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CEASELESS PRAYER AGAIN

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 14, 1867

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 29, No. 23.

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CEASELESS PRAYER AGAIN.

By C. Monroe

“MEN ought always to pray, and not to faint.” “Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” Luke xviii, 1, 1 Thess. v, 17, 18.
The duty of prayer is acknowledged by all the children of God. Like Jacob’s ladder, “it points our ready path to Heaven.” The most eminently pious are the most prayerful. David, Daniel, and Luther, were eminent for prayer. They all prayed thrice a day. The latter spent three hours each day in prayer. The two former, probably, not less. Whitfield, it is said, “read the whole Bible on his bended knees!” in prayer of course—a reverence, a love of God and his word, seldom found!
“Who that knows the worth of prayer, But wishes to be often there?”
Many, in public and private do it by reading set forms; or, like children, commit and say their prayers, but do not pray. They may have an excellent form and say it fluently, as the writer has witnessed, sitting, or pharisaically standing instead of kneeling, betraying a want of heart, reverence and humility. Are not such prayers an “abomination to the Lord”? Prov. xv. 8.
“My house,” says God, “shall be called a house of prayer for all people.” Isa. lvi, 7. Mark xi, 17. This harmonizes with our subject; and we may always know where to find the God of prayer. Poor, sinful mortals, as we all are, feeling our weakness, dependence, emptiness and poverty, what a consolation it is to know there is a God, so great, so good, who careth for us; to whom we may always go with unsuspecting confidence and unbosom our souls, and obtain mercy and pardon for all our numerous sins. Blessed are all who thus feel and go in time to this glorious God for help. Woe to all who stay away! They must forever die!
Prayer, therefore, is not merely a duty, but a privilege, a pleasure, a feast of the sweetest, richest kind! But to whom? To all? By no means. It is only so to the real, faithful Christian, not the hypocrite, the pretender. Why then does he pray at all? For two reasons, mainly: 1. To be seen of men. Matt. vi. 5. To gain their applause, to be esteemed righteous. 2. To quiet conscience,—thinking, perhaps, without it he will not be saved! Thus making a saviour, as it were, of his prayers! And yet he has no delight in secret prayer!
On the other hand, sweet and delightful as is all prayer to the real Christian, how does he regard his prayers and all his religious services? Totally worthless, but as they are purged in the blood of Christ! Strange language to the hypocrite! Hence the true Christian, instead of making any or all his religious duties a saviour, renounces all merit in them; and in life or death, casts his naked soul upon the naked mercy of God in Christ, as the sole ground of his hope of life eternal, beyond the grave.
Distaste for prayer betrays a want of love to God, for if we love him we shall delight in his company—the more, the better. The same of earthly friendship. He that loves a fellow-mortal delights in his society. The more and better he loves, the more and better he delights in his company. This is plain, a rule without an exception. If we love God as we should, most and best of all, we shall delight in his company most and best of all, and ceaseless prayer will prove no task or burden. It is not simply the duty of prayer itself, therefore, but perpetual, persevering prayer, as founded on the above texts, that now claims our attention.
Prayer may be silent or vocal, but more properly the latter, petitions put up to God, in the name of Jesus. And as to “ceaseless prayer” common sense seems to be all the interpreter necessary. It is not, cannot be a perpetual use of words, nor the consumption of all our time. No; for it is well known that we have many other duties, both for the tongue and the use of time, that need not be mentioned.
Hence, ceaseless prayer is a regular, prompt, persevering habit of prayer, in private or public, as the case may be, on all proper occasions, at home or abroad. To this end, our hearts should be like a well-tuned instrument of music, or like a well-fledged bird, ready for use or flight each moment of time. Thus it should be with every gospel minister,—ready for every good word and work.
Again, The call of Abram to leave Ur in Chaldea, his native place, his travel toward Canaan, his new name, and offering his beloved son Isaac, are typical of the travels and trials of the church of which he, in a sense, was the father. Gal. iii, 7, 29. Abraham was a stranger and a pilgrim to a “city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” Heb. xi, 10. Yes, a traveler going home. So are all Christians, bound to the heavenly Canaan. But what has this to do with ceaseless prayer? Let us see. The Christian is a traveler. His journey, as such, begins at conversion, and ends at death, or at the second advent of our Lord. Here, like Lot at the call of God, he leaves the Sodom of this world and flees the wrath to come.
Journeys, long ones especially, are attended with many trials, among which are dust and dirt. Neat and clean as the traveler may be at the outset, he does not long remain so. No; his road is dusty. The moment he starts a gust may fill his eyes; if not, dust begins to settle upon him as he advances. Hence he must wash and brush. This is an every-day work. Such is the journey of the Christian. He has also a dusty road to travel, very, very dirty,—the road of a sinful, wicked world,—polluted and polluting. What is to be done? Wash and be clean. But where? and how? The closet is his inn, his dressing-room. Here he must use the brush of prayer, the water of purification, wash and be clean. In either case it is an every-day work; and cannot safely be neglected.
The Christian, therefore, must be careful not to lose, or let the key of his closet grow rusty, for want of use; also not to let the grass grow in his path of retirement, betraying his lack of constancy in visiting the bower of prayer. No a rusty key is not so easily turned, or lost key found; neither is a path swamped with weeds, or briars, so easily kept, or traveled. Punctuality will make both easy.
