I BRING YOU A
MESSAGE FROM GOD contained in seven short words. Six of the
seven words are monosyllables, and the remaining word has
but two syllables and is one of the most familiar and most
easily understood words in the English language. Yet there
is so much in these seven short, simple words that they have
transformed many a life and brought many an inefficient
worker into a place of great power.
I spoke on these seven words some years ago at a Bible
conference in central New York. Some months after the
conference, I received a letter from the man who had
presided at the conference, one of the best-known ministers
of the gospel in America. He wrote me, "I have been unable
to get away from the seven words on which you spoke at Lake
Keuka, they have been with me day and night. They have
transformed my ideas, transformed my methods, transformed my
ministry." The man who wrote those words has since been the
pastor of what is probably the most widely known of any
evangelical church in the world. I trust that the words may
sink into some of your hearts today as they did into his on
that occasion and that some of you will be able to say in
future months and years, "I have been unable to get away
from those seven words, they nave seen with me day and
night. They have transformed my ideas, transformed my
methods, transformed my life, and transformed my service for
God."
You will find these seven words in James 4:2, the seven
closing words of the verse, "Ye have not, because ye ask
not. "
The Secret of Christians' Powerlessness
These seven words contain the secret of the poverty and
powerlessness of the average Christian, of the average
minister, and of the average church. "Why is it," many a
Christian is asking, "that I make such poor progress in my
Christian life? Why do I have so little victory over sin?
Why do I win so few souls to Christ? Why do I grow so slowly
into the likeness of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?" And
God answers in the words of the text: "Neglect of prayer.
You have not, because you ask not."
"Why is it," many a minister is asking, "that I see so
little fruit from my ministry? Why are there so few
conversions? Why does my church grow so slowly? Why are the
members of my church so little helped by my ministry, and
built up so little in Christian knowledge and life?" And
again God replies: "Neglect of prayer. You have not, because
you ask not."
"Why is it," both ministers and churches are asking, "that
the church of Jesus Christ is making such slow progress in
the world today? Why does it make so little headway against
sin, against unbelief, against error in all its forms? Why
does it have so little victory over the world, the flesh,
and the devil? Why is the average church member living on
such a low plane of Christian living? Why does the Lord
Jesus Christ get so little honor from the state of the
church today?" And, again, God replies: "Neglect of prayer.
You have not, because you ask not."
The Early Church's Victory
When we read the only inspired church history that was ever
written, the history of the church in the days of the
apostles as it is recorded by Luke (under the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit) in the Acts of the Apostles, what do we
find? We find a story of constant victory, a story of
perpetual progress. We read, for example, such statements as
Acts 2:47: "The Lord added to the church daily such as
should be saved" and Acts 4:4: "Many of them which heard the
word believed; and the number of the men was about five
thousand," and Acts 5:14: "And believers were the more added
to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women." In addition
Luke in Acts 6:7 states: "And the word of God increased: and
the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly;
and a great company of the priests were obedient to the
faith."
And so we go on, chapter after chapter, through the
twenty-eight chapters of Acts, and in every one of the
twenty-seven chapters after the first, we find the same note
of victory. I once went through the Acts of the Apostles
marking the note of victory in every chapter, and without
one single exception the triumphant shout of victory rang
out in every chapter. How different the history of the
church as here recorded is from the history of the church of
Jesus Christ today. Take, for example, that first statement,
"The Lord added to the church daily [that is, every day]
such as should be saved." Why, nowadays, if we have a
revival once a year with an accession of fifty or sixty
members and spend all the rest of the year slipping back to
where we were before, we think we are doing pretty well. But
in those days there was a revival all the time and
accessions every day of those who not only "hit the trail"
but "were [really] being saved."
Why this difference between the early church and the church
of Jesus Christ today? Someone will answer, "Because there
is so much opposition today." Ah, but there was opposition
in those days, most bitter, most determined, most relentless
opposition in comparison with which that which you and I
meet today is but child's play. But the early church went
right on beating down all opposition, surmounting every
obstacle, conquering every foe, always victorious, right on
without a setback from Jerusalem to Rome, in the face of the
most firmly entrenched and most mighty heathenism and
unbelief. I repeat the question, "Why was it?" If you will
turn to the chapters from which I have already quoted, you
will get your answer.
