Asking and Commanding
‘‘Say what is Prayer, when it is Prayer indeed?
The mighty utterance of a mighty need.
The man is praying, who doth press with might
Out of his darkness into God’s own light.”
TRENCH.
ISAIAH xlv. 11.)
N exquisite image stands like an initial letter at the beginning of the paragraph of which these words form part. To the eye of the seer the earth lies open to heaven as a wide corn-land over which the clouds of heaven hang, the air breathes, and the sun sheds sheets of light. Those clouds are big with righteousness, the special term used throughout this book of the faithfulness of Jehovah. At the call of prayer the skies pour down their precious treasure, and the earth opens every pore to receive the plentiful rain; presently, every acre brings forth salvation, and righteousness springs up in the hearts of men, as their answer to the descent of the righteousness of God. It is the bridal of heaven and earth, a fulfilment of the prediction of the psalm — “Truth springeth out of the earth; and righteousness hath looked down from heaven.”
The conception is one of surpassing beauty. The brooding of heaven; the response of earth. Deep calling unto deep. The nature of God originating and inspiring; the nature of man responding. And when the descending grace of God is thus received by the believing yearning heart of man, the result is salvation. As the margin of R.V. reads: “Let the skies be fruitful in salvation, and let the earth cause righteousness to spring up together.” The whole paragraph to the close of the chapter rings with salvation as its keynote. Does God hide Himself? He is the God of Israel, the Saviour.
SOR
Are the makers of idols ashamed and confounded? Yet Israel is saved with an everlasting salvation. Are graven images held up to contempt? It is because they are gods that cannot save. Does God assert his unrivalled Deity? It is because He is a just God, and a Saviour. Are men bidden to look to Him, though they be far removed as the ends of the earth? It is that they may be saved..
Primarily, no doubt, this salvation concerns the emancipation of the chosen people from the thraldom of Babylon, and their restoration to Jerusalem. “He shall build my city; he shall let my exiles go free, not for price nor reward, saith the Lord of Hosts.” This deliverance, which is a type of the greater deliverance from the guilt and power of sin, was, in the fixed purpose of God, sure as the creation of the earth and man; guaranteed by the hands that stretched out the heavens, and by the word that commanded all their host. As certainly as God was God, He would bring his people again to the land which He gave to their fathers to inherit.
But now, side by side with this avowal of the Divine determination, this strange command breaks in, the importance of which is accentuated by the threefold description of the speaker. “The LORD” — that is, God in his everlasting redemptive purpose; “the Holy One of Israel” — that is, the moral perfections of Israel’s God, as contrasted with the abominations perpetrated under the sanction of heathen religions; “his Maker” — suggesting the purpose which from the clay, gathered in Abraham’s time from the highlands of Mesopotamia, was fashioning a fair vessel meet fer His use, This threefold description of God introduces the august command which bade the people seek by prayer the fulfilment of the purpose on which the Divine heart was set.
In launching an ironclad, the pressure of a baby’s finger is not infrequently required to put in operation the ponderous machinery by which the iron leviathan glides evenly and majestically on to the ocean wave. So, if we may dare to say it, all the purposes of God, and the providential machinery by which they were to be executed, stood in suspense until the chosen people had asked for the things which He had
72. Asking and Commanding.
promised, and had even commanded Him concerning the work on which his heart was set. The victorious career of Cyrus; the dissatisfaction of the priestly caste with the king of Babylon; the evident signs of the disruption of the mighty empire; the near completion of the seventy years, foretold by Jeremiah — all were in vain, unless, like Daniel, the people set their face unto the Lord God, to seek the fulfilment of his word, by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes (Dan. ix. 3).
I. PRAYER IS A NECESSARY LINK IN THE PERFORMANCE OF THE DIVINE PRomIsEs. — -“Ask Me of things to come.” God is always saying, “Ask, seek, knock.” Even to the Son, Jehovah says, “Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” And to the chosen people, at the end of a paragraph begemmed with “TI wills,” and unfolding the work which He is prepared to do — not for their sakes, but for his own — He says, “For this, moreover, will I be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.” Our Lord is unremitting in the stress He lays on prayer, and pledges Himself to do
only whatsoever is asked in his name. The apostle James insists that one reason why we have not, is that we ask not (Psa. ii. 8; Ezek. xxxvi. 37; John xiv. 13; James iv. 2).
