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A Prayerless Christian

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Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 23, 1857

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 10, No. 12.

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A Prayerless Christian.

“A PRAYERLESS Christian!” These words are contradictory. I do not understand what they mean. I can as easily conceive of a perfect harp without strings, or a flowing fountain without water, or a sun without light, or a living man without a soul, as a Christian without prayer. Doubtless many professed Christians live without prayer.
A Christian without a closet! and who does not pray to his heavenly Father, who seeth in secret! A Christian parent without a family altar! O! do not dream of such a thing; speak not such contradictions. Why, a prayerless parent robs his children of a pious example—robs his own soul of the mercies of God, and robs his Divine Master of the homage of his heart and the obedience of his life. And can a robber be a Christian?
“But do not real Christians sometimes neglect prayer for a season?” I fear they do. This is the reason of the weakness of their faith—the dullness of their religious feelings—the irregularity of their lives. This neglect of prayer among real Christians is the cause of so many “backsliding in heart,” and falling frequently into scandalous sins. I must think that David was neglecting prayer when he indulged in that horrible course of sin which stained his religious character. Peter neglected to “watch and pray,” and fell into the “snare of the Devil.” To attempt to live at all without prayer, is awfully dangerous. A desire to live without prayer, is a convincing evidence that you are either now backsliding, or are not a Christian. In such a desire is the entering in of the enemy. Harbor not the desire then, for one moment; but seek to know what it is to “continue instant in prayer.”
Pious reader, I wish to add the following observations to the foregoing extract, for your consideration:
“I have no time to attend to private prayer, family devotions, or the weekly prayer-meetings.” No time! what, then, becomes of your time? No time to attend to the various duties of prayer, and yet time enough to jest and joke whole hours together! You find time to labor for the “meat that perisheth;” can you find no time to labor for the “meat that endureth to eternal life?” You have time to visit your friends and neighbors, and receive visits from them; have you no time to visit your closet for prayer, nor the weekly prayer-meeting? You spend time in talking politics; have you no time for communing with your heavenly Father in daily supplication? Consider this. Are you really sincere when you say, “I have no time for prayer?” If you are sincere, may a merciful God have pity on you; for you are in fearful danger of losing your soul. If you are not sincere, but only seek an excuse to quiet conscience, and hide your great inconsistency, let me kindly ask you, how dare you utter a deliberate falsehood on so solemn a matter? Look at the unreasonableness of the plea. For what does God allow you time? Certainly not that you should waste it in idleness. If you will you can find time to pray. “Redeem your time;” then you can have leisure to attend to all the duties of prayer. “Gather up the fragments” of your passing hours, and you need never complain for want of time. But if you cannot do otherwise, let company—let the world—let every earthly concern go, rather than rob your soul, and your Redeemer, of time enough to pray.
“But my mind wanders so, I cannot collect my thoughts to pray.” Is it possible? Do you think so little on the importance of prayer—the value of your soul—the duty you owe to God, and the necessity of holiness—as not to be able to collect your thoughts on these great concerns? For your soul’s sake, awake from your deadly slumber, and beseech God to enable you to feel more deeply concerned; then you can fix your anxious heart and wakeful mind on “the one thing needful.” Remember, we begin to be Christians when we begin to pray; and we continue to be Christians only so long as we lead a prayerful life. “Pray or perish,” is the doctrine of the Bible. Pray or backslide, is the testimony of universal experience. Better, infinitely better, suffer martyrdom than cease praying.
“But I have been so unfaithful.” This is much to be lamented. But how will you remedy the evil? You confess your sinful neglect; now forsake the same, and God, who is “faithful and just, will forgive you, and cleanse you from all this unrighteousness.” You never can heal the breach now between your soul and God by continuing your neglect of prayer. Be assured of this; and go penitently to Christ—go now, delay may prove your ruin.
