4. THE SCRIPTURES AND
PRAYER
A prayerless Christian is a contradiction in terms. Just as a still-born
child is a dead one, so a professing believer who does not pray is devoid of
spiritual life. Prayer is the breath of the new nature in the saint, as the
Word of God is its food. When the Lord would assure the Damascus disciple
that Saul of Tarsus had been truly converted, He told him, "Behold, he
prays" (Acts 9:11). On many occasions had that self-righteous Pharisee bowed
his knees before God and gone through his "devotions," but this was the
first time he had ever really prayed. This important distinction needs
emphasizing in this day of powerless forms (2 Tim. 3:5). They who content
themselves with formal addresses to God know Him not; for "the spirit of
grace and supplications" (Zech. 12:10) are never separated. God has no dumb
children in His regenerated family: "Shall not God avenge his own elect,
which cry day and night unto Him?" (Luke 18:7). Yes, "cry" unto Him, not
merely "say" their prayers.
But will the reader be surprised when the writer declares it is his
deepening conviction that, probably, the Lord’s own people sin more in their
efforts to pray than in connection with any other thing they engage in? What
hypocrisy there is, where there should be reality! What presumptuous
demandings, where there should be submissiveness! What formality, where
there should be brokenness of heart! How little we really feel the sins we
confess, and what little sense of deep need for the mercies we seek! And
even where God grants a measure of deliverance from these awful sins, how
much coldness of heart, how much unbelief, how much self-will and
self-pleasing have we to bewail! Those who have no conscience upon these
things are strangers to the spirit of holiness.
Now the Word of God should be our directory in prayer. Alas, how often we
have made our own fleshly inclinations the rule of our asking. The Holy
Scriptures have been given to us "that the man of God may be perfect,
throughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. 3:17). Since we are
required to "pray in the Spirit" (Jude 20), it follows that our prayers
ought to be according to the Scriptures, seeing that He is their Author
throughout. It equally follows that according to the measure in which the
Word of Christ dwells in us "richly" (Col. 3:16) or sparsely, the more or
the less will our petitions be in harmony with the mind of the Spirit, for
"out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matt. 12:34). In
proportion as we hide the Word in our hearts, and it cleanses, moulds and
regulates our inner man, will our prayers be acceptable in God’s sight. Then
shall we be able to say, as David did in another connection, "Of your own
have we given you" (1 Chron. 29:14).
Thus the purity and power of our prayer-life are another index by which we
may determine the extent to which we are profiting from our reading and
searching of the Scriptures. If our Bible study is not, under the blessing
of the Spirit, convicting us of the sin of prayerlessness, revealing to us
the place which prayer ought to have in our daily lives, and is actually
bringing us to spend more time in the secret place of the Most High; unless
it is teaching us how to pray more acceptably to God, how to appropriate His
promises and plead them before Him, how to appropriate His precepts and turn
them into petitions, then not only has the time we spend over the Word been
to little or no soul enrichment, but the very knowledge that we have
acquired of its letter will only add to our condemnation in the day to come.
"Be you doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves"
(James 1 :22) applies to its prayer-admonitions as to everything else in it.
Let us now point out seven criteria.
1. We are profited from the Scriptures when we are brought to realize the
deep importance of prayer. It is really to be feared that many present-day
readers (and even students) of the Bible have no deep convictions that a
definite prayer-life is absolutely essential to a daily walking and
communing with God, as it is for deliverance from the power of indwelling
sin, the seductions of the world, and the assaults of Satan. If such a
conviction really gripped their hearts, would they not spend far more time
on their faces before God? It is worse than idle to reply, "A multitude of
duties which have to be performed crowd out prayer, though much against my
wishes." But the fact remains that each of us takes time for anything we
deem to be imperative. Who ever lived a busier life than our Savior? Yet who
found more time for prayer? If we truly yearn to be suppliants and
intercessors before God and use all the available time we now have, He will
so order things for us that we shall have more time.
