THE K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
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must pray “always,” or more literally “in every season” (i. e., on all sorts of occasions.) Some pray on certain sorts of occasions, but we should pray on all sorts of occasions, in every incident ~of life, in every time of temptation, and every time of victory and every other sort of time (cf. Phil. 4:6; 1 Thess. 5:17; Col. 4:2; Heb. 4:16). (2) We must pray “with all prayer and supplication,” literally “by means of all prayer and supplication “should” be used as the instruments of our pleading with God. The Greek word translated “prayer” is the more general word and the word translated “supplication” emphasizes the conception of prayer as an expression of our deeply felt needs. The word “all’ emphasizes the abundance of our prayers: the thought is that we must pray to the full limit. One great fault in our praying is the scarcity and niggardliness of our pray ers. God is constantly saying to us “more, more, more prayer,” “all prayer” (cf. Jas. 4:2; Acts 6:4:. Make use of the full measure of the privilege of prayer. (3) We must pray “in the Spirit” (cf. Jude 20), i. e., living in the atmosphere of the Holy Spirit, we must look constantly to Him to both prompt and guide our prayers. It is the prayer which the Holy Spirit prompts and teaches that God the Father hears. (Ro. 8:26; Zech. 12: 10). The whole secret of earnest, intel ligent, really effective praying is found in those three words, “in the Spirit.” (There is no “the” before “Spirit” in the Greek, but the Greek frequently omits the definite article when the English idiom requires it, and fre quently in the Greek idiom, as here, the definite designation to the one great one of the class is more emphatic by the omission of the definite article than by its insertion.) (4) We must “watch unto” prayer (cf. Matt. 26:41; Col. 4: 2; 1 Pet. 4:7 R. V.) The word trans lated “watching” in this verse (other Greek words are used in references just given) means literally “being sleep less.” That is indeed an expressive phrase, “being sleepless unto prayer” : we are a drowsy lot and in nothing else are we so drowsy as in this matter of prayer. How much in these days do we need to hear God saying, “Keep awake! Keep awake! Keep awake unto prayer!” (5) We must pray “in (not with) all perseverance and (all) .sup plication,” i. e., we must pray things through, pray and keep on praying. We must pray, not merely “with persever-
Devil’s assaults upon our head by the subtleties of philosophy, (Col. 2:8) and theosophy and “Christian Science” (“falsely so called”— 1 Ti. 6:20), and “New Theology” and “New Thought” and “Higher Criticism,” and what not, will prove of no avail. We are living in an age when the Devil is aiming some of his fiercest and most dangerous blows at our heads, and the best pro tection is belief in that view of salva tion for spirit, soul and body at the Return of our Lord Jesus to this earth, which is presented in the Pauline epistles and other portions of the New Testament. There is one thing more that we need to complete our “whole armor” (pan oply) for our protection in our con flict with Satan and his hosts, so that Satan may not get too near, and that we may attack him as well as protect oufselves; that is a “sword.” God holds this “sword” out to us, all we have to do is to “receive” it. It is “the Word of God.”' “The Word of God” means the utterance of God, that which He has spoken. Where shall we find it? Beyond a question in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. (Mark 7:13, note context; Jno. 10:35; 1 Thess. 2:13; Jno. 16:12, 13). God has spoken elsewhere: everything that men say that is in accordance with the Scriptures and in the power of the Holy Spirit is “the Word of God,” but in only one book can we be absolutely sure that we have the pure, unadulterated Word of God, that book is the book to which God has set His seal in so many ways—the Bible. And the “written” word was the sword that our Lord Jesus used when the Devil attacked Him (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10). “The Word of God” is here called “the sword of the Spirit.” Why? (1) Because the Spirit furnishes it, is the author of it (1 Peter 1M1; 2 Peter 1:21; 2 Sam. 23:2; Acts 28:25; Heb. 3:7; 9:8; 10:15). (2) It is the Holy Spirit who uses it through us when we use it. x( l Thess. 1:5; 1 Cor. 2:4; Acts. 1:8;^Jno. 16:7-11.) FRIDAY, September 4. Eph. 6:18. When “the whole armor of God” has been put on, and “the sword of the Spirit” has been firmly grasped in the hand there is one thing still needful, if we are to win in his awful conflict with the Devil and his mighty hosts; that is prayer. The need of prayer is brought out in a very sriking and very instructive way in this verse. (1) We
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