Steadfast Prayer
Turn, for example, to Acts 2:42: "And they continued
steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in
breaking of bread and in prayers." That is a picture very
brief but very suggestive of the early church. It was a
praying church. It was a church in which they prayed, not
merely occasionally, but where they all "continued
steadfastly . . . in prayers." They all prayed, not a select
few, but the whole membership of the church; and all prayed
continuously with steadfast determination. "They gave
themselves to prayer," as the same Greek word is translated
in Acts 6:4.
Now turn to Acts 6:4 and you will get the rest of your
answer. "We will give ourselves continually to prayer." That
is a picture of the apostolic ministry: it was a praying
ministry, and a ministry that "gave themselves continually
to prayer," or, to translate that Greek word as it is
translated in former passage (Acts 2:42), "They continued
steadfastly in prayer." A praying church and a praying
ministry! Ah, such a church and such a ministry can achieve
anything that ought to be achieved. It will go steadily on,
beating down all opposition, surmounting every obstacle,
conquering every foe, just as much today as it did in the
days of the apostles.
Present-day Departure From Prayer
There is nothing else in which the church and the ministry
of today or, to be more explicit, you and I have departed
more notably and more lamentably from apostolic precedent
than in this matter of prayer. We do not live in a praying
age. A very considerable proportion of the membership of our
evangelical churches today do not believe even theoretically
in prayer. Many of them now believe in prayer as having a
beneficial "reflex influence," that is, as benefitting the
person who prays, a sort of lifting yourself up by your
spiritual bootstraps. But as for prayer bringing anything to
pass that would not have come to pass if we had not prayed,
they do not believe in it, and many of them frankly say so,
and even some of our "modern ministers" say so. I believe it
is still the vast majority in our evangelical churches-even
they do not make the use of this mighty instrument that God
has put into our hands that one would naturally expect. As I
said, we do not live in a praying age. We live in an age of
hustle and bustle, of man's efforts and man's determination,
of man's confidence in himself and in his own power to
achieve things, an age of human organization and human
machinery, human push and human scheming, and human
achievement, which in the things of God means no real
achievement at all.
I think it would be perfectly safe to say that the church of
Christ was never in all its history so fully, so skillfully
and so thoroughly and so perfectly organized as it is today.
Our machinery is wonderful; it is just perfect, but, alas,
it is machinery without power; and when things do not go
right, instead of going to the real source of our failure,
our neglect to depend on God and look to God for power, we
look around to see if there is not some new organization we
can get up, some new wheel that we can add to our machinery.
We have altogether too many wheels already. What we need is
not so much some new organization, some new wheel, but "the
Spirit of the living creature in the wheels" we already
possess.
I believe that the devil stands and looks at the church
today and laughs in his sleeve as he sees how its members
depend on their own scheming and powers of organization and
skillfully devised machinery. "Ha, ha," he laughs, "you may
have your Boy Scouts, your costly church edifices, your
multi-thousand-dollar church organs, your brilliant
university-bred preachers, your high-priced choirs, your
gifted sopranos and altos and tenors and bases, your
wonderful quartets, your immense men's Bible classes, yes,
and your Bible conferences, and your Bible institutes, and
your special evangelistic services, all you please of them;
it does not in the feast trouble me, if you will only leave
out of them the power of the Lord God Almighty sought and
obtained by the earnest, persistent, believing prayer that
will not take no for an answer." But when the devil sees a
man or woman who really believes in prayer, who knows how to
pray, and who really does pray, and, above all, when he sees
a whole church on its face before God in prayer, "he
trembles" as much as he ever did, for he knows that his day
in that church or community is at an end.
Prayer has as much power today, when men and women are
themselves on praying ground and meeting the conditions of
prevailing prayer, as it ever has had. God has not changed,
and His ear is just as quick to hear the voice of real
prayer and His hand is just as long and strong to save as
they ever were. "Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened,
that it cannot save: neither his ear heavy, that it cannot
hear. But our iniquities may "have separated between us and
our God, and "our sins have hid his face from you, that he
will not hear" (Isaiah 59:1,2). Prayer is the key that
unlocks all the storehouses of God's infinite grace and
power. All that God is, and all that God has, are at the
disposal of player. But we must use the key. Prayer can do
anything that God can do, and as God can do anything, prayer
is omnipotent. No one can stand against the one who knows
how to pray and who meets all the conditions of prevailing
prayer and who really prays. "The Lord God Omnipotent" works
from him and works through him.
Prayer Will Promote Our Personal Holiness as
Nothing Else, Except the Study of the Word of God
But what, specifically, will prayer do? We have been dealing
in generalities; let us come down to the definite and
specific. The Word of God very plainly answers the question.
In the first place, prayer will promote our personal piety,
our individual holiness, our individual growth into the
likeness of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as almost
nothing else, as nothing else but the study of the Word of
God. These two things, prayer and study of the Word of God,
always go hand-in-hand, for there is no true prayer without
study of the Word of God, and there is no true study of the
Word of God without prayer.
Other things being equal, your growth and mine into the
likeness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be in
exact proportion to the time and to the heart we put into
prayer. Please note exactly what I say: "Your growth and
mine into the likeness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
will be in exact proportion to the time and to the heart we
put into prayer." I put it in that way because there are
many who put a great deal of time but so little heart into
their praying that they do very little praying in the long
time they spend at it.
On the other hand, there are others who, perhaps, may not
put so much time into praying but put so much heart into
praying that they accomplish vastly more by their praying in
a short time than the others accomplish by praying in a long
time. God Himself has told us in Jeremiah 29: 13: "And ye
shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with
all your heart."
We are told in Ephesians 1:3, that God "hash blessed us with
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in -Christ."
That is to say, Jesus Christ by His atoning death and by His
resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Father
has obtained for every believer in Jesus Christ every
possible spiritual blessing. There is no spiritual blessing
that any believer enjoys that may not be yours. It belongs
to you now; Christ purchased it by His atoning death and God
has provided it in Him. It is there for you; but it is your
part to claim it, to put out your hand and take it. God's
appointed way for claiming blessings by putting out your
hand and appropriating to yourself the blessings that are
procured for you by the atoning death of Jesus Christ is by
prayer. Prayer is the hand that takes to ourselves the
blessings that God has already provided in His Son.
Go through your Bible and you will find it definitely stated
that every conceivable spiritual blessing is obtained by
prayer. For example, it is in answer to prayer, as we learn
from Psalm 139:23, 24, that God searches us and knows our
hearts, tries us and knows our thoughts, brings to light the
sin that there is in us and delivers us from it. It is in
answer to prayer, as we learn from Psalm 19:12,13, that we
are cleansed from secret faults and that God keeps us back
from presumptuous sins. It is in answer to prayer, as we
learn from the 14th verse of the same Psalm, that the words
of our mouth and the meditations of our heart are made
acceptable in God's sight. It is in answer to prayer, as we
learn from Psalm 25:4,5, that God shows us His ways, teaches
us His path, and guides us in His truth. It is in answer to
prayer, as we learn from the prayer our Lord Himself taught
us, that we are kept from temptation and delivered from the
power of the wicked one (Matthew 6:13). It is in answer to
prayer, as we learn from Luke 11:13, that God gives us His
Holy Spirit. And so we might go on through the whole catalog
of spiritual blessings and find that every one is obtained
by asking for it. Indeed, our Lord Himself has said in
Matthew 7:11: "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good
gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father
which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him."
One of the most instructive and suggestive passages in the
entire Bible as showing the mighty power of prayer to
transform us into the likeness of our Lord Jesus Himself, is
found in 2 Corinthians 3:18: "But we all, with open face
beholding as in a glass [The English Revision reads better,
"reflecting as a mirror"] the glory of the Lord, are changed
into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the
Spirit of the Lord." The thought is that the Lord is the
sun, you and I are mirrors, and just as a mischievous boy on
a bright sunshiny day will catch the rays of the sun in a
piece of broken looking-glass and reflect them into your
eyes and mine with almost blinding power, so we, as mirrors,
when we commune with God, catch the rays of His moral glory
and reflect them out on the world "from glory to glory."
That is, each time we commune with Him we catch something
new of His glory and reflect it out on the world.
I'm sure you remember the story of Moses, how he went up
into the mount and tarried about forty days with God, gazing
on that ineffable glory, and caught so much of the glory in
his own face that when he came down from the mount, though
he himself did not know it, his face so shone that he had to
draw a veil over it to hide the blinding glory of it from
his fellow Israelites.
Even so we, going up into the mount of prayer, away from the
world, alone with God, catch the rays of His glory, so that
when we come down to other people, it is not so much our
faces that shine (though I do believe that sometimes even
our faces shine), but our characters, with the glory that we
have been beholding. We then reflect out on the world the
moral glory of God from "glory to glory," each new time of
communion with Him catching something new of His glory to
reflect out on the world. Oh, here is the secret of becoming
much like God by remaining long alone with God. If you won't
stay long with Him, you won't be much like Him.
