“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. [p79] 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 [p80] 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 [p81] 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 [p82] 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 [p83] 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 [p84] 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 [p85] 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.
[p86] 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 [p87] 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 [p88] 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 [p89] 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 [p90] 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.
[p91] 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 [p92] 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.
[p93] 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 [p94] 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 [p95] 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 [p96] 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 [p97] 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, [p98] 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.
[p99] 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 [p100] 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 [p101] 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 [p102] 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 [p103] 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.”
[p104] 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 [p105] 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 [p106] 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 [p107] 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 [p108] 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 [p109] 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 [p110] 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 [p111] 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 [p112] 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 [p113] 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 [p114] 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 [p115] 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.”