[p iii ] THE

MINISTRY OF INTERCESSION

A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER

BY THE

REV. ANDREW MURRAY

WELLINGTON, S. AFRICA

AUTHOR OF
“ THE HOLIEST OF ALL” “ ABIDE IN CHRIST”
“ WAITING ON GOD” “ THE LORD’S TABLE”
ETC. ETC.

“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
establish, and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the
earth.”—Isa. lxii. 6, 7.

THIRD EDITION
 London
JAMES NISBET & CO. LIMITED
21 Berners Street, W.
1898
 [p iv ] PRINTED BY
MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED
EDINBURGH
 [p v ] TO
MY BRETHREN IN THE MINISTRY
AND
OTHER FELLOW-LABOURERS IN THE
GOSPEL
WHOM IT WAS MY PRIVILEGE TO MEET
IN THE CONVENTIONS AT
LANGLAAGTE, JOHANNESBURG, AND HEILBRON
DURBAN AND PIETERMARITZBURG
KING WILLIAM’S TOWN, PORT ELIZABETH
AND STELLENBOSCH
THIS VOLUME
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
 [p vii ] CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
I. THE LACK OF PRAYER 9
THE MINISTRATION OF THE SPIRIT AND
II. 20
PRAYER
III. A MODEL OF INTERCESSION 31
IV. BECAUSE OF HIS IMPORTUNITY 43
V. THE LIFE THAT CAN PRAY 55
VI. RESTRAINING PRAYER—IS IT SIN? 67
VII. WHO SHALL DELIVER? 78
VIII. WILT THOU BE MADE WHOLE? 91
IX. THE SECRET OF EFFECTUAL PRAYER 104
X. THE SPIRIT OF SUPPLICATION 116
XI. IN THE NAME OF CHRIST 129
XII. MY GOD WILL HEAR ME 143
XIII. PAUL A PATTERN OF PRAYER 155
XIV. GOD SEEKS INTERCESSORS 169
XV. THE COMING REVIVAL 180
[p viii
NOTE A 193
]
NOTE B 194
NOTE C 195
NOTE D 196
NOTE E 198
NOTE F 199
PRAY WITHOUT CEASING: HELPS TO
201
INTERCESSION
[p ix ] THE MINISTRY OF INTERCESSION
Contents

There is no holy service

But hath its secret bliss:
Yet, of all blessèd ministries,
Is one so dear as this?
The ministry that cannot be
A wondering seraph’s dower,
Enduing mortal weakness
With more than angel-power;
The ministry of purest love
Uncrossed by any fear,
That bids us meet At the Master’s feet
And keeps us very near.

God’s ministers are many,

For this His gracious will,
Remembrancers that day and night
This holy office fill.
While some are hushed in slumber,
Some to fresh service wake,
And thus the saintly number
No change or chance can break.
And thus the sacred courses
Are evermore fulfilled,
The tide of grace By time or place
Is never stayed or stilled.

[p x ]
Oh, if our ears were opened
To hear as angels do
The Intercession-chorus
Arising full and true,
We should hear it soft up-welling
In morning’s pearly light;
Through evening’s shadows swelling
In grandly gathering might;
The sultry silence filling
Of noontide’s thunderous glow,
And the solemn starlight thrilling
With ever-deepening flow.

We should hear it through the rushing

Of the city’s restless roar,
And trace its gentle gushing
O’er ocean’s crystal floor:
We should hear it far up-floating
Beneath the Orient moon,
And catch the golden noting
From the busy Western noon;
And pine-robed heights would echo
As the mystic chant up-floats,
And the sunny plain Resound again
With the myriad-mingling notes.

Who are the blessèd ministers

Of this world-gathering band?
All who have learnt one language,
Through each far-parted land;
All who have learnt the story
Of Jesu’s love and grace,
And are longing for His glory
To shine in every face.
All who have known the Father
In Jesus Christ our Lord,
And know the might And love the light
Of the Spirit in the Word.

[p xi ]
Yet there are some who see not
Their calling high and grand,
Who seldom pass the portals,
And never boldly stand
Before the golden altar
On the crimson-stainèd floor,
Who wait afar and falter,
And dare not hope for more.
Will ye not join the blessèd ranks
In their beautiful array?
Let intercession blend with thanks
As ye minister to-day!

There are little ones among them

Child-ministers of prayer,
White robes of intercession
Those tiny servants wear.
First for the near and dear ones
Is that fair ministry,
Then for the poor black children,
So far beyond the sea.
The busy hands are folded,
As the little heart uplifts
In simple love, To God above,
Its prayer for all good gifts.

There are hands too often weary

With the business of the day,
With God-entrusted duties,
Who are toiling while they pray.
They bear the golden vials,
And the golden harps of praise
Through all the daily trials,
Through all the dusty ways,
These hands, so tired, so faithful,
With odours sweet are filled,
And in the ministry of prayer
Are wonderfully skilled.
[p xii ]
There are ministers unlettered,
Not of Earth’s great and wise,
Yet mighty and unfettered
Their eagle-prayers arise.
Free of the heavenly storehouse!
For they hold the master-key
That opens all the fulness
Of God’s great treasury.
They bring the needs of others,
And all things are their own,
For their one grand claim Is Jesu’s name
Before their Father’s throne.

There are noble Christian workers,

The men of faith and power,
The overcoming wrestlers
Of many a midnight hour;
Prevailing princes with their God,
Who will not be denied,
Who bring down showers of blessing
To swell the rising tide.
The Prince of Darkness quaileth
At their triumphant way,
Their fervent prayer availeth
To sap his subtle sway.
But in this temple service
Are sealed and set apart
Arch-priests of intercession,
Of undivided heart.
The fulness of anointing
On these is doubly shed,
The consecration of their God
Is on each low-bowed head.
They bear the golden vials
With white and trembling hand;
In quiet room Or wakeful gloom
These ministers must stand,—

[p xiii ]
To the Intercession-Priesthood
Mysteriously ordained,
When the strange dark gift of suffering
This added gift hath gained.
For the holy hands uplifted
In suffering’s longest hour
Are truly Spirit-gifted
With intercession-power.
The Lord of Blessing fills them
With His uncounted gold,
An unseen store, Still more and more,
Those trembling hands shall hold.
Not always with rejoicing
This ministry is wrought,
For many a sigh is mingled
With the sweet odours brought.
Yet every tear bedewing
The faithfed altar fire
May be its bright renewing
To purer flame, and higher.
But when the oil of gladness
God graciously outpours,
The heavenward blaze, With blended praise,
More mightily upsoars.

So the incense-cloud ascendeth

As through calm, crystal air,
A pillar reaching unto heaven
Of wreathèd faith and prayer.
For evermore the Angel
Of Intercession stands
In His Divine High Priesthood
With fragrance-fillèd hands,
To wave the golden censer
Before His Father’s throne,
With Spirit-fire intenser,
And incense all His own.
 [p xiv ]
And evermore the Father
Sends radiantly down
All-marvellous responses,
His ministers to crown;
The incense-cloud returning
As golden blessing-showers,
We in each drop discerning
Some feeble prayer of ours,
Transmuted into wealth unpriced,
By Him who giveth thus
The glory all to Jesus Christ,
The gladness all to us!

F. R. Havergal.
September 1877.
 [p 1 ] INTRODUCTION
Contents

I have been asked by a friend, who heard of this book being

published, what the difference would be between it and the
previous one on the same subject, With Christ in the School of
Prayer. An answer to that question may be the best
introduction I can give to the present volume.
Any acceptance the former work has had must be attributed, as
far as the contents go, to the prominence given to two great
truths. The one was, the certainty that prayer will be answered.
There is with some an idea that to ask and expect an answer is
not the highest form of prayer. Fellowship with God, apart from
any request, is more than supplication. About the petition
there is something of selfishness and bargaining—to worship
is more than to beg. With others the thought that prayer is so
often unanswered is so prominent, that they think more of the
spiritual benefit derived from the exercise of prayer than [p 2 ]
the actual gifts to be obtained by it. While admitting the
measure of truth in these views, when kept in their true place,
The School of Prayer points out how our Lord continually
spoke of prayer as a means of obtaining what we desire, and
how He seeks in every possible way to waken in us the
confident expectation of an answer. I was led to show how
prayer, in which a man could enter into the mind of God, could
assert the royal power of a renewed will, and bring down to
earth what without prayer would not have been given, is the
highest proof of his having been made in the likeness of God’s
Son. He is found worthy of entering into fellowship with Him,
not only in adoration and worship, but in having his will
actually taken up into the rule of the world, and becoming the
intelligent channel through which God can fulfil his eternal
purpose. The book sought to reiterate and enforce the precious
truths Christ preaches so continually: the blessing of prayer is
that you can ask and receive what you will: the highest exercise
and the glory of prayer is that persevering importunity can
prevail and obtain what God at first could not and would not
give.
With this truth there was a second one that came out very
strongly as we studied the Master’s words. In answer to the
question, But why, if the answer to prayer is so positively
promised, why are [p 3 ] there such numberless unanswered
prayers? we found that Christ taught us that the answer
depended upon certain conditions. He spoke of faith, of
perseverance, of praying in His Name, of praying in the will of
God. But all these conditions were summed up in the one
central one: “If ye abide in Me, ask whatsoever ye will and it
shall be done unto you.” It became clear that the power to pray
the effectual prayer of faith depended upon the life. It is only
to a man given up to live as entirely in Christ and for Christ as
the branch in the vine and for the vine, that these promises can
come true. “In that day,” Christ said, the day of Pentecost, “ye
shall ask in My Name.” It is only in a life full of the Holy Spirit
that the true power to ask in Christ’s Name can be known. This
led to the emphasising the truth that the ordinary Christian life
cannot appropriate these promises. It needs a spiritual life,
altogether sound and vigorous, to pray in power. The teaching
naturally led to press the need of a life of entire consecration.
More than one has told me how it was in the reading of the
book that he first saw what the better life was that could be
lived, and must be lived, if Christ’s wonderful promises are to
come true to us.
In regard to these two truths there is no change in the present
volume. One only wishes that one could put them with such
clearness and force as to [p 4 ] help every beloved fellow-
Christian to some right impression of the reality and the glory
of our privilege as God’s children: “Ask whatsoever ye will,
and it shall be done unto you.” The present volume owes its
existence to the desire to enforce two truths, of which formerly
I had no such impression as now.
The one is—that Christ actually meant prayer to be the great
power by which His Church should do its work, and that the
neglect of prayer is the great reason the Church has not greater
power over the masses in Christian and in heathen countries.
In the first chapter I have stated how my convictions in regard
to this have been strengthened, and what gave occasion to the
writing of the book. It is meant to be, on behalf of myself and
my brethren in the ministry and all God’s people, a confession
of shortcoming and of sin, and, at the same time, a call to
believe that things can be different, and that Christ waits to fit
us by His Spirit to pray as He would have us. This call, of
course, brings me back to what I spoke of in connection with
the former volume: that there is a life in the Spirit, a life of
abiding in Christ, within our reach, in which the power of
prayer—both the power to pray and the power to obtain the
answer—can be realised in a measure which we could not have
thought possible before. Any failure in the prayer-life, any
desire [p 5 ] or hope really to take the place Christ has prepared
for us, brings us to the very root of the doctrine of grace as
manifested in the Christian life. It is only by a full surrender to
the life of abiding, by the yielding to the fulness of the Spirit’s
leading and quickening, that the prayer-life can be restored to a
truly healthy state. I feel deeply how little I have been able to
put this in the volume as I could wish. I have prayed and am
trusting that God, who chooses the weak things, will use it for
His own glory.
The second truth which I have sought to enforce is that we
have far too little conception of the place that intercession, as
distinguished from prayer for ourselves, ought to have in the
Church and the Christian life. In intercession our King upon
the throne finds His highest glory; in it we shall find our
highest glory too. Through it He continues His saving work,
and can do nothing without it; through it alone we can do our
work, and nothing avails without it. In it He ever receives from
the Father the Holy Spirit and all spiritual blessings to impart;
in it we too are called to receive in ourselves the fulness of
God’s Spirit, with the power to impart spiritual blessing to
others. The power of the Church truly to bless rests on
intercession—asking and receiving heavenly gifts to carry to
men. Because this is so, it is no wonder that where, owing to
lack of teaching or spiritual insight, we [p 6 ] trust in our own
diligence and effort, to the influence of the world and the flesh,
and work more than we pray, the presence and power of God
are not seen in our work as we would wish.
Such thoughts have led me to wonder what could be done to
rouse believers to a sense of their high calling in this, and to
help and train them to take part in it. And so this book differs
from the former one in the attempt to open a practising school,
and to invite all who have never taken systematic part in the
great work of intercession to begin and give themselves to it.
There are tens of thousands of workers who have known and
are proving wonderfully what prayer can do. But there are tens
of thousands who work with but little prayer, and as many
more who do not work because they do not know how or
where, who might all be won to swell the host of intercessors
who are to bring down the blessings of heaven to earth. For
their sakes, and the sake of all who feel the need of help, I have
prepared helps and hints for a school of intercession for a
month (see the Appendix). I have asked those who would join,
to begin by giving at least ten minutes a day definitely to this
work. It is in doing that we learn to do; it is as we take hold and
begin that the help of God’s Spirit will come. It is as we daily
hear God’s call, and at once put it into practice, that the
consciousness will begin to [p 7 ] live in us, I too am an
intercessor; and that we shall feel the need of living in Christ
and being full of the Spirit if we are to do this work aright.
Nothing will so test and stimulate the Christian life as the
honest attempt to be an intercessor. It is difficult to conceive
how much we ourselves and the Church will be the gainers, if
with our whole heart we accept the post of honour God is
offering us. With regard to the school of intercession, I am
confident that the result of the first month’s course will be to
awake the feeling of how little we know how to intercede. And
a second and a third month may only deepen the sense of
ignorance and unfitness. This will be an unspeakable blessing.
The confession, “We know not how to pray as we ought,” is
the introduction to the experience, “The Spirit maketh
intercession for us”—our sense of ignorance will lead us to
depend upon the Spirit praying in us, to feel the need of living
in the Spirit.
We have heard a great deal of systematic Bible study, and we
praise God for thousands on thousands of Bible classes and
Bible readings. Let all the leaders of such classes see whether
they could not open prayer classes—helping their students to
pray in secret, and training them to be, above everything, men
of prayer. Let ministers ask what they can do in this. The faith
in God’s word can nowhere be so exercised and perfected as in
the intercession [p 8 ] that asks and expects and looks out for
the answer. Throughout Scripture, in the life of every saint, of
God’s own Son, throughout the history of God’s Church, God
is, first of all, a prayer-hearing God. Let us try and help God’s
children to know their God, and encourage all God’s servants
to labour with the assurance: the chief and most blessed part of
my work is to ask and receive from my Father what I can bring
to others.
It will now easily be understood how what this book contains
will be nothing but the confirmation and the call to put into
practice the two great lessons of the former one. “Ask
whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done to you”; “Whatever ye
ask, believe that ye have received”: these great prayer-
promises, as part of the Church’s enduement of power for her
work, are to be taken as literally and actually true. “If ye abide
in Me, and My words abide in you”; “In that day ye shall ask
in My Name”: these great prayer-conditions are universal and
unchangeable. A life abiding in Christ and filled with the Spirit,
a life entirely given up as a branch for the work of the vine, has
the power to claim these promises and to pray the effectual
prayer that availeth much. Lord, teach us to pray.
ANDREW MURRAY.
Wellington, 1st September 1897.
[p 9 ] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
 CHAPTER I
Contents

The Lack of Prayer

“Ye have not, because ye ask not.”—Jas. iv. 2.

“And He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there
was no intercessor.”—Isa. lix. 16.
“There is none that calleth upon Thy name, that stirreth up
himself to take hold of Thee.”—Isa. lxiv. 7.

At our last Wellington Convention for the Deepening of the

Spiritual Life, in April, the forenoon meetings were devoted to
prayer and intercession. Great blessing was found, both in
listening to what the Word teaches of their need and power,
and in joining in continued united supplication. Many felt that
we know too little of persevering importunate prayer, and that
it is indeed one of the greatest needs of the Church.
During the past two months I have been attending a number of
Conventions. At the first, a [p 10 ] Dutch Missionary
Conference at Langlaagte, Prayer had been chosen as the
subject of the addresses. At the next, at Johannesburg, a
brother in business gave expression to his deep conviction
that the great want of the Church of our day was, more of the
spirit and practice of intercession. A week later we had a Dutch
Ministerial Conference in the Free State, where three days were
spent, after two days’ services in the congregation on the work
of the Holy Spirit, in considering the relation of the Spirit to
prayer. At the ministerial meetings held at most of the
succeeding conventions, we were led to take up the subject,
and everywhere there was the confession: We pray too little!
And with this there appeared to be a fear that, with the
pressure of duty and the force of habit, it was almost
impossible to hope for any great change.
I cannot say what a deep impression was made upon me by
these conversations. Most of all, by the thought that there
should be anything like hopelessness on the part of God’s
servants as to the prospect of an entire change being effected,
and real deliverance found from a failure which cannot but
hinder our own joy in God, and our power in [p 11 ] His service.
And I prayed God to give me words that might not only help to
direct attention to the evil, but, specially, that might stir up
faith, and waken the assurance that God by His Spirit will
enable us to pray as we ought.
Let me begin, for the sake of those who have never had their
attention directed to the matter, by stating some of the facts
that prove how universal is the sense of shortcoming in this
respect.
Last year there appeared a report of an address to ministers by
Dr. Whyte, of Free St. George’s, Edinburgh. In that he said
that, as a young minister, he had thought that, of the time he
had over from pastoral visitation, he ought to spend as much
as possible with his books in his study. He wanted to feed his
people with the very best he could prepare for them. But he
had now learned that prayer was of more importance than
study. He reminded his brethren of the election of deacons to
take charge of the collections, that the twelve might “give
themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word,” and said
that at times, when the deacons brought him his salary, he had
to ask himself whether he had been as faithful in his [p 12 ]
engagement as the deacons had been to theirs. He felt as if it
were almost too late to regain what he had lost, and urged his
brethren to pray more. What a solemn confession and warning
from one of the high places: We pray too little!
During the Regent Square Convention two years ago the
subject came up in conversation with a well-known London
minister. He urged that if so much time must be given to prayer,
it would involve the neglect of the imperative calls of duty
“There is the morning post, before breakfast, with ten or twelve
letters which must be answered. Then there are committee
meetings waiting, with numberless other engagements, more
than enough to fill up the day. It is difficult to see how it can be
done.”
My answer was, in substance, that it was simply a question of
whether the call of God for our time and attention was of more
importance than that of man. If God was waiting to meet us,
and to give us blessing and power from heaven for His work, it
was a short-sighted policy to put other work in the place which
God and waiting on Him should have.
At one of our ministerial meetings, the superintendent of a
large district put the case thus: “I rise [p 13 ] in the morning and
have half an hour with God, in the Word and prayer, in my
room before breakfast. I go out, and am occupied all day with a
multiplicity of engagements. I do not think many minutes
elapse without my breathing a prayer for guidance or help.
After my day’s work, I return in my evening devotions and
speak to God of the day’s work. But of the intense, definite,
importunate prayer of which Scripture speaks one knows little.”
What, he asked, must I think of such a life?
We all know the difference between a man whose profits are
just enough to maintain his family and keep up his business,
and another whose income enables him to extend the business
and to help others. There may be an earnest Christian life in
which there is prayer enough to keep us from going back, and
just maintain the position we have attained to, without much of
growth in spirituality or Christlikeness. The attitude is more
defensive, seeking to ward off temptation, than aggressive,
reaching out after higher attainment. If there is indeed to be a
going from strength to strength, with some large experience of
God’s power to sanctify ourselves and to bring down real
blessing on others, there must be more definite and
persevering [p 14 ] prayer. The Scripture teaching about crying
day and night, continuing steadfastly in prayer, watching unto
prayer, being heard for his importunity, must in some degree
become our experience if we are really to be intercessors.
At the very next Convention the same question was put in
somewhat different form. “I am at the head of a station, with a
large outlying district to care for. I see the importance of much
prayer, and yet my life hardly leaves room for it. Are we to
submit? Or tell us how we can attain to what we desire?” I
admitted that the difficulty was universal. I recalled the words
of one of our most honoured South African missionaries, now
gone to his rest: he had the same complaint. “In the morning at
five the sick people are at the door waiting for medicine. At six
the printers come, and I have to set them to work and teach
them. At nine the school calls me, and till late at night I am kept
busy with a large correspondence.” In my answer I quoted a
Dutch proverb: ‘What is heaviest must weigh heaviest,’—must
have the first place. The law of God is unchangeable: as on
earth, so in our traffic with heaven, we only get as we give.
Unless we are willing to pay the price, [p 15 ] and sacrifice time
and attention and what appear legitimate or necessary duties,
for the sake of the heavenly gifts, we need not look for a large
experience of the power of the heavenly world in our work. The
whole company present joined in the sad confession; it had
been thought over, and mourned over, times without number;
and yet, somehow, there they were, all these pressing claims,
and all the ineffectual resolves to pray more, barring the way. I
need not now say to what further thoughts our conversation
led; the substance of them will be found in some of the later
chapters in this volume.
Let me call just one more witness. In the course of my journey I
met with one of the Cowley Fathers, who had just been holding
Retreats for clergy of the English Church. I was interested to
hear from him the line of teaching he follows. In the course of
conversation he used the expression—“the distraction of
business,” and it came out that he found it one of the great
difficulties he had to deal with in himself and others. Of himself,
he said that by the vows of his Order he was bound to give
himself specially to prayer. But he found it exceedingly
difficult. Every day he had to be at [p 16 ] four different points
of the town he lived in; his predecessor had left him the charge
of a number of committees where he was expected to do all the
work; it was as if everything conspired to keep him from prayer.
All this testimony surely suffices to make clear that prayer has
not the place it ought to have in our ministerial and Christian
life; that the shortcoming is one of which all are willing to make
confession; and that the difficulties in the way of deliverance
are such as to make a return to a true and full prayer-life almost
impossible. Blessed be God—“The things that are impossible
with men are possible with God”! “God is able to make all grace
abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all
things, may abound to all good work.” Do let us believe that
God’s call to much prayer need not be a burden and cause of
continual self-condemnation. He means it to be a joy. He can
make it an inspiration, giving us strength for all our work, and
bringing down His power to work through us in our fellowmen.
Let us not fear to admit to the full the sin that shames us, and
then to face it in the name of our Mighty Redeemer. The light
that shows us our sin and [p 17 ] condemns us for it, will show
us the way out of it, into the life of liberty that is well-pleasing
to God. If we allow this one matter, unfaithfulness in prayer, to
convict us of the lack in our Christian life which lies at the root
of it, God will use the discovery to bring us not only the power
to pray that we long for, but the joy of a new and healthy life,
of which prayer is the spontaneous expression.
And what is now the way by which our sense of the lack of
prayer can be made the means of blessing, the entrance on a
path in which the evil may be conquered? How can our
intercourse with the Father, in continual prayer and
intercession, become what it ought to be, if we and the world
around us are to be blessed? As it appears to me, we must
begin by going back to God’s Word, to study what the place is
God means prayer to have in the life of His child and His
Church. A fresh sight of what prayer is according to the will of
God, of what our prayers can be, through the grace of God,
will free us from those feeble defective views, in regard to the
absolute necessity of continual prayer, which lie at the root of
our failure. As we get an insight into the reasonableness and
rightness of this divine appointment, and come under the full
conviction of [p 18 ] how wonderfully it fits in with God’s love
and our own happiness, we shall be freed from the false
impression of its being an arbitrary demand. We shall with our
whole heart and soul consent to it and rejoice in it, as the one
only possible way for the blessing of heaven to come to earth.
All thought of task and burden, of self-effort and strain, will
pass away in the blessed faith that as simple as breathing is in
the healthy natural life, will praying be in the Christian life that
is led and filled by the Spirit of God.
As we occupy ourselves with and accept this teaching of
God’s Word on prayer, we shall be led to see how our failure in
the prayer-life was owing to failure in the Spirit-life. Prayer is
one of the most heavenly and spiritual of the functions of the
Spirit-life. How could we try or expect to fulfil it so as to please
God, except as our soul is in perfect health, and our life truly
possessed and moved by God’s Spirit? The insight into the
place God means prayer to take, and which it only can take, in a
full Christian life, will show us that we have not been living the
true, the abundant life, and that any thought of praying more
and effectually will be vain, except as we are brought [p 19 ]
into a closer relation to our Blessed Lord Jesus. Christ is our
life, Christ liveth in us, in such reality that His life of prayer on
earth, and of intercession in heaven, is breathed into us in just
such measure as our surrender and our faith allow and accept
it. Jesus Christ is the Healer of all diseases, the Conqueror of all
enemies, the Deliverer from all sin; if our failure teaches us to
turn afresh to Him, and find in Him the grace He gives to pray
as we ought, this humiliation may become our greatest
blessing. Let us all unite in praying God that He would visit our
souls and fit us for that work of intercession, which is at this
moment the greatest need of the Church and the world. It is
only by intercession that that power can be brought down from
Heaven which will enable the Church to conquer the world. Let
us stir up the slumbering gift that is lying unused, and seek to
gather and train and band together as many as we can, to be
God’s remembrancers, and to give Him no rest till He makes His
Church a joy in the earth. Nothing but intense believing prayer
can meet the intense spirit of worldliness, of which complaint is
everywhere made.
[p 20 ] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
 CHAPTER II
Contents

The Ministration of the Spirit and Prayer

“If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your
children; how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the
Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?”—Luke xi. 13.

