Many will not be prepared to admit that this is their disease, that they are not living “under grace.” Impossible, they say. “From the depth of my heart,” a Christian cries, “I believe and know that there is no good in me, and that I owe everything to grace alone.” “I have spent my life,” a minister says, “and found my glory in preaching and exalting the doctrines of free grace.” “And I,” a missionary answers, “how could I ever have thought of seeing the heathen saved, if my only confidence had not been in the message I brought, and the power I trusted, of God’s abounding grace.” Surely you cannot say that our failures in prayer, and we sadly confess to them, are owing to our not living “under grace”? This cannot be our disease.
[p86] We know how often a man may be suffering from a disease without knowing it. What he counts a slight ailment turns out to be a dangerous complaint. Do not let us be too sure that we are not, to a large extent, still living “under the law,” while considering ourselves to be living wholly “under grace.” Very frequently the reason of this mistake is the limited meaning attached to the word “grace.” Just as we limit God Himself, by our little or unbelieving thoughts of Him, so we limit His grace at the very moment that we are delighting in terms like the “riches of grace,” “grace exceeding abundant.” Has not the very term, “grace abounding,” from Bunyan’s book downward, been confined to the one great blessed truth of free justification with ever renewed pardon and eternal glory for the vilest of sinners, while the other equally blessed truth of “grace abounding” in sanctification is not fully known. Paul writes: “Much more shall they which receive the abundance of grace reign in life through Jesus Christ.” That reigning in life, as conqueror over sin, is even here on earth. “Where sin abounded” in the heart and life, “grace did abound more exceedingly, that grace might reign through righteousness” in the [p87] whole life and being of the believer. It is of this reign of grace in the soul that Paul asks, “Shall we sin because we are under grace?” and answers, “God forbid.” Grace is not only pardon of, but power over, sin; grace takes the place sin had in the life, and undertakes, as sin had reigned within in the power of death, to reign in the power of Christ’s life. It is of this grace that Christ spoke, “My grace is sufficient for thee,” and Paul answered, “I will glory in my weakness; for, when I am weak, then am I strong.” It is of this grace, which, when we are willing to confess ourselves utterly impotent and helpless, comes in to work all in us, that Paul elsewhere teaches, “God is able to make all grace abound unto you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound unto all good works.”
It has often happened that a seeker after God and salvation has read his Bible long, and yet never seen the truth of a free and full and immediate justification by faith. When once his eyes were opened, and he accepted it, he was amazed to find it everywhere. Even so many believers, who hold the doctrines of free grace as applied to pardon, have never seen its wondrous meaning as it [p88] undertakes to work our whole life in us, and actually give us strength every moment for whatever the Father would have us be and do. When God’s light shines into our heart with this blessed truth, we know what Paul means, “Not I, but the grace of God.” There again you have the twofold Christian life. The one, in which that “Not I”—I am nothing, I can do nothing—has not yet become a reality. The other, when the wondrous exchange has been made, and grace has taken the place of our effort, and we say and know, “I live, yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me.” It may then become a lifelong experience: “The grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant, with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.”
Beloved child of God! what think you, is it not possible that this has been the want in your life, the cause of your failure in prayer? You knew not how grace would enable you to pray, if once the whole life were under its power. You sought by earnest effort to conquer your reluctance or deadness in prayer, but failed. You strove by every motive of shame or love you could think of to stir yourself to it, but it would not help. Is it not worth while asking the Lord whether the message [p89] I bring you as His servant may not be more true for you than you think? Your lack of prayer is owing to a diseased state of life, and the disease is nothing but this—you have not accepted, for daily life and every duty, the full salvation which the word brings: “Ye are not under the law, but under grace.” As universal and deep-reaching as the demand of the law and the reign of sin, yea, more exceeding abundant, is the provision of grace and the power by which it makes us reign in life. ([Note B.])
In the chapter that follows that in which Paul wrote, “Ye are not under the law, but under grace,” he gives us a picture of a believer’s life under law, with the bitter experience in which it ends: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” His answer to the question, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” shows that there is deliverance from a life held captive under evil habits that have been struggled against in vain. That deliverance is by the Holy Spirit giving the full experience of what the life of Christ can work in us: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” The law of God could only deliver us into the power of the law of sin and [p90] death. The grace of God can bring us into, and keep us in, the liberty of the Spirit. We can be made free from the sad life under the power that led us captive, so that we did not what we would. The Spirit of life in Christ can free us from our continual failure in prayer, and enable us in this, too, to walk worthy of the Lord unto all well-pleasing.
Oh! be not hopeless, be not despondent; there is a balm in Gilead; there is a Physician there; there is healing for our sickness. What is impossible with man is possible with God. What you see no possibility of doing, grace will do. Confess the disease; trust the Physician; claim the healing; pray the prayer of faith, “Heal me, and I shall be healed.” You too can become a man of prayer, and pray the effectual prayer that availeth much.[1]
[1] I ought to say, for the encouragement of all, that the gentleman of whom I spoke, at a Convention a fortnight later, saw and claimed the rest of faith in trusting God for all, and a letter from England tells that he has found that His grace is sufficient.