Intercession

From exercises of Secret Prayer which have to do altogether with the maintenance of the Christian’s own spiritual communion with his Lord, we pass now to that in which he labours for others in the secret place of blessing. We come to speak of secret INTERCESSION. This order of thought and enquiry is just and natural; the Christian who would indeed plead for others with spiritual reality and success must be one who in holy truth is watching over his own relations with his Master and Friend.

Intercession. It

I need say little on the duty and privilege of Intercessory Prayer in general. It stands before us, in ample fulness, and in gracious beauty, all through the Scriptures; from the mysterious scene where “God hears His Gen, Abraham plead” for Lot in his awful es peril, down to the repeated precepts of. the New Testament; ‘“‘ Pray for one Jas v. another, that ye may be healed”;:

“He shall ask, and He shall give him as life for them that sin not unto death.” The Bible reader who gathers together the whole witness of the Bible, in example, direction, and encouragement, to the worth and power of intercessory prayer, will find that he has indeed accumulated a wealth of spiritual gold. I will accordingly offer only a detached remark or two upon the subject.

And first let me point to the eloquence with which the precept to intercede for

Eph. iii. 14-19. others witnesses to sometimes forgotten truths about the nature and work of prayer. It isa main proof that prayer, as we have seen already (p. 16), is so very much more than merely a means of good to our own souls in the way of solemnizing, calming, and putting in tune; in fact, a mere form of meditation. Intercessory prayer has regard to persons and to causes which are not at all ourselves. It seeks to compass blessing for them in ways which have no necessary connexion with the reflected action of the prayer on our own hearts. It goes out, simply out, to the Lord, and asks Him in His own way to act in other directions, in other regions, than our own. St Paul, praying for the Ephesians, kneels to the Father with the entreaty that the Spirit may so work in those hearts that in those hearts Christ by faith may dwell, and that those believers may “be filled unto all the fulness of God.” True, the prayer for them was a most fit and blessed vehicle for joy and power flowing into the Apostle’s own heart. But most plainly that was not essential in the matter.

Then, again and on the other side, Intercessory Prayer zs a powerful means of grace to the praying man. Martyn observes, I think it is in his Journal, that at times of inward spiritual dryness and depression he had often found a delightful revival in the act of praying for others, for their conversion, or sanctification, or prosperity in the work of the Lord. His dealings with God for them about these gifts and blessings were for himself the divinely natural channel of a renewed insight into his own part and lot in Christ, into Christ as his own rest and power, into the “perfect freedom” of an entire yielding of himself to his Master for His work.

Intercessory Prayer, again, is in its essence a witness for the holy sovereignty of God in providence and in. grace. It is a deeply practical acknowledgment that to Him all hearts are open; that He holds the key of all wills and lives; that He can indeed make “all things work together” for His glory and our blessing in Christ Jesus. Prayer for the conversion of a friend, or for the revival of his soul, or that he may be brought to a more entire surrender, or for such exterior blessings as his safety on a voyage or his recovery from illness, is a significant testimony in this direction. So is prayer for the Church, for the World, or for any agency or cause of good.

And Intercessory Prayer is of course a tender living testimony to two great and precious facts, which run up into one, It witnesses to the Christian believer’s living spiritual union with his brethren in Christ, and indeed with all men as potentially such. And it witnesses to his wonderful and blessed spiritual union with his Lord in new birth and new life, that immediate conjunction with the Head through which he has union with the members.

Oh for more full, more vivid, more continuous recollection of this holy spiritual solidarity with Him, and with them in Him! Let us expect to find in Intercessory Prayer a very special means of this personal blessing.

As I touch upon this subject, let me say one word more in connexion with it. It is this, that with a deepening insight, in the light of the Word of God, into our vital union with the

Lord, with a growing sense of its reality, wonder, and joy, we shall surely, by a spiritual instinct, feel a growing disposition towards Intercessory Prayer. Living oneness with the heavenly Intercessor is a strong and holy encouragement to intercede. I do not reason about it. It is a matter for the intuition, and the experience, and the enjoyment, of the life of grace. May the Holy Spirit give us a larger and larger entrance into this open secret, constraining us, as we abide in the presence of our Lord, to speak more and more fully there to Him for others!

Thus far I have spoken on the general subject only. Let me come at once to our special theme; to Intercession as a part of Secret Prayer.

Here first observe that much of the work of Intercession has a peculiarly fit place in Secret Prayer. As soon as Intercession begins to go into detail, it must be so. My reader will recall the incident mentioned above (p. 56), the meeting of the American Synod, in which “for Chicago they did not pray.” Undoubtedly Intercession for the most particular objects can be public, can be liturgical, A nation can pray for a person; all Christian England prays collectively for the Queen. But of course such cases in public prayer are exceptional in a high degree, and inevitably they stop short very soon in details. And just because Intercession for persons zends, in the nature of the case, to deal with details, Intercession should have a large place and most loving use in Secret Prayer, with the special freedom and independence of secrecy.

