The particular value of private prayer consists in being
able to approach God with more freedom, and unbosom ourselves more fully
than in any other way. Between us and God there are private and personal
interests, sins to confess and wants to be supplied, which it would be
improper to disclose to the world. This duty is enforced by the example
of good men in all ages. -- AMOS BINNEY
THE possibilities of prayer are established by the facts and the history
of prayer. Facts are stubborn things. Facts are the true things. Theories
may be but speculations. Opinions may be wholly at fault. But facts must
be deferred to. They cannot be ignored. What are the possibilities of prayer
judged by the facts? What is the history of prayer? What does it reveal
to us? Prayer has a history, written in God's Word and recorded in the experiences
and lives of God's saints. History is truth teaching by example. We may
miss the truth by perverting the history, but the truth is in the facts
of history.
"He spake with Abraham at the oak, He called Elisha from
the plough;
David he from the sheepfolds took, Thy day, thine hour of grace, is now."
God reveals the truth by the facts. God reveals Himself by the facts of
religious history. God teaches us His will by the facts and examples of
Bible history. God's facts, God's Word and God's history are all in perfect
harmony, and have much of God in them all. God has ruled the world by prayer;
and God still rules the world by the same divinely ordained means.
The possibilities of prayer cover not only individuals but reach to cities
and nations. They take in classes and peoples. The praying of Moses was
the one thing which stood between the wrath of God against the Israelites
and His declared purpose to destroy them and the execution of that Divine
purpose, and the Hebrew nation still survived. Notwithstanding Sodom was
not spared, because ten righteous men could not be found inside its limits,
yet the little city of Zoar was spared because Lot prayed for it as he fled
from the storm of fire and brimstone which burned up Sodom. Nineveh was
saved because the king and its people repented of their evil ways and gave
themselves to prayer and fasting.
Paul in his remarkable prayer in Ephesians, chapter three, honours the illimitable
possibilities of prayer and glorifies the ability of God to answer prayer.
Closing that memorable prayer, so far-reaching in its petitions, and setting
forth the very deepest religious experience, he declares that "God
is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think."
He makes prayer all-inclusive, comprehending all things, great and small.
Where is no time nor place which prayer does not cover and sanctify. All
things in earth and in heaven, everything for time and for eternity, all
are embraced in prayer. Nothing is too great and nothing is too small to
be subject of prayer. Prayer reaches down to the least things of life and
includes the greatest things which concern us.
"If pain afflict or wrongs oppress,
If cares distract, or fears dismay;
If guilt deject, or sin distress,
In every case still watch and pray."
One of the most important, far-reaching, peace-giving, necessary and practical
prayer possibilities we have in Paul's words in Philippians, chapter four,
dealing with prayer as a cure for undue care:
"Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer
and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto
God." "And the peace of God which passeth all understanding
shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
"Cares" are the epidemic evil of mankind. They are universal in
their reach. They belong to man in his fallen condition. The predisposition
to undue anxiety is the natural result of sin. Care comes in all shapes,
at all times, and from all sources. It comes to all of every age and station.
There are the cares of the home circle, from which there is no escape save
in prayer. There are the cares of business, the cares of poverty, and the
cares of riches. Ours is an anxious world, and ours is an anxious race.
The caution of Paul is well addressed, "In nothing be anxious."
This is the Divine injunction, and that we might be able to live above anxiety
and freed from undue care, "In everything, by prayer and supplication,
let your requests be made known unto God." This is the divinely prescribed
remedy for all anxious cares, for all worry, for all inward fretting.
The word, "careful," means to be drawn in different directions,
distraction, anxious, disturbed, annoyed in spirit. Jesus had warned against
this very thing in the Sermon on the Mount, where He had earnestly urged
His disciples, "Take no thought for the morrow," in things concerning
the needs of the body. He was endeavouring to show them the true secret
of a quiet mind, freed from anxiety and unnecessary care about food and
raiment. To-morrow's evils were not to be considered. He was simply teaching
the same lesson found in Psalm 37: 3, "Trust in the Lord, and do good;
so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed." In
cautioning against the fears of to-morrow's prospective evils, and the material
wants of the body, our Lord was teaching the great lesson of an implicit
and childlike confidence in God. "Commit thy way unto the Lord: trust
also in him, and he shall bring it to pass." "'Day
by day,' the promise reads,
Daily strength for daily needs
Cast foreboding fears away;
Take the manna of to-day."