One of the most remarkable men in Scotland's history was
John Welch, son-in-law of John Knox, the great Scotch
reformer; he is as well-known as his famous father-in-law,
but in some respects a far more remarkable man than John
Knox himself. Most people have the idea that it was John
Knox who prayed, "Give me Scotland or I die." It was not, it
was John Welch, his son-in-law. John Welch put it on record
before he died that he counted that day ill-spent that he
did not put seven or eight hours into secret prayer. When
John Welch came to die, an old Scotchman who had known him
from his boyhood said of him, "John Welch was a type of
Christ." Of course, that was an inaccurate use of language,
but what the old Scotchman meant was, that Jesus Christ had
stamped the impress of His character on John Welch. When had
Jesus Christ done it? In those seven or eight hours of daily
communion with Himself. I do not suppose that God has called
many of us, if any of us, to put seven or eight hours a day
into prayer, but I am confident God has called most of us,
if not every one of us, to put more time into prayer than we
now do. That is one of the great secrets of holiness,
indeed, the only way in which we can become really holy and
continue holy.
Some years ago we often sang a hymn, "Take Time to Be Holy."
I wish we sang it more in these days. It takes time to be
holy, one cannot be holy in a hurry, and much of the time
that it takes to be holy must go into secret prayer. Some
people express surprise that professing Christians today are
so little like their Lord, but when I stop to think how
little time the average Christian today puts into secret
prayer the thing that astonished me is, not that we are so
little like the Lord, but that we are as much like the Lord
as we are, when we take so little time for secret prayer.
Prayer Will Bring the Power of God Into Our Work
But not only will prayer promote as almost nothing else our
personal holiness, but prayer will also bring the power of
God into our work. We read in Isaiah 40:31: "They that wait
upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount
up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary;
and they shall walk [plod right along day after day, which
is far harder than running or flying], and not faint."
It is the privilege of every child of God to have the power
of God in his service. And the verse just quoted tells us
how to obtain it, and that is by "waiting upon the Lord."
Sometimes you will hear people stand up in a meeting, not so
frequently perhaps in these days as in former days, and say:
"I am trying to serve God in my poor, weak way." Well, if
you are trying to serve God in your poor, weak way, quit it;
your duty is to serve God in His strong, triumphant way. But
you say, "I have no natural ability." Then get supernatural
ability.
The religion of Jesus Christ is a supernatural religion from
start to finish, and we should live our lives in
supernatural power, the power of God through Jesus Christ,
and we should perform our service with supernatural power,
the power of God ministered by the Holy Spirit through Jesus
Christ. You say, "I have no natural gifts." Then get
supernatural gifts. The Holy Spirit is promised to every
believer in order that he may obtain the supernatural gifts
which qualify him for the particular service to which God
calls him. "He [The Holy Spirit] divideth to each one [that
is, to each and every believer] severally even as he will"
([Corinthians 12:11). It is ours to have the power of God if
we will only seek it by prayer in any and every line of
service to which God calls us.
Are you a mother or a father? Do you wish power from God to
bring your own children up in the "nurture and admonition of
the Lord"? God commands you to do it and especially commands
the father to do it. God says in Ephesians 6:4: "Ye fathers,
provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord."
Now, God never commands the impossible, and as He commands
us fathers, and the mothers also, to bring our children up
in the nuture and admonition of the Lord, it is possible for
us to do it. If any one of your children is not saved, the
first blame lies at your own door. Paul said to the jailer
in Philippi: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou
shalt be saved, and thy house" (Acts 16:31).
Oh, mothers and fathers, it is your privilege to have every
one of your children saved. But it costs something to have
them saved. It costs your spending much time alone with God,
to be much in prayer, and it costs also your making those
sacrifices and straightening out those things in your life
that are wrong; it costs the fulfilling the conditions of
prevailing prayer. And if any of you have unsaved children,
when you go home today get alone with God and ask God to
show you what it is in your own life that is responsible for
the present condition of your children. Straighten it out at
once and then get down alone before God and hold to Him in
earnest prayer for the definite conversion of each one of
your children. Do not rest until, by prayer and by your
putting forth every effort, you know beyond question that
every one of your children is definitely and positively
converted and born again.
Are you in more public work, a preacher perhaps, or speaking
from the public platform? Do you long for power in that
work? Ask for it.
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