2. To be frequently engaged in formal acts of devotion.—(1) No exercise more hallowing and soothing to the soul. (2) None more profitable as procuring blessings. (3) One to which those whose example is recorded gave a prominent place—Job, David, Daniel, Paul, Christ. (4) Morning, evening, intervals, social.
3. To be persevering and importunate in asking particular blessings.—God does not always send sensibly the answer at once. A deeper sense of want may be necessary. A trial of faith, patience, and submissiveness may be expedient. The proper season may not have come. God’s sovereignty must be owned. We ought to assure ourselves that we pray according to God’s will.
II. Enforce the exhortation.—1. Because you are commanded to do so. 2. Because Christ and the Spirit intercede for you. There is no duty for which there is more ample assistance provided. 3. Because of the number and greatness of your wants. It is by faith that we know our wants. Hence the necessity. 4. Because of the exhaustless provision that God has made for you. God acts as God in the provision and in the bestowal. 5. Because of the number of promises not yet fulfilled. To you individually, to the Church, to Christ. 6. Because the season for prayer is speedily hastening away.—Stewart.
Vers. 3, 4. Praying and Preaching.
- The sermon is powerful that is well prayed over (ver. 4).
- A praying preacher uses every available opportunity to proclaim the truth (ver. 3).
- The theme of the preacher becomes more definite and effective by prayer (ver. 3).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Verses 5, 6.
The Wise Conduct of Life.
The Christian lives a dual life: one in spiritual communion with heaven, under the eye of God; the other in daily contact with the outer world, exposed to its observation and criticism. The aspects of the life patent to the world’s gaze do not always correspond with the best impulses of the life concealed; the actual falls short of the ideal. The world forms its judgment of the Christian from what it sees of his outer life and makes no allowance for his unseen struggles after moral perfection and his bitter penitence over conscious failures. Nor can we blame the world for this; the outer life of the believer furnishes the only evidence on which the world can form its estimate, and it is incapable of apprehending and taking into account hidden spiritual causes. The living example of the believer presents the only ideas of Christianity that great numbers have any means of possessing; he is a Christ to them, until they are brought to a clearer knowledge of the true and only Christ. With what wisdom and circumspection should the believer walk toward them that are without!
I. That the conduct of life is to be regulated according to the dictates of the highest wisdom.—1. Religion is a life. “Walk” (ver. 5). A walk implies motion, progression, continual approximation to destination. Our life is a walk; we are perpetually and actively advancing towards our destiny. Religion is not a sentiment, not a round of bewitching ceremonies, not a succession of pleasurable emotions; it is a life. It pervades the whole soul, thrills every nerve, participates in every joy and sorrow, and moulds and inspires the individual character.
2. Religion is a life shaped and controlled by the highest wisdom.—“Walk in wisdom” (ver. 5). Christian conduct is governed by the Spirit of that wisdom which is from above, and under the influence of the knowledge which maketh wise unto salvation (Jas. iii. 17). It is ruled, not by an erratic sentiment or by the wild impulse of a senseless fanaticism, but by a sound understanding and a wise discretion. Its experience and hopes rest upon a basis of truth transcending in certainty, wisdom, and majesty the most imposing speculations of the human mind.