“But my business is of such a nature that I cannot attend regularly to my closet and family devotions.” Serious reader! If this really be the tendency of your worldly occupation, it is a snare to you, and continuance therein is a great offense against God. I advise, persuade you, hereby, to abandon such a calling at once, lest you be “weighed in the balance, and be found wanting” in the last day. Surely you have not forgotten that “you cannot serve God and mammon.” “No man can serve two masters.” Plead not bodily wants; “for they that fear the Lord shall want no good thing.” But perhaps your avocation need not interfere with your duty in respect to private and domestic prayer; nor with the claims of the Church on your time, and attention to her ordinances. It may be that your coldness of heart, and want of spirituality, is the cause of your business seemingly interposing a barrier to your devotional habits. Your calling may be, in itself, lawful; but perhaps you are so intent on accumulating wealth, that your business governs you, and hurries you into forgetfulness of God and religion. If this be true, you lay reproach on your occupation, when you should honestly take the condemnation on yourself. Depend upon it, you will gain nothing by being a slave to your business. Besides, you deprive yourself of the peace of a pure conscience, and the joy and assurance of God’s favor. Take for your motto the holy resolve of a pious mechanic: “The Lord, first, and my customers next.” Place the vast concerns of eternity always before the trivial affairs of time, and your business will be no hindrance to your piety. Meditate on the following portions of the Word of eternal truth: “Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he will give thee the desire of thine heart.” “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” To remove your anxiety and needless fear, hear the Saviour of the world: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” If the second consequence follow, then your love of the world drags you away from the hallowed closet—from the sacred altar of family prayer, and from the holy scenes of the weekly prayer-meeting: ay! drags you away from the cross of Christ to bow at the hellish shrine of mammon. Is it true? Can it be possible that I am addressing an idolater, in the person and character of a professor of the religion of Christ? “Covetousness, which is idolatry,” stamps upon you this heathenish character, if you are a slave to the “love of the world.”
“I cannot enjoy myself in secret prayer,” said an apparently sincere, but really lifeless professor, “and I cannot bear the cross in family prayer; as for the prayer-meeting, I have no delight in it.” I fear this language describes the experience of a numerous class of professors, “who are at ease in Zion.” Indeed, it may be that the very one who now reads this tract, is in such a deplorable situation. Let me reason with you. If you dislike the duty and place of prayer, you dislike Him who enjoined this duty on you. “Why call ye” Christ, “Lord, Lord, and do not the things he says unto you?” “If you love him you will keep his commandments.”
“You cannot enjoy yourself in the closet?” This is because you do not enjoy the Lord there. And you do not enjoy the Lord there because your heart is estranged from him. The closet is the vestibule of heaven, where the Lord comes to give audience to, and commune with his sincere disciples. And if you dislike to meet the Lord of mercy in the closet, how can you expect to meet the judge of all men in the last day? The grand difficulty lies in the wretched state of your heart. Be persuaded, then, by an unknown friend, to “enter into thy closet, and pray to thy Father,” for his forgiving love and regenerating grace; then you will know the heavenly delights of secret prayer.
Why should you shrink back from the cross of family prayer? Surely your duty and eternal welfare require you to bear it. Is it because you live so irreligiously before your family? This, likely, is the true state of the case. If so, immediately confess your fault, to them and God, and reform without delay. Erect this night the altar of domestic prayer, and the blessing and favor of an approving heaven will abide upon you. There is profit as well as pleasure in it. Try it, “for thereby good shall come unto thee.”
Once more: Why is not the social prayer-meeting a delight to you? This is a great question. Let us seek for the true answer. It cannot be the nature or duties of this meeting which render it irksome and unpleasant to you. Nay, friend, the fault is in your spiritual deadness. Perhaps you go to meeting and do not “stir up your heart to take hold on the Lord in prayer.” You indulge in wandering thoughts, and uncharitably sit in judgment on your zealous brethren, and forget that you must pray fervently for a blessing on yourself, before the meeting can be profitable to you, however much others may enjoy it. Is the prayer-meeting cold? Lay not the blame on others. But look to yourself, and plead for the outpouring of the Spirit. You will thus be strengthened and revived, while others will catch the electric flame of love and joy from your heart, and all will be edified. Thus “bear your own burden,” and you will have no want of delight in the exercises of the prayer-meeting.
