The Ministry of Intercession Part 3

Think of Elijah in his prayer, first for fire, and then for rain. In the former you have the importunity that claims and receives an immediate answer. In the latter, bowing himself down to the earth, his face between his knees, his answer to the servant who had gone to look toward the sea, and come with the message, "There is nothing," was "Go again seven times." Here was the importunity of perseverance. He had told Ahab there would be rain; he knew it was coming; and yet he prayed till the seven times were fulfilled. And it is of this Elijah and this prayer we are taught, "Pray for one another. Elijah was a man of like pa.s.sions with ourselves. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Will there not be some who feel constrained to cry out, "Where is the Lord G.o.d of Elijah?"--this G.o.d who draws forth such effectual prayer, and hears it so wonderfully. His name be praised: He is still the same. Let His people but believe that He still waits to be inquired of! Faith in a prayer-hearing G.o.d will make a prayer-loving Christian.

We remember the marks of the true intercessor as the parable taught us them. A sense of the need of souls; a Christlike love in the heart; a consciousness of personal impotence; faith in the power of prayer; courage to persevere in spite of refusal; and the a.s.surance of an abundant reward;--these are the dispositions that const.i.tute a Christian an intercessor, and call forth the power of prevailing prayer. These are the dispositions that const.i.tute the beauty and the health of the Christian life, that fit a man for being a blessing in the world, that make him a true Christian worker, who does indeed get from G.o.d the bread of heaven to dispense to the hungry. These are the dispositions that call forth the highest, the heroic virtues of the life of faith. There is nothing to which the n.o.bility of natural character owes so much as the spirit of enterprise and daring which in travel or war, in politics or science, battles with difficulties and conquers. No labour or expense is grudged for the sake of victory. And shall we who are Christians not be able to face the difficulties that we meet in prayer? It is as we "labour" and "strive" in prayer that the renewed will a.s.serts its royal right to claim in the name of Christ what it will, and wields its G.o.d-given power to influence the destinies of men. Shall men of the world sacrifice ease and pleasure in their pursuits, and shall we be such cowards and sluggards as not to fight our way through to the place where we can find liberty for the captive and salvation for the peris.h.i.+ng? Let each servant of Christ learn to know his calling. His King ever lives to pray. The Spirit of the King ever lives in us to pray. It is from heaven the blessings, which the world needs, must be called down in persevering, importunate, believing prayer. It is from heaven, in answer to prayer, the Holy Spirit will take complete possession of us to do His work through us. Let us acknowledge how vain our much work has been owing to our little prayer. Let us change our method, and let henceforth more prayer, much prayer, unceasing prayer, be the proof that we look for all to G.o.d, and that we believe that He heareth us.

A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER

CHAPTER V

The Life that can Pray

"_If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you_, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you."--JOHN xv. 7.

"The supplication of _a righteous man_ availeth much in its working."--JAMES v. 16.

"Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward G.o.d; and whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, _because_ we keep His commandments, and do the things that are pleasing in His sight."--1 JOHN iii. 21, 22.

Here on earth the influence of one who asks a favour for others depends entirely on his character, and the relations.h.i.+p he bears to him with whom he is interceding. It is what he is that gives weight to what he asks. It is no otherwise with G.o.d. Our power in prayer depends upon our life. Where our life is right we shall know how to pray so as to please G.o.d, and prayer will secure the answer. The texts quoted above all point in this direction. "_If ye abide in Me_," our Lord says, ye shall ask, and it shall be done unto you. It is the prayer of _a righteous man_, according to James, that availeth much. We receive whatsoever we ask, John says, _because_ we obey and please G.o.d. All lack of power to pray aright and perseveringly, all lack of power in prayer with G.o.d, points to some lack in the Christian life. It is as we learn to live the life that pleases G.o.d, that G.o.d will give what we ask. Let us learn from our Lord Jesus, in the parable of the vine, what the healthy, vigorous life is that may ask and receive what it will. Hear His voice, "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." And again at the close of the parable: "Ye did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide: that _whatsoever ye shall ask_ the Father in My name, _He may give it you_."

And what is now, according to the parable, the life that one must lead to bear fruit, and then ask and receive what we will? What is it we are to be or do, that will enable us to pray as we should, and to receive what we ask? The answer is in one word: it is the branch-life that gives power for prayer. We are branches of Christ, the Living Vine. We must simply live like branches, and abide in Christ, then we shall ask what we will, and it shall be done unto us.

