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Of all the promises connected with the command, ' Abide in me/ there is none higher, and none tliat sooner brings the confession, * Not that I have already attained, or am already made perfect,' than this : * If ye abide in me, ask whatsoever ye will, and •it shall he done unto you.* Power with God is the highest attainment of the life of full abiding. . ' And of all the traits of a life Like Christ there is none higher and more glorious than conformity to Him in the work that now engages Him without ceasing in the Father's presence — His all-prevail- ing intercession. The more we abide in Him, and grow unto His likeness, will His priestly life work in us mightily, and our life become what His is, a life that ever pleads and prevails for men. * Thou hast made us kings and priests unto God.* Both in the king and the priest the chief thing is power, influence, blessing. In the king it is the m» qmiii ft PREFACE. power coming downward ; in the priest, the power rising upward, prevailing with God. In our blessed Priest-King, Jesus Christ, the kingly power is founded on the priestly ' He is able to save to the uttermost, because He ever liveth to make inter- cession.* In us. His priests and kings, it is no otherwise : it is in intercession that the Church is to find and wield its highest power, that each member of the Church is to prove his descent from Israel, who as a prince had power with God and with men, and prevailed. It is under a deep impression that the place and power of prayer in the Christian life is too little understood, that this book has been written. I feel sure that as long as we look on prayer chiefly as the means of maintaining our own Christian life, we shall not know fully what it is meant to be. But when we learn to regard it as the highest part of the work entrusted to us, the root and strength of all other work, we shall see that there is nothing that we so need to study and practise as the art of praying aright. If I have at all succeeded in pointing out the progressive teaching of our Lord in regard to prayer, and the distinct reference the wonderful promises of the last night (John xiv. 16) PREFACE. Vll have to the works we are to do in His Name, to the greater works, and to the bearing much fruit, we shall all admit that it is only when the Churcli gives herself up to this holy work of intercession that we can expect the power of Christ to manifest itself in her behalf. It is my prayer that God may use this little book to make clearer to some of His children the wonderful place of power and influence which He is waiting for them to occupy, and for which a weary world is waiting too. In connection with this there is another truth that has come to me with wonderful clearness as I studied the teaching of Jesus on prayer. It is this : that the Father waits to hear every prayer of faith, to give us whatsoever we will, and whatsoever we ask in Jesus* name. We have become so accustomed to limit the wonderful love and the large promises of our God, that we cannot read the simplest and clearest statements of our Lord witliouc the quali- fying clauses by which we guard and expound them. If there is one thing I thinii: the Church needs to learn, it is that God means prayer to have an answer, and that it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive what God will do for His child who gives himself to believe that his prayer will be Vlll I'RKFACK. heard. Ood hears jyraijcr ; this is a truth universally admitted, but of which very few anderstand the meaning, or experience the power. If what I have written stir my reader to go to the Master's words, and take His wondrous promises simply and literally as they stand, my object has been attained. And then just one thing more. Thousands have in these last years found an unspeakable blessing in learning how completely Christ is our life, and how He undertakes to be and to do all in us that we need. I know not if we have yet learned to apply this truth to our prayer-life. Many com- plain that they have not the power to pray in faith, to pray the effectual prayer that availeth much- The message I would fain bring them is that the blessed Jesus is waiting, is longing, to teach them this. Christ is our life : in heaven He ever livetli to pray ; His life in us is an ever- praying life, if we will but trust Him for it. Christ teaches us to pray not only by example, by instruc- tion, by command, by promises, but ly showtng us Himself, the ever-living Intercessor, as our Life. It is when we believe this, and go and abide in Him for our prayer-life too, that our fears of not being able to pray aright will vanish, and we shall joy- PREFACE IX fully and triumphantly trust our rA)rd to teach us to pray, to be Himself the life and the power of our prayer. May God open our pyes to see what the holy ministry of intercession is to which, as His royal priesthood, we have been set apart. May He give us a large and strong heart to believe what mighty inlhience our prayers cuu exert. And may all fear as to our being able to fulfd our vocation vanish as we see Jesus, living ever to pray, living in us to pray, and standing sur^t}- for our prayer- life. " ANDREW MUBRAV. Wei.lincton, 28th Octoher 1885. ws^ssmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmKKm -i.i CONTENTS. Lcaaov F40B 1. ' Lord I teach us to pray ; ' or, The Only Teacher, . 1 2. ' In spirit and truth ; ' or, The True Worshippers, . 