The Power of Prayer and the Prayer of Power

short words. Six of the seven words are monosyllables, and the remaining word has but two syllables and is one of the most familiar and most easily understood words in the English language. Yet there is so much in these seven short, simple words that they have transformed many a life and brought many an inefficient worker into a place of great power.

I spoke on these seven words some years ago at a Bible conference in Central New York. Some months after the conference I received a letter from the man who had presided at the conference, one of the best known ministers of the Gospel in America. He wrote me, “I have been unable to get away from the seven words upon which you spoke at Lake Keuka, they have been with me day and night. They have transformed my ideas, transformed my methods, transformed my life, and, I think I have a right to add, transformed my ministry.” The man who wrote those words has since been the pastor of what is probably the most widely-known of any evangelical church in the world. I trust that the words may sink into some of your hearts today as they did into his on that occasion, and that some of you will

be able to say in future months and years, “I have been ll

BRING you a message from God contained in seven unable to get away from those seven words, they have been with me day and night. They have transformed my ideas, transformed my methods, transformed my life, and transformed my service for God.”

You will find these seven words in Jas. 4:2, the seven closing words of the verse, “Ye have not, BECAUSE YE ASK NOT.”

These seven words contain the secret of the poverty and powerlessness of the average Christian, of the average minister, and of the average Church. “Why is it,” many a Christian is asking, “that I make such poor progress in my Christian life? Why do I have so little victory over sin? Why do I win so few souls to Christ? Why do I grow so slowly into the likeness of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?”’ And God answers in the words of our text — ‘ Neglect of prayer. You have not, because you ask not.”

“Why is it,” many a minister is asking, “that I see so little fruit from my ministry? Why are there so few conversions? Why does my church grow so slowly? Why are the members of my church so little helped by my ministry, and built up so little in Christian knowledge and life?” And again God replies: ‘“‘ Neglect of prayer. You have not, because you ask not.”

“Why is it,” both ministers and churches are asking, “that the Church of Jesus Christ is making such slow progress in the world today? Why does it make so little headway against sin, against unbelief, against error in all its forms? Why does it have so little victory over the world, the flesh, and the Devil? Why is the average Church member living on such a low plane of Christian living? Why does the Lord Jesus Christ get so little honour from the state of the Church today?” And, again, God replies: “Neglect of prayer. You have not, because you ask not.”

When we read the only inspired church history that was ever written, the history of the Church in the days of the Apostles as it is recorded by Luke (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) in the Acts of the Apostles, what do we find? We find a story of constant victory, a story of perpetual progress. We read, for example, such statements as this in Acts 2:47: “The Lord added to the church daily those that were being saved;” and such statements as this in Acts 4:4: “Many of them which heard the Word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand,” and such statements as this in Acts 5:14: “And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.”

And such statements as this in Acts 6:7: “And the Word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.”

And so we go on, chapter after chapter, through the twenty-eight chapters of the Book, and in every one of the twenty-seven chapters after the first we find the same note of victory. I once went through the Acts of

/ the Apostles marking the note of victory in every chapter, and without one single exception the triumphant shout of victory rang out in every chapter. How different the

history of the Church as here recorded is from the history of the Church of Jesus Christ today. Take for example, that first statement, “The Lord added to the Church daily (that is every day, or, as the Revised Version puts it, ‘day by day’) those that were being saved.” Why, nowadays if we have a revival once a year with an accession of fifty or sixty members and spend all the rest of the year slipping back to where we were before, we think we are doing pretty well. But in those days there was a revival all the time and accessions every day of those who not only “hit the trail” but “were (really) being saved.”

Why this difference between the early Church and the Church of Jesus Christ to-day? Someone will answer, “Because there is so much opposition today.’ Ah, but there was opposition in those days; most bitter, most determined, most relentless opposition, opposition in comparison with which that which you and I met today is but child’s play. But the early Church went right on beating down all opposition, surmounting every obstacle, conquering every foe, always victorious, right on without a setback from Jerusalem to Rome, in the face of the most firmly entrenched and most mighty heathenism and unbelief. I repeat the question — “Why was it?” If you will turn to the chapters from which I have already quoted, you will get your answer.

Turn, for example, to the first chapter from which I quoted, Acts 2, and read the 42d verse: “And they continued stedfastly in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers.” That is a picture very brief but very suggestive of the early Church. It was A Prayinc CHurcH. It was a Church in which they prayed not merely occasionally, but where they all “continued stedfastly. ... m the prayers.” They all prayed, not a select few, but the whole membership of the Church; and all prayed continuously with stedfast determination. “They gave themselves to prayer,’ as the same Greek word is translated in Acts 6:4. Now turn to the last chapter from which I quoted, the sixth chapter, verse four, and you will get the rest of your answer. “We will give ourselves con- -tinually to prayer.” That is a picture of the Apostolic ministry, it was a praying ministry, and a ministry that “gave themselves continually to prayer,” or, to translate that Greek word as it is translated in the former passage (Acts 2:42), “They continued stedfastly in prayer.” A PRAYING CHURCH AND A PRAYING Ministry! Ah, such a Church and such a ministry can achieve anything that ought to be achieved. It will go steadily on beating down all opposition, surmounting every obstacle, conquering every foe, just as much today as it did in the days of the Apostles.

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