"Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth. God does nothing but in answer to prayer." - John Wesley |
THE
apostles knew the necessity and worth of prayer
to their ministry. They knew that their high commission as apostles, instead
of relieving them from the necessity of prayer, committed them to it by a more
urgent need; so that they were exceedingly jealous else some other important
work should exhaust their time and prevent their praying as they ought; so they
appointed laymen to look after the delicate and engrossing duties of ministering
to the poor, that they (the apostles) might, unhindered, "give themselves
continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word." Prayer is put first,
and their relation to prayer is put most strongly -- "give themselves to
it," making a business of it, surrendering themselves to praying, putting
fervor, urgency, perseverance, and time in it.
How holy, apostolic men devoted themselves to this divine work of prayer! "Night
and day praying exceedingly," says Paul. "We will give ourselves continually
to prayer" is the consensus of apostolic devotement. How these New Testament
preachers laid themselves out in prayer for God's people! How they put God in
full force into their Churches by their praying! These holy apostles did not
vainly fancy that they had met their high and solemn duties by delivering faithfully
God's word, but their preaching was made to stick and tell by the ardor and
insistence of their praying. Apostolic praying was as taxing, toilsome, and
imperative as apostolic preaching. They prayed mightily day and night to bring
their people to the highest regions of faith and holiness. They prayed mightier
still to hold them to this high spiritual altitude. The preacher who has never
learned in the school of Christ the high and divine art of intercession for
his people will never learn the art of preaching, though homiletics be poured
into him by the ton, and though he be the most gifted genius in sermon-making
and sermon-delivery.
The prayers of apostolic, saintly leaders do much in making saints of those
who are not apostles. If the Church leaders in after years had been as particular
and fervent in praying for their people as the apostles were, the sad, dark
times of worldliness and apostasy had not marred the history and eclipsed the
glory and arrested the advance of the Church. Apostolic praying makes apostolic
saints and keeps apostolic times of purity and power in the Church.
What loftiness of soul, what purity and elevation of motive, what unselfishness,
what self-sacrifice, what exhaustive toil, what ardor of spirit, what divine
tact are requisite to be an intercessor for men!
The preacher is to lay himself out in prayer for his people; not that they might
be saved, simply, but that they be mightily saved. The apostles laid themselves
out in prayer that their saints might be perfect; not that they should have
a little relish for the things of God, but that they "might be filled with
all the fullness of God." Paul did not rely on his apostolic preaching
to secure this end, but "for this cause he bowed his knees to the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ." Paul's praying carried Paul's converts farther
along the highway of sainthood than Paul's preaching did. Epaphras did as much
or more by prayer for the Colossian saints than by his preaching. He labored
fervently always in prayer for them that "they might stand perfect and
complete in all the will of God."
Preachers are preeminently God's leaders. They are primarily responsible for
the condition of the Church. They shape its character, give tone and direction
to its life.
Much every way depends on these leaders. They shape the times and the institutions.
The Church is divine, the treasure it incases is heavenly, but it bears the
imprint of the human. The treasure is in earthen vessels, and it smacks of the
vessel. The Church of God makes, or is made by, its leaders. Whether it makes
them or is made by them, it will be what its leaders are; spiritual if they
are so, secular if they are, conglomerate if its leaders are. Israel's kings
gave character to Israel's piety. A Church rarely revolts against or rises above
the religion of its leaders. Strongly spiritual leaders; men of holy might,
at the lead, are tokens of God's favor; disaster and weakness follow the wake
of feeble or worldly leaders. Israel had fallen low when God gave children to
be their princes and babes to rule over them. No happy state is predicted by
the prophets when children oppress God's Israel and women rule over them. Times
of spiritual leadership are times of great spiritual prosperity to the Church.
Prayer is one of the eminent characteristics of strong spiritual leadership.
Men of mighty prayer are men of might and mold things. Their power with God
has the conquering tread.
How can a man preach who does not get his message fresh from God in the closet?
How can he preach without having his faith quickened, his vision cleared, and
his heart warmed by his closeting with God? Alas, for the pulpit lips which
are untouched by this closet flame. Dry and unctionless they will ever be, and
truths divine will never come with power from such lips. As far as the real
interests of religion are concerned, a pulpit without a closet will always be
a barren thing.
A preacher may preach in an official, entertaining, or learned way without prayer,
but between this kind of preaching and sowing God's precious seed with holy
hands and prayerful, weeping hearts there is an immeasurable distance.
A prayerless ministry is the undertaker for all God's truth and for God's Church.
He may have the most costly casket and the most beautiful flowers, but it is
a funeral, notwithstanding the charmful array. A prayerless Christian will never
learn God's truth; a prayerless ministry will never be able to teach God's truth.
Ages of millennial glory have been lost by a prayerless Church. The coming of
our Lord has been postponed indefinitely by a prayerless Church. Hell has enlarged
herself and filled her dire caves in the presence of the dead service of a prayerless
Church.
The best, the greatest offering is an offering of prayer. If the preachers of
the twentieth century will learn well the lesson of prayer, and use fully the
power of prayer, the millennium will come to its noon ere the century closes.
"Pray without ceasing" is the trumpet call to the preachers of the
twentieth century. If the twentieth century will get their texts, their thoughts,
their words, their sermons in their closets, the next century will find a new
heaven and a new earth. The old sin-stained and sin-eclipsed heaven and earth
will pass away under the power of a praying ministry.