9 8. * Plray to thy Father, which is in secret ; ' or, Alone withOod, 16 4. ' After this manner pray ; ' or. The Model Prayer, . 24 5. ' Ask, and it shall be given you ; ' or. The Certainty of the Answer to Prayer, 32 6. ' How much more ? ' or, The Infinite Fatherliness of God, 30 7. ' How much more the Holy Spirit ; ' or. The All- Com- prehensive Gift, 48 8. ' Because of his importunity ; ' or. The Boldness of God's Friends, 55 9. • Pray the Lord of the harvest ; ' or, Prayer provides Labourers, 63 10. ' What wilt thou ? ' or, Prayer must be deliiiite, . . 71 11. ' Believe that ye have received ; ' or, The Faith that takes .78 12. ' Have faith in God ; ' or, The tiucret of Believing I'layer, 86 18. ' By prayer and fasting ;* or. The Cure of Unbelief, . 94 14. ' When ye stand praying, forgive ; ' or, Prayer and Love, 103 16. ' If two agree ; ' or. The Power of United Prayer, . Ill 16. 'Speedily, though bearing long;' or. The Power of Persevering Prayer, .118 si '^''f'^'^Htmvmmmr^'t'mmmm Xll CONTENTS. I LESSON 17. 'I know that Thou hearcst me always ;' or, Prayer in Harmony with the Being of God, . 18. 'Whose is thi.s imaged' or, Prayer in Harmony with the Destiny of Man, .... 19. * I go unto the Fatlier ; ' or, Power for Praying anc Working, 20. 'That the Father may Ix' glorified ; ' or, The Chief End of Prayer, ... .... 21. * If ye abide in me ; ' or, The All-inclusive Condition, 22. * Aly words in you ; ' or. The Wor. ' and Prayer, . 23. ' Bear fruit, that the Father may give what ye ask Obedience the Path to Power in Prayer, 24. ' In my Name ; ' oi , Tlie All -Prevailing Plea, 25. 'At that day j ' or, The Holy Spirit and Prayer, . 26. * I have prayed for thee ; ' or, Christ the Intercessor, 27. ' Father ! I will ; ' or, Christ the High Priest, 28. * Father ! not what I will ; ' or, Christ the Sacrifice, 29. * According to His will ; ' or. Our Boldness in Prayer, 30. ' An holy priesthood ; ' or, The Ministry of Intercession 31. ' Pray without ceasing ; ' or, A Life of Prayer, or George Muller, and the Secret of his Power in Prayer, PAOI 129 137 144 152 IGO 170 178 18t) 196 204 214 222 230 240 248 255 WITH CHRIST In t!)e Scjiool of ^^ra^er. Or. First Lesson. 'Lord, teach us to pray; ' The Only Teacher. 'And it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, that when lie ceased, one of Ilis disciples said to Him, Lord, t(-n(h us to pray.' — Luke xi, 1. THE disciples had been with Christ, and seen Him pray. They had learnt to understand some- thing of the connection between His wondrous life in public, and His secret life of prayer. They had learnt ^0 believe in Him as a Master in the art of prayet — none could pray like Him. And so they cc.me to Him with the request, 'Lord, teach us to pray.' And in after years they would have told us that there were few things more wonderful or blessed that He taught them than His lessons on prayer. And now still it comes to pass, as He is praying in a certain ^ lace, that disciples who see Him tlius engaged feel the need of repeating the same request, ' Lord, teach us to pray.' As we grow in the Chris- tian life, the thought and the faith of the Beloved Master in His never-failing intercession becomes ever A WTii y ni WITH CHRIST more precious, and the hope of being Like Christ in His intercession gains an attractiveness before unlcnown. And as we see Him pray, and remember that there is none who can pray like Him, and none who can teach like Him, we feel the petition of the dis- ciples, * Lord, teach us to pray,' is just what we need. And as we think how all He is and has, how He Himself is our very own, how He is Himself our life, we feel assured that we have but to ask, and He will be delighted to take us up into closer fellowship with Himself, and teach us to pray even as He prays. Come, my brothers ! Shall we not go to the Blessed Master and ask Him to enrol our names too anew in that school which He always keeps open for those who long to continue their studies in the Divine art of prayer and intercession ? Yes, let us this very day say to the Master, as they did of old, * Lord, teach us to pray.' As we medi- tate, we shall find each word of the petition we bring to be full of meaning. . * Lord, teach us to pray' Yes, to pray. This is what we need to be taught. Though in its begin- nings prayer is so simple that the feeblest child can pray, yet it is at the same time the highest and holiest work to which man can rise. It is fellow- ship with the Unseen and Most Holy One. The powers of the eternal world have been placed at its disposal. It is the very essence of true religion, the cliannel of all blessings, the seciet of power and life. Not only for ourselves, but for others, for the IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 8 Church, for the world, it is to prayer that God has given the right to take hold of Him and His strength. It is on prayer that the promises wait for their fulfilment, the kingdom for its coming, the glory of God for its full revelation. And for this blessed work, how slothful and unfit we are. It is only the Spirit of God can enable us to do it aright. How speedily we are deceived into a resting in the form, while the power is wanting. Our early train- ing, the teaching of the Church, the influence of habit, the stirring of the emotions — ^how easily these lead to prayer which has no spiritual power, and avails but little. True prayer, that takes hold of God's strength, that availeth much, to which the gates of heaven are really opened wide — who would not cry. Oh for some one to teach me thus to pray ? Jesus has opened a school, in which He trains His redeemed ones, who specially desire it, to have power in prayer. Shall we not enter it with the petition, Lord ! it is just this we need to be taught ! teach us to pray. * Lord, teach iis to pray.