knowledge of their inward ruin and are hopeless in themselves, but who, in the confidence of despair, have looked to Jesus, and in faith in His power to make the act of surrender possible for them, they have done it in His might, and now rely on Him alone every day and every hour.

* * *

 Keswick conferences and meetings began in Keswick, England, in 1875, and continue to this day. They often emphasized holiness and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Chapter 9

Time in Inner Chamber

At the conference, a brother who had earnestly confessed his neglect of prayer, but who was able later to declare that his eyes had been opened to see that the Lord really supplied grace for all that He required from us, asked if some hints could be given as to the best way of spending time profitably in the inner chamber as we pray in sincerity to God. There was no opportunity then for giving an answer. Perhaps the following thoughts may be of help:

1. As you enter the inner chamber, let your first work be to thank God for the unspeakable love that invites you to come to Him and to converse freely with Him. If your heart is cold and dead, remember that Christianity is not a matter of feeling, but has to do first with the will. Raise your heart to God and thank Him for the assurance you have that He looks down on you and will bless you. Through such an act of faith, you honor God and draw your soul away from being occupied with itself. Think also of the glorious grace of the Lord Jesus, who is willing to teach you to pray and to give you the inclination to do so. Think, too, of the Holy Spirit, who was purposely given to cry, "Abba, Father," in your heart, and to help your weakness in prayer. Five minutes spent this way will strengthen your faith for your work in the inner chamber. Once more I say, begin with an act of thanksgiving, and praise God for the place of prayer and the promise of blessing there.

2. You must prepare yourself for prayer by prayerful Bible study. The main reason why the inner chamber is not more attractive to many people is that people do not know how to pray. Their stock of words is soon exhausted, and they do not know what else to say, because they forget that prayer is not a one-person speech where everything comes from one side, but it is a dialogue, where God's child listens to what the Father says, replies to it, and then asks for the things he needs.

Read a few verses from the Bible. Do not concern yourself with the difficulties contained in them. You can consider these later; but take what you understand, apply it to yourself, and ask the Father to make His Word light and power in your heart. In this way, you will have material enough for prayer from the Word that the Father speaks to you; you will also have the liberty to ask for things you need. Continue in this way, and the inner chamber will soon become more than a place where you only sigh and struggle, but a place of living fellowship with the Father in heaven. Prayerful study of the Bible is indispensable for powerful prayer.

3. When you have thus received the Word into your heart, turn to prayer. Do not attempt it hastily or thoughtlessly, as though you already knew well enough how to pray. Prayer in our own strength brings no blessing. Take time to present yourself reverently and in quietness before God. Remember His greatness and holiness and love. Think over what you want to ask from Him. Do not be satisfied with going over the same things every day. No child goes on saying the same thing day after day to his earthly father.

Conversation with the Father is influenced by the needs of the day. Let your prayer be something specific, arising either out of the Word that you have read, or out of the real needs of your soul that you long to have satisfied. Let your prayer be so specific that you can say as you go out, "I know what I have asked from my Father, and I expect an answer." It is a good plan sometimes to take a piece of paper and write down what you need to pray for. You might keep such a paper for a week or more, repeating the prayers until some new need arises.

4. What has been said is in reference to your own needs, but you know that we are also to pray in order to help in the needs of others. One main reason why prayer in the inner chamber does not bring more joy and blessing is that it is too selfish, and selfishness is the death of prayer.

Remember your family, your congregation and its needs, your own neighborhood, and the Christians around you. Let your heart be enlarged, and take up the interests of missions and of the church through the whole world. Become an intercessor, and you will experience for the first time the blessedness of prayer, as you find out that God will make use of you to share His blessing with others through prayer. You will begin to feel that there is something worth living for, as you find that you have something to say to God, and that He will do things from heaven in answer to your prayers that otherwise would not have been done.

A child can ask his father for bread. A fully grown son discusses with him about all the interests of his business and about his further purposes. A weak child of God prays only for himself, but a fully grown person in Christ understands how to consult with God over what must take place in the kingdom. Let your prayer list bear the names of those for whom you pray, including your minister, all other ministers, and the different missionary concerns with which you are connected. The inner chamber will really become a wonder of God's goodness and a fountain of great joy. It will become the most blessed place on earth. It is a great thing to say, but it is the simple truth, that God will make it a Bethel, where His angels will ascend and descend, and where you will cry out, "The Lord shall be my God" (see Genesis 28:10-22). He will make it also Peniel, where you will see the face of God, as a prince of God, as one who wrestled with the angel and overcame him (see Genesis 32:24-30).

5. Do not forget the close bond between the inner chamber and the outer world. The attitude of the inner chamber must remain with us all day. The object of the inner chamber is to unite us to God so thoroughly that we may have Him always abiding with us. Sin, thoughtlessness, and yielding to the flesh or to the world make us unfit for the inner chamber and bring a cloud over the soul.

If you have stumbled or fallen, return to the inner chamber; let your first work be to invoke the blood of Jesus and to claim cleansing by it. Do not rest until by confession you have repented of and put away your sin. Let the precious blood of Jesus really give you a fresh freedom of approach to God. Remember that the roots of your life in the inner chamber strike far out in body and soul so as to manifest themselves in business life. Let the obedience of faith, in which you pray in secret, rule you constantly. The inner chamber is intended to bind us to God, to supply us with power from God, and to enable us to live for God alone. We ought to thank God for the inner chamber and for the blessed life that He will enable us to experience and nourish there.

Time

Before the creation of the world, time did not exist. God lived in eternity in a way that we little understand. With creation, time began, and every physical thing was placed within its bounds. God has placed all living creatures under a law of slow growth. Think of the length of time it takes for a child to become a man in body and mind. In learning, in wisdom, in business, in craftsmanship, and in politics, everything somehow depends on patience and perseverance. Everything needs time.

It is just the same in the Christian life. There can be no conversation with a holy God, no fellowship between heaven and earth, and no power for the salvation of the souls of others unless much time is set apart for it. Just as it is necessary for a child to eat and to learn every day for many years, so the life of grace entirely depends on the time people are willing to give to it day by day.

The minister is appointed by God to teach and help those who are engaged in the ordinary occupations of life to find time and to use it wisely for the preservation of the spiritual life. The minister cannot do this unless he himself has a living experience of a life of prayer. His highest calling is not preaching or speaking or visiting the people, but it is to cultivate the life of God daily and to be a witness of what the Lord teaches him and accomplishes in him.

Was it not so with the Lord Jesus? Why must He, who had no sin to confess, sometimes spend all night in prayer to God? Because the divine life had to be strengthened in communion with His Father. His experience of a life in which He took time for fellowship with God has enabled Him to share that life with us.

Oh, that each pastor might understand that he has received his time from God with a condition attached! God must have, for fellowship with Himself, the first and the best of your time. Without this, your preaching and labor have little power. Here on earth I may spend my time for the money or the learning that I receive in exchange. The pastor can exchange his time for the divine power and the spiritual blessings to be obtained from heaven. That, and nothing else, makes him a man of God and ensures that his preaching will be in demonstration of the Spirit and of power (1 Corinthians 2:4).
Chapter 10

The Example of Paul

Be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ. (1 Corinthians 11:1)

Paul was a minister who prayed much for other people. Let us read his words prayerfully and calmly so that we can hear the voice of the Spirit.

Night and day praying exceedingly that we . . . might complete that which is lacking in your faith. . . . The Lord make you to multiply . . . that your hearts may be confirmed in holiness. (1 Thessalonians 3:10, 12-13)

The very God of peace sanctify you completely. (1 Thessalonians 5:23)

What food for meditation!

Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself . . . comfort your hearts, and confirm you in every good word and work. (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17)

Without ceasing, I always remember you in my prayers, making request . . . that I may impart with you some spiritual gift to confirm you. (Romans 1:9-11)

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

[I] cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; illuminating the eyes of your understanding, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power in us who believe, by the operation of the power of his strength. (Ephesians 1:16-19)

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that the Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in charity [love] . . . might be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19)

Always in every prayer of mine for you all, making request with joy . . . I pray that your charity [love] may abound yet more and more . . . that ye may be sincere and . . . filled with fruits of righteousness. (Philippians 1:4, 9-11)

But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19)

We . . . do not cease to pray for you, asking that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that ye might walk worthy of the Lord . . . strengthened with all might, according to the power of his glory. (Colossians 1:9-11)

I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you . . . and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in charity [love]. (Colossians 2:1-2)

What a study for the inner chamber! These passages teach us that unceasing prayer formed a large part of Paul's service in the gospel. We see the high spiritual aim that he set before himself in his work on behalf of believers, and the tender and self-sacrificing love with which he ever continued to think of the church and its needs. Let us ask God to bring each one of us, and all the ministers of His Word, to a life in which such prayer is the healthy and natural outflow. We will need to turn again and again to these pages if we really desire to be brought by the Spirit to the apostolic life that God has given us as an example.

Paul was a minister who asked others to pray much. Read the following verses with prayerful attention:

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).

Ye also helping us with prayer, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons, thanks may be given by many on our behalf. (2 Corinthians 1:11).

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching in this with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth with confidence, to make known the mystery of the gospel . . . as I ought to speak (Ephesians 6:18-20).

For I know that this shall become my saving health through your prayer and the nourishment of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:19).

Persevere in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving, praying also together for us that God would open unto us the door of the word, to speak . . . as I ought to speak (Colossians 4:2-4).

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).

What a deep insight Paul had as to the unity of the Body of Christ and the relation of the members one to another! It is as we permit the Holy Spirit to work powerfully in us that He will reveal this truth to us, and we, too, will have this insight. What a glimpse he gives us of the power of the spiritual life among these Christians by the way in which he considered that at Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Colossae, and Philippi, there were men and women on whom he could rely for prayer that would reach heaven and have power with God! What a lesson for all ministers, to lead them to inquire if they truly appreciate the unity of the Body at its right value; if they are attempting to train up Christians as intercessors; and if they indeed understand that Paul had that confidence because he was himself so strong in prayer for the people! Let us learn the lesson and plead with God that ministers and congregations together may grow in the grace of prayer so that their entire service and Christian life may witness that the Spirit of prayer rules them. Then we may be confident that God will avenge His own elect who cry out day and night unto Him.

Ministers of the Spirit

What is the meaning of the expression, "The minister of the gospel is a minister of the Spirit" (see 2 Corinthians 3:6-8)? It means:

  1. The preacher is entirely under the power and control of the Spirit so that he may be led and used by the Spirit as He wills.
  2. Many pray for the Spirit so they can make use of Him and His power for their work. This is certainly wrong. It is He who must use you. Your relationship toward Him must be one of deep dependence and utter submission. The Spirit must have you entirely and always, and in all things under His power.
  3. There are many who think they must only preach the Word, and that the Spirit will make the Word fruitful. They do not understand that it is the Spirit in and through the preacher who will bring the Word to the heart. I must not be satisfied with praying to God to bless, through the operation of His Spirit, the Word that I preach. The Lord wants me to be filled with the Spirit; then I will speak properly and my preaching will be in the manifestation of the Spirit and power.
  4. We see this on the day of Pentecost. They were filled with the Spirit and began to speak, and they spoke with power through the Spirit who was in them.
  5. Thus we learn what the relationship of the minister toward the Spirit should be. He must have a strong belief that the Spirit is in him, will teach him in his daily life, and will strengthen him to bear witness to the Lord Jesus in his preaching and visiting. He must live in ceaseless prayer that he may be kept and strengthened by the power of the Spirit.
  6. When the Lord promised the apostles that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit had come upon them, and He commanded them to wait for Him, it was as though He had said, "Do not dare to preach without this power. It is the indispensable preparation for your work. Everything depends on it."
  7. What, then, is the lesson we may learn from the phrase "ministers of the Spirit"? Alas, how little we have understood this! How little have we lived in it! How little have we experienced of the power of the Holy Spirit! What must we do then? There must be deep confession of guilt that we have so constantly grieved the Spirit, because we have not lived daily as His ministers; we must have simple childlike surrender to His leading in sure confidence that the Lord will work a change in us; and further, we must have daily fellowship with the Lord Jesus in ceaseless prayer. He will then give to us the Holy Spirit as rivers of living water.

Chapter 11

Wholeheartedness in Preaching and Prayer

A little of the Word and a little prayer is death to the spiritual life. Much of the Word with a little prayer results in an unhealthy life. Much prayer with a little of the Word gives more life, but without steadfastness. A full measure of the Word and prayer each day gives a healthy and powerful life.

Think of the Lord Jesus. In His youth and manhood, He treasured the Word in His heart. In the temptation in the wilderness and on every opportunity that presented itself – until He cried out on the cross in death, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:46) – He showed that the Word of God filled His heart. In His prayer life, He manifested two things: first, that the Word supplies us with material for prayer and encourages us in expecting everything from God. The second is that it is only by prayer that we can live such a life that every word of God can be fulfilled in us.

How can we arrive at this, so that the Word and prayer may each have its undivided right over us? There is only one answer. Our lives must be wholly transformed. We must get a new, healthy, heavenly life in which the hunger after God's Word and the thirst after God express themselves in prayer as naturally as do the needs of our earthly life. Every manifestation of the power of the flesh in us and the weakness of our spiritual life must drive us to the conviction that God will, through the powerful operation of His Holy Spirit, work out a new and strong life in us.

Oh, that we only understood that the Holy Spirit is essentially the Spirit of the Word and the Spirit of prayer! He will cause the Word to become a joy and a light in our souls, and He will also most surely help us in prayer to know the mind and will of God, and to find in it our delight. If pastors want to explain these things and to train God's people for the inheritance that is prepared for them, they must commit themselves from this moment forward to the leading of the Holy Spirit. They must, in faith in what He will do in them, appropriate the heavenly life of Christ as He lived it here on earth, with a certain expectation that the Spirit, who filled Him with the Word and prayer, will also accomplish that work in them.

Yes, let us believe that the Spirit who is in us is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, and that He is in us to truly make us partakers of His life. If we firmly believe this and set our hearts upon it, there will come a change in our connection with the Word and prayer such as we could not have thought possible. Believe it firmly; expect it surely.

We are familiar with the vision of the valley of dry bones. We know that the Lord said to the prophet, Prophesy upon these bones. . . . Behold, I will cause spirit to enter into you, and ye shall live (Ezekiel 37:4-5). We know that when he had done this, there was a noise, and bone came together to its bone, and flesh came up, and skin covered them – but there was no life in them. The prophesying to the bones – the preaching of the Word of God – had a powerful influence. It was the beginning of the great miracle that was about to happen, and there lay an entire army of men newly made. It was the beginning of the work of life in them, but there was no spirit there.

Then the Lord said to the prophet: Prophesy unto the spirit . . . Thus hath the Lord GOD said: Come from the four winds, O spirit, and breathe upon these slain, and they shall live (Ezekiel 37:9). When the prophet had done this, the Spirit came upon them, and they lived and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army (Ezekiel 37:10). Prophesying to the bones, that is, preaching, has accomplished a great work. The beautiful new bodies were there, but the prophesying to the Spirit, "Come, O Spirit" – that is, prayer – accomplished a far more wonderful thing. The power of the Spirit was revealed through prayer.

Is not the work of our pastors mostly this prophesying to dry bones in making known the promises of God? This is sometimes followed by great results. Everything that belongs to the form of godliness has been brought to perfection. A careless congregation becomes regular and devout, but it remains true for the most part that, as in Ezekiel 37:8, there is no life in them. Preaching must be followed by prayer. The preacher must come to see that his preaching is comparatively powerless to bring in a new life until he begins to take time for prayer, and according to the teaching of God's Word, strives and labors and continues in prayer, taking no rest and giving God no rest until He bestows the Spirit in overflowing power.

Do you not feel that a change must come in our work? We must learn from Peter to continue in prayer and in the ministry of the Word. Just as there are men who are zealous in preaching, so they must also be zealous in prayer. They must, with all their power, constantly pray unceasingly, like Paul. For the answer to the prayer, Come . . . and breathe upon these slain (Ezekiel 37:9), is certain.

