Part 8 (1/2)
2 Cor. i. 10, 11: ”In whom we trust that He will yet deliver us, _ye also helping together by prayer_ for us.” Eph. vi. 18, 19: ”Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, for all saints; _and for me_ that I may open my mouth boldly, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.” Phil. i. 19: ”I know that this (trouble) shall turn to my salvation, _through your prayer_, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” Col. iv. 2, 3, 4: ”Continue in prayer; withal also _praying for us_, that G.o.d would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ: that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak.” 1 Thess. v. 25: ”Brethren, pray for us.” Philem. 22: ”I trust that through your prayers I shall be given to you.”
We saw how Christ prayed, and taught His disciples to pray. We see how Paul prayed, and taught the churches to pray. As the Master, so the servant calls us to believe and to prove that prayer is the power alike of the ministry and the Church. Of his faith we have a summary in these remarkable words concerning something that caused him grief: ”This shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” As much as he looked to his Lord in heaven did he look to his brethren on earth, to secure the supply of that Spirit for him.
The Spirit from heaven and prayer on earth were to him, as to the twelve after Pentecost, inseparably linked. We speak often of apostolic zeal and devotion and power--may G.o.d give us a revival of apostolic prayer.
Let me once again ask the question: Does the work of intercession take the place in the Church it ought to have? Is it a thing commonly understood in the Lord's work, that everything depends upon getting from G.o.d that ”supply of the Spirit of Christ” for and in ourselves that can give our work its real power to bless. This is Christ's Divine order for all work, His own and that of His servants; this is the order Paul followed: first come every day, as having nothing, and receive from G.o.d ”the supply of the Spirit” in intercession--then go and impart what has come to thee from heaven.
In all His instructions, our Lord Jesus spake much oftener to His disciples about their praying than their preaching. In the farewell discourse, He said little about preaching, but much about the Holy Spirit, and their asking whatsoever they would in His Name. If we are to return to this life of the first apostles and of Paul, and really accept the truth every day--my first work, my only strength is intercession, to secure the power of G.o.d on the souls entrusted to me--we must have the courage to confess past sin, and to believe that there is deliverance.
To break through old habits, to resist the clamour of pressing duties that have always had their way, to make every other call subordinate to this one, whether others approve or not, will not be easy at first. But the men or women who are faithful will not only have a reward themselves, but become benefactors to their brethren. ”Thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.”
But is it really possible? Can it indeed be that those who have never been able to face, much less to overcome the difficulty, can yet become mighty in prayer? Tell me, was it really possible for Jacob to become Israel--a prince who prevailed with G.o.d? It was. The things that are impossible with men are possible with G.o.d. Have you not in very deed received from the Father, as the great fruit of Christ's redemption, the Spirit of supplication, the Spirit of intercession? Just pause and think what that means. And will you still doubt whether G.o.d is able to make you ”strivers with G.o.d,” princes who prevail with Him? Oh, let us banish all fear, and in faith claim the grace for which we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, the grace of supplication, the grace of intercession.
Let us quietly, perseveringly believe that He lives in us, and will enable us to do our work. Let us in faith not fear to accept and yield to the great truth that intercession, as it is the great work of the King on the throne, _is the great work of His servants on earth_. We have the Holy Spirit, who brings the Christ-life into our hearts, to fit us for this work. Let us at once begin and stir up the gift within us.
As we set aside each day our time for intercession, and count upon the Spirit's enabling power, the confidence will grow that we can, in our measure, follow Paul even as he followed Christ.
A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
CHAPTER XIV
G.o.d seeks Intercessors
”I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night. Ye that are the Lord's remembrancers, keep not silence, and give Him no rest till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.”--ISA. lxii. 6, 7.
”And He saw that there was _no man_, and wondered that there was _no intercessor_.”--ISA. lix. 16.
”And I looked, and there was _none to help_; and I wondered, and there was _none to uphold_.”--ISA. lxiii. 5.
”There is _none_ that calleth upon Thy name, that stirreth himself to take hold of Thee.”--ISA. lxiv. 7.