* Yes, us, Lord. "We have read in Thy Word with what power Thy believing people of old used to pray, and what mighty wonders were done in answer to their prayers. And if this took place under the Old Covenant, in the time of prepara- tion, how much more wilt Thou not now, in these days of fulfilment, give Thy people this sure sign of Thy presence in their midst. We have heard the promises given to Thine apostles of the power of prayer in Thy •*^ BOT WITH CURIST name, and have seen how gloriously they experienced their truth: we know for certain, they can become true to us too. We hear continually even in these days what glorious tokens of Thy power Thou dost still give to those who trust Thee fully. Lord ! these all are men of like passions with ourselves ; teach us to pray so too. The promises are for us, the powers and gifts of the heavenly world are for us. teach us to pray so that we may receive abundantly. To us too Thou hast entrusted Thy work, on our prayer too the coming of Thy kingdom depends, in our prayer too Thou canst glorify Thy name ; * Lord, teach us to pray.* Yes, us. Lord ; we offer ourselves as learners ; we would indeed be taught of Thee. * Lord, teach us to pray.* * Lord, teach us to pray.' Yes, we feel the need now of being taught to pray. At first there is no work appears so simple ; later jn, none that is more difficult ; and the confession is forced from us : We know not how to pray as we ought. It is true we have God's Word, with its clear and sure promises ; but sin has so darkened our mind, that we know not always how to apply the Word. In spiritual things we do not always seek the most needful things, or fail in praying according to the law of the sanc- tuary. In temporal things we are still less able to avail ourselves of the wonderful liberty our Father has given us to ask what we need. And even when we know what to ask, how much there is still needed to make prayer acceptable. It must be to the glory of God, in full surrender to His will, in full assur- IN THE SCHOOL OF PKATER. ance of faith, in the name of Jesus, and with a per- severance that, if need be, refuses to be denied. All this must be learned. It can only be learned in the school of much prayer, for practice makes perfect. Amid the painful consciousness of ignorance and unworthiness, in the struggle between believing and doubting, the heavenly art of effectual prayer is learnt. Because, even when we do not remember it, there is One, the Beginner and Finisher of faith and prayer, who watches over our praying, and sees to it that in all who trust Him for it their education in the school of prayer shall be carried on to perfection. Let but the deep undertone of all our prayer be the teachableness that comes from a sense of ignorance, and from faith in Him as a perfect teacher, and we may be sure w^e shall be taught, we shall learn to pray in power. Yes, we may depend upon it, He teaches to pray. ' Lord, teach' us to pray,' None can teacli like Jesus, none but Jesus ; therefore we call on Him, ' Lord, teach us to pray.' A pupil needs a teaclier, who knows his work, who has the gift of teaching, who in patience and love will descend to the pupil's needs. Blessed be God ! Jesus is all this and much more. He knows what prayer is. It is Jesus, praying Himself, who teaches to pray. He knows what prayer is. He learned it amid the trials and tears of His earthly life. In heaven it is still His beloved work : His life there is prayer. Nothing delights Him more than to find those whom He can take with Him into the Father's presence, ! I 6 WITH CHRIST whom He can clothe with power to pray down God's blessing on those around them, whom He can train to be His fellow-workers in the intercession by which the kingdom is to be revealed on earth. He knows how to teach. Now by the urgency of felt need, then by the confidence with which joy inspires. Here by the teaching of the Word, there by the testimony of another believer who knows what it is to have prayer heard. By His Holy Spirit, He has access to our heart, and teaches us to pray by showing us the sin that hinders the prayer, or giving us the assurance that we please God. He teaches, by giving not only thoughts of what to ask or how to ask, but by breathing within us the very spirit of prayer, by living within us as the Great Intercessor. We may indeed and most joyfully say, ' Who teacheth like Him ? ' Jesus never taught His disciples how to preach, only how to pray. He did not speak much of what was needed to preach well, but much of praying well. To know how to speak to God is more than knowing how to speak to man. Not power with men, but power with God is the first thing. Jesus loves to teach us how to pray. What think you, my beloved fellow-disciples! would it not be just what we need, to ask the Master for a month to give us a course of special lessons on the art of prayer ? As we meditate on the words He spake on earth, let us yield ourselves to His teach- ing in the fullest confidence that, with such a teacher, we shall make progress. Let us take time not only to meditate, but to pray, to tarry at the foot of the IN THE SCHOOL OP PRAYEU. T throne, and be trained to the work of intercession. Let us do so in the assurance that amidst our stam- merings and fears He is carrying on His work most beautifully. He will breathe His own life, which is all prayer, into us. As He makes us partakers of His righteousness and His life, He will of His inter- cession too. As the members of His body, as a holy priesthood, we shall take part in His priestly work of pleading and prevailing with God for men. Yes, let us most joyfully say, ignorant and feeble though we be, * Lord, teach us to pray.' ' LOKD, TEACH us TO PIIAY.