Christ had just said (v. 9), “Ask, and it shall be given”: God’s
giving is inseparably connected with our asking. He applies
this especially to the Holy Spirit. As surely as a father on earth
gives bread to his child, so God gives the Holy Spirit to them
that ask Him. The whole ministration of the Spirit is ruled by
the one great law: God must give, we must ask. When the Holy
Spirit was poured out at Pentecost with a flow that never
ceases, it was in answer to prayer. The inflow into the
believer’s heart, and His outflow in the rivers of living water,
ever still depend upon the law: “Ask, and it shall be given.” In
connection with our [p 21 ] confession of the lack of prayer, we
have said that what we need is some due apprehension of the
place it occupies in God’s plan of redemption; we shall perhaps
nowhere see this more clearly than in the first half of the Acts
of the Apostles. The story of the birth of the Church in the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and of the first freshness of its
heavenly life in the power of that Spirit, will teach us how
prayer on earth, whether as cause or effect, is the true
measure of the presence of the Spirit of heaven.
We begin with the well-known words (i. 13), “These all
continued with one accord in prayer and supplication.” And
then there follows: “And when the day of Pentecost was fully
come, they were all with one accord in one place. And they
were all filled with the Holy Ghost. And the same day there
were added to them about three thousand souls.” The great
work of redemption had been accomplished. The Holy Spirit
had been promised by Christ “not many days hence.” He had
sat down on His throne and received the Spirit from the Father.
But all this was not enough. One thing more was needed: the
ten days’ united continued supplication of the disciples. It was
[p 22 ] intense, continued prayer that prepared the disciples’
hearts, that opened the windows of heaven, that brought down
the promised gift. As little as the power of the Spirit could be
given without Christ sitting on the throne, could it descend
without the disciples on the footstool of the throne. For all the
ages the law is laid down here, at the birth of the Church, that
whatever else may be found on earth, the power of the Spirit
must be prayed down from heaven. The measure of believing,
continued prayer will be the measure of the Spirit’s working in
the Church. Direct, definite, determined prayer is what we need.
See how this is confirmed in chapter iv. Peter and John had
been brought before the Council and threatened with
punishment. When they returned to their brethren, and
reported what had been said to them, “all lifted up their voice
to God with one accord,” and prayed for boldness to speak the
word. “And when they had prayed, the place was shaken, and
they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the
word of God with boldness. And the multitude of them that
believed were one heart and one soul. And with great power
gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord [p 23 ]
Jesus; and great grace was upon them all.” It is as if the story
of Pentecost is repeated a second time over, with the prayer,
the shaking of the house, the filling with the Spirit, the
speaking God’s word with boldness and power, the great grace
upon all, the manifestation of unity and love—to imprint it
ineffaceably on the heart of the Church: it is prayer that lies at
the root of the spiritual life and power of the Church. The
measure of God’s giving the Spirit is our asking. He gives as a
father to him who asks as a child.
Go on to the sixth chapter. There we find that, when
murmurings arose as to the neglect of the Grecian Jews in the
distribution of alms, the apostles proposed the appointment of
deacons to serve the tables. “We,” they said, “will give
ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.” It is often
said, and rightly said, that there is nothing in honest business,
when it is kept in its place as entirely subordinate to the
kingdom, which must ever be first, that need prevent fellowship
with God. Least of all ought a work like ministering to the poor
hinder the spiritual life. And yet the apostles felt it would
hinder them in their giving themselves to the ministry of prayer
and the word. [p 24 ] What does this teach? That the
maintenance of the spirit of prayer, such as is consistent with
the claims of much work, is not enough for those who are the
leaders of the Church. To keep up the communication with the
King on the throne and the heavenly world clear and fresh; to
draw down the power and blessing of that world, not only for
the maintenance of our own spiritual life, but for those around
us; continually to receive instruction and empowerment for the
great work to be done—the apostles, as the ministers of the
word, felt the need of being free from other duties, that they
might give themselves to much prayer. James writes: “Pure
religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To
visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction.” If ever any
work were a sacred one, it was that of caring for these Grecian
widows. And yet, even such duties might interfere with the
special calling to give themselves to prayer and the ministry of
the word. As on earth, so in the kingdom of heaven, there is
power in the division of labour; and while some, like the
deacons, had specially to care for serving the tables and
ministering the alms of the Church here on earth, others had to
be set free for that steadfast continuance in [p 25 ] prayer which
would uninterruptedly secure the downflow of the powers of
the heavenly world. The minister of Christ is set apart to give
himself as much to prayer as to the ministry of the word. In
faithful obedience to this law is the secret of the Church’s
power and success. As before, so after Pentecost, the apostles
were men given up to prayer.
In chapter viii. we have the intimate connection between the
Pentecostal gift and prayer, from another point of view. At
Samaria, Philip had preached with great blessing, and many had
believed. But the Holy Ghost was, as yet, fallen on none of
them. The apostles sent down Peter and John to pray for them,
that they might receive the Holy Ghost. The power for such
prayer was a higher gift than preaching—the work of the men
who had been in closest contact with the Lord in glory, the
work that was essential to the perfection of the life that
preaching and baptism, faith and conversion had only begun.
Surely of all the gifts of the early Church for which we should
long there is none more needed than the gift of prayer—prayer
that brings down the Holy Ghost on believers. This power is
given to the [p 26 ] men who say: “We will give ourselves to
prayer.”
In the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, in the house of Cornelius
at Cæsarea, we have another testimony to the wondrous
interdependence of the action of prayer and the Spirit, and
another proof of what will come to a man who has given
himself to prayer. Peter went up at midday to pray on the
housetop. And what happened? He saw heaven opened, and
there came the vision that revealed to him the cleansing of the
Gentiles; with that came the message of the three men from
Cornelius, a man who “prayed alway,” and had heard from an
angel, “Thy prayers are come up before God”; and then the
voice of the Spirit was heard saying, “Go with them.” It is Peter
praying, to whom the will of God is revealed, to whom guidance
is given as to going to Cæsarea, and who is brought into
contact with a praying and prepared company of hearers. No
wonder that in answer to all this prayer a blessing comes
beyond all expectation, and the Holy Ghost is poured out upon
the Gentiles. A much-praying minister will receive an entrance
into God’s will he would otherwise know nothing of; will be
brought to praying people where he does not expect [p 27 ]
them; will receive blessing above all he asks or thinks. The
teaching and the power of the Holy Ghost are alike unalterably
linked to prayer.
Our next reference will show us faith in the power that the
Church’s prayer has with its glorified King, as it is found, not
only in the apostles, but in the Christian community. In chapter
xii. we have the story of Peter in prison on the eve of execution.
The death of James had aroused the Church to a sense of real
danger, and the thought of losing Peter too, wakened up all its
energies. It betook itself to prayer. “Prayer was made of the
Church without ceasing to God for him.” That prayer availed
much; Peter was delivered. When he came to the house of
Mary, he found “many gathered together praying.” Stone walls
and double chains, soldiers and keepers, and the iron gate, all
gave way before the power from heaven that prayer brought
down to his rescue. The whole power of the Roman Empire, as
represented by Herod, was impotent in presence of the power
the Church of the Holy Spirit wielded in prayer. They stood in
such close and living communication with their Lord in heaven;
they knew so well that the words, “all power is given unto
Me,” and “Lo I [p 28 ] am with you alway,” were absolutely
true; they had such faith in His promise to hear them whatever
they asked—that they prayed in the assurance that the powers
of heaven could work on earth, and would work at their request
and on their behalf. The Pentecostal Church believed in prayer,
and practised it.
Just one more illustration of the place and the blessing of
prayer among men filled with the Holy Spirit. In chapter xiii. we
have the names of five men at Antioch who had given
themselves specially to ministering to the Lord with prayer and
fasting. Their giving themselves to prayer was not in vain: as
they ministered to the Lord, the Holy Spirit met them, and gave
them new insight into God’s plans. He called them to be fellow-
workers with Himself; there was a work to which He had called
Barnabas and Saul; their part and privilege would be to
separate these men with renewed fasting and prayer, and to let
them go, “sent forth of the Holy Ghost.” God in heaven would
not send forth His chosen servants without the co-operation of
His Church; men on earth were to have a real partnership in the
work of God. It was prayer that fitted and prepared them for
this; it was to praying men the Holy Ghost gave [p 29 ]
authority to do His work and use His name. It was to prayer the
Holy Ghost was given. It is still prayer that is the only secret of
true Church extension, that is guided from heaven to find and
send forth God-called and God-empowered men. To prayer the
Holy Spirit will show the men He has selected; to prayer that
sets them apart under His guidance He will give the honour of
knowing that they are men, “sent forth by the Holy Ghost.” It
is prayer which is the link between the King on the throne and
the Church at His footstool—the human link that has its divine
strength in the power of the Holy Ghost, who comes in answer
to it.
As one looks back upon these chapters in the history of the
Pentecostal Church, how clear the two great truths stand out:
where there is much prayer there will be much of the Spirit;
where there is much of the Spirit there will be ever-increasing
prayer. So clear is the living connection between the two, that
when the Spirit is given in answer to prayer it ever wakens
more prayer to prepare for the fuller revelation and
communication of His Divine power and grace. If prayer was
thus the power by which the Primitive Church flourished and
triumphed, is it not the one need of the [p 30 ] Church of our
days? Let us learn what ought to be counted axioms in our
Church work:—
Heaven is still as full of stores of spiritual blessing as it was
then. God still delights to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask
Him. Our life and work are still as dependent on the direct
impartation of Divine power as they were in Pentecostal times.
Prayer is still the appointed means for drawing down these
heavenly blessings in power on ourselves and those around
us. God still seeks for men and women who will, with all their
other work of ministering, specially give themselves to
persevering prayer.
And we—you, my reader, and I—may have the privilege of
offering ourselves to God to labour in prayer, and bring down
these blessings to this earth. Shall we not beseech God to make
all this truth so living in us that we may not rest till it has
mastered us, and our whole heart be so filled with it, that the
practice of intercession shall be counted by us our highest
privilege, and we find in it the sure and only measure for
blessing on ourselves, on the Church, and on the world?
[p 31 ] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
 CHAPTER III
Contents

A Model of Intercession

“And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and
shall go unto him at midnight, and shall say unto him, Friend,
lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine is come unto me from
a journey, and I have nothing to set before him; and he from
within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: I cannot rise
and give thee? I say unto you, Though he will not rise and
give him, because he is his friend, yet, because of his
importunity, he will arise and give him as many as he
needeth.”—Luke xi. 5–8.
“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.”—Isa.
lxii. 6, 7.

We have seen in our previous chapter what power prayer has.

It is the one power on earth that commands the power of
heaven. The story of the early days of the Church is God’s
great object-lesson, to teach His Church [p 32 ] what prayer can
do, how it alone, but it most surely, can draw down the
treasures and powers of heaven into the life of earth.
Just remember the lessons we learnt of how prayer is at once
indispensable and irresistible. Did we not see how unknown
and untold power and blessing is stored up for us in heaven?
—how that power will make us a blessing to men, and fit us to
do any work or face any danger? how it is to be sought in
prayer continually and persistently? how they who have the
heavenly power can pray it down upon others? how in all the
intercourse of ministers and people, in all the ministrations of
Christ’s Church, it is the one secret of success? how it can
defy all the power of the world, and fit men to conquer that
world for Christ? It is the power of the heavenly life, the power
of God’s own Spirit, the power of Omnipotence, that waits for
prayer to bring it down.
In all this prayer there was little thought of personal need or
happiness. It was the desire to witness for Christ and bring Him
and His salvation to others, it was the thought of God’s
kingdom and glory, that possessed these disciples. If we [p 33 ]
would be delivered from the sin of restraining prayer, we must
enlarge our hearts for the work of intercession. The attempt to
pray constantly for ourselves must be a failure; it is in
intercession for others that our faith and love and
perseverance will be aroused, and that power of the Spirit be
found which can fit us for saving men. We are asking how we
may become more faithful and successful in prayer; let us see
how the Master teaches us, in the parable of the Friend at
Midnight, that intercession for the needy calls forth the
highest exercise of our power of believing and prevailing
prayer. Intercession is the most perfect form of prayer: it is the
prayer Christ ever liveth to pray on His throne. Let us learn
what the elements of true intercession are.
1. Notice the urgent need: here intercession has its origin. The
friend came at midnight—an untimely hour. He was hungry,
and could not buy bread. If we are to learn to pray aright we
must open eye and heart to the need around us.
We hear continually of the thousand millions of heathen and
Mohammedans living in midnight [p 34 ] darkness, perishing for
lack of the bread of life. We hear of five hundred millions of
nominal Christians, the great majority of them almost as
ignorant and indifferent as the heathen. We see millions in the
Christian Church, not ignorant or indifferent, and yet knowing
little of a walk in the light of God or in the power of a life fed by
bread from heaven. We have each of us our own circles—
congregations, schools, friends, missions—in which the great
complaint is that the light and life of God are too little known.
Surely, if we believe what we profess, that God alone is able to
help, that God certainly will help in answer to prayer,—all this
need ought to make intercessors of us, people who give their
lives to prayer for those around them.
Let us take time to consider and realise the need. Each
Christless soul going down into outer darkness, perishing of
hunger, with bread enough and to spare! Thirty millions a year
dying without the knowledge of Christ! Our own neighbours
and friends, souls intrusted to us, dying without hope!
Christians around us living a sickly, feeble, fruitless life! Surely
there is need for prayer. Nothing, nothing but prayer to God for
help, will avail.
[p 35 ] 2. Note the willing love.—The friend took his weary,
hungry friend into his house, and into his heart too. He did not
excuse himself by saying he had no bread: he gave himself at
midnight to seek it for him. He sacrificed his night’s rest, his
comfort, to find the needed bread. “Love seeketh not its own.”
It is the very nature of love to give up and forget itself for the
sake of others. It takes their needs and makes them its own, it
finds its real joy in living and dying for others as Christ did.
It is the love of a mother to her prodigal son that makes her
pray for him. True love to souls will become in us the spirit of
intercession. It is possible to do a great deal of faithful, earnest
work for our fellowmen without true love to them. Just as a
lawyer or a physician, from a love of his profession and a high
sense of faithfulness to duty, may interest himself most
thoroughly in clients or patients without any special love to
each, so servants of Christ may give themselves to their work
with devotion and even self-sacrificing enthusiasm without the
Christlike love to souls being strong. It is this lack of love that
causes so much shortcoming in prayer. It is as love of our [p 36
] profession and work, delight in thoroughness and diligence,
sink away in the tender compassion of Christ, that love will
compel us to prayer, because we cannot rest in our work if
souls are not saved. True love must pray.
3. Note the sense of impotence.—We often speak of the power
of love. In one sense this is true; and yet the truth has its
limitations, which must not be forgotten. The strongest love
may be utterly impotent. A mother might be willing to give her
life for her dying child, and yet not be able to save it. The
friend at midnight was most willing to give his friend bread, but
he had none. It was this sense of impotence, of his inability to
help, that sent him a-begging: “My friend is come to me, and I
have nothing to set before him.” It is this sense of impotence
with God’s servants that is the very strength of the life of
intercession.
“I have nothing to set before them”: as this consciousness
takes possession of the minister or missionary, the teacher or
worker, intercession will become their only hope and refuge. I
may have knowledge and truth, a loving heart, and the
readiness to give myself for those under my charge; but the
bread of heaven I cannot give them. With [p 37 ] all my love
and zeal, “I have nothing to set before them.” Blessed the man
who has made that “I have nothing,” the motto of his ministry.
As he thinks of the judgment day and the danger of souls, as
he sees what a supernatural power and life is needed to save
men from sin, as he feels how utterly insufficient all he can ever
do is to give them life, that “I have nothing” urges him to pray.
Intercession appears to him, as he thinks of the midnight
darkness and the hungry souls, as his only hope, the one thing
in which his love can take refuge.
Let us take the lesson to heart, for a warning to all who are
strong and wise to work, for the encouragement of all who are
feeble. The sense of our impotence is the soul of intercession.
The simplest, feeblest Christian can pray down blessing from
an Almighty God.
4. Note the faith in prayer.—What he has not himself, another
can supply. He has a rich friend near, who will be both able and
willing to give the bread. He is sure that if he only asks, he will
receive. This faith makes him leave his home at midnight: if he
has not the bread himself to give, he can ask another.
[p 38 ] It is this simple, confident faith that God will give, that
we need: where it really exists, there will surely be no mistake
about our not praying. And in God’s word we have everything
that can stir and strengthen such faith in us. Just as the heaven
our natural eye can see is one great ocean of sunshine, with its
light and heat, giving beauty and fruitfulness to earth,
Scripture shows us God’s true heaven, filled with all spiritual
blessings,—divine light and love and life, heavenly joy and
peace and power, all shining down upon us. It reveals to us
God waiting, delighting to bestow these blessings in answer to
prayer. By a thousand promises and testimonies it calls and
urges us to believe that prayer will be heard, that what we
cannot possibly do ourselves for those whom we want to help,
can be got by prayer. Surely there can be no question as to our
believing that prayer will be heard, that through prayer the
poorest and feeblest can dispense blessings to the needy, and
each of us, though poor, may yet be making many rich.
5. Note the importunity that prevails.—The faith of the friend
met a sudden and unexpected check: the rich friend refuses to
hear—“I cannot [p 39 ] rise and give thee.” How little the loving
heart had counted on this disappointment; it cannot consent to
accept it. The supplicant presses his threefold plea: here is my
needy friend, you have abundance, I am your friend; and
refuses to accept a denial. The love that opened his house at
midnight, and then left it to seek help, must win.
This is the central lesson of the parable. In our intercession we
may find that there is difficulty and delay with the answer. It
may be as if God says, “I cannot give thee.” It is not easy,
against all appearances, to hold fast our confidence that He will
hear, and to persevere in full assurance that we shall have what
we ask. And yet this is what God looks for from us. He so
highly prizes our confidence in Him, it is so essentially the
highest honour the creature can render the Creator, that He will
do anything to train us in the exercise of this trust in Him.
Blessed the man who is not staggered by God’s delay, or
silence, or apparent refusal, but is strong in faith, giving glory
to God. Such faith perseveres, importunately, if need be, and
cannot fail to inherit the blessing.
6. Note, last, the certainty of a rich reward.—“I [p 40 ] say
unto you, because of his importunity, he will give him as many
as he needeth.” Oh that we might learn to believe in the
certainty of an abundant answer. A prophet said of old: “Let
not your hands be weak; your work shall be rewarded.”
Would that all who feel it difficult to pray much, would fix their
eye on the recompense of the reward, and in faith learn to
count upon the Divine assurance that their prayer cannot be
vain. If we will but believe in God and His faithfulness,
intercession will become to us the very first thing we take
refuge in when we seek blessing for others, and the very last
thing for which we cannot find time. And it will become a thing
of joy and hope, because, all the time we pray, we know that we
are sowing seed that will bring forth fruit an hundredfold.
Disappointment is impossible: “I say unto you, He will rise and
give him as many as he needeth.”
Let all lovers of souls, and all workers in the service of the
gospel, take courage. Time spent in prayer will yield more than
that given to work. Prayer alone gives work its worth and its
success. Prayer opens the way for God Himself to do His work
in us and through us. Let our chief work, [p 41 ] as God’s
messengers, be intercession: in it we secure the presence and
power of God to go with us.
“Which of you shall have a friend at midnight, and shall say to
him, Friend, lend me three loaves?” This friend is none other
but our God. Do let us learn that in the darkness of midnight, at
the most unlikely time, and in the greatest need, when we have
to say of those we love and care for, “I have nothing to set
before them,” we have a rich Friend in heaven, the Everlasting
God and Father, who only waits to be asked aright. Let us
confess before Him our lack of prayer. Let us admit that the
lack of faith, of which it is the proof, is the symptom of a life
that is not spiritual, that is yet all too much under the power of
self and the flesh and the world. Let us in the faith of the Lord
Jesus, who spake this parable, and Himself waits to make every
trait of it true in us, give ourselves to be intercessors. Let every
sight of souls needing help, let every stirring of the spirit of
compassion, let every sense of our own impotence to bless, let
every difficulty in the way of our getting an answer, just
combine to urge us to do this one thing: with importunity to [p
42 ] cry to the God who alone can help, who, in answer to our
prayer, will help. And let us, if we indeed feel that we have
failed, do our utmost to train a young generation of Christians,
who profit by our mistake and avoid it. Moses could not enter
the land of Canaan, but there was one thing he could do: he
could at God’s bidding “charge Joshua, and encourage him,
and strengthen him” (Deut. iii. 28). If it is too late for us to make
good our failure, let us at least encourage those who come after
us to enter into the good land, the blessed life of unceasing
prayer.
The Model Intercessor is the Model Christian Worker. First to
get from God, and then to give to men what we ourselves
secure from day to day, is the secret of successful work.
Between our Impotence and God’s Omnipotence intercession
is the blessed link.
[p 43 ] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
 CHAPTER IV
Contents

Because of His Importunity

“I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him,
because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will
arise and give him as many as he needeth.”—Luke xi. 8.
“And He spake a parable unto them, to the end, they ought
always to pray and not to faint.... Hear what the unrighteous
judge saith. And shall not God avenge His own elect, which
cry to Him day and night, and He is long-suffering with them?
I tell you that He will avenge them speedily.”—Luke xviii. 1–8.

Our Lord Jesus thought it of such importance that we should

know the need of perseverance and importunity in prayer, that
He spake two parables to teach us this. This is proof sufficient
that in this aspect of prayer we have at once its greatest
difficulty and its highest power. He would have us know that in
prayer all will not be easy and smooth; we must expect
difficulties, which [p 44 ] can only be conquered by persistent,
determined perseverance.
In the parables our Lord represents the difficulty as existing on
the side of the persons to whom the petition was addressed,
and the importunity as needed to overcome their reluctance to
hear. In our intercourse with God the difficulty is not on His
side, but on ours. In connection with the first parable He tells
us that our Father is more willing to give good things to those
who ask Him than any earthly father to give his child bread. In
the second, He assures us that God longs to avenge His elect
speedily. The need of urgent prayer cannot be because God
must be made willing or disposed to bless: the need lies
altogether in ourselves. But because it was not possible to find
any earthly illustration of a loving father or a willing friend from
whom the needed lesson of importunity could be taught, He
takes the unwilling friend and the unjust judge to encourage in
us the faith, that perseverance can overcome every obstacle.
The difficulty is not in God’s love or power, but in ourselves
and our own incapacity to receive the blessing. And yet,
because there is this difficulty [p 45 ] with us, this lack of
spiritual preparedness, there is a difficulty with God too. His
wisdom, His righteousness, yea His love, dare not give us what
would do us harm, if we received it too soon or too easily. The
sin, or the consequence of sin, that makes it impossible for God
to give at once, is a barrier on God’s side as well as ours; to
break through this power of sin in ourselves, or those for
whom we pray, is what makes the striving and the conflict of
prayer such a reality. And so in all ages men have prayed, and
that rightly too, under a sense that there were difficulties in the
heavenly world to overcome. As they pleaded with God for the
removal of the unknown obstacles, and in that persevering
supplication were brought into a state of utter brokenness and
helplessness, of entire resignation to Him, of union with His
will, and of faith that could take hold of Him, the hindrances in
themselves and in heaven were together overcome. As God
conquered them, they conquered God. As God prevails over
us, we prevail with God.
God has so constituted us that the clearer our insight is into
the reasonableness of a demand, the more hearty will be our
surrender to it. One great [p 46 ] cause of our remissness in
prayer is that there appears to be something arbitrary, or at
least something incomprehensible, in the call to such
continued prayer. If we could be brought to see that this
apparent difficulty is a Divine necessity, and in the very nature
of things the source of unspeakable blessing, we should be
more ready with gladness of heart to give ourselves to
continue in prayer. Let us see if we cannot understand how the
difficulty that the call to importunity throws in our way is one
of our greatest privileges.
I do not know whether you have ever noticed what a part
difficulties play in our natural life. They call out man’s powers
as nothing else can. They strengthen and ennoble character.
We are told that one reason of the superiority of the Northern
nations, like Holland and Scotland, in strength of will and
purpose, over those of the sunny South, as Italy and Spain, is
that the climate of the latter has been too beautiful, and the life
it encourages too easy and relaxing—the difficulties the former
had to contend with have been their greatest boon; how all
nature has been so arranged by God that in sowing and
reaping, as in seeking coal or gold, nothing is found without [p
47 ] labour and effort. What is education but a daily developing
and disciplining of the mind by new difficulties presented to
the pupil to overcome? The moment a lesson has become easy,
the pupil is moved on to one that is higher and more difficult.
With the race and the individual, it is in the meeting and the
mastering of difficulties that our highest attainments are found.
It is even so in our intercourse with God. Just imagine what the
result would be if the child of God had only to kneel down and
ask, and get, and go away. What unspeakable loss to the
spiritual life would ensue. It is in the difficulty and delay that
calls for persevering prayer, that the true blessing and
blessedness of the heavenly life will be found. We there learn
how little we delight in fellowship with God, and how little we
have of living faith in Him. We discover how earthly and
unspiritual our heart still is, how little we have of God’s Holy
Spirit. We there are brought to know our own weakness and
unworthiness, and to yield to God’s Spirit to pray in us, to take
our place in Christ Jesus, and abide in Him as our only plea
with the Father. There our own will and strength and goodness
are crucified. There we [p 48 ] rise in Christ to newness of life,
with our whole will dependent on God and set upon His glory.
Do let us begin to praise God for the need and the difficulty of
importunate prayer, as one of His choicest means of grace.
Just think what our Lord Jesus owed to the difficulties in His
path. In Gethsemane it was as if the Father would not hear: He
prayed yet more earnestly, until “He was heard.” In the way He
opened up for us, He learned obedience by the things He
suffered, and so was made perfect; His will was given up to
God; His faith in God was proved and strengthened; the prince
of this world, with all his temptation, was overcome. This is the
new and living way He consecrated for us; it is in persevering
prayer we walk with and are made partakers of His very Spirit.
Prayer is one form of crucifixion, of our fellowship with Christ’s
Cross, of our giving up our flesh to the death. O Christians!
shall we not be ashamed of our reluctance to sacrifice the flesh
and our own will and the world, as it is seen in our reluctance
to pray much? Shall we not learn the lesson which nature and
Christ alike teach? The difficulty of importunate prayer is our
highest privilege; [p 49 ] the difficulties to be overcome in it
bring us our richest blessings.
In importunity there are various elements. Of these the chief are
perseverance, determination, intensity. It begins with the
refusal to at once accept a denial. It grows to the determination
to persevere, to spare no time or trouble, till an answer comes.
It rises to the intensity in which the whole being is given to
God in supplication, and the boldness comes to lay hold of
God’s strength. At one time it is quiet and restful; at another
passionate and bold. Now it takes time and is patient; then
again it claims at once what it desires. In whatever different
shape, it always means and knows—God hears prayer: I must
be heard.
Remember the wonderful instances we have of it in the Old
Testament saints. Think of Abraham, as he pleads for Sodom.
Time after time he renews his prayer until the sixth time he has
to say, “Let not my Lord be angry.” He does not cease until he
has learnt to know God’s condescension in each time
consenting to his petition, until he has learnt how far he can
go, has entered into God’s mind, and now rests in God’s will.
And for his sake Lot was saved. “God remembered [p 50 ]
Abraham, and delivered Lot out of the midst of the overthrow.”
And shall not we, who have a redemption and promises for the
heathen which Abraham never knew, begin to plead more with
God on their behalf.
Think of Jacob, when he feared to meet Esau. The angel of the
Lord met him in the dark, and wrestled with him. And when the
angel saw that he prevailed not, he said, “Let me go.” And
Jacob said, “I will not let thee go.” And he blessed him there.
And that boldness that said, “I will not,” and forced from the
reluctant angel the blessing, was so pleasing in God’s sight,
that a new name was there given to him: “Israel, he who
striveth with God, for thou hast striven with God and with men,
and hast prevailed.” And through all the ages God’s children
have understood, what Christ’s two parables teach, that God
holds Himself back, and seeks to get away from us, until what
is of flesh and self and sloth in us is overcome, and we so
prevail with Him that He can and must bless us. Oh! why is it
that so many of God’s children have no desire for this honour
—being princes of God, strivers with God, and prevailing?
What our Lord taught us, “What things soever ye [p 51 ]
des ire, believe that ye have received,” is nothing but His
putting of Jacob’s words, “I will not let Thee go except thou
bless me.” This is the importunity He teaches, and we must
learn: to claim and take the blessing.
Think of Moses when Israel had made the golden calf. Moses
returned to the Lord and said, “Oh, this people have sinned a
great sin. Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin—; and if not,
blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast
written.” That was importunity, that would rather die than not
have his people given him. Then, when God had heard him, and
said He would send His angel with the people, Moses came
again, and would not be content until, in answer to his prayer
that God Himself should go with them (xxxiii. 12, 17, 18), He had
said, “I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken.” After
that, when in answer to his prayer, “Show me Thy glory,” God
made His goodness pass before him, he at once again began
pleading, “Let my Lord, I pray Thee, go among us.” And he
was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights (Ex. xxxiv.
28). Of these days he says, “I fell down before the Lord, as at
the first, forty days and forty nights, I did [p 52 ] neither eat
bread, nor drink water, because of all your sin which ye
sinned.” As an intercessor Moses used importunity with God,
and prevailed. He proves that the man who truly lives near to
God, and with whom God speaks face to face, becomes partaker
of that same power of intercession which there is in Him who is
at God’s right hand and ever lives to pray.
Think of Elijah in his prayer, first for fire, and then for rain. In
the former you have the importunity that claims and receives
an immediate answer. In the latter, bowing himself down to the
earth, his face between his knees, his answer to the servant
who had gone to look toward the sea, and come with the
message, “There is nothing,” was “Go again seven times.”
Here was the importunity of perseverance. He had told Ahab
there would be rain; he knew it was coming; and yet he prayed
till the seven times were fulfilled. And it is of this Elijah and this
prayer we are taught, “Pray for one another. Elijah was a man of
like passions with ourselves. The effectual fervent prayer of a
righteous man availeth much.” Will there not be some who feel
constrained to cry out, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?”—
this God who draws [p 53 ] forth such effectual prayer, and
hears it so wonderfully. His name be praised: He is still the
same. Let His people but believe that He still waits to be
inquired of! Faith in a prayer-hearing God will make a prayer-
loving Christian.
We remember the marks of the true intercessor as the parable
taught us them. A sense of the need of souls; a Christlike love
in the heart; a consciousness of personal impotence; faith in
the power of prayer; courage to persevere in spite of refusal;
and the assurance of an abundant reward;—these are the
dispositions that constitute a Christian an intercessor, and call
forth the power of prevailing prayer. These are the dispositions
that constitute the beauty and the health of the Christian life,
that fit a man for being a blessing in the world, that make him a
true Christian worker, who does indeed get from God the bread
of heaven to dispense to the hungry. These are the
dispositions that call forth the highest, the heroic virtues of the
life of faith. There is nothing to which the nobility of natural
character owes so much as the spirit of enterprise and daring
which in travel or war, in politics or science, battles with
difficulties and conquers. No labour or expense is grudged for
the sake of [p 54 ] victory. And shall we who are Christians not
be able to face the difficulties that we meet in prayer? It is as
we “labour” and “strive” in prayer that the renewed will asserts
its royal right to claim in the name of Christ what it will, and
wields its God-given power to influence the destinies of men.
Shall men of the world sacrifice ease and pleasure in their
pursuits, and shall we be such cowards and sluggards as not
to fight our way through to the place where we can find liberty
for the captive and salvation for the perishing? Let each
servant of Christ learn to know his calling. His King ever lives
to pray. The Spirit of the King ever lives in us to pray. It is from
heaven the blessings, which the world needs, must be called
down in persevering, importunate, believing prayer. It is from
heaven, in answer to prayer, the Holy Spirit will take complete
possession of us to do His work through us. Let us
acknowledge how vain our much work has been owing to our
little prayer. Let us change our method, and let henceforth more
prayer, much prayer, unceasing prayer, be the proof that we
look for all to God, and that we believe that He heareth us.
[p 55 ] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
 CHAPTER V
Contents

The Life that can Pray

“If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask

whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”—John xv.
7.
“The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its
working.”—James v. 16.
“Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have boldness
toward God; and whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him,
because we keep His commandments, and do the things that
are pleasing in His sight.”—1 John iii. 21, 22.

