ftX 'V es.
e Nr
1 %
IS
tim ro bbin g you o f your P rayer life
N o m a n is g r e a t e r than his prayer life. Prayer grasps eternity. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. The pulpit can be a shop window to display one’s tal- ents; the prayer closet allows no showing off. Poverty striken as the Church is today in many ways, she is most stricken here, in the place o f prayer. We have many organizers, but few agonifcers; many players and payers, few pray-ers; many singers, few dingers; many fears, few tears; much fashion, little passion; many interferers, few intercessors. Failing here we fail everywhere. The two prerequisites to successful Christian living are vision and passion, both of which are born in and maintained by prayer. The ministry o f preaching is open to few; the ministry o f prayer—the highest min istry of all human offices— is open to all. Spiritual ado lescents say, “ I’ll not go to church tonight, it’s only the prayer meeting.” This world hits the trail for hell with a speed that makes our fastest plane look like a tortoise; yet few of us can remember the last time we missed our bed for a night o f waiting upon God for a world-shaking revival. Our compassions are not moved. We mistake the scaf folding for the building. Present-day preaching, with its pale interpretation of divine truths, causes us to mistake action for unction, commotion for creation, and
The secret o f praying is praying in secret. A sinning man will stop praying and a praying man will stop sin ning. We are beggared and bankrupt but not broken nor even bent. Prayer is profoundly simple and simply profound. “ Prayer is the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try,” and yet so sublime that it outranges all speech and exhausts man’s vocabulary. A burning Niagara of words does not mean that God is either impressed or moved. One o f the most profound of intercessors had no language—“ Her lips moved, but her voice was not heard.” There are groanings which cannot be uttered. Not many linguists here. Are we so substandard to New Testament Chris tianity that we know not the historical faith o f our fa thers with its implications and operations, but only the hysterical faith of our fellows? Prayer is to the believer what capital is to the businessman. Can any deny that in the modem church set-up the main cause of anxiety is money? Yet that which tries the modem churches the most, troubled the New Testa ment Church the least. Our accent is on paying; theirs was on praying. When we have paid the place is taken; when they had prayed the place was shaken. In the matter of New Testament, Spirit-inspired, hell-shaking, world-breaking prayer, never has so much been left by so many to so few. For this kind o f prayer there is no substitute. We do it — or die! 17
v
*
£
L x
rattles for revivals. DECEMBER, 1964
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker