The Life of Prayer Part 1
The Life of Prayer.
By A. B. Simpson.
Chapter 1 The Pattern Prayer.
"And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil." Luke 11:2-4 This wonderful prayer was dictated by our Lord in reply to the question on the part of His disciples, "Lord, teach us to pray." His answer was to bid them pray. This is the only way we shall ever learn to pray, by just beginning to do it. And as the babbling child learns the art of speech by speaking, and the lark mounts up to the heights of the sky by beating its little wings again and again upon the air, so prayer will teach us how to pray; and the more we pray, the more shall we learn the mysteries and heights and depths of prayer.
And the more we pray, the more we shall realize the incomparable fullness and completeness of this unequaled prayer, the prayer of universal Christendom, the common liturgy of the Church of G.o.d, the earliest and holiest recollection of every Christian child, and the latest utterance often of the departing soul. We who have used it most have come to feel that there is no want which it does not interpret and no holy aspiration which it may not express. There is nothing else in the Holy Scriptures which more fully evolves the great principles that underlie the divine philosophy of prayer.
It teaches us that all true prayer begins in the recognition of the Father.
It is not the cry of nature to an unknown G.o.d, but the intelligent converse of a child with his heavenly Father. It presupposes that the suppliant has become a child, and it a.s.sumes that the mediation of the Son has preceded the revelation of the Father. No one, therefore, can truly pray until he has accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour and received through Him the child-heart in regeneration, and then been led into the realization of sonship in the family of G.o.d. The Person to whom prayer is directly addressed is the Father as distinguished from the Son and the Holy Ghost. The great purpose of Christ's mediation is to bring us to G.o.d and reveal to us the Father as our Father in reconciliation and fellowship. It is not wrong to address the Son and Spirit in our hearts. The name suggests the spirit of confidence, and this is essential to prayer.
The first view given of G.o.d in the Lord's Prayer is not His majesty but His paternal love. To the listening disciples this must have been a strange expression from the lips of their Lord as a pattern for them. Never had Jewish ear heard G.o.d so named, at least in His relation to the individual. The Father of the Nation He was sometimes called, but no sinful man had ever dared to call G.o.d his Father.
They, doubtless, had heard their Master speak in this delightful name of G.o.d as His Father, but that they should call Jehovah by such a name had never dawned upon their legal and unillumined minds. And yet it really means that we may and should recognize that G.o.d is our Father in the very sense in which He is His Father, and ours as partakers of His Sonship and His Name. The Name expresses the most personal and tender love, protection, care, and intimacy; and it gives to prayer, at the very outset, the beautiful atmosphere of the home circle and the delightful affectionate and intimate fellowship of friend with friend.
Beloved, have you thus learned to pray? Do wondering angels look down upon your closet every day to see a humble and sinful creature of the dust talking to the majestic Sovereign of the skies, as an infant lies upon its mother's breast or prattles without a fear upon her knee? Can it be said to you, "I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father"?
It teaches us that prayer should recognize the majesty and almightiness of G.o.d.
The words, "who art in heaven," or, rather, "in the heavens," are intended to give to the conception of the Divine Being a very definite and local personality. He is not a vague influence or pantheistic presence, but a distinct Person, exalted above matter and nature and having local habitation, to which the mind is directed, and where He occupies the throne of actual sovereignty over all the universe. He is also recognized as above our standpoint and level, in the heavens, higher than our little world, and exalted above all other elements and forces that need His controlling power. It enthrones Him in the place of highest power, authority and glory.
And so true prayer must ever recognize at once the nearness and greatness of G.o.d. The Old Testament, therefore, is full of the sublimest representation of the majesty of G.o.d, and the more fully we realize His greatness, the more boldly will we dare to claim His interposition in prayer in all our trials and emergencies.
Beloved, have we learned, as we bow the knee in prayer, that we are talking with Him Who still says to us as to Abraham, "I am El Shaddai, the Almighty G.o.d"; to Jeremiah, "I am the Lord, the G.o.d of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?"; to Isaiah, "Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting G.o.d, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding."
It teaches us that prayer is no t only a fellowship with G.o.d but a fellowship of human hearts.
"Our Father" lifts each of us at once out of ourselves, and, if nowhere else on earth, at least at the throne of grace, makes us members one of another. Of course, it is a.s.sumed that the first link in the fellowship is Christ, our Elder Brother, and so there is no single heart, however isolated, but that may come with this prayer with perfect truthfulness, and hand in hand with Christ say, "Christ's and mine." But, undoubtedly, it chiefly refers to the fellowship of human hearts. The highest promises made to prayer are those who agree, or, as the Greek more beautifully expresses it, "symphonize" on earth. There is no place where we can love our friends so beautifully or so purely as at the throne of grace. There is no exercise in which the differences of Christians melt away as when their hearts meet together in the unity of prayer, and there is no remedy for the divisions of Christianity but to come closer to the Father, and then, perforce, we shall be in touch with each other.
It teaches us that worship is the highest element in prayer.