Here on earth the influence of one who asks a favour for others
depends entirely on his character, and the relationship he bears
to him with whom he is interceding. It is what he is that gives
weight to what he asks. It is no otherwise with God. Our power
in prayer depends upon our life. Where our life [p 56 ] is right
we shall know how to pray so as to please God, and prayer will
secure the answer. The texts quoted above all point in this
direction. “If ye abide in Me,” our Lord says, ye shall ask, and
it shall be done unto you. It is the prayer of a righteous man,
according to James, that availeth much. We receive whatsoever
we ask, John says, because we obey and please God. All lack
of power to pray aright and perseveringly, all lack of power in
prayer with God, points to some lack in the Christian life. It is
as we learn to live the life that pleases God, that God will give
what we ask. Let us learn from our Lord Jesus, in the parable of
the vine, what the healthy, vigorous life is that may ask and
receive what it will. Hear His voice, “If ye abide in Me, and My
words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be
done unto you.” And again at the close of the parable: “Ye did
not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you
should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide: that
whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He may give it
you.”
And what is now, according to the parable, [p 57 ] the life that
one must lead to bear fruit, and then ask and receive what we
will? What is it we are to be or do, that will enable us to pray as
we should, and to receive what we ask? The answer is in one
word: it is the branch-life that gives power for prayer. We are
branches of Christ, the Living Vine. We must simply live like
branches, and abide in Christ, then we shall ask what we will,
and it shall be done unto us.
We all know what a branch is, and what its essential
characteristic. It is simply a growth of the vine, produced by it
and appointed to bear fruit. It has only one reason of existence;
it is there at the bidding of the vine, that through it the vine
may bear and ripen its precious fruit. Just as the vine only and
solely and wholly lives to produce the sap that makes the
grape, so the branch has no other aim and object but this
alone, to receive that sap and bear the grape. Its only work is to
serve the vine, that through it the vine may do its work.
And the believer, the branch of Christ the Heavenly Vine, is it
to be understood that he is as literally, as exclusively, to live
only that Christ may bear fruit through him? Is it meant that [p
58 ] a true Christian as a branch is to be just as absorbed in and
devoted to the work of bearing fruit to the glory of God as
Christ the Vine was on earth, and is now in heaven? This, and
nothing less, is indeed what is meant. It is to such that the
unlimited prayer promises of the parable are given. It is the
branch-life, existing solely for the Vine, that will have the power
to pray aright. With our life abiding in Him, and His words
abiding, kept and obeyed, in our heart and life, transmuted into
our very being, there will be the grace to pray aright, and the
faith to receive the whatsoever we will.
Do let us connect the two things, and take them both in their
simple, literal truth, and their infinite, divine grandeur. The
promises of our Lord’s farewell discourse, with their wonderful
six-fold repetition of the unlimited, anything, whatsoever (John
xiv. 13, 14; xv. 7, 16; xvi. 23, 24), appear to us altogether too
large to be taken literally, and they are qualified down to meet
our human ideas of what appears seemly. It is because we
separate them from that life of absolute and unlimited devotion
to Christ’s service to which they were given. God’s covenant
[p 59 ] is ever: Give all and take all. He that is willing to be
wholly branch, and nothing but branch, who is ready to place
himself absolutely at the disposal of Jesus the Vine of God, to
bear His fruit through him, and to live every moment only for
Him, will receive a Divine liberty to claim Christ’s whatsoever in
all its fulness, and a Divine wisdom and humility to use it
aright. He will live and pray, and claim the Father’s promises,
even as Christ did, only for God’s glory in the salvation of men.
He will use his boldness in prayer only with a view to power in
intercession, and getting men blessed. The unlimited devotion
of the branch-life to fruitbearing, and the unlimited access to
the treasures of the Vine life, are inseparable. It is the life
abiding wholly in Christ that can pray the effectual prayer in
the name of Christ.
Just think for a moment of the men of prayer in Scripture, and
see in them what the life was that could pray in such power.
We spoke of Abraham as intercessor. What gave Him such
boldness? He knew that God had chosen and called him away
from his home and people to walk before Him, that all nations
might be blessed in [p 60 ] him. He knew that he had obeyed,
and forsaken all for God. Implicit obedience, to the very
sacrifice of his son, was the law of his life. He did what God
asked: he dared trust God to do what he asked. We spoke of
Moses as intercessor. He too had forsaken all for God,
“counting the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the
treasures of Egypt.” He lived at God’s disposal: “as a servant
he was faithful in all His house.” How often it is written of him,
“According to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so did he.”
No wonder that he was very bold: his heart was right with God:
he knew God would hear him. No less true is this of Elijah, the
man who stood up to plead for the Lord God of Israel. The man
who is ready to risk all for God can count upon God to do all
for him.
It is as men live that they pray. It is the life that prays. It is the
life that, with whole-hearted devotion, gives up all for God and
to God, that can claim all from God. Our God longs exceedingly
to prove Himself the Faithful God and Mighty Helper of His
people. He only waits for hearts wholly turned from the world
to Himself, and open to receive His gifts. The man who loses [p
61 ] all will find
all; he dare ask and take it. The branch that only
and truly lives abiding in Christ, the Heavenly Vine, entirely
given up, like Christ, to bear fruit in the salvation of men, and
has His words taken up into and abiding in its life, may and
dare ask what it will—it shall be done. And where we have not
yet attained to that full devotion to which our Lord had trained
His disciples, and cannot equal them in their power of prayer,
we may, nevertheless, take courage in remembering that, even
in the lower stages of the Christian life, every new onward step
in the striving after the perfect branch-life, and every surrender
to live for others in intercession, will be met from above by a
corresponding liberty to draw nigh with greater boldness, and
expect larger answers. The more we pray, and the more
conscious we become of our unfitness to pray in power, the
more we shall be urged and helped to press on towards the
secret of power in prayer—a life abiding in Christ entirely at
His disposal.
And if any are asking, with somewhat of a despair of
attainment, what the reason may be of the failure in this
blessed branch-life, so simple and yet so mighty, and how they
can come to it, let [p 62 ] me point them to one of the most
precious lessons of the parable of the Vine. It is one that is all
too little noticed. Jesus spake, “I am the true Vine, and my
Father is the Husbandman.” We have not only Himself, the
glorified Son of God, in His divine fulness, out of whose
fulness of life and grace we can draw,—this is very wonderful,
—but there is something more blessed still. We have the
Father, as the Husbandman, watching over our abiding in the
Vine, over our growth and fruitbearing. It is not left to our faith
or our faithfulness to maintain our union with Christ: the God,
who is the Father of Christ, and who united us with Him,—God
Himself will see to it that the branch is what it should be, will
enable us to bring forth just the fruit we were appointed to
bear. Hear what Christ said of this, “Every branch that beareth
fruit, He cleanseth it, that it may bear more fruit.” More fruit is
what the Father seeks; more fruit is what the Father will Himself
provide. It is for this that He, as the Vinedresser, cleanses the
branches.
Just think a moment what this means. It is said that of all
fruitbearing plants on earth there is none that produces fruit so
full of spirit, from [p 63 ] which spirit can be so abundantly
distilled, as the vine. And of all fruitbearing plants there is
none that is so ready to run into wild wood, and for which
pruning and cleansing are so indispensable. The one great
work that a vinedresser has to do for the branch every year is
to prune it. Other plants can for a time dispense with it, and yet
bear fruit: the vine must have it. And so the one thing the
branch that desires to abide in Christ and bring forth much
fruit, and to be able to ask whatsoever it will, must do, is to
trust in and yield itself to this Divine cleansing. What is it that
the vinedresser cuts away with his pruning-knife? Nothing but
the wood that the branch has produced—true, honest wood,
with the true vine nature in it. This must be cut away. And
why? Because it draws away the strength and life of the vine,
and hinders the flow of the juice to the grape. The more it is cut
down, the less wood there is in the branch, the more all the sap
can go to the grape. The wood of the branch must decrease,
that the fruit for the vine may increase; in obedience to the law
of all nature, that death is the way to life, that gain comes
through sacrifice, the rich and luxuriant growth of wood must
be cut [p 64 ] off and cast away, that the life more abundant
may be seen in the cluster.
Even so, child of God, branch of the Heavenly Vine, there is in
thee that which appears perfectly innocent and legitimate, and
which yet so draws out thy interest and thy strength, that it
must be pruned and cleansed away. We saw what power in
prayer men like Abraham and Moses and Elijah had, and we
know what fruit they bore. But we also know what it cost them;
how God had to separate them from their surroundings, and
ever again to draw them from any trust in themselves, to seek
their life in Him alone. It is only as our own will, and strength
and effort and pleasure, even where these appear perfectly
natural and sinless, are cut down, so that the whole energies of
our being are free and open to receive the sap of the Heavenly
Vine, the Holy Spirit, that we shall bear much fruit. It is in the
surrender of what nature holds fast, it is in the full and willing
submission to God’s holy pruning-knife, that we shall come to
what Christ chose and appointed us for—to bear fruit, that
whatsoever we ask the Father in Christ’s name, He may give to
us.
What the pruning-knife is, Christ tells us in the [p 65 ] next
verse. “Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken to
you.” As He says later, “Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy
word is truth.” “The word of God is sharper than any two-
edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit.”
What heart-searching words Christ had spoken to His disciples
on love and humility, on being the least, and, like Himself, the
servant of all, on denying self, and taking the cross, and losing
the life. Through His word the Father had cleansed them, cut
away all confidence in themselves or the world, and prepared
them for the inflowing and filling of the Spirit of the Heavenly
Vine. It is not we who can cleanse ourselves: God is the
Vinedresser: we may confidently intrust ourselves to His care.
Beloved brethren,—ministers, missionaries, teachers, workers,
believers old and young,—are you mourning your lack of
prayer, and, as a consequence, your lack of power in prayer?
Oh! come and listen to your beloved Lord as He tells you,
“only be a branch, united to, identified with, the Heavenly
Vine, and your prayers will be effectual and much availing.”
Are you mourning that just this is your trouble—you do not,
cannot, live this branch-life, [p 66 ] abiding in Him? Oh! come
and listen again. “More fruit” is not only your desire, but the
Father’s too. He is the Husbandman who cleanseth the fruitful
branch, that it may bear more fruit. Cast yourself upon God, to
do in you what is impossible to man. Count upon a Divine
cleansing, to cut down and take away all that self-confidence
and self-effort, that has been the cause of your failure. The God
who gave you His beloved Son to be your Vine, who made you
His branch, will He not do His work of cleansing to make you
fruitful in every good work, in the work of prayer and
intercession too?
Here is the life that can pray. A branch entirely given up to the
Vine and its aims, with all responsibility for its cleansing cast
on the Vinedresser; a branch abiding in Christ, trusting and
yielding to God for His cleansing, can bear much fruit. In the
power of such a life we shall love prayer, we shall know how to
pray, we shall pray, and receive whatsoever we ask.
[p 67 ] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
 CHAPTER VI
Contents

Restraining Prayer: is it Sin?

“Thou restrainest prayer before God.”—Job xv. 4.

“What profit should we have, if we pray unto Him?”—Job xxi.
15.
“God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to
pray for you.”—1 Sam. xii. 23.
“Neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the
accursed from among you.”—Josh. vii. 12.

Any deep quickening of the spiritual life of the Church will

always be accompanied by a deeper sense of sin. This will not
begin with theology; that can only give expression to what
God works in the life of His people. Nor does it mean that that
deeper sense of sin will only be seen in stronger expressions of
self-reproach or penitence: that is sometimes found to consist
with a harbouring of sin, and unbelief as to deliverance. [p 68 ]
But the true sense of the hatefulness of sin, the hatred of it, will
be proved by the intensity of desire for deliverance, and the
struggle to know to the very utmost what God can do in saving
from it—a holy jealousy, in nothing to sin against God.
If we are to deal effectually with the lack of prayer we must look
at it from this point of view and ask, Restraining prayer, is it
sin? And if it be, how is it to be dealt with, to be discovered,
and confessed, and cast out by man, and cleansed away by
God? Jesus is a Saviour from sin. It is only as we know sin truly
that we can truly know the power that saves from sin. The life
that can pray effectually is the life of the cleansed branch—the
life that knows deliverance from the power of self. To see that
our prayer-sins are indeed sins, is the first step to a true and
Divine deliverance from them.
In the story of Achan we have one of the strongest proofs in
Scripture that it is sin that robs God’s people of His blessing,
and that God will not tolerate it; and at the same time the
clearest indication of the principles under which God deals with
it, and removes it. Let us see in the light of the story if we can
learn how to look at the sin of prayerlessness, and at the
sinfulness that lies at [p 69 ] the root of it. The words I have
quoted above, “Neither will I be with you any more, except ye
put away the accursed thing from among you,” take us into the
very heart of the story, and suggest a series of the most
precious lessons around the truth they express, that the
presence of sin makes the presence of God impossible.
1. The presence of God is the great privilege of God’s people,
and their only power against the enemy.—God had promised
to Moses, I will bring you in unto the land. Moses proved that
he understood this when God, after the sin of the golden calf,
spoke of withdrawing His presence and sending an angel. He
refused to accept anything less than God’s presence. “For
whereby shall it be known that I and Thy people have found
grace in Thy sight? Is it not that Thou goest with us?” It was
this gave Caleb and Joshua their confidence: The Lord is with
us. It was this gave Israel their victory over Jericho: the
presence of God. This is throughout Scripture the great central
promise: I am with thee. This marks off the whole-hearted
believer from the worldling and worldly Christians around him:
he lives consciously hidden in the secret of God’s presence.
[p 70 ] 2. Defeat and failure are always owing to the loss of
God’s presence. —It was thus at Ai. God had brought His
people into Canaan with the promise to give them the land.
When the defeat at Ai took place Joshua felt at once that the
cause must be in the withdrawal of God’s power. He had not
fought for them. His presence had been withheld.
In the Christian life and the work of the Church, defeat is ever a
sign of the loss of God’s presence. If we apply this to our
failure in the prayer-life, and as a result of that to our failure in
work for God, we are led to see that all is simply owing to our
not standing in clear and full fellowship with God. His
nearness, His immediate presence, has not been the chief thing
sought after and trusted in. He could not work in us as He
would. Loss of blessing and power is ever caused by the loss
of God’s presence.
3. The loss of God’s presence is always owing to some hidden
sin.—Just as pain is ordered in nature to warn of some hidden
evil in the system, defeat is God’s voice telling us there is
something wrong. He has given Himself so wholly to His
people, He delights so in being with them, and would so fain [p
71 ] reveal in them His love and power, that He never withdraws
Himself unless they compel Him by sin.
Throughout the Church there is a complaint of defeat. The
Church has so little power over the masses, or the educated
classes. Powerful conversions are comparatively rare. The
fewness of holy, consecrated, spiritual Christians, devoted to
the service of God and their fellowmen, is felt everywhere. The
power of the Church for the preaching of the gospel to the
heathen is paralysed by the scarcity of money and men; and all
owing to the lack of the effectual prayer which brings the Holy
Spirit in power, first on ministers and believers, then on
missionaries and the heathen. Can we deny it that the lack of
prayer is the sin on account of which God’s presence and
power are not more manifestly seen among us?
4. God Himself will discover the hidden sin.—We may think
we know what the sin is: it is only God who can discover its
real deep meaning. When He spoke to Joshua, before naming
the sin of Achan, God first said, “They have transgressed My
covenant which I commanded them.” God had commanded (vi.
19) that all the booty of Jericho, gold and silver and all that was
in it, was to be a [p 72 ] devoted thing, consecrated unto the
Lord, and to come into His treasury. And Israel had broken this
consecration vow: it had not given God His due; it had robbed
God.
It is this we need: God must discover to us how the lack of
prayer is the indication of unfaithfulness to our consecration
vow, that God should have all our heart and life. We must see
that this restraining prayer, with the excuses we make for it, is
greater sin than we have thought; for what does it mean? That
we have little taste or relish for fellowship with God; that our
faith rests more on our own work and efforts than on the power
of God; that we have little sense of the heavenly blessing God
waits to shower down; that we are not ready to sacrifice the
ease and confidence of the flesh for persevering waiting on
God; that the spirituality of our life, and our abiding in Christ, is
altogether too feeble to make us prevail in prayer. When the
pressure of work for Christ is allowed to be the excuse for our
not finding time to seek and secure His own presence and
power in it, as our chief need, it surely proves that there is no
right sense of our absolute dependence upon God; no deep
apprehension of the Divine and supernatural [p 73 ] work of
God in which we are only His instruments, no true entrance
into the heavenly, altogether other-worldly, character of our
mission and aims, no full surrender to and delight in Christ
Jesus Himself.
If we were to yield to God’s Spirit to show us that all this is in
very deed the meaning of remissness in prayer, and of our
allowing other things to crowd it out, all our excuses would fall
away, and we should fall down and cry, “We have sinned! we
have sinned!” Samuel once said, “As for me, God forbid that I
should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you.”
Ceasing from prayer is sin against God. May God discover this
to us. (Note A.)
5 . When God discovers sin, it must be confessed and cast
out.—When the defeat at Ai came, Joshua and Israel were
ignorant of the cause. God dealt with Israel as a nation, as one
body, and the sin of one member was visited on all. Israel as a
whole was ignorant of the sin, and yet suffered for it. The
Church may be ignorant of the greatness of this sin of
restraining prayer, individual ministers or believers may never
have looked upon it as actual transgression, none the less
does it bring its [p 74 ] punishment. But when the sin is no more
hidden, when the Holy Spirit begins to convince of it, then
comes the time of heart-searching. In our story the combination
of individual and united responsibility is very solemn. The
individual: as we find it in the expression, “man for man”; each
man felt himself under the eye of God, to be dealt with. And
when Achan had been taken, he had to make confession. The
united: as we see it in all Israel first suffering and dealt with by
God, then taking Achan, and his family, and the accursed
thing, and destroying them out of their midst.
If we have reason to think this is the sin that is in the camp, let
us begin with personal and united confession. And then let us
come before God to put away and destroy the sin. Here stands
at the very threshold of Israel’s history in Canaan the heap of
stones in the valley of Achor, to tell us that God cannot bear
sin, that God will not dwell with sin, and that if we really want
God’s presence in power, sin must be put away . Let us look
the solemn fact in the face. There may be other sins, but here is
certainly one that causes the loss of God’s presence—we do
not pray as Christ and Scripture teach us. Let us bring it out
before God, and give up this [p 75 ] sin to the death. Let us
yield ourselves to God to obey His voice. Let no fear of past
failure, let no threatening array of temptations, or duties, or
excuses, keep us back. It is a simple question of obedience. Are
we going to give up ourselves to God and His Spirit to live a
life in prayer, well-pleasing to Him? Surely, if it is God who has
been withholding His presence, who has been discovering the
sin, who is calling for its destruction, and a return to
obedience, surely we can count upon His grace to accept and
strengthen for the life He asks of us. It is not a question of
what you can do; it is the question of whether you now, with
your whole heart, turn to give God His due, and give yourself
to let His will and grace have their way with you.
6. With sin cast out God’s presence is restored.—From this day
onwards there is not a word in Joshua of defeat in battle. The
story shows them going on from victory to victory. God’s
presence secured gives power to overcome every enemy.
This truth is so simple that the very ease with which we
acquiesce in it robs it of its power. Let us pause and think what
it implies. God’s presence restored means victory secured.
Then, we are [p 76 ] responsible for defeat. Then, there must be
sin somewhere causing it. Then, we ought at once to find out
and put away the sin. We may confidently expect God’s
presence the moment the sin is put away. Surely each one is
under the solemn obligation to search his life and see what part
he may have in this evil.
God never speaks to His people of sin except with a view to
saving them from it. The same light that shows the sin will
show the way out of it. The same power that breaks down and
condemns will, if humbly yielded to and waited on in
confession and faith, give the power to rise up and conquer. It
is God who is speaking to His Church and to us about this sin:
“He wondered that there was no intercessor.” “I wondered that
there was none to uphold.” “I sought for a man that should
stand in the gap before Me, and found none.” The God who
speaks thus is He who will work the change for His children
who seek His face. He will make the valley of Achor, of trouble
and shame, of sin confessed and cast out, a door of hope. Let
us not fear, let us not cling to the excuses and explanations
which circumstances suggest, but simply confess, “We have
sinned; we are sinning; [p 77 ] we dare not sin longer.” In this
matter of prayer we are sure God does not demand of us
impossibilities. He does not weary us with an impracticable
ideal. He asks us to pray no more than He gives grace to enable
us to. He will give the grace to do what He asks, and so to pray
that our intercessions shall, day by day, be a pleasure to Him
and to us, a source of strength to our conscience and our work,
and a channel of blessing to those for whom we labour.
God dealt personally with Joshua, with Israel, with Achan. Let
each of us allow Him to deal personally with us concerning this
sin, of restraining prayer, and its consequences in our life and
work; concerning the deliverance from sin, its certainty and
blessedness. Just bow in stillness and wait before God, until,
as God, He overshadow you with His presence, lead you out of
that region of argument as to human possibilities, where
conviction of sin can never be deep, and full deliverance can
never come. Take quiet time, and be still before God, that He
may take this matter in hand. “Sit still, for He will not be in rest
until He have finished this thing this day.” Leave yourself in
God’s hands.
[p 78 ] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
 CHAPTER VII
Contents

Who shall Deliver?

“Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why

then is not the health of the daughter of my people
recovered?”—Jer. viii. 22.
“Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your
backslidings. Behold, we come unto Thee; for Thou art the
Lord our God.”—Jer. iii. 22.
“Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed.”—Jer. xii. 14.
“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the
body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from
the law of sin and death.”—Rom. vii. 24, viii. 2.

During one of our conventions a gentleman called upon me to

ask advice and help. He was evidently an earnest and well-
instructed Christian man. He had for some years been in most
difficult surroundings, trying to witness for Christ. The result
was a sense of failure and unhappiness. [p 79 ] His complaint
was that he had no relish for the Word, and that though he
prayed, it was as if his heart was not in it. If he spoke to others,
or gave a tract, it was under a sense of duty: the love and the
joy were not present. He longed to be filled with God’s Spirit,
but the more he sought it, the farther off it appeared to be.
What was he to think of his state, and was there any way out
of it?
My answer was, that the whole matter appeared to me very
simple; he was living under the law and not under grace. As
long as he did so, there could be no change. He listened
attentively, but could not exactly see what I meant.
I reminded him of the difference, the utter contrariety, between
law and grace. Law demands; grace bestows. Law commands,
but gives no strength to obey; grace promises, and performs,
does all we need to do. Law burdens, and casts down and
condemns; grace comforts, and makes strong and glad. Law
appeals to self, to do its utmost; grace points to Christ to do
all. Law calls to effort and strain, and urges us towards a goal
we never can reach; grace works in us all God’s blessed will. I
pointed out to him how his first step [p 80 ] should be, instead
of striving against all this failure, fully to accept of it, and the
lesson of his own impotence, as God had been seeking to teach
it him, and, with this confession, to sink down before God in
utter helplessness. There would be the place where he would
learn that, unless grace gave him deliverance and strength, he
never could do better than he had done, and that grace would
indeed work all for him. He must come out from under law and
self and effort, and take his place under grace, allowing God to
do all.
In later conversations he told me the diagnosis of the disease
had been correct. He admitted grace must do all. And yet, so
deep was the thought that we must do something, that we must
at least bring our faithfulness to secure the work of grace, he
feared that his life would not be very different; he would not be
equal to the strain of new difficulties into which he was now
going. There was, amid all the intense earnestness, an
undertone of despair; he could not live as he knew he ought to.
I have already said, in the opening chapter, that in some of our
meetings I had noticed this tone of hopelessness. And no
minister who has come into close contact with souls [p 81 ]
seeking to live wholly for God, to “walk worthy of the Lord
unto all well pleasing,” but knows that this renders true
progress impossible. To speak specially of the lack of prayer,
and the desire of living a fuller prayer-life, how many are the
difficulties to be met! We have so often resolved to pray more
and better, and have failed. We have not the strength of will
some have, with one resolve to turn round and change our
habits. The press of duty is as great as ever it was; it is so
difficult to find time for more prayer; real enjoyment in prayer,
which would enable us to persevere, is what we do not feel; we
do not possess the power to supplicate and to plead, as we
should; our prayers, instead of being a joy and a strength, are a
source of continual self-condemnation and doubt. We have at
times mourned and confessed and resolved; but, to tell the
honest truth, we do not expect, for we do not see the way to,
any great change.
It is evident that as long as this spirit prevails, there can be
very little prospect of improvement. Discouragement must
bring defeat. One of the first objects of a physician is ever to
waken hope; without this he knows his medicines will often [p
82 ] profit little. No teaching from God’s Word as to the duty,
the urgent need, the blessed privilege of more prayer, of
effectual prayer, will avail, while the secret whisper is heard:
There is no hope. Our first care must be to find out the hidden
cause of the failure and despair, and then to show how divinely
sure deliverance is. We must, unless we are to rest content
with our state, listen to and join in the question, “Is there no
balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the
health of the daughter of my people restored?” We must listen,
and receive into our heart, the Divine promise with the
response it met with: “Return, ye backsliding children, and I
will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto Thee, for
Thou art the Lord our God.” We must come with the personal
prayer, and the faith that there will be a personal answer. Shall
we not even now begin to claim it in regard to the lack of
prayer, and believe that God will help us: “Heal me, O Lord, and
I shall be healed.”
It is always of consequence to distinguish between the
symptoms of a disease and the disease itself. Feebleness and
failure in prayer is a sign of feebleness in the spiritual life. If a
patient were to ask [p 83 ] a physician to give him something to
stimulate his feeble pulse, he would be told that this would do
him little good. The pulse is the index of the state of the heart
and the whole system: the physician strives to have health
restored. What everyone who would fain pray more faithfully
and effectually must learn is this, that his whole spiritual life is
in a sickly state, and needs restoration. It is as he comes to
look, not only at his shortcomings in prayer, but at the lack in
the life of faith, of which this is the symptom, that he will
become fully alive to the serious nature of the disease. He will
then see the need of a radical change in his whole life and walk,
if his prayer-life, which is simply the pulse of the spiritual
system, is to indicate health and vigour. God has so created us
that the exercise of every healthy function causes joy. Prayer is
meant to be as simple and natural as breathing or working to a
healthy man. The reluctance we feel, and the failure we
confess, are God’s own voice calling us to acknowledge our
disease, and to come to Him for the healing He has promised.
And what is now the disease of which the lack of prayer is the
symptom? We cannot find a better [p 84 ] answer than is
pointed out in the words, “Ye are not under the law, but under
grace.”
Here we have suggested the possibility of two types of
Christian life. There may be a life partly under the law and
partly under grace; or, a life entirely under grace, in the full
liberty from self-effort, and the full experience of the Divine
strength which it can give. A true believer may still be living
partly under the law, in the power of self-effort, striving to do
what he cannot accomplish. The continued failure in his
Christian life to which he confesses is owing to this one thing:
he trusts in himself, and tries to do his best. He does, indeed,
pray and look to God for help, but still it is he in his strength,
helped by God, who is to do the work. In the Epistles to the
Romans, and Corinthians, and Galatians, we know how Paul
tells them that they have not received the spirit of bondage
again, that they are free from the law, that they are no more
servants but sons; that they must beware of nothing so much
as to be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Everywhere it is the contrast between the law and grace,
between the flesh, which is under the law, and the Spirit, who is
the gift of grace, and through whom [p 85 ] grace does all its
work. In our days, just as in those first ages, the great danger is
living under the law, and serving God in the strength of the
flesh. With the great majority of Christians it appears to be the
state in which they remain all their lives. Hence the lack to such
a large extent of true holy living and power in prayer. They do
not know that all failure can have but one cause: Men seek to
do themselves what grace alone can do in them, what grace
most certainly will do.
Many will not be prepared to admit that this is their disease,
that they are not living “under grace.” Impossible, they say.
“From the depth of my heart,” a Christian cries, “I believe and
know that there is no good in me, and that I owe everything to
grace alone.” “I have spent my life,” a minister says, “and
found my glory in preaching and exalting the doctrines of free
grace.” “And I,” a missionary answers, “how could I ever have
thought of seeing the heathen saved, if my only confidence
had not been in the message I brought, and the power I
trusted, of God’s abounding grace.” Surely you cannot say
that our failures in prayer, and we sadly confess to them, are
owing to our not living “under grace”? This cannot be our
disease.
[p 86 ] We know how often a man may be suffering from a
disease without knowing it. What he counts a slight ailment
turns out to be a dangerous complaint. Do not let us be too
sure that we are not, to a large extent, still living “under the
law,” while considering ourselves to be living wholly “under
grace.” Very frequently the reason of this mistake is the limited
meaning attached to the word “grace.” Just as we limit God
Himself, by our little or unbelieving thoughts of Him, so we
limit His grace at the very moment that we are delighting in
terms like the “riches of grace,” “grace exceeding abundant.”
Has not the very term, “grace abounding,” from Bunyan’s
book downward, been confined to the one great blessed truth
of free justification with ever renewed pardon and eternal glory
for the vilest of sinners, while the other equally blessed truth of
“grace abounding” in sanctification is not fully known. Paul
writes: “Much more shall they which receive the abundance of
grace reign in life through Jesus Christ.” That reigning in life,
as conqueror over sin, is even here on earth. “Where sin
abounded” in the heart and life, “grace did abound more
exceedingly, that grace might reign through righteousness” in
the [p 87 ] whole life and being of the believer. It is of this reign
of grace in the soul that Paul asks, “Shall we sin because we
are under grace?” and answers, “God forbid.” Grace is not only
pardon of, but power over, sin; grace takes the place sin had in
the life, and undertakes, as sin had reigned within in the power
of death, to reign in the power of Christ’s life. It is of this grace
that Christ spoke, “My grace is sufficient for thee,” and Paul
answered, “I will glory in my weakness; for, when I am weak,
then am I strong.” It is of this grace, which, when we are willing
to confess ourselves utterly impotent and helpless, comes in to
work all in us, that Paul elsewhere teaches, “God is able to
make all grace abound unto you, that ye, always having all
sufficiency in all things, may abound unto all good works.”
It has often happened that a seeker after God and salvation has
read his Bible long, and yet never seen the truth of a free and
full and immediate justification by faith. When once his eyes
were opened, and he accepted it, he was amazed to find it
everywhere. Even so many believers, who hold the doctrines of
free grace as applied to pardon, have never seen its wondrous
meaning as it [p 88 ] undertakes to work our whole life in us,
and actually give us strength every moment for whatever the
Father would have us be and do. When God’s light shines into
our heart with this blessed truth, we know what Paul means,
“Not I, but the grace of God.” There again you have the
twofold Christian life. The one, in which that “Not I”—I am
nothing, I can do nothing—has not yet become a reality. The
other, when the wondrous exchange has been made, and grace
has taken the place of our effort, and we say and know, “I live,
yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me.” It may then become a
lifelong experience: “The grace of our Lord was exceeding
abundant, with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.”
Beloved child of God! what think you, is it not possible that
this has been the want in your life, the cause of your failure in
prayer? You knew not how grace would enable you to pray, if
once the whole life were under its power. You sought by
earnest effort to conquer your reluctance or deadness in
prayer, but failed. You strove by every motive of shame or love
you could think of to stir yourself to it, but it would not help. Is
it not worth while asking the Lord whether the message [p 89 ] I
bring you as His servant may not be more true for you than
you think? Your lack of prayer is owing to a diseased state of
life, and the disease is nothing but this—you have not
accepted, for daily life and every duty, the full salvation which
the word brings: “Ye are not under the law, but under grace.”
As universal and deep-reaching as the demand of the law and
the reign of sin, yea, more exceeding abundant, is the provision
of grace and the power by which it makes us reign in life. (Note
B.)
In the chapter that follows that in which Paul wrote, “Ye are not
under the law, but under grace,” he gives us a picture of a
believer’s life under law, with the bitter experience in which it
ends: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the
body of this death?” His answer to the question, “I thank God
through Jesus Christ our Lord,” shows that there is deliverance
from a life held captive under evil habits that have been
struggled against in vain. That deliverance is by the Holy Spirit
giving the full experience of what the life of Christ can work in
us: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me
free from the law of sin and death.” The law of God could only
deliver us into the power of the law of sin and [p 90 ] death. The
grace of God can bring us into, and keep us in, the liberty of
the Spirit. We can be made free from the sad life under the
power that led us captive, so that we did not what we would.
The Spirit of life in Christ can free us from our continual failure
in prayer, and enable us in this, too, to walk worthy of the Lord
unto all well-pleasing.
Oh! be not hopeless, be not despondent; there is a balm in
Gilead; there is a Physician there; there is healing for our
sickness. What is impossible with man is possible with God.
What you see no possibility of doing, grace will do. Confess
the disease; trust the Physician; claim the healing; pray the
prayer of faith, “Heal me, and I shall be healed.” You too can
become a man of prayer, and pray the effectual prayer that
availeth much. 1

1 I ought to say, for the encouragement of all, that the

gentleman of whom I spoke, at a Convention a fortnight later,
saw and claimed the rest of faith in trusting God for all, and a
letter from England tells that he has found that His grace is
sufficient.
[p 91 ] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
 CHAPTER VIII
Contents

Wilt Thou be made Whole?

“Jesus saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? The

impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man to put me into
the pool. Jesus saith unto him, Rise and walk. Immediately the
man was made whole, and walked.”—John v. 6–9.
“Peter said, In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and
walk.... The faith which is by Him hath given this man this
perfect soundness in the presence of you all.”—Acts iii. 6, 16.
“Peter said, Æneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole: arise. And
he arose immediately.”—Acts ix. 34.

Feebleness in prayer is the mark of disease. Impotence to walk

is, in the Christian, as in the natural life, a terrible proof of some
evil in the system that needs a physician. The lack of power to
walk joyfully in the new and living way that leads to the Father
and the throne of grace is [p 92 ] specially grievous. Christ is
the great Physician, who comes to every Bethesda where
impotent folk are gathered, and speaks out his loving,
searching question, Wilt thou be made whole? For all who are
still clinging to their hope in the pool, or are looking for some
man to put them in, who are hoping, in course of time,
somehow to be helped by just continuing in the use of the
ordinary means of grace, His question points to a better way.
He offers them healing in a way of power they have never
understood. And to all who are willing to confess, not only
their own impotence, but their failure to find any man to help
them, His question brings the sure and certain hope of a near
deliverance. We have seen that our weakness in prayer is part
of a life smitten with spiritual impotence. Let us listen to our
Lord as He offers to restore our spiritual strength, to fit us for
walking like healthy, strong men in all the ways of the Lord,
and so be fit rightly to fill our place in the great work of
intercession. As we see what the wholeness is He offers, how
He gives it, and what He asks of us, we shall be prepared for
giving a willing answer to His question.

[p 93 ] What the Health that Jesus Offers.

I might mention many marks of spiritual health. Our text leads

us to take one,—walking. Jesus said to the sick man, Rise and
walk, and with that restored him to his place among men in full
health and vigour, able to take his part in all the work of life. It
is a wonderfully suggestive picture of the restoration of
spiritual health. To the healthy, walking is a pleasure; to the
sick, a burden, if not an impossibility. How many Christians
there are to whom, like the maimed and the halt and the lame
and the impotent, movement and progress in God’s way is
indeed an effort and a weariness. Christ comes to say, and with
the word He gives the power, Rise and walk.
Just think of this walk to which He restores and empowers us.
It is a life like that of Enoch and Noah, who “walked with God.”
A life like that of Abraham, to whom God said, “Walk before
Me,” and who himself spake, “The Lord before whom I walk.”
A life of which David sings, “They shall walk in the light of
Thy countenance,” and Isaiah prophesies, “They that wait on
the Lord shall [p 94 ] renew their strength; they shall run and
not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Even as God the
Creator fainteth not nor is weary, shall they who walk with Him,
waiting on Him, never be exhausted or feeble. It is a life
concerning which it could be said of the last of the Old
Testament saints, Zacharias and Elisabeth, “They were both
righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and
ordinances of the Lord blameless.” This is the walk Jesus came
to make possible and true to His people in greater power than
ever before.
Hear what the New Testament speaks of it: “That like as Christ
was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also
should walk in newness of life.” It is the Risen One who says
to us, Rise and walk: He gives the power of the resurrection
life. It is a walk in Christ. “As ye have received Christ Jesus the
Lord, so walk ye also in Him.” It is a walk like Christ. “He that
saith he abideth in Him ought so to walk even as He walked.” It
is a walk by the Spirit and after the Spirit. “Walk by the Spirit,
and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.” “Who walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” It is a walk worthy of God
and well pleasing to Him. “That [p 95 ] ye would walk worthy of
the Lord, unto all well pleasing, being fruitful in every good
work.” “I beseech you, that as ye received of us, how ye
should walk and please God, even as ye do walk, that ye would
abound more and more.” It is a walk in heavenly love. “Walk in
love, even as Christ loved you.” It is a “walk in the light, as He
is in the light.” It is a walk of faith, all its power coming simply
from God and Christ and the Holy Spirit, to the soul turned
away from the world. “We walk by faith, and not by sight.”
How many believers there are who regard such a walk as an
impossible thing—so impossible that they do not feel it a sin
that they “walk otherwise”; and so they do not long for this
walk in newness of life. They have become so accustomed to
the life of impotence, that the life and walk in God’s strength
has little attraction. But some there are with whom it is not
thus. They do wonder if these words really mean what they
say, and if the wonderful life each one of them speaks of is
simply an unattainable ideal, or meant to be realised in flesh
and blood. The more they study them, the more they feel that
they are spoken as for daily life. And yet they appear too high.
Oh that they would believe [p 96 ] that God sent his Almighty
Son, and His Holy Spirit, indeed to bring us and fit us for a life
and walk from heaven beyond all that man could dare to think
or hope for.

How Jesus Makes Us Whole.

When a physician heals a patient, he acts on him from without,

and does something which is, if possible, ever after to render
him independent of his aid. He restores him to perfect health,
and leaves him. With the work of our Lord Jesus it is in both
respects the very opposite. Jesus works not from without, but
from within, by entering Himself in the power of His Spirit into
our very life. And instead of, as in the bodily healing, being
rendered, if possible, independent of a physician for the future,
Christ’s one purpose in healing is, as we said, the exact
opposite. His one condition of success, is to bring us into such
dependence upon Himself as that we shall not be able one
single moment to do without Him. Christ Jesus Himself is our
life, in a sense that many Christians have no conception of.
The prevailing feeble and sickly life is entirely owing to the lack
of the apprehension [p 97 ] of the Divine truth, that as long as
we expect Christ continually to do something for us from
heaven, in single acts of grace from time to time, and each time
trust Him to give us what will last a little while, we cannot be
restored to perfect health. But when once we see how there is
to be nothing of our own for a single moment, and it is to be all
Christ moment by moment, and learn to accept it from Him and
trust Him for it, the life of Christ becomes the health of our
soul. Health is nothing but life in its normal, undisturbed
action. Christ gives us health by giving us Himself as our life;
so He becomes our strength for our walk. Isaiah’s words find
their New Testament fulfilment: They that wait on the Lord
shall walk and not faint, because Christ is now the strength of
their life.
It is strange how believers sometimes think this life of
dependence too great a strain, and a loss of our personal
liberty. They admit a need of dependence, of much
dependence, but with room left for our own will and energy.
They do not see that even a partial dependence makes us
debtors, and leaves us nothing to boast of. They forget that
our relationship to God, and co-operation with Him, [p 98 ] is
not that He does the larger part and we the lesser, but that God
does all and we do all—God all in us, we all through God. This
dependence upon God secures our true independence; when
our will seeks nothing but the Divine will, we reach a Divine
nobility, the true independence of all that is created. He that
has not seen this must remain a sickly Christian, letting self do
part and Christ part. He that accepts the life of unceasing
dependence on Christ, as life and health and strength, is made
whole. As God, Christ can enter and become the life of His
creature. As the Glorified One who received the Holy Spirit
from the Father to bestow, He can renew the heart of the sinful
creature and make it His home, and by His presence maintain it
in full health and strength.
O ye all who would fain walk and please God, and in your
prayer-life not have your heart condemn you, listen to Christ’s
words: “Wilt thou be made whole?” He can give soul-health.
He can give a life that can pray, and know that it is well-
pleasing to the Father. If you would have this, come and hear
how you can receive it.

[p 99 ] What Christ asks of us.

The story invites us to notice three things very specially.

Christ’s question first appeals to the will, and asks for the
expression of its consent. He then listens to man’s confession
of his utter helplessness. Then comes the ready obedience to
Christ’s command, that rises up and walks.
1. Wilt thou be made whole? About the answer of the impotent
man there could be no doubt. Who would not be willing to
have his sickness removed? But, alas, in the spiritual life what
need to press the question. Some will not admit that they are so
sick. And some will not believe that Christ can make a man
whole. And some will believe it for others, but they are sure it
is not for them. At the root of all lies the fear of the self-denial
and the sacrifice which will be needed. They are not willing to
forsake entirely the walk after the course of this world, to give
up all self-will, and self-confidence, and self-pleasing. The walk
in Christ and like Christ is too straight and hard: they do not
will it, they do not will to be made whole. My brother, if thou
art willing, speak it out: “Lord! at any price, I will!” From
Christ’s side the act is [p 100 ] one of the will: “I will, be thou
clean.” From your side equally: “Be it unto thee as thou wilt.” If
you would be delivered from your impotence—oh, fear not to
say, “I will, I will!”
Then comes the second step. Christ wants us to look up to him
as our only Helper. “I have no man to put me in,” must be our
cry. Here on earth there is no help for me. Weakness may grow
into strength in the ordinary use of means, if all the organs and
functions are in a sound state. Sickness needs special
measures. Your soul is sick; your impotence to walk joyfully
the Christian walk in God’s way is a sign of disease; fear not to
confess it, and to admit that there is no hope for restoration
unless by an act of Christ’s mercy healing you. Give up the
idea of growing out of your sickly into a healthy state, of
growing out from under the law into a life under grace. A few
days ago I heard a student plead the cause of the Volunteer
Pledge. “The pledge calls you,” he said, “to a decision. Do not
think of growing into a missionary: unless God forbids you,
take the step; the decision will bring joy and strength, will set
you free to grow up in all needed for a missionary, and will be a
help to others.” It is even so in the Christian life. Delay [p 101 ]
and struggle will equally hinder you; do confess that you
cannot bring yourself to pray as you would, because you
cannot give yourself the healthy, heavenly life that loves to
pray, and that knows to count upon God’s Spirit to pray in us.
Come to Christ to heal you. He can in one moment make you
whole. Not in the sense of working a sudden change in your
feelings, or in what you are in yourself, but in the heavenly
reality of coming in, in response to your surrender and faith,
and taking charge of your inner life, and filling it with Himself
and Spirit.
The third thing Christ asks is this, the surrender of faith. When
He spoke to the impotent man His word of command had to be
obeyed. The man believed that there was truth and power in
Christ’s word; in that faith he rose and walked. By faith he
obeyed. And what Christ said to others was for him too—“Go
thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole.” Of us, too, Christ
asks this faith, that His word changes our impotence into
strength, and fits us for that walk in newness of life for which
we have been quickened in Him. If we do not believe this, if we
will not take courage and say, with Paul, “I can do all things in
Christ, which [p 102 ] strengtheneth me,” we cannot obey. But if
we will listen to the word that tells us of the walk that is not
only possible, but has been proved and seen in God’s saints
from of old, if we will fix our eye on the mighty, living, loving
Christ, who speaks in power, “Rise and walk,” we shall take
courage and obey. We shall rise and begin to walk in Him and
His strength. In faith, apart from and above all feeling, we shall
accept and trust an unseen Christ as our strength, and go on in
the strength of the Lord God. We shall know Christ as the
strength of our life. We shall know, and tell, and prove that
Jesus Christ hath made us whole.
Can it indeed be? Yes, it can. He has done it for many: He will
do it for you. Beware of forming wrong conceptions of what
must take place. When the impotent man was made whole he
had still all to learn as to the use of his new-found strength. If
he wanted to dig, or build, or learn a trade, he had to begin at
the beginning. Do not expect at once to be a proficient in
prayer or any part of the Christian life. No; but expect and be
confident of this one thing, that, as you have trusted yourself
to Christ to be your health and strength, He will lead and teach
you. Begin to pray in a [p 103 ] quiet sense of your ignorance
and weakness, but in a joyful assurance that He will work in
you what you need. Rise and walk each day in a holy
confidence that He is with you and in you. Just accept Jesus
Christ the Living One, and trust Him to do His work.
Will you do it? Have you done it? Even now Jesus speaks,
“Rise and walk.” “Amen, Lord! at Thy word I come. I rise to
walk with Thee, and in Thee, and like Thee.”
[p 104 ] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
 CHAPTER IX
Contents

The Secret of Effectual Prayer

“What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye

have received them, and ye shall have them.”—Mark xi. 24.

Here we have a summary of the teaching of our Lord Jesus on

prayer. Nothing will so much help to convince us of the sin of
our remissness in prayer, to discover its causes, and to give us
courage to expect entire deliverance, as the careful study and
then the believing acceptance of that teaching. The more
heartily we enter into the mind of our blessed Lord, and set
ourselves simply just to think about prayer as He thought, the
more surely will His words be as living seeds. They will grow
and produce in us their fruit,—a life and practice exactly
corresponding to the Divine truth [p 105 ] they contain. Do let
us believe this: Christ, the living Word of God, gives in His
words a Divine quickening power which brings what they say,
which works in us what He asks, which actually fits and
enables for all He demands. Learn to look upon His teaching on
prayer as a definite promise of what He, by His Holy Spirit
dwelling in you, is going to work into your very being and
character.
Our Lord gives us the five marks, or essential elements, of true
prayer. There must be, first, the heart’s desire; then the
expression of that desire in prayer; with that, the faith that
carries the prayer to God; in that faith, the acceptance of God’s
answer; then comes the experience of the desired blessing. It
may help to give definiteness to our thought, if we each take a
definite request in regard to which we would fain learn to pray
believingly. Or, perhaps better still, we might all unite and take
the one thing that has been occupying our attention. We have
been speaking of failure in prayer; why should we not take as
the object of desire and supplication the “grace of
supplication,” and say, I want to ask and receive in faith the
power to pray just as, and as much as, my God expects of me?
Let us meditate on our Lord’s words, in the [p 106 ] confidence
that He will teach us how to pray for this blessing.
1. “What things soever ye desire.”—Desire is the secret power
that moves the whole world of living men, and directs the
course of each. And so desire is the soul of prayer, and the
cause of insufficient or unsuccessful prayer is very much to be
found in the lack or feebleness of desire. Some may doubt this:
they are sure that they have very earnestly desired what they
ask. But if they consider whether their desire has indeed been
as whole-hearted as God would have it, as the heavenly worth
of these blessings demands, they may come to see that it was
indeed the lack of desire that was the cause of failure. What is
true of God is true of each of his blessings, and is the more true
the more spiritual the blessing: “Ye shall seek Me, and shall
find, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart” (Jer. xxix.
13). Of Judah in the days of Asa it is written, “They sought
Him with their whole desire” (2 Chron. xv. 15). A Christian may
often have very earnest desires for spiritual blessings. But
alongside of these there are other desires in his daily life
occupying a large place in his interests and affections. The
spiritual desires are [p 107 ] not all-absorbing. He wonders that
his prayer is not heard. It is simply that God wants the whole
heart. “The Lord thy God is one Lord, therefore thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart.” The law is unchangeable:
God offers Himself, gives Himself away, to the whole-hearted
who give themselves wholly away to Him. He always gives us
according to our heart’s desire. But not as we think it, but as
He sees it. If there be other desires which are more at home
with us, which have our heart more than Himself and His
presence, He allows these to be fulfilled, and the desires that
engage us at the hour of prayer cannot be granted.
We desire the gift of intercession, grace and power to pray
aright. Our hearts must be drawn away from other desires: we
must give ourselves wholly to this one. We must be willing to
live wholly in intercession for the kingdom. By fixing our eye
on the blessedness and the need of this grace, by thinking of
the certainty that God will give it us, by giving ourselves up to
it, for the sake of the perishing world, desire may be
strengthened, and the first step taken towards the possession
of the coveted blessing. Let us seek [p 108 ] the grace of prayer,
as we seek the God with whom it will link us, “with our whole
desire”; we may depend upon the promise, “He will fulfil the
desire of them that fear Him.” Let us not fear to say to Him, “I
desire it with my whole heart.”
2. “What things soever ye desire when ye pray.”—The desire
of the heart must become the expression of the lips. Our Lord
Jesus more than once asked those who cried to Him for mercy,
“What wilt thou?” He wanted them to say what they would. To
speak it out roused their whole being into action, brought them
into contact with Him, and wakened their expectation. To pray
is to enter into God’s presence, to claim and secure His
attention, to have distinct dealing with Him in regard to some
request, to commit our need to His faithfulness and to leave it
there: it is in so doing that we become fully conscious of what
we are seeking.
There are some who often carry strong desires in their heart,
without bringing them to God in the clear expression of definite
and repeated prayer. There are others who go to the Word and
its promises to strengthen their faith, but do not give sufficient
place to that pointed asking of God which [p 109 ] helps the
soul to the assurance that the matter has been put into God’s
hands. Still others come in prayer with so many requests and
desires, that it is difficult for themselves to say what they really
expect God to do. If you would obtain from God this great gift
of faithfulness in prayer and power to pray aright, begin by
exercising yourself in prayer in regard to it. Say of it to yourself
and to God: “Here is something I have asked, and am
continuing to ask till I receive. As plain and pointed as words
can make it, I am saying, ‘My Father! I do desire, I do ask of
Thee, and expect of Thee, the grace of prayer and
intercession.’”
3. “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe.”—As
it is only by faith that we can know God, or receive Jesus
Christ, or live the Christian life, so faith is the life and power of
prayer. If we are to enter upon a life of intercession, in which
there is to be joy and power and blessing, if we are to have our
prayer for the grace of prayer answered, we must learn anew
what faith is, and begin to live and pray in faith as never
before.
Faith is the opposite of sight, and the two are contrary the one
to the other. “We walk by faith, and not by sight.” If the
unseen is to get full [p 110 ] possession of us, and heart and life
and prayer are to be full of faith, there must be a withdrawal
from, a denial of, the visible. The spirit that seeks to enjoy as
much as possible of what is innocent or legitimate, that gives
the first place to the calls and duties of daily life, is
inconsistent with a strong faith and close intercourse with the
spiritual world. “We look not at the things that are seen”—the
negative side needs to be emphasised if the positive, “but at
the things which are not seen,” is to become natural to us. In
praying, faith depends upon our living in the invisible world.
This faith has specially to do with God. The great reason of our
lack of faith is our lack of knowledge of God and intercourse
with Him. “Have faith in God,” Jesus said when He spoke of
removing mountains. It is as a soul knows God, is occupied
with His power, love, and faithfulness, comes away out of self
and the world, and allows the light of God to shine on it, that
unbelief will become impossible. All the mysteries and
difficulties connected with answers to prayer will, however
little we may be able to solve them intellectually, be swallowed
up in the adoring assurance: “This God is our [p 111 ] God. He
will bless us. He does indeed answer prayer. And the grace to
pray I am asking for He will delight to give.” (Note C.) 4. “What
things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye have
received,” now as you pray.—Faith has to accept the answer,
as given by God in heaven, before it is found or felt upon
earth. This point causes difficulty, and yet it is of the very
essence of believing prayer, its real secret. Try and take it in.
Spiritual things can only be spiritually apprehended or
appropriated. The spiritual heavenly blessing of God’s answer
to your prayer must be spiritually recognised and accepted
before you feel anything of it. It is faith does this. A soul that
not only seeks an answer, but seeks first the God who gives
the answer, receives the power to know that it has what it has
asked of Him. If it knows that it has asked according to His will
and promises, and that it has come to and found Himself to
give it, it does believe that it has received. “We know that He
heareth us.”
There is nothing so heart-searching as this faith, “Believe that
ye have received.” As we strive to believe, and find we cannot,
it leads us to [p 112 ] discover what there is that hinders.
Blessed is the man who holds nothing back, and lets nothing
hold him back, but, with his eye and heart on God alone,
refuses to rest till he has believed what our Lord bids him, “that
he has received.” Here is the place where Jacob becomes Israel,
and the power of prevailing prayer is born out of human
weakness and despair. Here comes in the real need for
persevering and ever-importunate prayer, that will not rest, or
go away, or give up, till it knows it is heard, and believes that it
has received.
You pray for “the Spirit of grace and supplication”? As you
ask for it in strong desire, and believe in God who hears prayer,
do not be afraid to press on and believe that your life can
indeed be changed, that the world with its press of duties,
whether religious or not, hindering prayer, can be overcome,
and that God gives you your heart’s desire, grace to pray both
in measure and in spirit, just as the Father would have His child
do. “Believe that you have received.”
5. “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye
have received, and ye shall have them.”—The receiving from
God in faith, the [p 113 ] believing acceptance of the answer
with the perfect, praising assurance that it has been given, is
not necessarily the experience or subjective possession of the
gift we have asked for. At times there may be a considerable, or
even a long, interval. In other cases the believing supplicant
may at once enter upon the actual enjoyment of what he has
received. It is specially in the former case that we have need of
faith and patience: faith to rejoice in the assurance of the
answer bestowed and received, and to begin and act upon that
answer though nothing be felt; patience to wait if there be for
the present no sensible proof of its presence. We can count
upon it: Ye shall have, in actual enjoyment.
If we apply this to the prayer for the power of faithful
intercession, the grace to pray earnestly and perseveringly for
souls around us, let us learn to hold fast the Divine assurance
that, as surely as we believe we receive, and that faith
therefore, apart from all failing, may rejoice in the certainty of
an answered prayer. The more we praise God for it, the sooner
will the experience come. We may begin at once to pray for
others, in the confidence that grace will be given us to pray
more [p 114 ] perseveringly and more believingly than we have
done before. If we do not find any special enlargement or
power in prayer, this must not hinder or discourage us. We
have accepted, apart from feeling, a spiritual Divine gift by
faith; in that faith we are to pray, nothing doubting. The Holy
Spirit may for a little time be hiding Himself within us; we may
count upon Him, even though it be with groanings which
cannot find expression, to pray in us; in due time we shall
become conscious of His presence and power. As sure as there
is desire and prayer and faith, and faith’s acceptance of the
gift, there will be, too, the manifestation and experience of the
blessing we sought.
Beloved brother! do you truly desire that God should enable
you so to pray that your life may be free from continual self-
condemnation, and that the power of His Spirit may come down
in answer to your petition? Come and ask it of God. Kneel
down and pray for it in a single definite sentence. When you
have done so, kneel still in faith, believing in God who answers.
Believe that you do now receive what you have prayed: believe
that you have received. If you find it difficult to do [p 115 ] this,
kneel still, and say that you do it on the strength of His own
word. If it cost time, and struggle, and doubt—fear not; at His
feet, looking up into His face, faith will come. “Believe that you
have received”: at His bidding you dare claim the answer.
Begin in that faith, even though it be feeble, a new prayer-life,
with this one thought as its strength: “You have asked and
received grace in Christ to prepare you, step by step, to be
faithful in prayer and intercession. The more simply you hold
to this, and expect the Holy Spirit to work it in you, the more
surely and fully will the word be made true to you: Ye shall
have it. God Himself who gave the answer will work it in you.”
[p 116 ] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
 CHAPTER X
Contents

The Spirit of Supplication

“I will pour upon the house of David the Spirit of grace and of
supplication.”—Zech. xii. 10.
“The Spirit also helpeth our infirmity; for we know not how to
pray as we ought: but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for
us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And He that
searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit,
because He maketh intercession for the saints according to
God.”—Rom. viii. 26, 27.
“With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the
Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and
supplication for all the saints.”—Eph. vi. 18.
“Praying in the Holy Spirit.”—Jude 20.