We all know what a branch is, and what its essential characteristic. It is simply a growth of the vine, produced by it and appointed to bear fruit. It has only one reason of existence; it is there at the bidding of the vine, that through it the vine may bear and ripen its precious fruit. Just as the vine only and solely and wholly lives to produce the sap that makes the grape, so the branch has no other aim and object but this alone, to receive that sap and bear the grape. Its only work is to serve the vine, that through it the vine may do its work.

And the believer, the branch of Christ the Heavenly Vine, is it to be understood that he is as literally, as exclusively, to live only that Christ may bear fruit through him? Is it meant that a true Christian as a branch is to be just as absorbed in and devoted to the work of bearing fruit to the glory of G.o.d as Christ the Vine was on earth, and is now in heaven? This, and nothing less, is indeed what is meant. It is to such that the unlimited prayer promises of the parable are given. It is the branch-life, existing solely for the Vine, that will have the power to pray aright. With our life abiding in Him, and His words abiding, kept and obeyed, in our heart and life, trans.m.u.ted into our very being, there will be the grace to pray aright, and the faith to receive the whatsoever we will.

Do let us connect the two things, and take them both in their simple, literal truth, and their infinite, divine grandeur. The promises of our Lord's farewell discourse, with their wonderful six-fold repet.i.tion of the unlimited, _anything, whatsoever_ (John xiv. 13, 14; xv. 7, 16; xvi.

23, 24), appear to us altogether too large to be taken literally, and they are qualified down to meet our human ideas of what appears seemly.

It is because we separate them from that life of absolute and unlimited devotion to Christ's service to which they were given. G.o.d's covenant is ever: Give all and take all. He that is willing to be wholly branch, and nothing but branch, who is ready to place himself absolutely at the disposal of Jesus the Vine of G.o.d, to bear His fruit through him, and to live every moment only for Him, will receive a Divine liberty to claim Christ's _whatsoever_ in all its fulness, and a Divine wisdom and humility to use it aright. He will live and pray, and claim the Father's promises, even as Christ did, only for G.o.d's glory in the salvation of men. He will use his boldness in prayer only with a view to power in intercession, and getting men blessed. The unlimited devotion of the branch-life to fruitbearing, and the unlimited access to the treasures of the Vine life, are inseparable. It is the life abiding wholly in Christ that can pray the effectual prayer in the name of Christ.

Just think for a moment of the men of prayer in Scripture, and see in them what the life was that could pray in such power. We spoke of Abraham as intercessor. What gave Him such boldness? He knew that G.o.d had chosen and called him away from his home and people to walk before Him, that all nations might be blessed in him. He knew that he had obeyed, and forsaken all for G.o.d. Implicit obedience, to the very sacrifice of his son, was the law of his life. He did what G.o.d asked: he dared trust G.o.d to do what he asked. We spoke of Moses as intercessor.

He too had forsaken all for G.o.d, "counting the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt." He lived at G.o.d's disposal: "as a servant he was faithful in all His house." How often it is written of him, "According to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so did he." No wonder that he was very bold: his heart was right with G.o.d: he knew G.o.d would hear him. No less true is this of Elijah, the man who stood up to plead for the Lord G.o.d of Israel. The man who is ready to risk all for G.o.d can count upon G.o.d to do all for him.

It is as men live that they pray. It is the life that prays. It is the life that, with whole-hearted devotion, gives up all for G.o.d and to G.o.d, that can claim all from G.o.d. Our G.o.d longs exceedingly to prove Himself the Faithful G.o.d and Mighty Helper of His people. He only waits for hearts wholly turned from the world to Himself, and open to receive His gifts. The man who loses all will find all; he dare ask and take it.

The branch that only and truly lives abiding in Christ, the Heavenly Vine, entirely given up, like Christ, to bear fruit in the salvation of men, and has His words taken up into and abiding in its life, may and dare ask what it will--it shall be done. And where we have not yet attained to that full devotion to which our Lord had trained His disciples, and cannot equal them in their power of prayer, we may, nevertheless, take courage in remembering that, even in the lower stages of the Christian life, every new onward step in the striving after the perfect branch-life, and every surrender to live for others in intercession, will be met from above by a corresponding liberty to draw nigh with greater boldness, and expect larger answers. The more we pray, and the more conscious we become of our unfitness to pray in power, the more we shall be urged and helped to press on towards the secret of power in prayer--a life abiding in Christ entirely at His disposal.