"Hallowed be thy name" is more than any pet.i.tion of the Lord's Prayer. It brings us directly to G.o.d Himself and makes His glory supreme, above all our thoughts and all our wants. It reminds us that the first purpose of our prayers should ever be, not the supply of our personal needs, but the worship and adoration of our G.o.d. In the ancient feasts everything was first brought to Him, and then it was given to the worshiper in several cases for his use, and its use was hallowed by the fact that it had already been laid at Jehovah's feet. And so the spirit that can truly utter this prayer and fully enter into its meaning can receive all the other pet.i.tions of it with double blessing. Not until we have first become satisfied with G.o.d Himself and realize that His glory is above all our desires and interests are we prepared to receive any blessing in the highest sense; and when we can truly say, "Hallowed be thy name whatever comes to me," we have the substance of all blessing in our heart.
This is the innermost chamber of the Holy of Holies, and none can enter it without becoming conscious of the hallowing blessing that falls upon and fills us with the glory which we have ascribed to Him. The sacred sense of His overshadowing, the deep and penetrating solemnity, the heavenly calm, that fills the heart which can truly utter these sacred words, const.i.tute a blessing above all other blessings that even this prayer can ask.
Beloved, have we learned to begin our prayer in this holy place, on this heavenly plane? Then, indeed, have we learned to pray.
It teaches us that true prayer recognizes the establishment of the Kingdom of G.o.d as the chief purpose of the divine will and the supreme desire of every true Christian.
More than our own temporal or even spiritual needs are we to pray for the establishment of that Kingdom. This implies that the real remedy for all that needs prayer is the restoration of the Kingdom of G.o.d. The true cause of all human trouble is that men are out of the divine order and the world is in rebellion against its rightful Sovereign, and not until that Kingdom is reestablished in every heart and in all the world can the blessings which prayer desires be realized. Of course, it includes in a primary sense the establishment of the Kingdom of G.o.d in the individual heart, but much more in the world at large, in fulfillment of G.o.d's great purpose of redemption.
It is, in short, the prayer for the accomplishment of redemption and its glorious consummation in the coming of our Lord and the setting up of His Millennial Kingdom. What an exalted view this gives of prayer! How it raises us above our petty selfish cares and cries! It is said of a devoted minister, Dr. Backus, of Baltimore, that when told he was dying and had only half an hour to live, he asked them to raise him from his bed and place him upon his knees, and he spent the last half hour of his life in one ceaseless prayer for the evangelization of the world. Truly that was a glorious place to end a life of prayer! But the Lord's Prayer begins with this lofty theme and teaches us that it should ever be the first concern and pet.i.tion of every loyal subject of the Redeemer's Kingdom.
Must it not be true, beloved, that the failure of many of our prayers may be traced to their selfishness, and the innumerable efforts we have spent upon our own interests, and the little we have ever asked for the Kingdom of our Lord? There is no blessing so great as that which comes when our hearts are lifted out of self and become one with Christ in intercession for others and for His cause. There is no joy so pure as that of taking the burden of our Master's cause on our hearts and bearing it with Him every day in ceaseless prayer, as though its interests wholly depended upon the uplifting of our hands and the remembrance of our faith. "Prayer shall be made for him continually," is one of the promises respecting our blessed Lord.
Beloved, have we prayed for Jesus as much as we have for ourselves? There is no ministry which will bring more power and blessing upon the world and from which we ourselves will reap larger harvests of eternal fruit than the habit of believing, definite and persistent prayer for the progress of Christ's Kingdom, for the needs of His church and work, for His ministers and servants, and especially for the evangelization of the world and the vast neglected myriads who know not how to pray for themselves. Oh, let us awaken from our spiritual selfishness and learn the meaning of the pet.i.tion, "Thy kingdom come!"
It teaches us that true prayer is founded upon the will of G.o.d as its limitation and encouragement.
It is not asking for things because we want them, for the primary condition of all true prayer is the renunciation of our own will that we may desire and receive G.o.d's will instead. But having done this and recognizing the will of our Father as the standard of our desires and pet.i.tions, we are to claim these pet.i.tions when they are in accordance with His will with a force and tenacity as great as the will of G.o.d itself. And so this pet.i.tion, instead of being a limitation of prayer, is really a confirmation of our faith, and gives us the right to claim that the pet.i.tion thus conformed to His will shall be imperatively fulfilled. Therefore, there is no prayer so mighty, so sure, so full of blessing, as this little sentence at which so many of us have often trembled, "Thy will be done."
It is not the death-knell of all our happiness, but the pledge of all possible blessing; for if it is the will of G.o.d to bless us, we shall be blessed. Happy are they who suspend their desires until they know their Father's will, and then, asking according to His will, they can rise to the height of His own mighty promise, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." "Thus saith the Lord, . . . Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me." What more can we ask of ourselves and others than that G.o.d's highest will, and that for us, shall be fulfilled?
