The Ministry of Intercession Part 7

My G.o.d will hear Me

"Therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you.

Blessed are all they that wait for Him. He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when He shall hear it, He will answer thee."--ISA. x.x.x. 18, 19.

"The Lord will hear when _I call_ upon Him."--PS. iv. 3.

"I have called upon Thee, for Thou _wilt hear me_, O G.o.d!"--PS.

xvii. 6.

"I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the G.o.d of my salvation: my G.o.d _will hear me_."--MIC. vii. 7.

The power of prayer rests in the faith that G.o.d hears it. In more than one sense this is true. It is this faith that gives a man courage to pray. It is this faith that gives him power to prevail with G.o.d. The moment I am a.s.sured that G.o.d hears _me_ too, I feel drawn to pray and to persevere in prayer. I feel strong to claim and to take in faith the answer G.o.d gives. One great reason of lack of prayer is the want of the living, joyous a.s.surance: "My G.o.d will hear me." If once G.o.d's servants got a vision of the living G.o.d waiting to grant their request, and to bestow all the heavenly gifts of the Spirit they are in need of, for themselves or those they are serving, how everything would be set aside to make time and room for this one only power that can ensure heavenly blessing--the prayer of faith!

When a man can, and does say, in living faith, "My G.o.d will hear me!"

surely nothing can keep him from prayer. He knows that what he cannot do or get done on earth, can and will be done for him from heaven. Let each one of us bow in stillness before G.o.d, and wait on Him to reveal Himself as the prayer-hearing G.o.d. In His presence the wondrous thoughts gathering round the central truth will unfold themselves to us.

1. "_My G.o.d will hear me._"--_What a blessed certainty!_--We have G.o.d's word for it in numberless promises. We have thousands of witnesses to the fact that they have found it true. We have had experience of it in our lives. We have had the Son of G.o.d come from heaven with the message that if we ask, the Father will give. We have had Himself praying on earth, and being heard. And we have Him in heaven now, sitting at the right hand of G.o.d and making intercession for us. G.o.d hears prayer--G.o.d delights to hear prayer. He has allowed His people a thousand times over to be tried, that they might be compelled to cry to Him, and learn to know Him as the Hearer of Prayer.

Let us confess with shame how little we have believed this wondrous truth, in the sense of receiving it into our heart, and allowing it to possess and control our whole being. That we accept a truth is not enough; the living G.o.d, of whom the truth speaks, must in its light so be revealed, that our whole life is spent in His presence, with the consciousness as clear as in a little child towards its earthly parent--I know for certain my father hears me.

Beloved child of G.o.d! you know by experience how little an intellectual apprehension of truth has profited you. Beseech G.o.d to reveal Himself to you. If you want to live a different prayer-life, bow each time ere you pray in silence to worship this G.o.d; to wait till there rests on you some right sense of His nearness and readiness to answer. So will you begin to pray with the words, "My G.o.d will hear me!"

2. "_My G.o.d will hear me._" _What a wondrous grace!_--Think of G.o.d in His infinite majesty, His altogether incomprehensible glory, His unapproachable holiness, sitting on a throne of grace, waiting to be gracious, inviting, encouraging you to pray with His promise: "Call upon Me, and I will answer thee." Think of yourself, in your nothingness and helplessness as a creature; in your wretchedness and transgressions as a sinner; in your feebleness and unworthiness as a saint; and praise the glory of that grace which allows you to say boldly of your prayer for yourself and others, "My G.o.d will hear me." Think of how you are not left to yourself, and what you can accomplish, in this wonderful intercourse with G.o.d. G.o.d has united you with Christ; in Him and His Name you have your confidence; on the throne He prays with you and for you; on the footstool of the throne you pray with Him and in Him. His worth, and the Father's delight in hearing Him, are the measure of your confidence, your a.s.surance of being heard. There is more. Think of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of G.o.d's own Son, sent into your heart to cry, Abba, Father, and to be _in you_ a Spirit of Supplication, when you know not what to pray as you ought. Think, in all your insignificance and unworthiness, of your being as acceptable as Christ Himself. Think in all your ignorance and feebleness, of the Spirit making intercession according to G.o.d within you, and cry out, "What wondrous grace! Through Christ I have access to the Father, by the Spirit. I can, I do believe it: 'My G.o.d will hear me.'"