Moreover, friends sometimes are so long separated that when they meet they meet as strangers. They do not recognize each other they are so altered in looks, and language. Of course there is no gladness, no rejoicing, for the time being. Thus it may be with us and our Saviour. We may so long neglect our closets, that when we meet, if ever we do, we meet as aliens. We know not Jesus, or ourselves, properly speaking; neither does he know us, favorably. Hence, the felicity of former interviews is gone. Will it ever return? Not with all, perhaps. A real Christian may for a time neglect his closet at much cost; and yet by repentance and new obedience, be taken into lasting love and fellowship again; but such an experiment is hazardous in the extreme; for if we depart from the Lord he may depart from us, not to return. Then, woe to us. Hos. ix, 12.
The true Christian having well begun his journey, should “hold on his way,” Job. xvii, 9, to the end. Rev. ii, 10. Here is the proof of being true and faithful, “If ye continue in my word,” said Jesus, “then are ye my disciples indeed.” Having formed an acquaintance with Jesus, the Christian is to hold on and become more and better acquainted with him, growing in grace and in the knowledge of that blessed One continually, that when he meets him in the Heavens he may know him at once, take him, as it were, by the hand and embrace him. To forget him here is to be forgotten by him hereafter. Oh! how perilous! He claims that he should be in all our thoughts. This is in keeping with our subject. God is the last, of all to be forgotten. How can we forget him in whom we live, move, and have our being, the giver of every good and perfect gift?
Again. In a world like this, so full of enemies, pits and snares, the Christian traveler can not be too careful, watchful and prayerful. He should be wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove, picking his way the best he can lest he be ensnared or perish in the wilderness!
Travelers are sometimes annoyed by characters of the baser sort soiling their garments, being themselves covered, dirt-proof, so that an attempt to hurl it back upon them would be their sport. None but a fool would stop to do this, for common sense would not sink itself, to battle with them. It would leave them at once, victors to their own liking, seeing they could injure him, but not be them. Unequal contest.
So with moral travelers, the righteous and the wicked, going different ways, as seen in Matt. vii, 13, of sin and holiness. It is plain the former can pollute and injure the latter, but not the latter the former. Sin is itself ruin. It can, it has ruined much good; but sin, in character, can be made neither better nor worse. Thus, it has nothing to win or lose in this respect. It risks nothing in battle.
The natural man having much sin and no holiness in his heart, has no internal conflict, being left in possession of the former alone, there is nothing of the latter to dispute its claims. Hence, he knows nothing of internal conflicts, the holy war within. Ps. lxxiii, 5. Of this war, the apostle Paul knew much, as seen in Rom. vii, but he fought his way through, finished his course, and kept the faith, thus securing the victor’s crown.
As the Christian traveler nears his journey’s end—his home—he is more and more particular to be found in the “wedding garment,” neat and clean. How particular is the fop, the dandy, the votaries of fashion, when going to an assembly, or to see and be seen of a prince or princess, to appear in appropriate neatness and elegance. What, then, of the Christian gentleman or lady, who is going to join the general assembly and church of the first-born in Heaven, to see God, the Judge of all, who is of purer eyes than to behold evil, or look on iniquity? Surely, as a member of that church that is to appear in the heavenly Jerusalem, “without spot, wrinkle, or any such thing,” he or she must be like their God—pure, holy—washed in their Saviour’s blood and made whiter than snow. Eph. v, 27.
Are all thus particular who bear the Christian name, anxious to be found of God in peace, in garments white and clean, so made by the blood of the Lamb? No, alas! how many there are, ministers not excepted, who neglect their closets, join with unbelievers and worldlings, and walk with them, hand in hand, tittering and laughing, to the circus, theater, or the ballroom, as the case may be. This is seen more in cities and large towns than elsewhere, and the serious Christian is an awful sight indeed, one of the “signs of woe, that all is lost!” No good is said of the worldly, prayerless, laughing Christian. See Luke vi, 25; Rom. xii, 2. A spirit of levity is not the spirit of Christ. No. His was a spirit of prayer, purity, seriousness. He was seen often to weep, never to laugh! He could not laugh in the face of poor sinners doomed to die. Oh! how the heart of the serious Christian sickens and sinks within him, to witness such levity as he everywhere sees, especially among worldly, graceless professors, deeply covered with the dust of sin, yet manifesting no uneasiness about it, or desire to wash and be clean. Is not this proof enough that such have not the spirit of Christ? Where that spirit is, it operates as Christ did in the temple at Jerusalem. John ii, 15. It will make a clean sweep of the temple of the heart, all its idols and pollutions.
Such professors must meet with a woeful disappointment of salvation! The number will not be few. “Many,” says Christ, “will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord,” &c. “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Matt. vii, 21–23. “Lord, is it I?” Let the question search us through and through before it is too late! “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me; and lead me in the way everlasting.” Ps. cxxxix, 23, 24.
In conclusion, dear brethren and sisters, are we in full dress to meet our King? He will soon be here. Are our garments white and clean? If so, happy souls! we pass from death to life and immortality! If in rags of filth our doom is death, death eternal! If white and clean, ripe and ready, faith will end in sight, hope in fruition, and ceaseless prayer in ceaseless praise.
C. MONROE.
Waldo, Me.