The declaration of our text is therefore supported by a wealth of Scripture testimony for the necessity of prayer, as a link in the accomplishment of the Divine purpose.
(1) Prayer is part of the system of co-operation between God and man, which pervades nature and life. No crop waves over the autumn field, no loaf stands on our breakfast-table, no metal performs its useful service, no jewel sparkles on the brow of beauty, no coal burns in hearth or furnace — which does not witness to this dual workmanship of God and man. So in the spiritual world, there must be co-operation, though on the part of man it is often limited to prayers, which may seem faint and feeble, but which touch the secret springs of Deity; as the last pick of the miner may break open a fountain. of oil, or a cavern set with dazzling jewels, (2) Prayer, when genuine, indicates the presence of a disposition to which God can entrust his best gifts without injury to the recipient. To bless some men, apart from humility, and submission, and weanedness of soul from creature aid, would only injure. And so, in his dear love, God withholds his choicest gifts until the heart is sore broken, and cries to Him. That cry is the blessed symptom of soul-health. Like the sneeze of the child on which the prophet stretched himself, it indicates returning life; and such a temper of heart as may receive, without danger, blessings whose height was never reached by the majestic flight of eagle, and whose depths are beyond the fathoming line of the profoundest thought.
(3) Prayer is also in its essence, when inspired by faith, an openness towards God, a receptiveness, a faculty of apprehending with open hand what He would impart. Standing upon His promises, the suppliant cries to the heavens to drop down their blessings; whilst heart, and hands, and mouth are open wide to be filled with good. Therefore, let us pray.
Let us pray wuztedly. God loves the gates of Zion where the throngs gather, more than the dwellings of Jacob where single families join in prayer. He would be inquired of by the house of Israel. If, when a petition is being prepared by a community to the sovereign, only two or three put their hands to it, it is set aside as undeserving of attention. And what does God think of the earnestness of his people for the realization of his promises when only two or three gather in the place of prayer?
Let us pray sympathetically. The gathering for prayer must not be of bodies only, but of souls. When one prays audibly, all should pray silently. A prayer offered in the presence of others should receive their endorsement. Soliloquy, disputation, enforcement of some special view of truth, are out of place in the offerer of prayer; whilst listlessness, wandering thought, and the mere attitude of attention, are out of place in those who, with bowed forms and covered faces, assume the posture of devotion.
Let us pray earnestly. Prayer is measured, not by length, but by strength. The Divine gauge of the worth of. prayer is its pressure on the heart of God. The lock of prayer sometimes goes hard, and calls for strength of purpose. The Kingdom of Heaven has to be taken by force. There is such a thing as labouring and striving in prayer. Thus Jesus prayed in the garden; and Daniel in Babylon; and Epaphras in Paul’s hired house. Such were the prayers offered of old in the catacombs as the torchlight flickered; in Alpine caves where Waldenses cowered; on hillsides where the Covenanters sheltered under the cliffs. Let us pray so that our prayers may reverberate with repeated blows on the gates of God’s presence- - chamber, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.” Let us pray, remembering that everything depends on the gracious promise of God, but as if the answer depended on the strength and tenacity of our entreaty.
Let us pray in the name of Jesus. It is possible to be so absorbed in the cause of our Lord, to be so eaten up with the zeal of his house, so one with Him, that his interests and ours become identical. Then, when we pray, it is almost as though the Son were addressing the Father through our lips, and pouring forth a stream of intercession and petition by us. This is what He meant when He repeatedly insisted on our praying in his name. The filial spirit, that looks into the face of God, and says, “Father”; the unselfish spirit, which is quite prepared to renounce all if only God is exalted; the loving spirit, which has its centre in the interests of its Lord — all this is comprehended in the prayer we offer in the name of Jesus. And when we pray thus, we secure the accomplishment of the things to come which God has promised.
IJ. THE IMPERATIVE ACCENT IN FAITH. — “Concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands, command ye Me.” Our Lord spoke in this tone when He said, “Father, I will.” Joshua used it, when in the supreme moment of triumph, he lifted up his spear towards the setting sun, and cried, “Sun, stand thou still!” Elijah used it, when he shut the heaven for three years and six months, and again opened it. Luther used it, when, kneeling by the dying Melanchthon, he forbade death to take his prey.
