God Our Contemporary

“Men ought always to pray and not to faint.”

luke xviii. I.

That word was spoken when the Master’s noontide was already past. The shadows were lengthening upon the way, and some of the Lord’s sayings breathed the air of coming night. The road was heavy with deepening gloom, and now and again in the windings one caught the glimpse of a cross. The disciples were startled into confusion. The happenings ran athwart all their expectations. The things which the Master was speaking about were a brutal defiance of their fondest hopes. They had been looking for a golden harvest, and now the snow was falling. They had been eagerly anticipating the gaily coloured dignities of dominion, and their eyes were now turned upon the black trappings of defeat. They had been stepping forward to a kingdom, and to the shared sovereignties of a throne, and now a scaffold begins to loom at the end of the road. And so their minds were all at •sixes and sevens. They were torn with uncertainties. They were distracted with doubt. Fear, too, came into their hearts with chilling menace. And some of them were tempted to retreat. Others became weary and heavy in their goings. Others again began to faint.

And in our Scriptural passage we have one of the Lord’s specifics which is to be used against the assault of circumstances, and the threat of impending doom. What is this specific which makes one master of the changing way? “Men ought always to pray and not to faint.” The guiding word may mean that men are always to pray and never to faint in prayer. Or it may mean that men ought always to pray and they would never faint even when antagonisms rear themselves like awful mountain ranges between them and their goal. It is probable that both interpretations are equally true and that both are included in the Master’s mind and purpose. For the cardinal matter is this: the heavy emphasis which Jesus Christ puts upon the ministry of prayer as a predominant means of grace. “Men ought always to pray.” The fellowship is to run through all the changing seasons of life. Through spring and summer, and autumn and winter. “Always to pray!” In the spring-time of life,* when the blossoms are forming, in the winter when the snow is falling and the trees are bare. When we are sauntering through the green pastures or toiling across the wilderness! In the playfield or in the battlefield! In the winsome dawn which sheds its light upon the marriage altar, or in the empty darkness which gathers about the tomb. “Men ought always to pray.” Such is the fervent pressure of the Master’s word. And what He urged others to do He was always doing Himself. He prayed always. He prayed in the brilliant sunshine when the multitude would have taken Him by force and made Him a king. He prayed in the night in which He was betrayed, and when all others had fled. He prayed in the open fields when He was feeding a famished crowd. He prayed by the grave of Lazarus. He prayed in the midst of the pestilence that walketh in darkness; He prayed in the midst of the destruction which wasteth at noon-day. Most surely He exemplified the counsel which He gave to His disciples when He said that “men ought always to pray.”

Now let us consider one or two primarymatters concerning this mighty business of prayer. And let us say first of all that the ministry of prayer is not entirely one with the exercise of petition. Prayer and petition are not synonyms, two names for the same thing. If the realm of prayer finds its symbol in some noble estate, then petition is like one field in the landscape. And there are seasons of prayer when we need not be in that particular field at all. Our spirit may be wandering in other parts of the wide domain. I am not disparaging the mighty prerogative of petition. But I am saying that it is only a part of our spiritual inheritance.

Thou art coming to a King,
Large petitions with thee bring.

Yes, I know it, and there are seasons when I would come to the King, burdened with intercessions, and I would spread the world of my necessities before the favour of His grace. I am coming to a King, but I am coming to more than a King. I am coming to a Father, and Fatherhood is larger than Kinghood, just as home is larger than a throne. A king may have gifts at his disposal, he may have honours and benefits and offices to confer upon his subjects; but fatherhood moves in a circle of intimacies and shared secrets, even in the matchless commerce of truth and grace and love. When prayer turns into this marvellous realm it is not so much a suppliant, laden with petition, as a wondering child walking in the revealing companionship of the Father in heaven. Prayer is not always like Lazarus, clothed in rags, and bowing in suppliancy at the rich man’s gate; it is sometimes like Lazarus in the Father’s bosom, dwelling in the secret place of the most High, and walking and talking in the shadow of the Almighty.

I may be pardoned for dwelling upon this distinction, as I think we are not always conscious of the range of the inheritance of the saints in light, and we only occupy a corner in our Father’s house. I was present at a prayer meeting, and one led us in prayer who was very evidently a disciplined traveller in the realms of grace. He left the field of petition and he went wanderingly and wonderingly along, among the unsearchable riches of Christ as though he were straying among the amazing glories of matchless woods. And the leader of the meeting bore with the traveller for some time and then broke out impatiently, “Brother, ask God for something! Ask God for something!” But the brother did not seem to have anything to ask for just then; it was quite enough to be walking with his Father in the boundless realms of grace. “Ask God for something!” No, prayer is not always petition, sometimes it is just communion. It is the exquisite ministries of friendship. It is the delicate passage of intimacies; it is the fellowship of the Holy Ghost.

Now let me state a second primary matter concerning this mighty business of prayer. If it is not always in the form of petition neither need it be always in the form of words. I want to try to say something which is very real to me, but which almost refuses the clumsy ministry of expression. There is a very vital part of prayer which can do without the vehicle of words. We can escape from the burden of the limitation of words. Who has not felt the bondage of speech, the cumbersomeness of words when he has sought to pray? And who has not experienced the peril of living words becoming dead forms? The lithe, nervous, blood-filled words have stiffened into corpses, and all our prayer has been dead. How often it happens that we do not possess our words; we are not their owners. They are not our children, coursing with hot blood which has been gathered at the springs of our own life. How often our words have no vital communion with us, and when we are not their owners we become their slaves. So there are times in prayer when I long to escape from the ministries of words, and to have wordless fellowship in the Presence of God.

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