VIII. Prayer -- Facts and History
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.