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THE KNEELING CHRISTIAN
by Unknown Christian

(4) Refusal to do our part may hinder God answering our prayers. Love calls forth compassion and service at the sight of sin and suffering, both here and overseas. Just as St. Paul’s heart was “stirred” — “provoked” — within him as he beheld the city full of idols (Acts xvii. 16). We cannot be sincere when we pray “Thy kingdom come” unless we are doing what we can to hasten the coming of that kingdom — by our gifts, our prayers and our service.

We cannot be quite sincere in praying for the conversion of the ungodly unless we are willing to speak a word, or write a letter, or make some attempt to bring him under the influence of the Gospel. Before one of Moody’s great missions he was present at a meeting for prayer asking for God’s blessing. Several wealthy men were there. One began to pray that God would send sufficient funds to defray the expenses. Moody at once stopped him. “We need not trouble God about that,” he said quietly, “we are able to answer that prayer!”

(5) Praying only in secret may be a hindrance. Children of a family should not always meet their father separately. It is remarkable how often our Lord refers to united prayer — “agreed” prayer. “When ye pray, say, Our Father”; “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything they shall ask, it shall be done for them. . . . For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. xviii. 19, 20).

We feel sure that the weakness in the spiritual life of many churches is to be traced to an inefficient prayer-meeting, or the absence of meetings for prayer. Daily matins and evensong, even when reverent and without the unseemly haste which is so often associated with them, cannot take the place of less formal gatherings for prayer, in which everyone may take part. Can we not make the weekly prayer-meeting a live thing and a living force?

(6) raise is as important as prayer. We must enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise, and give thanks unto Him and bless His name (Ps. c. 4). At one time in his life Praying Hyde was led to ask for four souls a day to be brought into the fold by his ministry. If on any day the number fell short of this, there would be such a weight on his heart that it was positively painful, and he could neither eat nor sleep. Then. in prayer he would ask the Lord to show him what was the obstacle in himself. He invariably found that it was the want of praise in his life. He would confess his sinfulness and pray for a spirit of praise. He said that as he praised God seeking souls would come to him. We do not imply that we, too, should limit God to definite numbers or ways of working; but we do cry: “Rejoice! Praise God with heart and mind and soul.”

It is not by accident that we are so often bidden to “rejoice in the Lord.” God does not want miserable children; and none of His children has cause for misery. St. Paul, the most persecuted of men, was a man of song. Hymns of praise came from his lips in prison and out of prison: day and night he praised His Savior. The very order of his exhortations is significant. “Rejoice evermore; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus to you” (I Thess. v. 16-18).

The will of God. Get that thought into your mind. It is not an optional thing.

REJOICE: PRAY: GIVE THANKS

That is the order, according to the will of God — for you, and for me. Nothing so pleases God as our praises — and nothing so blesses the man who prays as the praises he offers! “Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the petitions of thine heart” (Ps. xxxvii. 4, R.V., marg.). A missionary who had received very bad news from home, was utterly cast down. Prayer availed nothing to relieve the darkness of his soul. He went to see another missionary, no doubt seeking comfort. There on the wall was a motto-card: “Try Thanksgiving!” He did; and in a moment every shadow was gone, never to return.

Do we praise enough to get our prayers answered? If we truly trust Him, we shall always praise Him.

For God nothing does
nor suffers to be done
But thou would’st do thyself
Could’st thou but see
The end of all events as well as He.

One who once overheard Luther praying said, “Gracious God! What spirit and what faith is there in his expressions! He petitions God with as much reverence as if he were in the Divine presence, and yet with as firm a hope and confidence as he would address a father or a friend.” That child of God seemed quite unconscious that “hindrances to prayer” existed!

After all that has been said, we see that everything can be summed up under one head. All hindrance to prayer arises from ignorance of the teaching of God’s Holy Word on the life of holiness He has planned for all His children, or from an unwillingness to consecrate ourselves fully to Him. When we can truthfully say to our Father, “All that I am and have is thine,” then He can say to us, “All that is mine is thine.”

CHAPTER 12: WHO MAY PRAY?

IT is only two centuries ago that six undergraduates were expelled from the University of Oxford solely because they met together in each other’s rooms for extempore prayer! Whereupon George Whitefield wrote to the Vice-Chancellor, “It is to be hoped that, as some have been expelled for extempore praying, we shall hear of some few others of a contrary stamp being expelled for extempore swearing.” Today, thank God, no man in our land is hindered by his fellow-men from praying. Any man may pray — but has every man a right to pray? Does God listen to anyone?

