UNITED PRAYER
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Luke 18 (KJV 1900)
1 And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
2 Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:
3 And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
4 And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;
5 Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
6 And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith.
7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?
8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
OF all the mysteries of the prayer world, the need of persevering prayer is one of the greatest. That the Lord, who is so loving and longing to bless, should have to be supplicated time after time, sometimes year after year, before the answer comes, we cannot easily understand. It is also one of the greatest practical difficulties in believing prayer.
When, after persevering supplication, our prayer remains unanswered, it is often easiest for our slothful flesh, and it has all the appearance of pious submission, to think that we must now cease praying because God may have His secret reason for withholding His answer to our request.
It is by faith alone that the difficulty is overcome. When faith has taken its stand upon God's word and the Name of Jesus and has yielded itself to the leading of the Spirit to seek God’s will and honor alone in its prayer, it need not be discouraged by delay. It knows from Scripture that the power of believing in prayer is simply irresistible; genuine faith can never be disappointed.
It knows how, just as water, to exercise the irresistible power it can have, must be gathered up and accumulated until the stream can come down in full force; there must often be a heaping up of prayer until God sees that the measure is complete, and the answer comes.
It knows how, just as the farmer has to take his ten thousand steps and sow his ten thousand seeds, each one a part of the preparation for the final harvest, so there is a need-be for oft-repeated persevering prayer, all working out some desired blessing. It knows that not a single believing prayer can fail of its effect in heaven, but has its influence and is treasured up to work out an answer in due time to him who perseveres to the end. It knows it has to do not with human thoughts or possibilities but with the word of the living God.
And so even as Abraham,
through so many years in hope, believed against hope, and then through faith and patience inherited the promise,’ it counts that the long-suffering of the Lord is salvation, waiting and hasting unto the coming of its Lord to fulfill His promise.
To enable us, when the answer to our prayer does not come at once, to combine quiet patience and joyful confidence in our persevering prayer, we must specially try to understand the two words in which our Lord sets forth the character and conduct, not of the unjust judge, but of our God and Father towards those whom He allows to cry day and night to Him: He is long-suffering over them; He will avenge them speedily!
He will avenge them speedily, the Master says. The blessing is all prepared; He is not only willing but most anxious to give them what they ask; everlasting love burns with the longing desire to reveal itself fully to its beloved and to satisfy their needs. God will not delay one moment longer than is absolutely necessary; He will do all in His power to hasten and speed the answer.
But why, if this be true and His power be infinite, does it often last so long with the answer to prayer? And why must God's own elect so often, while suffering and conflict, cry day and night? He is long-suffering over them.’ Behold! The husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being long-suffering over it till it receives the early and the latter rain.’
The husbandman
does indeed long for his harvest but knows that it must have its entire time of sunshine and rain and has long patience. A child so often wants to pick the half-ripe fruit; the husbandman knows to wait till the proper time.
In his spiritual nature, man is under the law of gradual growth that reigns in all created life. Only in the path of development can he reach his divine destiny. And it is the Father, in whose hands are the times and seasons, who alone knows when the soul or the Church is ripened to that fulness of faith in which it can take and keep the blessing.
As a father
who longs to have his only child home from school and yet waits patiently till the training time is completed, so it is with God and His children: He is the long-suffering One and answers speedily.
The insight into this truth leads the believer to cultivate the corresponding dispositions: patience and faith, waiting and hasting, are the secrets of his perseverance. By faith in the promise of God, we know that we have the petitions we have asked of Him. Faith takes and holds the answer in the promise as an unseen spiritual possession, rejoices in it, and praises for it. But there is a difference between the faith that thus holds the word and knows that it has the answer and the clearer, fuller, riper faith that obtains the promise as a present experience. It is in persevering, not unbelieving, but confident and praising prayer, that the soul grows into that complete union with its Lord in which it can enter upon the possession of the blessing in Him.
There may be in these around us; there may be in that great system of being of which we are part, there may be in God's government, things that have to be put right through our prayer, ere the answer can fully come: the faith that has, according to the command, believed that it has received, can allow God to take His time: it knows it has prevailed and must prevail. In quiet, persistent, and determined perseverance, it continues in prayer and thanksgiving until the blessing comes. And so we see combined what at first sight appears so contradictory: the faith that rejoices in the answer of the unseen God as a present possession, with the patience that cries day and night until it is revealed. The speedily of God's long-suffering is met by His waiting child’s triumphant but patient faith.