And now, Christian friend, permit me, in conclusion, to urge upon you the importance of living a life, in all things harmonious to the sentiments involved in your prayers.
When you pray to be “delivered from all evil,” how inconsistent and sinful is it for you to run into all evil. Many pray, “Lord, lead me not into temptation,” then thoughtlessly rush into the “snare of the Devil.” If you expect this prayer to be answered, you must avoid evil of every kind, and never venture on to the ground of the vigilant adversary of souls. Rest assured, if you do not help yourself, the Lord will not help you.
Again: It is common for many professors to pray for light and truth, and yet rarely ever read the Bible—the fountain of light and truth. Such prayer involves the obligation to “Search the Scriptures,” a portion of which should be read every day. It also includes the duty of religious meditation, and an effort to improve the talents given to us. In no other way can this prayer be answered, and we “see light in the Lord’s light,” and know the truth which will sanctify us and make us free.
Furthermore: Many pray the Lord to convert their irreligious friends and neighbors, yet they never recommend religion to them—never warn them of their danger—never invite them to church, and never point them to the Saviour of sinners. Hence their labor in prayer is in vain.
Again: Many pray, “Lord, make me holy,” &c., yet frequently indulge in unholy tempers—sinful words—vain thoughts—neglect many duties, and strive not to keep themselves pure and unspotted from the world. Reader does this meet your case? I pray you, “be not deceived; God is not mocked.” To pray to be saved from all sin involves a cordial hatred of sin, a sincere desire after holiness, a faithful striving to overcome and destroy all impurity. Your prayer will, then be hindered, unless you forsake all sin—secret, social, and public. “If I regard,” that is, cherish, allow, harbor, “iniquity in my heart,” says the Psalmist, “The Lord will not hear me.” To pray for the comfort and quickening influence of the Holy Spirit, and yet refuse to be led by him, but be led by the spirit of pride, ambition, and the spirit of the world, and grieve the good Spirit by levity and selfishness, and yield not to his heavenly promptings, is a great drawback, if not positive obstruction, to the growth of the soul in religion. In the heart of such a professor the Holy Ghost will not dwell.
Christians often ask for blessings which they do not believe, at the time, they will receive. “They receive not, because they ask amiss.” This is but little short of solemn mockery. It is at least a sin of great magnitude; “for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Much is lost in the enjoyment, holi-ness, and power of the church on this very account. Rise, then, against this crippling sin, and put the monster down by a vigorous faith. Do you ask how? View your doubts as traitors and enemies of your soul; struggle courageously against them, and pray daily for, and strive to exercise, an evangelical faith in Jehovah's truth, in Christ's merits, and in the all-sufficiency of saving and supporting grace. When you pray, firmly believe the promise and patiently wait its fulfillment.
Try the three following rules for making all the duties of prayer not only profitable, but delightful:
1. pray frequently. Become familiar with the duty by frequent repetition of it. Make it the religious business of life—a daily exercise. Daniel prayed 'three times a day.' The Psalmist, 'morning, noon, and night.' You have need to pray as often as they did. Indeed, the soul ought to be feasted as often as the body is fed.
2. Pray regularly, that is, statedly. Have your stated seasons for prayer. Irregularity will make any duty, any enterprise, any calling, irksome and repulsive. Experience teaches that regularity, which embraces constancy and perseverance will render that pleasant which was at first barren of interest, and afforded little or no pleasure.
3. And last, but not least, when you pray, seek for holiness, rather than happy feeling. Pray for purity of heart; happiness will follow as a consequence. It is selfish to pray and serve God for happy feelings. Pay, then, more attention to your faith, and the spiritual state of your heart, than to your variable emotions. Do not be struggling and praying to get rid of your trials, but pray for grace meekly and patiently to bear them. Pray to keep a pure conscience, and although 'in the world you may have tribulation, yet in Christ you shall have peace.' I leave you, fellow-pilgrim, by urging you to try the important experiment, remembering that the immortal destiny of your soul hangs on the momentous issue.—Methodist Tract.