Wrestling Prayer

“‘THERE’S nae good dune, John, till ye get -*- to the close grups.” So said “Jeems, the door-keeper” of Broughton Place church, Edinburgh, to the immortal Dr. John Brown, the author of “Rab and his Friends.” Old Jeems got into a marvellous nearness with God in prayer, and conversed with Him as he would with his “ain father.” He understood the power of a close grip when an earnest soul is wrestling with God for a blessing.

Jacob, the patriarch, had such a struggle in that remarkable and mystical scene at Penuel. We are told that he wrestled with the Angel of the Covenant — who may have been the incarnate Jesus — until the breaking of the day. The angel said, “Let me go, the day breaketh.” Here was a trial of the patriarch’s faith.

“What is that to me,” thought the eager man, “that the day is breaking 1 I must have the blessing now. There is no daylight of hope for me unless I obtain what I am struggling for. I will not let thee go, except thou bless me!” He triumphed on the spot.

So clung the Syro-Phcenician mother to Christ when she was beseeching him to heal her sick daughter. The Master seemed to put her oflf, in order to try the mettle of her faith. But she came up into what the old Scotchman called a closer grip, with the heart of infinite love, and she carried the day. “Go thy way,” said Jesus unto her. “O woman! great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” And so he granted to a great faith what he might have denied to a little faith. Precisely so is it with Christians now, and with churches. An honest, persevering faith — a faith that works while it prays, a faith that holds on through discouragements — achieves the result it pleads for. For faith creates such a condition of things that it is wise for God to grant what would otherwise be denied.

There are many things in the providence of God to which we ought to submit. We ought to submit unconditionally and without a murmur to chastisements and bereavements. But there are certain other things placed in our way expressly that we may wrestle with them and overcome them. If a temptation assails us, we are never to submit to it. If a difficulty blocks our path of duty, then is the time for a stout faith to “remove the mountain.” A father whose children are yet unconverted has no business to sit down in silent submission to such a state of things. Neither has a pastor or a church any right to sit down submissively to the terrible fact that the truth is powerless, and no souls are converted. The Syro-Phoenieian woman would have done wrong if she had gone home submissive when Christ seemed to be denying her reasonable request. God is a supreme sovereign up yonder; but we are responsible free agents down here. And as a sovereign He has commanded us to pray, to “pray without ceasing.” He reserves to Himself the right to grant our requests when He chooses and as He chooses. It is our right to pray, and it is God’s right to bestow just such answers as seem best to Him. I would define faith to be that temper of the soul which submits to all which God orders, but neoer submits to what God ‘can better. If we yield to sin or to discouragements when we ought to struggle against them, or if we yield to the absence of spiritual blessings without an earnest wrestling for those blessings, we are unworthy clods, and we deserve to suffer.

What a magnificent epic are the triumphs of faith! The Bible history fairly shines with the bright record of persistent, prevailing prayer. The early Church were “continuing with one accord in supplication” when the Holy Spirit descended in the Pentecost. When the Apostle Peter was locked up in a dungeon, prayer was made without ceasing by the people of God for him; and the heaven-sent angel opened his dungeon doors, and sent him to the prayer-meeting as a living witness to their prevalence with God. I have seen awakened sinners come into prayer-gatherings who were just as truly delivered out of Satan’s prison as Peter was, and by the same agency of intercessory prayer. I have known a mother to cling to the mercy-seat, and to wrestle with God until the beloved child whom she could not convert has been converted. The wife has wrestled for her impenitent husband — “I will not let thee go, except Thou bless him!” We have seen a godly wife sit and sob through a prayer-meeting until the handkerchief that covered her face was soaked with tears; and she has gone home to find her husband himself weeping over his sins.

Prayer is power. When Luther was in the mid-heat of his awful battle with the Great Beast, he used to say, “I cannot get on without three hours a day in prayer.” John Welsh, of Scotland, often leaped out of his bed at midnight, and wrapped a plaid about him, and wrestled with the Lord until the breaking of the day. His preaching was mighty when he came to his pulpit from these JPenuels of pleading with his God. There is many a church among us which is in a midnight of slumber and barrenness. But repentance and wrestling prayer will bring the daybreak.

Unless we are much mistaken, there are two things which American Christians ought to do. The one is to quit the companionship of a self-indulgent, corrupting “world.” The other is to come into closer companionship with Christ. Closer to Christ in godly living. Closer in persevering prayer. And let us not forget, brethren, that it is the “close grup” which achieves the victory, and brings the revival blessing.