The lack of positive conviction of the deep importance of prayer is plainly
evidenced in the corporate life of professing Christians. God has plainly
said, "My house shall be called the house of prayer" (Matt. 21:13). Note,
not "the house of preaching and singing," but of prayer. Yet, in the great
majority of even so-called orthodox churches, the ministry of prayer has
become a negligible quantity. There are still evangelistic campaigns, and
Bible-teaching conferences, but how rarely one hears of two weeks set apart
for special prayer! And how much good do these "Bible conferences"
accomplish if the prayer-life of the churches is not strengthened? But when
the Spirit of God applies in power to our hearts such words as, "Watch you
and pray, lest you enter into temptation" (Mark 14:38), "In every thing by
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to
God" (Phil. 4:6), "Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with
thanksgiving" (Col. 4:2), then are we being profited from the Scriptures.
2. We are profited from the Scriptures when we are made to feel that we know
not how to pray. "We know not what we should pray for as we ought" (Rom.
8:26). How very few professing Christians really believe this! The idea most
generally entertained is that people know well enough what they should pray
for, only they are careless and wicked, and so fail to pray for what they
are fully assured is their duty. But such a conception is at direct variance
with this inspired declaration in Romans 8:26. It is to be observed that
that flesh-humbling affirmation is made not simply of men in general, but of
the saints of God in particular, among which the apostle did not hesitate to
include himself: "We know not what we should pray for as we ought." If this
be the condition of the regenerate, how much more so of the unregenerate!
Yet it is one thing to read and mentally assent to what this verse says, but
it is quite another to have an experimental realization of it, for the heart
to be made to feel that what God requires from us He must Himself work in
and through us.
"I often say my prayers,
But do I ever pray?
And do the wishes of my heart
Go with the words I say?
I may as well kneel down
And worship gods of stone,
As offer to the living God
A prayer of words alone"
It is many years since the writer was taught these lines by his mother—now
"present with the Lord"—but their searching message still comes home with
force to him. The Christian can no more pray without the direct enabling of
the Holy Spirit than he can create a world. This must be so, for real prayer
is a felt need awakened within us by the Spirit, so that we ask God, in the
name of Christ, for that which is in accord with His holy will. "If we ask
any thing according to his will, he hears us" (1 John 5:14). But to ask
something which is not according to God’s will is not praying, but
presuming. True, God’s revealed will is made known in His Word, yet not in
such a way as a cookery book contains recipes and directions for preparing
various dishes. The Scriptures frequently enumerate principles which call
for continuous exercise of heart and Divine help to show us their
application to different cases and circumstances. Thus we are being profited
from the Scriptures when we are taught our deep need of crying "Lord, teach
us to pray" (Luke 11:1), and are actually constrained to beg Him for the
spirit of prayer.
3. We are profited from the Scriptures when we are made conscious of our
need of the Spirit’s help. First, that He may make known to us our real
needs. Take, for example, our temporal needs. How often we are in some
external strait; things from without press hard upon us, and we long to be
delivered from these trials and difficulties. Surely here we "know" of
ourselves what to pray for. No, indeed; far from it! The truth is that,
despite our natural desire for relief, so ignorant are we, so dull is our
discernment, that (even where there is an exercised conscience) we know not
what submission unto His pleasure God may require, or how He may sanctify
these afflictions to our inward good. Therefore, God calls the petitions of
most who seek for relief from external trials "howlings," and not a crying
unto Him with the heart (see Hos. 7:14). "For who knows what is good for man
in this life?" (Eccles. 6:12). Ah, heavenly wisdom is needed to teach us our
temporal "needs" so as to make them a matter of prayer according to the mind
of God.
Perhaps a few words need to be added to what has just been said. Temporal
things may be scripturally prayed for (Matt. 6:11, etc.), but with this
threefold limitation. First, incidentally and not primarily, for they are
not the things which Christians are principally concerned in (Matt. 6:33).
It is heavenly and eternal things (Col. 3:1) which are to be sought first
and foremost, as being of far greater importance and value than temporal
things. Second, subordinately, as a means to an end. In seeking material
things from God it should not be in order that we may be gratified, but as
an aid to our pleasing Him better. Third, submissively, not dictatorially,
for that would be the sin of presumption. Moreover, we know not whether any
temporal mercy would really contribute to our highest good (Ps. 106:18), and
therefore we must leave it with God to decide.
