In his "Soldier's Pocket Book," Lord Wolseley
says if a young officer wishes to get on, he must volunteer for the most
hazardous duties and take every possible chance of risking his life. It
was a spirit and courage like that which was shown in the service of God
by a good soldier of Jesus Christ named John McKenzie who died a few years
ago. One evening when he was a lad and eager for work in the Foreign Mission
field he knelt down at the foot of a tree in the Ladies' Walk on the banks
of the Lossie at Elgin and offered up this prayer: "O Lord send me
to the darkest spot on earth." And God heard him and sent him to
South Africa where he laboured many years first under the London Missionary
Society and then under the British Government as the first Resident Commissioner
among the natives of Bechuanaland. -- J.O. STRUTHERS
IT is answered prayer which brings praying out of the realm of dry, dead
things, and makes praying a thing of life and power. It is the answer to
prayer which brings things to pass, changes the natural trend of things,
and orders all things according to the will of God. It is the answer to
prayer which takes praying out of the regions of fanaticism, and saves it
from being Eutopian, or from being merely fanciful. It is the answer to
prayer which makes praying a power for God and for man, and makes praying
real and divine. Unanswered prayers are training schools for unbelief, an
imposition and a nuisance, an impertinence to God and to man.
Answers to prayer are the only surety that we have prayed aright. What marvellous
power there is in prayer! What untold miracles it works in this world! What
untold benefits to men does it secure to those who pray! Why is it that
the average prayer by the million goes a begging for an answer? The millions
of unanswered prayers are not to be solved by the mystery of God's will.
We are not the sport of His sovereign power. He is not playing at "make-believe"
in His marvellous promises to answer prayer. The whole explanation is found
in our wrong praying. "We ask and receive not because we ask amiss."
If all unanswered prayers were dumped into the ocean, they would come very
near filling it. Child of God, can you pray? Are your prayers answered?
If not, why not? Answered prayer is the proof of your real praying.
The efficacy of prayer from a Bible standpoint lies solely in the answer
to prayer. The benefit of prayer has been well and popularly maximized by
the saying, "It moves the arm which moves the universe." To get
unquestioned answers to prayer is not only important as to the satisfying
of our desires, but is the evidence of our abiding in Christ. It becomes
more important still. The mere act of praying is no test of our relation
to God. The act of praying may be a real dead performance. It may be the
routine of habit. But to pray and receive clear answers, not once or twice,
but daily, this is the sure test, and is the gracious point of our vital
connection with Jesus Christ. Read our Lord's words in this connection:
"If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall
ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."
To God and to man, the answer to prayer is the all-important part of our
praying. The answer to prayer, direct and unmistakable, is the evidence
of God's being. It proves that God lives, that there is a God, an intelligent
being, who is interested in His creatures, and who listens to them when
they approach Him in prayer. There is no proof so clear and demonstrative
that God exists than prayer and its answer. This was Elijah's plea: "Hear
me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God."
The answer to prayer is the part of prayer which glorifies God. Unanswered
prayers are dumb oracles which leave the praying ones in darkness, doubt
and bewilderment, and which carry no conviction to the unbeliever. It is
not the act or the attitude of praying which gives efficacy to prayer. It
is not abject prostration of the body before God, the vehement or quiet
utterance to God, the exquisite beauty and poetry of the diction of our
prayers, which do the deed. It is not the marvellous array of argument and
eloquence in praying which makes prayer effectual. Not one or all of these
are the things which glorify God. It is the answer which brings glory to
His Name.
Elijah might have prayed on Carmel's heights till this good day with all
the fire and energy of his soul, and if no answer had been given, no glory
would have come to God. Peter might have shut himself up with Dorcas' dead
body till he himself died on his knees, and if no answer had come, no glory
to God nor good to man would have followed, but only doubt, blight and dismay.
Answer to prayer is the convincing proof of our right relations to God.
Jesus said at the grave of Lazarus:
"Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
"And I knew that thou hearest me always, but because of the people
that stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me."
The answer of His prayer was the proof of His mission from God, as the answer
to Elijah's prayer was made to the woman whose son he raised to life. She
said, "Now by this I know that thou art a man of God." He is highest
in the favour of God who has the readiest access and the greatest number
of answers to prayer from Almighty God.
Prayer ascends to God by an invariable law, even by more than law, by the
will, the promise and the presence of a personal God. The answer comes back
to earth by all the promise, the truth, the power and the love of God. Not
to be concerned about the answer to prayer is not to pray. What a world
of waste there is in praying. What myriads of prayers have been offered
for which no answer is returned, no answer longed for, and no answer is
expected! We have been nurturing a false faith and hiding the shame of our
loss and inability to pray, by the false, comforting plea that God does
not answer directly or objectively, but indirectly and subjectively. We
have persuaded ourselves that by some kind of hocus pocus of which we are
wholly unconscious in its process and its results, we have been made better.
Conscious that God has not answered us directly, we have solaced ourselves
with the delusive unction that God has in some impalpable way, and with
unknown results, given us something better. Or we have comforted and nurtured
our spiritual sloth by saying that it is not God's will to give it to us.
Faith teaches God's praying ones that it is God's will to answer prayer.