It is a marvellous relationship into which God bids us enter. We are accustomed to obey Him. We are familiar with words like those which follow in this paragraph: “I, even My hands have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.” But that God should invite us to command Him! This is a change in relationship which is altogether startling. But there is no doubt as to the literal force of these words. With the single limitation that our biddings must concern his sons, and the work of his hands, and must be included in his word of promise, Jehovah says to us, his redeemed children in Jesus Christ, “Command ye Me!”
What a difference there is between this attitude and the hesitating, halting, unbelieving prayers to which we are accustomed, and which by their perpetual repetition lose edge and point! We do not expect that God will answer them now and here; but some day, on the far horizon of time, we imagine that they may achieve something, as waters, by continual lapping, wear a channel through the rocks.
How often during his earthly life did Jesus put men into a position to command Him! When entering Jericho, He stood still, and said to the blind beggars, ‘‘ What will ye that I should do unto you?” It was as though He said, I am yours to command. And can we ever forget how He yielded to the Syrophoenician woman the key to his resources, and told her to help herself even as she would? Long familiarity with Him even affected the speech of the apostles; for in their Spirit-inspired prayers we can detect this same tone of command, “And now, Lord, look upon their threatenings; and grant unto thy servants to speak thy word with all boldness.”
What mortal mind can realize the full magnificence of the position to which our God lovingly raises his little children? He seems to set them beside Himself on his throne, and says, while the fire of his Spirit is searching and ridding them of sordid and selfish desire, “All my resources are at your command, to accomplish anything which you have set your hearts upon. Whatsoever ye shall ask, that will I do.”
76 Asking and Commanding.
The world is full of mighty forces which are labouring for our weal. Light, that draws our pictures for us; magnetism, that carries our messages; heat, that labours in our locomotives and foundries; nitrogen, that blasts the rocks — these and many more. So much is this the age of machinery and contrivance, that the physical faculties of civilized races are deteriorating through disuse. Man is becoming increasingly proficient in the art of controlling the mighty forces of the universe, and yoking them to the triumphal car of his progress. Thus his old supremacy over the world is being in a measure restored to him.
How is it that these great natural forces — which are manifestations of the power of God — so absolutely obey man? Is it not because, since the days of Bacon, man has so diligently studied, and so absolutely obeyed, the conditions under which they work? ‘“Obey the law of a force, and the force will obey you,” is almost an axiom in physics. If you will study, for instance, the laws of electricity, and carefully obey them, laying down the level track along which its energy may proceed, you can lead the stream whither you choose, and make it do whatever you appoint. All that is required from you is exact compliance with the requirements of its nature. So God gives the Holy Spirit to them that obey Him.
All the resources of God dwell bodily in the risen and glorified Lord. They are imparted to us through the communion of the Holy Spirit, who goes between the unsearchable riches of Christ and our poverty; bringing the one to the other, as the ocean brings the wealth of the world up to the wharves of London or New York. We have then to deal with the Holy Spirit, to study the methods of his operation — what hinders or helps, what accelerates or retards. Obey Him, and He pours such mighty energy into and through the spirit, that men are amazed at the prodigality of its supply; resist or thwart Him, and He retires from the spirit, leaving it to struggle as best it may with its difficulties and trials.
Yield thyself to God, O soul of man! Whatsoever He saith unto thee, do it. Be careful, even to punctiliousness, in thine obedience, Let God have his way with thee. In proportion as thou wilt yield to God, thou shalt have power with God. The more absolutely thou art a man under authority to the Commander-in-chief, the more thou shalt be able to say to this and the’other of his resources, Go, or Come, or Do this. God will be able to trust thee and give thee his key, bidding thee help thyself. Thou wilt be admitted to terms of such intimacy with God, that thou shalt hear Him bidding thee command Him. And, whilst never forgetting the reverence that becomes a subject, and the attitude that befits a saved sinner, thou shalt speak with Him concerning his sons and concerning the work of his hands.
But after our greatest deeds of prayer and faith, we shall ever lie low before God; as Elijah did, who, after calling fire from heaven, prostrated himself on the ground, with his face between his knees. The mightiest angels of God’s presence-chamber bend the lowest; the holiest souls present perpetually the sacrifice of the broken and contrite spirit; the power to move the arm that moves the world is wielded by those who can most humbly adopt the confesssion, “I am a worm, and no man.”