Wholeheartedness

Experience teaches us that if anyone is engaged in a work in which he is not wholehearted, he will seldom succeed. Just think of a student, a teacher, a businessman, or a warrior. He who does not give himself wholeheartedly to his calling is not likely to succeed. That is still more true of the Christian life, and above all of the high and holy task of communing in prayer with a holy God and of being always well-pleasing to Him. It is because of this that God has said so impressively, And ye shall seek me, and find me, for ye shall seek me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:13).

As more than one of God's servants has said, "I seek You with my whole heart" (see, for example, Psalm 119:10). Have you ever thought how many Christians there are of whom it is all too plain that they do not seek God with the whole heart? When they were in trouble over their sins, they seemed to seek God with the whole heart; but when they knew that they had been pardoned, they were not as zealous. One could see by their lives that they were religious, it is true, but no one would think, "This person has surrendered himself with his whole heart to follow God and to serve Him as the supreme work of his life."

How is it with you? What does your heart say? While you may have given yourself up with wholehearted devotion to fulfill your office faithfully and zealously, will you not perhaps acknowledge, "I fear, or rather I am convinced, that my unsatisfactory prayer life is to be attributed to nothing else than that I have not lived with a wholehearted surrender of all on earth that could hinder me in fellowship with God"? What a deeply important question to consider in the inner chamber and to give the answer to God! How important to arrive at a plain answer and to utter it all before God! Prayerlessness cannot be overcome as an isolated thing. It is in the closest relationship to the state of the heart. True prayer depends on an undivided heart.

However, I cannot give myself that undivided heart that can enable me to say, "I seek God with my whole heart." No, that is impossible for you, but God will do it. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me (Jeremiah 32:39). I will give my law in their souls and write it in their hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). Such promises serve to awaken desire. However weak the desire may be, if we only have the sincere determination to strive after what God holds out to us, then He will Himself work in our hearts both to will and to do. It is the great work of the Holy Spirit in us to make us willing and to enable us to seek God with the whole heart. It is not easy to understand why we have given ourselves to so many earthly things with all our heart and strength, yet if anything is said about fellowship with our glorious God, it so little affects us that we do not seek Him with our whole heart.
Chapter 12

Persevere in Prayer

The Lord did not speak these words to all who believed on Him or who hoped to be blessed by Him, but to those whom He would make fishers of men. He did not just say this when He first called the apostles, but He also said it later to Peter: From now on thou shalt catch men (Luke 5:10).

The holy art of winning souls and of loving and saving them can be learned only in close and persistent communion with Christ. What a lesson for ministers, Christian workers, and others! This communion was the great and special privilege of His disciples. The Lord chose them that they might always be with and near Him. We read of the choice of the twelve apostles in Mark 3:14: He established twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach. Our Lord also said on the last night, Ye also shall bear witness because ye have been with me from the beginning (John 15:27).

This fact was noticed by outsiders. For example, remember the woman who said about Peter that he had also been with Jesus (Luke 22:59)? Also, in the Sanhedrin, They took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus (Acts 4:13). The chief characteristic and indispensable qualification for the people who will bear witness of Christ is that they have been with Him.

Continuous fellowship with Christ is the only school by the Holy Spirit for training Christian workers. What a lesson for all ministers! It is only he who, like Caleb, follows the Lord fully (see Numbers 14:24), who will have power to teach others the art of following Jesus. What an unspeakable grace that the Lord Jesus Himself would train us after His own likeness so that others may learn from us! Then we might say with Paul to our converts, Ye were made imitators of us and of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 1:6); Be ye imitators [followers] of me, even as I also am of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1).

There was never a teacher who took such trouble with his scholars as Jesus Christ will with those who preach His Word. He will spare no pains; no time will be too precious or too long for Him. In the same love that brought Him to the cross, He wants to commune and converse with us, form us, sanctify us, and make us fit for His holy service. Will we dare complain that it is too much for us to spend so much time in prayer? Will we not commit ourselves entirely to the love that gave up all for us, looking upon it as our greatest happiness now to hold fellowship with Him daily? Oh, all you who long for blessing in your ministry, He calls you to be with Him. Let this be the greatest joy of your life; it will be the surest preparation for blessing in your service. O my Lord, draw me, help me, hold me close, and teach me how to live in daily fellowship with You by faith.

The Holy Trinity

  1. God is an ever-flowing fountain of pure love and blessedness.
  2. Christ is the reservoir wherein the fullness of God was made visible as grace and has been opened for us.
  3. The Holy Spirit is the stream of living water that flows from under the throne of God and of the Lamb.
  4. The redeemed – God's believing children – are the channels through which the love of the Father, the grace of Christ, and the powerful operation of the Spirit are brought to the earth, and from there to be imparted to others.
  5. What an impression we gain here of the wonderful partnership into which God takes us up as dispensers of the grace of God! Prayer, when we mainly pray for ourselves, is only the beginning of the life of prayer. The glory of prayer is that we have power as intercessors to bring the grace of Christ and the energizing power of the Spirit upon those souls that are still in darkness.
  6. The more surely the channel is connected with the reservoir, the more certainly will the water flow unhindered through it. The more we are occupied in prayer with the fullness of Christ and with the Spirit who proceeds from Him, and the more firmly we abide in fellowship with Him, the more certainly will our lives be happy and strong. This, however, is still only a preparation for the reality. The more we give ourselves up to fellowship and communion with the triune God, the sooner we will receive the courage and ability to pray down blessings on souls, on ministers, and on the church around us.
  7. Are you truly a channel that is always open, so that the water may flow through you to the thirsty ones in the dry land? Have you offered yourself unreservedly to God, to become a bearer of the energizing operations of the Holy Spirit?
  8. Is it not, perhaps, because you have thought only of yourself in prayer that you have experienced so little of the power of prayer? Understand that the new prayer life into which you have entered in the Lord Jesus can be sustained and strengthened only by the intercession in which you labor for the souls around you, to bring them to know the Lord. Oh, meditate on this – God is an ever-flowing fountain of love and blessing, and I, His child, am a living channel through which the Spirit and life can be brought to the earth every day!

Life and Prayer

Our lives have a great influence on our prayer in the same way that our prayers influence our lives. The entire life of man is a continuous prayer, to nature or to the world, to provide for his wants and to make him happy. This natural prayer and desire for the world can be as strong in someone who also prays to God, so that the words of prayer that his mouth utters are not heard. There are times when God cannot hear the prayer of your lips because the desires of your heart after the world cry out to Him much more strongly and loudly.

Our lives exercise a mighty influence over prayer. A worldly life or a self-seeking life makes prayer powerless and an answer impossible. With many Christians, there is a conflict between one's life and prayer, and the life holds the upper hand. However, prayer can also exercise a mighty influence over the life. If I give myself entirely to God in prayer, then prayer can conquer the life of the flesh and sin. The entire life can be brought under the control of prayer. Prayer can change and renew the whole life, because prayer calls in and receives the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit to purify and sanctify the life.

Many people think that they must, with their defective spiritual life, work themselves up to pray more. They do not understand that only in proportion as the spiritual life is strengthened can the prayer life increase. Prayer and life are inseparably connected. What do you think? Which has the stronger influence over you – prayer for five or ten minutes, or the whole day spent in the desires of the world? Do not let it surprise you if your prayers are not answered. The reason may easily lie here: your life and your prayer are at strife with each other; your heart is more wholly devoted to living than to prayer. Learn the great lesson that your prayers must rule your whole life. What I request from God in prayer is not decided in five or ten minutes. I must learn to say, "I have prayed with my whole heart." What I desire from God must really fill my heart the whole day; then the way is open for a certain answer.

Oh, the sacredness and power of prayer, if it takes possession of the heart and life! It keeps us constantly in fellowship with God. We can then literally say, "I wait on You the entire day." Let us be careful to consider not only the length of time we spend with God in prayer, but the power with which our prayer takes possession of our whole lives.