So let writer and reader renew their recognition of that fact. Let us resolve in the Lord’s Name that our work of secret Intercession, whatever the past may have been, shall henceforth be full, persistent, earnest, and also methodical, so far as method aids us towards reality and thoroughness.

Let us carry into Secret Prayer a deep and solemn recollection of the great permanent subjects for Intercession: World, and Church, and Country, and Home, and School. And let us be watchful not to slight, not to forget, promises and undertakings to pray in secret for these or for more special objects. Are we, as so many Christians now are, members of a Union, or of Unions, for private intercession ?* Let us, as a sacred duty

* The Cambridge University Prayer Union, founded in 1848, now numbers 1,600 membefore God, seek to carry out the promise implied in membership, remembering that it is not only a duty, but an action rich beyond all our reckoning in blessing. Or have we been asked by individual friends to remember them in prayer? Few earnest Christians fail to be so asked from time to time; and alas it is only too possible to make promises in reply which evaporate into what is practically nothing; into mere vague good wishes to some extent religious, perhaps never carried at all into a definite act of prayer as before the living God. By His grace it shall not be so with us henceforth. All this leads to the remark, so

bers. The engagement is to pray about such great matters as the Universal Church, the Church of England, the University, Missionary work, &c. (besides occasionally more special interests), every Saturday, especially some time between 6 and 10 o’clock in the morning.

obvious but needing repetition too, that we must seek to methodize our ways of Intercession in secret. As one practical suggestion to this effect, I may recommend the use of a memorandum book, or card, as a register for promises of special prayer. It was the practice of the late General Gordon to enter in such a register the names of persons who asked for his prayers, or who were in any way laid on his heart as needing to be prayed for. Only lately I was told of the deep emotion with which a young friend of Gordon’s, on some occasion when in the course of conversation this list was produced for another purpose, caught sight of his own name in it.

A little care in the distribution of names and subjects for Intercessory Prayer among the days of the week, or the times of the day, will greatly aid us in making such petitions a reality. The Church Missionary Society issues a “Cycle of Prayer,” adjusted to the days of the month, and invites its members to distribute their special Intercessions accordingly, taking each day one country, or one large district, in the great mission field for particular, detailed recollection before God. A similar method may be applied, of course, in almost any direction. Each member of our family may have his or her day of the week. Each regular prayer-time may carry with it the special remembrance of some friend, or group of friends. Godchildren, Sunday scholars, parishioners, servants or dependants of any kind, all may have their day or hour. So may the solemn interests of our Church and of our Country.

Such suggestions might be multi-Col. iv. 12.

Philem.

4s plied indefinitely; but it is enough to’ emphasize the principle, and to recall how abundantly worth while is real painstaking in this true and fruitful work,

Let us thus pray for others indeed; let us live the life of intercessors joined by the Holy Spirit to the eternal and heavenly Intercessor. Let Epaphras be often in our thoughts, loving and mindful Epaphras, who ‘laboured always fervently in prayer” for his Colossian brethren, ‘that they might stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.” Let us often visit blessed Paul in his Roman prisonchamber, and listen to him as he prays for his scattered converts and friends in Christ, making mention of them, setting before himself, and then before the Lord, their individuality, and its surroundings, and its needs, with intense

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and tender detail. There are many followers of Epaphras and of Paul in our day. I was told a few years ago, by one who well knew, that it was the practice of the late venerable Head of a College at Oxford to pray every day by name for every undergraduate member of the College. It is beautifully significant, for it indicates the harmony of sanctified habits in a truly Christian life, that the same man also made it his practice never to open a letter without a moment’s prayer that in the reading and the answering he might be kept and guided.

We Christians need continually to remember that Intercessory Prayer must always enter into the very life of the work which we seek to do for others, in and for the Lord. <A devoted Sunday-school-teacher of whom I have heard was the means under

God of bringing scholar after scholar, with always growing frequency, to the feet of Jesus in living conversion, evidenced by a new life of love and consistency. After her death her simple diary was found to contain among other entries the three following, with some intervals between: “Resolved to pray for each scholar by name”; “Resolved to wrestle in prayer for each scholar by name 7S “Resolved to wrestle for each by name, and to expect an answer.”

How much we may do, by the Lord’s mercy, by. the mere fact that our friends know we are praying for them! A dear missionary friend of my own has found not seldom, during hours of danger, exhaustion, and illness, in the heathen solitudes, when the mental effort of praying seemed too great to be sustained, that the shortest way to an answer of peace was the brief petition, “Lord, hear my praying friends in England.”

‘¢ Before our Father’s throne
We pour our ardent prayers;

Our fears, our hopes, our aims, are cne, Our comforts and our cares.”