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Excerpt - One of the greatest needs of the world today, and one of the greatest needs of the Church, is men of prayer. But this need is not one that can easily be met, because it is a most wonderful thing, and very few of us really know what it means. It is by prayer that we get right into contact with God, into fellowship with Him: and the reason that the lives of many of us are so poor and weak is that we do not know how to pray. We do not know what that fellowship with God is, what that true prayer means; and because we do not know that, our lives are as they are.
Turn with me to the Scriptures, that we may learn some lessons about prayer, and that we may hear the voice of God Himself through His holy Word.
I propose to deal with some of the New Testament teaching about prayer, and to take four words, which each have a lesson for us, and in which we may trace the development of the teaching of the Word of God about prayer. I think that as we look into these words, we shall feel that in this matter of Prayer, notwithstanding how long we have known God, we are only beginners.
Be Sober When You Pray
The first word we draw attention to brings this lesson to us—a very startling one: Be sober when you pray. You will find that startling message in 1 Peter 4:7. If you look at the Authorized Version you will find it runs thus: 'The end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer.' Did you ever look at the Revised Version, which often is more accurate? You will find that in it the words are, 'Be ye therefore of sound mind, and be sober unto prayer.' The word here used is a very startling one, and the literal meaning of it is to abstain from wine. It is used six times in the New Testament: three times by the Apostle Peter and three times by the Apostle Paul. In four cases out of the six, in our Bibles, it is translated to be sober, and in the other two cases it would have been better had uniformity of translation been observed, for this message is a message that is very much needed by us. The message here is so startling that commentators have tried to explain it away, yet the solemn lesson of it is so obvious that we all need to take it to heart, if we are ever to learn to pray, and in prayer to begin to have fellowship with God in which the soul finds a cure for all the soul's diseases, There are many things that intoxicate which are not wine. It is possible to be intoxicated with worldly gaiety, and, when the very brain is reeling after indulgence in the pleasures of the world, to try to come to God in prayer. How many a young lady has come home from a ball, and when the whole being was in a whirl, in the intoxication of worldly pleasure, she has tried to kneel down to pray, and has found it utterly impossible! How many a Christian man comes home from business, intoxicated with the affairs of business, with his whole mind submerged in business; below the flood of business cares, and with all this care on his mind, he kneels down to pray, and he cannot pray. How many Christian men or women can be intoxicated with pride, because some rival has outstripped them in the race, because some slight has been given, some insult has been offered, and with the whole spirit drunk with pride, these persons try to pray, and find it utterly impossible! Yes, and how many a man, and how many a woman, has come to God in prayer, drunk with vanity,—vanity to which friends have most injudiciously ministered, and the little soul, swelling with vanity, comes into the presence of the great and holy God!
Oh! how this cuts into our heart! Do you not think it is quite possible for a preacher of the Gospel, after he has preached, when he thinks he has done well, to close the service with prayer, and his mind be drunk with the thought of how well he has spoken?
Now this verse says, Be sober when you pray. It says that all these things must come out of our heart and spirit if we are to know what fellowship with God is. I think that many of us are lacking in reverence with regard to prayer. We dwell very much on the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of that wonderful access which He gives us into the Lord's presence. We dwell very much on the tenderness of God to poor sinners, and of His willingness to meet them. But I sometimes fear we lose sight of the greatness and majesty of God. When we are engaging in an exercise so tremendously solemn as prayer, what this would mean is in effect: Bring to the exercise of prayer a penitent, contrite, clear, sound mind, a mind from which these hindrances, and sins just referred to, have been definitely and by the help of God, put away.
Now, will you take it home as I try to take it home to myself. We have need to get truer thoughts of God, and it is the more needful to come near into His presence for that fellowship with Him, with that soberness of mind that the Apostle bids us here, when he says, 'Be sober unto prayer.'
Do we not get much the same teaching, in type, in Lev. 10:9 & 10? "Do not drink wine or strong drink, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die: it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations: and that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean.”
Be at Leisure When You Pray
But there is another word in the New Testament, a very remarkable one, which also has its lesson for us. Do you ever listen to the words of the Book of God? This Book is full of songs, and if you will only put it to your ear and listen, you will find it so. In the words that the Spirit uses there are often remarkable lessons. This second word brings with it this lesson, Be at leisure when you pray. You will find this word in 1 Cor. 7:5. 'Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves unto prayer (Revised Version & J.N.D. omit `fasting!)