”And I sought for a man that should stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but _I found none_.”--EZEK.
xxii. 30.
”I chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it you.”--JOHN xv. 16.
In the study of the starry heavens, how much depends upon a due apprehension of magnitudes. Without some sense of the size of the heavenly bodies, that appear so small to the eye, and yet are so great, and of the almost illimitable extent of the regions in which they move, though they appear so near and so familiar, there can be no true knowledge of the heavenly world or its relation to this earth. It is even so with the spiritual heavens, and the heavenly life in which we are called to live. It is specially so in the life of intercession, that most wondrous intercourse between heaven and earth. Everything depends upon the due apprehension of magnitudes.
Just think of the three that come first: There is a world, with its needs entirely dependent on and waiting to be helped by intercession; there is a G.o.d in heaven, with His all-sufficient supply for all those needs, waiting to be asked; there is a Church, with its wondrous calling and its sure promises, waiting to be roused to a sense of its wondrous responsibility and power.
_G.o.d seeks intercessors._--There is a world with its peris.h.i.+ng millions, with intercession as its only hope. How much of love and work is comparatively vain, because there is so little intercession. A thousand millions living as if there never had been a Son of G.o.d to die for them. Thirty millions every year pa.s.sing into the outer darkness without hope. Fifty millions bearing the Christian name, and the great majority living in utter ignorance or indifference. Millions of feeble, sickly Christians; thousands of wearied workers, who could be blessed by intercession, could help themselves to become mighty in intercession.
Churches and missions sacrificing life and labour often with little result, for lack of intercession. Souls, each one worth more than worlds, worth nothing less than the price paid for them in Christ's blood, and within reach of the power that can be won by intercession. We surely have no conception of the magnitude of the work to be done by G.o.d's intercessors, or we should cry to G.o.d above everything to give from heaven the spirit of intercession.
_G.o.d seeks intercessors._--There is a G.o.d of glory able to meet all these needs. We are told that He delights in mercy, that He waits to be gracious, that He longs to pour out His blessing; that the love that gave the Son to death is the measure of the love that each moment hovers over every human being. And yet He does not help. And there they perish, a million a month in China alone, and it is as if G.o.d does not move. If He does so love and long to bless, there must be some inscrutable reason for His holding back. What can it be? Scripture says, because of your unbelief. It is the faithlessness and consequent unfaithfulness of G.o.d's people. He has taken them up into partners.h.i.+p with Himself; He has honoured them, and bound Himself, by making their prayers one of the standard measures of the working of His power. Lack of intercession is one of the chief causes of lack of blessing. Oh, that we would turn eye and heart from everything else and fix them upon this G.o.d who hears prayer, until the magnificence of His promises, and His power, and His purpose of love overwhelmed us! How our whole life and heart would become intercession.
_G.o.d seeks intercessors._--There is a third magnitude to which our eyes must be opened: the wondrous privilege and power of the intercessors.
There is a false humility, which makes a great virtue of self-depreciation, because it has never seen its utter nothingness. If it knew that, it would never apologise for its feebleness, but glory in its utter weakness, as the one condition of Christ's power resting on it. It would judge of itself, its power and influence before G.o.d in prayer, as little by what it sees or feels, as we judge of the size of the sun or stars by what the eye can see. Faith sees man created in G.o.d's image and likeness to be G.o.d's representative in this world and have dominion over it. Faith sees man redeemed and lifted into union with Christ, abiding in Him, identified with Him, and clothed with His power in intercession. Faith sees the Holy Spirit dwelling and praying in the heart, making, in our sighings, intercession according to G.o.d.
Faith sees the intercession of the saints to be part of the life of the Holy Trinity--the believer as G.o.d's child asking of the Father, in the Son, through the Spirit. Faith sees something of the Divine fitness and beauty of this scheme of salvation through intercession, wakens the soul to a consciousness of its wondrous destiny, and girds it with strength for the blessed self-sacrifice it calls to.