* lilesscd Lord ! who ever livest to pray, Thou canst teach me too to pray, me too to live over to pray. In this Thou lovest to make me share Thy glory in heaven, that I should pray without ceasing, and ever stand as a priest in the presence of my God. Lord Jesus ! I ask Thee this day to enrol my name among those who confess that they know not how to pray as they ought, and specially ask Thee for a course of teaching in prayer. Lord ! teach me to tarry with Thee in the school, and give Thee time to train me. May a deep sense of my ignor- ance, of the wonderful privilege and power of prayer, of the need of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of prayer, lead me to cast away my thoughts of what I think I know, and make me kneel before Thee in true teachableness and poverty of spirit. w 8 WITH CHRIST And fill me, Lord, with the confidence that with such a teacher as Thou art I shall learn to pray. In the assurance that I have as my teacher, Jesus, who is ever praying to the Father, and by His prayer rules the destinies of His Church and the world, I will not be afraid. As much as I need to know of the mysteries of the prayer-world. Thou wilt unfold for me. And when I may not know, Thou wilt teach me to be strong in faith, giving glory to God. Blessed Lord ! Thou wilt not put to shame Thy scholar who trusts Thee, nor, by Thy grace, would he Tliee either. Amen. IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 9 WITH CHRIST In ti)e Scfiool of l^rager* Second Lesson. 'In spirit and truth.' Or, The True Worshippers. •Tho hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship tho Father in spirit and truth : for such doth the Father seek to be His worshippers. God is a Spirit : and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.' — John iv. 23, 24. THESE words of Jesus to the woman of Samaria are His first recorded teaching on the subject of prayer. They give us some wonderful first glimpses into the world of prayer. The Father seeks worship- pers : our worship satisfies His loving heart and is a joy to Him. He seeks true worsliippers, but finds many not such as He would have them. True worship is that which is in spirit and tinth. TJie Son has come to open the way for this worship in spirit and in truth, and teach it us. And so one of our first lessons in the school of prayer must be to understand what it is to pray in spirit and in truth, and to know how we can attain to it. To the woman of Samaria our Lord spoke of a threefold worship. There is first, the ignorant 10 WITH CHRIST ivorsliip of the Samaritans : ' Ye worship that which ye know not.' The second, the intelligent worship of the Jew, having the true knowledge of God : * We worship that which we know ; for salvation is of the Jews.' And then the new, the spiritual worship which He Himself has come to introduce : ' The hour is coming, and is now, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth.' From the connection it is evident that the words ' in spirit and truth ' do not mean, as is often thought, earnestly, from the heart, in sincerity. The Samaritans had the five books of Moses and some knowledge of God ; there was doubtless more than one among them who honestly and earnestly sought God in prayer. The Jews had the true full revela- tion of God in His word, as thus far given; there were among them godly men, who called upon God with their whole heart. And yet not 'in spirit and truth,' in the full meaning of the words. Jesus says, ' The hour is coming, and now is:' it is only in and through Him that the worship of God will be in spirit and truth. Among Christians one still finds the three classes of worshippers. Some who in their ignorance hardly know what they ask : they pray earnestly, and yet receive but little. Others there are, who have more correct knowledge, who try to pray with all their mind and heart, and often pray most earnestly, and yet do not attain to the full blessed- ness of worship in spirit and truth. It is into this third class we must ask our Lord Jesus to take us ; we must be taught of Him how to worsliip in IN THE SCHOOL OF rilAYER. 11 spirit and truth. This alone is spiritual worship ; this makes us worshippers such as the Father seeks. In prayer everything will depend on our under- standing well and practising the worship in spirit and truth. ' God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him, must worship Him m spirit and truth.