"One evening I left my office in New York, with
a bitterly cold wind in my face. I had with me, (as I thought) my thick,
warm muffler, but when I proceeded to button-up against the storm, I found
that it was gone. I turned back, looked along the streets, searched my
office, but in vain. I realized, then, that I must have dropped it, and
prayed God that I might find it; for such was the state of the weather,
that it would be running a great risk to proceed without it. I looked,
again, up and down the surrounding streets, but without success. Sudden]y,
I saw a man on the opposite side of the road holding out something in
his hand. I crossed over and asked him if that were my muffler? He handed
it to me saying, 'It was blown to me by the wind.' He who rides upon the
storm, had used the wind as a means of answering prayer." --
WILLIAM HORST.
PRAYER does not stand alone. It is not an isolated duty and independent
principle. It lives in association with other Christian duties, is wedded
to other principles, is a partner with other graces. But to faith, prayer
is indissolubly joined. Faith gives it colour and tone, shapes its character,
and secures its results.
Trust is faith become absolute, ratified, consummated. There is, when all
is said and done, a sort of venture in faith and its exercise. But trust
is firm belief, it is faith in full flower. Trust is a conscious
act, a fact of which we are sensible. According to the Scriptural concept
it is the eye of the new-born soul, and the ear of the renewed soul. It
is the feeling of the soul, the spiritual eye, the ear, the taste, the feeling
-- these one and all have to do with trust. How luminous, how distinct,
how conscious, how powerful, and more than all, how Scriptural is such a
trust! How different from many forms of modern belief, so feeble, dry, and
cold! These new phases of belief bring no consciousness of their presence,
no "Joy unspeakable and full of glory" results from their exercise.
They are, for the most part, adventures in the peradventures of the soul.
There is no safe, sure trust in anything. The whole transaction takes place
in the realm of Maybe and Perhaps.
Trust like life, is feeling, though much more than feeling. An unfelt life
is a contradiction; an unfelt trust is a misnomer, a delusion, a contradiction.
Trust is the most felt of all attributes. It is all feeling, and
it works only by love. An unfelt love is as impossible as an unfelt trust.
The trust of which we are now speaking is a conviction. An unfelt conviction?
How absurd!
Trust sees God doing things here and now. Yea, more. It rises to a lofty
eminence, and looking into the invisible and the eternal, realizes that
God has done things, and regards them as being already done. Trust brings
eternity into the annals and happenings of time, transmutes the substance
of hope into the reality of fruition, and changes promise into present possession.
We know when we trust just as we know when we see, just as we are conscious
of our sense of touch. Trust sees, receives, holds. Trust is its own witness.
Yet, quite often, faith is too weak to obtain God's greatest good, immediately;
so it has to wait in loving, strong, prayerful, pressing obedience, until
it grows in strength, and is able to bring down the eternal, into the realms
of experience and time.
To this point, trust masses all its forces. Here it holds. And in the struggle,
trust's grasp becomes mightier, and grasps, for itself, all that God has
done for it in His eternal wisdom and plenitude of grace.
In the matter of waiting in prayer, mightiest prayer, faith rises to its
highest plane and becomes indeed the gift of God. It becomes the blessed
disposition and expression of the soul which is secured by a constant intercourse
with, and unwearied application to God.
Jesus Christ clearly taught that faith was the condition on which prayer
was answered. When our Lord had cursed the fig-tree, the disciples were
much surprised that its withering had actually taken place, and their remarks
indicated their in credulity. It was then that Jesus said to them, "Have
faith in God." "For verily I say unto you, That
whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast
into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that
those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever
he saith. Therefore, I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when
ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."
Trust grows nowhere so readily and richly as in the prayer-chamber. Its
unfolding and development are rapid and wholesome when they are regularly
and well kept. When these engagements are hearty and full and free, trust
flourishes exceedingly. The eye and presence of God give vigorous life to
trust, just as the eye and the presence of the sun make fruit and flower
to grow, and all things glad and bright with fuller life. "Have
faith in God," "Trust in the Lord" form the keynote and foundation
of prayer. Primarily, it is not trust in the Word of God, but rather trust
in the Person of God. For trust in the Person of God must precede trust
in the Word of God. "Ye believe in God, believe also in Me," is
the demand our Lord makes on the personal trust of His disciples. The person
of Jesus Christ must be central, to the eye of trust. This great truth Jesus
sought to impress upon Martha, when her brother lay dead, in the home at
Bethany. Martha asserted her belief in the fact of the resurrection of her
brother:
"Martha saith unto Him, I know that he shall rise again
in the resurrection at the last day."
Jesus lifts her trust clear above the mere fact of the resurrection, to
His own Person, by saying:
"I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth
in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and
believeth in Me, shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto
Him, Yea, Lord: I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which
should come into the world."
Trust, in an historical fact or in a mere record may be a very passive thing,
but trust in a person vitalizes the quality, fructifies it, informs it with
love. The trust which informs prayer centres in a Person.
Trust goes even further than this. The trust which inspires our prayer must
be not only trust in the Person of God, and of Christ, but in their ability
and willingness to grant the thing prayed for. It is not only, "Trust,
ye, in the Lord," but, also, "for in the Lord Jehovah, is everlasting
strength."
The trust which our Lord taught as a condition of effectual prayer, is not
of the head but of the heart. It is trust which "doubteth not in his
heart." Such trust has the Divine assurance that it shall be honoured
with large and satisfying answers. The strong promise of our Lord brings
faith down to the present, and counts on a present answer.
