Prayer is communion with God. It unites the one who truly prays with Infinite Power, with the Godhead, in all that that fellowship and comradeship can ever mean. It is mightier than riches; it is stronger than kingship and the sword. It is the one instrument that lifts the man of God above all who know not the Divine One. Prayer was taught by the Saviour. He, of course, instructed His disciples in many things, which they learned as He taught others or as He talked with them. But when it came to prayer, He told them how not to pray, and then followed with the proper manner of prayer. "After this manner pray," said He, thus introducing the greatest prayer ever uttered. This Lord's prayer is all-embracing: it covers man's utmost need. It is a pattern prayer, which has no parallel. Around it, all may shape their prayers, for in it all worship and praise, all human need, and all human relationship, all trust for today and faith for the future, are fully comprehended.
Prayer is a duty. It is commanded by our great Teacher. "He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint." Luke 18:1. "Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man." Luke 21:36.
In his epistles Paul often refers to prayer as a Christian duty. "Pray without ceasing." "I will therefore that men pray everywhere." "Brethren, pray for us." How can one fulfill the word of God by service without prayer?
Prayer, too, is the greatest privilege granted to the Christian. There are many privileges, it is true, but of them all prayer stands foremost. For man to be able to commune with God is something beyond what we can easily conceive. With the utmost difficulty we secure an appointment to talk with our superiors here on earth. The inferior in authority Must wait until his superior consents to meet him. Not so with God. His ear is ever open. The feeblest cry of His children, uttered in sincerity and faith, has immediate access to His attention. "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles." Ps. 34:6.
As prayer is a great privilege, so is its neglect a great weakness. A prayerless man is filled with doubts, suspicions, jealousies, and evil surmisings. He may serve and even preach, but his work will lack power—the power which only prayer would give. His own heart is filled with doubts about God and His love and mercy. The love of Christ dies in the heart of the nonpraying preacher, and he becomes cold, critical, and un-Christlike.
Prayer illuminates the soul, vivifies the sermon, and sets on fire the inner man when one speaks in the name of the Lord. The audience is conscious of the preacher's power, and knows at once whether the preacher has been with Christ, or simply in his own library. The real sermon is the product of the closet. Therein lies the secret of the success of every sermon used by the Lord to convert sinners.
Said the great English revivalist, Spurgeon:
"The preacher is above all others distinguished as a man of prayer. He prays more than an ordinary Christian, 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. All our libraries and studies are mere emptiness compared with our closets."—"Power Through Prayer," pp. 30, 31.
Doctor Judson gives this advice on prayer:
"Arrange thy affairs, if possible, so that thou canst leisurely devote two or three hours every day, not merely to devotional exercises, but to the very act of secret prayer and communion with God. Begin the day by arising after midnight and devoting some time amid the silence and darkness of the night to this sacred work."
All great spiritual leaders have been men of prayer. On their knees they have fought their battles with the hosts of evil and won their victories. On our knees we must win our battles with all carnal desires. Moral victories are won by prayer as in no other way. "Chinese Gordon" wrote his sister how great was his victory through prayer over the evil habit of backbiting. He told how he loved the wicked thing and had no desire to stop. But that he besought God to create within him hatred for that thing, and he found victory in prayer.
John Livingstone spent a night in prayer with other Christians. The next day, June 21, 1630, he so preached under the power of the Holy Spirit at the Kirk of Shotts, that 500 persons dated their conversion or a new experience from that meeting.
Of all men we as workers ought to be men of prayer. The times demand it, and the greatness of the work committed to us cannot be done without it. To this end we are exhorted to earnest prayer in these words:
"Prayer is the breath of the soul. It is the secret of spiritual power. No other means of grace can be substituted, and the health of the soul be preserved. Prayer brings the heart into immediate contact with the Wellspring of life, and strengthens the sinew and muscle of the religious experience. Neglect the exercise of prayer, or engage in prayer spasmodically, now and then, as seems convenient, and you lose your hold on God. The spiritual faculties lose their vitality, the religious experience lacks health and vigor.
"It is only at the altar of God that we can kindle our tapers with divine fire. It is only the divine light that will reveal the littleness, the incompetence, of human ability, and give clear views of the perfection and purity of Christ. It is only as we behold Jesus that we desire to be like Him, only as we view His righteousness that we hunger and thirst to possess it; and it is only as we ask in earnest prayer, that God will grant us our heart's desire.
"God's messengers must tarry long with Him, if they would have success in their work. The story is told of an old Lancashire woman who was listening to the reasons that her neighbors gave for their minister's success. They spoke of his gifts, of his style of address, of his manners. 'Nay,' said the old woman, 'I will tell you what it is. Your man is very thick with the Almighty.'
"When men are as devoted as Elijah was and possess the faith that he had, God will reveal Himself as He did then. When men plead with the Lord as did Jacob, the results that were seen then will again be seen. Power will come from God in answer to the prayer of faith."—"Gospel Workers," pp. 254, 255.
I. H. E.
