(1) First, as regards God. Nothing can so completely open the channels of communication with Him as an utter abandon of humility in His presence. Scripture is full of the divine teaching on this point. The Holy Spirit declares by the great Prophet of the Incarnation, "Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and lofty place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble."[[3]] St. James declares, "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble;"[[4]] and St. Peter, repeating the same teaching, adds this exhortation, "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time."[[5]]
(2) But not only does this self-abasement in the first moment of temptation bring down new power from God for the struggle, but it has a direct and disastrous effect on Satan. Nothing so completely bewilders him as self-humiliation. He, the very personification of pride, cannot understand how a soul can for a moment so humble itself. He is puzzled, nonplussed. He knows not how to proceed. He thought he understood us; he had studied our lines of defence, and thought he knew just how to approach and break through them; but this unexpected manoeuvre shatters his plan of battle. Many a soul that, in the approach of temptation, has thus flung itself at the feet of God has, while lying there awaiting the divine word, felt the awful sense of the Satanic presence pass, and the sickening tug of temptation cease. The enemy in the face of a situation so far beyond his power of understanding had made haste to withdraw his attack, lest while thus fighting in the dark he should meet still more humiliating defeat.
III. Instant in Prayer
The humble soul is always the praying soul. The soul that realizes its dependence will lose no time in calling upon Him on Whom it leans, and this earnest prayer is the weapon in the warfare, without which certain overthrow must ensue.
As in the case of humbling ourselves, the use of this weapon is to be considered in its relation both to God and to Satan.
(1) Its relation to God. We know that prayer for help must of necessity bring help, because the divine promise is given and repeated a hundred times in Holy Scripture, that the Lord will hear us in the day of trouble.[[6]] It is needless to multiply texts. One word of God the Eternal Son suffices, "And shall not God avenge His own elect which cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them? I tell you He will avenge them speedily."[[7]]
Impossible as it may seem, the prayer of the humble heart can command the very Godhead. Ascending to the throne of grace in union with the intercession of Christ, the cry of the hard-pressed child of God has power to liberate the divine Omnipotence, and set in motion all the infinite energies of the kingdom which come forth in their unconquerable might to wage war on our behalf.
This power that the praying soul has over God (we dare use such an expression with entire freedom) is one of the mysteries of our union with Him, and since He has given us so repeated a revelation of it, we can expect nothing of Him if we neglect it.
One or two Scripture passages will make this clear to us. When Israel rebelled and Moses prayed for them, God's answer was, "Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them."[[8]] Why should the Omnipotent One have spoken thus since none is able to hinder Him or bind His hands? The Holy Ghost, speaking by the Psalmist ages after, gives us the meaning when He says: "He said He would have destroyed them had not Moses, His chosen, stood before Him in the gap."[[9]] The wrath of God was paralysed in the face of the prayer of the Saint.
Isaiah, sounding his lament over the lost condition of Israel, says, "There is none that calleth upon Thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee."[[10]] The Hebrew tongue affords us no stronger expression than that which the Spirit here inspired the prophet to use. The meaning is, to lay, as it were, violent hands upon God, by means of prayer, and with a holy audacity to hold Him back from launching the thunderbolt of His wrath against the apostate nation. The expression "stirreth up himself" indicates by a bold rhetorical stroke the power which the prophet knew such a one would have if he could be found among the sons of Israel. When used in the Old Testament it invariably implies the arousing of some mighty force, which when once awakened would sweep all before it, as when Balaam prophesied concerning Israel, "He couched, he lay down as a lion, as a great lion; who shall stir him up?"[[11]]