We have inward needs as well as outward. Some of these may be discerned in
the light of conscience, such as the guilt and defilement of sin, of sins
against light and nature and the plain letter of the law. Nevertheless, the
knowledge which we have of ourselves by means of the conscience is so dark
and confused that, apart from the Spirit, we are in no way able to discover
the true fountain of cleansing. The things about which believers do and
ought to treat primarily with God in their supplications are the inward
frames and spiritual dispositions of their souls. Thus, David was not
satisfied with confessing all known transgressions and his original sin (Ps.
51:1-5), nor yet with an acknowledgment that none could understand his
errors, where he desired to be cleansed from "secret faults" (Ps. 19:12);
but he also begged God to undertake the inward searching of his heart to
find out what was amiss in him (Ps. 139:23, 24), knowing that God
principally requires "truth in the inward parts" (Ps. 51:6). Thus, in view
of I Corinthians 2: 10-12, we should definitely seek the Spirit’s aid that
we may pray acceptably to God.
4. We are profited from the Scriptures when the Spirit teaches us the right
end in praying. God has appointed the ordinance of prayer with at least a
threefold design. First, that the great triune God might be honored, for
prayer is an act of worship, a paying homage; to the Father as the Giver, in
the Son’s name, by whom alone we may approach Him, by the moving and
directing power of the Holy Spirit. Second, to humble our hearts, for prayer
is ordained to bring us into the place of dependence, to develop within us a
sense of our helplessness, by owning that without the Lord we can do
nothing, and that we are beggars upon His charity for everything we are and
have. But how feebly is this realized (if at all) by any of us until the
Spirit takes us in hand, removes pride from us, and gives God His true place
in our hearts and thoughts. Third, as a means or way of obtaining for
ourselves the good things for which we ask.
It is greatly to be feared that one of the principal reasons why so many of
our prayers remain unanswered is because we have a wrong, an unworthy end in
view. Our Savior said, "Ask, and it shall be given you" (Matt. 7:7): but
James affirms of some, "You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss,
that you may consume it upon your lusts" (James 4:3). To pray for anything,
and not expressly unto the end which God has designed, is to "ask amiss,"
and therefore to no purpose. Whatever confidence we may have in our own
wisdom and integrity, if we are left to ourselves our aims will never be
suited to the will of God. Unless the Spirit restrains the flesh within us,
our own natural and distempered affections intermix themselves in our
supplications, and thus are rendered vain. "Whatever you do, do all to the
glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31), (yet none but the Spirit can enable us to
subordinate all our desires unto God’s glory.
5. We are profited from the Scriptures when we are taught how to plead God’s
promises. Prayer must be in faith (Rom. 10:14), or God will not hear it. Now
faith has respect to God’s promises (Heb. 4:1; Rom. 4:21); if, therefore, we
do not understand what God stands pledged to give, we cannot pray at all.
The promises of God contain the matter of prayer and define the measure of
it. What God has promised, all that He has promised, and nothing else, we
are to pray for. "Secret things belong unto the Lord our God" (Deut. 29:29),
but the declaration of His will and the revelation of His grace belong unto
us, and are our rule. There is nothing that we really stand in need of but
God has promised to supply it, yet in such a way and under such limitations
as will make it good and useful to us. So too there is nothing God has
promised but we stand in need of it, or are some way or other concerned in
it as members of the mystical body of Christ. Hence, the better we are
acquainted with the Divine promises, and the more we are enabled to
understand the goodness, grace and mercy prepared and proposed in them, the
better equipped are we for acceptable prayer.
Some of God’s promises are general rather than specific; some are
conditional, others unconditional; some are fulfilled in this life, others
in the world to come. Nor are we able of ourselves to discern which promise
is most suited to our particular case and present emergency and need, or to
appropriate by faith and rightly plead it before God. Wherefore we are
expressly told, "For what man knows the things of a man save the spirit of
man which is in him? Even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit
of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world but the Spirit
which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us
of God" (1 Cor. 2: 11, 12). Should someone reply, If so much be required
unto acceptable praying, if we cannot supplicate God aright without much
less trouble than you indicate, few will continue long in this duty, then we
answer that such an objector knows not what it is to pray, nor does he seem
willing to learn.