And if any are asking, with somewhat of a despair of attainment, what the reason may be of the failure in this blessed branch-life, so simple and yet so mighty, and how they can come to it, let me point them to one of the most precious lessons of the parable of the Vine. It is one that is all too little noticed. Jesus spake, "I am the true Vine, _and my Father is the Husbandman_." We have not only Himself, the glorified Son of G.o.d, in His divine fulness, out of whose fulness of life and grace we can draw,--this is very wonderful,--but there is something more blessed still. We have the Father, as the Husbandman, watching over our abiding in the Vine, over our growth and fruitbearing. It is not left to our faith or our faithfulness to maintain our union with Christ: the G.o.d, who is the Father of Christ, and who united us with Him,--G.o.d Himself will see to it that the branch is what it should be, will enable us to bring forth just the fruit we were appointed to bear. Hear what Christ said of this, "Every branch that beareth fruit, He cleanseth it, that it may bear more fruit." More fruit is what the Father seeks; more fruit is what the Father will Himself provide. It is for this that He, as the Vinedresser, cleanses the branches.

Just think a moment what this means. It is said that of all fruitbearing plants on earth there is none that produces fruit so full of spirit, from which spirit can be so abundantly distilled, as the vine. And of all fruitbearing plants there is none that is so ready to run into wild wood, and for which pruning and cleansing are so indispensable. The one great work that a vinedresser has to do for the branch every year is to prune it. Other plants can for a time dispense with it, and yet bear fruit: the vine _must_ have it. And so the one thing the branch that desires to abide in Christ and bring forth much fruit, and to be able to ask whatsoever it will, must do, is to trust in and yield itself to this Divine cleansing. What is it that the vinedresser cuts away with his pruning-knife? Nothing but the wood that the branch has produced--true, honest wood, with the true vine nature in it. This must be cut away. And why? Because it draws away the strength and life of the vine, and hinders the flow of the juice to the grape. The more it is cut down, the less wood there is in the branch, the more all the sap can go to the grape. The wood of the branch must decrease, that the fruit for the vine may increase; in obedience to the law of all nature, that death is the way to life, that gain comes through sacrifice, the rich and luxuriant growth of wood must be cut off and cast away, that the life more abundant may be seen in the cl.u.s.ter.

Even so, child of G.o.d, branch of the Heavenly Vine, there is in thee that which appears perfectly innocent and legitimate, and which yet so draws out thy interest and thy strength, that it must be pruned and cleansed away. We saw what power in prayer men like Abraham and Moses and Elijah had, and we know what fruit they bore. But we also know what it cost them; how G.o.d had to separate them from their surroundings, and ever again to draw them from any trust in themselves, to seek their life in Him alone. It is only as our own will, and strength and effort and pleasure, even where these appear perfectly natural and sinless, are cut down, so that the whole energies of our being are free and open to receive the sap of the Heavenly Vine, the Holy Spirit, that we shall bear much fruit. It is in the surrender of what nature holds fast, it is in the full and willing submission to G.o.d's holy pruning-knife, that we shall come to what Christ chose and appointed us for--to bear fruit, that whatsoever we ask the Father in Christ's name, He may give to us.

What the pruning-knife is, Christ tells us in the next verse. "Ye are _clean through the word_ which I have spoken to you." As He says later, "Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy word is truth." "The word of G.o.d is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit." What heart-searching words Christ had spoken to His disciples on love and humility, on being the least, and, like Himself, the servant of all, on denying self, and taking the cross, and losing the life. Through His word the Father had cleansed them, cut away all confidence in themselves or the world, and prepared them for the inflowing and filling of the Spirit of the Heavenly Vine. It is not we who can cleanse ourselves: G.o.d is the Vinedresser: we may confidently intrust ourselves to His care.

Beloved brethren,--ministers, missionaries, teachers, workers, believers old and young,--are you mourning your lack of prayer, and, as a consequence, your lack of power in prayer? Oh! come and listen to your beloved Lord as He tells you, "only be a branch, united to, identified with, the Heavenly Vine, and your prayers will be effectual and much availing." Are you mourning that just this is your trouble--you do not, cannot, live this branch-life, abiding in Him? Oh! come and listen again. "_More fruit_" is not only your desire, but the Father's too. He is the Husbandman who cleanseth the fruitful branch, that it may bear more fruit. Cast yourself upon G.o.d, to do in you what is impossible to man. Count upon a Divine cleansing, to cut down and take away all that self-confidence and self-effort, that has been the cause of your failure. The G.o.d who gave you His beloved Son to be your Vine, who made you His branch, will He not do His work of cleansing to make you fruitful in every good work, in the work of prayer and intercession too?

