Let us often look at Brainerd in the woods of America
pouring out his very soul before God for the perishing heathen without
whose salvation nothing could make him happy. Prayer -- secret fervent
believing prayer -- lies at the root of all personal godliness. A competent
knowledge of the language where a missionary lives, a mild and winning
temper, a heart given up to God in closet religion -- these, these are
the attainments which, more than all knowledge, or all other gifts, will
fit us to become the instruments of God in the great work of human redemption.
-- Carrey's Brotherhood, Serampore
THERE are two extreme tendencies in the ministry. The one is to shut itself
out from intercourse with the people. The monk, the hermit were illustrations
of this; they shut themselves out from men to be more with God. They failed,
of course. Our being with God is of use only as we expend its priceless
benefits on men. This age, neither with preacher nor with people, is much
intent on God. Our hankering is not that way. We shut ourselves to our study,
we become students, bookworms, Bible worms, sermon makers, noted for literature,
thought, and sermons; but the people and God, where are they? Out of heart,
out of mind. Preachers who are great thinkers, great students must be the
greatest of prayers, or else they will be the greatest of backsliders, heartless
professionals, rationalistic, less than the least of preachers in God's
estimate.
The other tendency is to thoroughly popularize the ministry. He is no longer
God's man, but a man of affairs, of the people. He prays not, because his
mission is to the people. If he can move the people, create an interest,
a sensation in favor of religion, an interest in Church work -- he is satisfied.
His personal relation to God is no factor in his work. Prayer has little
or no place in his plans. The disaster and ruin of such a ministry cannot
be computed by earthly arithmetic. What the preacher is in prayer to God,
for himself, for his people, so is his power for real good to men, so is
his true fruitfulness, his true fidelity to God, to man, for time, for eternity.
It is impossible for the preacher to keep his spirit in harmony with the
divine nature of his high calling without much prayer. That the preacher
by dint of duty and laborious fidelity to the work and routine of the ministry
can keep himself in trim and fitness is a serious mistake. Even sermon-making,
incessant and taxing as an art, as a duty, as a work, or as a pleasure,
will engross and harden, will estrange the heart, by neglect of prayer,
from God. The scientist loses God in nature. The preacher may lose God in
his sermon.
Prayer freshens the heart of the preacher, keeps it in tune with God and
in sympathy with the people, lifts his ministry out of the chilly air of
a profession, fructifies routine and moves every wheel with the facility
and power of a divine unction.
Mr. Spurgeon says: "Of course the preacher is above all others distinguished
as a man of prayer. He prays as an ordinary Christian, else he were a hypocrite.
He prays more than ordinary Christians, else he were disqualified for the
office he has undertaken. If you as ministers are not very prayerful, you
are to be pitied. If you become lax in sacred devotion, not only will you
need to be pitied but your people also, and the day cometh in which you
shall be ashamed and confounded. All our libraries and studies are mere
emptiness compared with our closets. Our seasons of fasting and prayer at
the Tabernacle have been high days indeed; never has heaven's gate stood
wider; never have our hearts been nearer the central Glory."
The praying which makes a prayerful ministry is not a little praying put
in as we put flavor to give it a pleasant smack, but the praying must be
in the body, and form the blood and bones. Prayer is no petty duty, put
into a corner; no piecemeal performance made out of the fragments of time
which have been snatched from business and other engagements of life; but
it means that the best of our time, the heart of our time and strength must
be given. It does not mean the closet absorbed in the study or swallowed
up in the activities of ministerial duties; but it means the closet first,
the study and activities second, both study and activities freshened and
made efficient by the closet. Prayer that affects one's ministry must give
tone to one's life. The praying which gives color and bent to character
is no pleasant, hurried pastime. It must enter as strongly into the heart
and life as Christ's "strong crying and tears" did; must draw
out the soul into an agony of desire as Paul's did; must be an inwrought
fire and force like the "effectual, fervent prayer" of James;
must be of that quality which, when put into the golden censer and incensed
before God, works mighty spiritual throes and revolutions.
Prayer is not a little habit pinned on to us while we were tied to our mother's
apron strings; neither is it a little decent quarter of a minute's grace
said over an hour's dinner, but it is a most serious work of our most serious
years. It engages more of time and appetite than our longest dinings or
richest feasts. The prayer that makes much of our preaching must be made
much of. The character of our praying will determine the character of our
preaching. Light praying will make light preaching. Prayer makes preaching
strong, gives it unction, and makes it stick. In every ministry weighty
for good, prayer has always been a serious business.
The preacher must be preeminently a man of prayer. His heart must graduate
in the school of prayer. In the school of prayer only can the heart learn
to preach. No learning can make up for the failure to pray. No earnestness,
no diligence, no study, no gifts will supply its lack.
Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater
still. He will never talk well and with real success to men for God who
has not learned well how to talk to God for men. More than this, prayerless
words in the pulpit and out of it are deadening words. |