The Holy Spirit has been given to every child of God to be his
life. He dwells in him, not as a separate Being in one part of his
nature, but as his very life. He is the Divine power or energy by
which his life is maintained and [p 117 ] strengthened. All that a
believer is called to be or to do, the Holy Spirit can and will
work in him. If he does not know or yield to the Holy Guest, the
Blessed Spirit cannot work, and his life is a sickly one, full of
failure and of sin. As he yields, and waits, and obeys the
leading of the Spirit, God works in him all that is pleasing in His
sight.
This Holy Spirit is, in the first place, a Spirit of prayer. He was
promised as a “Spirit of grace and supplication,” the grace for
supplication. He was sent forth into our hearts as “the Spirit of
adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” He enables us to
say, in true faith and growing apprehension of its meaning, Our
Father which art in heaven. “He maketh intercession for the
saints according to God.” And as we pray in the Spirit, our
worship is as God seeks it to be, “in spirit and in truth.” Prayer
is just the breathing of the Spirit in us; power in prayer comes
from the power of the Spirit in us, waited on and trusted in.
Failure in prayer comes from feebleness of the Spirit’s work in
us. Our prayer is the index of the measure of the Spirit’s work in
us. To pray aright, the life of the Spirit must be right in us. For
praying the effectual, much-availing prayer of [p 118 ] the
righteous man everything depends on being full of the Spirit.
There are three very simple lessons that the believer, who
would enjoy the blessing of being taught to pray by the Spirit
of prayer, must know. The first is: Believe that the Spirit
dwells in you (Eph. i. 13). Deep in the inmost recesses of his
being, hidden and unfelt, every child of God has the Holy,
Mighty Spirit of God dwelling in him. He knows it by faith, the
faith that, accepting God’s word, realises that of which he sees
as yet no sign. “We receive the promise of the Spirit by faith.”
As long as we measure our power, for praying aright and
perseveringly, by what we feel, or think we can accomplish, we
shall be discouraged when we hear of how much we ought to
pray. But when we quietly believe that, in the midst of all our
conscious weakness, the Holy Spirit as a Spirit of supplication
is dwelling within us, for the very purpose of enabling us to
pray in such manner and measure as God would have us, our
hearts will be filled with hope. We shall be strengthened in the
assurance which lies at the very root of a happy and fruitful
Christian life, that God has made an abundant provision for
our being what He wants us to be. [p 119 ] We shall begin to
lose our sense of burden and fear and discouragement about
our ever praying sufficiently, because we see that the Holy
Spirit Himself will pray, is praying, in us.
The second lesson is: Beware above everything of grieving
the Holy Spirit (Eph. iv. 30). If you do, how can He work in you
the quiet, trustful, and blessed sense of that union with Christ
which makes your prayers well pleasing to the Father? Beware
of grieving Him by sin, by unbelief, by selfishness, by
unfaithfulness to His voice in conscience. Do not think
grieving Him a necessity: that cuts away the very sinews of
your strength. Do not consider it impossible to obey the
command, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit.” He Himself is the very
power of God to make you obedient. The sin that comes up in
you against your will, the tendency to sloth, or pride, or self-
will, or passion that rises in the flesh, your will can, in the
power of the Spirit, at once reject, and cast upon Christ and His
blood, and your communion with God is immediately restored.
Accept each day the Holy Spirit as your Leader and Life and
Strength; you can count upon Him to do in your heart all that
ought to be done there. He, the Unseen and Unfelt One, but
known by [p 120 ] faith, gives there, unseen and unfelt, the love
and the faith and the power of obedience you need, because
He reveals Christ unseen within you, as actually your Life and
Strength. Grieve not the Holy Spirit by distrusting Him,
because you do not feel His presence in you.
Especially in the matter of prayer grieve Him not. Do not
expect, when you trust Christ to bring you into a new, healthy
prayer-life, that you will be able all at once to pray as easily and
powerfully and joyfully as you fain would. No; it may not come
at once. But just bow quietly before God in your ignorance and
weakness. That is the best and truest prayer, to put yourself
before God just as you are, and to count on the hidden Spirit
praying in you. “We know not what to pray as we ought”;
ignorance, difficulty, struggle, marks our prayer all along. But,
“the Spirit helpeth our infirmities.” How? “The Spirit Himself,”
deeper down than our thoughts or feelings, “maketh
intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
When you cannot find words, when your words appear cold
and feeble, just believe: The Holy Spirit is praying in me. Be
quiet before God, and give Him time [p 121 ] and opportunity; in
due season you will learn to pray. Beware of grieving the Spirit
of prayer, by not honouring Him in patient, trustful surrender
to His intercession in you.
The third lesson: “Be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. v. 18). I think
that we have seen the meaning of the great truth: It is only the
healthy spiritual life that can pray aright. The command comes
to each of us: “Be filled with the Spirit.” That implies that while
some rest content with the beginning, with a small measure of
the Spirit’s working, it is God’s will that we should be filled
with the Spirit. That means, from our side, that our whole being
ought to be entirely yielded up to the Holy Spirit, to be
possessed and controlled by Him alone. And, from God’s side,
that we may count upon and expect the Holy Spirit to take
possession and fill us. Has not our failure in prayer evidently
been owing to our not having accepted the Spirit of prayer to
be our life; to our not having yielded wholly to Him, whom the
Father gave as the Spirit of His Son, to work the life of the Son
in us? Let us, to say the very least, be willing to receive Him, to
yield ourselves to God and trust Him for it. Let us not again
wilfully grieve the Holy Spirit by [p 122 ] declining, by
neglecting, by hesitating to seek to have Him as fully as He is
willing to give Himself to us. If we have at all seen that prayer
is the great need of our work and of the Church, if we have at
all desired or resolved to pray more, let us turn to the very
source of all power and blessing—let us believe that the Spirit
of prayer, even in His fulness, is for us.
We all admit the place the Father and the Son have in our
prayer. It is to the Father we pray, and from whom we expect
the answer. It is in the merit, and name, and life of the Son,
abiding in Him and He in us, that we trust to be heard. But have
we understood that in the Holy Trinity all the Three Persons
have an equal place in prayer, and that the faith in the Holy
Spirit of intercession as praying in us is as indispensable as the
faith in the Father and the Son? How clearly we have this in the
words, “Through Christ we have access by one Spirit to the
Father.” As much as prayer must be to the Father, and through
the Son, it must be by the Spirit. And the Spirit can pray in no
other way in us, than as He lives in us. It is only as we give
ourselves to the Spirit living and [p 123 ] praying in us, that the
glory of the prayer-hearing God, and the ever-blessed and most
effectual mediation of the Son, can be known by us in their
power. (Note D.)
Our last lesson: Pray in the Spirit for all saints (Eph. vi. 18).
The Spirit, who is called “the Spirit of supplication,” is also and
very specially the Spirit of intercession. It is said of Him, “the
Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings that
cannot be uttered.” “He maketh intercession for the saints.” It
is the same word as is used of Christ, “who also maketh
intercession for us.” The thought is essentially that of
mediation—one pleading for another. When the Spirit of
intercession takes full possession of us, all selfishness, as if we
wanted Him separate from His intercession for others, and have
Him for ourselves alone, is banished, and we begin to avail
ourselves of our wonderful privilege to plead for men. We long
to live the Christ-life of self-consuming sacrifice for others, as
our heart unceasingly yields itself to God to obtain His
blessing for those around us. Intercession then becomes, not
an incident or an occasional part of our prayers, but their one
great object. Prayer for ourselves then takes its true [p 124 ]
place, simply as a means for fitting us better for exercising our
ministry of intercession more effectually.
May I be allowed to speak a very personal word to each of my
readers? I have humbly besought God to give me what I may
give them—Divine light and help truly to forsake the life of
failure in prayer, and to enter, even now, and at once, upon the
life of intercession which the Holy Spirit can enable them to
lead. It can be done by a simple act of faith, claiming the
fulness of the Spirit, that is, the full measure of the Spirit which
you are capable in God’s sight of receiving, and He is therefore
willing to bestow. Will you not, even now, accept of this by
faith?
Let me remind you of what takes place at conversion. Most of
us, you probably too, for a time sought peace in efforts and
struggles to give up sin and please God. But you did not find it
thus. The peace of God’s pardon came by faith, trusting God’s
word concerning Christ and His salvation. You had heard of
Christ as the gift of His love, you knew that He was for you
too, you had felt the movings and drawings of His grace; but
never till in faith in God’s word you accepted [p 125 ] Him as
God’s gift to you, did you know the peace and joy that He can
give. Believing in Him and His saving love made all the
difference, and changed your relation from one who had ever
grieved Him, to one who loved and served Him. And yet, after
a time, you have a thousand times wondered you love and
serve Him so ill.
At the time of your conversion you knew little about the Holy
Spirit. Later on you heard of His dwelling in you, and His being
the power of God in you for all the Father intends you to be,
and yet His indwelling and inworking have been something
vague and indefinite, and hardly a source of joy or strength. At
conversion you did not yet know your need of Him, and still
less what you might expect of Him. But your failures have
taught it you. And now you begin to see how you have been
grieving Him, by not trusting and not following Him, by not
allowing Him to work in you all God’s pleasure.
All this can be changed. Just as you, after seeking Christ, and
praying to Him, and trying without success to serve Him,
found rest in accepting Him by faith, just so you may even now
yield yourself to the full guidance of the Holy Spirit, [p 126 ]
and claim and accept Him to work in you what God would have.
Will you not do it? Just accept Him in faith as Christ’s gift, to
be the Spirit of your whole life, of your prayer-life too, and you
can count upon Him to take charge. You can then begin,
however feeble you feel, and unable to pray aright, to bow
before God in silence, with the assurance that He will teach you
to pray.
My dear brother, as you consciously by faith accepted Christ,
to pardon, you can consciously now in the like faith accept of
Christ who gives the Holy Spirit to do His work in you. “Christ
redeemed us that we might receive the promise of the Spirit by
faith.” Kneel down, and simply believe that the Lord Christ,
who baptizeth with the Holy Spirit, does now, in response to
your faith, begin in you the blessed life of a full experience of
the power of the indwelling Spirit. Depend most confidently
upon Him, apart from all feeling or experience, as the Spirit of
supplication and intercession to do His work. Renew that act of
faith each morning, each time you pray; trust Him, against all
appearances, to work in you,—be sure He is working,—and He
will give you [p 127 ] to know what the joy of the Holy Spirit is
as the power of your life.
“I will pour out the Spirit of supplication.” Do you not begin to
see that the mystery of prayer is the mystery of the Divine
indwelling. God in heaven gives His Spirit in our hearts to be
there the Divine power praying in us, and drawing us upward
to our God. God is a Spirit, and nothing but a like life and Spirit
within us can hold communion with Him. It was for this man
was created, that God might dwell and work in Him, and be the
life of his life. It was this Divine indwelling that sin lost. It was
this that Christ came to exhibit in His life, to win back for us in
His death, and then to impart to us by coming again from
heaven in the Spirit to live in His disciples. It is this, the
indwelling of God through the Spirit, that alone can explain and
enable us to appropriate the wonderful promises given to
prayer. God gives the Spirit as a Spirit of Supplication, too, to
maintain His Divine life within us as a life out of which prayer
ever rises upward.
Without the Holy Spirit no man can call Jesus Lord, or cry,
Abba, Father; no man can worship in spirit and truth, or pray
without ceasing. The [p 128 ] Holy Spirit is given the believer to
be and do in him all that God wants him to be or do. He is given
him especially as the Spirit of prayer and supplication. Is it not
clear that everything in prayer depends upon our trusting the
Holy Spirit to do His work in us; yielding ourselves to His
leading, depending only and wholly on Him?
We read, “Stephen was a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit.”
The two ever go together, in exact proportion to each other. As
our faith sees and trusts the Spirit in us to pray, and waits on
Him, He will do His work; and it is the longing desire, and the
earnest supplication, and the definite faith the Father seeks. Do
let us know Him, and in the faith of Christ who unceasingly
gives Him, cultivate the assured confidence, we can learn to
pray as the Father would have us.
[p 129 ] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
 CHAPTER XI
Contents

In the Name of Christ

“Whatsoever ye shall ask in My Name, that will I do. If ye

shall ask anything in My Name, I will do it. I have appointed
you, that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My Name,
He may give it you. Verily, verily I say unto you, whatsoever
ye shall ask the Father in My Name, He will give it you.
Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My Name; ask, and ye shall
receive, that your joy may be full. At that day ye shall ask in
My Name.”—John xiv. 13, 14, xv. 16, xvi. 23, 24, 26.

In my name—repeated six times over. Our Lord knew how slow

our hearts would be to take it in, and He so longed that we
should really believe that His Name is the power in which every
knee should bow, and in which every prayer could be heard,
that He did not weary of saying it over and over: In My Name!
Between the wonderful whatsoever ye shall ask, and the
Divine I [p 130 ] will do it, the Father will give it, this one
word is the simple link: In My Name. Our asking and the
Father’s giving are to be equally in the Name of Christ.
Everything in prayer depends upon our apprehending this—In
My Name.
We know what a name is: a word by which we call up to our
mind the whole being and nature of an object. When I speak of
a lamb or a lion, the name at once suggests the different nature
peculiar to each. The Name of God is meant to express His
whole Divine nature and glory. And so the Name of Christ
means His whole nature, His person and work, His disposition
and Spirit. To ask in the Name of Christ is to pray in union with
Him. When first a sinner believes in Christ, he only knows and
thinks of His merit and intercession. And to the very end that
is the one foundation of our confidence. And yet, as the
believer grows in grace and enters more deeply and truly into
union with Christ—that is, as he abides in Him—he learns that
to pray in the Name of Christ also means in His Spirit, and in
the possession of His nature, as the Holy Spirit imparts it to us.
As we grasp the meaning of the words, “At that day ye shall
ask in My Name”—the [p 131 ] day when in the Holy Spirit
Christ came to live in His disciples—we shall no longer be
staggered at the greatness of the promise: “Whatsoever ye
shall ask in My Name, I will do it.” We shall get some insight
into the unchangeable necessity and certainty of the law: what
is asked in the Name of Christ, in union with Him, out of His
nature and Spirit, must be given. As Christ’s prayer-nature
lives in us, His prayer-power becomes ours too. Not that the
measure of our attainment or experience is the ground of our
confidence, but the honesty and whole-heartedness of our
surrender to all that we see that Christ seeks to be in us, will be
the measure of our spiritual fitness and power to pray in His
Name. “If ye abide in Me,” He says, “ye shall ask what ye will.”
As we live in Him, we get the spiritual power to avail ourselves
of His Name. As the branch wholly given up to the life and
service of the Vine can count upon all its sap and strength for
its fruit, so the believer, who in faith has accepted the fulness
of the Spirit to possess his whole life, can indeed avail himself
of all the power of Christ’s Name.
Here on earth Christ as man came to reveal what prayer is. To
pray in the Name of Christ we [p 132 ] must pray as He prayed
on earth; as He taught us to pray; in union with Him, as He
now prays in heaven. We must in love study, and in faith
accept, Him as our Example, our Teacher, our Intercessor.

Christ our Example.

Prayer in Christ on earth and in us cannot be two different

things. Just as there is but one God, who is a Spirit, who hears
prayer, there is but one spirit of acceptable prayer. When we
realise what time Christ spent in prayer, and how the great
events of His life were all connected with special prayer, we
learn the necessity of absolute dependence on and unceasing
direct communication with the heavenly world, if we are to live
a heavenly life, or to exercise heavenly power around us. We
see how foolish and fruitless the attempt must be to do work
for God and heaven, without in the first place in prayer getting
the life and the power of heaven to possess us. Unless this
truth lives in us, we cannot avail ourselves aright of the mighty
power of the Name of Christ. His example must teach us the
meaning of His Name.
[p 133 ] Of His baptism we read, “Jesus having been baptized,
and praying, the heaven was opened.” It was in prayer heaven
was opened to Him, that heaven came down to Him with the
Spirit and the voice of the Father. In the power of these He was
led into the wilderness, in fasting and prayer to have them
tested and fully appropriated. Early in His ministry Mark
records (i. 35), “And in the morning, a great while before day,
He rose and departed into a desert place, and there prayed.”
And somewhat later Luke tells (v. 16), “Multitudes came
together to hear and to be healed. But He withdrew Himself
into the desert, and prayed.” He knew how the holiest service,
preaching and healing, can exhaust the spirit; how too much
intercourse with men could cloud the fellowship with God; how
time, time, full time, is needed if the spirit is to rest and root in
Him; how no pressure of duty among men can free from the
absolute need of much prayer. If anyone could have been
satisfied with always living and working in the spirit of prayer,
it would have been our Master. But He could not; He needed
to have His supplies replenished by continual and long-
continued seasons of prayer. To use Christ’s Name [p 134 ] in
prayer surely includes this, to follow His example and to pray
as He did.
Of the night before choosing His apostles we read (Luke vi.
12), “He went out into the mountain to pray, and continued all
night in prayer to God.” The first step towards the
constitution of the Church, and the separation of men to be His
witnesses and successors, called Him to special long-
continued prayer. All had to be done according to the pattern
on the mount. “The Son can do nothing of Himself: the Father
showeth Him all things that Himself doeth.” It was in the night
of prayer it was shown Him.
In the night between the feeding of the five thousand, when
Jesus knew that they wanted to take Him by force and make
Him King, and the walking on the sea, “He withdrew again into
the mountain, Himself alone, to pray” (Matt. xiv. 23; Mark vi.
46; John vi. 15). It was God’s will He was come to do, and
God’s power He was to show forth. He had it not as a
possession of His own; it had to be prayed for and received
from above. The first announcement of His approaching death,
after He had elicited from Peter the confession that He was the
Christ, is introduced by the words [p 135 ] (Luke ix. 15), “And it
came to pass that He was praying alone.” The introduction to
the story of the Transfiguration is (Luke ix. 28), “He went up
into the mountain to pray.” The request of the disciples, “Lord,
teach us to pray” (Luke xi. 1), follows on, “It came to pass as
He was praying in a certain place.” In His own personal life, in
His intercourse with the Father, in all He is and does for men,
the Christ whose name we are to use is a Man of prayer. It is
prayer gives Him His power of blessing, and transfigures His
very body with the glory of heaven. It is His own prayer-life
makes Him the teacher of others how to pray. How much more
must it be prayer, prayer alone, much prayer, that can fit us to
share His glory of a transfigured life, or make us the channel of
heavenly blessing and teaching to others. To pray in the Name
of Christ is to pray as He prays.
As the end approaches, it is still more prayer. When the Greeks
asked to see Him, and He spoke of His approaching death, He
prayed. At Lazarus’ grave He prayed. In the last night He
prayed His prayer as our High-Priest, that we might know what
His sacrifice would win, and what His everlasting intercession
on the throne would be. In [p 136 ] Gethsemane He prayed His
prayer as Victim, the Lamb giving itself to the slaughter. On the
Cross it is still all prayer—the prayer of compassion for His
murderers; the prayer of atoning suffering in the thick
darkness; the prayer in death of confiding resignation of His
spirit to the Father. Note E.) Christ’s life and work, His
suffering and death—it was all prayer, all dependence on God,
trust in God, receiving from God, surrender to God. Thy
redemption, O believer, is a redemption wrought out by prayer
and intercession: thy Christ is a praying Christ: the life He lived
for thee, the life He lives in thee, is a praying life, that delights
to wait on God and receive all from Him. To pray in His Name is
to pray as He prayed. Christ is only our example because He is
our Head, our Saviour, and our Life. In virtue of His Deity and
of His Spirit He can live in us: we can pray in His Name,
because we abide in Him and He in us.

Christ our Teacher.

Christ was what He taught. All His teaching was just the
revelation of how He lived, and—praise God—of the life He
was to live in us. His teaching of the disciples was first to
awaken desire, [p 137 ] and so prepare them for what He would
by the Holy Spirit be and work in them. Let us believe very
confidently: all He was in prayer, and all He taught, He Himself
will give. He came to fulfil the law; much more will He fulfil the
gospel in all He taught us, as to what to pray, and how.
What to pray.—It has sometimes been said that direct
petitions, as compared with the exercise of fellowship with God,
are but a subordinate part of prayer, and that “in the prayer of
those who pray best and most, they occupy but an
inconsiderable place.” If we carefully study all that our Lord
spoke of prayer, we shall see that this is not His teaching. In
the Lord’s Prayer, in the parables on prayer, in the illustration
of a child asking bread, of our seeking and knocking, in the
central thought of the prayer of faith, “Whatsoever ye pray,
believe that ye have received,” in the oft-repeated
“whatsoever” of the last evening—everywhere our Lord urges
and encourages us to offer definite petitions, and to expect
definite answers. It is only because we have too much confined
prayer to our own needs, that it has been thought needful to
free it from the appearance of selfishness, by giving the
petitions a subordinate place. If once believers [p 138 ] were to
awake to the glory of the work of intercession, and to see that
in it, and the definite pleading for definite gifts on definite
spheres and persons, lie our highest fellowship with our
glorified Lord, and our only real power to bless men, it would
be seen that there can be no truer fellowship with God than
these definite petitions and their answers, by which we become
the channel of His grace and life to men. Then our fellowship
with the Father is even such as the Son has in His intercession.
How to pray.—Our Lord taught us to pray in secret, in
simplicity, with the eye on God alone, in humility, in the spirit
of forgiving love. But the chief truth He reiterated was ever
this: to pray in faith. And He defined that faith, not only as a
trust in God’s goodness or power, but as the definite
assurance that we have received the very thing we ask. And
then, in view of the delay in the answer, He insisted on
perseverance and urgency. We must be followers of those
“who through faith and patience inherit the promises”—the
faith that accepts the promise, and knows it has what it has
asked—the patience that obtains the promise and inherits the
blessing. We shall then learn to understand why God, who
promises to [p 139 ] avenge His elect speedily, bears with them
in seeming delay. It is that their faith may be purified from all
that is of the flesh, and tested and strengthened to become that
spiritual power that can do all things—can even cast
mountains into the heart of the sea.

Christ as our Intercessor.

We have gazed on Christ in His prayers; we have listened to

His teaching as to how we must pray; to know fully what it is
to pray in His Name, we must know Him too in His heavenly
intercession.
Just think what it means: that all His saving work wrought from
heaven is still carried on, just as on earth, in unceasing
communication with, and direct intercession to the Father, who
worketh all in all, who is All in All. Every act of grace in Christ
has been preceded by, and owes its power to, intercession.
God has been honoured and acknowledged as its Author. On
the throne of God, Christ’s highest fellowship with the Father,
and His partnership in His rule of the world, is in intercession.
Every blessing that comes down to us from above bears upon
it the stamp from [p 140 ] God: through Christ’s intercession.
His intercession is nothing but the fruit and the glory of His
atonement. When He gave Himself a sacrifice to God for men,
He proved that His whole heart had the one object: the glory of
God, in the salvation of men. In His intercession this great
purpose is realised: He glorifies the Father by asking and
receiving all of Him; He saves men by bestowing what He has
obtained from the Father. Christ’s intercession is the Father’s
glory, His own glory, our glory.
And now, this Christ, the Intercessor, is our life; He is our
Head, and we are His body; His Spirit and life breathe in us. As
in heaven so on earth, intercession is God’s chosen, God’s
only channel of blessing. Let us learn from Christ what glory
there is in it; what the way to exercise this wondrous power;
what the part it is to take in work for God.
The glory of it.—By it, beyond anything, we glorify God. By it
we glorify Christ. By it we bring blessing to the Church and the
world. By it we obtain our highest nobility—the Godlike power
of saving men.
The way to it.—Paul writes, “Walk in love, even as Christ
loved us, and gave Himself a sacrifice to [p 141 ] God for us.” If
we live as Christ lived, we will, as He did, give ourselves, for
our whole life, to God, to be used by Him for men. When once
we have done this, given ourselves, no more to seek anything
for ourselves, but for men, and that to God, for Him to use us,
and to impart to us what we can bestow on others, intercession
will become to us, as it is in Christ in heaven, the great work of
our life. And if ever the thought comes that the call is too high,
or the work too great, the faith in Christ, the Interceding Christ,
who lives in us, will give us the victory. We will listen to Him
who said, “The works that I do, shall ye do; and greater works
shall ye do.” We shall remember that we are not under the law,
with its impotence, but under grace with its omnipotence,
working all in us. We shall believe again in Him who said to us,
Rise and walk, and gave us—and we received it—His life as
our strength. We shall claim afresh the fulness of God’s Spirit
as His sufficient provision for our need, and count Him to be in
us the Spirit of Intercession, who makes us one with Christ in
His. Oh! let us only keep our place—giving up ourselves, like
Him, in Him, to God for men.
[p 142 ] Then we shall understand the part intercession is to
take in God’s work through us. We shall no longer try to work
for God, and ask Him to follow it with His blessing. We shall do
what the friend at midnight did, what Christ did on earth, and
ever does in heaven—we shall first get from God, and then turn
to men to give what He gave us. As with Christ, we shall make
our chief work, we shall count no time or trouble too great, to
receive from the Father; giving to men will then be in power.
Servants of Christ! children of God! be of good courage. Let no
fear of feebleness or poverty make you afraid—ask in the Name
of Christ. His Name is Himself, in all His perfection and power.
He is the living Christ, and will Himself make His Name a power
in you. Fear not to plead the Name; His promise is a threefold
cord that cannot be broken: Whatsoever ye ask—in My
Name—IT SHALL BE DONE UNTO YOU.
[p 143 ] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
 CHAPTER XII
Contents

My God will hear Me

“Therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto

you. Blessed are all they that wait for Him. He will be very
gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when He shall hear
it, He will answer thee.”—Isa. xxx. 18, 19.
“The Lord will hear when I call upon Him.”—Ps. iv. 3.
“I have called upon Thee, for Thou wilt hear me, O God!”—Ps.
xvii. 6.
“I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my
salvation: my God will hear me.”—Mic. vii. 7.

The power of prayer rests in the faith that God hears it. In more
than one sense this is true. It is this faith that gives a man
courage to pray. It is this faith that gives him power to prevail
with God. The moment I am assured that God hears me too, I
feel drawn to pray and to persevere in prayer. I feel strong to
claim and to [p 144 ] take in faith the answer God gives. One
great reason of lack of prayer is the want of the living, joyous
assurance: “My God will hear me.” If once God’s servants got
a vision of the living God waiting to grant their request, and to
bestow all the heavenly gifts of the Spirit they are in need of,
for themselves or those they are serving, how everything
would be set aside to make time and room for this one only
power that can ensure heavenly blessing—the prayer of faith!
When a man can, and does say, in living faith, “My God will
hear me!” surely nothing can keep him from prayer. He knows
that what he cannot do or get done on earth, can and will be
done for him from heaven. Let each one of us bow in stillness
before God, and wait on Him to reveal Himself as the prayer-
hearing God. In His presence the wondrous thoughts gathering
round the central truth will unfold themselves to us.
1. “My God will hear me.”—What a blessed certainty!—We
have God’s word for it in numberless promises. We have
thousands of witnesses to the fact that they have found it true.
We have had experience of it in our lives. We have had the Son
of God come from heaven with the message [p 145 ] that if we
ask, the Father will give. We have had Himself praying on
earth, and being heard. And we have Him in heaven now,
sitting at the right hand of God and making intercession for us.
God hears prayer—God delights to hear prayer. He has allowed
His people a thousand times over to be tried, that they might
be compelled to cry to Him, and learn to know Him as the
Hearer of Prayer.
Let us confess with shame how little we have believed this
wondrous truth, in the sense of receiving it into our heart, and
allowing it to possess and control our whole being. That we
accept a truth is not enough; the living God, of whom the truth
speaks, must in its light so be revealed, that our whole life is
spent in His presence, with the consciousness as clear as in a
little child towards its earthly parent—I know for certain my
father hears me.
Beloved child of God! you know by experience how little an
intellectual apprehension of truth has profited you. Beseech
God to reveal Himself to you. If you want to live a different
prayer-life, bow each time ere you pray in silence to worship
this God; to wait till there rests on you some right [p 146 ] sense
of His nearness and readiness to answer. So will you begin to
pray with the words, “My God will hear me!”
2. “My God will hear me.” What a wondrous grace!—Think of
God in His infinite majesty, His altogether incomprehensible
glory, His unapproachable holiness, sitting on a throne of
grace, waiting to be gracious, inviting, encouraging you to
pray with His promise: “Call upon Me, and I will answer thee.”
Think of yourself, in your nothingness and helplessness as a
creature; in your wretchedness and transgressions as a sinner;
in your feebleness and unworthiness as a saint; and praise the
glory of that grace which allows you to say boldly of your
prayer for yourself and others, “My God will hear me.” Think of
how you are not left to yourself, and what you can accomplish,
in this wonderful intercourse with God. God has united you
with Christ; in Him and His Name you have your confidence;
on the throne He prays with you and for you; on the footstool
of the throne you pray with Him and in Him. His worth, and the
Father’s delight in hearing Him, are the measure of your
confidence, your assurance of being heard. There is more.
Think of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of [p 147 ] God’s own Son,
sent into your heart to cry, Abba, Father, and to be in you a
Spirit of Supplication, when you know not what to pray as you
ought. Think, in all your insignificance and unworthiness, of
your being as acceptable as Christ Himself. Think in all your
ignorance and feebleness, of the Spirit making intercession
according to God within you, and cry out, “What wondrous
grace! Through Christ I have access to the Father, by the
Spirit. I can, I do believe it: ‘My God will hear me.’”
3. “My God will hear me.”—What a deep mystery!—There are
difficulties that cannot but at times arise and perplex even the
honest heart. There is the question as to God’s sovereign, all-
wise, all-disposing will. How can our wishes, often so foolish,
and our will, often so selfish, overrule or change that perfect
will? Were it not better to leave all to His disposal, who knows
what is best, and loves to give us the very best? Or how can
our prayer change what He has ordained before? Then there is
the question as to the need of persevering prayer, and long
waiting for the answer. If God be Infinite Love, and delighting
more to give than we to receive, where the need for the
pleading and wrestling, the urgency, and the long delay of
which [p 148 ] Scripture and experience speak? Arising out of
this there is still another question—that of the multitude of
apparently vain and unanswered prayers. How many have
pleaded for loved ones, and they die unsaved. How many cry
for years for spiritual blessing, and no answer comes. To think
of all this tries our faith, and makes us hesitate as we say, “My
God will hear me.”
Beloved! prayer, in its power with God, and His faithfulness to
His promise to hear it, is a deep spiritual mystery. To the
questions put above answers can be given that remove some
of the difficulty. But, after all, the first and the last that must be
said is this: As little as we can comprehend God can we
comprehend this, one of the most blessed of His attributes,
that He hears prayer. It is a spiritual mystery—nothing less
than the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God hears because we
pray in His Son, because the Holy Spirit prays in us. If we have
believed and claimed the life of Christ as our health, and the
fulness of the Spirit as our strength, let us not hesitate to
believe in the power of our prayer too. The Holy Spirit can
enable us to believe and rejoice in it, even where every
question is not yet answered. He will do [p 149 ] this, as we lay
our questionings in God’s bosom, trust His faithfulness, and
give ourselves humbly to obey His command to pray without
ceasing. Every art unfolds its secrets and its beauty only to the
man who practises it. To the humble soul who prays in the
obedience of faith, who practises prayer and intercession
diligently, because God asks it, the secret of the Lord will be
revealed, and the thought of the deep mystery of prayer,
instead of being a weary problem, will be a source of rejoicing,
adoration, and faith, in which the unceasing refrain is ever
heard: “My God will hear me!”
4. “My God will hear me.” What a solemn responsibility!—
How often we complain of darkness, of feebleness, of failure,
as if there was no help for it. And God has promised in answer
to our prayer to supply our every need, and give us His light
and strength and peace. Would that we realised the
responsibility of having such a God, and such promises, with
the sin and shame of not availing ourselves of them to the
utmost. How confident we should feel that the grace, which we
have accepted and trusted to enable us to pray as we should,
will be given.
There is more. This access to a prayer-hearing God is specially
meant to make us intercessors for [p 150 ] our fellowmen. Even
as Christ obtained His right of prevailing intercession by His
giving Himself a sacrifice to God for men, and through it
receives the blessings He dispenses, so, if we have truly with
Christ given ourselves to God for men, we share His right of
intercession, and are able to obtain the powers of the heavenly
world for them too. The power of life and death is in our hands
(1 John v. 16). In answer to prayer the Spirit can be poured out,
souls can be converted, believers can be established. In prayer
the kingdom of darkness can be conquered, souls brought out
of prison into the liberty of Christ, and the glory of God be
revealed. Through prayer, the sword of the Spirit, which is the
Word of God, can be wielded in power, and, in public
preaching as in private speaking, the most rebellious made to
bow at Jesus’ feet.
What a responsibility on the Church to give herself to the work
of intercession! What a responsibility on every minister,
missionary, worker, set apart for the saving of souls, to yield
himself wholly to act out and prove his faith: “My God will hear
me!” And what a call on every believer, instead of burying and
losing this talent, to seek to the very utmost to use it in prayer
and supplication [p 151 ] for all saints and for all men. My God
will hear me: The deeper our entrance into the truth of this
wondrous power God hath given to men, the more whole-
hearted will be our surrender to the work of intercession.
5. “My God will hear me.” What a blessed prospect!—I see it
—all the failures of my past life have been owing to the lack of
this faith. My failure, especially in the work of intercession, has
had its deepest root in this—I did not live in the full faith of the
blessed assurance, “My God will hear me!” Praise God! I begin
to see it—I believe it. All can be different. Or, rather, I see Him,
I believe Him. “My God will hear me!” Yes, me, even me!
Commonplace and insignificant though I be, filling but a very
little place, so that I will scarce be missed when I go—even I
have access to this Infinite God, with the confidence that He
heareth me. One with Christ, led by the Holy Spirit, I dare to
say: “I will pray for others, for I am sure my God will listen to
me: ‘My God will hear me.’” What a blessed prospect before
me—every earthly and spiritual anxiety exchanged for the
peace of God, who cares for all and hears prayer. What a
blessed prospect in my work—to know that even when the [p
152 ] answer is long delayed, and there is a call for much
patient, persevering prayer, the truth remains infallibly sure
—“My God will hear me!”
And what a blessed prospect for Christ’s Church if we could
but all give prayer its place, give faith in God its place, or,
rather, give the prayer-hearing God His place! Is not this the
one great thing, those, who in some little measure begin to see
the urgent need of prayer, ought in the first place to pray for.
When God, at the first, time after time, poured forth the Spirit
on His praying people, He laid down the law for all time: as
much of prayer, so much of the Spirit. Let each one who can
say, “My God will hear me,” join in the fervent supplication,
that throughout the Church that truth may be restored to its
true place, and the blessed prospect will be realised: a praying
Church endued with the power of the Holy Ghost.
6. “My God will hear me.” What a need of Divine teaching!—
We need this, both to enable us to hold this word in living
faith, and to make full use of it in intercession. It has been said,
and it cannot be said too often or too earnestly, that the one
thing needful for the Church of our day is, the power of the
Holy Spirit. It is just because [p 153 ] this is so, from the Divine
side, that we may also say as truly that, from the human side,
the one thing needful is, more prayer, more believing,
persevering prayer. In speaking of lack of the Spirit’s power,
and the condition for receiving it, someone used the expression
—the block is not on the perpendicular, but on the horizontal
line. It is to be feared that it is on both. There is much to be
confessed and taken away in us if the Spirit is to work freely.
But it is specially on the perpendicular line that the block is—
the upward look, and the deep dependence, and the strong
crying to God, and the effectual prayer of faith that avails—all
this is sadly lacking. And just this is the one thing needful.
Shall we not all set ourselves to learn the lesson which will
make prevailing prayer possible—the lesson of a faith that
always sings, “My God will hear me”? Simple and elementary
as it is, it needs practice and patience, it needs time and
heavenly teaching, to learn it aright. Under the impression of a
bright thought, or a blessed experience, it may look as if we
knew the lesson perfectly. But ever again the need will recur of
making this our first prayer—that God who hears prayer would
teach us to believe it, and so to pray [p 154 ] aright. If we desire
it we can count upon Him He who delights in hearing prayer
and answering it, He who gave His Son that He might ever pray
for us and with us, and His Holy Spirit to pray in us, we can be
sure there is not a prayer that He will hear more certainly than
this: that He so reveal Himself as the prayer-hearing God, that
our whole being may respond, “My God will hear me.”
[p 155 ] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
 CHAPTER XIII
Contents

Paul a Pattern of Prayer

“Go and inquire for one called Saul of Tarsus: for, behold, he
prayeth.”—Acts ix. 11.
“For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ
might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which
should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting.”—1 Tim. i.
16.