Who may pray? Is it the privilege — the right — of all men? Not everyone can claim the right to approach the King of our realm. But there are certain persons and bodies of people who have the privilege of immediate access to our sovereign. The Prime Minister has that privilege. The ancient Corporation of the City of London can at anytime lay its petition at the feet of the King. The ambassador of a foreign power may do the same. He has only to present himself at the gate of the palace of the King, and no power can stand between him and the monarch. He can go at once into the royal presence and present his request. But none of these has such ease of access and such loving welcome as the Kings own son.

But there is the King of kings — the God and Father of us all. Who may go to Him? Who may exercise this privilege — yes, this power — with God? We are told — and there is much truth in the remark — that in the most skeptical man or generation prayer is always underneath the surface, waiting. Has it the right to come forth at anytime? In some religions it has to wait. Of all the millions in India living in the bondage of Hinduism, none may pray except the Brahmins! A millionaire merchant of any other caste must perforce get a Brahmin — often a mere boy at school! — to say his prayers for him.

The Mohammedan cannot pray unless he has learned a few phrases in Arabic, for his “god” only hears prayers offered in what they believe to be the holy language. Praise be to God, no such restrictions of caste or language stand between us and our God. Can any man, therefore, pray? Yes, you reply, anyone. But the Bible does not say so. Only a child of God can truly pray to God. Only a son can enter His presence. It is gloriously true that anyone can cry to Him for help — for pardon and mercy. But that is scarcely prayer. Prayer is much more than that. Prayer is going into “the secret place of the Most High,” and abiding under the shadow of the Almighty (Ps. xci. 1). Prayer is a making known to God our wants and desires, and holding out the hand of faith to take His gifts. Prayer is the result of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. It is communion with God. Now, there can scarcely be communion between a king and a rebel. What communion hath light with darkness? (II Cor. vi. 14.) In ourselves we have no right to pray. We have access to God only through the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. iii. 18, ii. 12).

Prayer is much more than the cry of a drowning man — of a man sinking in the whirlpool of sin: “Lord, save me! I am lost! I am undone! Redeem me! Save me!” Anyone can do this, and that is a petition which is never unanswered, and one, if sincere, to which the answer is never delayed. For “man cannot be God’s outlaw if he would.” But that is not prayer in the Bible sense. Even the lions, roaring after their prey, seek their meat from God; but that is not prayer.

We know that our Lord said, “Everyone that asketh receiveth” (Matt. vii. 8). He did say so, but to whom? He was speaking to His disciples (Matt. v. 1, 2). Yes, prayer is communion with God: the “home-life” of the soul, as one describes it. And I much question whether there can be any communion with Him unless the Holy Spirit dwells in the heart, and we have “received” the Son, and so have the right to be called “children of God” (John i. 12).

Prayer is the privilege of a child. Children of God alone can claim from the heavenly Father the things which He hath prepared for them that love Him. Our Lord told us that in prayer we should call God “our Father.” Surely only children can use that word? St. Paul says that it is “because ye are sons God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father’” (Gal. iv. 6). Is this what was in God’s mind when, in dealing with Job’s “comforters,” He said, “My servant Job shall pray for you; for him will I accept”? (Job xlii. 8.) It looked as if they would not have been “accepted” in the matter of prayer. But as soon as one becomes a “son of God” he must enter the school of prayer. “Behold, he prayeth,” said our Lord of a man as soon as he was converted. Yet that man had “said” prayers all his life (Acts ix. 11). Converted men not only may pray, but must pray — each man for himself, and, of course, for others. But, unless and until we can truthfully call God “Father,” we have no claim to be treated as children — as “sons,” “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” — no claim at all. Do you say this is hard? Nay, surely it is natural. Has a “child” no privileges?

But do not misunderstand me. This does not shut any man out of the kingdom of heaven. Anyone, anywhere, .can cry, “God be merciful to me, a sinner!” Any man who is outside the fold of Christ, outside the family of God, however bad he may be, or however good he thinks he is, can this very moment become a child of God, even as he reads these words. One look to Christ in faith is sufficient “Look and live.” God did not even say “see” — He says just look! Turn your face to God.

How did those Galatian Christians become “sons of God”? By faith in Christ. “For ye are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. iii. 26). Christ will make any man a son of God by adoption and grace the moment he turns to Him in true repentance and faith. But we have no rightful claim even upon God’s providence unless we are His children. We cannot say with any confidence or certainty, “I shall not want,” unless we can say, with confidence and certainty, “The Lord is my Shepherd.”

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