"One
evening I left my office in New York, with a bitterly cold
wind in my face. I had with me, (as I thought) my thick, warm
muffler, but when I proceeded to button-up against the storm,
I found that it was gone. I turned back, looked along the
streets, searched my office, but in vain. I realized, then,
that I must have dropped it, and prayed God that I might find
it; for such was the state of the weather, that it would be
running a great risk to proceed without it. I looked, again,
up and down the surrounding streets, but without success.
Sudden]y, I saw a man on the opposite side of the road holding
out something in his hand. I crossed over and asked him if
that were my muffler? He handed it to me saying, 'It was blown
to me by the wind.' He who rides upon the storm, had used the
wind as a means of answering prayer." -- WILLIAM
HORST.
PRAYER does not
stand alone. It is not an isolated duty and independent
principle. It lives in association with other Christian duties,
is wedded to other principles, is a partner with other graces.
But to faith, prayer is indissolubly joined. Faith gives it
colour and tone, shapes its character, and secures its results.
Trust is faith
become absolute, ratified, consummated. There is, when all is
said and done, a sort of venture in faith and its exercise. But
trust is firm belief, it is faith in full flower. Trust
is a conscious act, a fact of which we are sensible. According
to the Scriptural concept it is the eye of the new-born soul,
and the ear of the renewed soul. It is the feeling of the soul,
the spiritual eye, the ear, the taste, the feeling -- these one
and all have to do with trust.. How luminous, how distinct, how
conscious, how powerful, and more than all, how Scriptural is
such a trust! How different from many forms of modern belief, so
feeble, dry, and cold! These new phases of belief bring no
consciousness of their presence, no "Joy unspeakable and
full of glory" results from their exercise. They are, for
the most part, adventures in the peradventures of the soul.
There is no safe, sure trust in anything. The whole transaction
takes place in the realm of Maybe and Perhaps.
Trust like
life, is feeling, though much more than feeling. An unfelt life
is a contradiction; an unfelt trust is a misnomer, a delusion, a
contradiction. Trust is the most felt of all attributes. It is all
feeling, and it works only by love. An unfelt love is as
impossible as an unfelt trust. The trust of which we are now
speaking is a conviction. An unfelt conviction? How absurd!
Trust sees God
doing things here and now. Yea, more. It rises to a lofty
eminence, and looking into the invisible and the eternal,
realizes that God has done things, and regards them as being
already done. Trust brings eternity into the annals and
happenings of time, transmutes the substance of hope into the
reality of fruition, and changes promise into present
possession. We know when we trust just as we know when we see,
just as we are conscious of our sense of touch. Trust sees,
receives, holds. Trust is its own witness.
Yet, quite
often, faith is too weak to obtain God's greatest good,
immediately; so it has to wait in loving, strong, prayerful,
pressing obedience, until it grows in strength, and is able to
bring down the eternal, into the realms of experience and time.
To this point,
trust masses all its forces. Here it holds. And in the struggle,
trust's grasp becomes mightier, and grasps, for itself, all that
God has done for it in His eternal wisdom and plenitude of
grace.
In the matter
of waiting in prayer, mightiest prayer, faith rises to its
highest plane and becomes indeed the gift of God. It becomes the
blessed disposition and expression of the soul which is secured
by a constant intercourse with, and unwearied application to
God.
Jesus Christ
clearly taught that faith was the condition on which prayer was
answered. When our Lord had cursed the fig-tree, the disciples
were much surprised that its withering had actually taken place,
and their remarks indicated their in credulity. It was then that
Jesus said to them, "Have faith in God."
"For
verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this
mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, and
shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those
things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have
whatsoever he saith. Therefore, I say unto you, What things
soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them,
and ye shall have them."
Trust grows
nowhere so readily and richly as in the prayer-chamber. Its
unfolding and development are rapid and wholesome when they are
regularly and well kept. When these engagements are hearty and
full and free, trust flourishes exceedingly. The eye and
presence of God give vigorous life to trust, just as the eye and
the presence of the sun make fruit and flower to grow, and all
things glad and bright with fuller life.
"Have
faith in God," "Trust in the Lord" form the
keynote and foundation of prayer. Primarily, it is not trust in
the Word of God, but rather trust in the Person of God. For
trust in the Person of God must precede trust in the Word of
God. "Ye believe in God, believe also in Me," is the
demand our Lord makes on the personal trust of His disciples.
The person of Jesus Christ must be central, to the eye of trust.
This great truth Jesus sought to impress upon Martha, when her
brother lay dead, in the home at Bethany. Martha asserted her
belief in the fact of the resurrection of her brother:
"Martha
saith unto Him, I know that he shall rise again in the
resurrection at the last day."
Jesus lifts her
trust clear above the mere fact of the resurrection, to His own
Person, by saying:
"I am
the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and
believeth in Me, shall never die. Believest thou this? She
saith unto Him, Yea, Lord: I believe that Thou art the Christ,
the Son of God, which should come into the world."
Trust, in an
historical fact or in a mere record may be a very passive thing,
but trust in a person vitalizes the quality, fructifies it,
informs it with love. The trust which informs prayer centres in
a Person.
Trust goes even
further than this. The trust which inspires our prayer must be
not only trust in the Person of God, and of Christ, but in their
ability and willingness to grant the thing prayed for. It is not
only, "Trust, ye, in the Lord," but, also, "for
in the Lord Jehovah, is everlasting strength."
The trust which
our Lord taught as a condition of effectual prayer, is not of
the head but of the heart. It is trust which "doubteth not
in his heart." Such trust has the Divine assurance that it
shall be honoured with large and satisfying answers. The strong
promise of our Lord brings faith down to the present, and counts
on a present answer.
