John 14:12
“Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on
me, the works that I do shall he do also;
and greater works than these shall he do;
because I go unto my Father.”
The plea and purpose
of the apostles were to put the Church to
praying. They did not ignore the grace of
cheerful giving. They were not ignorant of
the place which religious activity and work
occupied an the spiritual life; but not one
nor all of these, in apostolic estimate or
urgency, could at all compare in necessity
and importance with prayer. The most sacred
and urgent pleas were used, the most fervid
exhortations, the most comprehensive and
arousing words were uttered to enforce the
all-important obligation and necessity of
prayer.
“Put the saints
everywhere to praying” is the burden of the
apostolic effort and the keynote of
apostolic success. Jesus Christ had striven
to do this in the days of his personal
ministry. As he was moved by infinite
compassion at the ripened fields of earth
perishing for lack of laborers and pausing
in his own praying — he tries to awaken the
stupid sensibilities of his disciples to the
duty of prayer as he charges them, “Pray ye
the Lord of the harvest that he will send
forth laborers into his harvest.” “And he
spake a parable unto them to this end, that
men ought always to pray and not to faint.”
OUR devotions are not measured by the clock,
but time is of their essence. The ability to
wait and stay and press belongs essentially
to our intercourse with God. Hurry,
everywhere unseeming and damaging, is so to
an alarming extent in the great business of
communion with God. Short devotions are the
bane of deep piety. Calmness, grasp,
strength, are never the companions of hurry.
Short devotions deplete spiritual vigor,
arrest spiritual progress, sap spiritual
foundations, blight the root and bloom of
spiritual life. They are the prolific source
of backsliding, the sure indication of a
superficial piety; they deceive, blight, rot
the seed, and impoverish the soil.
It is true that Bible
prayers in word and print are short, but the
praying men of the Bible were with God
through many a sweet and holy wrestling
hour. They won by few words but long
waiting. The prayers Moses records may be
short, but Moses prayed to God with fastings
and mighty cryings forty days and nights.
The statement of
Elijah’s praying may be condensed to a few
brief paragraphs, but doubtless Elijah, who
when “praying he prayed,” spent many hours
of fiery struggle and lofty intercourse with
God before he
We must learn anew the
worth of prayer, enter anew the school of
prayer. There is nothing which it takes more
time to learn. And if we would learn the
wondrous art, we must not give a fragment
here and there — “A little talk with
Jesus,” as the tiny saintlets sing — but we
must demand and hold with iron grasp the
best hours of the day for God and prayer, or
there will be no praying worth the name.
This, however, is not
a day of prayer. Few men there are who pray.
Prayer is defamed by preacher and priest. In
these days of hurry and bustle, of
electricity and steam, men will not take
time to pray. Preachers there are who “say
prayers” as a part of their programme, on
regular or state occasions; but who “stirs
himself up to take hold upon God?” Who
prays as Jacob prayed — till he is crowned
as a prevailing, princely intercessor? Who
prays as Elijah prayed — till all the
locked-up forces of nature were unsealed and
a famine-stricken land bloomed as the garden
of God? Who prayed as Jesus Christ prayed as
out upon the mountain he “continued all
night in prayer to God?” The apostles
“gave themselves to prayer” — the most
difficult thing to get men or even the
preachers to do. Laymen there are who will
give their money — some of them in rich
abundance — but they will not “give
themselves” to prayer, without which their
money is but a curse. There are plenty of
preachers who will preach and deliver great
and eloquent addresses on the need of
revival and the spread of the kingdom of
God, but not many there are who will do that
without which all preaching and organizing
are worse than vain — pray. It is out of
date, almost a lost art, and the greatest
benefactor this age could have is the man
who will bring the preachers and the Church
back to prayer.
ONLY glimpses of the great importance of
prayer could the apostles get before
Pentecost. But the Spirit coming and filling
on Pentecost elevated prayer to its vital
and all-commanding position in the gospel of
Christ. The call now of prayer to every
saint is the Spirit’s loudest and most
exigent call. Sainthood’s piety is made,
refined, perfected, by prayer. The gospel
moves with slow and timid pace when the
saints are not at their prayers early and
late and long.