How shall we know that will? At the very least, we may always know it by His Word and promise, and we may be very sure we are not transcending its infinite bounds if we ask anything that is covered by a promise of His Holy Word, but we may immediately turn that promise into an order on the very Bank of Heaven and claim its fulfillment by all the power of His omnipotence and the sanctions ' of His faithfulness. Why, the very added clause itself, "as it is in heaven," implies that the fulfillment of this pet.i.tion would change earth into a heaven and bring heaven into every one of our lives in the measure which we meet this lofty prayer! This pet.i.tion, therefore, while it implies the spirit of absolute submission, rises to the height of illimitable faith.
Beloved, have we understood it and learned thus to pray, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven"?
It teaches us that prayer may include all our natural and temporal wants and should be accompanied by the spirit of trustful dependence upon our Father's care for the supply of all our earthly needs.
"Give us this day our daily bread," gives to every child of G.o.d the right to claim a Father's supporting and providing love. It is wonderful how much spiritual blessing we get by praying and trusting for temporal needs. They greatly curtail the fullness of their spiritual life and separate G.o.d's personal providence from the most simple and minute of life's secular interests who try, through second causes or through ample human provision, to be independent of His direct interposition and care. We are to recognize every means of support and temporal link of blessing as directly from His hand, and to commit every interest of business and life to His direction and blessing.
At the same time, it is implied that there must be in this a spirit of simplicity and daily trust. It is not the bread of future days we ask, but the bread of today. Nor is it always luxurious bread, the bread of affluence, the banquet, and the feast, but daily bread, or rather as the best authorities translate it, "sufficient bread," bread such as He sees to be really best for us. It may not be always bread and b.u.t.ter; it may be homely bread, and it may be sometimes scant bread, but He can make even that sufficient and add such a blessing with it and such an impartation of His life and strength as will make us know, like our Master in the wilderness, that "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of G.o.d." It implies, in short, a spirit of contentment and satisfaction with our daily lot and a trust that leaves tomorrow's needs in His wise and faithful hand to care for us day by day as each new morrow comes.
Beloved, have you thus learned to pray for temporal things, bringing all your life to G.o.d? bringing it in the spirit of daily trust and thankful contentment with your simple lot and your Father's wisdom and faithfulness?
It teaches Us that true prayer must ever recognize our need of the mercy of G.o.d.
There are two versions of this pet.i.tion, "Forgive us our trespa.s.ses," and "Forgive us our debts." This is not accidental. There may be an honest consciousness in the heart of the suppliant that there has been no willful or known disobedience or sin, and yet there may be infinite debt, omission, and shortcoming as compared with the high standard of G.o.d's holiness and even our own ideal. The sensitive and thoroughly quickened spirit will never reach a place where it will not be sensible of so much more to which it is reaching out and G.o.d is pressing it forward, that it will not need to say, "Forgive us our debts," even where perhaps it could not conscientiously say, "Forgive us our transgressions."
This sense of demerit on our part throws us constantly upon the merits and righteousness of our Great High Priest and makes our prayers forevermore dependent on His intercession and offered in His name. This enables the most unworthy to "come boldly unto the throne of grace" to "obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." We do not mean that our dear Lord encourages us to expect to be constantly sinning and repenting, for the final pet.i.tion of this prayer is for complete deliverance from all evil, but He graciously stoops to the lowest level and yet grades the prayer so as to cover the experience of the highest saint, to meet the finer sense of the most sanctified spirit as well as the coa.r.s.er consciousness of actual sin on the part of the humblest penitent.
This pet.i.tion presupposes a very solemn spirit of forgiveness in the heart of the suppliant. This is indispensable to the acceptance of the prayer for forgiveness. The Greek construction and the use of the aorist tense expresses a very practical shade of meaning, namely, that the forgiveness of the injury that has been done to us has preceded our prayer for divine forgiveness. Freely translated it should be thus expressed, "Forgive us our trespa.s.ses as we have already forgiven them that trespa.s.sed against us."
There are certain spiritual states, therefore, that are indispensable to acceptable prayer, even for the simplest mercies, and without which we cannot pray. The soul that is filled with bitterness cannot approach G.o.d in communion. Inferentially, it must therefore be true that the soul that is cherishing any other sin and sinful state is thereby hindered from access to the throne of grace. This is an Old Testament truth that all the abundant grace of the New Testament has not provoked nor weakened. "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me," was a lesson which even David learned in his sad and solemn experience. "I will wash mine hands in innocency: so will I compa.s.s thine altar," is the eternal condition of acceptable communion with the Holy One. The most sinful may come for mercy, but they must put away their sin and freely forgive the sins of others. Above all others there seem to be two unpardonable sins, one, the sin which willfully rejects the Holy Ghost and the Saviour presented by Him, that is, the sin of willful unbelief; and the other, the sin of unforgivingness.
It teaches us that prayer is our true weapon and safeguard in the temptations of life, and that we may rightly claim the divine protection from our spiritual adversaries.
