PROVE FAITH BY WORKS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jun 28, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 26.

PROVE FAITH BY WORKS.

THE prayer that has weight with God must be prepaid prayer, says the venerable Dr. Cuyler. If we expect a letter to reach its destination, we put a stamp on it; otherwise it goes to the dead-letter office. There is what may be called a dead-prayer office, and thousands of well-worded petitions get buried up there. All of God’s promises have their conditions. No farmer is such an idiot as to look for a crop of wheat unless he has plowed and sowed his fields. In prayer we must first be sure that we are doing our part if we expect God to do His part. When a minister was called on to pray in a missionary convention, he first tossed a coin into the plate, and said, "I can not pray until I have given something." He prepaid his prayer. For the churches in these days to pray, "Thy kingdom come," and then spend more money on jewelry and cigars than in the enterprise of foreign missions, looks almost like a solemn farce. God never defaults, but He requires that we prove our faith by our works, and that we never ask for a blessing we are not ready to labor for.