Perseverance in Prayer

It is not right, said Peter, that we should leave the word of God and serve tables (Acts 6:2). Deacons were chosen for that work. This word of Peter serves for all time and for all who are set apart as ministers. We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word (Acts 6:4). While giving a speech, Dr. Alexander Whyte once said, "I think sometimes, when my salary is paid to me so faithfully and punctually: the deacons have performed faithfully their part of the agreement; have I been so faithful in my part, in persevering in prayer and in the ministry of the Word?" Another minister has said, "How surprised people would be if I proposed to divide my time between these two equally – one-half given to prayer, and the other to the ministry of the Word!"

Notice, in the case of Peter, what perseverance in prayer meant. He went up on the roof to pray. There, in prayer, he received heavenly instruction as to his work among the lost. There, the message from Cornelius came to him. There, the Holy Spirit said to him, "Rise and go with the three men who seek you" (see Acts 10:19-20). From there, Peter went to Caesarea, where the Spirit was so unexpectedly outpoured on the unsaved. All this is to teach us that it is through prayer that God will give the instruction of His Spirit to make us understand His will, to let us know with whom we are to speak, and to give us the assurance that His Spirit will make His Word powerful through us.

Have you ever seriously considered why it is that you pastors have a salary and a parsonage or housing allowance, and are set free from the need of following earthly business? It should be for no other reason than that you should continue in prayer and the ministry of the Word. That will be your wisdom and power. That will be the secret of a blessed service of the gospel.

No wonder that there is complaint about the ineffective spiritual life in minister and congregation, while that which is of prime importance, perseverance in prayer, does not hold its rightful place – the first place.

Peter was able to speak and act as he did because he was filled with the Spirit. Let us not be satisfied with anything less than wholehearted surrender to be completely set apart to be used by the Spirit as leader and lord of our lives. Nothing less will help us. Then, for the first time, we will be able to say, "God has made us able ministers of His Spirit" (see 2 Corinthians 3:6).

Carnal or Spiritual?

There is a big difference between the two conditions of being carnal or spiritual, and they are but little understood or considered. The Christian who walks in the Spirit and has crucified the flesh is spiritual (Galatians 5:24). The Christian who walks after the flesh and wants to please the flesh is carnal (Romans 13:14). The Galatians, who had begun in the Spirit, were ending in the flesh (Galatians 3:1-3). There were, though, some spiritual members among them who were able to restore the wandering with meekness.

What a difference between the carnal and the spiritual Christian (1 Corinthians 3:1-3)! With the carnal Christian, there may be much religion and much zeal for God and for the service of God, but for the most part, it is in human power. With the spiritual, on the other hand, there is a complete subjection to the leading of the Spirit and a deep sense of weakness and entire dependence on the work of Christ; it is a life of abiding fellowship with Christ, worked out by the Spirit.

How important it is for me to find out and to plainly acknowledge before God whether I am spiritual or carnal! A minister may be very faithful in his orthodoxy and be most zealous in his service, and yet may be this way in the power of human wisdom and zeal. One of the signs of this is that there is little pleasure or perseverance in fellowship with Christ through prayer. Love of prayer is one of the marks of the Spirit.

What a change is necessary for a Christian who is mainly carnal to become truly spiritual! At first, he cannot understand what must happen or how it can come to pass. The more the truth dawns upon him, the more he is convinced that it is impossible, unless God does it; yet to truly believe that God will do it requires earnest prayer. Quiet seclusion and meditation are indispensable, along with the death of all confidence in ourselves. Along this road there comes the faith that God can, God is willing, and God will do it. The soul that earnestly clings to the Lord Jesus will be led by the Spirit to this faith.

How will you be able to say to others, I, brothers, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ (1 Corinthians 3:1)? It is impossible, unless you yourself have the experience of having passed from the one state to the other; but God will teach you. Persevere in prayer and faith.
Chapter 13

George Müller and Hudson Taylor

Just as God gave the apostle Paul as an example in his prayer life for Christians of all time, so He has also gave us George Müller as proof to His church how literally and wonderfully He still always hears prayer. It is not only that He provided for him in his lifetime over 1.25 million dollars to support his orphanages, but Mr. Müller also stated that he believed that the Lord had given him more than thirty thousand souls in answer to prayer. That was not just from among the orphans, but also includes many others for whom he had prayed faithfully every day (in some cases for fifty years), in the firm faith that they would be saved. When he was asked on what basis he so firmly believed this, he gave the following answer:

There are five conditions that I always try to fulfill, and when I follow this, I have the assurance of answer to my prayer:

  1. I do not have the least doubt, because I am assured that it is the Lord's will to save them, for He desires that all men be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4); and we have the assurance that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he hears us (1 John 5:14).
  2. I have never pleaded for their salvation in my own name, but in the blessed name of my precious Lord Jesus, and on His merits alone (John 1:14).
  3. I always firmly believed in the willingness of God to hear my prayers. Therefore I say unto you that everything that ye ask for, praying, believe that ye receive it, and it shall come upon you (Mark 11:24).
  4. I am not aware of having yielded to any sin, for if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me when I call (Psalm 66:18).
  5. I have persevered in believing prayer for more than fifty-two years for some, and will continue until the answer comes. Shall not God avenge his own elect who cry day and night unto him? (Luke 18:7).

Take these thoughts into your hearts and practice prayer according to these rules. Let prayer not only be the utterance of your desires, but also a fellowship with God, until we know by faith that our prayer is heard. The way George Müller walked is the new and living way to the throne of grace (see Hebrews 10:19-20), which is open for us all.

Hudson Taylor

When Hudson Taylor, as a young man, had given himself over unreservedly to the Lord, there came to him a strong conviction that God would send him to China. He had read about George Müller and how God had answered his prayers for his own support and that of his orphans, and Hudson began to ask the Lord to teach him also to trust Him like that. He felt that if he was to go to China with such faith, he must first begin to live by faith in England. He asked the Lord to enable him to do this. He had a position helping a doctor fill prescriptions, and he asked God to help him not to ask for his salary, but to leave it to God to move the heart of the doctor to pay him at the right time. The doctor was a good-hearted man, but was very irregular in payment. This cost Taylor much trouble and struggle in prayer, because he believed, as did George Müller, that the Bible verse, Owe no one anything (Romans 13:8), was to be taken literally, and that debt should not be incurred.

Hudson Taylor learned the great lesson to move men through God – a thought of deep meaning, which later became an unspeakably great blessing to him in his work in China. He relied on that in the conversion of the Chinese, in the awakening of Christians to give money for the support of the work, and in finding suitable missionaries who would hold as faith's rule of conduct that they should make their desires known to God in prayer, and then rely on God to move people to do what He wanted to be done.

After he had been in China for some years, he prayed that God would give twenty-four missionaries, two for each of the eleven provinces and Mongolia, each with millions of souls and with no missionary. God did it, but there was no society to send them out. He had indeed learned to trust God for his own support, but he dared not take upon himself the responsibility of the twenty-four, if possibly they did not have sufficient faith. This brought him severe conflict, and he became very ill under it, until at last he saw that God could as easily care for the twenty-four other missionaries as for himself. He undertook it in glad faith, and God led him, through many severe trials of faith, to trust Him fully. These twenty-four missionaries increased, in time, to a thousand missionaries, who relied wholly on God for support. Other missionary societies have acknowledged how much they have learned from Hudson Taylor, as a man who stated and obeyed this law. Faith can rely on God to move people to do what His children have asked of Him in prayer.

Read the book. There will be found in it a treasure of spiritual thought and experience concerning a close walk with God in the inner chamber and in mission work.

Light from the Inner Chamber

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy chamber, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father who is in secret; and thy Father who sees in secret shall reward thee openly (Matthew 6:6).

Our Lord had spoken of the prayer of the hypocrites who desire to be seen by others, and also of the prayer of the unsaved who trust in the multitude of their words. They do not understand that prayer has no value unless it is addressed to a personal God who sees and hears. In Matthew 6:6, our Lord teaches us a wonderful lesson concerning the inestimable blessing that the Christian can have in his inner chamber. If we want to understand the lesson properly, we must notice the light on which the inner chamber shines. Being much in the inner chamber communing with God and His Word allows us to see and know much about the following:

1. The wonderful love of God. Think of God – His greatness, His holiness, and His unspeakable glory, and then consider the inestimable privilege to which He invites His children, that each one of them, however sinful or feeble he may be, can have access to Him every hour of the day and commune with Him as long as he desires. If he enters his inner chamber, then God is ready to meet him, to have fellowship with him, and to give him the joy and strength that he needs, along with the living assurance in his heart that He is with him and will undertake for him in everything. In addition, God promises that He will enrich him in his outward life and work with those things that he has asked for in secret. Should we not cry out with joy? What an honor! What a salvation! What an overflowing supply for every need!

