We Must Advance on Our Knees
By W. A. S.
“We must advance on our knees,” cried Neesima, one of the earliest of Japanese Christians, by whom God wrought a noble work. Missionary triumphs have ever been fought out in prayer. Doors have been opened, and barriers as real as the walls of Jericho have fallen down before that weapon, “all-prayer,” which Bunyan’s pilgrim had to wield even more constantly than he handled sword and shield. Now we, with the mightiest work ever given to men, with this very generation only in which to do it, must advance on our knees. The very certainty of the triumph of the message may, if we watch not, lead us to feel that we need only go on in the even tenor of our way, doing what we can and keeping busy in God’s cause, while we wait to see him finish his work. Not so; if we triumph with this message, we must, every soul, know of the labor and the travail by which Heaven is at last to triumph over sin and Satan in this generation, and to win a people from every tribe and tongue. Jesus has laid upon the heart of every believer the burden of this harvest time: “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.” First, let me pass the word on to our fellow workers in other lands. You face the needs daily that wring from your hearts the cry for more help, more laborers to enter the untouched fields where millions upon millions are waiting for us. Let us not look primarily to the Mission Board, or even to the home churches, for the laborers or the means by which to advance the work. Come face to face with God with your burden of need. Lay out the wide-open fields before him. Plead their needs in detail and in definiteness before him, even as Hezekiah spread out Rabshakeh’s letter before the Lord in the temple. Press the need that well-nigh crushes your hearts before the Lord in daily prayer. It is a time when we may expect great things from God, and he wants us to ask for the things we know to be according to his will. And pray that God may roll the burden of the great fields upon hearts in the home churches. Thank God that by prayer you may accomplish definite results in every part of the wide harvest field. Paul was in Asia, hard pressed, almost despairing of life. But the victory came; and he wrote to the church in Corinth, across the waters in Europe, that they had helped him conquer by their prayers to God for him. The Holy Spirit, by whom Paul wrote the letter to the Corinthians, knew exactly how these prayers in Corinth had helped in Asia, accomplishing actual results. As you read reports from the workers in the fields, will you not pray for the workers and the fields by name? Spread the needs before God as Hezekiah did that letter. It was well said that Sir John Patteson gained a great victory in family prayers when he ceased praying for “the absent member of our family,” and began to pray for “John Patteson, missionary bishop,” who later gave his life in the South Sea Islands. Our prayers may easily become general and scattering, whereas the needs we should bear before God are very specific. We are to give the Lord no rest, he tells us, till he makes Jerusalem a praise in all the earth. When Moody went to England, years ago, he found the Cambridge students unapproachable. The wall of indifference was as adamant. He called a meeting of Christian mothers. They spent the time praying specifically for those Cambridge undergraduates. The next day the blessing came, and a great work was done. The China Inland Mission, in its early history, had calls from just seventy places where it seemed the cry for help must be answered. The workers began definitely to pray God to send the workers and the means by which to supply those seventy stations. Within three years seventy-six workers and the necessary means were supplied. Let us pray definitely in behalf of the harvest fields and the workers at home and abroad. We may pray in faith, for the set time is come, and the angel reapers are hovering over the world-wide harvest.