3. "_My G.o.d will hear me._"--_What a deep mystery!_--There are difficulties that cannot but at times arise and perplex even the honest heart. There is the question as to G.o.d's sovereign, all-wise, all-disposing will. How can our wishes, often so foolish, and our will, often so selfish, overrule or change that perfect will? Were it not better to leave all to His disposal, who knows what is best, and loves to give us the very best? Or how can our prayer change what He has ordained before? Then there is the question as to the need of persevering prayer, and long waiting for the answer. If G.o.d be Infinite Love, and delighting more to give than we to receive, where the need for the pleading and wrestling, the urgency, and the long delay of which Scripture and experience speak? Arising out of this there is still another question--that of the mult.i.tude of apparently vain and unanswered prayers. How many have pleaded for loved ones, and they die unsaved. How many cry for years for spiritual blessing, and no answer comes. To think of all this tries our faith, and makes us hesitate as we say, "My G.o.d will hear me."

Beloved! prayer, in its power with G.o.d, and His faithfulness to His promise to hear it, is a deep spiritual mystery. To the questions put above answers can be given that remove some of the difficulty. But, after all, the first and the last that must be said is this: As little as we can comprehend G.o.d can we comprehend this, one of the most blessed of His attributes, that He hears prayer. It is a spiritual mystery--nothing less than the mystery of the Holy Trinity. G.o.d hears because we pray in His Son, because the Holy Spirit prays in us. If we have believed and claimed the life of Christ as our health, and the fulness of the Spirit as our strength, let us not hesitate to believe in the power of our prayer too. The Holy Spirit can enable us to believe and rejoice in it, even where every question is not yet answered. He will do this, as we lay our questionings in G.o.d's bosom, trust His faithfulness, and give ourselves humbly to obey His command to pray without ceasing. Every art unfolds its secrets and its beauty only to the man who practises it. To the humble soul who prays in the obedience of faith, who practises prayer and intercession diligently, because G.o.d asks it, the secret of the Lord will be revealed, and the thought of the deep mystery of prayer, instead of being a weary problem, will be a source of rejoicing, adoration, and faith, in which the unceasing refrain is ever heard: "_My G.o.d will hear me!_"

4. "_My G.o.d will hear me._" _What a solemn responsibility!_--How often we complain of darkness, of feebleness, of failure, as if there was no help for it. And G.o.d has promised in answer to our prayer to supply our every need, and give us His light and strength and peace. Would that we realised the responsibility of having such a G.o.d, and such promises, with the sin and shame of not availing ourselves of them to the utmost.

How confident we should feel that the grace, which we have accepted and trusted to enable us to pray as we should, will be given.

There is more. This access to a prayer-hearing G.o.d is specially meant to make us intercessors for our fellowmen. Even as Christ obtained His right of prevailing intercession by His giving Himself a sacrifice to G.o.d for men, and through it receives the blessings He dispenses, so, if we have truly with Christ given ourselves to G.o.d for men, we share His right of intercession, and are able to obtain the powers of the heavenly world for them too. The power of life and death is in our hands (1 John v. 16). In answer to prayer the Spirit can be poured out, souls can be converted, believers can be established. In prayer the kingdom of darkness can be conquered, souls brought out of prison into the liberty of Christ, and the glory of G.o.d be revealed. Through prayer, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of G.o.d, can be wielded in power, and, in public preaching as in private speaking, the most rebellious made to bow at Jesus' feet.

What a responsibility on the Church to give herself to the work of intercession! What a responsibility on every minister, missionary, worker, set apart for the saving of souls, to yield himself wholly to act out and prove his faith: "My G.o.d will hear me!" And what a call on every believer, instead of burying and losing this talent, to seek to the very utmost to use it in prayer and supplication for all saints and for all men. My G.o.d will hear me: The deeper our entrance into the truth of this wondrous power G.o.d hath given to men, the more whole-hearted will be our surrender to the work of intercession.