Our great danger in this school of the delayed answer is the temptation to think that, after all, it may not be God’s will to give us what we ask. If our prayer is according to God’s word and under the leading of the Spirit, let us not give way to these fears. Let us learn to give God time. God needs time with us.
If we only give Him time, that is, time in the daily fellowship with Himself, for Him to exercise the full influence of His presence on us, and time, day by day, in the course of our being kept waiting, for faith to prove its reality and to fill our whole being, He Himself will lead us from faith to vision; we shall see the glory of God. Let no delay shake our faith. Of faith it holds good: first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the car.
Each believing prayer brings a step nearer the final victory.
Each believing prayer helps to ripen the fruit and bring us nearer to it; it fills up the measure of prayer and faith known to God alone; it conquers the hindrances in the unseen world; it hastens the end. Child of God! Give the Father time. He is long-suffering over you. He wants the blessing to be rich and full and sure; give Him time while you cry day and night. Only remember the word: I say unto you, He will avenge them speedily.’
The blessing of such persevering prayer is unspeakable. There is nothing so heart-searching as the prayer of faith. It teaches you to discover and confess and give up everything that hinders the coming of the blessing; everything may not be in accordance with the Father's will. It leads to closer fellowship with Him who alone can teach us to pray, to an entire surrender to draw nigh under no covering but that of the blood and the Spirit. It calls to a closer and more simple abiding in Christ alone. Christian! Give God time. He will perfect that which concerns you. Long-suffering--speedily,' this is God's watchword as you enter the gates of prayer: be it yours too.
Let it be thus whether you pray for yourself or others. All labor, bodily or mental, needs time and effort; we must give ourselves to it. Nature discovers her secrets and yields her treasures only to diligent and thoughtful labor. However little we can understand it, in spiritual husbandry, it is the same: the seed we sow in the soil of heaven, the efforts we put forth, and the influence we seek to exert in the world above need our whole being: we must give ourselves to prayer. But let us hold And let us specially learn the lesson as we pray for the Church of Christ. She is indeed as the poor widow, in the absence of her Lord, apparently at the mercy of her adversary, helpless to obtain redress. Let us, when we pray for His Church or any portion of it, under the power of the world, asking Him to visit her with the mighty workings of His Spirit and to prepare her for His coming, let us pray in the assured faith: prayer does help, praying always and not fainting will bring the answer Fast, the great confidence, that in due season we shall reap if we faint not.
Only give God time. And then keep crying day and night. Hear what the unrighteous judge saith. And shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry to Him day and night, and He is long-suffering over them. I say unto you, He will avenge them speedily!
United
19 Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
One of our Lord’s first lessons in His school of prayer was: Not to be seen of men. Enter thy inner chamber; be alone with the Father. When He has thus taught us that the meaning of prayer is personal individual contact with God, He comes with a second lesson: You have need not only of secret solitary, but also of public united prayer. And He gives us a very special promise for the united prayer of two or three who agree in what they ask. As a tree has its root hidden in the ground and its stem growing up into the sunlight, so prayer needs equally for its full development the hidden secrecy in which the soul meets God alone and the public fellowship with those who find in the name of Jesus their common meeting-place.
The reason why this must be so is plain. The bond that unites a man to his fellow men is no less real and close than that which unites him to God: he is one with them. Grace renews not alone our relation to God but to man too. We not only learn to say My Father,' but Our Father.' Nothing would be more unnatural than that the children of a family should always meet their father separately, but never in the united expression of their desires or their love. Believers are not only members of one family, but even of one body. Just as each member of the body depends on the other, and the full action of the spirit dwelling in the body depends on the union and co-operation of all, so Christians cannot reach the full blessing God is ready to bestow through His Spirit, but as they seek and receive it in fellowship with each other. The Spirit can manifest His full power in the union and fellowship of believers. It was to the hundred and twenty continuing in one place together, and praying with one accord, that the Spirit came from the throne of the glorified Lord.
The marks of true united prayer are given us in these words of our Lord. The first is agreement as to the thing asked. There must not only be generally the consent to agree with anything another may ask: there must be some special thing, matter of distinct united desire; the agreement must be, as all prayer, in spirit and in truth. In such agreement, it will become very clear to us what exactly we are asking, whether we may confidently ask according to God's will, and whether we are ready to believe that we have received what we ask.