God took His own Son, and made Him our Example and our
Pattern. It sometimes is as if the power of Christ’s example is
lost in the thought that He, in whom is no sin, is not man as we
are. Our Lord took Paul, a man of like passions with ourselves,
and made him a pattern of what he could do for one who was
the chief of sinners. And Paul, the man who, more than any
other, has set his mark on the Church, has ever been appealed
to as a pattern man. In his mastery of Divine truth, and [p 156 ]
his teaching of it; in his devotion to his Lord, and his self-
consuming zeal in His service; in his deep experience of the
power of the indwelling Christ and the fellowship of his cross;
in the sincerity of his humility, and the simplicity and boldness
of his faith; in his missionary enthusiasm and endurance—in
all this, and so much more, “the grace of our Lord Jesus was
exceeding abundant in him.” Christ gave him, and the Church
has accepted him, as a pattern of what Christ would have, of
what Christ would work. Seven times Paul speaks of believers
following him: (1 Cor. iv. 16), “Wherefore I beseech you, be ye
followers of me”; (xi. 1), “Be ye followers of me, even as I am of
Christ”; Phil, iii. 17, iv. 9; 1 Thess. i. 6; 2 Thess. iii. 7–9.
If Paul, as a pattern of prayer, is not as much studied or
appealed to as he is in other respects, it is not because he is
not in this too as remarkable a proof of what grace can do, or
because we do not, in this respect, as much stand in need of
the help of his example. A study of Paul as a pattern of prayer
will bring a rich reward of instruction and encouragement. The
words our Lord used of him at his conversion, “Behold he
prayeth,” may be taken as the keynote of his life. The heavenly
[p 157 ] vision which brought him to his knees ever after ruled
his life. Christ at the right hand of God, in whom we are blessed
with all spiritual blessings, was everything to him; to pray and
expect the heavenly power in his work and on his work, from
heaven direct by prayer, was the simple outcome of his faith in
the Glorified One. In this, too, Christ meant him to be a pattern,
that we might learn that, just in the measure in which the
heavenliness of Christ and His gifts, the unworldliness of the
powers that work for salvation, are known and believed, will
prayer become the spontaneous rising of the heart to the only
source of its life. Let us see what we know of Paul.

Paul’s Habits of Prayer.

These are revealed almost unconsciously. He writes (Rom. i. 9),

“God is my witness, that without ceasing I make mention of
you always in my prayers. For I long to see you, that I may
impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be
established.” Rom. x. 1, ix. 2, 3: “My heart’s desire and prayer
to God for Israel is, that they may be saved”; “I have great
heaviness and [p 158 ] continual sorrow of heart; for I could
wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren.” 1
Cor. i. 4: “I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace
of God which is given you by Jesus Christ.” 2 Cor. vi. 4, 6:
“Approving ourselves as the ministers of Christ, in watchings,
in fastings.” Gal. iv. 19: “My little children, of whom I travail in
birth again till Christ be formed in you.” Eph. i. 16: “I cease not
to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.”
Eph. iii. 14: “I bow my knees to the Father, that He would grant
you to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner
man.” Phil. i. 3, 4, 8, 9: “I thank my God upon every
remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making
request for you all with joy. For God is my record, how greatly I
long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. And this I
pray”—Col. i. 3, 9: “We give thanks to God, praying always
for you. For this cause also, since the day we heard it, we do
not cease to pray for you, and to desire”—Col. ii. 1: “I would
that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for as
many as have not seen my face in the flesh.” 1 Thess. i. 2: “We
give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you
i n [p 159 ] our prayers.” iii. 9: “We joy for your sakes before
God; night and day praying exceedingly that we might perfect
that which is lacking in your faith.” 2 Thess. i. 3: “We are
bound to thank God always for you. Wherefore also we always
pray for you.” 2 Tim. i. 3: “I thank God, that without ceasing I
have remembrance of thee night and day.” Philem. 4: “I thank
my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers.”
These passages taken together give us the picture of a man
whose words, “Pray without ceasing,” were simply the
expression of his daily life. He had such a sense of the
insufficiency of simple conversion; of the need of the grace
and the power of heaven being brought down for the young
converts in prayer; of the need of much and unceasing prayer,
day and night, to bring it down; of the certainty that prayer
would bring it down—that his life was continual and most
definite prayer. He had such a sense that everything must
come from above, and such a faith that it would come in answer
to prayer, that prayer was neither a duty nor a burden, but the
natural turning of the heart to the only place whence it could
possibly obtain what it sought for others.

[p 160 ] The Contents of Paul’s Prayers.

It is of as much importance to know what Paul prayed, as how

frequently and earnestly he did so. Intercession is a spiritual
work. Our confidence in it will depend much on our knowing
that we ask according to the will of God. The more distinctly we
ask heavenly things, which we feel at once God alone can
bestow, which we are sure He will bestow, the more direct and
urgent will our appeal be to God alone. The more impossible
the things are that we seek, the more we will turn from all
human work to prayer and to God alone.
In the Epistles, in addition to expressions in which he speaks of
his praying, we have a number of distinct prayers in which Paul
gives utterance to his heart’s desire for those to whom he
writes. In these we see that his first desire was always that they
might be “established” in the Christian life. Much as he praised
God when he heard of conversion, he knew how feeble the
young converts were, and how for their establishing nothing
would avail without the grace of the Spirit prayed down. If we
notice some of the principal of [p 161 ] these prayers we shall
see what he asked and obtained.
Take the two prayers in Ephesians—the one for light, the other
for strength. In the former (i. 15), he prays for the Spirit of
wisdom to enlighten them to know what their calling was, what
their inheritance, what the mighty power of God working in
them. Spiritual enlightenment and knowledge was their great
need, to be obtained for them by prayer. In the latter (iii. 15) he
asks that the power they had been led to see in Christ might
work in them, and they be strengthened with Divine might, so
as to have the indwelling Christ, and the love that passeth
knowledge, and the fulness of God actually come on them.
These were things that could only come direct from heaven;
these were things he asked and expected. If we want to learn
Paul’s art of intercession, we must ask nothing less for
believers in our days.
Look at the prayer in Philippians (i. 9–11). There, too, it is first
for spiritual knowledge; then comes a blameless life, and then a
fruitful life to the glory of God. So also in the beautiful prayer in
Colossians (i. 9–11). First, spiritual knowledge [p 162 ] and
understanding of God’s will, then the strengthening with all
might to all patience and joy.
Or take the two prayers in 1 Thessalonians (iii. 12, 13, and v.
23). The one: “God so increase your love to one another, that
He may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness.” The
other: “God sanctify you wholly, and preserve you blameless.”
The very words are so high that we hardly understand, still
less believe, still less experience what they mean. Paul so lived
in the heavenly world, he was so at home in the holiness and
omnipotence of God and His love, that such prayers were the
natural expression of what he knew God could and would do.
“God stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness,” “God
sanctify you wholly”—the man who believes in these things
and desires them, will pray for them for others. The prayers are
all a proof that he seeks for them the very life of heaven upon
earth. No wonder that he is not tempted to trust in any human
means, but looks for it from heaven alone. Again, I say, the
more we take Paul’s prayers as our pattern, and make his
desires our own for believers for whom we pray, the more will
prayer to the God of heaven become as our daily breath.

[p 163 ] Paul’s Requests for Prayer.

These are no less instructive than his own prayers for the
saints. They prove that he does not count prayer any special
prerogative of an apostle; he calls the humblest and simplest
believer to claim his right. They prove that he does not think
that only the new converts or feeble Christians need prayer; he
himself is, as a member of the body, dependent upon his
brethren and their prayers. After he had preached the gospel
for twenty years, he still asks for prayer that he may speak as
he ought to speak. Not once for all, not for a time, but day by
day, and that without ceasing, must grace be sought and
brought down from heaven for his work. United, continued
waiting on God is to Paul the only hope of the Church. With
the Holy Spirit a heavenly life, the life of the Lord in heaven,
entered the world; nothing but unbroken communication with
heaven can keep it up.
Listen how he asks for prayer, and with what earnestness—
Rom. xv. 30: “I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus
Christ’s sake, and for the love [p 164 ] of the Spirit, that ye
strive together with me in your prayers to God for me; that I
may be delivered from them which do not believe in Judæa; and
may come unto you with joy by the will of God.” How
remarkably both prayers were answered: Rom. xv. 5, 6, 13. The
remarkable fact that the Roman world-power, which in Pilate
with Christ, in Herod with Peter, at Philippi, had proved its
antagonism to God’s kingdom, all at once becomes Paul’s
protector, and secures him a safe convoy to Rome, can only be
accounted for by these prayers.
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
God 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: [p
165 ] “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
God 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 God that “supply of the
Spirit [p 166 ] 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 God “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
God 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 [p 167 ] 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 God?
It was. The things that are impossible with men are possible
with God. 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 God is able
to make you “strivers with God,” 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 [p 168 ] 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.
[p 169 ] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
 CHAPTER XIV
Contents

God 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. [p 170 ] 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 God 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.
God seeks intercessors.—There is a world with its perishing
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 [p
171 ] been a Son of God to die for them. Thirty millions every
year passing 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
God’s intercessors, or we should cry to God above everything
to give from heaven the spirit of intercession.
God seeks intercessors.—There is a God 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 [p 172 ] is as if God 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 God’s people. He has taken them
up into partnership 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
God 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.
God 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 [p 173 ] and influence before God 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
God’s image and likeness to be God’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 God. Faith sees the
intercession of the saints to be part of the life of the Holy
Trinity—the believer as God’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.
God seeks intercessors.—When He called His people out of
Egypt, He separated the priestly tribe, to draw nigh to Him, and
stand before Him, and bless the people in His name. From time
to time He sought and found and honoured intercessors, for
whose sake He spared or blessed His [p 174 ] people. When our
Lord left the earth He said to the inner circle He had gathered
around Him—an inner circle of special devotion to His service,
to which access is still free to every disciple: “I chose you, and
appointed you, that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in
My Name, He may give it you.” We have already noticed the
six times repeated three wonderful words—Whatsoever—In My
Name—It shall be done. In them Christ placed the powers of
the heavenly world at their disposal—not for their own selfish
use, but in the interests of His kingdom. How wondrously they
used it we know. And since that time, down through the ages,
these men have had their successors, men who have proved
how surely God works in answer to prayer. And we may praise
God that, in our days too, there is an ever-increasing number
who begin to see and prove that in church and mission, in large
societies and little circles and individual effort, intercession is
the chief thing, the power that moves God and opens heaven.
They are learning, and long to learn better, and that all may
learn, that in all work for souls intercession must take the first
place, and that those who in it have received from heaven, in
the power of the Holy Ghost, what they are to [p 175 ]
communicate to others, will be best able to do the Lord’s work.
God seeks intercessors.—Though God had His appointed
servants in Israel, watchmen set by Himself to cry to Him day
and night and give Him no rest, He often had to wonder and
complain that there was no intercessor, none to stir himself up
to take hold of His strength. And He still waits and wonders in
our day, that there are not more intercessors, that all His
children do not give themselves to this highest and holiest
work, that many of them who do so, do not engage in it more
intensely and perseveringly. He wonders to find ministers of
His gospel complaining that their duties do not allow them to
find time for this, which He counts their first, their highest, their
most delightful, their alone effective work. He wonders to find
His sons and daughters, who have forsaken home and friends
for His sake and the gospel’s, come so short in what He meant
to be their abiding strength—receiving day by day all they
needed to impart to the dark heathen. He wonders to find
multitudes of His children who have hardly any conception of
what intercession is. He wonders to find multitudes more who
have learned that it [p 176 ] is their duty, and seek to obey it,
but confess that they know but little of taking hold upon God
or prevailing with Him.
God seeks intercessors.—He longs to dispense larger
blessings. He longs to reveal His power and glory as God, His
saving love, more abundantly. He seeks intercessors in larger
number, in greater power, to prepare the way of the Lord. He
seeks them. Where could He seek them but in His Church?
And how does He expect to find them? He intrusted to His
Church the task of telling of their Lord’s need, the task of
encouraging and training, and preparing them for His holy
service. And He ever comes again, seeking fruit, seeking
intercessors. In His Word He has spoken of the “widows
indeed, who trust in God, and continue in supplication night
and day.” He looks if the Church is training the great army of
aged men and women, whose time of outward work is past, but
who can strengthen the army of the “elect, who cry to Him day
and night.” He looks to the great host of the Christian
Endeavour, the three or four million of young lives that have
given themselves away in the solemn pledge, “I promise the
Lord Jesus Christ that I will strive to do whatever He [p 177 ]
would like to have me do,” and wonders how many are being
trained to pass from the brightness of the weekly prayer-
meeting and its confession of loyalty, to swell the secret
intercession that is to save souls. He looks to the thousands of
young men and young women in training for the work of
ministry and mission, and gazes longingly to see if the Church
is teaching them that intercession, power with God, must be
their first care, and in seeking to train and help them to it. He
looks to see whether ministers and missionaries are
understanding their opportunity, and labouring to train the
believers of their congregation into those who can “help
together” by their prayer, and can “strive with them in their
prayers.” As Christ seeks the lost sheep until He find it, Gods
seeks intercessors. (Note F.) God seeks intercessors.—He will
not, He cannot, take the work out of the hands of His Church.
And so He comes, calling and pleading in many ways. Now by
a man whom He raises up to live a life of faith in His service,
and to prove how actually and abundantly He answers prayer.
Then by the story of a church which makes prayer for souls its
starting-point, and bears testimony to [p 178 ] God’s
faithfulness. Sometimes in a mission which proves how special
prayer can meet special need, and bring down the power of the
Spirit. And sometimes again by a season of revival coming in
answer to united urgent supplication. In these and many other
ways God is showing us what intercession can do, and
beseeching us to waken up and train His great host to be,
every one, a people of intercessors.
God seeks intercessors.—He sends His servants out to call
them. Let ministers make this a part of their duty. Let them make
their church a training school of intercession. Give the people
definite objects for prayer. Encourage them to take a definite
time to it, if it were only ten minutes every day. Help them to
understand the boldness they may use with God. Teach them
to expect and look out for answers. Show them what it is first to
pray and get an answer in secret, and then carry the answer
and impart the blessing. Tell everyone who is master of his
own time that he is as the angels, free to tarry before the throne
and then go out and minister to the heirs of salvation. Sound
out the blessed tidings that this honour is for all God’s people.
There is no [p 179 ] difference. That servant girl, this day
labourer, that bedridden invalid, this daughter in her mother’s
home, these men and young men in business—all are called,
all, all are needed. God seeks intercessors.
God seeks intercessors.—As ministers take up the work of
finding and training them it will urge themselves to pray more.
Christ gave Paul to be a pattern of His grace before He made
him a preacher of it. It has been well said, “The first duty of a
clergyman is humbly to beg of God that all he would have done
in his people may be first truly and fully done in himself.” The
effort to bring this message of God may cause much heart-
searching and humiliation. All the better. The best practice in
doing a thing is helping others to do it. O ye servants of Christ,
set as watchmen to cry to God day and night, let us awake to
our holy calling. Let us believe in the power of intercession. Let
us practise it. Let us seek on behalf of our people to get from
God Himself the Spirit and the Life we preach. With our spirit
and life given up to God in intercession, the Spirit and Life that
God gives them through us cannot fail to be the Life of
Intercession too.
[p 180 ] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
 CHAPTER XV
Contents

The Coming Revival

“Wilt Thou not revive us again: that Thy people may rejoice
in Thee?”—Ps. lxxxv. 6.
“O Lord, revive Thy work in the midst of the years.”—Hab. iii.
2.
“Though I walk in the midst of trouble, Thou wilt revive me:
Thy right hand shall save me.”—Ps. cxxxviii. 7.
“I dwell with him that is of a humble and contrite heart, to
revive the heart of the contrite ones.”—Isa. lvii. 15.
“Come, and let us return to the Lord: for He hath torn, and He
will heal us. He will revive us.”—Hos. vi. 1, 2.

The Coming Revival —one frequently hears the word. There

are teachers not a few who see the tokens of its approach, and
confidently herald its speedy appearance. In the increase of
mission interest, in the tidings of revivals in places where all
were dead or cold, in the hosts of our young [p 181 ] gathered
into Students’ and other Associations or Christian Endeavour
Societies, in doors everywhere opened in the Christian and the
heathen world, in victories already secured in the fields white
unto the harvest, wherever believing, hopeful workers enter,
they find the assurance of a time of power and blessing such
as we have not known. The Church is about to enter on a new
era of increasing spirituality and larger extension.
There are others who, while admitting the truth of some of
these facts, yet fear that the conclusions drawn from them are
one-sided and premature. They see the interest in missions
increased, but point out to how small a circle it is confined, and
how utterly out of proportion it is to what it ought to be. To the
great majority of Church members, to the greater part of the
Church, it is as yet anything but a life question. They remind
us of the power of worldliness and formality, of the increase of
the money-making and pleasure-loving spirit among professing
Christians, to the lack of spirituality in so many, many of our
churches, and the continuing and apparently increasing
estrangement of multitudes from God’s Day and Word, as
proof that the great revival has certainly [p 182 ] not begun, and
is hardly thought of by the most. They say that they do not
see the deep humiliation, the intense desire, the fervent prayer
which appear as the forerunners of every true revival.
There are right-hand and left-hand errors which are equally
dangerous. We must seek as much to be kept from the
superficial Optimism, which never is able to gauge the extent of
the evil, as from the hopeless Pessimism which can neither
praise God for what He has done, nor trust Him for what He is
ready to do. The former will lose itself in a happy self-
gratulation, as it rejoices in its zeal and diligence and apparent
success, and never see the need of confession and great
striving in prayer, ere we are prepared to meet and conquer the
hosts of darkness. The latter virtually gives over the world to
Satan, and almost prays and rejoices to see things get worse,
to hasten the coming of Him who is to put all right. May God
keep us from either error, and fulfil the promise, “Thine ears
shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye
in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the
left.” Let us listen to the lessons suggested by the passages
we have [p 183 ] quoted; they may help us to pray the prayer
aright: “Revive Thy work, O Lord!”
1. “Revive Thy work, O Lord!”—Read again the passages of
Scripture, and see how they all contain the one thought:
Revival is God’s work; He alone can give it; it must come from
above. We are frequently in danger of looking to what God has
done and is doing, and to count on that as the pledge that He
will at once do more. And all the time it may be true that He is
blessing us up to the measure of our faith or self-sacrifice, and
cannot give larger measure, until there has been a new
discovery and confession of what is hindering Him. Or we may
be looking to all the signs of life and good around us, and
congratulating ourselves on all the organisations and agencies
that are being created, while the need of God’s mighty and
direct interposition is not rightly felt, and the entire
dependence upon Him not cultivated. Regeneration, the giving
of Divine life, we all acknowledge to be God’s act, a miracle of
His power. The restoring or reviving of the Divine life, in a soul
or a Church, is as much a supernatural work. To have the
spiritual discernment that can understand the signs of the
heavens, and prognosticate the [p 184 ] coming revival, we
need to enter deep into God’s mind and will as to its
conditions, and the preparedness of those who pray for it or
are to be used to bring it about. “Surely the Lord God will do
nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto his servants the
prophets.” It is God who is to give the revival; it is God who
reveals His secret; it is the spirit of absolute dependence upon
God, giving Him the honour and the glory, that will prepare for
it.
2. “Revive Thy work, O Lord!”—A second lesson suggested
is, that the revival God is to give will be given in answer to
prayer. It must be asked and received direct from God Himself.
Those who know anything of the history of revivals will
remember how often this has been proved—both larger and
more local revivals have been distinctly traced to special
prayer. In our own day there are numbers of congregations and
missions where special or permanent revivals are—all glory be
to God—connected with systematic, believing prayer. The
coming revival will be no exception. An extraordinary spirit of
prayer, urging believers to much secret and united prayer,
pressing them to “labour fervently” in their supplications, will
be [p 185 ] one of the surest signs of approaching showers and
floods of blessing.
Let all who are burdened with the lack of spirituality, with the
low state of the life of God in believers, listen to the call that
comes to all. If there is to be revival,—a mighty, Divine revival,
—it will need, on our part, corresponding whole-heartedness in
prayer and faith. Let not one believer think himself too weak to
help, or imagine that he will not be missed. If he first begin, the
gift that is in him may be so stirred that, for his circle or
neighbourhood, he shall be God’s chosen intercessor. Let us
think of the need of souls, of all the sins and failings among
God’s people, of the little power there is in so much of the
preaching, and begin to cry every day, “Wilt Thou not revive
us again, that Thy people may rejoice in Thee?” And let us
have the truth graven deep in our hearts: every revival comes,
as Pentecost came, as the fruit of united, continued prayer. The
coming revival must begin with a great prayer revival. It is in
the closet, with the door shut, that the sound of abundance of
rain will be first heard. An increase of secret prayer with
ministers and members, will be the sure harbinger of blessing.
[p 186 ] 3. “Revive Thy work, O Lord!”—A third lesson our
texts teach is that it is to the humble and contrite that the
revival is promised. We want the revival to come upon the
proud and the self-satisfied, to break them down and save
them. God will give this, but only on the condition that those
who see and feel the sin of others take their burden of
confession and bear it, and that all who pray for and claim in
faith God’s reviving power for His Church, shall humble
themselves with the confession of its sins. The need of revival
always points to previous decline; and decline was always
caused by sin. Humiliation and contrition have ever been the
conditions of revival. In all intercession confession of man’s
sin and God’s righteous judgment is ever an essential element.
Throughout the history of Israel we continually see this. It
comes out in the reformations under the pious Kings of Judah.
We hear it in the prayer of men like Ezra and Nehemiah and
Daniel. In Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, as well as in the
minor prophets, it is the keynote of all the warning as of all the
promise. If there be no humiliation and forsaking of sin there
can be no revival or deliverance: “These men have set up [p 187
] their idols in their hearts. Shall I at all be inquired of by
them?” “To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of
a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at My word.” Amid the
most gracious promises of Divine visitation there is ever this
note: “Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O House of
Israel.”
We find the same in the New Testament. The Sermon on the
Mount promises the kingdom to the poor and them that mourn.
In the Epistles to the Corinthians and Galatians the religion of
man, of worldly wisdom and confidence in the flesh, is exposed
and denounced; without its being confessed and forsaken, all
the promises of grace and the Spirit will be vain. In the Epistles
to the seven churches we find five of which He, out of whose
mouth goes the sharp, two-edged sword, says, that He has
something against them. In each of these the keyword of His
message is—not to the unconverted, but to the Church—
Repent! All the glorious promises which each of these Epistles
contain, down to the last one, with its “Open the door and I will
come in”; “He that overcometh shall sit with Me on My
throne,” are dependent on that one word—Repent!
[p 188 ] And if there is to be a revival, not among the unsaved,
but in our churches, to give a holy, spiritual membership, will
not that trumpet sound need to be heard—Repent? Was it only
in Israel, in the ministry of kings and prophets, that there was
so much evil in God’s people to be cleansed away? Was it only
in the Church of the first century, that Paul and James and our
Lord Himself had to speak such sharp words? Or is there not in
the Church of our days an idolatry of money and talent and
culture, a worldly spirit, making it unfaithful to its one only
Husband and Lord, a confidence in the flesh which grieves and
resists God’s Holy Spirit? Is there not almost everywhere a
confession of the lack of spirituality and spiritual power? Let all
who long for the coming revival, and seek to hasten it by their
prayers, pray this above everything, that the Lord may prepare
His prophets to go before Him at His bidding: “Cry aloud and
spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people
their transgression.” Every deep revival among God’s people
must have its roots in a deep sense and confession of sin. Until
those who would lead the Church in the path of revival bear
faithful testimony against the sins [p 189 ] of the Church, it is to
feared that it will find people unprepared. Men would fain have
a revival as the outgrowth of their agencies and progress.
God’s way is the opposite: it is out of death, acknowledged as
the desert of sin, confessed as utter helplessness, that He
revives. He revives the heart of the contrite one.
4. “Revive Thy work, O Lord!”—There is a last thought,
suggested by the text from Hosea. It is as we return to the Lord
that revival will come; for if we had not wandered from Him, His
life would be among us in power. “Come and let us return to
the Lord: for He hath torn, He will heal us: He hath smitten; He
will bind us up: He will revive us, and we shall live in His
sight.” As we have said, there can be no return to the Lord,
where there is no sense or confession of wandering. Let us
return to the Lord must be the keynote of the revival. Let us
return, acknowledging and forsaking whatever there has been
in the Church that is not entirely according to His mind and
spirit. Let us return, yielding up and casting out whatever there
has been in our religion or along with it of the power of God’s
two great enemies—confidence in the flesh or the spirit of [p
190 ] the world. Let us return, in the acknowledgment of how
undividedly God must have us, to fill us with His Spirit, and
use us for the kingdom of His Son. Oh, let us return, in the
surrender of a dependence and a devotion which has no
measure but the absolute claim of Him who is the Lord! Let us
return to the Lord with our whole heart, that He may make and
keep us wholly His. He will revive us, and we shall live in His
sight. Let us turn to the God of Pentecost, as Christ led his
disciples to turn to Him, and the God of Pentecost will turn to
us.
It is for this returning to the Lord that the great work of
intercession is needed. It is here the coming revival must find
its strength. Let us begin as individuals in secret to plead with
God, confessing whatever we see of sin or hindrance, in
ourselves or others. If there were not one other sin, surely in
the lack of prayer there is matter enough for repentance and
confession and returning to the Lord. Let us seek to foster the
spirit of confession and supplication and intercession in those
around us. Let us help to encourage and to train those who
think themselves too feeble. Let us lift up our voice to proclaim
the great [p 191 ] truths. The revival must come from above; the
revival must be received in faith from above and brought down
by prayer; the revival comes to the humble and contrite, for
them to carry to others; if we return to the Lord with our whole
heart, He will revive us. On those who see these truths, rests
the solemn responsibility of giving themselves up to witness
for them and to act them out.
And as each of us pleads for the revival throughout the
Church, let us specially, at the same time, cry to God for our
own neighbourhood or sphere of work. Let, with every minister
and worker, there be “great searchings of heart,” as to whether
they are ready to give such proportion of time and strength to
prayer as God would have. Let them, even as in public they are
leaders of their larger or smaller circles, give themselves in
secret to take their places in the front rank of the great
intercession host, that must prevail with God, ere the great
revival, the floods of blessing can come. Of all who speak or
think of, or long for, revival, let not one hold back in this great
work of honest, earnest, definite pleading: Revive Thy work, O
Lord! Wilt Thou not revive us again?
[p 192 ] Come and let us return to the Lord: He will revive us!
And let us know, let us follow on to know the Lord. “His going
forth is sure as the morning; and He shall come unto us as the
rain, as the latter rain that watereth the earth.” Amen. So be it.
[p 193 ] NOTES
Contents

NOTE A, Chap. VI. p. 73

Just this day I have been meeting a very earnest lady

missionary from India. She confesses and mourns the lack of
prayer. But—in India at least—it can hardly be otherwise. You
have only the morning hours, from six to eleven, for your work.
Some have attempted to rise at four, and get the time they think
they need, and have suffered, and had to give it up. Some have
tried to take time after lunch, and been found asleep on their
knees. You are not your own master, and must act with others.
No one who has not been in India can understand the
difficulty; sufficient time for much intercession cannot be
secured.
Were it only in the heat of India the difficulty existed, one
might be silent. But, alas! in the coldest winter in London, and
in the moderate climate of South Africa, there is the same
trouble everywhere. If once we really felt—intercession is the
most important part of our work, the securing of God’s
presence and power in full measure is the essential thing, this
is our first duty—our hours of work would all be made
subordinate to this one thing.
May God show us all whether there indeed be an insuperable
difficulty for which we are not responsible, whether it be only a
mistake we are making, or a sin by which we are grieving Him
and hindering His Spirit!
If we ask the question George Muller once asked of a Christian,
who complained that he could not find time sufficient for the
study of the Word and prayer, whether an hour less work, say
four hours, with the soul dwelling in the full light of God, would
not be more [p 194 ] prosperous and effective than five hours
with the depressing consciousness of unfaithfulness, and the
loss of the power that could be obtained in prayer, the answer
will not be difficult. The more we think of it the more we feel
that when earnest, godly workers allow, against their better
will, the spiritual to be crowded out by incessant occupation
and the fatigue it brings, it must be because the spiritual life is
not sufficiently strong in them to bid the lever stand aside till
the presence of God in Christ and the power of the Spirit have
been fully secured.
Let us listen to Christ saying, “Render unto Cæsar the things
that are Cæsar’s ”—let duty and work have their place—“and
unto God the things that are God’s.” Let the worship in the
Spirit, the entire dependence and continued waiting upon God
for the full experience of His presence and power every day,
and the strength of Christ working in us, ever have the first
place. The whole question is simply this, Is God to have the
place, the love, the trust, the time for personal fellowship He
claims, so that all our working shall be God working in us?