5. "_My G.o.d will hear me._" _What a blessed prospect!_--I see it--all the failures of my past life have been owing to the lack of this faith.

My failure, especially in the work of intercession, has had its deepest root in this--I did not live in the full faith of the blessed a.s.surance, "_My G.o.d will hear me!_" Praise G.o.d! I begin to see it--I believe it.

All can be different. Or, rather, I see Him, I believe Him. "_My G.o.d will hear me!_" Yes, me, even me! Commonplace and insignificant though I be, filling but a very little place, so that I will scarce be missed when I go--even I have access to this Infinite G.o.d, with the confidence that He heareth me. One with Christ, led by the Holy Spirit, I dare to say: "I will pray for others, for I am sure my G.o.d will listen to me: '_My G.o.d will hear me._'" What a blessed prospect before me--every earthly and spiritual anxiety exchanged for the peace of G.o.d, who cares for all and hears prayer. What a blessed prospect in my work--to know that even when the answer is long delayed, and there is a call for much patient, persevering prayer, the truth remains infallibly sure--"_My G.o.d will hear me!_"

And what a blessed prospect for Christ's Church if we could but all give prayer its place, give faith in G.o.d its place, or, rather, _give the prayer-hearing G.o.d His place_! Is not this the one great thing, those, who in some little measure begin to see the urgent need of prayer, ought in the first place to pray for. When G.o.d, at the first, time after time, poured forth the Spirit on His praying people, He laid down the law for all time: as much of prayer, so much of the Spirit. Let each one who can say, "_My G.o.d will hear me_," join in the fervent supplication, that throughout the Church that truth may be restored to its true place, and the blessed prospect will be realised: a praying Church endued with the power of the Holy Ghost.

6. "_My G.o.d will hear me._" _What a need of Divine teaching!_--We need this, both to enable us to hold this word in living faith, and to make full use of it in intercession. It has been said, and it cannot be said too often or too earnestly, that the one thing needful for the Church of our day is, the power of the Holy Spirit. It is just because this is so, from the Divine side, that we may also say as truly that, from the human side, the one thing needful is, more prayer, more believing, persevering prayer. In speaking of lack of the Spirit's power, and the condition for receiving it, someone used the expression--the block is not on the perpendicular, but on the horizontal line. It is to be feared that it is on both. There is much to be confessed and taken away in us if the Spirit is to work freely. But it is specially on the perpendicular line that the block is--the upward look, and the deep dependence, and the strong crying to G.o.d, and the effectual prayer of faith that avails--all this is sadly lacking. And just this is the one thing needful.

Shall we not all set ourselves to learn the lesson which will make prevailing prayer possible--the lesson of a faith that always sings, "_My G.o.d will hear me_"? Simple and elementary as it is, it needs practice and patience, it needs time and heavenly teaching, to learn it aright. Under the impression of a bright thought, or a blessed experience, it may look as if we knew the lesson perfectly. But ever again the need will recur of making this our first prayer--that G.o.d who hears prayer would teach us to believe it, and so to pray aright. If we desire it we can count upon Him He who delights in hearing prayer and answering it, He who gave His Son that He might ever pray for us and with us, and His Holy Spirit to pray in us, we can be sure there is not a prayer that He will hear more certainly than this: that He so reveal Himself as the prayer-hearing G.o.d, that our whole being may respond, "_My G.o.d will hear me._"

A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER

CHAPTER XIII

Paul a Pattern of Prayer

"Go and inquire for one called Saul of Tarsus: for, _behold, he prayeth_."--ACTS ix. 11.

"For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting."--1 TIM. i. 16.

