The Reality of Prayer

During the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth century and a score of years of the twentieth, there lived and died three great men of God whom I knew — men whom God has doubtless numbered among the foremost of His heavenly host. The first was Edward McKendree Bounds, author of this present volume and the other “Spiritual Life” Books. The second was Claud L. Chilton, minister for many years in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and a musical composer of religious music of considerable note. The third, Clement C. Cary, preacher and editor, lost his life in an automobile accident in 1922. The fourth was Dr. B. F. Haynes, minister, editor and author, who died in Nashville, in 1923.

What Dr. Thomas Goodwin, the Puritan, was to Strong, Arrowsmith and Spurstow; what John Wesley was to Whitefield, Fletcher and Clark, Bounds was to Chilton, Cary and Haynes. What David Brainerd’s Journal did for Cary, Martyn, McCheyne, Bounds’ books can do for thousands of God’s children. He was a man who lived ever on prayer ground. He walked and talked with the Lord. Prayer was the great weapon in his arsenal, his pathway to the Throne of Grace. None who read what he has written can fail of realising that Edward McKendree Bounds talked with God, as a man talketh to his friend.

Homer W. Hodge.

Flushing, N. Y.

I am the creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God and returning to God; just hovering over the great gulf; till a few moments hence I am no more seen; I drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing, the way to heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God Himself has condescended to teach the way; for this end He came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price give me the Book of God! Lord, is it not Thy word — “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God? Thou givest liberally, and upbraidest not. Thou hast said, if any be willing to do Thy will he shall know. I am willing to do; let me know Thy will.” — John Wesley.

The word “Prayer” expresses the largest and most comprehensive approach unto God. It gives prominence to the element of devotion. It is communion and intercourse with God. It is enjoyment of God. It is access to God. “Supplication” is a more restricted and more intense form of prayer, accompanied by a sense of personal need, limited to the seeking in an urgent manner of a supply for pressing need.

“Supplication” is the very soul of prayer in the way of pleading for some one thing, greatly needed, and the need intensely felt.

“Intercession” is an enlargement in prayer, a going out in broadness and fullness from self to others. Primarily, it does not centre in praying for others, but refers to the freeness, boldness and childlike confidence of the praying. It is the fullness of confiding influence in the soul’s approach to God, unlimited and unhesitating in its access and its demands. This influence and confident trust is to be used for others.

Prayer always, and everywhere is an immediate and confiding approach to, and a request of, God the Father. In the prayer universal and perfect, as the pattern of all praying, it is “Our Father, Who art in Heaven.” At the grave of Lazarus, Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father.” In His sacerdotal prayer, Jesus lifted up His eyes to Heaven, and said, “Father.” Personal, familiar and paternal was all His praying. Strong, too, and touching and tearful, was His praying. Read these words of Paul: “Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared” (Hebrews 5:7).

So elsewhere (James 1:5) we have “asking” set forth as prayer: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.”

“Asking of God” and “receiving” from the Lord — direct application to God, immediate connection with God — that is prayer.

In John 5:13 we have this statement about prayer:

“And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. And if we know that he heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.”

In Philippians 4:6 we have these words about prayer:

“Be careful for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.”

What is God’s will about prayer? First of all, it is God’s will that we pray. Jesus Christ “spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.”

Paul writes to young Timothy about the first things which God’s people are to do, and first among the first he puts prayer: “I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men” (I Tim. 2:1).

In connection with these words Paul declares that the will of God and the redemption and mediation of Jesus Christ for the salvation for all men are all vitally concerned in this matter of prayer. In this his apostolical authority and solicitude of soul conspire with God’s will and Christ’s intercession to will that “the men pray everywhere.”

Note how frequently prayer is brought forward in the New Testament: “Continuing instant in prayer”; “Pray without ceasing”; “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving”; “Be ye sober and watch unto prayer”; Christ’s clarion call was “watch and pray.” What are all these and others, if it is not the will of God that men should pray?

Prayer is complement, make efficient and cooperate with God’s will, whose sovereign sway is to run parallel in extent and power with the atonement of Jesus Christ. He, through the Eternal Spirit, by the grace of God, “tasted death for every man.” We, through the Eternal Spirit, by the grace of God, pray for every man.

But how do I know that I am praying by the will of God? Every true attempt to pray is in response to the will of God. Bungling it may be and untutored by human teachers, but it is acceptable to God, because it is in obedience to His will. If I will give myself up to the inspiration of the Spirit of God, who commands me to pray, the details and the petitions of that praying will all fall into harmony with the will of Him who wills that I should pray.

Prayer is no little thing, no selfish and small matter. It does not concern the petty interests of one person. The littlest prayer broadens out by the will of God till it touches all words, conserves all interests, and enhances man’s greatest wealth, and God’s greatest good. God is so concerned that men pray that He has promised to answer prayer. He has not promised to do something general if we pray, but He has promised to do the very thing for which we pray.

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