* The first thought suggested here by the Master is that there must be harmony between God and His worshippers ; such as God is, must His worship be. This is according to a principle which prevails throughout the universe : we look for correspondence between an object and the organ to which it reveals or yields itself. The eye has an inner fitness for the light, the ear for sound. The man who would truly worship God, would find and know and possess and enjoy God, must be in harmony with Him, must have the capacity for receiving Him. Because God is Spirit, we must worship in spirit. As God is, so His worshipper. And what does this mean ? The woman had asked our Lord whether Samaria or Jerusalem was the true place of worship. He answers that hence- forth worship is no longer to be limited to a certain place : * Woman, believe Me, tJie hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father.' As God is Spirit, not bound by space or time, but in His infinite perfection always and everywhere the same, so His worship would henceforth no longer be confined by place or form, but spiritual as God Himself is spiritual. s^sst^s^m 12 WITH CHRIST A lesson of deep importance. How much our Christianity suffers from this, that it is confined to certain times and places. A man, who seeks to pray earnestly in the church or in the closet, spends the greater part of the week or the day in a spirit entirely at variance with that in which he prayed. His worship was the work of a fixed place or hour, not of his whole being. God is a Spirit : He is the Everlasting and Unchangeable One; what He is. He is always and in trutli. Our worship must even so be in spirit and truth : His worship must be the si)irit of our life ; our life must be worship in spirit as God is Spirit. * God is a Spirit : and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.' The second thought that comes to us is that tins worship in the spirit must come from God Himself. God is Spirit : He alone has Spirit to give. It was for this He sent His Son, to fit us for such spiritual worship, by giving us the Holy Spirit. It is of His own work that Jesus speaks when He says twice, ' The hour Cometh,' and then adds, ' and is now.' He came to baptize with the Holy Spirit ; the Spirit could not stream forth till He was glorified (John i. 33, vii. 37, 38, xvi. 7). It was when He had made an end of sin, and entering into the Holiest of all with His blood, had there on our behalf received the Holy Spirit (Acts ii. 33), that He could send Him down to us as the Spirit of the Father. It was when Christ had redeemed us, and we in Him had received the position of children, that the Father sent forth IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 13 the Spirit of His Son into our hearts to cry, ' Abba, Father.' The worship in spirit is the worship of the Father in the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Sonship. This is the reason why Jesus here uses the name of Father. We never find one of the Old Testament saints personally appropriate the name of child or call God his Father. The worship of the Father is only possible to those to whom the Spirit of the Son has been given. The worship in spirit is only possible to those to whom the Son has revealed the Father, and who have received the spirit of Sonship. It is only Christ who opens the way and teaches the worship in spirit. And in tridh. That does not only mean, in sincerity. Nor does it only signify, in accordance with the truth of God's Word. The expression is one of deep and Divine meaning. Jesus is * the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth! ' The law was given by Moses ; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.' Jesus says, * / a77i the truth and the life.' In the Old Testament all was shadow and promise ; Jesus brought and gives the reality, the substance, of things hoped for. In Him the blessings and powers of the eternal life are our actual possession and experience. Jesus is full of grace and truth ; the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth ; through Him the grace that is in J esus is ours in deed and truth, a positive communication out of the Divine life. And so v orship in spirit is worship in truth ; actual living fellowship with God, 14 WITH CHRIST a real correspondence and harmony between the Father, who is a Spirit, and the child praying in the spirit. What Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, she could not at once understand. Pentecost was needed to reveal its full meaning. We are hardly prepared at our first entrance into the school of prayer to grasp such teaching. We shall understand it better later on. Let us only begin and take the lesson as He gives it. We are carnal and cannot bring God the worship He seeks. But Jesus came to give the Spirit : He has given Him to us. Let the disposi- tion in which we set ourselves to pray be what Christ's words have taught us. Let there be the deep confession of our inability to bring God the worship that is pleasing to Him ; the childlike teachableness that waits on Him to instruct us ; the simple faith that yields itself to the breathing of tlie Spirit. Above all, let us hold fast the blessed truth — we shall find that the Lord has more to say to us about it — that the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God, the revelation of His infinite Fatherliness in our hearts, the faith in the infinite love that gives us His Son and His Spirit to make us children, is indeed the secret of prayer in spirit and truth. This is the new and living way Christ opened up for us. To have Christ the Son, and the Spirit of the Son, dwelling within us, and revealing the Father, this makes us true, spiritual worshippers. 