Prepaid Prayers

I met with this expression lately; and while it is open to criticism, it suggests a vitally important truth, a truth also which many good people ignore, and therefore their prayers are unproductive of any blessings. If we expect a letter to reach its destination we prepay it; if we do not value it enough to put a two-cent stamp on it, then the document is left in the limbo of the dead-letter office. It is a lamentable fact that

of well-worded and orthodox petitions which are more likely to go thither than to reach the ear of the infinite Love is past calculation.

All valuable things are costly. What we call “‘ free salvation’’ cost the Son of God all the humiliations of his earthly mission and all the - agonies of Gethsemane and Golgotha. Nor can any sinner obtain the benefit of Christ’s atonethere is a dead-prayer office also, and the numberment except at the price of personal obedience to the Saviour. Our Lord wrapped up a very profound and practical truth in that parable of the man who, desiring to possess the ‘‘ treasure hid in a field,’’? gladly sold all he had and went and bought that field. No one can secure the salvation of his soul unless he or she is willing to pay the price which God demands; that price is the renunciation of the most darling sins and the surrender of the heart and the life to Jesus Christ. If you want Christ himself, you must give Christ yourself. Here is the pinch that keeps millions out of heaven. It kept out Felix and Agrippa and all others who have been un — willing to submit to God’s terms. ‘‘ You must give up your bottle or give up your soul,”’ said a plain-spoken pastor to a gentleman in his inquiry-room. ‘The poor slave of the drink hesitated, and then went away clinging to his decanter! The decisive battle for salvation is commonly fought over the favorite sins; for the Master has declared that unless a man deny self and take up his cross, he cannot be His disciple.

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The same principle applies to a vast portion of all our prayers. AJl valuable things cost something, and petitions to God are no exception to the rule. Prayer is a process in which two parties are concerned — the human petitioner and the divine bestower of ‘blessings. All God’s promises have their conditions; we must comply with those conditions, or we cannot expect the blessings coupled with the promises. No farmer is such an idiot as to found his expectation of a crop of wheat on God’s general promise of seed-time and harvest, and yet put in no plough and sow no grain. He first does his part, and then can reasonably ask the God of nature to give him a harvest. In prayer we must do our part if we expect that the infinite Giver will do his part; there is a legitimate sense in which all of us are to do our utmost in the answering of our own petitions.

At a missionary convention a venerated minister was called upon to offer a prayer. He halted and began to fumble in his pocket. ‘‘ Father A, they want you to pray,’’ whispered somebody in his ear. ‘‘ Yes, yes,’’ replied the wise old man, ‘‘but I cannot pray until I have given something.’’ After he had contributed his quota towards sending abroad the gospel he could with a clear conscience implore the King of heaven to give that gospel wide sweep and sway. The old man prepaid his prayer. For the Christian churches of this age to offer the petition, ‘‘Thy kingdom come!’ and then expend only ten millions (the world over) in the enterprise of Foreign Missions, looks almost like a solemn farce. As far as God’s people are willing to prepay their prayers by bestowing money and talents and toils for the conversion of the world, just so far are their prayers answered. God has no blessings for stingy pockets. A great deal of the ‘‘talk of the lips’’ in prayer-meetings is mere talk, and it ‘‘tendeth to penury.”’

What is true of pecuniary sacrifices as an evidence of sincerity is equally true of personal efforts. Often when I listen to requests for prayer for the conversion of a husband or a son or a Sabbath scholar, I say to myself, ‘‘ How much is

ss that person doing for the conversion of that husband or child or scholar?’ The Christian wife who does her utmost to make her daily religion attractive to her unconverted husband prepays her own prayer. She works with the Holy Spirit — not against Him. A noble woman in my church was instrumental in the conversion of her whole Bible-class; she prepaid her prayer for them by the most winsome personal efforts for their salvation. God never defaults; but he. demands that we prove our faith by our works, -and that we never ask for a blessing that we are not ready to labor for. Much of the pious prattle in prayer-meetings for a ‘‘ revival’’ comes to nothing because the one who utters the empty formula is not reviving himself. Ue pretends to ask the Almighty to do what he will not lift one lazy finger for; such prayer is a severe self-condemnation. Let us all beware lest our own — prayers rise up in judgment against us.: Genuine, fervent, self-denying, and effective prayer is always prepaid. The offerer of it is willing to make any sacrifice in order to secure the blessing sought. If time or money or labor or penitential putting away of sin or any other condition be required, the condition is cheerfully performed. In brief — every prayer may be said to be prepaid for whose fulfilment we are ready, at whatever cost, to codperate with the divine Spirit.

A CHRISTIAN’S S/‘AVING POWER.