God seeks intercessors.—Though God had His appointed servants in Israel, watchmen set by Himself to cry to Him day and night and give Him no rest, He often had to wonder and complain that there was no intercessor, none to stir himself up to take hold of His strength. And He still waits and wonders in our day, that there are not more intercessors, that all His children do not give themselves to this highest and holiest work, that many of them who do so, do not engage in it more intensely and perseveringly. He wonders to find ministers of His gospel complaining that their duties do not allow them to find time for this, which He counts their first, their highest, their most delightful, their alone effective work. He wonders to find His sons and daughters, who have forsaken home and friends for His sake and the gospel’s, come so short in what He meant to be their abiding strength—receiving day by day all they needed to impart to the dark heathen. He wonders to find multitudes of His children who have hardly any conception of what intercession is. He wonders to find multitudes more who have learned that it [p176] is their duty, and seek to obey it, but confess that they know but little of taking hold upon God or prevailing with Him.
God seeks intercessors.—He longs to dispense larger blessings. He longs to reveal His power and glory as God, His saving love, more abundantly. He seeks intercessors in larger number, in greater power, to prepare the way of the Lord. He seeks them. Where could He seek them but in His Church? And how does He expect to find them? He intrusted to His Church the task of telling of their Lord’s need, the task of encouraging and training, and preparing them for His holy service. And He ever comes again, seeking fruit, seeking intercessors. In His Word He has spoken of the “widows indeed, who trust in God, and continue in supplication night and day.” He looks if the Church is training the great army of aged men and women, whose time of outward work is past, but who can strengthen the army of the “elect, who cry to Him day and night.” He looks to the great host of the Christian Endeavour, the three or four million of young lives that have given themselves away in the solemn pledge, “I promise the Lord Jesus Christ that I will strive to do whatever He [p177] would like to have me do,” and wonders how many are being trained to pass from the brightness of the weekly prayer-meeting and its confession of loyalty, to swell the secret intercession that is to save souls. He looks to the thousands of young men and young women in training for the work of ministry and mission, and gazes longingly to see if the Church is teaching them that intercession, power with God, must be their first care, and in seeking to train and help them to it. He looks to see whether ministers and missionaries are understanding their opportunity, and labouring to train the believers of their congregation into those who can “help together” by their prayer, and can “strive with them in their prayers.” As Christ seeks the lost sheep until He find it, Gods seeks intercessors. ([Note F.])
God seeks intercessors.—He will not, He cannot, take the work out of the hands of His Church. And so He comes, calling and pleading in many ways. Now by a man whom He raises up to live a life of faith in His service, and to prove how actually and abundantly He answers prayer. Then by the story of a church which makes prayer for souls its starting-point, and bears testimony to [p178] God’s faithfulness. Sometimes in a mission which proves how special prayer can meet special need, and bring down the power of the Spirit. And sometimes again by a season of revival coming in answer to united urgent supplication. In these and many other ways God is showing us what intercession can do, and beseeching us to waken up and train His great host to be, every one, a people of intercessors.
God seeks intercessors.—He sends His servants out to call them. Let ministers make this a part of their duty. Let them make their church a training school of intercession. Give the people definite objects for prayer. Encourage them to take a definite time to it, if it were only ten minutes every day. Help them to understand the boldness they may use with God. Teach them to expect and look out for answers. Show them what it is first to pray and get an answer in secret, and then carry the answer and impart the blessing. Tell everyone who is master of his own time that he is as the angels, free to tarry before the throne and then go out and minister to the heirs of salvation. Sound out the blessed tidings that this honour is for all God’s people. There is no [p179] difference. That servant girl, this day labourer, that bedridden invalid, this daughter in her mother’s home, these men and young men in business—all are called, all, all are needed. God seeks intercessors.
God seeks intercessors.—As ministers take up the work of finding and training them it will urge themselves to pray more. Christ gave Paul to be a pattern of His grace before He made him a preacher of it. It has been well said, “The first duty of a clergyman is humbly to beg of God that all he would have done in his people may be first truly and fully done in himself.” The effort to bring this message of God may cause much heart-searching and humiliation. All the better. The best practice in doing a thing is helping others to do it. O ye servants of Christ, set as watchmen to cry to God day and night, let us awake to our holy calling. Let us believe in the power of intercession. Let us practise it. Let us seek on behalf of our people to get from God Himself the Spirit and the Life we preach. With our spirit and life given up to God in intercession, the Spirit and Life that God gives them through us cannot fail to be the Life of Intercession too.
[p180] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
CHAPTER XV
[Contents]
“Wilt Thou not revive us again: that Thy people may rejoice in Thee?”—Ps. lxxxv. 6.
“O Lord, revive Thy work in the midst of the years.”—Hab. iii. 2.