This pet.i.tion, "Lead us not into temptation," undoubtedly covers the whole field of our spiritual conflicts and may be interpreted, in the largest sense, of all we need to arm us against our spiritual enemies. It cannot strictly mean that we pray to be kept from all temptation, for G.o.d Himself has said, "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation," and "Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptation," and, "Let patience have her perfect work." It rather means, "Lead us not into a crisis of temptation," "and lead us so that we shall not fall under temptation or be tried above what we are able to bear." There are spiritual trials and crises which come to souls, too hard for them to bear, snares into which mult.i.tudes fall; and this is the peculiar promise which this prayer claims, that they shall not come into any such crisis, but shall be kept out of situations which would be too trying, carried through the places which would be too narrow, and kept safe from peril.
This is what is meant by the word "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the G.o.dly out of temptations," and also the still more gracious promise in First Corinthians 10:13: "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but G.o.d is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." When we think how many there are who perish in the snare, and how narrow the path often is, oh, what comfort it should give us to know that our Lord has authorized us to claim His divine protection in these awful perils to meet the wiles of the devil and the insidious foes against whom all our skill would be unavailing!
This was the Master's own solemn admonition to His disciples, in the garden in the hour and power of darkness, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation," and this was His own safeguard in that hour. The apostle has given it to us as the unceasing prescription of wisdom and safety in connection with our spiritual conflict, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." "Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving."
The crowning pet.i.tion of the Lord's Prayer is a pet.i.tion for entire sanctification, including deliverance from every other form of evil.
"Deliver us from evil." This has frequently been translated "from the evil one," but the neuter gender contradicts this and renders it most natural to translate it, as the old version does, of evil in all forms rather than the author of evil. This is more satisfactory to the Christian heart. There are many forms of evil which do not come from the evil one. We have as much cause to pray against ourselves as against the devil. And there are physical evils covered by this pet.i.tion as well as special temptations. It is a pet.i.tion, therefore, against sin, sickness and sorrow in every form in which they could be evils. It is a prayer for our complete deliverance from all the effects of the Fall, in spirit, soul and body. It is a prayer which echoes the fourfold gospel and the fullness of Jesus in the highest and widest measure. It teaches us that we may expect victory over the power of sin, support against the attacks of sickness, triumph over all sorrow and a life in which all things shall be only good and work together for good according to G.o.d's high purpose. Surely the prayer of the Holy Ghost for such a blessing .is the best pledge of the answer! Let us not be afraid to claim it in all its fullness.
All prayer should end with praise and believing confidence.
The Lord's Prayer, according to the most correct ma.n.u.scripts, really ends with "Deliver us from evil," but later copies contain the closing clause, "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen." And while it is extremely doubtful whether our Lord uttered these words, yet they have so grown into the phraseology of Christendom that we may, without danger, draw from them our closing lessons.
The doxology expresses the spirit of praise and consecration. We ascribe to G.o.d the authority and power to do what we have asked, and give the glory of it to His name; and then, in token of our confidence that He will do so, we add the Amen, which simply means "So let it be done." In fact, it is faith ascending to the throne and humbly claiming and commanding in the name of Jesus that for which humility has pet.i.tioned. Our Lord does require this element of faith and this acknowledgment and attestation of His faithfulness as a condition of answered prayer. No prayer is complete therefore until faith has added its "Amen."
Such, then, are some of the principle teachings of this universal prayer. How often our lips have uttered it! Beloved, has it searched our hearts this day and shown us the imperfection, the selfishness, the smallness, the unbelief of what we call prayer? Let us henceforth repeat .its pregnant words with deeper thoughtfulness and weigh them with more solemn realization than we have done before, until they shall come to be to us what they indeed are, the summary of all prayer, the expression of all possible need and blessing and the language of a worship like that of the holy ranks who continually surround the throne above. Then indeed shall His kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Beautiful and blessed prayer! How it recalls the most sacred a.s.sociations of life! How it follows the prodigal even in his deepest downfall and his latest moments! How it expands with the deepening spiritual life of the saint! How it wafts the latest aspirations and adorations of the departing Christian to the throne to which he is ready to wing his way! Let it be more dear to us henceforth, more real, more deep, wider and higher, as it teaches us to pray and wings our pet.i.tion to the throne of grace. And oh, if there be any one reading these words now who has often uttered it without having any right to say "Our Father," or any real ability to enter into its heart-searching meaning, may you this very moment, beloved reader, stop; and as you think with tears of the lips that once taught you its tender accents years ago, but that are silent now in the molding grave, kneel down at the feet of that mother's G.o.d, that father's G.o.d, that sister's G.o.d; and if you are willing to say, "Forgive us our trespa.s.ses as we forgive those that trespa.s.s against us," you may dare to add, linked in everlasting hope and fellowship with those that first voiced those words to you, "Our Father, which art in heaven."
