Hints on Intercession

Intercession to be effectual must be intelligent, definite, believing, and persevering. First of all, intelligent. That means that I am not to be content with what others think or write, but to set myself with all my heart to realise what it is that I am asking for. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind and with all thy strength.” That applies to prayer too. Let us apply it to the great unsolved problem that has been occupying us, and now calls for our prayers: How can the Church be lifted up out of her low spiritual state, into the abundant life that there is in Christ Jesus?

If one is really to pray with effect, he must prove to God that he feels grieved at that low spiritual condition of the Church, and that he has set his heart upon the blessing of that abundant life that there is in Christ.

Just think a moment of the proofs we have had of that feeble life.

1. We have the verdict of the Conference that the Church as a whole is indifferent to the call to the work for which she was placed in the world, and so is spiritually unfit for taking part in it.

2. We have the confession in the Churches of their decline in membership as a proof that they are not able to drive back the spirit of the world.

3. Both these symptoms indicate a lack of spiritual

life and power.

4. And with this there is the absolute impossibility of doing anything to bring about a change.

Take time and think out these thoughts. Pray to God to give you a vision of their terrible reality, the grief and dishonour they are to Him, the terrible loss of souls that they imply, and the part that you have in it all. Begin to admit what a great work it is that you are undertaking, to pray for that great revolution which is needed if a change is to come. Pray for your ministers, pray for your congregation, pray for the believers with whom you have fellowship in prayer, pray for your whole Church, that God may show us all what really the true state of the Church is. Unless we are willing to take time, to turn aside from the world, to give ourselves to the holy exercise of labouring and striving in prayer, we have no right to hope for deliverance. It is a hard work, a difficult work, a solemn work. But let us not try to serve God with what costs us nothing. It cost Christ everything, His blood and His life, to conquer death, and win for us a share in His abundant life. God’s intercessors must learn in deep humility and contrition really to give their whole life and strength to bear the burden of the state of their fellow-Christians, if they are to have power to prevail.

And now, let us look on the other side, the abundant life that is waiting for the Church, and see what ground there is for faith and hope in prayer.

i. What is impossible with men is possible with God. God has given to His Church the promise of the Holy Spirit, as the Divine power which will fit her for the work she has to do. The more we study carefully the state of the Church, the unspiritual worldly life of the majority of her members, the lack of power in her ministers, even many of those who long for better times, the tremendous difficulty of rousing even a single congregation to a higher spiritual life, the deeper shall we feel how hopeless the prospect is of a true deep revival in which Christians shall really yield themselves wholly to a new life in Christ Jesus. But just let this impossibility be what drives us into the arms of God, and into a new faith of what He can do.

2. Think of how Christ has promised that the Father should give the Holy Spirit to them that ask it. Think of that, until your whole heart is rilled with the assurance, God will, God can, God must, we say it with reverence, give His Spirit where His believing people unite in whole-hearted prayer and consecration.

3. With this, think of the very special power that has been given to prayer, and the boundless possibilities to which it gives us the key. Take time, if you want to exercise yourself in prayer, and learn the art — take time, and let all the promises of answer to prayer fill you with the confident assurance of what is going to come. This is one of the great privileges of prayer, that it throws you upon God, and opens the heart for God to make His promises a personal gift to yourself.

4. Begin then and take time, and just as you studied the state of the Church in its feebleness and sin, begin to study God’s Word as if for the first time you were trying to find out what God really has promised to do for His Church here upon earth. Take Christ’s teaching in John xiv.-xvi., and believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is meant to make the promise, “If ye love Me, My Father will love you, and I will love you, and we will come and make our abode with you,” a literal reality. Take the experience of Paul in all that Christ did for him, and regard that as a pattern of what God is willing to do now. And set yourself steadfastly to ask God definitely to work in you, and those around you, and in His Church in its low estate, what He has promised. Do not rest until the vision of what God is willing to do fill your heart so that you can think of nothing else. You have given your whole life to be occupied with this as its chief aim; rest not until your heart is fully possessed with it.

Then you will be prepared to take your place as an intercessor in power. Your prayers will become more intelligent, but also more fervent, more believing, more persevering. You will begin to understand something of what prayer means in its fulness — a taking hold of God, a giving Him no rest, a going on to be importunate in prayer, until your faith receives the quiet assurance that God will give what you are asking.

Pray, above all, for the gift of the Holy Spirit to have entire possession of you, and of all God’s children who are pleading with you for the new life. Pray fervently, determinedly, for the ministers who are willing to yield themselves to God’s work. Pray for all ministers as the leaders of the flock of God. Give yourself as a whole sacrifice to God for the great work of seeking the revival of His Church, and through her the evangelisation of the world.

God seeks intercessors. God has need of intercessors. God wonders at the lack of intercessors. Rest not till God sees that you are one.

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