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Part 2
Let me speak a parting word to those who do not pray. I dare not suppose that all who read these pages are praying people. If you are a prayerless person, suffer me to speak to you this day on God's behalf.
Prayerless reader, I can only warn you, but I do warn you most solemnly. I warn you that you are in a position of fearful danger. If you die in your present state, you are a lost soul.
You will only rise again to be eternally miserable. I warn you that, of all professing Christians, you are most utterly without excuse. There is not a single good reason that you can show for living without prayer.
It is useless to say you know not how to pray. Prayer is the simplest act in all religion. It is simply speaking to God.
It needs neither learning nor wisdom nor book knowledge to begin it. It needs nothing but heart and will. The weakest infant can cry when he is hungry.
The poorest beggar can hold out his hand for alms and does not wait to find fine words. The most ignorant man will find something to say to God if he has only a mind. It is useless to say you have no convenient place to pray in.
A man can find a place private enough if he is disposed. Our Lord prayed on the mountain, Peter on the housetop, Isaac in the field, Nathaniel under a fig tree, Jonah in the whale's belly. Any place may become a closet, an oratory, and a bethel, and be to us the presence of God.
It is useless to say you have no time. There is plenty of time if men will employ it. Time may be short, but time is always long enough for prayer.
Daniel had the affairs of a kingdom on his hands, and yet he prayed three times a day. David was ruler over a mighty nation, and yet he says, Evening and morning, and at noon will I pray. When time is really wanted, time can always be found.
It is useless to say you cannot pray till you have faith and a new heart, in that you must sit still and wait for them. This is to add sin to sin. It is bad enough to be unconverted and going to hell.
It is even worse to say I know it, but will not cry for mercy. This is a kind of argument for which there is no warrant in scripture. Take the few words, and turn unto the Lord, says Hosea, Hosea 14.1 Repent and pray, says Peter to Simon Magus, Acts 8.22 If you want faith and a new heart, go and cry to the Lord for them.
The very attempt to pray has often been the quickening of a dead soul. O prayerless reader, who and what are you that you will not ask anything of God? Have you made a covenant with death and hell? Are you at peace with the worm and the fire? Have you no sins to be pardoned? Have you no fear of eternal torment? Have you no desire after heaven? O that you would awake from your present folly! O that you would consider your latter end! O that you would arise and call upon God! Alas, there is a day coming when many shall pray loudly, Lord, Lord, open to us, but all too late, when many shall cry to the rocks to fall on them, and the hills to cover them, who would never cry to God. In all affection I warn you, beware, lest this be the end of your soul.
Salvation is very near you, do not lose heaven for want of asking. Let me speak to those who have real desires for salvation, but know not what steps to take, or where to begin. I cannot but hope that some readers may be in this state of mind, and if there be but one such, I must offer him affectionate counsel.
In every journey there must be a first step, there must be a change from sitting still to moving forward. The journeyings of Israel from Egypt to Canaan were long and worrisome. Forty years passed away before they crossed Jordan, yet there was someone who moved first when they marched from Ramah to Succoth.
When does a man really take his first step in coming out from sin and the world? He does it in the day when he first prays with his heart. In every building the first stone must be laid, and the first blow must be struck. The ark was a hundred and twenty years in building, yet there was a day when Noah laid his axe to the first tree he cut down to form it.
The temple of Solomon was a glorious building, but there was a day when the first huge stone was laid deep in Mount Moriah. When does the building of the Spirit really begin to appear in a man's heart? It begins, so far as we can judge, when he first pours out his heart to God in prayer. If you desire salvation and want to know what to do, I advise you to go this very day to the Lord Jesus Christ, in the first private place you can find, and earnestly and heartily entreat Him in prayer to save your soul.
Tell Him that you heard that He receives sinners, and has said, Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out. Tell Him that you are a poor, vile sinner, and that you come to Him on the faith of His own invitation. Tell Him you put yourself wholly and entirely in His hands, that you feel vile and helpless, and hopeless in yourself, and that except He saves you, you have no hope of being saved at all.
Beseech Him to deliver you from the guilt, the power, and the consequences of sin. Beseech Him to pardon you and wash you in His own blood. Beseech Him to give you a new heart and plant the Holy Spirit in your soul.