Paul's direction is very specific, "Be careful for nothing." Be
careful for not one thing. Be careful for not anything, for any condition,
chance or happening. Be troubled about not anything which creates one disturbing
anxiety. Have a mind freed from all anxieties, all cares, all fretting,
and all worries. Cares divide, distract, bewilder, and destroy unity, forces
and quietness of mind. Cares are fatal to weak piety and are enfeebling
to strong piety.
What great need to guard against them and learn the one secret of their
cure, even prayer! What boundless possibilities there are in prayer to remedy
the situation of mind of which Paul is speaking! Prayer over everything
can quiet every distraction, hush every anxiety, and lift every care from
care-enslaved lives and from care-bewildered hearts. The prayer specific
is the perfect cure for all ills of this character which belong to anxieties,
cares and worries. Only prayer in everything can drive dull care away, relieve
of unnecessary heart burdens, and save from the besetting sin of worrying
over things which we cannot help.
Only prayer can bring into the heart and mind the "peace which passeth
all understanding," and keep mind and heart at ease, free from carking
care. Oh, the needless heart burdens borne by fretting Christians! How few
know the real secret of a happy Christian life, filled with perfect peace,
hid from the storms and billows of a fretting careworn life! Prayer has
a possibility of saving us from "carefulness," the bane of human
lives. Paul in writing to the Corinthians says, "I would have you without
carefulness," and this is the will of God. Prayer has the ability to
do this very thing. "Casting all your care on him, for he careth for
you," is the way Peter puts it, while the Psalmist says, "Fret
not thyself in any wise to do evil." Oh, the blessedness of a heart
at ease from all inward care, exempt from undue anxiety, in the enjoyment
of the peace of God which passeth all understanding! Paul's injunction which
includes both God's promise and His purpose, and which immediately precedes
his entreaty to be "careful for nothing," reads on this wise:
"Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice.
"Let your moderation be made known to all men. The Lord is at hand."
In a world filled with cares of every kind, where temptation is the rule,
where there are so many things to try us, how is it possible to rejoice
always? We look at the naked, dry command, and we accept it and reverence
it as the Word of God, but no joy comes. How are we to let our moderation,
our mildness, and our gentleness be universally and always known? We resolve
to be benign and gentle. We remember the nearness of the Lord, but still
we are hasty, quick, hard and salty. We listen to the Divine charge, "Be
careful for nothing," yet still we are anxious, care-worn, care-eaten,
and care-tossed. How can we fulfill the Divine word, so sweet and so large
in promise, so beautiful in the eye, and yet so far from being realized?
How can we enter upon the rich patrimony of being true, honest, just, pure,
and possess lovely things?
The recipe is infallible, the remedy is universal, and the cure is unfailing.
It is found in the words which we have so often herein referred to of Paul:
"Be careful for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication,
with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." This
joyous, care-free, peaceful experience bringing the believer into a joyousness,
living simply by faith day by day, is the will of God. Writing to the Thessalonians,
Paul tells them: "Rejoice evermore; pray without ceasing, and in everything
give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."
So that not only is it God's will that we should find full deliverance from
all care and undue anxiety, but He has ordained prayer as the means by which
we can reach that happy state of heart.
The Revised Version makes some changes in the passage of Paul, about which
we have been speaking. The reading there is" In nothing be anxious,"
and "the peace of God shall guard your hearts and your minds."
And Paul puts the antecedent in the air of prayer, which is "Rejoice
in the Lord always." That is, be always glad in the Lord, and be happy
with Him. And that you may thus be happy, "Be careful for nothing."
This rejoicing is the doorway for prayer, and its pathway too. The sunshine
and buoyancy of joy in the Lord are the strength and boldness of prayer,
the peans of its victory. "Moderation" makes the rainbow of prayer.
The word means mildness, fairness, gentleness, sweet reasonableness. The
Revised Version changes it to "forbearance," with the margin reading
"gentleness." What rare ingredients and beautiful colourings!
These are colourings and ingredients which make a strong and beautiful character
and a wide and positive reputation. A rejoicing, gentle spirit, positive
in reputation, is well fitted for prayer, rid of the distractions and unrest
of care. |