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The Week of Prayer

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 14, 1912

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 89, No. 46.

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The Week of Prayer

THE week of prayer this year should be a season of great refreshing to the people of God. Our needs as individuals and as a denomination were never so great as at the present time. We can not be content with the same measure of blessing that we enjoyed last year. To advance no farther in our experience than we did then is to retrograde. God’s providences are moving on before us. The demands of his work are increasing. The forces of error arrayed against us are stronger. To meet the demands of the situation to-day requires a deeper consecration, a brighter hope, a stronger faith.
The week of prayer will prove a blessing to the church in proportion as it proves a blessing to the individual members of the church. The church will never be baptized with the Spirit of power in a collective sense. The seal of God will be placed upon the foreheads “of the men that sigh and that cry” over the prevailing iniquity, and who by an application of the blood of Christ to their own hearts and lives cleanse themselves from every taint of the evil influences that surround them. Nor will the blessing be bestowed upon families as such. “Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it [the land], as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.”
Our relationship to Christ is an individual relationship. The Lord looks down from his high and holy habitation and recognizes every heart that is open to receive his blessing, every hand that is stretched out for aid. He will not pass by a single honest, earnest suppliant, no matter where he may live or what may be his name. On the other hand, neither position in the world, office in the church, wealth, education, influence, nor power will bring his blessing to the indifferent. God recognizes in the church no aristocracy, no exclusive classes, no race or color or condition. He “is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.”
The promise, dear reader, is for you, whoever you may be, in whatever lot your life may be cast, however lowly your position. Even if you have wandered into paths of sin and find yourself to-day without God, like the prodigal son, it is your blessed privilege to return. The Father calls you. He comes to meet you with arms outstretched to welcome your return. Accept his loving invitation. Make this season of special prayer a time when you shall give yourself anew to God, and with firm and settled purpose and holy resolve dedicate your life to him for future service.
If you, dear reader, are enjoying to-day the freedom of deliverance from sin, then may Christ roll upon your heart a great longing burden for those who are still in bondage. Seek the outcasts, and reach out after the wandering sheep. Remember especially in your prayers and in your effort those who have once been connected with us as a people, but who have become ensnared, and have fallen into the net of discouragement and sin. Reach out for them and seek to reclaim them through God’s grace. You will find perhaps that the Spirit has preceded your effort in that it has gone before you and prepared these broken, discouraged, longing hearts for the reception of the seed which you may be privileged to sow.
Let all unite in making the coming season the best and most glorious, the most powerful and far reaching in effect, of any season we have ever enjoyed. Expect great things from God, attempt great things for him.