02.12. Conclusion

The Ministry of Healing Or, Miracles of Cure in All Ages by A. J. Gordon 12. The Conclusion The prayer of faith, when really understood and exercised, will be confessed to be the very highest attainment of the Christian life. And yet it is an attainment which comes from unlearning rather than from learning; from self-abnegation rather than from self-culture; from decrease towards spiritual childhood rather than from increase towards the stature of intellectual manhood. The same condition holds for opening the kingdom of heaven for others as for entering it ourselves, viz., that we "become as little children." To reach down and grasp the secret of simplicity of faith and implicitness of confidence is far more difficult than to reach up and lay hold of the key of knowledge. Hence, how significant it is that in the Scriptures children are made the heroes of faith. "This is the victory that overcometh the world even our faith." And who then are the over-comers? Who are they that have laid hold of the mighty secret of this spiritual conquest? "Ye are of God little children, and have overcome them." And why? "Because greater is he that is in you than he that is in them." Yes; and just in proportion as we are emptied of self, and schooled back into that second childhood which should follow the second birth, will God be in us most fully and act through us most powerfully.

There is a passage in the life of an eminent Christian philosopher which is well worth pondering deeply and seriously in this age of superficial praying. A friend of Coleridge says that standing by his bedside not long before his death he was commenting on the Lord’s prayer, when he suddenly broke out: "Oh my dear friend, to pray, to pray as God would have us; to pray with all the heart and strength; with the reason and the will, to believe vividly that God will listen to your voice through Christ and verily do the thing he pleaseth thereupon -- this is the last, the greatest achievement of the Christian’s warfare on earth. Teach us to pray, O Lord!" "And then," says the narrator, "he burst into a flood of tears, and begged me to pray for him." The greatest achievement indeed! And yet it is not by might nor by power. Wisdom cannot compass it; learning cannot master it. "To pray with all the heart and strength;" which should mean with the heart submerged in the heart of Christ, and with the strength transformed into "the irresistible might of weakness," with the reason brought into complete captivity to the cross of Christ, and with the will surrendered up to the will of God, this is indeed the secret of power.

Let it be noted that we are speaking of one of the highest attainments of Christianity now, and not of its rudiments. The faith which saves us is the simplest exercise of the heart; the prayer of faith which saves the sick is the most exacting. The one is merely receptive, the other is powerfully self-surrendering. Do you wish to be saved, the Master will only say to you, "Take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord." Do you wish to be mightily used of the Lord in the office of raising the sick from their beds, and giving life to those who are dead in sin, you will hear him asking the searching question, "Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of and be baptized with the baptism which I am baptized with?" In the faith by which we are converted and delivered from the wrath to come we do naught but receive Jesus Christ; in the faith by which we are consecrated and made vessels "meet for the Master’s use and prepared unto every good work," we give ourselves, soul, body and spirit to Jesus Christ. That we may see how strenuous and searching the requirements for prevailing prayer are, let us note three explicit conditions laid down in Scripture, to which are attached the promise of whatsoever we ask:

"If ye abide in me and my words abide in you." --John 15:7.

"If we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight" -- 1 John 3:22.

"If we ask anything according to his will." -- 1 John 5:14. The first requirement, "If ye abide in me --" is that of intimate and unbroken communion with the Lord. Our justification depends upon our being in Christ. Our power and fellowship depend upon our abiding in Christ. And this last implies the most constant and uninterrupted intimacy of the soul with the Saviour. It is the entering into his life and having his life so entering into us, that the confession of the Apostle becomes realized in us -- "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Such abiding will stand in exact proportion to our detachment from the world. The "double minded man" who is trying to make the most of both worlds, grasping for earth’s riches and pleasures and yet wishing to secure the highest prizes of the kingdom of heaven, will inevitably waver; and to such a one the Scripture speaks expressly, "Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord." It is a hard saying, but one which in some form or other is constantly repeated in the word of God. "Know ye not that the friendship of this world is enmity to God?" asks the apostle James; and the converse is hardly less true for believers, that the enmity of this world is friendship with God. When, for any cause, a Christian finds his earthly affections sundered, so that they do not draw him down, he will at least learn how much easier it is to set his affections on things above. Never do we find the heart of God opening so widely to us as when the heart of the world is closed against us. There is a homely wisdom, therefore, in the lines of an old poet, Henry Vaughan, when for his "soul’s chief health" he prays for these three things:

"A living faith, a heart of flesh, The world an enemie; The last will keepe the first two fresh, And bring me where I’de be."

How easy it is to understand the secret of Paul’s, "I live, yet not I," after he has told us of the double crucifixion which he has endured -- "By whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world." Some become dead to the world through the pain or trial or privation which cuts them off from all communion with it, though the world is still there; to others the world becomes dead because of the cutting off of friends, and comforts, and fortune, in which their world consisted. In either case, if there be a heart which truly longs for God, it will find a wonderful release towards him. We are advocating no morbid asceticism, but simply interpreting Scripture; and we must add, also, interpreting the secret of power in those who have been mightily prevalent in intercession. For in tracing the lives of those most eminently successful in the prayer of faith, as they have passed in review in this volume, we have found that, almost without exception, they have been those remarkably separated from the world, either through their own voluntary consecration or through persecutions, and trials, and sufferings endured for Christ’s sake. The next condition which we have noted "If we keep his commandments and do those things which are pleasing in his sight," needs to be emphasized not less strongly. Implicit obedience, a painstaking attention to the smallest and the greatest requirements of the Lord, is what is enjoined. Rather, we might say, a fidelity in service which admits no distinction of small or great when handling the commandments of the Lord. For true obedience knows no such discriminations as essential and non-essential in the divine requirements; it has no test fine enough for distinguishing things indifferent from things vital. Among the sayings of Christ, our perfect exampler in praying as in living, we find these two professions which we do well to read together. "I do always those things that please him." "I know that thou hearest me always." Here again we touch the heart of this great secret. To obey well is to pray well; for not only does God love the willing and the obedient, but such know his mind and understand how and what to ask as no others can. One step in compliance with the Father’s will will carry us further in knowledge than ten steps in mere studious search into the mystery of his ways. Wonderfully do the mind and purposes of God open themselves to the obedient soul "Who by searching can find out God?" But "if any man do his will he shall know of the doctrine."

