Readings for the Week of Prayer by W. T. Knox

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

Readings for the Week of Prayer

By W. T. Knox

To Be Read in the Churches December 7-14, 1912

The Object of the Week of Prayer

Suggestions Concerning the Meetings

THE week of prayer, according to appointment, is to be held this year December 7-14. During the fall council of the General Conference Committee careful consideration was given to the question of making this season a most profitable one to the denomination, it being recognized by all in attendance that conditions existing both in the denomination and in the world render it most imperative that God’s people must have a much closer relationship to the Lord in order that they may accomplish the sacred work entrusted to them. The following action was taken by the council:—

“1. We need not say that God will not keep that appointment with his people, or that appointment which his people make with him. It is his own commandment to his children to seek His face, and it is his own word that where two or three meet together in his name there he will be in their midst.

“2. Our need demands the seeking of God. We are utterly lost without him. Many of our people are drifting into sin. The spirit of commercialism, pleasure, and worldliness is crowding out the Spirit of God. We are a weak people, and few. Our learning, our wealth, our numbers, our organization, anything that we are of which we fain would boast, commends us not to him; but our great need does appeal to his heart of infinite pity. He asks us to do a great work. His must be the power as is his the glory. Let us ask great things of God; let us expect great things from him.

“3. We need God ourselves to lift the cloud of condemnation, that the sunlight of his love may shine into our sin-cleansed hearts.

“Our families need him. Some of many families are out of God’s ark of safety. Among these may be our own children, our own wives and husbands, our own fathers and mothers, our brethren’s children. Let us seek God for them. It may be the last opportunity for many of us thus to seek him. It may be the last opportunity for many of them to make him their choice.

“Our neighbors need him. Their souls may be demanded of us in the great day of reckoning. Seek God for them.

“The great world needs God, and we are its debtors, debtors to the Jew and the Greek, to the American and the Chinese, to the Japanese and the East Indian. How shall we discharge this awful responsibility to God without his help?

“4. What a demand is all this for separation from sin and separation unto God! What a demand for consecration, whole-hearted consecration of self for the sake of our loved ones, our relatives and neighbors, the world’s burden of dying souls,—a consecration for Christ’s sake.

“5. While our God always hears the sincere prayer of the individual heart, he has ever especially honored with great blessing the united and whole-hearted seeking of Israel. Before united prayer the hosts of Moab and Ammon were overthrown, and the plea for succor was turned into songs of praise. 2 Chronicles 20. Before the earnest pleading with God Sennacherib with his mighty army, despite his proud boasting, was turned back to destruction. 2 Kings 19. By fasting and prayer by the river Ahava, the helpless band of Israelites passed safely through the dreaded land of robbers. Ezra 8. ‘The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him; but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him. So we fasted and besought our God for this; and he was intreated of us.’ It is his word to the remnant, ‘Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, . . . seek righteousness, seek meekness.’

“6. Let us seek God that his exceeding great and precious promises may be fulfilled in us. He waits to be gracious. Do not disappoint him. Let conference officers, union and local, the ‘ministers of our God,’ and church elders unitedly do all in their power to make this week of prayer all that God wishes it to be to his people. ‘Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.’”

That the best results may be obtained from the readings, the elders in charge should make careful selection of the readers, giving ample notice to those chosen, that proper preparation may be made. Upon the first Sabbath, envelopes for the Annual Offering should be distributed to the members, with a statement of the importance of this feature of our work, and an earnest exhortation made for a very liberal offering, which should be taken up at the close of the last Sabbath service.

The growing demands of the field has necessitated a large increase in the appropriations of the Mission Board for 1913, over $525,000 having been appropriated by the committee to meet the most urgent calls. Only the greatest liberality of the people will make these large appropriations possible. We are hoping, therefore, for the largest Annual Offering in our history.

May rich blessings from the God of heaven flow in to his people, and make this week of prayer a most precious season to all. W. T. KNOX.