We might be in great distress, we might have fallen into the deepest sin, or we might desire temporal or spiritual blessing in the ordinary course of life. We might want to pray for ourselves or for those close to us. We might want to pray for our congregation or church. We might even become intercessors for the whole world. The promise for the inner chamber (the prayer closet) covers it all: Pray to thy Father who is in secret; and thy Father who sees in secret shall reward thee openly.

We should well imagine and realize that there should be no place on earth so attractive to the child of God as the inner chamber, with the presence of God promised, where we can have unhindered communion with the Father. The happiness of a child on earth if he enjoys the love of his father, the happiness of a friend as he meets a beloved friend who has helped and supported him, or the happiness of a citizen who has free access to his king and is permitted to stay with him as long as he wishes – these are as nothing compared with this heavenly promise. In the inner chamber, you can communicate with your God as long and as intimately as you desire; you can rely on His presence and fellowship.

Oh, the wonderful love of God in the gift of an inner chamber sanctified by such a promise! Let us thank God every day of our lives for it as the gift of His wonderful love. In this sinful world, He could devise nothing more suitable for our needs than a fountain of unspeakable blessing.

2. The deep sinfulness of man. We might have thought that every child of God would have availed himself with joy at such an invitation, but see what the response is. There comes a cry from all lands that prayer in the inner chamber is, in general, neglected by those who call themselves believers. Many make no use of it; they go to church and confess Christ, but they know little of personal communion with God. Many make little use of it except in a spirit of haste, and more as a matter of custom or for easing their conscience, so they cannot tell of any joy or blessing in it. What is sadder, many who know something of its blessedness confess that they know little about faithful, regular, and happy fellowship with the Father all day long as something that is as necessary to them as their daily bread.

Oh, what is it, then, that makes the inner chamber so powerless? Is it not the deep sinfulness of man and the dislike of his fallen nature for God that makes the world and its fellowship more attractive than being alone with the heavenly Father? Is it not that Christians do not believe the Word of God, which declares that the flesh that is in them is enmity against God (Romans 8:7), and that they walk too much after the flesh, so that the Spirit cannot strengthen them for prayer? Is it not that Christians allow themselves to be deprived by Satan of the use of the weapon of prayer, so that they are powerless to overcome him? Oh, the deep sinfulness of man! We have no greater proof of it than this contempt for the unspeakable love that has given us the inner chamber.

What is still more sad is that even ministers of Christ acknowledge that they know they pray too little. The Word tells them that their only power lies in prayer: through that only, and through that certainly, they can be clothed with power from on high for their work. But it seems as though the power of the world and the flesh has captivated them. While they devote time to and manifest zeal in their work, that which is the most necessary of all is neglected, and there is not the desire or strength for prayer to obtain the indispensable gift of the Holy Spirit to make their work fruitful. May God give us grace to understand in the light of the inner chamber the deep sinfulness of our nature!

3. The glorious grace of Christ Jesus. Is there, then, no hope for change? Must it always be this way, or is there a means of recovery? Thank God, there is hope!

The man through whom God has made known to us the message of the inner chamber is no other than our Lord Jesus Christ, who saves us from our sins. He is able and willing to deliver us from this sin, and He will deliver. He has not undertaken to redeem us from all our other sins while leaving us to deal with the sin of prayerlessness in our own strength. No, in this also we may come to Him and cry out, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean (Luke 5:12); Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief (Mark 9:24).

Do you want to know how you can experience this deliverance? There is no other way than the well-known way along which every sinner must come to Christ. Begin by acknowledging and confessing before Him, in a childlike and simple manner, the sin of neglecting and desecrating the inner chamber. Bow before Him in deep shame and sorrow. Tell Him that your heart has deceived you with the thought that you could pray as you should in your own power. Tell Him that through the weakness of the flesh, the power of the world, and self-confidence, you have been led astray and that you have no strength to do better. Let this be done sincerely. You cannot by your own resolution and effort put things right.

Come in your sin and weakness to the inner chamber, and begin to thank God as you have never thanked Him, that the grace of the Lord Jesus will surely make it possible for you to commune with your Father as a child ought to do. Hand over anew to the Lord Jesus all your sin and misery, as well as your whole life and will, that He may cleanse and take possession of you and rule over you as His very own.

Even though your heart may be cold and dead, persevere in the exercise of faith that Christ is an almighty and faithful Savior. You can be sure that deliverance will come. Expect it, and you will begin to understand that the inner chamber is the revelation of the glorious grace of the Lord Jesus, which makes it possible for us to do what we could not do ourselves; that is, to hold fellowship with God and to experience that the desire and power are received that prepare us to walk with God.

* * *

 George Müller (1805-1898) is known as a man of great faith. He was a pastor and evangelist and he also directed orphanages, in addition to other duties. He did not ask people for money or other support, but took his needs and concerns to God alone. To learn more about him, you can read The Autobiography of George Müller.

 J. Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) was a missionary to China who lived by faith. His life, prayers, and example resulted in the founding of the China Inland Mission and thousands of conversions to Christ Jesus. A good book about is life is called Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret, written by the missionary's son and his wife, Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor.

 Hudson Taylor's Early Years, by Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, China Inland Mission.
Chapter 14

The Spirit of the Cross

We sometimes seek for the operation of the Spirit with the intent of obtaining more power for our work, more love in our lives, more holiness in our hearts, or more light on the Word of God or on our path; yet all these gifts are only secondary to the great purpose of God. The Father has given the Spirit to the Son, and the Son has given Him to us, with the one great purpose of revealing and glorifying Christ Jesus Himself in us.

The heavenly Christ must become for us a real living personality, always with us and in us. Our life on earth must be lived every day in the unbroken and holy fellowship of our Lord Jesus in heaven. This must be the first and the greatest work of the Holy Spirit in believers, that they would know and experience Christ as the life of their lives. God desires that we would be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, and that we may be rooted in His love unto all the fullness of God (see Ephesians 3:16-19).

This was the secret of the joy of the first disciples. They had received the Lord Jesus, whom they feared they had lost, as the heavenly Christ into their hearts.

Their preparation for Pentecost was that they were entirely consumed with Him. He was literally their all. Their hearts were empty of everything so that the Spirit could fill them with Christ. In the fullness of the Spirit, they had power for a life and service such as the Lord desired. Is this, now, with us, the great object of our desires, in our prayers and in our experience? May the Lord teach us to know that the blessing for which we have so earnestly prayed can be preserved and increased in no other way than through intimate fellowship with Christ in the inner chamber, daily practiced and cultivated.

It seems to me, though, that there was a still deeper secret of Pentecost to be discovered. I thought that perhaps our understanding of the Lord Jesus in heaven was limited. We think of Him in the splendor and the glory of God's throne. We also think of the unsearchable love that moved Him to give Himself for us; but we forget too often that, above all, it is as the crucified one that He was known here on earth, and that, above everything else, it is as the crucified one that He has His place on the throne of God. Behold, in the midst of the throne . . . stood a Lamb as it had been slain (Revelation 5:6).

Yes, it is as the crucified one that He is the object of the Father's eternal good pleasure and of the worship of the entire creation. It is, therefore, of the greatest importance, that we here on earth should know and experience Him as the crucified one, so that we can cause others to see what His nature and ours is, and what the power is that can make them partakers of salvation.

I feel deeply that, as the cross is Christ's highest glory, and as the Holy Spirit neither has done nor can do anything greater or more glorious than He did when He through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God (Hebrews 9:14), so it is evident that the Holy Spirit can do nothing greater or more glorious for us than to take us up into the fellowship of that cross, and to also work out in us the same spirit of the cross that was seen in our Lord Jesus. In a word, the question arose whether the real reason why our prayers for the powerful operation of the Holy Spirit could not be answered was because we had sought too little to receive the Spirit in order that we might know and become like the glorified Christ in the fellowship of His cross.