The second mark is the gathering in, or into, the Name of Jesus. We shall afterward have much more to learn of the need and the power of the Name of Jesus in prayer; here our Lord teaches us that the Name must be the centre of union to which believers gather, the bond of union that makes them one, just as a home contains and unites all who are in it. The Name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it and escape. That Name is such a reality to those who understand and believe it, that to meet within it is to have Himself present.
The love and unity of His disciples have to Jesus infinite attraction: Where two or three are gathered in my Name, there am I in the midst of them.' It is the living presence of Jesus, in the fellowship of His loving praying disciples, that gives united prayer its power.
The third mark is, the sure answer: It shall be done for them of my Father! A prayer meeting for maintaining religious fellowship or seeking our own edification may have its use; this was not the Saviour's view in its appointment. He meant it as a means of securing special answer to prayer. A prayer meeting without a recognized answer to prayer ought to be an anomaly. When any of us have distinct desires in regard to which we feel too weak to exercise the needful faith, we ought to seek strength in the help of other. In the unity of faith and of love and of the Spirit, the power of the Name and the Presence of Jesus acts more freely and the answer comes more surely. The mark that there has been true united prayer is the fruit, the answer, the receiving of the thing we have asked: 1 say unto you, It shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.'
What an unspeakable privilege this of united prayer is, and what a power it might be. If the believing husband and wife knew that they were joined together in the Name of Jesus to experience His presence and power in united prayer (1 Peter); if friends believed what mighty help two or three praying in concert could give each other; if in every prayer meeting the coming together in the Name, the faith in the Presence, and the expectation of the answer, stood in the foreground; if in every Church united effectual prayer were regarded as one of the chief purposes for which they are banded together, the highest exercise of their power as a Church; if in the Church universal the coming of the kingdom, the coming of the King Himself, first in the mighty outpouring of His Holy Spirit, then in His own glorious person, were really matter of unceasing united crying to God;-O who can say what blessing might come to, and through, those who thus agreed to prove God in the fulfillment of His promise.
In the Apostle Paul we see very distinctly what a reality his faith in the power of united prayer was. To the Romans he writes
30 Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me;
I beseech you, brethren, by the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayer to God for me.' He expects in answer to be delivered from his enemies, and to be prospered in his work. To the Corinthians (2 Cor. i. 11
11 Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf.
God will still deliver us, ye also helping together on our behalf by your supplications; their prayer is to have an actual share in his deliverance. To the Ephesians he writes: With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit for all the saints and on my behalf, that utterance may be given unto me! His power and success in his ministry he makes to depend on their prayers. With the Philippians i. 19
19 For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,
he expects that his trials will turn to his salvation and the progress of the gospel through your supplications and the supply of the spirit of Jesus Christ.;
Who can say what power a Church could develop and exercise, if it gave itself to the work of prayer day and night for the coming of the kingdom, for God's power on His servants and His word, for the glorifying of God in the salvation of souls?
Most Churches think their members are gathered into one to care for and build up each other. They know not that God rules the world by the prayers of His saints; that prayer is the power by which Satan is conquered; that by prayer the Church on earth has disposal of the powers of the heavenly world. They do not remember that Jesus has, by His promise, consecrated every assembly in His Name to be a gate of heaven, where His Presence is to be felt, and His Power experienced in the Father fulfilling their desires.
Who can say what power a Church could develop and exercise, if it gave itself to the work of prayer day and night for the coming of the kingdom, for God's power on His servants and His word, for the glorifying of God in the salvation of souls?
Most Churches think their members are gathered into one to care for and build up each other. They know not that God rules the world by the prayers of His saints; that prayer is the power by which Satan is conquered; that by prayer the Church on earth has disposal of the powers of the heavenly world. They do not remember that Jesus has, by His promise, consecrated every assembly in His Name to be a gate of heaven, where His Presence is to be felt, and His Power experienced in the Father fulfilling their desires.
We cannot sufficiently thank God for the blessed week of united prayer, with which Christendom in our days opens every year. As proof of our unity and our faith in the power of united prayer, as a training school for the enlargement of our hearts to take in all the needs of the Church universal, and as a help to united persevering prayer, it is of unspeakable value. But very, especially as a stimulus to the continued union in prayer in the smaller circles, its blessing has been great. And it will become even greater as God’s people recognize what it is, all to meet as one in the Name of Jesus to have His presence amid a body all united in the Holy Spirit and boldly to claim the promise that it shall be done of the Father what they agree to ask.