G.o.d took His own Son, and made Him our Example and our Pattern. It sometimes is as if the power of Christ's example is lost in the thought that He, in whom is no sin, is not man as we are. Our Lord took Paul, a man of like pa.s.sions with ourselves, and made him a pattern of what he could do for one who was the chief of sinners. And Paul, the man who, more than any other, has set his mark on the Church, has ever been appealed to as a pattern man. In his mastery of Divine truth, and his teaching of it; in his devotion to his Lord, and his self-consuming zeal in His service; in his deep experience of the power of the indwelling Christ and the fellowship of his cross; in the sincerity of his humility, and the simplicity and boldness of his faith; in his missionary enthusiasm and endurance--in all this, and so much more, "the grace of our Lord Jesus was exceeding abundant in him." Christ gave him, and the Church has accepted him, as a pattern of what Christ would have, of what Christ would work. Seven times Paul speaks of believers following him: (1 Cor. iv. 16), "Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me"; (xi. 1), "Be ye followers of me, even as I am of Christ"; Phil, iii. 17, iv. 9; 1 Thess. i. 6; 2 Thess. iii. 7-9.

If Paul, as a pattern of prayer, is not as much studied or appealed to as he is in other respects, it is not because he is not in this too as remarkable a proof of what grace can do, or because we do not, in this respect, as much stand in need of the help of his example. A study of Paul as a pattern of prayer will bring a rich reward of instruction and encouragement. The words our Lord used of him at his conversion, "Behold he prayeth," may be taken as the keynote of his life. The heavenly vision which brought him to his knees ever after ruled his life. Christ at the right hand of G.o.d, in whom we are blessed with all spiritual blessings, was everything to him; to pray and expect the heavenly power in his work and on his work, from heaven direct by prayer, was the simple outcome of his faith in the Glorified One. In this, too, Christ meant him to be a pattern, that we might learn that, just in the measure in which the heavenliness of Christ and His gifts, the unworldliness of the powers that work for salvation, are known and believed, will prayer become the spontaneous rising of the heart to the only source of its life. Let us see what we know of Paul.

PAUL'S HABITS OF PRAYER.

These are revealed almost unconsciously. He writes (Rom. i. 9), "G.o.d is my witness, that without ceasing I make mention of you _always in my prayers_. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established." Rom. x. 1, ix. 2, 3: "My _heart's desire and prayer to G.o.d_ for Israel is, that they may be saved"; "I have great heaviness and _continual sorrow of heart_; for I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren." 1 Cor. i. 4: "I thank my G.o.d _always_ on your behalf, for the grace of G.o.d which is given you by Jesus Christ." 2 Cor. vi. 4, 6: "Approving ourselves as the ministers of Christ, _in watchings_, _in fastings_."

Gal. iv. 19: "My little children, of whom _I travail in birth again_ till Christ be formed in you." Eph. i. 16: "_I cease not_ to give thanks for you, making mention of you _in my prayers_." Eph. iii. 14: "_I bow my knees_ to the Father, that He would grant you to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man." Phil. i. 3, 4, 8, 9: "I thank my G.o.d _upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine_ making request for you all with joy. For G.o.d is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. And this _I pray_"--Col. i. 3, 9: "We give thanks to G.o.d, _praying always for you_.

For this cause also, since the day we heard it, we _do not cease to pray for you_, and to desire"--Col. ii. 1: "I would that ye knew what _great conflict_ I have for you, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh." 1 Thess. i. 2: "We give thanks to G.o.d _always_ for you all, making mention of you _in our prayers_." iii. 9: "We joy for your sakes before G.o.d; _night and day praying exceedingly_ that we might perfect that which is lacking in your faith." 2 Thess. i. 3: "We are bound to thank G.o.d _always_ for you. Wherefore also _we always pray_ for you." 2 Tim. i. 3: "I thank G.o.d, that _without ceasing_ I have remembrance of thee night and day." Philem. 4: "I thank my G.o.d, making mention of thee _always in my prayers_."

These pa.s.sages taken together give us the picture of a man whose words, "Pray without ceasing," were simply the expression of his daily life. He had such a sense of the insufficiency of simple conversion; of the need of the grace and the power of heaven being brought down for the young converts in prayer; of the need of much and unceasing prayer, day and night, to bring it down; of the certainty that prayer would bring it down--that his life was continual and most definite prayer. He had such a sense that everything must come from above, and such a faith that it would come in answer to prayer, that prayer was neither a duty nor a burden, but the natural turning of the heart to the only place whence it could possibly obtain what it sought for others.

THE CONTENTS OF PAUL'S PRAYERS.

It is of as much importance to know _what_ Paul prayed, as how frequently and earnestly he did so. Intercession is a spiritual work.