NOTE B, Chap. VII. p. 89

Let me tell here a story that occurs in one of Dr. Boardman’s

works. He had been invited by a lady of good position, well
known as a successful worker among her husband’s
dependents, to come and address them. “And then,” she
added, “I want to speak to you about a bit of bondage of my
own.” When he had addressed her meeting, and found many
brought to Christ through her, he wondered what her trouble
might be. She soon told him. God had blessed her work, but,
alas, the enjoyment she once had had in God’s word and secret
prayer had been lost. And she had tried her utmost to get it
back, and had failed. “Ah! that is just your mistake,” he said.
“How that? Ought I not to do my best to have the coldness
removed?” “Tell me,” he said, “were you saved by doing your
best?” “Oh, no! I tried long to do [p 195 ] that, but only found
rest when I ceased trying, and trusted Christ.” “And that is
what you need to do now. Enter your closet at the appointed
time, however dull you feel, and place yourself before your
Lord. Do not try to rouse an earnestness you do not feel; but
quietly say to Him that He sees how all is wrong, how helpless
you are, and trust Him to bless you. He will do it; as you trust
quietly, His Spirit will work.”
The simple story may teach many a Christian a most blessed
lesson in the life of prayer. You have accepted of Christ Jesus
to make you whole, and give you strength to walk in newness
of life; you have claimed the Holy Spirit to be in you the Spirit
of Supplication and Intercession; but do not wonder if your
feelings are not all at once changed, or if your power of prayer
does not come in the way you would like. It is a life of faith. By
faith we receive the Holy Spirit and all His workings. Faith
regards neither sight nor feeling, but rests, even when there
appears to be no power to pray, in the assurance that the Spirit
is praying in us as we bow quietly before God. He that thus
waits in faith, and honours the Holy Spirit, and yields himself
to Him, will soon find that prayer will begin to come. And he
that perseveres in the faith that through Christ and by the
Spirit each prayer, however feeble, is acceptable to God, will
learn the lesson that it is possible to be taught by the Spirit,
and led to walk worthy of the Lord to all well pleasing.

NOTE C, Chap. IX. p. 111

Just yesterday again—three days after the conversation

mentioned in the note to chap. vii.—I met a devoted young
missionary lady from the interior. As a conversation on prayer
was proceeding, she interposed unasked with the remark, “But
it is really impossible to find the time to pray as we wish to.” I
could only answer, “Time is a quantity that accommodates
itself to our will; what our hearts really consider of first
importance in the day, [p 196 ] we will soon succeed in finding
time for.” It must surely be that the ministry of intercession has
never been put before our students in Theological Halls and
Missionary Training Homes as the most important part of their
life-work. We have thought of our work in preaching or visiting
as our real duty, and of prayer as a subordinate means to do
this work successfully. Would not the whole position be
changed if we regarded the ministry of intercession as the chief
thing—getting the blessing and power of God for the souls
entrusted to us? Then our work would take its right place, and
become the subordinate one of really dispensing blessings
which we had received from God. It was when the friend at
midnight, in answer to his prayer, had received from Another
as much as he needed, that he could supply his hungry friend.
It was the intercession, going out and importuning, that was
the difficult work; returning home with his rich supply to impart
was easy, joyful work. This is Christ’s divine order for all thy
work, my brother: First come, in utter poverty, every day, and
get from God the blessing in intercession, go then rejoicingly
to impart it.

NOTE D, Chap. X. p. 123

Let me once again refer my readers to William Law, and repeat

what I have said before, that no book has so helped me to an
insight into the place and work of the Holy Spirit in the
economy of redemption as his Address to the Clergy. 2
The way in which he opens up how God’s one object was to
dwell in man, making him partaker of His goodness and glory,
other way than by himself living and working in him, gives one
the key to what Pentecost and the sending forth of the Spirit of
God’s Son into our hearts really means. It is Christ in God’s [p
197 ] name really regaining and retaking possession of the home
He had created for Himself. It is God entering into the secret
depths of our nature there to “work to will and to do,” to “work
that which is pleasing in His sight in Christ Jesus.” It is as this
truth enters into us, and we see that there is and can be no
good in us but what God works, that we shall see light on the
Divine mystery of prayer, and believe in the Holy Spirit as
breathing within us desires which God will fulfil when we yield
to them, and believingly present them in the name of Christ.
We shall then see that just as wonderful and prevailing as the
intercession and prayer passing from the Incarnate Son to the
Father in heaven is our intercourse with God; the Spirit, who is
God, breathing and praying in us amid all our feebleness His
heaven-born Divine petitions: what a heavenly thing prayer
becomes.
The latter part of the above-mentioned book consists of
extracts from Law’s letters. These have been published
separately as a little shilling volume. 3 No one who will take the
time quietly to read and master the so simple but deep teaching
they contain, without being wonderfully strengthened in the
confidence which is needed, if we are to pray much and boldly.
As we learn that the Holy Spirit is within us to reveal Christ
there, to make us in living reality partakers of His death, His
life, His merit, His disposition, so that He is formed within us,
we will begin to see how Divinely right and sure it is that our
intercessions in His name must be heard; his own Spirit
maintains the living union with Himself, in whom we are
brought nigh to God, and gives us boldness of access; what I
have so feebly said in the chapter on the Spirit of Supplication
will get new meaning; and, what is more, the exercise of prayer
a new attractiveness; its solemn Divine mystery will humble us,
its unspeakable privilege lift us up in faith and adoration.
2 The Power of the Spirit: An Address to the Clergy. By
William Law. With additional Extracts and an Introduction by
Rev. A. M. James Nisbet & Co. 2s. 6d.
3 The Divine Indwelling. Selections from the Letters of William
Law. With Introduction by A. M. James Nisbet & Co.
[p 198 ] NOTE E, Chap. XI. p. 136

There is a question, the deepest of all, on which I have not

entered in this book. I have spoken of the lack of prayer in the
individual Christian as a symptom of a disease. But what shall
we say of it, that there is such a widespread prevalence of this
failure to give a due proportion of time and strength to prayer?
Do we not need to inquire, How comes it that the Church of
Christ, endued with the Holy Ghost, cannot train its ministers
and workers and members to place first what is first? How
comes it that the confession of too little prayer, and the call for
more prayer, is so frequently heard, and yet the evil continues?
The Spirit of God, the Spirit of Supplication and Intercession, is
in the Church and in every believer. There must surely be some
other spirit of great power resisting and hindering this Spirit of
God. It is indeed so. The spirit of the world, which under all its
beautiful and even religious activities is the spirit of the god of
this world, is the great hindrance. Everything that is done on
earth, whether within or without the Church, is done by either
of these two spirits. What is in the individual the flesh, is in
mankind as a whole the spirit of the world; and all the power
the flesh has in the individual is owing to the place given to the
spirit of this world in the Church and in Christian life. It is the
spirit of the world is the great hindrance to the spirit of prayer.
All our most earnest calls to men to pray more will be vain
except this evil be acknowledged and combated and overcome.
The believer and the Church must be entirely freed from the
spirit of the world.
And how is this to be done? There is but one way—the Cross
of Christ, “by which,” as Paul says, “the world is crucified unto
me, and I unto the world.” It is only through death to the world
that we can be freed from its spirit. The separation must be vital
and entire. It is only through the acceptance of our crucifixion
with Christ that we can live out this confession, and, as
crucified to the world, maintain the position of irreconcilable
hostility to whatever is of its spirit and not of the Spirit of God;
and it is [p 199 ] only God Himself who, by His Divine power,
can lead us into and keep us daily dead to sin, and alive unto
God in Christ Jesus. The cross, with its shame and its
separation from the world, and its death to all that is of flesh
and of self, is the only power that can conquer the spirit of the
world.
I have felt so strongly that the truth needs to be anew asserted,
that I hope, if it please God, to publish a volume, The Cross of
Christ, with the inquiry into what God’s word teaches as to our
actual participation with Christ in His crucifixion. Christ prayed
on the way to the cross. He prayed Himself to the cross. He
prayed on the cross. He prays ever as the fruit of the cross. As
the Church lives on the cross, and the cross lives in the
Church, the spirit of prayer will be given. In Christ it was the
crucifixion spirit and death that was the source of the
Intercession Spirit and Power. With us it can be no otherwise.
NOTE F, Chap. XIV. p. 177

I have more than once spoken of the need of training

Christians to the work of intercession. In a previous note I
have asked the question whether, in the teaching of our
Theological Halls and Mission Training Houses, sufficient
attention is given to prayer as the most important, and in some
senses the most difficult part of the work for which the
students are being prepared. I have wondered whether it might
not be possible to offer those who are willing, during their
student life, to put themselves under a course of training, some
help in the way of hints and suggestions as to what is needed
to give prayer the place and the power in our ministry it ought
to have.
As a rule, it is in the student life that the character must be
formed for future years, and it is in the present student world
that the Church of the future must be influenced. If God allows
me to carry out a plan that is hardly quite mature yet, I would
wish to [p 200 ] publish a volume, The Student’s Prayer
Manual, combining the teaching of Scripture as to what is most
needed to make men of prayer of us, with such practical
directions as may help a young Christian, preparing to devote
his life to God’s service successfully, to cultivate such a spirit
and habit of prayer as shall abide with him through all his
coming life and labours.
[p 201 ] PRAY WITHOUT CEASING

HELPS TO INTERCESSION
PRAYING ALWAYS
WITH ALL PRAYER AND SUPPLICATION
IN THE SPIRIT
AND WATCHING THEREUNTO WITH ALL PERSEVERANCE
AND SUPPLICATION FOR ALL SAINTS
AND FOR ME
I EXHORT THAT FIRST OF ALL
SUPPLICATIONS, PRAYERS, INTERCESSIONS
GIVING OF THANKS
BE MADE FOR ALL MEN
FOR KINGS, AND ALL THAT ARE IN AUTHORITY
PRAY FOR ONE ANOTHER

These “Helps” are issued as a separate Tract by Messrs.

Nisbet &. Co., price 2d.
Anyone is at liberty to have the Tract reprinted, with such
modifications as may be desired.
 [p 202 ] PRAY WITHOUT CEASING
Contents

Helps to Intercession

Pray without Ceasing.—Who can do this? How can one do it

who is surrounded by the cares of daily life?—How can a
mother love her child without ceasing? How can the eyelid
without ceasing hold itself ready to protect the eye? How can I
breathe and feel and hear without ceasing? Because all these
are the functions of a healthy, natural life. And so, if the
spiritual life be healthy, under the full power of the Holy Spirit,
praying without ceasing will be natural.
Pray without Ceasing.—Does it refer to continual acts of
prayer, in which we are to persevere till we obtain, or to the
spirit of prayerfulness that should animate us all the day? It
includes both. The example of our Lord Jesus shows us this.
We have to enter our closet for special seasons of prayer; we
are at times to persevere there in importunate prayer. We are
also all the day to walk in God’s presence, with the whole heart
set upon heavenly things. Without set times of prayer the
spirit of prayer will be dull and feeble. Without the continual
prayerfulness the set times will not avail.
Pray without Ceasing.—Does that refer to prayer for ourselves
or others? To both. It is because many confine it to themselves
that they fail so in practising it. It is only when the branch
gives itself to bear fruit, more fruit, much fruit, that it can live a
healthy life, and expect a rich inflow of sap. The death of Christ
brought Him to the place of everlasting intercession. Your
death with Him to sin and self sets you free from the care of
self, and elevates you to the dignity of intercessor—one who
can get life and blessing from God for others. Know your
calling; begin this your work. Give yourself wholly to it, and ere
you know you will be finding something of this “Praying
always” within you.
Pray without Ceasing.—How can I learn it? The best way of
learning to do a thing—in fact the only way—is to do it. Begin
by setting apart some time every day, say ten or fifteen
minutes, [p 203 ] in which you say to God and to yourself, that
you come to Him now as intercessor for others. Let it be after
your morning or evening prayer, or any other time. If you
cannot secure the same time every day, be not troubled. Only
see that you do your work. Christ chose you and appointed
you to pray for others.
If at first you do not feel any special urgency or faith or power
in your prayers, let not that hinder you. Quietly tell your Lord
Jesus of your feebleness; believe that the Holy Spirit is in you
to teach you to pray, and be assured that if you begin, God will
help you. God cannot help you unless you begin and keep on.
Pray without Ceasing.—How do I know what to pray for? If
once you begin, and think of all the needs around you, you will
soon find enough. But to help you this little tract is issued,
with subjects and hints for prayer for a month. It is meant that
we should use it month by month, until we know more fully to
follow the Spirit’s leading, and have learnt, if need be, to make
our own list of subjects, and can dispense with it. In regard to
the use of these helps a few words may be needed.
1. How to Pray.—You notice for every day two headings—the
one What to Pray; the other, How to Pray. If the subjects were
only given, one might fall into the routine of mentioning names
and things before God, and the work become a burden. The
hints under the heading How to Pray are meant to remind of the
spiritual nature of the work, of the need of Divine help, and to
encourage faith in the certainty that God, through the Spirit,
will give us grace to pray aright, and will also hear our prayer.
One does not at once learn to take his place boldly, and to dare
to believe that he will be heard. Therefore take a few moments
each day to listen to God’s voice reminding you of how
certainly even you will be heard, and calling on you to pray in
that faith in your Father, to claim and take the blessing you
plead for. And let these words about How to Pray enter your
hearts and occupy your thoughts at other times too. The work
of intercession is Christ’s great work on earth, intrusted to Him
because He gave Himself a sacrifice to God for men. The work
of intercession is the greatest work a Christian can do. Give
yourself a sacrifice to God for men, and the work will become
your glory and your joy too.
2. What to Pray.—Scripture calls us to pray for many things:
for all saints; for all men; for kings and all rulers; for all who are
in adversity; for the sending forth of labourers; for those who
labour in the gospel; for all converts; for believers who have
fallen into sin; for one another in our own immediate circles.
The Church is now so much larger than when the New
Testament was written; the number of forms of work and
workers is so much greater; the needs of the Church and the
world are so much better known, that we need to take time and
thought to see where prayer is needed, and to what our heart is
most drawn out. [p 204 ] The Scripture calls to prayer demand a
large heart, taking in all saints, and all men, and all needs. An
attempt has been made in these helps to indicate what the chief
subjects are that need prayer, and that ought to interest every
Christian.
It will be felt difficult by many to pray for such large spheres as
are sometimes mentioned. Let it be understood that in each
case we may make special intercession for our own circle of
interest coming under that heading. And it is hardly needful to
say, further, that where one subject appears of more special
interest or urgency than another we are free for a time day after
day to take up that subject. If only time be really given to
intercession, and the spirit of believing intercession be
cultivated, the object is attained. While, on the one hand, the
heart must be enlarged at times to take in all, the more pointed
and definite our prayer can be the better. With this view paper
is left blank in which we can write down special petitions we
desire to urge before God.
3. Answers to Prayer. —More than one little book has been
published in which Christians may keep a register of their
petitions, and note when they were answered. Room has been
left on every page for this, so that more definite petitions with
regard to individual souls or special spheres of work may be
recorded, and the answer looked for. When we pray for all
saints, or for missions in general, it is difficult to know when or
how our prayer is answered, or whether our prayer has had any
part in bringing the answer. It is of extreme importance that we
should prove that God hears us, and to this end take note of
what answers we look for, and when they come. On the day of
praying for all saints, take the saints in your congregation, or in
your prayer-meeting, and ask for a revival among them. Take, in
connection with missions, some special station or missionary
you are interested in, or more than one, and plead for blessing.
And expect and look for its coming, that you may praise God.
4. Prayer Circles.—There is no desire in publishing this
invitation to intercession to add another to the many existing
prayer unions or praying bands. The first object is to stir the
many Christians who practically, through ignorance of their
calling, or unbelief as to their prayer availing much, take but
very little part in the work of intercession; and then to help
those who do pray to some fuller apprehension of the
greatness of the work, and the need of giving their whole
strength to it. There is a circle of prayer which asks for prayer
on the first day of every month for the fuller manifestation of
the power of the Holy Spirit throughout the Church. I have
given the words of that invitation as subject for the first day,
and taken the same thought as keynote all through. The more
one thinks of the need and the promise, and the greatness of
the obstacles to be overcome in prayer, the more one feels it
must become our life-work day by day, that to which every
other interest is subordinated.
[p 205 ] But while not forming a large prayer union, it is
suggested that it may be found helpful to have small prayer
circles to unite in prayer, either for one month, with some
special object introduced daily along with the others, or
through a year or longer, with the view of strengthening each
other in the grace of intercession. If a minister were to invite
some of his neighbouring brethren to join for some special
requests along with the printed subjects for supplication, or a
number of the more earnest members of his congregation to
unite in prayer for revival, some might be trained to take their
place in the great work of intercession, who now stand idle
because no man hath hired them.
5. Who is sufficient for these things?—The more we study
and try to practise this grace of intercession, the more we
become overwhelmed by its greatness and our feebleness. Let
every such impression lead us to listen: My grace is sufficient
for thee, and to answer truthfully: Our sufficiency is of God.
Take courage; it is in the intercession of Christ you are called
to take part. The burden and the agony, the triumph and the
victory are all His. Learn from Him, yield to His Spirit in you, to
know how to pray. He gave Himself a sacrifice to God for men,
that He might have the right and power of intercession. “He
bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the
transgressors.” Let your faith rest boldly on His finished work.
Let your heart wholly identify itself with Him in His death and
His life. Like Him, give yourself to God a sacrifice for men: it is
your highest nobility, it is your true and full union to Him; it
will be to you, as to Him, your power of intercession. Beloved
Christian! come and give your whole heart and life to
intercession, and you will know its blessedness and its power.
God asks nothing less; the world needs nothing less; Christ
asks nothing less; let nothing less be what we offer to God.
 [p 206 ] First Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Powe r of the Holy Spirit

“I bow my knees unto the Father, that He would grant you

that ye may be strengthened with power through His
Spirit.”—Eph. iii. 16.
“Wait for the promise of the Father.”—Acts i. 4.

“The fuller manifestation of the grace and energy of the

Blessed Spirit of God, in the removal of all that is contrary to
God’s revealed will, so that we grieve not the Holy Spirit, but
that He may work in mightier power in the Church, for the
exaltation of Christ and the blessing of souls.”
God has one promise to and through His exalted Son; our Lord
has one gift to His Church; the Church has one need; all prayer
unites in the one petition—the power of the Holy Spirit. Make
it your one prayer.

HO W TO PRAY.—As a Child asks a Fathe r

“If a son ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give
him a stone? How much more shall your Heavenly Father
give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?”—Luke xi. 11, 13.

Ask as simply and trustfully as a child asks bread. You can do

this because “God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into
your heart, crying, Abba, Father.” This Spirit is in you to give
you childlike confidence. In the faith of His praying in you, ask
for the power of that holy Spirit everywhere. Mention places or
circles where you specially ask it to be seen.

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 [p 207 ] Second Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Spirit of Supplication

“The Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us.”—Rom. viii.

26.
“I will pour out the Spirit of Supplication.”—Zech. xii. 10.

“The evangelisation of the world depends first of all upon a

revival of prayer. Deeper than the need for men—ay, deep
down at the bottom of our spiritless life—is the need for the
forgotten secret of prevailing, world-wide prayer.”
Every child of God has the Holy Spirit in him to pray. God waits
to give the Spirit in full measure. Ask for yourself, and all who
join, the outpouring of the Spirit of Supplication. Ask it for
your own prayer circle.

HO W TO PRAY.—In the Spirit

“With all prayer and supplication, praying at all seasons in

the Spirit.”—Eph. vi. 18.
“Praying in the Holy Spirit.”—Jude 20.

Our Lord gave His disciples on His resurrection day the Holy
Spirit to enable them to wait for the full outpouring on the day
of Pentecost. It is only in the power of the Spirit already in us,
acknowledged and yielded to, that we can pray for His fuller
manifestation. Say to the Father, it is the Spirit of His Son in
you is urging you to plead His promise.
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 [p 208 ] Third Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For all Saints

“With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons, and

watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for
all saints.”—Eph. vi. 18.

Every member of a body is interested in the welfare of the

whole, and exists to help and complete the others. Believers are
one body, and ought to pray, not so much for the welfare of
their own church or society, but, first of all, for all saints. This
large, unselfish love is the proof that Christ’s Spirit and Love is
teaching them to pray. Pray first for all and then for the
believers around you.

HO W TO PRAY.—In the Love of the Spirit

“By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye

have love one to another.”—John xiii. 35.
“I pray that they all may be one, that the world may believe that
Thou didst send Me.”—John xvii. 21.
“I beseech you, brethren, by the love of the Spirit, that ye
strive together with me in your prayers to God for me.”—Rom.
xv. 30.
“Above all things being fervent in your love among
yourselves.”—1 Pet. iv. 8.

If we are to pray we must love. Let us say to God we do love all

His saints; let us say we love specially every child of His we
know. Let us pray with fervent love, in the love of the Spirit.

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 [p 209 ] Fourth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Spirit of Holine ss

God is the Holy One. His people is a holy people. He speaks: I

am holy: I am the Lord which make you holy. Christ prayed:
Sanctify them. Make them holy through Thy Truth. Paul
prayed: “God establish your hearts unblamable in holiness.”
“God sanctify you wholly!”
Pray for all saints—God’s holy ones—throughout the Church,
that the Spirit of holiness may rule them. Specially for new
converts. For the saints in your own neighbourhood or
congregation. For any you are specially interested in. Think of
their special need, weakness, or sin, and pray that God may
make them holy.

HO W TO PRAY.—Trusting in God’s O mnipote nce

The things that are impossible with men are possible with God.
When we think of the great things we ask for, of how little
likelihood there is of their coming, of our own insignificance.
Prayer is not only wishing, or asking, but believing and
accepting. Be still before God and ask Him to give you to know
Him as the Almighty One, and leave your petitions with Him
who doeth wonders.

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 [p 210 ] Fifth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—That God’s Pe ople may be ke pt from the
World

“Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom

Thou hast given Me. I pray not that Thou shouldest take them
out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the
evil. They are not of the world, as I am not of the
world.”—John xvii. 11, 15, 16.
In the last night Christ asked three things for His disciples: that
they might be kept as those who are not of the world; that they
might be sanctified; that they might be one in love. You cannot
do better than pray as Jesus prayed. Ask for God’s people that
they may be kept separate from the world and its spirit; that
they, by the Holy Spirit, may live as those who are not of the
world.

HO W TO PRAY.—Having Confide nce be fore God

“Beloved, if our hearts condemn us not, then have we

confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of
Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things
that are pleasing in His sight.”—1 John iii. 21, 22.
Learn these words by heart. Get them into your heart. Join the
ranks of those who, with John, draw nigh to God with an
assured heart, that does not condemn them, having confidence
toward God. In this spirit pray for your brother who sins (1
John v. 16). In the quiet confidence of an obedient child plead
for those of your brethren who may be giving way to sin. Pray
for all to be kept from the evil. And say often, “What we ask,
we receive, because we keep and do.”

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 [p 211 ] Sixth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Spirit of Love in the Church

“I pray that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them

and Thou in Me; that the world may know that Thou didst
send Me, and hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me ... that
the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I
in them.”—John xvii. 23.
“The fruit of the Spirit is love.”—Gal. v. 22.

Believers are one in Christ, as He is one with the Father. The

love of God rests on them, and can dwell in them. Pray that the
power of the Holy Ghost may so work this love in believers,
that the world may see and know God’s love in them. Pray
much for this.

HO W TO PRAY.—As one of God’s Re me mbrance rs

“I have set watchmen on thy walls, which shall never hold

their peace day nor night: ye that are the Lord’s
remembrancers, keep not silence, and give Him no
rest.”—Isa. lxii. 6.

Study these words until your whole soul be filled with the
consciousness, I am appointed intercessor. Enter God’s
presence in that faith. Study the world’s need with that
thought—it is my work to intercede; the Holy Spirit will teach
me for what and how. Let it be an abiding consciousness: My
great life-work, like Christ’s, is intercession—to pray for
believers and those who do not yet know God.

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 [p 212 ] Seventh Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Powe r of the Holy Spirit on Ministe rs

“I beseech you that ye strive together with me in your prayers

to God for me.”—Rom. xv. 30.
“He will deliver us; ye also helping together by your
supplication on our behalf.”—2 Cor. i. 10, 11.

What a great host of ministers there are in Christ’s Church.

What need they have of prayer. What a power they might be, if
they were all clothed with the power of the Holy Ghost. Pray
definitely for this; long for it. Think of your own minister, and
ask it very specially for him. Connect every thought of the
ministry, in your town or neighbourhood or the world, with the
prayer that all may be filled with the Spirit. Plead for them the
promise, “Tarry till ye be clothed with power from on high.”
“Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon
you.”

HO W TO PRAY.—In Se cre t

“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy inner chamber,
and having shut to thy door, pray to the Father which is in
secret.”—Matt. vi. 6.
“He withdrew again into the mountain to pray, Himself
alone.”—Matt. xiv. 23; John vi. 15.

Take time and realise, when you are alone with God: Here am I
now, face to face with God, to intercede for His servants. Do
not think you have no influence, or that your prayer will not be
missed. Your prayer and faith will make a difference. Cry in
secret to God for His ministers.

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 [p 213 ] Eighth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Spirit on all Christian Worke rs

“Ye also helping together on our behalf; that for the gift
bestowed upon us by means of many, thanks may be given by
many on our behalf.”—2 Cor. i. 11.

What multitudes of workers in connection with our churches

and missions, our railways and postmen, our soldiers and
sailors, our young men and young women, our fallen men and
women, our poor and sick. God be praised for this! What could
they accomplish if each were living in the fulness of the Holy
Spirit? Pray for them; it makes you a partner in their work, and
you will praise God each time you hear of blessing anywhere.

HO W TO PRAY.—With de finite Pe titions

“What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?”—Luke xviii. 41.

The Lord knew what the man wanted, and yet He asked him.
The utterance of our wish gives point to the transaction in
which we are engaged with God, and so awakens faith and
expectation. Be very definite in your petitions, so as to know
what answer you may look for. Just think of the great host of
workers, and ask and expect God definitely to bless them in
answer to the prayers of His people. Then ask still more
definitely for workers around you. Intercession is not the
breathing out of pious wishes; its aim is, in believing,
persevering prayer, to receive and bring down blessing.

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 [p 214 ] Ninth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For God’s Spirit on our Mission Work

“The evangelisation of the world depends first of all upon a

revival of prayer. Deeper than the need for men—ay, deep
down at the bottom of our spiritless life, is the need for the
forgotten secret of prevailing, world-wide prayer.”
“As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost
said, Separate Me Barnabas and Saul. Then when they had
fasted and prayed, they sent them away. So they, being sent
forth by the Holy Ghost, departed.”—Acts xiii. 2, 3, 4.

Pray that our mission work may all be done in this spirit—
waiting on God, hearing the voice of the Spirit, sending forth
men with fasting and prayer. Pray that in our churches our
mission interest and mission work may be in the power of the
Holy Spirit and of prayer. It is a Spirit-filled, praying Church will
send out Spirit-filled missionaries, mighty in prayer.

HO W TO PRAY.—Take Time

“I give myself unto prayer.”—Ps. cix. 4.

“We will give ourselves continually to prayer.”—Acts vi. 4.
“Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty
to utter anything before God.”—Eccles. v. 2.
“And He continued all night in prayer to God.”—Luke vi. 12.

Time is one of the chief standards of value. The time we give is

a proof of the interest we feel.
We need time with God—to realise His presence; to wait for
Him to make Himself known; to consider and feel the needs we
plead for; to take our place in Christ; to pray till we can believe
that we have received. Take time in prayer, and pray down
blessing on the mission work of the Church.

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 [p 215 ] Tenth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For God’s Spirit on our Missionarie s

“What the world needs to-day is, not only more missionaries,
but the outpouring of God’s Spirit on everyone whom He has
sent out to work for Him in the foreign field.”
“Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon
you: and ye shall be My witnesses unto the uttermost parts of
the earth.”—Acts i. 8.

God always gives His servants power equal to the work He

asks of them. Think of the greatness and difficulty of this work,
—casting out Satan out of his strongholds,—and pray that
everyone who takes part in it may receive and do all his work in
the power of the Holy Ghost. Think of the difficulties of your
missionaries, and pray for them.

HO W TO PRAY.—Trusting God’s Faithfulne ss

“He is faithful that promised.” “She counted Him faithful

who promised.”—Heb. x. 23, xi. 11.

Just think of God’s promises to His Son, concerning His

kingdom; to the Church, concerning the heathen; to His
servants, concerning their work; to yourself, concerning your
prayer; and pray in the assurance that He is faithful, and only
waits for prayer and faith to fulfil them. “Faithful is He that
calleth you” (to pray), “who also will do it” (what He has
promised).
Take up individual missionaries, make yourself one with them,
and pray till you know that you are heard. Oh, begin to live for
Christ’s kingdom as the one thing worth living for!

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 [p 216 ] Eleventh Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For more Laboure rs

“Pray ye the Lord of the harvest, that He send forth labourers

into His harvest.”—Matt. ix. 38.

What a remarkable call of the Lord Jesus for help from His
disciples in getting the need supplied. What an honour put
upon prayer. What a proof that God wants prayer and will hear
it.
Pray for labourers, for all students in theological seminaries,
training homes, Bible institutes, that they may not go, unless
He fits them and sends them forth; that our churches may train
their students to seek for the sending forth of the Holy Spirit;
that all believers may hold themselves ready to be sent forth, or
to pray for those who can go.

HO W TO PRAY.—In Faith, nothing Doubting

“Jesus saith unto them, Have faith in God. Whosoever shall

say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast
into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall
believe that what he saith shall come to pass, he shall have
it.”—Mark xi. 22, 23.

Have faith in God! Ask Him to make Himself known to you as

the faithful, mighty God, who worketh all in all; and you will be
encouraged to believe that He can give suitable and sufficient
labourers, however impossible this appears. But, remember, in
answer to prayer and faith.
Apply this to every opening where a good worker is needed.
The work is God’s. He can give the right workman. But He
must be asked and waited on.

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 [p 217 ] Twelfth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Spirit to convince the World of Sin

“I will send the Comforter to you. And He, when He is come,

will convict the world in respect of sin.”—John xvi. 7, 8.

God’s one desire, the one object of Christ’s being manifested,

is to take away sin. The first work of the Spirit on the world is
conviction of sin. Without that, no deep or abiding revival, no
powerful conversion. Pray for it, that the gospel may be
preached in such power of the Spirit, that men may see that
they have rejected and crucified Christ, and cry out, What shall
we do?
Pray most earnestly for a mighty power of conviction of sin
wherever the gospel is preached.

HO W TO PRAY.—Stir up yourse lf to take hold of God’s

Stre ngth

“Let him take hold of My strength, that he may make peace

with Me.”—Isa. xxvii. 5.
“There is none that calleth upon Thy name, that stirreth
himself to take hold of Thee.”—Isa. lxiv. 7.
“Stir up the gift of God which is in thee.”—2 Tim. i. 6.

First, take hold of God’s strength. God is a Spirit. I cannot take

hold of Him, and hold Him fast, but by the Spirit. Take hold of
God’s strength, and hold on till it has done for you what He
has promised. Pray for the power of the Spirit to convict of sin.
Second, stir up yourself, the power that is in you by the Holy
Spirit, to take hold. Give your whole heart and will to it, and
say, I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me.

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 [p 218 ] Thirteenth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Spirit of Burning

“And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion shall be

called holy: when the Lord shall have washed away the filth
of the daughters of Zion, by the spirit of judgment and the
spirit of burning.”—Isa. iv. 3, 4.

A washing by fire! a cleansing by judgment! He that has

passed through this shall be called holy. The power of blessing
for the world, the power of work and intercession that will avail,
depends upon the spiritual state of the Church; and that can
only rise higher as sin is discovered and put away. Judgment
must begin at the house of God. There must be conviction of
sin for sanctification. Beseech God to give His Spirit as a spirit
of judgment and a spirit of burning—to discover and burn out
sin in His people.

HO W TO PRAY.—In the Name of Christ

“Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do. If ye

shall ask Me anything in My name, that will I do.”—John
xiv. 13, 14.

Ask in the name of your Redeemer God, who sits upon the
throne. Ask what He has promised, what He gave His blood
for, that sin may be put away from among His people. Ask—
the prayer is after His own heart—for the spirit of deep
conviction of sin to come among His people. Ask for the spirit
of burning. Ask in the faith of His name—the faith of what He
wills, of what He can do—and look for the answer. Pray that
the Church may be blessed, to be made a blessing in the world.

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 [p 219 ] Fourteenth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Church of the Future

“That the children might not be as their fathers, a generation

that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not
steadfast with God.”—Ps. lxxviii. 8.
“I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thy
offspring.”—Isa. xliv. 3.

Pray for the rising generation, who are to come after us. Think
of the young men and young women and children of this age,
and pray for all the agencies at work among them; that in
association and societies and unions, in homes and schools,
Christ may be honoured, and the Holy Spirit get possession of
them. Pray for the young of your own neighbourhood.

HO W TO PRAY.—With the Whole He art

“The Lord grant thee according to thine own heart.”—Ps. xx.

4.
“Thou hast given him his heart’s desire.”—Ps. xxi. 2.
“I cried with my whole heart; hear me, O Lord.”—Ps. cxix. 145.

God lives, and listens to every petition with His whole heart.
Each time we pray the whole Infinite God is there to hear. He
asks that in each prayer the whole man shall be there too; that
we shall cry with our whole heart. Christ gave Himself to God
for men; and so He takes up every need into His intercession.
If once we seek God with our whole heart, the whole heart will
be in every prayer with which we come to this God. Pray with
your whole heart for the young.

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 [p 220 ] Fifteenth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For Schools and Colle ge s

“As for Me, this is My covenant with them, saith the Lord:
My Spirit that is upon thee, and My words which I have put
in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the
mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed,
saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever.”—Isa. lix. 21.

The future of the Church and the world depends, to an extent

we little conceive, on the education of the day. The Church
may be seeking to evangelise the heathen, and be giving up
her own children to secular and materialistic influences. Pray
for schools and colleges, and that the Church may realise and
fulfil its momentous duty of caring for its children. Pray for
godly teachers.

HO W TO PRAY.—Not Limiting God

“They limited the Holy One of Israel.”—Ps. lxxviii. 41.

“He did not many mighty works there because of their
unbelief.”—Matt. xiii. 58.
“Is anything too hard for the Lord?”—Gen. xviii. 14.
“Ah, Lord God! Thou hast made the heaven and the earth by
Thy great power; there is nothing too hard for Thee. Behold, I
am the Lord: is there anything too hard for Me?”—Jer. xxxii.
17, 27.
Beware, in your prayer, above everything, of limiting God, not
only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can
do. Expect unexpected things, above all that we ask or think.
Each time you intercede, be quiet first and worship God in his
glory. Think of what He can do, of how He delights to hear
Christ, of your place in Christ, and expect great things.

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 [p 221 ] Sixteenth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Powe r of the Holy Spirit in our
Sabbath Schools

“Thus saith the Lord, Even the captives of the mighty shall be
taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered:
for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I
will save thy children.”—Isa. xlix. 25.

Every part of the work of God’s Church is His work. He must

do it. Prayer is the confession that He will, the surrender of
ourselves into His hands to let Him, work in us and through us.
Pray for the hundreds of thousands of Sunday-school
teachers, that those who know God may be filled with His
Spirit. Pray for your own Sunday school. Pray for the salvation
of the children.

HO W TO PRAY.—Boldly

“We have a great High Priest, Jesus the Son of God. Let us
therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace.”—Heb. iv.
14, 16.

These hints to help us in our work of intercession—what are

they doing for us? Making us conscious of our feebleness in
prayer? Thank God for this. It is the very first lesson we need
on the way to pray the effectual prayer that availeth much. Let
us persevere, taking each subject boldly to the throne of grace.
As we pray we shall learn to pray, and to believe, and to expect
with increasing boldness. Hold fast your assurance: it is at
God’s command you come as an intercessor. Christ will give
you grace to pray aright.

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 [p 222 ] Seventeenth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For Kings and Rule rs

“I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers,

intercessions, thanksgiving, be made for all men; for kings,
and all that are in high places; that we may lead a tranquil
and quiet life in all godliness and gravity.”—1 Tim. ii. 1, 2.

What a faith in the power of prayer! A few feeble and despised

Christians are to influence the mighty Roman emperors, and
help in securing peace and quietness. Let us believe that
prayer is a power that is taken up by God in His rule of the
world. Let us pray for our country and its rulers; for all the
rulers of the world; for rulers in cities or districts in which we
are interested. When God’s people unite in this, they may
count upon their prayer effecting in the unseen world more
than they know. Let faith hold this fast.

HO W TO PRAY.—The Praye r be fore God as Ince nse

“And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a

golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense,
that he should add it unto the prayers of all the saints upon
the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke
of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before
God out of the angel’s hand. And the angel taketh the censer;
and he filled it with the fire upon the altar, and cast it upon
the earth: and there followed thunder, and voices, and
lightning, and an earthquake.”—Rev. viii. 3–5.

The same censer brings the prayer of the saints before God and
casts fire upon the earth. The prayers that go up to heaven
have their share in the history of this earth. Be sure that thy
prayers enter God’s presence.

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 [p 223 ] Eighteenth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For Pe ace

“I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplication be made for

kings and all that are in high places; that we may lead a
tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and gravity. For this is
good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour.” —1
Tim. ii. 1–3.
“He maketh wars to cease to the end of the earth.”—Ps. xlvi. 9.

What a terrible sight!—the military armaments in which the

nations find their pride. What a terrible thought!—the evil
passions that may at any moment bring on war. And what a
prospect the suffering and desolation that must come. God can,
in answer to the prayer of His people, give peace. Let us pray
for it, and for the rule of righteousness on which alone it can be
stablished.

HO W TO PRAY.—With the Unde rstanding

“What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray
with the understanding.”—1 Cor. xiv. 15.

We need to pray with the spirit, as the vehicle of the

intercession of God’s Spirit, if we are to take hold of God in
faith and power. We need to pray with the understanding, if we
are really to enter deeply into the needs we bring before Him.
Take time to apprehend intelligently, in each subject, the
nature, the extent, the urgency of the request, the ground and
way and certainty of God’s promise as revealed in His Word.
Let the mind affect the heart. Pray with the understanding and
with the spirit.

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 [p 224 ] Nineteenth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Holy Spirit on Christe ndom

“Having a form of godliness, but denying the power

thereof.”—2 Tim. iii. 5.
“Thou hast a name that thou livest, and thou art dead.”—Rev.
iii. 1.

There are five hundred millions of nominal Christians. The state

of the majority is unspeakably awful. Formality, worldliness,
ungodliness, rejection of Christ’s service, ignorance, and
indifference—to what an extent does all this prevail. We pray
for the heathen—oh! do let us pray for those bearing Christ’s
name, many in worse than heathen darkness.
Does not one feel as if one ought to begin to give up his life,
and to cry day and night to God for souls! In answer to prayer
God gives the power of the Holy Ghost.

HO W TO PRAY.—In de e p Stillne ss of Soul

“My soul is silent unto God: from Him cometh my

salvation.”—Ps. lxii. 1.

Prayer has its power in God alone. The nearer a man comes to
God Himself, the deeper he enters into God’s will; the more he
takes hold of God, the more power in prayer.
God must reveal Himself. If it please Him to make Himself
known, He can make the heart conscious of His presence. Our
posture must be that of holy reverence, of quiet waiting and
adoration.
As your month of intercession passes on, and you feel the
greatness of your work, be still before God. Thus you will get
power to pray.

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 [p 225 ] Twentieth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For God’s Spirit on the He athe n

“Behold, these shall come from far; and these from the land
of Sinim.”—Isa. xlix. 12.
“Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall haste to
stretch out her hands to God.”—Ps. lxviii. 31.
“I the Lord will hasten it in His time.”—Isa. lx. 22.

Pray for the heathen, who are yet without the word. Think of
China, with her three hundred millions—a million a month
dying without Christ. Think of Dark Africa, with its two
hundred millions. Think of thirty millions a year going down
into the thick darkness. If Christ gave His life for them, will you
not do so? You can give yourself up to intercede for them. Just
begin, if you have never yet begun, with this simple monthly
school of intercession. The ten minutes you give will make you
feel this is not enough. God’s Spirit will draw you on.
Persevere, however feeble you are. Ask God to give you some
country or tribe to pray for. Can anything be nobler than to do
as Christ did? Give your life for the heathen.

HO W TO PRAY.—With Confide nt Expe ctation of an Answe r

“Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and will shew thee
great things and difficult, which thou knowest not.”—Jer.
xxxiii. 3.
“Thus saith the Lord God: I will yet be inquired of, that I do
it.”—Ezek. xxxvi. 37.

Both texts refer to promises definitely made, but their fulfilment

would depend upon prayer: God would be inquired of to do it.
Pray for God’s fulfilment of His promises to His Son and His
Church, and expect the answer. Plead for the heathen: plead
God’s Promises.

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 [p 226 ] Twenty-First Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For God’s Spirit on the Je ws

“I will pour out upon the house of David, and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and Supplication; and they
shall look unto Me whom they pierced.”—Zech. xii. 10.
“Brethren, my heart’s desire and my supplication to God is
for them, that they may be saved.”—Rom. x. 1.

Pray for the Jews. Their return to the God of their fathers
stands connected, in a way we cannot tell, with wonderful
blessing to the Church, and with the coming of our Lord Jesus.
Let us not think that God has foreordained all this, and that we
cannot hasten it. In a divine and mysterious way God has
connected His fulfilment of His promise with our prayer. His
Spirit’s intercession in us is God’s forerunner of blessing. Pray
for Israel and the work done among them. And pray too: Amen.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

HO W TO PRAY.—With the Inte rce ssion of the Holy Spirit

“We know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit

Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which
cannot be uttered.”—Rom. viii. 26.

In your ignorance and feebleness believe in the secret

indwelling and intercession of the Holy Spirit within you. Yield
yourself to His life and leading habitually. He will help your
infirmities in prayer. Plead the promises of God even where you
do not see how they are to be fulfilled. God knows the mind of
the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints
according to the will of God. Pray with the simplicity of a little
child; pray with the holy awe and reverence of one in whom
God’s Spirit dwells and prays.

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 [p 227 ] Twenty-second Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For all who are in Suffe ring

“Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them;

them that are evil entreated, as being yourselves in the
body.”—Heb. xiii. 3.

What a world of suffering we live in! How Jesus sacrificed all

and identified Himself with it! Let us in our measure do so too.
The persecuted Stundists and Armenians and Jews, the
famine-stricken millions of India, the hidden slavery of Africa,
the poverty and wretchedness of our great cities—and so
much more: what suffering among those who know God and
who know Him not. And then in smaller circles, in ten thousand
homes and hearts, what sorrow. In our own neighbourhood,
how many needing help or comfort. Let us have a heart for, let
us think of the suffering. It will stir us to pray, to work, to hope,
to love more. And in a way and time we know not God will hear
our prayer.

HO W TO PRAY.—Praying always, and not fainting

“He spake unto them a parable to the end that they ought
always to pray, and not to faint.”—Luke xviii. 1.

Do you not begin to feel prayer is really the help for this sinful
world? What a need there is of unceasing prayer? The very
greatness of the task makes us despair! What can our ten
minutes of intercession avail? It is right we feel this: this is the
way in which God is calling and preparing us to give our life to
prayer. Give yourself wholly to God for men, and amid all your
work, your heart will be drawn out to men in love, and drawn
up to God in dependence and expectation. To a heart thus led
by the Holy Spirit, it is possible to pray always and not to faint.

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 [p 228 ] Twenty-Third Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Holy Spirit in your own Work

“I labour, striving according to His working, which worketh

in me mightily.”—Col. i. 29.

You have your own special work; make it a work of

intercession. Paul laboured, striving according to the working
of God in him. Remember, God is not only the Creator, but the
Great Workman, who worketh all in all. You can only do your
work in His strength, by Him working in you through the Spirit.
Intercede much for those among whom you work, till God gives
you life for them.
Let us all intercede too for each other, for every worker
throughout God’s Church, however solitary or unknown.

HO W TO PRAY.—In God’s ve ry Pre se nce

“Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.”—Jas. iv.

8.

The nearness of God gives rest and power in prayer. The

nearness of God is given to him who makes it his first object.
“Draw nigh to God”; seek the nearness to Him, and He will give
it; “He will draw nigh to you.” Then it becomes easy to pray in
faith.
Remember that when first God takes you into the school of
intercession it is almost more for your own sake than that of
others. You have to be trained to love, and wait, and pray, and
believe. Only persevere. Learn to set yourself in His presence,
to wait quietly for the assurance that He draws nigh. Enter His
holy presence, tarry there, and spread your work before Him.
Intercede for the souls you are working among. Get a blessing
from God, His Spirit into your own heart, for them.

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 [p 229 ] Twenty-Fourth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Spirit on your own Congre gation

“Beginning at Jerusalem.”—Luke xxiv. 47.

Each one of us is connected with some congregation or circle

of believers, who are to us the part of Christ’s body with which
we come into most direct contact. They have a special claim on
our intercession. Let it be a settled matter between God and
you that you are to labour in prayer on its behalf. Pray for the
minister and all leaders or workers in it. Pray for the believers
according to their needs. Pray for conversions. Pray for the
power of the Spirit to manifest itself. Band yourself with others
to join in secret in definite petitions. Let intercession be a
definite work, carried on as systematically as preaching or
Sunday school. And pray, expecting an answer.

HO W TO PRAY.—Continually

“Watchmen, that shall never hold their peace day nor

night.”—Isa. lxii. 6.
“His own elect, that cry to Him day and night.”—Luke xviii. 7.
“Night and day praying exceedingly, that we may perfect that
which is lacking in your faith.”—1 Thess. iii. 10.
“A widow indeed, hath her hope set in God, and continueth in
supplications night and day.”—1 Tim. v. 5.

When the glory of God, and the love of Christ, and the need of
souls are revealed to us, the fire of this unceasing intercession
will begin to burn in us for those who are near and those who
are far off.

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 [p 230 ] Twenty-Fifth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For more Conve rsions

“He is able to save completely, seeing He ever liveth to make

intercession.”—Heb. vii. 25.
“We will give ourselves continually to prayer and the ministry
of the word.... And the word of God increased; and the number
of the disciples multiplied exceedingly.”—Acts vi. 4, 7.

Christ’s power to save, and save completely, depends on His

unceasing intercession. The apostles withdrawing themselves
from other work to give themselves continually to prayer was
followed by the number of the disciples multiplying
exceedingly. As we, in our day, give ourselves to intercession,
we shall have more and mightier conversions. Let us plead for
this. Christ is exalted to give repentance. The Church exists
with the Divine purpose and promise of having conversions.
Let us not be ashamed to confess our sin and feebleness, and
cry to God for more conversions in Christian and heathen
lands, of those too whom you know and love. Plead for the
salvation of sinners.

HO W TO PRAY.—In de e p Humility

“Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs.... O woman,

great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”—Matt.
xv. 27, 28.
You feel unworthy and unable to pray aright. To accept this
heartily, and to be content still to come and be blest in your
unworthiness, is true humility. It proves its integrity by not
seeking for anything, but simply trusting His grace. And so it
is the very strength of a great faith, and gets a full answer. “Yet
the dogs”—let that be your plea as you persevere for someone
possibly possessed of the devil. Let not your littleness hinder
you for a moment.

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 [p 231 ] Twenty-Sixth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Holy Spirit on Young Conve rts

“Peter and John prayed for them, that they might receive the
Holy Ghost; for as yet He was fallen upon none of them: only
they had been baptized into the name of the Lord
Jesus.”—Acts viii. 15, 16.
“Now He which establisheth us with you in Christ, and
anointed us, is God; who also gave us the earnest of the Spirit
in our hearts.”—2 Cor. i. 21, 22.

How many new converts who remain feeble; how many who
fall into sin; how many who backslide entirely. If we pray for
the Church, its growth in holiness and devotion to God’s
service, pray specially for the young converts. How many
stand alone, surrounded by temptation; how many have no
teaching on the Spirit in them, and the power of God to
establish them; how many in heathen lands, surrounded by
Satan’s power. If you pray for the power of the Spirit in the
Church, pray specially that every young convert may know
that he may claim and receive the fulness of the Spirit.

HO W TO PRAY.—Without Ce asing

“As for me, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in
ceasing to pray for you.”—1 Sam. xii. 23.

It is sin against the Lord to cease praying for others. When

once we begin to see how absolutely indispensable
intercession is, just as much a duty as loving God or believing
in Christ, and how we are called and bound to it as believers,
we shall feel that to cease intercession is grievous sin. Let us
ask for grace to take up our place as priests with joy, and give
our life to bring down the blessing of heaven.

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 [p 232 ] Twenty-Seventh Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—That God’s Pe ople may Re alise the ir Calling

“I will bless thee; and be thou a blessing: in thee shall all the
families of the earth be blessed.”—Gen. xii. 2, 3.
“God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause His face to
shine upon us. That Thy way may be known upon earth, Thy
saving health among all nations.”—Ps. lxvii. 1, 2.

Abraham was only blessed that he might be a blessing to all

the earth. Israel prays for blessing, that God may be known
among all nations. Every believer, just as much as Abraham, is
only blessed that he may carry God’s blessing to the world.
Cry to God that His people may know this, that every believer
is only to live for the interests of God and His kingdom. If this
truth were preached and believed and practised, what a
revolution it would bring in our mission work. What a host of
willing intercessors we should have. Plead with God to work it
by the Holy Spirit.

HO W TO PRAY.—As O ne who has Acce pte d for Himse lf what

he Asks for O the rs

“Peter said, What I have, I give unto thee.... The Holy Ghost
fell on them, as on us at the beginning.... God gave them the
like gift, as He gave unto us.”—Acts iii. 6, xi. 15, 17.

As you pray for this great blessing on God’s people, the Holy
Spirit taking entire possession of them for God’s service, yield
yourself to God, and claim the gift anew in faith. Let each
thought of feebleness or shortcoming only make you the more
urgent in prayer for others; as the blessing comes to them, you
too will be helped. With every prayer for conversions or
mission work, pray that God’s people may know how wholly
they belong to Him.

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 [p 233 ] Twenty-Eighth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—That all God’s Pe ople may know the Holy
Spirit

“The Spirit of truth, whom the world knoweth not; but ye

know Him; for He abideth with you, and shall be in
you.”—John xiv. 17.
“Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost?”—
1 Cor. vi. 19.

The Holy Spirit is the power of God for the salvation of men.
He only works as He dwells in the Church. He is given to
enable believers to live wholly as God would have them live, in
the full experience and witness of Him who saves completely.
Pray God that every one of His people may know the Holy
Spirit!—That He, in all His fulness, is given to them! that they
cannot expect to live as their Father would have, without
having Him in His fulness, without being filled with Him! Pray
that all God’s people, even away in churches gathered out of
heathendom, may learn to say: I believe in the Holy Ghost.

HO W TO PRAY.—Labouring fe rve ntly in Praye r

“Epaphras, who is one of you, saluteth you, always labouring

fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and
complete in all the will of God.”—Col. iv. 12.

To a healthy man labour is a delight; in what interests him he

labours fervently. The believer who is in full health, whose
heart is filled with God’s Spirit, labours fervently in prayer. For
what? That his brethren may stand perfect and complete in all
the will of God; that they may know what God wills for them,
how He calls them to live, and be led and walk by the Holy
Ghost. Labour fervently in prayer that all God’s children may
know this, as possible, as divinely sure.

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 [p 234 ] Twenty-Ninth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Spirit of Inte rce ssion

“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.
“Hitherto ye have asked nothing in My name. In that day ye
shall ask in My name.”—John xvi. 24, 26.

Has not our school of intercession taught us how little we have

prayed in the name of Jesus? He promised His disciples: In that
day, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, ye shall ask in My
name. Are there not tens of thousands with us mourning the
lack of the power of intercession? Let our intercession to-day
be for them and all God’s children, that Christ may teach us
that the Holy Spirit is in us; and what it is to live in His fulness,
and to yield ourselves to His intercession work within us. The
Church and the world need nothing so much as a mighty Spirit
of Intercession to bring down the power of God on earth. Pray
for the descent from heaven of the Spirit of Intercession for a
great prayer revival.

HO W TO PRAY.—Abiding in Christ

“If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask

whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done to you.”—John xv. 7.

Our acceptance with God, our access to Him, is all in Christ. As

we consciously abide in Him we have the liberty, not a liberty
to our old nature or our self-will, but the Divine liberty from all
self-will, to ask what we will, in the power of the new nature,
and it shall be done. Let us keep this place, and believe even
now that our intercession is heard, and that the Spirit of
Supplication will be given all around us.

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 [p 235 ] Thirtieth Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Holy Spirit with the Word of God

“Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in
power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance.” —1
Thess. i. 5.
“Those who preached unto you the gospel with the Holy Ghost
sent forth from heaven.”—1 Pet. i. 12.

What numbers of Bibles are being circulated. What numbers of

sermons on the Bible are being preached. What numbers of
Bibles are being read in home and school. How little blessing
when it comes “in word” only; what Divine blessing and power
when it comes “in the Holy Ghost,” when it is preached “with
the Holy Ghost sent forth from heaven.” Pray for Bible
circulation, and preaching and teaching and reading, that it
may all be in the Holy Ghost, with much prayer. Pray for the
power of the Spirit with the word in your own neighbourhood,
wherever it is being read or heard. Let every mention of “The
Word of God” waken intercession.

HO W TO PRAY.—Watching and Praying

“Continue steadfastly in prayer, watching therein with

thanksgiving; withal praying for us also, that God may open
for us a door for the word.”—Col. iv. 2, 3.

Do you not see how all depends upon God and prayer? As
long as He lives and loves, and hears and works, as long as
there are souls with hearts closed to the word, as long as there
is work to be done in carrying the word—Pray without
ceasing. Continue steadfastly in prayer, watching therein with
thanksgiving. These words are for every Christian.

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 [p 236 ] Thirty-First Day
WHAT TO PRAY.—For the Spirit of Christ in His Pe ople

“I am the Vine, ye are the branches.”—John xv. 5.

“That ye should do as I have done to you.”—John xiii. 15.

As branches we are to be so like the Vine, so entirely identified

with it, that all may see that we have the same nature, and life,
and spirit. When we pray for the Spirit, let us not only think of
a Spirit of power, but the very disposition and temper of Christ
Jesus. Ask and expect nothing less: for yourself, and all God’s
children, cry for it.

HO W TO PRAY.—Striving in Praye r

“That ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for

me.”—Rom. xv. 30.
“I would ye knew what great conflict I have for you.”—Col. ii.
1.

All the powers of evil seek to hinder us in prayer. Prayer is a

conflict with opposing forces. It needs the whole heart and all
our strength. May God give us grace to strive in prayer till we
prevail.

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