'Lord, teach us to pray,' 33, ' ! I IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 15 Blessed Lord ! I adore the love with which Thou didst teach a woman, who had refused Thee a cup of water, what the worship of God must be. I rejoice in the assurance that Thou wilt no less now instruct Thy disciple, who comes to Thee with a heart that longs to pray in spirit and in truth. my Holy Master! do teach me this blessed secret. Teach me that the worship in spirit and truth is not of man, but only comes from Thee ; that it is not only a thing of times and seasons, but the outflowing of a life in Thee. Teach me to draw near to God in prayer under the deep impression of my ignorance and my having nothing in myself to offer Him, and at the same time of the provision Thou, my Saviour, makest for the Spirit's breathing in my childlike stammerings. 1 do bless Thee that in Thee I am a child, and have a child's liberty of access ; that in Thee I have the spirit of Sonship and of worship in truth. Teach me, above all, Blessed Son of the Father, how it is the revelation of the Father that gives confidence in prayer ; and let the infinite Fatherliness of God's Heart be my joy and strength tor a life of prayer and of worship. Amen. msmmum 16 WITH CUKIST WITH CHRIST In t!}e Scjiool of i^rager* !8i; Third Lesson. 'Pray to thy Father, which is in secret ; Or, Alone with God. But thou, when thou praycst, enter into thino inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which secth in secret shall recompense thco.' — Matt. vi. 6. AFTER Jesus had called His first disciples, He gave them their first public teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. He there expounded to them the kingdom of God, its laws and its life. In that kingdom God is not only King, but Father; He not only gives all, but is Himself all. In the knowledge and fellowship of Him alone is its blessedness. Hence it came as a matter of course that the revelation of prayer and the prayer-life was a part of His teaching concerning the New King- dom He came to set up. Moses gave neither com- mand nor regulation with regard to prayer : even the prophets say little directly of the duty of prayer ; it is Christ who teaches to pray. And the first thing the Lord teaches His disciples IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 17 IS that they must have a secret place for prayer ; every one must have some solitary spot where he can be alone with his God. Every teacher must have a schoolroom. We have learnt to know and accept Jesus as our only teacher in the school of prayer. He has already taught us at Samaria that worship is no longer confined to times and places ; that wor- ship, spiritual true worship, is a thing of the spirit and the life ; the whole man must in his whole life be worship in spirit and truth. And yet He wants each one to choose for himself the fixed spot where He can daily meet him. That inner chamber, that solitary place, is Jesus* schoolroom. That spot may be anywhere ; that spot may change from day to day if we have to change our abode ; but that secret place there must be, with the quiet time in which ^he pupil places himself in the Master's presence, to be by Him prepared to worship the Father. There alone, but there most surely, Jesus comes to us to teach us to pray. A teacher is always anxious that his schoolroom should be bright and attractive, filled with the light and air of heaven, a place where pupils long to come, and love to stay. In His first words on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus seeks to set the inner chamber before us in its most attractive light. If we listen carefully, we soon notice what the chief thing is He has to tell us of our tarrying there. Three times He uses the name of Father : * Pray to thy Father;' * Thy Father shall recompense thee;' • Your Father knoweth what things ye have need B PB ■;>* ,' 18 wrni CHRIST of.' The first thing in closet-prayer is: I must meet my Father. The light that shines in the closet must be : the light of the Father's counten- ance. The fresh air from heaven with which Jesus would have it filled, the atmosphere in which I am to breathe and pray, is : God's Father-love, God's infinite Fatherlineso. Thus each thought or petition wo breathe out will be simple, hearty, childlike trust in the Father. This is how the Master teaches us to pray : lie brings us into the Father's living presence. What we pray there must avail. Let us listen carefully to hear what the Lord has to say to us. First, 'Pray to thy Father which is in secret.' God is a God who hides Himself to the carnal eye. As long as in our worship of God we are chiefly occupied with our own thoughts and exercises, we shall not meet Him who is a Spirit, the unseen One. But to the man who withdraws himself from all that is of the world and man, and prepares to wait upon God alone, the Fatlier will reveal Himself. As he forsakes and gives up and shuts out the world, and the life of the world, and surrenders himself to be led of Christ into the secret of God's presence, the light of the Father's love will rise upon him. The secrecy of tlie inner chamber and the closed door, the entire separation from all around us, is an image of, and so a help to that innei spiritual sanctuary, the secret of God's tabernacle within the veil, where our spirit truly comes intc contact with the Invisible One. And so we an IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 19 taught, at the very outset of our search after the secret of effectual