Do
we believe, without a doubt? When we pray, do we believe, not
that we shall receive the things for which we ask on a future
day, but that we receive them, then and there? Such is the
teaching of this inspiring Scripture. How we need to pray,
"Lord, increase our faith," until doubt be gone, and
implicit trust claims the promised blessings, as its very own.
This is no easy
condition. It is reached only after many a failure, after much
praying, after many waitings, after much trial of faith. May our
faith so increase until we realize and receive all the fulness
there is in that Name which guarantees to do so much.
Our Lord puts
trust as the very foundation of praying. The background of
prayer is trust. The whole issuance of Christ's ministry and
work was dependent on implicit trust in His Father. The centre
of trust is God. Mountains of difficulties, and all other
hindrances to prayer are moved out of the way by trust and his
virile henchman, faith. When trust is perfect and without doubt,
prayer is simply the outstretched hand, ready to receive. Trust
perfected, is prayer perfected. Trust looks to receive the thing
asked for -- and gets it. Trust is not a belief that God can
bless, that He will bless, but that He does bless,
here and now. Trust always operates in the present tense. Hope
looks toward the future. Trust looks to the present. Hope
expects. Trust possesses. Trust receives what prayer acquires.
So that what prayer needs, at all times, is abiding and abundant
trust.
Their
lamentable lack of trust and resultant failure of the disciples
to do what they were sent out to do, is seen in the case of the
lunatic son, who was brought by his father to nine of them while
their Master was on the Mount of Transfiguration. A boy, sadly
afflicted, was brought to these men to be cured of his malady.
They had been commissioned to do this very kind of work. This
was a part of their mission. They attempted to cast out the
devil from the boy, but had signally failed. The devil was too
much for them. They were humiliated at their failure, and filled
with shame, while their enemies were in triumph. Amid the
confusion incident to failure Jesus draws near. He is informed
of the circumstances, and told of the conditions connected
therewith. Here is the succeeding account:
"Then
Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation,
how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?
Bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he
departed out of him and the child was cured from that very
hour. And when He was come into the house, His disciples asked
Him privately, Why could not we cast him out? And He said unto
them, This kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and
fasting."
Wherein lay the
difficulty with these men? They had been lax in cultivating
their faith by prayer and, as a consequence, their trust utterly
failed. They trusted not God, nor Christ, nor the authenticity
of His mission, or their own. So has it been many a time since,
in many a crisis in the Church of God. Failure has resulted from
a lack of trust, or from a weakness of faith, and this, in turn,
from a lack of prayerfulness. Many a failure in revival efforts
has been traceable to the same cause. Faith had not been
nurtured and made powerful by prayer. Neglect of the inner
chamber is the solution of most spiritual failure. And this is
as true of our personal struggles with the devil as was the case
when we went forth to attempt to cast out devils. To be
much on our knees in private communion with God is the only
surety that we shall have Him with us either in our personal
struggles, or in our efforts to convert sinners.
Everywhere, in
the approaches of the people to Him, our Lord put trust in Him,
and the divinity of His mission, in the forefront. He gave no
definition of trust, and He furnishes no theological discussion
of, or analysis of it; for He knew that men would see what faith
was by what faith did; and from its free exercise trust
grew up, spontaneously, in His presence. It was the product of
His work, His power and His Person. These furnished and created
an atmosphere most favourable for its exercise and development.
Trust is altogether too splendidly simple for verbal definition;
too hearty and spontaneous for theological terminology. The very
simplicity of trust is that which staggers many people. They
look away for some great thing to come to pass, while all the
time "the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy
heart."
When the
saddening news of his daughter's death was brought to Jairus our
Lord interposed: "Be not afraid," He said calmly,
"only believe." To the woman with the issue of blood,
who stood tremblingly before Him, He said:
"Daughter,
thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of
thy plague."
As the two blind
men followed Him, pressing their way into the house, He said:
"According
to your faith be it unto you. And their eyes were
opened."
When the paralytic
was let down through the roof of the house, where Jesus was
teaching, and placed before Him by four of his friends, it is
recorded after this fashion:
"And
Jesus seeing their faith, said unto the sick of the palsy:
Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee."
When Jesus
dismissed the centurion whose servant was seriously ill, and who
had come to Jesus with the prayer that He speak the healing
word, without even going to his house, He did it in the manner
following:
"And
Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast
believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed
in the selfsame hour."
When the poor
leper fell at the feet of Jesus and cried out for relief,
"Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean," Jesus
immediately granted his request, and the man glorified Him with
a loud voice. Then Jesus said unto him, "Arise, go thy way;
thy faith hath made thee whole."
The
Syrophenician woman came to Jesus with the case of her afflicted
daughter, making the case her own, with the prayer, "Lord,
help me," making a fearful and heroic struggle. Jesus
honours her faith and prayer, saying:
"O
woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.
And her daughter was made whole from that very hour."
After the
disciples had utterly failed to cast the devil out of the
epileptic boy, the father of the stricken lad came to Jesus with
the plaintive and almost despairing cry, "If Thou canst do
anything, have compassion on us and help us." But Jesus
replied, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to
him that believeth."
Blind
Bartimaeus sitting by the wayside, hears our Lord as He passes
by, and cries out pitifully and almost despairingly,
"Jesus, Thou son of David, have mercy on me." The keen
ears of our Lord immediately catch the sound of prayer, and He
says to the beggar:
"Go thy
way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he
received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way."
To the weeping,
penitent woman, washing His feet with her tears and wiping them
with the hair of her head, Jesus speaks cheering,
soul-comforting words: "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in
peace."
One day Jesus
healed ten lepers at one time, in answer to their united prayer,
"Jesus, Master, have mercy on us," and He told them to
go and show themselves to the priests. "And it came to pass
as they went, they were cleansed."