Have we not here the deepest secret of Pentecost? The Spirit comes to us from the cross, where He strengthened Christ to offer Himself to God. He comes from the Father, who looked down with unspeakable good pleasure regarding the humiliation, obedience, and self-sacrifice of Christ, as the highest proof of His surrender to Him. He comes from Christ, who through the cross was prepared to receive from the Father the fullness of the Spirit, that He might share it with the world. He comes to reveal Christ to our hearts, as the Lamb slain, in the midst of the throne, so that we on earth may worship Him as they do in heaven. He comes, primarily, to impart to us the life of the crucified Christ so that we can be able to say truly, I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:20).

To understand this secret in any way, we must first meditate on what the meaning is and what the worth of the cross is.

The Mind that Was in the Crucified Christ

The cross must necessarily be viewed from two standpoints. First, we should view it according to the work it has accomplished – the pardon and conquest of sin. This is the first message with which the cross comes to the sinner. It proclaims to him free and full deliverance from the power of sin.

The second standpoint from which to view the cross should be according to the spirit or disposition that was manifested there. We find this expressed in Philippians 2:8: He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Here we see self-abasement to the lowest place that could be found under the burden of our sin and curse. We see obedience to the uttermost to the entire will of God. We see self-sacrifice to the death of the cross.

These three words – self-abasement, obedience, and self-sacrifice – reveal to us the holy perfection of His person and work. This is why God has so greatly exalted Him. It was the spirit of the cross that made Him the object of His Father's good pleasure, of the worship of the angels, and of the love and confidence of all the redeemed. The self-abasement of Christ, His obedience to the will of God even to death, and His self-sacrifice even to the death of the cross – these made Him to be the Lamb, as it had been slain, standing in the midst of the throne (see Revelation 5:6).

The Spirit of the Cross in Us

All that Christ was, He was for us and desires to become in us. The spirit of the cross was His blessedness and glory. It should be this even more for us. He desires to display His likeness in us and to give us a full share of all that is His. Thus, Paul writes the words we have so often quoted: Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). Elsewhere he writes that we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). The fellowship of the cross is not only a holy duty for us, but it is an unspeakably blessed privilege, which the Holy Spirit Himself will make ours according to the promise: He shall clarify me, for he shall take of that which is mine and shall cause you to know it (John 16:14). The Holy Spirit worked this quality in Christ Jesus, and He will also work it in us.
Chapter 15

Taking Up the Cross

When the Lord told His disciples that they must take up the cross and follow Him, they could not have understood much of His meaning. He wanted to stir them up to serious thoughts and to prepare them for the time when they would see Him carrying His cross. From the Jordan River, where He had presented Himself to be baptized and counted among sinners, onward, He always carried the cross in His heart. That is to say, He was always aware that the sentence of death, because of sin, rested on Him, and that He must bear it to the uttermost. As the disciples considered this and wondered what He meant by it, only one thing helped them – it was the thought of a man who was sentenced to death and who carried his cross to the appointed place.

Christ had said at the same time, He that loses his life for my sake shall find it (Matthew 10:39). He taught them that they must hate their own life. Their nature was so sinful that nothing less than death could meet their need; it deserved nothing less than death. The conviction gradually dawned upon them that taking up the cross meant, "I am to feel that my life is under the sentence of death, and that under the consciousness of this sentence, I must constantly surrender my flesh, my sinful nature, to death."

They were slowly prepared to see later on that the cross that Jesus had carried was the one power to truly deliver from sin, and that they must first receive from Him the true spirit of the cross. They must learn from Him what self-humiliation in their weakness and unworthiness was to mean. They had to learn from Jesus what the obedience was that crucified their own will in all things, in the greatest as well as in the least. They needed to understand what the self-denial was that did not seek to please the flesh or the world. "Take up your cross and follow Me" (see Matthew 16:24); that was the word with which Jesus prepared His disciples for the great thought that His mind and nature could become theirs, and that His cross could in very deed become their own.

Crucified with Christ

The lesson that the Lord wanted His disciples to learn from His statement concerning taking up the cross and losing their life finds its expression in the words of Paul, after Jesus had died on the cross and had been exalted on high and the Spirit had been poured out. Paul says, I am crucified with Christ. . . . In no wise should I glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world (Galatians 2:20; 6:14).

He wanted every believer to live so as to prove that he was crucified with Christ. He wanted us to understand that the Christ who comes to dwell in our hearts is the crucified Christ, who will Himself, through His life, impart to us the true mind of the cross. He tells us that our old man is crucified with Him (Romans 6:6). Yes, and more, those that are of the Christ have crucified the flesh (Galatians 5:24). When they received the crucified Christ by faith, they gave over the flesh to the death sentence that was executed to the full on Calvary. Paul says, We have been planted together in him in the likeness of his death (Romans 6:5), and that therefore we must believe that we are dead to sin in Christ Jesus (see Romans 6:11).

These words of the Holy Spirit, through Paul, teach us that we must abide constantly in the fellowship of the cross and in fellowship with the crucified and living Lord Jesus. It is the soul that constantly lives under the cover, shelter, and deliverance of the cross that alone can expect to constantly glory in Christ Jesus and in His abiding nearness.

The Fellowship of the Cross

There are many who place their hope for salvation in the redemption of the cross who do not understand much about the fellowship of the cross. They rely on what the cross has purchased for them. They like the forgiveness of sin and peace with God, but they can often live for a long time without fellowship with the Lord Himself. They do not know what it means to strive every day after heart communion with the crucified Lord as He is seen in heaven – the Lamb . . . in the midst of the throne (Revelation 7:17). Oh, that this vision might exercise its spiritual power upon us, that we might really experience daily that just as truly as the Lamb is seen there on the throne, so we may have the power and experience of His presence here!

Is it possible? Without a doubt, it is. Why did that great miracle happen, and why was the Holy Spirit given from heaven, if it were not to make the glorified Jesus – the Lamb standing, as slain, in the midst of the throne (Revelation 5:6) – present with us here in our earthly surroundings? This will be answered in the next chapters.
Chapter 16

The Holy Spirit and the Cross

The Holy Spirit leads us always to the cross. It was the same way with Christ. The Spirit taught Him and enabled Him to offer Himself without blemish to God.

It was the same with the disciples. The Spirit, with whom they were filled, led them to preach Christ as the crucified one. Later, He led them to glory in the fellowship of the cross when they were judged worthy to suffer for Christ's sake.

The cross directed them again to the Spirit. When Christ had carried the cross, He received the Spirit from the Father so that He might be poured out. When the three thousand bowed before the crucified one, they received the promise of the Holy Spirit. When the disciples rejoiced in their experience of the fellowship of the cross, they received the fullness of the Holy Spirit again. The union between the Spirit and the cross is unceasing; they belong inseparably to one another.

We see this especially in the epistles of Paul:

Jesus Christ has been evidently set forth, crucified among you. . . . Did ye receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the obedient ear of faith? (Galatians 3:1-2)

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law . . . that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (Galatians 3:13-14)

God sent forth his Son . . . to redeem those that were under the law . . . and . . . has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts. (Galatians 4:4-6)

Those that are of the Christ have crucified the flesh. . . . If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. (Galatians 5:24-25)

Ye also . . . are become dead to the law in the body of the Christ . . . that we might serve in newness of spirit. (Romans 7:4, 6)

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ, Jesus, has made me free from the law of sin and death. For . . . God . . . condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:2-4)

In everything and always the Spirit and the cross are inseparable; yes, even in heaven. The Lamb, as it had been slain, standing in the midst of the throne had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth (Revelation 5:6). He showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal [Is this anything other than the Holy Spirit?], proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb (Revelation 22:1). When Moses smote the rock, the water streamed out and Israel drank. When the Rock, Christ, was actually smitten and He had taken His place as the slain Lamb on the throne of God, there flowed out from under the throne the fullness of the Holy Spirit for the whole world.

