Is There Need of Prayer?
By Allen Moon
Is there apparent reason for special prayer at this time? In propounding this question, it is not the intention to express a doubt. One way to find an answer to this question is for each individual to enter his closet, and there before God ask himself several questions. The following are merely suggestive: Am I walking in all the light of God? Has the world less hold on me than it had a year ago? Do I love the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ? Am I growing in love for mankind, notwithstanding the fact that wickedness abounds everywhere? Am I filled with longing to be instrumental in the hands of the Lord in saving souls in the kingdom of God? We may come a little nearer home and ask: Have I that abiding peace in my heart that is the result of a consciousness of sins forgiven, of having faithfully performed the will of God concerning me? Have I performed all that the Lord has enjoined upon me? When we have answered these questions, and many others not mentioned, we can then answer the query, Is there need of prayer? After we have finished this personal work, we may then take a more extended view, and try, if we can, to solve these problems: Is the world growing better? Has there been a diminution of labor troubles the past12year, to remind us that the judgments of God are in the earth? Are the nations less angry, and is there evidence that strife is about to cease among nations, in order that God's people may have a peaceful time and many years in which to accomplish the work of warning the nations? Or is the contrary the fact? Have we discovered a new page of prophecy that proclaims the coming of the Lord delayed? If not, why this hesitancy on our part? Again, do we find peace and harmony in the ranks of the professed people of God? Is there no root of bitterness, no discordant note? Is the church rising higher and yet higher in faith, in love to God, in hope of the soon-coming Saviour, in brotherly love and love for lost mankind? Has she overridden every obstacle the enemy could place in her way, and is she now prepared to move on triumphantly to the ends of the earth, proclaiming to saint and sinner the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, until “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations,” and the end shall come? If we can answer all these satisfactorily, there is perhaps no need for a special season of prayer; but if not, is it not a fact that the more such seasons we can have, the better, until the church does reach the high plane marked out for her in the Holy Word? The Lord has not forsaken his people. On his side the picture is a bright one. He is only waiting for his people to get ready, and the ark will move, attended by the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. O that the coming season of prayer might be a joyful one!