On a lonely bed in a Southern hospital, a soldier lay dying. A Christian friend called to see him and tried to speak of Christ, but was repelled with infidel scorn. Once or twice he tried in vain to reach his heart, but at last simply knelt down by the bed and tenderly repeated the Lord's Prayer, slowly and solemnly. When he arose to leave, the infidel's eyes were wet with tears. He tried to brush them away and conceal his feelings, but at last broke down and said, "My mother taught me that more than fifty years ago, and it quite broke me up to hear it again." The missionary pa.s.sed away, not wishing to hinder the voice of G.o.d. The next time he called, the patient had disappeared. Sending for the nurse he asked about him and was told that a night or two before the soldier had died, but just before the end she heard him repeating the words, "Our Father, who art in heaven," and then he seemed to add in a husky voice, "Mother, I am coming! He is my Father, too."
Dear friend, let this old prayer become to you a holy bond with all that is dearest on earth and a stepping-stone to the very gates of heaven!
Chapter 2 Encouragements to Prayer.
"And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend o f mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any o f you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he asks a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" Luke 11:5-13 This is our Saviour's second teaching about prayer. His first was an actual example of prayer. This is an unfolding of some of the special encouragements to prayer which are afforded by the gracious care of G.o.d, our Father and Friend, and also some deeper instructions respecting the nature and spirit of true prayer.
Encouragements to Prayer G.o.d is our Father. This had already been suggested in the opening words of the Lord's Prayer, but it is amplified in this pa.s.sage by a comparison between the earthly and heavenly Parent: "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" G.o.d is not only a Father, but much more than any earthly father. How much this expresses to many of us! There are few who cannot recall, in the memories of home, the value of a father's or a mother's love and care; or, if they have been wanting, all the more, perhaps, has the orphaned heart felt its deep need and reached out for a father's heart and hand.
Who of us has not felt in some great emergency, needing a wisdom and resource beyond our own, "Oh, if my father were only here," or, perhaps, has said to G.o.d: "If Thou wert my earthly father now, Thou wouldst sit down by my side and let me tell Thee of all my perplexity, and Thou wouldst tell me just what to do, and then wouldst do for me what I cannot do for myself." And yet His presence is as real as if we saw Him, and we may as freely pour our hearts out with all their fears and griefs and know that He hears and helps as no earthly father is able to do either in love or relief. Perhaps even better than the memory of our childhood is the realization of our own fatherhood or motherhood. Who that has ever felt a parent's love can fail to understand this appeal? It is a love which neither the helplessness nor the worthlessness of its object can affect.
It is a love which often has gladly sacrificed every thing, even life itself, for the loved one. But it was from the bosom of G.o.d that all that love came at first, and infinitely more is still in reserve. The depth, and length, and height of this "much more" can only be measured by the distance between the infinite and the human. Much more than you love your child does He love you; much more than you would give or sacrifice is He ready to bestow and has He already sacrificed; much more than you can trust or ask a father for, may you dare to bring to Him; much more unerring is His wisdom, illimitable His power, and inexhaustible His love! Shall we, then, with the little alphabet of our human experience, try to spell out all His love and learn the deeper meaning of the prayer, "Our Father, which art in heaven"?
He is our Friend. "Which of you shall have a friend?" This also finds its full significance through the actual experience of each one of us. Who has not had a friend, and more of a friend in some respects than even a father? There are intimacies not born of human blood that are the most intense and lasting bonds of earthly love. Jonathan was more to David than Jesse was, and Timothy was more to Paul than a very son. How much our friends have been to us! One by one let us count them over, recall each act and bond of love, and think of all that we may trust them for and all in which they stood by us; and then, as we concentrate the whole weight of recollection and affection, let us put G.o.d in that place of confidence and think He is all that and infinitely more. Our Friend! The One who is personally interested in us; Who has set His heart upon us; Who has made Himself acquainted with us; Who has come near to us in the tender and delicate intimacy of unspeakable fellowship; Who has spoken to us such gracious words; Who has given us such invaluable pledges and promises; Who has done so much for us; Who has made such priceless sacrifices, and Who, we feel, is ready to take any trouble or go to any expense to aid us to Him we are coming in prayer, our Heavenly Friend.
He is a Friend in extremity. The case here supposed is a hard one. The suppliant is in great need, has a case of suffering on his hands and is wholly without means to meet it. It may represent any emergency in our lives. Other friends are for fair weather. This is always G.o.d's time.
The friends who in our sunshine live, When winter comes, have flown, And he who has but tears to give Must weep those tears alone.
But this Friend has authorized us to claim His help especially in times of need. "Call upon me," He says, "in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." "G.o.d is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble." "Thou hast known my soul in adversities," is the testimony of one who proved His faithful friendship under the severest pressure. "G.o.d that comforteth those that are cast down," "The Father of mercies, and the G.o.d of all comfort" are His chosen names and t.i.tles. Let us not fear, therefore, to come to Him when we have nothing to bring to Him but our grief and fear. We shall be welcome. He is able for the hardest occasions, and He is seated on His throne for the very purpose of giving help in time of need. Even if the case seems wholly helpless and the hour is as dark as the dark midnight of this parable, cast thy burden on the Lord, yes, all your care, for "he careth for you," and "the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit."
