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Divine Efficacy of Prayer
We cannot make up for lack of praying by excess of work ing. In fact working without praying is a sort of practical atheism, for it leaves out God. It is the prayer that pre pares for work, that arms us for the warfare, that furnishes us for the activity. I t behooves us, studying intently the promises to prayer, to say unto the Lord: “This being Thy word, I will henceforth live as a man of prayer and claim my privilege and use my power as an intercessor.” Here is the highest identification with the Son of God. It is almost being admitted to a sort of fellowship in His mediatorial work! During this dispensation His work is mainly intercession. He calls us to take a subordinate part in the holy office, standing, like Phinehas, between the living and the dead to stay the plague; like Elijah, between heaven and earth to unlock heaven’s flood-gates of blessing and com mand the fire and flood of God! Is this true? Then what can be more awful and august than such dignity and ma jesty of privilege! Ignatius welcomes the Numidian lion in the arena, saying: “I am grain of God; I must be ground between the teeth of lions to make bread for God’s people.” He felt in the hour of martyrdom the privilege of joining his dying Lord in a sacrifice that Bushnell would call “vi carious.” Who will join the risen Lord in a service of intercession ? The greatest difficulty in the way of practical conversion of men may not be in God’s eyes so much a barrier of ungodli ness among the heathen as a barrier of unbelief among His own disciples! The sixteenth century was great in painters, the seven teenth in philosophers, the eighteenth in writers, the nine teenth in preachers and inventors; God grant that the twen tieth may be forever historically memorable as the century of intercessors.
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