6. We are profited from the Scriptures when we are brought to complete
submission unto God. As stated above, one of the Divine designs in
appointing prayer as an ordinance is that we might be humbled. This is
outwardly denoted when we bow the knee before the Lord. Prayer is an
acknowledgment of our helplessness, and a looking to Him from whom all our
help comes. It is an owning of His sufficiency to supply our every need. It
is a making known our requests" (Phil. 4:6) unto God; but requests are very
different from demands. "The throne of grace is not set up that we may come
and there vent our passions before God" (Wm. Gurnall). We are to spread our
case before God, but leave it to His superior wisdom to prescribe how it
shall be dealt with. There must be no dictating, nor can we "claim" anything
from God, for we are beggars dependent upon His mere mercy. In all our
praying we must add, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will."
But may not faith plead God’s promises and expect an answer? Certainly; but
it must be God’s answer. Paul besought the Lord thrice to remove his thorn
in the flesh; instead of doing so, the Lord gave him grace to endure it (2
Cor. 12). Many of God’s promises are promiscuous rather than personal. He
has promised His Church pastors, teachers and evangelists, yet many a local
company of His saints has languished long without them. Some of God’s
promises are indefinite and general rather than absolute and universal; as,
for example Ephesians 6:2, 3. God has not bound Himself to give in kind or
specie, to grant the particular thing we ask for, even though we ask in
faith. Moreover, He reserves to Himself the right to determine the fit time
and season for bestowing His mercies. "Seek you the Lord, all you meek of
the earth . . . it may be you shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger" (Zeph.
2:3). Just because it "may be" God’s will to grant a certain temporal mercy
unto me, it is my duty to cast myself upon Him and plead for it, yet with
entire submission to His good pleasure for the performance of it.
7. We are profited from the Scriptures when prayer becomes a real and deep
joy. Merely to "say our prayers each morning and evening is an irksome task,
a duty to be performed which brings a sigh of relief when it is done. But
really to come into the conscious presence of God, to behold the glorious
light of His countenance, to commune with Him at the mercy seat, is a
foretaste of the eternal bliss awaiting us in heaven. The one who is blessed
with this experience says with the Psalmist, "It is good for me to draw near
to God" (Ps. 73:28). Yes, good for the heart, for it is quieted; good for
faith, for it is strengthened; good for the soul, for it is blessed. It is
lack of this soul communion with God which is the root cause of our
unanswered prayers: "Delight yourself also in the Lord; and he shall give
you the desires of your heart" (Ps. 37:4).
What is it which, under the blessing of the Spirit, produces and promotes
this joy in prayer? First, it is the heart’s delight in God as the Object of
prayer, and particularly the recognition and realization of God as our
Father. Thus, when the disciples asked the Lord Jesus to teach them to pray,
He said, "After this manner therefore pray you: Our Father which are in
heaven." And again, "God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your
hearts, crying, Abba [the Hebrew for "Father"], Father" (Gal. 4:6), which
includes a filial, holy delight in God, such as children have in their
parents in their most affectionate addresses to them. So again, in Ephesians
2:18, we are told, for the strengthening of faith and the comfort of our
hearts, "For through him [Christ] we both have access by one Spirit unto the
Father." What peace, what assurance, what freedom this gives to the soul: to
know we are approaching our Father!
Second, joy in prayer is furthered by the heart’s apprehension and the
soul’s sight of God as on the throne of grace — a sight or prospect, not by
carnal imagination, but by spiritual illumination, for it is by faith that
we "see him who is invisible" (Heb. 11:27); faith being the "evidence of
things not seen" (Heb. 11:1), making its proper object evident and present
unto those who believe. Such a sight of God upon such a "throne" cannot but
thrill the soul. Therefore are we exhorted, "Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help
in time of need" (Heb. 4:16).
Thirdly, and drawn from the last quoted scripture, freedom and delight in
prayer are stimulated by the consciousness that God is, through Jesus
Christ, willing and ready to dispense grace and mercy to suppliant sinners.
There is no reluctance in Him which we have to overcome. He is more ready to
give than we are to receive. So He is represented in Isaiah 30:18, "And
therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you." Yes, He
waits to be sought unto; waits for faith to lay hold of His readiness to
bless. His ear is ever open to the cries of the righteous. Then "let us draw
near with a true heart in full assurance of faith" (Heb. 10:22); "in every
thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made
known unto God," and we shall find that peace which passes all understanding
guarding our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:6, 7).