DO NOT FORGET TO PRAY

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 7, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 36.

DO NOT FORGET TO PRAY.

THERE are many who go through the form of prayer, but never pray. Prayer is to them a sort of superstition. If they fail to go through the form of words, they fear that “ill luck” will follow them. In short their prayers are a sort of fetish in which they are trusting, instead of trusting God. Bailey has well said,—

“Prayer is the spirit speaking truth to Truth.”

He who truly prays lays the heart open before God, and the prayer becomes the all-controlling desire of the soul.

That our prayers may be answered—the one desire for which the petition is offered—there are always certain essentials.

1. We must come to God honestly. We can not hide from Him. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked.” Open the whole soul so that the light of God shall penetrate every part. However much we may have endeavored to deceive self, and have deceived self and others, we can not deceive God. Do not attempt it.

2. Let us go to Him with praise and thanksgiving in our heart and upon our lips; not to thank God that we are not as other men are, or for our goodness in any way; but thank God for His goodness and mercy and wisdom and power, and for the love which has placed all these at our service despite our sinfulness, nay, more, because of our sinfulness. The Most High says: “Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me.” Ps. 50: 23.

There is a true philosophy in thus coming to God. He who sees himself in any aspect as the great thing interposes a veil of darkness between himself and God. If he feels that he is about right in himself, his self-righteousness prevents God from helping him; for whatever help he received he would credit to himself, and God can not give His glory to another. If the soul looks upon his own black sins alone, he will come to God discouraged and darkened, and can not see the blessing which Infinite Love holds out to him. But if we see only God’s goodness and power and wisdom pledged to help us because we are unworthy and needy, we will come to the mercy-seat with confidence; we will expect answers to prayer.

3. But with our praise we will come humbly, confessing our sins, acknowledging our utter need. We will keep back nothing. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Surely He can not prove “unfaithful” and “unjust.” If our sins are not forgiven, it is because we still cherish them.

4. For true confession of sin implies the forsaking of sin; and the forsaking of sin means the yielding to obey. He who names his sin before God, and turns from the mercy-seat to indulge the same sin, has never forsaken it, has never truly confessed it. He still loves it, and prefers it to its opposite—obedience to God. Only the willingly obedient may expect answers of blessing and rest. “He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.” We may not have been obedient hitherto; that should not keep us from God. Are we now willing? Have we broken with sin? Is it our will to do His will? If it is, if we choose His way whatever crucifixion to the flesh it may involve, we may know that God will hear, and that He accepts us just as we are, and clothes us with His own robe of righteousness. “This is the will of God, even your sanctification.” “And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us, and if we know that He hear us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.” Then ask, and receive.

5. “But”—for the enemy always suggests “buts”—what of our habits of sins, our continual falling, the impatient disposition, the inherent love of sin, the hardness of heart. Well, God is able to save us from all these. “Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retaineth not His anger forever, because He delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, He will have compassion upon us; He will subdue our iniquities; and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.”

6. But—and it is well to consider this “but”—we cannot expect God to help us to overcome covetousness when we are indulging our covetous disposition. We must yoke up with Him in self-sacrifice and generosity. We must not expect Him to subdue in us the love of stimulants or tobacco when we are feeding the very appetite on food which demands the stimulants. We must not expect Him to subdue our impatience, when, by intemperate work, bad air, and bad diet we are making it impossible for His Spirit to work in us. We must not expect a sensitive conscience and tender heart when we are feeding upon fiction, or neighborhood scandals, or the sensations of the daily press, while we are neglecting prayer and the food of the soul—the Word of God. God sanctifies through His truth received and lived (John 17:17), not slighted and rejected. One class of food means death; the other, means life. We prize eternal life as we regard His Word. Jesus says, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”

7. Pray for the Spirit; “because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us.” “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find. . . . If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? . . . If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” Pray for the Spirit that the hard heart may be softened, that the sin may be burned away, that love for all things good and pure may prevail, that you may seek to do, long to do, love to do, God’s will in all its fulness. God hears; God will answer.