How foolish it is to pray for the fullness of the Spirit if we have not first placed ourselves under the full power of the cross! Just think of the one hundred and twenty disciples. The crucifixion of Christ had touched, broken, and taken possession of their entire hearts. They could speak or think of nothing else, and when the crucified one had shown them His hands and His feet, He said unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). So also, with their hearts full of the crucified Christ, now received up into heaven, they were prepared to be filled with the Spirit. They dared to proclaim to the people, "Repent and believe in the crucified one"; and they also received the Holy Spirit.

Christ gave Himself up entirely to the cross. The disciples also did the same. The cross demands this from us, also; the cross demands our entire life. To comply with this demand requires nothing less than a powerful act of the will, for which we are unfit, and a powerful act of God of which he who casts himself in helplessness, but unreservedly, on God, may be assured.

The Spirit and the Cross

Why are there not more men and women who can witness, in the joy of their hearts, that the Spirit of God has taken possession of them and given them new power to witness for Him? Even more urgently arises the heart-searching question to which an answer must be given: What is it that hinders us? The Father in heaven is more willing than an earthly father to give bread to His children, and yet the cry arises, "Is the Spirit confined? Is this His work?"

Many will acknowledge that the hindrance undoubtedly lies in the fact that the church is too much under the sway of the flesh and the world. We understand too little of the heart-piercing power of the cross of Christ, so it comes to pass that the Spirit does not have the vessels into which He can pour His fullness.

Many complain that the subject is too difficult or too deep for them. This is proof of how little we have appropriated and brought into practice the teaching of Paul and Christ about the cross. I bring you a message of joy. The Spirit who is in you, in however limited a measure, is prepared to take you under His teaching, lead you to the cross, and by His heavenly instruction, make you know something of what the crucified Christ wants to do for you and in you.

However, He wants you to take time so that He can reveal the heavenly mysteries to you. He wants to make you see how the neglect of the inner chamber has hindered fellowship with Jesus, the knowledge of the cross, and the powerful operations of the Spirit. He will teach you what is meant by the denial of self, taking up your cross, losing your life, and following Him.

Despite all that you have felt of your ignorance and lack of spiritual insight and fellowship regarding the cross, He is able and willing to take you under His teaching and to make known to you the secret of the spiritual life above all your expectations.

Begin at the beginning. Be faithful in the inner chamber. Thank Him that you can count on Him to meet you there. Although everything appears cold, dark, and strained, bow in silence before the loving Lord Jesus, who desires you to commune with Him. Thank the Father that He has given you the Spirit. Be assured that all that you do not yet know and still must know about the flesh, the world, and the cross – the Spirit of Christ, who is in you, will surely make known to you. Only believe that this blessing is for you! Jesus Christ belongs entirely to you. He wants to obtain full possession of you. He can and will possess you through the Holy Spirit, but for this, your time is necessary. Spend much time with Him in the inner chamber every day. You can rest assured that He will fulfill His promise in you. He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me; and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him (John 14:21).

Persevere, in addition to all that you ask for yourself, in prayer for your congregation, your church, and your minister. Pray for all believers and for the whole church of God, that God may strengthen them with power through His Spirit, so that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith. It will be a blessed time when the answer comes! Continue in prayer. The Spirit will reveal and glorify Christ and His love, Christ and His cross, as the Lamb slain, standing in the midst of the throne.

The Cross and the Flesh

These two are deadly enemies. The cross desires to condemn and put the flesh to death. The flesh desires to cast aside and conquer the cross. Many, as they hear of the cross as the indispensable preparation for the fullness of the Holy Spirit, will find out what there is in them that must still be crucified. We must understand that our entire nature is sentenced to death and is to become dead by the cross so that the new life in Christ may come to rule in us. We must obtain such an insight into the fallen condition of our nature and its enmity against God that we become willing, even desirous, to be wholly freed from it.

We must learn to say with Paul, In me (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing (Romans 7:18). The prudence of the flesh is enmity against God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, neither indeed can it (Romans 8:7). It is the very essence of the flesh to hate God and His holy law. The wonder of redemption is that Christ has borne God's judgment and curse of the flesh on the cross and has forever nailed it to the cursed tree. If a person only believes God's Word about this cursed mind of the flesh and then desires to be delivered from it, he learns to love the cross as his deliverer from the power of the enemy.

Our old man is crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6), and our one hope is to receive this by faith and to hold it securely. Those that are of the Christ have crucified the flesh (Galatians 5:24). They have willingly declared that they will daily regard the flesh that is in them as the enemy of God, the enemy of Christ, and the enemy of their soul's salvation, and will treat it as having received its deserved reward in being nailed to the cross.

This is one part of the eternal redemption that Christ has brought to us. It is not something that we can grasp with our understanding or accomplish with our strength. It is something that the Lord Jesus Himself will give us if we are willing to abide in His fellowship day by day and to receive everything from Him. It is something that the Holy Spirit will teach us. He will impart it to us as an experience and will show how He can give victory in the power of the cross over all that is of the flesh.

The Cross and the World

What the flesh is in the smallest circle of my own self, the world is in the larger circle of all mankind. The flesh and the world are two manifestations of the same god of this world, Satan, who is served by both. When the cross deals with the flesh as accursed, we at once discover what the nature and power of the world are. They . . . hate both me and my Father (John 15:24). The proof of this was that they crucified Christ; but Christ obtained the victory on the cross and freed us from the power of the world. Now we can say, In no wise should I glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world (Galatians 6:14).

The cross was a reality to Paul every day, both in what he had to suffer from the world and in the victory that the cross constantly gave. John writes, The whole world lies in wickedness (1 John 5:19); Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is Jesus, the Christ, who came by water and blood . . . . And the Spirit is he that bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth (1 John 5:5-6). Against the two great powers of the god of this world, God has given us two great powers from heaven – namely, the cross and the Spirit.

A Testimony

In the following quotations from Starlight by G. Sterrenberg, the great truth about the cross is expressed in simple and powerful words. The chapters in this book on "The Fellowship of the Cross" and "The Holy Spirit and the Cross" are especially relevant here.

* * * *

Our Head, Christ, took the lowest place on the cross, and so He has marked out for us, His members, the lowest place. The brightness of God's glory (Hebrews 1:3) became rejected of men (Isaiah 53:3). Since that time, the only right we have is to be the last and the lowest. When we claim anything more, we have not yet rightly understood the cross.

We seek for a higher life; we will find it if we sink deeper into the fellowship of the cross with our Lord. God has given the crucified one the highest place (see Revelation 5). Shall we not do the same? We do this when from hour to hour we act as those who are crucified with Him. For through the law I am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:19-20). Thus, we honor the crucified Lord.

We long for full victory. We find this as we more fully enter into the fellowship of His cross. The Lamb obtained His greatest victory with His hands and feet nailed to the cross. We abide in the shadow of the Almighty only as long as we abide under the shadow of the cross. The cross must be our home. There alone we are sheltered. We first understand our own cross when we have understood His. We desire to get so close to it that we not only view it, but we touch it; yes, even more, we take up the cross, and so it becomes as someone has said, an inner cross. Then the cross asserts itself in us, and we experience His power that especially manifests itself in this, that we do not faint under it, but carry it with joy.

What would Jesus be without His cross? His pierced feet have bruised the head of the enemy, and His pierced hands have wrecked him utterly. What are we without the cross? Do not let the cross go, but hold it fast. Do we think that we can go by another road than that which He has taken? Many make no progress because they will not take up the cross.
Epilogue

I want to speak now to the reader concerning the attitude of the mind to which this book appeals. It is not enough that you should understand and appropriate the thought of the writer, and then rejoice because of the new insight you have obtained and the pleasure that knowledge has brought. There is something else that is of great importance. You must surrender yourself to the truth so that you will be ready, with an undivided will, to immediately perform all that you will learn to be God's will.

In a book such as this, dealing with the life of prayer and hidden fellowship with God, it is absolutely necessary that we are prepared to receive and obey all that we see to be according to the Word and will of God. Where this intent is lacking, knowledge only serves to make the heart less capable of receiving fuller life. Satan works to become master of the Christian's inner chamber, because he knows that if there has been unfaithfulness in prayer, the testimony will not bring much loss to his kingdom. Spiritual power to lead the unsaved to the Lord or to build up the children of God will not be experienced under it. Persevering prayer, through which alone this power comes, has been lacking.