Do we believe, without a doubt? When we pray, do we believe, not that we
shall receive the things for which we ask on a future day, but that we receive
them, then and there? Such is the teaching of this inspiring Scripture.
How we need to pray, "Lord, increase our faith," until doubt be
gone, and implicit trust claims the promised blessings, as its very own.
This is no easy condition. It is reached only after many a failure, after
much praying, after many waitings, after much trial of faith. May our faith
so increase until we realize and receive all the fulness there is in that
Name which guarantees to do so much.
Our Lord puts trust as the very foundation of praying. The background of
prayer is trust. The whole issuance of Christ's ministry and work was dependent
on implicit trust in His Father. The centre of trust is God. Mountains of
difficulties, and all other hindrances to prayer are moved out of the way
by trust and his virile henchman, faith. When trust is perfect and without
doubt, prayer is simply the outstretched hand, ready to receive. Trust perfected,
is prayer perfected. Trust looks to receive the thing asked for -- and gets
it. Trust is not a belief that God can bless, that He will
bless, but that He does bless, here and now. Trust always operates
in the present tense. Hope looks toward the future. Trust looks to the present.
Hope expects. Trust possesses. Trust receives what prayer acquires. So that
what prayer needs, at all times, is abiding and abundant trust.
Their lamentable lack of trust and resultant failure of the disciples to
do what they were sent out to do, is seen in the case of the lunatic son,
who was brought by his father to nine of them while their Master was on
the Mount of Transfiguration. A boy, sadly afflicted, was brought to these
men to be cured of his malady. They had been commissioned to do this very
kind of work. This was a part of their mission. They attempted to cast out
the devil from the boy, but had signally failed. The devil was too much
for them. They were humiliated at their failure, and filled with shame,
while their enemies were in triumph. Amid the confusion incident to failure
Jesus draws near. He is informed of the circumstances, and told of the conditions
connected therewith. Here is the succeeding account:
"Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse
generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?
Bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he departed out
of him and the child was cured from that very hour. And when He was come
into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, Why could not we cast
him out? And He said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing but
by prayer and fasting."
Wherein lay the difficulty with these men? They had been lax in cultivating
their faith by prayer and, as a consequence, their trust utterly failed.
They trusted not God, nor Christ, nor the authenticity of His mission, or
their own. So has it been many a time since, in many a crisis in the Church
of God. Failure has resulted from a lack of trust, or from a weakness of
faith, and this, in turn, from a lack of prayerfulness. Many a failure in
revival efforts has been traceable to the same cause. Faith had not been
nurtured and made powerful by prayer. Neglect of the inner chamber is the
solution of most spiritual failure. And this is as true of our personal
struggles with the devil as was the case when we went forth to attempt to
cast out devils. To be much on our knees in private communion with
God is the only surety that we shall have Him with us either in our personal
struggles, or in our efforts to convert sinners.
Everywhere, in the approaches of the people to Him, our Lord put trust in
Him, and the divinity of His mission, in the forefront. He gave no definition
of trust, and He furnishes no theological discussion of, or analysis of
it; for He knew that men would see what faith was by what faith did;
and from its free exercise trust grew up, spontaneously, in His presence.
It was the product of His work, His power and His Person. These furnished
and created an atmosphere most favourable for its exercise and development.
Trust is altogether too splendidly simple for verbal definition; too hearty
and spontaneous for theological terminology. The very simplicity of trust
is that which staggers many people. They look away for some great thing
to come to pass, while all the time "the word is nigh thee, even in
thy mouth, and in thy heart."
When the saddening news of his daughter's death was brought to Jairus our
Lord interposed: "Be not afraid," He said calmly, "only believe."
To the woman with the issue of blood, who stood tremblingly before Him,
He said:
"Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace,
and be whole of thy plague."
As the two blind men followed Him, pressing their way into the house, He
said:
"According to your faith be it unto you. And their
eyes were opened."
When the paralytic was let down through the roof of the house, where Jesus
was teaching, and placed before Him by four of his friends, it is recorded
after this fashion:
"And Jesus seeing their faith, said unto the sick of
the palsy: Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee."
When Jesus dismissed the centurion whose servant was seriously ill, and
who had come to Jesus with the prayer that He speak the healing word, without
even going to his house, He did it in the manner following:
"And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and
as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed
in the selfsame hour."
When the poor leper fell at the feet of Jesus and cried out for relief,
"Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean," Jesus immediately
granted his request, and the man glorified Him with a loud voice. Then Jesus
said unto him, "Arise, go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole."
The Syrophenician woman came to Jesus with the case of her afflicted daughter,
making the case her own, with the prayer, "Lord, help me," making
a fearful and heroic struggle. Jesus honours her faith and prayer, saying:
"O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even
as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour."
After the disciples had utterly failed to cast the devil out of the epileptic
boy, the father of the stricken lad came to Jesus with the plaintive and
almost despairing cry, "If Thou canst do anything, have compassion
on us and help us." But Jesus replied, "If thou canst believe,
all things are possible to him that believeth."
Blind Bartimaeus sitting by the wayside, hears our Lord as He passes by,
and cries out pitifully and almost despairingly, "Jesus, Thou son of
David, have mercy on me." The keen ears of our Lord immediately catch
the sound of prayer, and He says to the beggar:
"Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately
he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way."
To the weeping, penitent woman, washing His feet with her tears and wiping
them with the hair of her head, Jesus speaks cheering, soul-comforting words:
"Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace."
One day Jesus healed ten lepers at one time, in answer to their united prayer,
"Jesus, Master, have mercy on us," and He told them to go and
show themselves to the priests. "And it came to pass as they went,
they were cleansed." |