Beseech Him to give you grace and faith and will and power to be His disciple and servant from this day forever. O reader, go this day, this very day, and tell these things to the Lord Jesus Christ if you really are in earnest about your soul. Tell Him in your own way and your own words.
If a doctor came to see you when sick, you could tell him where you felt pain. If your soul feels its disease indeed, you can surely find something to tell Christ. Doubt not His willingness to save you because you are a sinner.
It is Christ's office to save sinners. He says Himself, I came, not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Luke 5, verse 32 Wait not because you feel unworthy.
Wait for nothing. Wait for nobody. Waiting comes from the devil.
Just as you are, go to Christ. The worse you are, the more need you have to apply to Him. You will never mend yourself by staying away.
Fear not because your prayer is stammering, your words feeble, and your language poor. Jesus can understand you. Just as a mother understands the first lispings of her infant, so does the blessed Savior understand sinners.
He can read a sigh and see a meaning in a groan. Despair not because you do not get an answer immediately. While you are speaking, Jesus is listening.
If He delays an answer, it is only for wise reasons, and to try if you are in earnest. The answer will surely come. Though it tarry, wait for it.
It will surely come. O reader, if you have any desire to be saved, remember the advice I have given you this day. Act upon it honestly and hardly, and you shall be saved.
Let me speak lastly to those who do pray. I trust that some who read this tract know well what prayer is and have the spirit of adoption. To all such, I offer a few words of brotherly counsel and exhortation.
The incense offered in the tabernacle was ordered to be made in a particular way. Not every kind of incense would do. Let us remember this and be careful about the manner and matter of our prayers.
Brethren who pray, if I know anything of a Christian heart, you are often sick of your own prayers. You never enter into the Apostle's words. When I would do good, evil is present with me, so thoroughly as you sometimes do upon your knees.
You can understand David's words. I hate vain thoughts. You can sympathize with that poor converted Hottentot who was overheard praying, Lord, deliver me from all my enemies, and above all, from that bad man, myself.
There are few children of God who do not often find the reason of prayer a season of conflict. The devil has a special wrath against us when he sees us on our knees. Yet I believe that prayers which cost us no trouble should be regarded with great suspicion.
I believe we are very poor judges of the goodness of our prayers, and that the prayer which pleases us least often pleases God most. Suffer me then as a companion in the Christian warfare to offer you a few words of exhortation. One thing at least, we will all feel we must pray.
We cannot give it up. We must go on. I commend then to your attention the importance of reverence and humility in prayer.
Let us never forget what we are, and what a solemn thing it is to speak with God. Let us beware of rushing into His presence with carelessness and levity. Let us say to ourselves, I am on holy ground.
This is no other than the gate of heaven. If I do not mean what I say, I am trifling with God. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.
Let us keep in mind the words of Solomon. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God. For God is in heaven, and thou on earth.
Ecclesiastes 5 verse 2 When Abraham spoke to God, he said, I am dust and ashes. When Job spoke to God, he said, I am vile. Let us do likewise.
I commend to you the importance of praying spiritually. I mean by that, that we should labor always to have the direct help of the Spirit in our prayers, and beware above all things of formality. There is nothing so spiritual but that it may become a form, and this is especially true of private prayer.
We may insensibly get into the habit of using the finest possible words, of offering the most scriptural petitions, and yet do it all by rote, without feeling it, and walking daily round an old beaten path. I desire to touch this point with caution and delicacy. I know that there are certain great things we want daily, in that there is nothing necessarily formal in asking for these things in the same words.
The world, the devil, and our hearts are daily the same. Of necessity we must daily go over old ground. But this I say we must be very careful on this point.
If the skeleton and outline of our prayers be by habit almost a form, let us strive that the clothing and filling up of our prayers be as far as possible of the Spirit. As to praying out of a book in our private devotions, it is a habit I cannot praise. If we can tell our doctors the state of our bodies without a book, we ought to be able to tell the state of our souls to God.
I have no objection to a man using crutches when he is first recovering from a broken limb. It is better to use crutches than not to walk at all. If I saw him all his life on crutches, I should not think it matter of congratulation.
I should like to see him strong enough to throw his crutches away. I commend to you the importance of making prayer a regular business of life. I might say something of the value of regular times in the day of prayer.
