ALONE WITH GOD by Rev. Wm. M. Baker

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 24, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 25.

ALONE WITH GOD.

By Rev. Wm. M. Baker

In every instance the man who prevails in prayer is the man who is alone as he prays with God. Abraham leaves Sarah behind when he pleads with him for Sodom; and if he fails, it is because he ceases to ask before God ceases to grant. Moses is by himself beside the bush in the wilderness. Joshua is alone when Christ comes to him as an armed man. Gideon and Jephthah are by themselves when commissioned to save Israel. Once does Elijah raise a child from the dead, and Elisha does the same, and in each case not even the mothers come in, while the prophet alone with God asks and receives. So of Ezekiel, so of Daniel.

Although others are present, Saul journeying to Damascus is alone with Christ after that he breaks upon him. Cornelius is praying by himself when the angel flashes upon

his solitude; nor is anyone with Peter upon the house top when he prepared to go to the Gentiles for the first time. One John alone in the wilderness, another John is by himself in Patmos when nearest God. It is when under his fig tree in prayer that Jesus sees Nathaniel. All religious biography, our own closet communion and success with God, show what Christ means when, as if it were the only way to pray, he says: "And thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

—Rev. Wm. M. Baker.