prayer, to remember that it is in the inner chamber, where we are alone with the Father, that we shall learn to pray aright. The Father is in secret : in these words Jesus teaches us where He is waiting us, where He is always to be found. Christians often complain that private prayer is not what it should be. They feel weak and sinful, the heart is cold and dark ; it is as if they have so little to pray, and in that little no faith or joy. They are discouraged and kept from prayer by the thouglit that they cannot come to the Father as they ought or as they wish. Child of God ! listen to your Teacher. He tells you that when you go to private prayer your first thought must be : The Father is in secret, the Father waits me there. Just because your heart is cold and prayerless, get you into the presence of the loving Father. As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth you. Do not be thinking of how little you have to bring God, but of how much He wants to give you Just place yourself before, and look up into. His face; think of His love, His wonderful, tender, pitying love. Just tell Him how sinful and cold and dark all is : it is the Father's loving heart will give light and warmth to yours. do what Jesus says: Just shut the door, and pray to thy Father which is in secret. Is it not wonderful ? to be able to go alone with God, the infinite God. And then to look up and say: My Father ! * And thy Father, which seeth in secret, will recom* \pen8e thee! Here Jesus assures us that secret 20 WITH CHRIST prayer cannot be fruitless : its blessing will show itself in our life. We have but in secret, alone with God, to entrust our life before men to Him ; He will reward us openly ; He will see to it that the answer to prayer be made manifest in His blessing upon us. Our Lord would thus teach us that as infinite Fatherliness and Faithfulness is that with which God meets us in secret, so on our part there should be the childlike simplicity of faith, the con- fidence that our prayer does bring down a blessing. ' He that cometh to God must believe that He is a rewarder of them that seek Him.' Not on the strong or the fervent feeling with which I pray does the blessing of the closet depend, but upon the love and the power of the Father to whom I there entrust my needs. And therefore the Master has but one desire : Remember your Father is, and sees and hears in secret ; go there and stay there, and go again from there in the confidence : He will recompense. Trust Him for it ; depend upon Him : prayer to the Father cannot be vain ; He will reward you openly. Still further to confirm this faith in the Father- love of God, Christ speaks a third word : * Your Father Jcnoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him.' At first sight it might appear as if this thought made prayer less needful : God knows far better than we what we need. But as we get a deeper insight into what prayer really is, this truth will help much to strengthen our faith. It will teach us that we do not need, as the heathen, with the multitude and urgency of our words, to compel an IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 2L unwilling God to listen to us. It will lead to a holy thoughtfulness and silence in prayer as it suggests the question : Does my Father really know that I need this ? It will, when once we have been led by the Spirit to the certainty that our request is indeed something that, according to the Word, we do need for God's glory, give us wonderful con- fidence to say, My Father knows I need it and must have it. And if there be any delay in the answer, it will teach us in quiet perseverance to hold on : Father ! Thou knowest I need it. the blessed liberty and simplicity of a child that Christ our Teacher would fain cultivate in us, as we draw near to God : let us look up to the Father until His Spirit works it in us. Let us sometimes in our prayers, when we are in danger of being so occupied with our fervent, urgent petitions, as to forget that the Father knows and hears, let us hold still and just quietly say : My Father sees, my Father hears, my Father knows ; it will help our faith to take the answer, and to say : We know that we have the petitions we have asked of Him. And now, all ye who have anew entered the school of Christ to be taught to pray, take these lessons, practise them, and trust Him to perfect you in them. Dwell much in the inner chamber, with the door shut — shut in from men, shut up with God ; it is there the Father waits you, it is there Jesus will teach you to pray. To be alone in secret with THE Father : this be your highest joy. To be assured that the Father will openly reward tho I 22 Wn'H CHRIST secret prayer, so that it cannot remain unblessed : this be your strength day by day. And to know that THE Father knows that you need what you ask : this be your liberty to bring every need, in the assurance that your God will supply it according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. * Lord, teach us to pray.' Blessed Saviour ! with my whole heart I do bless Thee for the appointment of the inner chamber, as the school where Thou meetest each of Thy pupils alone, and revealest to him the Father. my Lord ! strengthen my faith so in tlie Father's tender love and kindness, that as often as 1 feel sinful or troubled, the first instinctive thought may be to go where I know the Father waits me, and where prayer never can go unblessed. Let the