God is a God of order. The hours for morning and evening sacrifice in the Jewish temple were not fixed as they were without a meaning. Disorder is eminently one of the fruits of sin.
But I would not bring any under bondage. This only I say that it is essential to your soul's health to make praying a part of the business of every 24 hours in your life. Just as you allot time to eating, sleeping, and business, so allot time to prayer.
Choose your own hours and seasons. At the very least, speak with God in the morning before you speak with the world, and speak with God at night after you have done with the world. But settle it in your minds that prayer is one of the great things of every day.
Do not drive it into a corner. Do not give it the scraps and pairings of your day. Whatever else you make a business of, make a business of prayer.
I commend to you the importance of perseverance in prayer. Once having begun the habit, never give it up. Your heart will sometimes say, you have had family prayers.
What mighty harm if you leave private prayer undone? Your body will sometimes say, you are unwell or sleepy or weary. You need not pray. Your mind will sometimes say, you have important business to attend to today.
Cut short your prayers. Look on all such suggestions as coming direct from Satan. They are all as good as saying, neglect your soul.
I do not maintain that prayer should always be of the same length, but I do say that no excuse make you give up prayer. Paul said, continue in prayer, and pray without ceasing. He did not mean that men should be always on their knees, but he did mean that our prayer should be like the continual burnt offering, steadily preserved in every day.
That it should be like seed time and harvest in summer and winter, unceasingly coming round at regular seasons. That it should be like the fire on the altar, not always consuming sacrifices, but never completely gone out. Never forget that you may tie together morning and evening devotions by an endless chain of short, ejaculatory prayers throughout the day.
Even in company or business, or in the very streets, you may be silently setting up little winged messages to God, as Nehemiah did in the very presence of Alexerxes. And never think that time is wasted which is given to God. A nation does not become poor because it loses one year of working days in seven, by keeping the Sabbath.
A Christian never finds he is a loser in the long run by persevering in prayer. I commend to you the importance of earnestness in prayer. It is not necessary that a man should shout or scream or be very loud in order to prove that he is in earnest.
But it is desirable that we should be hearty and fervent and warm, and ask if we were really interested in what we were doing. It is the effectual fervent prayer that availeth much. This is the lesson that is taught us by the expression used in Scripture about prayer.
It is called crying, knocking, wrestling, laboring, striving. This is the lesson taught us by Scripture examples. Jacob is one.
He said to the angel at Penel, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. Genesis 32 verse 26 Daniel is another. Hear how he pleaded with God.
O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hearken and do! Defer not for thine own sake, O my God. Daniel 9 verse 19 Our Lord Jesus Christ is another. It is written of Him in the days of His flesh He offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears.
Hebrews 5 verse 7 Alas, how unlike is this to many of our supplications! How tame and lukewarm they seem by comparison! How truly might God say to many of us, You do not really want what you pray for! Let us try to amend this fault. Let us knock loudly at the door of grace, like mercy in pilgrim's progress, as if we must perish unless heard. Let us settle it in our minds that cold prayers are a sacrifice without fire.
Let us remember the story of Demosthenes, the great orator, when one came to him and wanted him to plead his cause. He heard him without attention while he told his story, without earnestness. The man saw this and cried out with anxiety that it was all true.
Ah, said Demosthenes, I believe you now. I commend to you the importance of praying with faith. We should endeavor to believe that our prayers are heard and that if we ask things according to God's will, we shall be answered.
This is the plain command of our Lord Jesus Christ. Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Mark 11 verse 24 Faith is to prayer what the feather is to the arrow.
Without it prayer will not hit the mark. We should cultivate the habit of pleading promises in our prayer. We should take with us some promise and say, Lord, here is thine own word pledged.
Do for us as thou hast said. This was the habit of Jacob and Moses and David. The 119th Psalm is full of things asked according to thy word.
Above all, we should cultivate the habit of expecting answers to our prayers. We should do like the merchant who sends his ships to sea. We should not be satisfied unless we see some return.
Alas, there are a few points on which Christians come short so much as this. The church at Jerusalem made prayer without ceasing for Peter in prison. But when the prayer was answered, they would hardly believe it.