God answers all prayers and every prayer of His true children who truly
pray.
"Prayer makes the darkened cloud withdraw,
Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw;
Gives exercise to faith and love,
Brings every blessing from above."
The emphasis in the Scriptures is always given to the answer to prayer.
All things from God are given in answer to prayer. God Himself, His presence,
His gifts and His grace, one and all, are secured by prayer. The medium
by which God communicates with men is prayer. The most real thing in prayer,
its very essential end, is the answer it secures. The mere repetition of
words in prayer, the counting of beads, the multiplying mere words of prayer,
as works of supererogation, as if there was virtue in the number of prayers
to avail, is a vain delusion, an empty thing, a useless service. Prayer
looks directly to securing an answer.
This is its design. It has no other end in view. Communion with God of course
is in prayer. There is sweet fellowship there with our God through His Holy
Spirit. Enjoyment of God there is in praying, sweet, rich and strong. The
graces of the Spirit in the inner soul are nurtured by prayer, kept alive
and promoted in their growth by this spiritual exercise. But not one nor
all of these benefits of prayer have in them the essential end of prayer.
The divinely appointed channel through which all good and all grace flows
to our souls and bodies is prayer.
"Prayer is appointed to convey The blessings God designs
to give."
Prayer is divinely ordained as the means by which all temporal and spiritual
good are gained to us. Prayer is not an end in itself. It is not something
done to be rested in, something we have done, about which we are to congratulate
ourselves. It is a means to an end. It is something we do which brings us
something in return, without which the praying is valueless. Prayer always
aims at securing an answer. We are rich and strong, good and holy, beneficent
and benignant, by answered prayer. It is not the mere performance, the attitude,
nor the words of prayer, which bring benefit to us, but it is the answer
sent direct from heaven. Conscious, real answers to prayer bring real good
to us.
This is not praying merely for self, or simply for selfish ends. The selfish
character cannot exist when the prayer conditions are fulfilled. It is by
these answered prayers that human nature is enriched. The answered prayer
brings us into constant and conscious communion with God, awakens and enlarges
gratitude, and excites the melody and lofty inspiration of praise.
Answered prayer is the mark of God in our praying. It is the exchange with
heaven, and it establishes and realizes a relationship with the unseen.
We give our prayers in exchange for the Divine blessing. God accepts our
prayers through the atoning blood and gives Himself, His presence and His
grace in return. All holy affections are affected by answered prayers. By
the answers to prayer all holy principles are matured, and faith, love and
hope have their enrichment by answered prayer. The answer is found in all
true praying. The answer is in prayer strongly as an aim, a desire expressed,
and its expectation and realization give importunity and realization to
prayer. It is the fact of the answer which makes the prayer, and which enters
into its very being.
To seek no answer to prayer takes the desire, the aim, and the heart out
of prayer. It makes praying a dead, stockish thing, fit only for dumb idols.
It is the answer which brings praying into Bible regions, and makes it a
desire realized, a pursuit, an interest, that clothes it with flesh and
blood, and makes it a prayer, throbbing with all the true life of prayer,
affluent with all the paternal relations of giving and receiving, of asking
and answering. God holds all good in His own hands. That good comes to us
through our Lord Jesus Christ because of His all atoning merits, by asking
it in His name. The only and the sole command in which all the others of
its class belong, is "Ask, seek, knock."
And the one and sole promise is its counterpart, its necessary equivalent
and results: "It shall be given -- ye shall find -- it shall be opened
unto you." God is so much involved in prayer and its hearing and answering,
that all of His attributes and His whole being are centered in that great
fact. It distinguishes Him as peculiarly beneficent, wonderfully good, and
powerfully attractive in His nature. "O thou that hearest prayer! To
thee shall all flesh come." "Faithful, O Lord,
Thy mercies are A rock that cannot move;
A thousand promises declare
Thy constancy of love."
Not only does the Word of God stand surety for the answer to prayer, but
all the attributes of God conspire to the same end. God's veracity is at
stake in the engagements to answer prayer. His wisdom, His truthfulness
and His goodness are involved. God's infinite and inflexible rectitude is
pledged to the great end of answering the prayers of those who call upon
Him in time of need. Justice and mercy blend into oneness to secure the
answer to prayer. It is significant that the very justice of God comes into
play and stands hard by God's faithfulness in the strong promise God makes
of the pardon of sins and of cleansing from sin's pollutions:
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
God's kingly relation to man, with all of its authority, unites with the
fatherly relation and with all of its tenderness to secure the answer to
prayer. Our Lord Jesus Christ is most fully committed to the answer of prayer.
"Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father
may be glorified in the Son." How well assured the answer to prayer
is, when that answer is to glorify God the Father! And how eager Jesus Christ
is to glorify His Father in heaven! So eager is He to answer prayer which
always and everywhere brings glory to the Father, that no prayer offered
in His name is denied or overlooked by Him. Says our Lord Jesus Christ again,
giving fresh assurance to our faith, "If ye shall ask anything in my
name, I will do it." So says He once more, "Ask what ye will,
and it shall be done unto you." "Come, my soul, thy
suit prepare,
Jesus loves to answer prayer;
He Himself has bid thee pray,
Therefore will not say thee nay." |