The Power of Prayer.
Blessed Jesus! it is Thou who hast unlocked to Thy people the gates of prayer. Without Thee they must have been shut forever. It was Thy atoning merit on earth that first opened them; it is Thy intercessory work in heaven that keeps them open still.
How unlimited the promise—“Whatsoever ye shall ask!” It is the pledge of all that the needy sinner requires—all that an Omnipotent Saviour can bestow! As the great Steward of the mysteries of grace, He seems to say to His faithful servants, “Take thy bill, and under this, my superscription, write what you please.” And then, when the blank is filled up, he further endorses each petition with the words, “I WILL do it!”
He farther encourages us to ask “in His name.” In the case of an earthly petitioner there are some pleas more influential in obtaining a boon than others. Jesus speaks of this as forming the key to the heart of God. As David loved the helpless cripple of Saul’s house “for Jonathan’s sake,” so will the Father, by virtue of our covenant relationship to the true Jonathan (lit., “the gift of God”), delight in giving us even “exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think.”
Reader, do you know the blessedness of confiding your every want and every care—your every sorrow and every cross—into the ear of the Saviour? He is the “Wonderful Counsellor.” With an exquisitely tender sympathy He can enter into the innermost depths of your need. That need may be great, but the everlasting arms are underneath it all. Think of Him now, at this moment—the great Angel of the Covenant, with the censer full of much incense, in which are placed your feeblest aspirations, your most burdened sighs—the odour-breathing cloud ascending with acceptance before the Father’s throne. The answer may tarry;—these your supplications may seem to be kept long on the wing, hovering around the mercy-seat. A gracious God sometimes sees it meet thus to test the faith and patience of His people. He delights to hear the music of their importunate pleadings—to see them undeterred by difficulties—unrepelled by apparent forgetfulness and neglect. But He will come at last; the pent-up fountain of love and mercy will at length burst out;—the soothing accents will in His own good time be heard, “Be it unto thee according to thy word!”
Soldier of Christ! with all thine other panoply, forget not the “All-prayer.” It is that which keeps bright and shining “the whole armour of God.” While yet out in the night of a dark world—whilst still bivouacking in an enemy’s country—kindle thy watch-fires at the altar of incense. Thou must be Moses, pleading on the Mount, if thou wouldst be Joshua, victorious in the world’s daily battle. Confide thy cause to this waiting Redeemer. Thou canst not weary Him with thine importunity. He delights in hearing. His Father is glorified in giving. The memorable Bethany-utterance remains unaltered and unrepealed—“I knew that Thou hearest me always.” He is still the “Prince that has power with God and prevails”—still He promises and pleads—still He lives and loves!
“I WAIT FOR THE LORD, MY SOUL DOTH WAIT; AND IN HIS WORD DO I HOPE.”