Here is the life that can pray. A branch entirely given up to the Vine and its aims, with all responsibility for its cleansing cast on the Vinedresser; a branch abiding in Christ, trusting and yielding to G.o.d for His cleansing, can bear much fruit. In the power of such a life we shall love prayer, we shall know how to pray, we shall pray, and receive whatsoever we ask.

A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER

CHAPTER VI

Restraining Prayer: is it Sin?

"Thou restrainest prayer before G.o.d."--JOB xv. 4.

"What profit should we have, if we pray unto Him?"--JOB xxi. 15.

"G.o.d forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you."--1 SAM. xii. 23.

"Neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you."--JOSH. vii. 12.

Any deep quickening of the spiritual life of the Church will always be accompanied by a deeper sense of sin. This will not begin with theology; that can only give expression to what G.o.d works in the life of His people. Nor does it mean that that deeper sense of sin will only be seen in stronger expressions of self-reproach or penitence: that is sometimes found to consist with a harbouring of sin, and unbelief as to deliverance. But the true sense of the hatefulness of sin, the hatred of it, will be proved by the intensity of desire for deliverance, and the struggle to know to the very utmost what G.o.d can do in saving from it--a holy jealousy, in nothing to sin against G.o.d.

If we are to deal effectually with the lack of prayer we must look at it from this point of view and ask, Restraining prayer, is it sin? And if it be, how is it to be dealt with, to be discovered, and confessed, and cast out by man, and cleansed away by G.o.d? Jesus is a Saviour from sin.

It is only as we know sin truly that we can truly know the power that saves from sin. The life that can pray effectually is the life of the cleansed branch--the life that knows deliverance from the power of self.

To see that our prayer-sins are indeed sins, is the first step to a true and Divine deliverance from them.

In the story of Achan we have one of the strongest proofs in Scripture that it is sin that robs G.o.d's people of His blessing, and that G.o.d will not tolerate it; and at the same time the clearest indication of the principles under which G.o.d deals with it, and removes it. Let us see in the light of the story if we can learn how to look at the sin of prayerlessness, and at the sinfulness that lies at the root of it. The words I have quoted above, "Neither will I be with you any more, except ye put away the accursed thing from among you," take us into the very heart of the story, and suggest a series of the most precious lessons around the truth they express, that the presence of sin makes the presence of G.o.d impossible.

1. _The presence of G.o.d is the great privilege of G.o.d's people, and their only power against the enemy._--G.o.d had promised to Moses, _I will bring you in_ unto the land. Moses proved that he understood this when G.o.d, after the sin of the golden calf, spoke of withdrawing His presence and sending an angel. He refused to accept anything less than G.o.d's presence. "For whereby shall it be known that I and Thy people have found grace in Thy sight? Is it not that _Thou goest with us_?" It was this gave Caleb and Joshua their confidence: The Lord is with us. It was this gave Israel their victory over Jericho: the presence of G.o.d. This is throughout Scripture the great central promise: I am with thee. This marks off the whole-hearted believer from the worldling and worldly Christians around him: he lives consciously hidden in the secret of G.o.d's presence.

2. _Defeat and failure are always owing to the loss of G.o.d's presence._--It was thus at Ai. G.o.d had brought His people into Canaan with the promise to give them the land. When the defeat at Ai took place Joshua felt at once that the cause must be in the withdrawal of G.o.d's power. He had not fought for them. His presence had been withheld.

In the Christian life and the work of the Church, defeat is ever a sign of the loss of G.o.d's presence. If we apply this to our failure in the prayer-life, and as a result of that to our failure in work for G.o.d, we are led to see that all is simply owing to our not standing in clear and full fellows.h.i.+p with G.o.d. His nearness, His immediate presence, has not been the chief thing sought after and trusted in. He could not work in us as He would. Loss of blessing and power is ever caused by the loss of G.o.d's presence.

3. _The loss of G.o.d's presence is always owing to some hidden sin._--Just as pain is ordered in nature to warn of some hidden evil in the system, defeat is G.o.d's voice telling us there is something wrong.

He has given Himself so wholly to His people, He delights so in being with them, and would so fain reveal in them His love and power, that He never withdraws Himself unless they compel Him by sin.

Throughout the Church there is a complaint of defeat. The Church has so little power over the ma.s.ses, or the educated cla.s.ses. Powerful conversions are comparatively rare. The fewness of holy, consecrated, spiritual Christians, devoted to the service of G.o.d and their fellowmen, is felt everywhere. The power of the Church for the preaching of the gospel to the heathen is paralysed by the scarcity of money and men; and all owing to the lack of the effectual prayer which brings the Holy Spirit in power, first on ministers and believers, then on missionaries and the heathen. Can we deny it that the lack of prayer is the sin on account of which G.o.d's presence and power are not more manifestly seen among us?

