November 1924
TH E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
689
The Revival of the Prayer Spirit By the late Arthur T. Pierson, D.D. This article, reprinted from “ Forward Movements of the Bast Half Centnry” (published in 1900) is as timely and true as when it came from the pen of Dr. Pierson. “ Things which are impossible with man, are possible with God.” Bet us pray.
|HE pivot of piety is prayer. A pivot is of double use: it acts as a fastener and as a center; it holds in place, and it is the axis of revolution. Prayer is also the double secret; it keeps stedfast in faith, and it helps to all holy, activity. Hence, as surely as God is lifting His people in these latter times to a higher level of spirituality, and moving them to a more unselfish and self-denying service, there will be new emphasis laid upon supplication, and especially upon intercession. This revival of the praying-spirit, if not first in order of development, is first in order of importance, for without it there is no advance. Generally, if not uniformly, prayer is both starting-point and goal to every movement in which are the elements of permanent progress. Whenever the church is aroused and the world’s wickedness arrested, somebody has been praying. If the secret history of all true spiritual advance could be written and read, there would be found some intercessors who, like Job, Samuel, Daniel, Elijah, Paul and James, Jonathan Edwards, Wil liam Carey, George Muller and Hudson Taylor, have been led to shut themselves in the secret place with God, and have labored fervently in prayers. And, as the starting- point is thus found in supplication, and intercession, so the final outcome must be that God’s people shall have learned to pray; otherwise there ¡will be rapid reaction and disastrous relapse from the better conditions secured. Patient and long continued study of the religious his tory of the race confirms the conviction that no seal of permanence is stamped upon any movement, however spiritual in appearance and tendency, which does not sooner or later show a decided revival of the praying spirit. The Philosophy of Prayer There is a divine philosophy behind this fact. The great est need is to keep in close touch with God; the greatest risk is the loss of the sense of the divine. In a world where every appeal is to the physical senses and through them, reality is in direct proportion to the power of contact. What we see, hear, taste, touch, or smell—what is material and sensible— we can not doubt. The present and material absorbs attention and appears solid, substantial: but the future, the immaterial, the invisible, the spiritual, seem vague, distant, illusive, imaginary. Practically, the unseen has no reality and no influence with the vast majority of mankind. Even the unseen God is to them less a verity than the commonest object of vision; to many He, the highest verity, is really vanity, while the world’s vanities are prac tically the highest verities; God’s great corrective for this most disastrous inversion and perversion of the true relation of things, is prayer. “ Enter into thy closet.” There all is silence, secrecy, soli tude, seclusion. Within that shut door, the disciple is left alone— all others shut out, that the suppliant may be shut in—with God. The silence is in order to the hearing of the still, small voice that is drowned in worldly clamor, and which even a human voice may cause to be unheard or indistinct. The secrecy is in order to a meeting with Him who seeth in secret and is best seen in secret. The solitude is for the purpose of being alone with One who can fully impress with His presence only when there is no other pres ence to divert thought. The'place of seclusion with God is the one school where we learn that He is, and is the
rewarder of those that diligently seek Him. The closet is “ not only the oratory, it is the observatory,” not for prayer only but for prospect— the wide-reaching, clear-seeing out look upon the eternal! The decline of prayer is the decay of piety; for prayer to cease altogether, would be spiritual death, for it is to every child of God the breath of life. The Great Underlying Purpose of Prayer To keep in close touch with God in the secret chamber of His presence, is the great underlying purpose of prayer. To speak with God is a priceless privilege; but what shall be said of having and hearing Him speak with us! We can tell Him nothing He does not know; but He can tell us what no imagination has ever conceived, no research ever unveiled. The highest of all possible attainments is the knowledge of God, and this is the practical mode of His revelation of Himself. Even His holy word needs to be read in the light of the closet,’ if it is to be understood. “ And when Moses was gone into the tabernacle of the congregation to speak with him, then he heard the voice of one speaking unto him from off the mercy seat that was upon the ark of testimony, from between the two cheru bim: and he spake unto him.” Numbers 7:89. And, where there is this close touch with God, and this clear insight into His name which is His nature, and into His word which is His will made known, there will be a new power to walk with Him in holiness and work with Him in service. “ He made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel.” The mass of the people stood afar off and saw His deeds, like the over throwing of Pharaoh’s hosts in the Red Sea; but Moses drew near into the thick darkness where God was, and in that thick darkness he found a light such as never shone elsewhere, >and in that light he read God’s secret plans and purposes and interpreted His wondrous ways of working. Victory Dependent on Closet Communion All practical power over sin and over men depends on maintaining closet communion. Those who abide in the secret place with God show themselves mighty to conquer evil, and strong to work and to war for God. They are the seers who read His secrets; they know His will; they are the meek whom He guides in judgment and teaches His way. They are His prophets, who speak for Him to others, and even forecast things to come. They watch the signs of the times and discern His tokens and read His signals. We sometimes count as mystics those who, like Savon arola and Catharine of Siena, claim to have communica tions from God; to have revelations of a definite plan of God for His Church, or for themselves as individuals, like the reformer of Erfurt, the founder of the Bristol orphan ages, or the leader of the China Inland Mission. But may it not be that we stumble at these experiences because v e do not have them ourselves? Have not many of these men and women proved by their lives that they were not mis taken, and that God has led them by a way that no other eye could trace? Prayer Imparts Power But, for close contact with the living God in prayer, there is another reason that rises perhaps to a still higher (Continued on page 737)
Made with FlippingBook Online document