He is a Friend, not only in season, but at all seasons, and at the most unseasonable times. This parable is the story of a man coming to his friend when all reasonable ground for expecting a favorable reception was out of the question. It was midnight. The door was shut, literally barred, the house closed for the night, and the time for calls long past. Nevertheless that door was opened, that pet.i.tion heard, that favor granted, and whatever may be the meaning of the reluctance of the earthly friend, certainly we know that the heavenly Friend a.s.sures us that none of these. causes will prevent His hearing and helping in the most extreme and desperate straits and seasons. The peculiarity of G.o.d's grace is that He helps when man would refuse to help, and its highest trophies are a.s.sociated with hours when mercy seemed long past and hope forever dead.
Look at that wicked king, Mana.s.seh, who for half a century was a brutal butcher of the prophets and saints of G.o.d. He had literally fed his brutality on the wreck of all that was sacred and divine. And then the hand of retribution struck him down and left him in his miserable old age a captive in a foreign prison. One would have thought that prayer from such a man was profanity and that all heaven would shut its ears at the very idea of his escaping condign and merciless punishment. But in that late hour Mana.s.seh cried to the Lord in his affliction, and the Lord heard him and had mercy on him, forgave him all his sins, and brought him again .into his kingdom. And then Mana.s.seh knew that the Lord was G.o.d. Surely no soul can ever say again that the hour is too late or the door too strongly barred for mercy!
Look at that city Nineveh, the oppressor of the nations, the proud queen of a.s.syria, the scourge of Israel and Judah, the boastful shrine of every abominable idolatry! At length its .iniquities reached to heaven, and the prophet Jonah was sent to proclaim its speedy and certain doom. "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." That city went upon its knees; its kings, its priests, its princes and its peasantry were prostrated in penitential prayer, and the barred gates were opened, the doors of mercy were unlocked, the terrible decree was revoked, and Nineveh became a monument of the mercy of G.o.d; the very children in its streets and the cattle in its stalls being specified as the objects of His tender compa.s.sion!
Look at King Hezekiah to whom, in the fullness of his prosperity, the message came, "Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live." Surely that looked like a closing and barring of the gates of the tomb. The sentence fell on his ears like a voice of doom. But in that hour Hezekiah prayed. A poor and trembling prayer it was: "I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me. Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward." Though there was little faith in that heartbroken gasp of prayer, it reached the heart of G.o.d, and the decree that had seemed imperative and inexorable, the stern word that had set a barrier like adamant to the path of life and opened the cold stone portals of what seemed an inevitable tomb, was changed, and the messenger was sent back with the gracious reprieve, "I will add unto thy days fifteen years."
Such is the Friend to whom we pray, Who stands between us and all the mighty bars and doors of material force, of natural law, of human purpose, and even of divine judgment, and turns aside with His hands of love every bolt and bar which stands between us and the fullest blessing which He can give our trusting and obedient hearts. Shall we ever again think anything too hard, or any hour too late? He loves the hour of extremity. It is His chosen time of Almighty interposition. "G.o.d will help her at the turning of the morning," is His voice to Zion.
Summoned to the dying couch of a little girl, the mighty Master had time to tarry by the way until a poor, helpless woman was healed by the touch of His garment. But meanwhile that little life had ebbed away, and human unbelief hastened to turn back the visit which was now too late. "Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master." It was then that His strong and mighty love rose to its glorious height of power and victory. "Fear not," was His calm reply; "believe only, and she shall be made whole."
Yes, let us go at midnight, for He that keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. Let us go when all other doors are barred and even the heavens seem bra.s.s, for the gates of prayer are open evermore, and it is only when the sun is gone down and our pillow is but the stone of the wilderness that we behold the ladder that reaches unto heaven, with our infinite G.o.d above it and the angels of His providence ascending and descending for our help and deliverance. "Men ought always to pray, and not to faint."
He is a Friend that will not deceive us. He will not give us a stone for bread; that is, a barren, worthless, empty answer, but a real and satisfying blessing. He will not give us a serpent when we come for a fish; that is, a harmful gift, or one that contains a hidden snare of temptation or spiritual evil. Many of the things that we ask in our blindness have serpents coiled in their folds, but He loves us too well to give us such an answer, and sometimes, therefore, He must modify or refuse our pet.i.tion if He would be our true Father in heaven. And we need not fear to trust this to Him or make the boldest requests lest they might do us harm, for He who gives the greatest blessing can give the grace to keep it from being a selfish idol or a spiritual curse. People sometimes say, "If G.o.d were to heal me or give me some temporal blessing for which I am praying, I fear it might not be best for me." Can we not trust Him for the grace as well as the gift?
And again, our Father will not give us a scorpion if we ask an egg; that is, something that would leave a bitterness and a sting behind. "The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it." How many earthly roses fade and leave a lasting thorn! How many drops from earthly cups have more dregs of poison than drops of joy! How many a love and friendship but adds to the sorrow of the parting and to the bitterness of the memory. But all that heaven gives us are everlasting joys. Let us trust Him for all we ask, and we shall have eternal cause to sing of His love and faithfulness.
This Friend gives full measure. "He will rise and give him as many as he needeth." In our Father's house there is bread enough and to spare. His measure is more abundantly. Three loaves He gave to the hungry wayfarer. Nay, three were asked; He seems to have given far more, at least, was willing to give as many as were needed. These three may be suggestive of our threefold life and G.o.d's complete provision for it in every part-spirit, soul and body. Have we claimed the ample measure? Are we satisfied today and running over with superabundant life and love for the hungry wayfarers that come to us? He only asked it as a loan, but he received it as a gift, the only return required being thanks and love. So our Father and our Friend is ready to supply all our need "according to his riches .in glory by Christ Jesus." Let us come, exclaiming, My soul, ask what thou wilt, Thou canst not be too bold.
Since His own blood for thee He spilt, What else can He withhold?
Beyond thy utmost wants, His power and love can bless; To trusting souls He loves to grant More than they can express.
Instructions Respecting Prayer In its simplest form prayer is represented as asking. "Ask, and it shall be given unto you." This expresses the most elementary form of prayer-the presenting of our pet.i.tions to G.o.d in the simplest terms and manner, and we are undoubtedly taught that even the most ordinary and imperfect request which is sincerely presented at the throne of grace receives the attention and response of our heavenly Father. It is probable that no honest heart ever asks in vain, even where, through ignorance or inexperience, it may but partly understand the principles and conditions of effectual prayer. The infant's helpless cry reaches the mother's heart not more surely than the feeblest gasp of need and supplication from His children's lips.
There is a higher form of prayer, "Seek, and ye shall find." This denotes the prayer that waits upon G.o.d until it receives an answer, and that follows up that answer in obedience to His direction until it finds all it seeks, whether of light, or health, or strength from on high.
This is the prayer that inquires of the Lord, hearkens to catch His answer, and hastens to obey it-"watching at his gates; waiting daily at the posts of his doors"; "following on to know the Lord," and finding, as it follows, full light, help and blessing. For prayer is more than asking; it is a receiving, a waiting, a learning of Him, a converse and communion, in which He has much to say and we have much to learn. This is the prayer that has brought us so often His peace, His heavenly baptism of love and power, His blessed working out of the problems of our life; and it is of this He says in such oft-repeated promises, "Let none that wait on thee be ashamed." "I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain." "They that seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing." For prayer is not an asking for things so much as a seeking for Himself and a pressing .into that fellowship which is beyond all other gifts and which carries with it every needed blessing.
There is a knocking prayer, to which the promise is given, "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." This is more than seeking. This is the prayer that surmounts the great obstacles of life, the closed doors of circ.u.mstances, the brazen gates and adamantine mountains of hindrance and opposition, and which, in the name of our ascended Lord and in the fellowship of His mediatorial rights and powers, presses through every obstacle and treads down every adversary. It is not so much the prayer that knocks at the gates of heaven and extorts an answer from an unwilling G.o.d, as the prayer which, having received the answer and promise, carries it forth against the gates of the enemy and beats them down, as the walls of Jericho fell before the tramp and shout of Israel's believing hosts.
It is the prayer which takes its place at the side of our ascended Lord and claims what He has promised to give, and even commands, in His mighty name, that which He has already commanded through His royal Priesthood and all-prevailing intercession. It is faith putting its hand on the omnipotence of G.o.d and using it in fellowship with our Omnipotent Head until it sees His name prevail against all that opposes His will, the crooked things made straight, the gates of bra.s.s opened, and the fetters of iron broken asunder.
It is Moses standing on the Mount with G.o.d while Joshua fights in the plain below, holding up the hands of victorious faith, seeing the hosts of Joshua keep step with his uplifted hands and the battle advance or ebb as those hands went up or down, until they waved on high over a victorious field and proclaimed the memorial name, "Jehovah-Nissi, the Lord is my banner," a name which has become our watchword from generation to generation. It is written, "Because the Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation." It is when our hand is upon the throne of the Lord that He wages war with all our enemies, and they fall before His victorious will.
It is Deborah, kneeling in her tent that day when Barak led the host of Israel against the legions of Sisera, feeling in her great heart the surging tides of that glorious warfare, and knowing by the throbs of her faith and prayer when the battle waxed or waned, until she had fought it all over upon the field of vision; and as she claimed the last victorious onset and commanded the last foe to flee in Jehovah's name, her exulting spirit shouted in the victory of faith, though perhaps her eyes had not seen the battlefield at all, "0 my soul, thou hast trodden down strength." Her soul had trodden down the foe; her spirit had triumphed in the conscious power of Jehovah; her faith had knocked at the gates of the enemy until the wall of adamant was laid in the dust and the gates of bra.s.s were shivered into fragments and scattered as by the whirlwinds of the sky. This is "the effectual prayer" which "availeth much."