4. _G.o.d Himself will discover the hidden sin._--We may think we know what the sin is: it is only G.o.d who can discover its real deep meaning.

When He spoke to Joshua, before naming the sin of Achan, G.o.d first said, "They have transgressed My covenant which I commanded them." G.o.d had commanded (vi. 19) that all the booty of Jericho, gold and silver and all that was in it, was to be a devoted thing, consecrated unto the Lord, and to come into His treasury. And Israel had broken this consecration vow: it had not given G.o.d His due; it had robbed G.o.d.

It is this we need: G.o.d must discover to us how the lack of prayer is the indication of unfaithfulness to our consecration vow, that G.o.d should have all our heart and life. We must see that this restraining prayer, with the excuses we make for it, is greater sin than we have thought; for what does it mean? That we have little taste or relish for fellows.h.i.+p with G.o.d; that our faith rests more on our own work and efforts than on the power of G.o.d; that we have little sense of the heavenly blessing G.o.d waits to shower down; that we are not ready to sacrifice the ease and confidence of the flesh for persevering waiting on G.o.d; that the spirituality of our life, and our abiding in Christ, is altogether too feeble to make us prevail in prayer. When the pressure of work for Christ is allowed to be the excuse for our not finding time to seek and secure His own presence and power in it, as our chief need, it surely proves that there is no right sense of our absolute dependence upon G.o.d; no deep apprehension of the Divine and supernatural work of G.o.d in which we are only His instruments, no true entrance into the heavenly, altogether other-worldly, character of our mission and aims, no full surrender to and delight in Christ Jesus Himself.

If we were to yield to G.o.d's Spirit to show us that all this is in very deed the meaning of remissness in prayer, and of our allowing other things to crowd it out, all our excuses would fall away, and we should fall down and cry, "We have sinned! we have sinned!" Samuel once said, "As for me, G.o.d forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you." Ceasing from prayer is sin against G.o.d. May G.o.d discover this to us. (Note A.)

5. _When G.o.d discovers sin, it must be confessed and cast out._--When the defeat at Ai came, Joshua and Israel were ignorant of the cause. G.o.d dealt with Israel as a nation, as one body, and the sin of one member was visited on all. Israel as a whole was ignorant of the sin, and yet suffered for it. The Church may be ignorant of the greatness of this sin of restraining prayer, individual ministers or believers may never have looked upon it as actual transgression, none the less does it bring its punishment. But when the sin is no more hidden, when the Holy Spirit begins to convince of it, then comes the time of heart-searching. In our story the combination of individual and united responsibility is very solemn. The individual: as we find it in the expression, "man for man"; each man felt himself under the eye of G.o.d, to be dealt with. And when Achan had been taken, he had to make confession. The united: as we see it in all Israel first suffering and dealt with by G.o.d, then taking Achan, and his family, and the accursed thing, and destroying them out of their midst.

If we have reason to think this is the sin that is in the camp, let us begin with personal and united confession. And then let us come before G.o.d to put away and destroy the sin. Here stands at the very threshold of Israel's history in Canaan the heap of stones in the valley of Achor, to tell us that G.o.d cannot bear sin, that G.o.d will not dwell with sin, and that if _we really want G.o.d's presence in power, sin must be put away_. Let us look the solemn fact in the face. There may be other sins, but here is certainly one that causes the loss of G.o.d's presence--we do not pray as Christ and Scripture teach us. Let us bring it out before G.o.d, and give up this sin to the death. Let us yield ourselves to G.o.d to obey His voice. Let no fear of past failure, let no threatening array of temptations, or duties, or excuses, keep us back. It is a simple question of obedience. Are we going to give up ourselves to G.o.d and His Spirit to live a life in prayer, well-pleasing to Him? Surely, if it is G.o.d who has been withholding His presence, who has been discovering the sin, who is calling for its destruction, and a return to obedience, surely we can count upon His grace to accept and strengthen for the life He asks of us. It is not a question of what you can do; it is the question of whether you now, with your whole heart, turn to give G.o.d His due, and give yourself to let His will and grace have their way with you.

6. _With sin cast out G.o.d's presence is restored._--From this day onwards there is not a word in Joshua of defeat in battle. The story shows them going on from victory to victory. G.o.d's presence secured gives power to overcome every enemy.