The word used here occurs twice in the New Testament. If you turn to Matt. 12:44, you will find it in its literal meaning. It is used of a house that is empty, or lying vacant. We read, 'When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return unto my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.'
Now the word used there is the word that I am referring to, it literally means to be vacant. And then it means to take a holiday, to be at leisure. And then it means to devote oneself entirely to some pursuit.
And the lesson it brings us is this, that prayer is not only to be sober, but prayer is not to be hurried. We are to bring to the exercise of prayer, not only a sober, sound mind, but a calm mind. We are told that dew falls only when the atmosphere is still, and it is perfectly certain that the dew of prayer falls upon the soul bountifully and abundantly only when the soul is quiet and calm before God. If there is to be overwhelming blessing, we must have time for prayer, and for definite calling upon God. We must be less taken up with the voices of men, and get to God. Himself, that He may deal with us directly under the power of His Holy Spirit.
If we are to know what prayer is, we must bring to the exercise of prayer a calm mind. We must be at leisure when we pray. I fancy some will say, 'That is quite impossible; my life is so tremendously full, I have so much work to do in these busy days; work crushes in upon the day so terribly that I cannot find time for prayer.' I know there are hundreds of Christian workers who say, 'That is just exactly my difficulty; I have this district to visit, that class to teach, this address to give, and I cannot find time for prayer.' What is the lesson? Take a holiday, do less that you may do more, do more by doing less; let the work fall that you may give yourselves unto prayer. I often think that activity is one of the greatest snares of the Church of God today. We are forgetful of the fact that five minutes' work in the power of the Spirit of God, is worth five years' work without the Spirit of God, and that if we were only more in fellowship with God, our words would have a power that at present they have not.
Luther, a far busier man than any of us is likely to be, used to say on some of his heaviest days, 'I have so much work to do today that I do not see how I can get on without two or three hours of prayer.' And if you read the biographies of the most eminent workers for God that the Church of God has ever had, you will find the secret of their power did not lie so much in what they did in the presence of men, as what they did in the presence of God. They waited until they got into touch with the power of God, and then they went forth to do God's work.
Make Prayer the Greatest Business of Your Life
Then there is another word. It is a remarkable word, a delightful word, and the message it brings us is this: Make prayer the great business of your life. The word is a very interesting one. You will find it used in connection with prayer, in Col. 4:2, `Continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving.' This word is used three times in the New Testament, and the various places where it is used throw great light upon it when it is used in connection with prayer. When you turn to Mark 3:9, you will find that the Lord there gave commandment that a little ship should wait upon Him. The word used there is this word I am referring to now. 'And He spake to His disciples that a small ship should wait on Him'. Then in Acts 10:7, you find that Cornelius sent to Peter a devout soldier that waited upon him continually. The word is the same. Then if you turn to Rom. 13:6, you will find there the words Tor this cause ye pay tribute also, for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing;' that is to say, making this administration of justice a chief business of their life.
Now you see how it comes out. When the Lord Jesus gave commandment to the little ship to wait on Him, those in that ship had to make it their great business to wait on the Lord. When Cornelius engaged that devout soldier to wait on him continually, to wait on Cornelius was the first business of that man. When the Emperor of Rome appointed magistrates to administer justice, that was their first business. And if the soldier had said, 'Really, Cornelius, I am very sorry, but I have so much work to do that I cannot wait on you today'. He would have said, 'You have no business to have so much work to do today. Your first business is to wait on me.' Supposing the magistrate were to say, 'My lord, I am so busy, I have to go away and see this friend, and visit that friend, that I cannot attend to the administration of justice.' The Emperor would say, 'Your first business is the administration of justice; you have no right to be too busy, and so omit that.' What does God think of our being so busy that we have not time for prayer? What does God think of our being so eager to get alongside of men, that we are knocking the time out of our days, when we ought to get before God?
Now these are the three words, and I wonder if we have learned them. I have not. As we face these words, do we not feel that we, too, need to come to the Lord Jesus Christ, as the disciples of old came, and say, `Lord, Teach us to pray'? But even after we have learned these three lessons we are only beginning. That is the A B C; for there are riches of teaching in the Bible about prayer that go a long way beyond this.