Where are the Christly
leaders who can teach the modern saints how
to pray and put them at it? Do we know we
are raising up a prayerless set of saints?
Where are the apostolic leaders who can put
God’s people to praying? Let them come to
the front and do the work, and it will be
the greatest work which can be done. An
increase of educational facilities and a
great increase of money force will be the
direst curse to religion if they are not
sanctified by more and better praying than
we are doing. More praying will not come as
a matter of course. The campaign for the
twentieth or thirtieth century fund will not
help our praying but hinder if we are not
careful. Nothing but a specific effort from
a praying leadership will avail. The chief
ones must lead in the apostolic effort to
radicate the vital importance and fact
of prayer in the heart and life of the
Church. None but praying leaders can have
praying followers. Praying apostles will
beget praying saints. A praying pulpit will
beget praying pews. We do greatly need some
body who can set the saints to this business
of praying. We are not a generation of
praying saints. Non-praying saints are a
beggarly gang of saints who have neither the
ardor nor the beauty nor the power of
saints. Who will restore this breach? The
greatest will he be of reformers and
apostles, who can set the Church to praying.
We put it as our most
sober judgment that the great need of the
Church in this and all ages is men of such
commanding faith, of such unsullied
holiness, of such marked spiritual vigor and
consuming zeal, that their prayers, faith,
lives, and ministry will be of such a
radical and aggressive form as to work
spiritual revolutions which will form eras
in individual and Church life.
We do not mean men who
get up sensational stirs by novel devices,
nor those who attract by a pleasing
entertainment; but men who can stir things,
and work revolutions by the preaching of
God’s Word and by the power of the Holy
Ghost, revolutions which change the whole
current of things.
Natural ability and
educational advantages do not figure as
factors in this matter; but capacity for
faith, the ability to pray, the power of
thorough consecration, the ability of
self-littleness, an absolute losing of one’s
self in God’s glory, and an ever-present and
insatiable yearning and seeking after all
the fullness of God — men who can set the
Church ablaze for God; not in a noisy, showy
way, but with an intense and quiet heat that
melts and moves everything for God.
God can work wonders
if he can get a suitable man. Men can work
wonders if they can get God to lead them.
The full endowment of the spirit that turned
the world upside down would be eminently
useful in these latter days. Men who can
stir things mightily for God, whose
spiritual revolutions change the whole
aspect of things, are the universal need of
the Church.
This was Christ’s
view. He said “Verily, verily, I say unto
you, He that believeth on me, the works that
I do shall he do also; and greater works
than these shall he do; because I go unto my
Father.” The past has not exhausted the
possibilities nor the demands for doing
great things for God. The Church that is
dependent on its past history for its
miracles of power and grace is a fallen
Church.
God wants elect men —
men out of whom self and the world have gone
by a severe crucifixion, by a bankruptcy
which has so totally ruined self and the
world that there is neither hope nor desire
of recovery; men who by this insolvency and
crucifixion have turned toward God perfect
hearts.
Let us pray ardently
that God’s promise to prayer may be more
than realized.
The Power of
Prayer
E M Bounds
Only
through prayer can we receive the true
blessings and gifts of Christ our Savior.
There is so much power awaiting each and
every one of you. All you must do is pray.
How do I pray? Find a place where you can
spend time alone with God. A place of peace
where you can prostrate yourself in His
presence as you seek His face with all your
heart, all your soul and all of your might.
Call out unto the Lord. Tell Him your
secrets, as Him to reveal His truths to you.
Ask for His guidance and truly, truly long
in your heart for Him more than anything in
this world. As you continue to seek Him, you
will indeed find Him. He shall give you
peace and comfort in your time of need.
Come unto me all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take
my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am
meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find
rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy,
and my burden is light.
Matthew 11:28
Bible
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Dr. L. Faith Setzer
Real Lessons Learned Real Life Lived
copyright 2006