Therefore should we study to exercise the most minute and diligent obedience to the Lord’s requirements. "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." In keeping this commandment there is great reward and the surest entrance into the promise of Christ, "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name he will give it you." In all our Christian life and practice let us beware of saying concerning any command of God that it is only a form, and therefore it does not matter. Forms are sometimes given, no doubt, as tests of our fidelity, as when Naaman is enjoined to wash seven times in the Jordan for his healing, or when the elders are commanded to anoint the sick with oil for their recovery. Forms are nothing, to be sure; but the obedience which responds to those forms in every minute particular, for the love of Christ, is most precious in the sight of God. Hence, significantly, Paul thanks God concerning the Roman Christians that they had "obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was committed to them."

And, finally, "if we ask anything according to his will;" which means "that we should be of a truth purely, simply and wholly at one with the One Eternal Will of God, or altogether without will, so that the created will should flow out into the Eternal Will, and be swallowed up and lost therein, so that the Eternal Will alone should do and leave undone in us." (Theologia Germanica, p.90.) And let us not be alarmed at this requirement, as though it meant pains, racks, tortures, the loss of our lives, the death of our children, and everything else which is dreadful to contemplate. Why is it that we have associated such things with the prayer, "Thy will be done?" Let us search the Scriptures and see what God’s revealed will is. "For this is the will of God even your sanctification" (1 Thessalonians 4:3). "And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life" (John 6:40). "Who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4). These and many other texts, if we had space to quote them, point in one direction, and indicate that the will of God is our health and not our hurt; our weal and not our woe; our life and not our death. It must be the will of God that all that is contrary to him should be destroyed. "Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up." Sin, sickness and death are contrary to God; they are not plants of his planting, but tares which the enemy has sown in his field. Therefore they are to be plucked up, and we may be certain that we are working in the line of his will when we are seeking to eradicate them.

What, then, if we should chiefly aim in our ministry at the sick bed to set forth this blessed disposition and purpose of the divine will? What if, instead of laying such stress on patient submission to pain and bodily disorder as things inevitable, we should seek to lift the sufferer up into harmony with God, in whom there is no sickness and no disorder? And then when we pray "thy will be done" we shall mean let sickness be destroyed; let the sufferer be delivered from the racks and tortures of pain’s inquisition; let sin and the bitter fruit of sin in these poor tormented bodies be plucked up together. In praying thus we must surely be setting our faces in the right direction. For looking upward for the key of our petition, "Thy will be done on earth," we hear "as it is in heaven." But in heaven there is certainly no sin, sickness or death; and so we are enjoined to ask and strive and labor that there be none on earth. And looking forward to the predicted consummation of Christ’s redemptive work, when God’s will shall be actually done on earth, we read the glowing words: "And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain." Here then is the clearly defined pattern, above us, and before us; and amid all the tangled mysteries of evil, we should set our faces like a flint to pray it out and work it out into blessed fulfillment. And while we recognize the doctrine of the Divine Sovereignty, to which we have elsewhere referred, this should no more prevent our asking in faith for the healing of our bodies, than the doctrine of election should prevent our asking with the fullest assurance for the salvation of our souls.

These observations in this closing chapter, let it be remembered, are especially for such as may be called to exercise the ministry of healing. If there are those who desire this office we believe they should seek with all their heart the consecration, the separation from the world and the surrender to God’s will, which the Scriptures enjoin as conditions of prevailing prayer. To the sick, sensible of their lack of these attainments, and fearing that their case cannot be reached on that account, we would speak a different word, even the word of the Master -- "Be not afraid, only believe." Christ comes to the sinner, helpless, guilty, lost, and saves him just as he finds him. And so with the sufferer, when he lies "stripped of his raiment, wounded and half dead." As the good Samaritan "came where he was and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine," so Jesus will take the patient just where he is, if he takes him at all. We have not to make ourselves better in order to be healed, either spiritually or physically. Therefore let the sufferer take courage and lift up his weary head. Oh, ye unnumbered subjects of pain and bodily torture, with hands and feet which you would use so diligently and swiftly in the service of your Lord if they were only released from the fetters which bind them! Oh ye countless victims of pain and disorder, who have never consecrated either your souls or your bodies to the service of him who made them, hear all of you that voice of him who speaketh from heaven, saying, "I am the Lord that healeth thee." And if the promises of God and the teachings of Scripture and the testimonies of the healed set forth in this book might throw one ray of hope or alleviation into your sick chambers, it would repay amply the pains we have taken in its preparation, and more than compensate us for any reproach we may incur for having borne witness to a doctrine of which many, as yet, can hear only with impatience and derision. And to this last word we would join a prayer which has come down to us from a very ancient liturgy:

"Remember, O Lord, those who are diseased and sick, and those who are troubled by unclean spirits; and do thou who art God, speedily heal and deliver them."