We are also instructed to come in the spirit of boldness and importunity. "Because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth." This is a very difficult pa.s.sage and one that has been variously interpreted. Dr. Walker, the thoughtful author of The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation, has endeavored to show in his work on the Holy Spirit that this word here means "extremity," and that the idea conveyed is not that the man is heard because of his continued prayer, but because of his extreme distress and the difficult emergency which is facing him.
We cannot find, however, sufficient authority for this view. The Greek word literally means "without shamefacedness." It is the negative form of the word "shamefacedness" which occurs in First Timothy 2:9, and it properly means boldness and audacity. There is nothing whatever unscriptural in this truth, which, indeed, is constantly reiterated in the New Testament, that we are to come boldly to the throne of grace, and, without timidity, for Jesus' sake, claim our redemption rights in all their fullness. "We have boldness and access," we are told, "by the faith of him." "Having therefore . . . boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, . . . Let us draw near with a true heart in full a.s.surance of faith." "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace."
There is no doubt that if Esther had hesitated to enter into the presence of the king at the crisis of her country's fate, she would have 'both lost her blessing and risked the fortunes of her nation. There is no doubt that if modest Ruth had feared to claim her lawful rights at the feet of Boaz under the law of the kinsman, she probably would never have been his bride nor the mother of the long and honored line of kings, commencing with David and ending with the Son of man. And there is no doubt that our unbelieving fear and shrinking timorousness have lost us many a redemption right, and that a bold and victorious confidence which claims its inheritance in the name of our risen and ascended Lord is pleasing to G.o.d.
And we believe this is the meaning and teaching of this beautiful parable-that we are to come boldly to our Father and our Friend, no matter what doors would seem to be closed or what discouragements may frown across our way. Someone has said that the secret of success in human affairs has often been audacity. There is, at least, a holy audacity in Christian life and faith which is not inconsistent with the profoundest humility and in which lies the secret of the victorious achievements of a Moses, a Joshua, an Elijah, and a Daniel in the Old Testament, and of the Syro-Phoenician woman and the glorious apostle of faith in the New, as well as the Luther's and the Careys who have been pioneers of gospel truth and missionary triumph in the Christian dispensation.
Perhaps the highest ministry of prayer is prayer for others. This pet.i.tion was not for the suppliant himself but for a friend of his, who, in his journey, had come to him and found the larder empty and nothing to set before him. Literally it means a friend "who had lost his way."
How tenderly it suggests the need of those for whom we have constantly to come to our heavenly Friend. It is of this that the Apostle James says in referring to prayer, "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." And then with special reference to this very case he adds, "Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall . . . hide a mult.i.tude of sins." Thank G.o.d that we can bring to Him these cases that have lost their way-our unsaved friends, our wandering sons and daughters, our brethren who have gone back from their first love and the blessedness they knew when first they saw the Lord-and He will not refuse to hear their cry nor fail to give them the living Bread.
Often our boldest prayer will be the prayer for others. For ourselves we may fear perhaps a selfish motive, but for them we know it is the prayer of love; and if it be the prayer that seeks His glory, we can claim for it His mighty and prevailing will and intercession. Oh, you who have often felt your way closed for service, this is a ministry that all can exercise, and is the mightiest ministry of life! Let us be encouraged henceforth to use it in fellowship with Him who has spent the centuries that have pa.s.sed since His ascension in praying for others and representing us as our great High Priest before the throne.
The last lesson that this pa.s.sage teaches us about prayer is that the Holy Ghost is the source and substance of all that prayer can ask, and a gift that carries with it the pledge of all other gifts and blessings.
"How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?"
This is spoken as if there were really nothing else to ask. It is still more remarkable that in the parallel pa.s.sage in Matthew the language used is, "How much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" So then "the Holy Spirit" and "good things" are synonymous. He that has the Holy Spirit shall have all good things. Was not that the symbolical meaning of the widow's oil in the ancient miracle? Her pot of oil, poured out into all the empty vessels, became sufficient to pay all her debts and furnish an income for all her future life. All she needed was the pot of oil; it was currency for every blessing. So is the Holy Spirit. He that has this heavenly gift is in touch with the throne of infinite grace and the G.o.d of infinite fullness, and there is nothing that he cannot claim. Oh, when shall we learn to seek first the kingdom of G.o.d and His' righteousness, and know that all these things shall be added unto us!
Dean Alford calls attention to a beautiful Greek construction in this closing verse in the reference to our heavenly Father. The verse, "your heavenly Father," in the original is, literally, "your Father out of heaven." In the Lord's Prayer a few verses previously it is, "Our Father which art in heaven," but here the preposition is changed and it is "your Father out of heaven." Why is this blessed and stupendous change? Our Father has already begun to move toward us and to enter our hearts by the Holy Ghost whom He has just sent to make a heaven below for every praying heart. So while we begin our prayer with our eyes directed upward, we end it with our inmost being filled with the presence and fullness of G.o.d and the throne of His abiding grace and power.
Blessed and heavenly altar of incense, standing by the rent veil, and breathing forth its incense into the outer and inner chambers! oh, let us be found forever there!