Our confidence in it will depend much on our knowing that we ask according to the will of G.o.d. The more distinctly we ask heavenly things, which we feel at once G.o.d alone can bestow, which we are sure He will bestow, the more direct and urgent will our appeal be to G.o.d alone.

The more impossible the things are that we seek, the more we will turn from all human work to prayer and to G.o.d alone.

In the Epistles, in addition to expressions in which he speaks of his praying, we have a number of distinct prayers in which Paul gives utterance to his heart's desire for those to whom he writes. In these we see that his first desire was always that they might be "established" in the Christian life. Much as he praised G.o.d when he heard of conversion, he knew how feeble the young converts were, and how for their establishing nothing would avail without the grace of the Spirit prayed down. If we notice some of the princ.i.p.al of these prayers we shall see what he asked and obtained.

Take the two prayers in Ephesians--the one for light, the other for strength. In the former (i. 15), he prays for the Spirit of wisdom to enlighten them to know what their calling was, what their inheritance, what the mighty power of G.o.d working in them. Spiritual enlightenment and knowledge was their great need, to be obtained for them by prayer.

In the latter (iii. 15) he asks that the power they had been led to see in Christ might work in them, and they be strengthened with Divine might, so as to have the indwelling Christ, and the love that pa.s.seth knowledge, and the fulness of G.o.d actually come on them. These were things that could only come direct from heaven; these were things he asked and expected. If we want to learn Paul's art of intercession, we must ask nothing less for believers in our days.

Look at the prayer in Philippians (i. 9-11). There, too, it is first for spiritual knowledge; then comes a blameless life, and then a fruitful life to the glory of G.o.d. So also in the beautiful prayer in Colossians (i. 9-11). First, spiritual knowledge and understanding of G.o.d's will, then the strengthening with all might to all patience and joy.

Or take the two prayers in 1 Thessalonians (iii. 12, 13, and v. 23). The one: "G.o.d so increase your love to one another, that He may stablish your _hearts unblameable in holiness_." The other: "G.o.d _sanctify you wholly_, and preserve you blameless." The very words are so high that we hardly understand, still less believe, still less experience what they mean. Paul so lived in the heavenly world, he was so at home in the holiness and omnipotence of G.o.d and His love, that such prayers were the natural expression of what he knew G.o.d could and would do. "G.o.d stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness," "G.o.d sanctify you wholly"--the man who believes in these things and desires them, will pray for them for others. The prayers are all a proof that he seeks for them the very life of heaven upon earth. No wonder that he is not tempted to trust in any human means, but looks for it from heaven alone. Again, I say, the more we take Paul's prayers as our pattern, and make his desires our own for believers for whom we pray, the more will prayer to the G.o.d of heaven become as our daily breath.

PAUL'S REQUESTS FOR PRAYER.

These are no less instructive than his own prayers for the saints. They prove that he does not count prayer any special prerogative of an apostle; he calls the humblest and simplest believer to claim his right.

They prove that he does not think that only the new converts or feeble Christians need prayer; he himself is, as a member of the body, dependent upon his brethren and their prayers. After he had preached the gospel for twenty years, he still asks for prayer that he may speak as he ought to speak. Not once for all, not for a time, but day by day, and that without ceasing, must grace be sought and brought down from heaven for his work. United, continued waiting on G.o.d is to Paul the only hope of the Church. With the Holy Spirit a heavenly life, the life of the Lord in heaven, entered the world; nothing but unbroken communication with heaven can keep it up.

Listen how he asks for prayer, and with what earnestness--Rom. xv. 30: "_I beseech you_, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye _strive together with me in your prayers_ to G.o.d for me; that I may be delivered from them which do not believe in Judaea; and may come unto you with joy by the will of G.o.d."

How remarkably both prayers were answered: Rom. xv. 5, 6, 13. The remarkable fact that the Roman world-power, which in Pilate with Christ, in Herod with Peter, at Philippi, had proved its antagonism to G.o.d's kingdom, all at once becomes Paul's protector, and secures him a safe convoy to Rome, can only be accounted for by these prayers.