Acts 12 verse 15 It is a solemn saying of Traiel. There is no surer mark of trifling in prayer than when men are curious what they get by prayer. I commend to you the importance of boldness in prayer.
There is an unseemly familiarity in some men's prayers, which I cannot praise. But there is such a thing as a holy boldness, which is exceedingly to be desired. I mean such boldness as that of Moses, when he pleads with God not to destroy Israel.
Wherefore, says he, should the Egyptians speak and say, for mischief did he bring them out to slay them in the mountains. Turn from thy fierce anger. Exodus 32 verse 12 I mean such boldness as that of Joshua, when the children of Israel were defeated before men at Ai.
What, says he, wilt thou do unto thy great name? Joshua 7 verse 9 This is the boldness for which Luther was remarkable. One who heard him praying said, What a spirit! What a confidence was in his very expressions! With such a reverence he sued as one begging of God, and yet with such hope and assurance as if he spoke with a loving father or friend. This is the boldness which distinguished Bruce, a great Scotch divine of the seventeenth century.
His prayers were like to be like bolts shot up into heaven. Here also I feel we sadly come short. We do not sufficiently realize the believer's privileges.
We do not plead as often as we might. Lord, are we not thine own people? Is it not for thy glory that we should be sanctified? Is it not for thy honor that thy gospel should increase? I commend to you the importance of fullness in prayer. I do not forget that our Lord warns us against the example of the Pharisees, who for pretense made long prayers, and commends us when we pray not to use vain repetitions.
But I cannot forget, on the other hand, that he has given us his own sanction to large and long devotions by continuing all night in prayer to God. At all events we are not likely in this day to err on the side of praying too much. Might it not rather be feared that many believers in this generation pray too little? Is not the actual amount of time that many Christians give to prayer in the aggregate very small? I am afraid these questions cannot be answered satisfactorily.
I am afraid that private devotions of many are most painfully scanty and limited, just enough to prove they are alive and no more. They really seem to want little from God. They seem to have little to confess, little to ask for, and little to thank Him for.
Alas, this is altogether wrong. Nothing is more common than to hear believers complaining that they do not get on. They tell us that they do not grow in grace as they could desire.
Is it not rather to be suspected that many have quite as much grace as they ask for? Is it not the true account of many that they have little because they ask little? The cause of their weakness is to be found in their own stunted, dwarfish, clipped, contracted, hurried, narrow, diminutive prayers. They have not because they ask not. O, we are not straightened in Christ but in ourselves.
The Lord says, Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it. But we are like the king of Israel who smote on the ground twice and stayed when he ought to have smitten five or six times. I commend to you the importance of practicality in prayer.
We ought not to be content with great general petitions. We ought to specify our wants before the throne of grace. It should not be enough to confess we are sinners.
We should name the sins of which our conscience tells us we are most guilty. It should not be enough to ask for holiness. We should name the graces in which we feel most deficient.
It should not be enough to tell the Lord we are in trouble. We should describe our trouble in all its peculiarities. This is what Jacob did when he feared his brother Esau.
He tells God exactly what it is that he fears. This is what Eliezer did when he sought a wife for his master's son. This is what Paul did when he had a thorn in the flesh.
He besought the Lord. This is true faith and confidence. We should believe that nothing is too small to be named before God.
What should we think of that patient who told his doctor he was ill but never went into particulars? What should we think of the wife who told her husband she was unhappy but did not specify the cause? What should we think of the child who told his father he was in trouble but nothing more? Christ is the true bridegroom of the soul, the true physician of the heart, the real father of all his people. Let us show that we feel this by being unreserved in our communications with him. Let us hide no secrets from him.
Let us tell him all our hearts. I commend to you the importance of intercession in our prayers. We are all selfish by nature, and our selfishness is very apt to stick to us even when we are converted.
There is a tendency in us to think only of our own souls, our own spiritual conflicts, our own progress in religion, and to forget others. Against this tendency we all have need to watch and strive, and not least in our prayers. We should study to be of a public spirit.
We should stir ourselves up to name other names besides our own before the throne of grace. We should try to bear in our hearts the whole world, the heathen, the Jews, the Roman Catholics, the body of two believers, the professing Protestant churches, the country in which we live, the congregation to which we belong, the household in which we sojourn, the friends and relatives we are connected with. For each and all of these we should plead.