The great living question has been considered by many: Will we really be determined to win back again the weapon of believing prayer that Satan has, in a measure, taken away from us? Let us set before ourselves the serious importance of this conflict. As far as each minister is concerned, everything depends on whether or not he is a man of prayer – one who in the inner chamber must be clothed each day with power from on high. We, in common with the church throughout the whole world, have to complain that prayer does not have the place in our service to God that it ought to have, according to the will and promise of God and according to the need of pastor and congregation and church.

The public consecration that many believers have been led to make at conferences is not an easy thing. Even when the step is taken, old custom and the power of the flesh will tend to bring it to nothing. The power of faith is not yet powerful in their lives. It will cost strife and sacrifice to conquer the devil in the name of Christ. Our churches are the battlefield where Satan will bring forth all his power to prevent us from becoming men and women of prayer, powerful in the Lord to obtain the victory in heaven and on earth. How much depends on this for ourselves, for our congregations, and for the kingdom!

Do not be surprised if I say that it is with fear and trembling, and not without much prayer, that I have written what I hope will help to encourage the brethren in the conflict. It is with a feeling of deep unworthiness that I set out to offer myself as a guide to the inner chamber, which is the way to holiness and to fellowship with God.

Do not wonder that I have asked the Lord that He would give this book a place in some inner chambers, and that He may assist the reader, so that, as he sees what God's will is, he may immediately give himself up to doing it. In war, everything depends on each soldier being obedient to the word of command, even though it may cost him his life. In our strife with Satan, we will not conquer unless each one of us holds himself ready, even in the reading of this simple book, to say from the heart, "What God says, I will do; and if I see that anything is according to His will, I will immediately receive it and act upon it."

I have written this testimony to remind the brethren that everything depends on the spirit of surrender to immediate obedience, in which we read all that is said according to the Word of God.

May God grant that in His great grace, this book may prove a bond of fellowship by which we may think of and help one another, strengthening each other for the conflict in prayer by which the enemy may be overcome and the life of God may be gloriously revealed!
Andrew Murray –   
A Brief Biography

Andrew Murray had a rich religious ancestry. His grandfather (Andrew) left the occupation of being a shepherd in order to work in the flour mills of Scotland. He was a godly man, and his deathbed prayers influenced his son John to enter the work of the ministry. John became an ordained minister in Scotland. John's younger brother, Andrew, became licensed in the Church of Scotland and was ordained by the Presbytery of Aberdeen. He became a missionary with the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa.

While in South Africa, Andrew met the woman who would be come his wife – Maria Susanna Stegmann. She was of German ancestry, and her great-grandfather was a Huguenot who had been driven out of France when the Edict of Nantes, which had granted the French Protestants some religious liberty, was revoked. Andrew and Susanna's first son was named John, and their second son, Andrew, is the subject of this brief biography and the author of this book.

Andrew Murray was born in South Africa on May 9, 1828. His father often read stories of revivals to his family. When Andrew was ten years old, he and his brother John were sent to Scotland to be educated. They stayed with their uncle John, the Scottish minister. In 1840, William Burns, the revivalist, spoke in Aberdeen, Scotland. He stayed with their uncle John while there, and Burns' preaching, along with his long, impassioned prayers for revival and the salvation of the lost greatly impacted young Andrew.

Andrew and John went on to attend Marischal College in Aberdeen when Andrew was almost seventeen years old, from which they graduated with the master of arts degree in 1845. From there they studied theology and refreshed themselves in the Dutch language at the University of Utrecht in Holland. Rationalism was popular then. Mr. Murray in South Africa had written to his sons in Holland to be careful of the teaching. In a letter to his sons, dated April 23, 1845, he wrote: "You may soon hear sentiments broached among the students, and even by professors, on theological subjects which may startle you, but be cautious in receiving them, by whatever names or number of names they may be supported. Try to act like the noble Bereans (Acts 17:11). By studying your Bibles and your own hearts I doubt not, under the guidance of the blessed Spirit, you will be led into all truth. . . . Whatever books may be recommended to you, be sure not to neglect the study of the Holy Scriptures. This must be a daily exercise, and must be attended to with humility and much prayer for the guidance of the Holy Spirit."

Reminiscent of George Whitefield and the Wesleys and their Holy Club at Oxford, the Murray brothers joined a similar group at the University of Utrecht. It was called Sechor Dabar (Remember the Word), and its purpose was "to promote the study of the subjects required for the ministerial calling in the spirit of the Revival." The members of this group were often mocked, but they desired to live fully for God. On May 9, 1848, John and Andrew Murray were ordained by the Hague Committee of the Dutch Reformed Church, and they returned to South Africa to begin their ministry work.

At the age of twenty-one, Andrew was given the responsibility of being the only minister in a 50,000 square-mile territory in remote South Africa. For weeks at a time, Andrew would ride on horseback to preach to the Dutch-speaking farmers. Andrew married Emma Rutherford, the daughter of an English pastor, in 1856. They had eight children together – four boys and four girls.

In 1860, Andrew Murray accepted the pastorate of a church in Worcester, South Africa, where they heard some speakers tell stories of revivals in North American and Europe. Murray and others prayed earnestly for revival, and experienced somewhat of a revival, though not as Murray had expected. He became increasingly interested in sanctification and what is now commonly called "the holiness movement."

Andrew Murray became the pastor of a church in Cape Town in 1864, and then became a pastor in Wellington in 1877. Also in 1877, Murray traveled to the United States and spent five weeks learning about Sunday schools, Moody's revivals, and the Dutch Reformed Church in America. Murray also attended the Presbyterian Council in Scotland and spoke elsewhere throughout the land, including visits to Holland and Germany.

Murray returned to South Africa where he became increasingly involved in Christian education and in training people for ministry. Murray's speaking schedule over the past few years led to an interesting and influential time in his life. His voice toward the end of 1879 began to be strained, and this difficulty continued for about two years, where he was not often able to speak publicly. He would write out his message at times, and it would be read to the congregation by others. Andrew tried visiting various doctors, traveling to drier climates, and more, but his throat did not improve. He did spend more time studying and writing, though.

After finding only temporary and inadequate improvements, Andrew Murray began studying more about healing by faith. In 1881, Murray was in London. He had wanted to be able to go to Switzerland to visit with a man he had met earlier in life and who was now the head of an institute for faith healing. Murray learned that this man, Otto Stockmaier, was then in London. They met together and discussed biblical passages related to healing and faith. Stockmaier urged Murray to attend the meetings of an American, Dr. Boardman, who had written on the topic of healing by faith and who then had an institute in London. Murray visited the institute and remained there for three weeks. He was taught that healing by faith was not just to heal the body, but to help one on to holiness and a life of consecration to God.

Murray's voice improved, and he wrote and spoke much on healing by faith after that. He did occasionally have less serious voice trouble later in life at times, and seemed not to place such an emphasis on healing by faith for everyone, but his experience and study certainly caused him to believe in the power and possibility of healing by faith for the rest of his life.

Andrew Murray continued writing and speaking. He was a speaker at the famous annual holiness Keswick conference. He was chosen to be the moderator of his church synod six different times. He wrote over 200 books and pamphlets, many on holiness and the deeper life. His books include Absolute Surrender, Humility, Abide in Christ, The Deeper Christian Life, The School of Obedience, Waiting on God, The Ministry of Intercession, The New Life, With Christ in the School of Prayer, The Two Covenants and the Second Blessing, and more.

Andrew Murray spent his last moments on earth praying and rejoicing in the goodness of God. He passed from this life on January 18, 1917, at the age of eighty-eight.
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The Prayer Life – Andrew Murray

Revisions Copyright © 2018

Based on the 1941 edition, which is in the public domain.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Scripture quotations are taken from the Jubilee Bible, copyright © 2000, 2001, 2010, 2013 by Life Sentence Publishing, Inc. Used by permission of Life Sentence Publishing, Inc., Abbotsford, Wisconsin. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked KJV is taken from the public domain King James Version

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