You know the value of prayer: it is precious beyond all
price. Never, never neglect it - Sir Thomas Buxton Prayer is the first
thing, the second thing, the third thing necessary to a minister. Pray,
then, my dear brother: pray, pray, pray -- Edward Payson
PRAYER, in the preacher's life, in the preacher's study, in the preacher's
pulpit, must be a conspicuous and an all-impregnating force and an all-coloring
ingredient. It must play no secondary part, be no mere coating. To him it
is given to be with his Lord "all night in prayer." The preacher,
to train himself in self-denying prayer, is charged to look to his Master,
who, "rising up a great while before day, went out, and departed into
a solitary place, and there prayed." The preacher's study ought to
be a closet, a Bethel, an altar, a vision, and a ladder, that every thought
might ascend heavenward ere it went manward; that every part of the sermon
might be scented by the air of heaven and made serious, because God was
in the study.
As the engine never moves until the fire is kindled, so preaching, with
all its machinery, perfection, and polish, is at a dead standstill, as far
as spiritual results are concerned, till prayer has kindled and created
the steam. The texture, fineness, and strength of the sermon is as so much
rubbish unless the mighty impulse of prayer is in it, through it, and behind
it. The preacher must, by prayer, put God in the sermon. The preacher must,
by prayer, move God toward the people before he can move the people to God
by his words. The preacher must have had audience and ready access to God
before he can have access to the people. An open way to God for the preacher
is the surest pledge of an open way to the people.
It is necessary to iterate and reiterate that prayer, as a mere habit, as
a performance gone through by routine or in a professional way, is a dead
and rotten thing. Such praying has no connection with the praying for which
we plead. We are stressing true praying, which engages and sets on fire
every high element of the preacher's being -- prayer which is born of vital
oneness with Christ and the fullness of the Holy Ghost, which springs from
the deep, overflowing fountains of tender compassion, deathless solicitude
for man's eternal good; a consuming zeal for the glory of God; a thorough
conviction of the preacher's difficult and delicate work and of the imperative
need of God's mightiest help. Praying grounded on these solemn and profound
convictions is the only true praying. Preaching backed by such praying is
the only preaching which sows the seeds of eternal life in human hearts
and builds men up for heaven.
It is true that there may be popular preaching, pleasant preaching, taking
preaching, preaching of much intellectual, literary, and brainy force, with
its measure and form of good, with little or no praying; but the preaching
which secures God's end in preaching must be born of prayer from text to
exordium, delivered with the energy and spirit of prayer, followed and made
to germinate, and kept in vital force in the hearts of the hearers by the
preacher's prayers, long after the occasion has past.
We may excuse the spiritual poverty of our preaching in many ways, but the
true secret will be found in the lack of urgent prayer for God's presence
in the power of the Holy Spirit. There are preachers innumerable who can
deliver masterful sermons after their order; but the effects are short-lived
and do not enter as a factor at all into the regions of the spirit where
the fearful war between God and Satan, heaven and hell, is being waged because
they are not made powerfully militant and spiritually victorious by prayer.
The preachers who gain mighty results for God are the men who have prevailed
in their pleadings with God ere venturing to plead with men. The preachers
who are the mightiest in their closets with God are the mightiest in their
pulpits with men.
Preachers are human folks, and are exposed to and often caught by the strong
driftings of human currents. Praying is spiritual work; and human nature
does not like taxing, spiritual work. Human nature wants to sail to heaven
under a favoring breeze, a full, smooth sea. Prayer is humbling work. It
abases intellect and pride, crucifies vainglory, and signs our spiritual
bankruptcy, and all these are hard for flesh and blood to bear. It is easier
not to pray than to bear them. So we come to one of the crying evils of
these times, maybe of all times -- little or no praying. Of these two evils,
perhaps little praying is worse than no praying. Little praying is a kind
of make-believe, a salvo for the conscience, a farce and a delusion.
The little estimate we put on prayer is evident from the little time we
give to it. The time given to prayer by the average preacher scarcely counts
in the sum of the daily aggregate. Not infrequently the preacher's only
praying is by his bedside in his nightdress, ready for bed and soon in it,
with, perchance the addition of a few hasty snatches of prayer ere he is
dressed in the morning. How feeble, vain, and little is such praying compared
with the time and energy devoted to praying by holy men in and out of the
Bible! How poor and mean our petty, childish praying is beside the habits
of the true men of God in all ages! To men who think praying their main
business and devote time to it according to this high estimate of its importance
does God commit the keys of his kingdom, and by them does he work his spiritual
wonders in this world. Great praying is the sign and seal of God's great
leaders and the earnest of the conquering forces with which God will crown
their labors.
The preacher is commissioned to pray as well as to preach. His mission is
incomplete if he does not do both well. The preacher may speak with all
the eloquence of men and of angels; but unless he can pray with a faith
which draws all heaven to his aid, his preaching will be "as sounding
brass or a tinkling cymbal" for permanent God-honoring, soul-saving
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