This is the highest charity. He loves me best who loves me in his prayers. This is for our soul's health.
It enlarges our sympathies and expands our hearts. This is for the benefit of the church. The wheels of all machinery for extending the gospel are moved by prayer.
They do as much for the Lord's cause who intercede like Moses on the mount as they do who fight like Joshua in the thick of the battle. This is to be like Christ. He bears the names of his people as their high priest before the Father.
Oh, the privilege of being like Jesus. This is to be a true helper to ministers. If I must choose a congregation, give me a people that pray.
I commend to you the importance of thankfulness in prayer. I know well that asking God is one thing and praising God is another. But I see so close a connection between prayer and praise in the Bible that I dare not call that true prayer in which thankfulness has no part.
It is not for nothing that Paul says, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. Philippians 4 verse 6 Continuing prayer and watching the same with thanksgiving. Colossians 4 2 It is of mercy that we are not in hell.
It is of mercy that we have the hope of heaven. It is of mercy that we live in a land of spiritual light. It is of mercy that we have been called by the Spirit and not left to reap the fruit of our own ways.
It is of mercy that we still live and have opportunities of glorifying God actively or passively. Surely these thoughts should crowd on our minds whenever we speak with God. Surely we should never open our lips in prayer without blessing God for that free grace by which we live and for that loving kindness which endureth forever.
Never was there an earnest saint who was not full of thankfulness. Saint Paul hardly ever writes an epistle without beginning with thankfulness. Men like Whitfield in the last century and Bickerstith in our time abounded in thankfulness.
O reader, if we would be bright and shining lights in our day we must cherish a spirit of praise. Let our prayers be thankful prayers. I commend to you the importance of watchfulness over your prayers.
Prayer is that point of religion at which you must be most of all on your guard. Here it is that true religion begins. Here it flourishes and here it decays.
Tell me what a man's prayers are and I will soon tell you the state of his soul. Prayer is the spiritual pulse. By this the spiritual health may be tested.
Prayer is the spiritual weather glass. By this we may know whether it is fair or foul with our hearts. O let us keep an eye continually upon our private devotions.
Here is the pith and marrow of our practical Christianity. Sermons and books and tracts and committee meetings in the company of good men are all good in their way, but they will never make up for the neglect of private prayer. Mark one of the places in society and companions that unhinge your hearts for communion with God and make your prayers drive heartily.
Bear be on your guard. Observe narrowly what friends and what employments leave your soul in the most spiritual frame and most ready to speak with God. To these, cleave and stick fast.
If you will take care of your prayers, nothing shall go very wrong with your soul. I offer these points for your private consideration. I do it in all humility.
I know no one who needs to be reminded of them more than I do myself, but I believe them to be God's own truth and I desire myself in all I love to feel them more. I want the times we live in to be praying times. I want the Christians of our day to be praying Christians.
I want the church to be a praying church. My heart's desire and prayer in sending forth this tract is to promote a spirit of prayerfulness. I want those who never prayed yet to arise and call upon God and I want those who do pray to see that they are not praying amiss.
This is the end of the book. This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. SWRB makes thousands of classic Reformation resources available, free and for sale, in audio, video, and printed formats.
Our many free resources, as well as our complete mail-order catalog, containing thousands of classic and contemporary Puritan and Reform books, tapes, and videos at great discounts, is on the web at www.swrb.com. We can also be reached by email at swrb at swrb dot com, by phone at 780-450-3730, by fax at 780-468-1096, or by mail at 4710-37A, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6L 3T5. You may also request a free printed catalog. And remember that John Calvin, in defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship, or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship, commenting on the words of God, which I commanded them not, neither came into my heart, from his commentary on Jeremiah 731, writes, God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, since he condemns by this one phrase, I have not commanded them, whatever the Jews devised.
There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions than that they are not commanded by God. For when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to His commands, they pervert true religion. And if this principle was adopted by the papists, all those fictitious modes of worship, in which they absurdly exercise themselves, would fall to the ground.
It is indeed a horrible thing for the papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly appears. Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying His word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error.
The prophet's words, then, are very important, when he says that God had commanded no such thing, and that it never came to his mind. As though he had said that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what he never required, nay, what he never knew.