tliought that He knows my need before I ask, bring me, in great restfulness of faith, to trust that He will give what His child requires. let the place of secret prayer become to me the most beloved spot of eai th. And, Lord ! hear me as I pray that Thou wouldest everywhere bless the closets of Thy believing people. Let Thy wonderful revelation of a Father's tender- ness free all young Christians from every thought of secret prayer as a duty or a burden, and lead them to regard it as the highest privilege of their life, a joy and a blessing. Bring back all who are discouraged, because they cannot find ought to bring IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 28 lliee in prayer. give them to understand that they have only to come with their emptiness to Him who has all to give, and delights to do it. Not, what they have to bring the Father, but what the Father waits to give them, be their one thought. And bless especially the inner chamber of all Thy servants who are working for Thee, as the place where God's truth and God's grace is revealed to them, where they are daily anointed with fresh oil, where their strength is renewed, and the bless- ings are received in faith, with which they are to bless their fellow-men. Lord, draw us all in the closet nearer to Thyself and the Father. Amen. ) i 24 WITU CIIKIST WITH cHiasT in t!)e School of iPraucr. Fourth Lesson. ' After this manner pray ; ' Or, The Model Prayer, ' After this manner tlierefore pray ye : Our Father which art In heaven.* — Matt. vi. 9. EVERY teacher knows the power of example, lie not only tells the child what to do and how to do it, but shows him how it really can be done. In condescension to our weakness, our Heavenly Teacher has given us the very words we are to take with us as we draw near to our Father. We have in them a form of prayer in which there breathe the freshness and fulness of the Eteri'al Life. So simide that tlic child can lisp it, so divinely rich that it comprehends all that God can give. A form of prayer that becomes the model and inspiration for all other prayer, and yet always draws us back to itself as the dco\ est utterance of our souls before our God. 'Our Father ivhich art in heaven!' To appre- ciate this word of adoration aright, I must remember that none of the saints had in Scripture ever ventured to address God as their Father. The IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAVER. 2S invocation places us at once in the centre of the wonderful revelation the Son came to make of Ilia Father as our Father too. It comprehends the mystery of redemption — Christ delivering us from the curse that we might hecome the children of God. The mystery of regeneration — the Spirit in tho new hirth giving us the new life. And the myritery of faith — ere yet the redemption is accom- plished or understood, the word is given on the lips of the disciples to prepare them for the blessed experience still to come. The words are the key to the wliole prayer, to all prayer. It takes time, it takes life to study them ; it will take eternity to understand them fully. The knowledge of God'a Father-love is the first and simplest, but also the last and highest lesson in the school of prayer. It is in the personal relation to the living God, and the personal conscious fellowship of love with Himself, that prayer begins. It is in tho knowledge of God's Fatherliness, revealed by the Holy Spirit, that the power, of prayer will be found to root and grow. In the infinite tenderness and pity and patience of the infinite Father, in His loving readiness to hear and to help, the life of prayer has its joy. let us take time, until the Spirit has made these words to us spirit and truth, filling heart and life : * Our Father which art in heaven.' Then we are indeed within the veil, in tlie secret place of power where prayer always prevails. ' Hallowed he Thy name' There is something here that strikes us at once. While we ordinarily first m WITH CHRIST bring our own needs to God in prayer, and then think of what belongs to God and His interests, the Master reverses the order. First, Thy name, Thij kingdom, Thy will ; then, give us, forgive us, lead us, dehver tis. The lesson is of more importance than we think. In true worship the Father must be first, must be all. The sooner I learn to forget myself in the desire that He may be glorified, the richer will the blessing be that prayer will bring to myself. No one ever loses by what he sacrifices for the Father. •- , This must influence all our prayer. There are two sorts of prayer : personal and intercessory. The latter ordinarily occupies the lesser part of our time and energy. This may not be. Christ has opened the school of prayer specially to train intercessors toi the great work of bringing down, by their faith and prayer, the blessings of His work and love on the world around. There can be no deep growth in prayer unless this be made our aim. The little child may ask of the father only what it needs for itself ; and yet it soon learns to say, Give some for sister too. But the grown-up son, who only lives for the father's interest and takes charge of the father's business, asks more largely, ai d gets all that is asked. And Jesus would train us to the blessed life of consecration and service, in which our interests are all subordinate to the Name, and the Kingdom, and the "Will of the Father. let us live for this, and let, on each act of adoration, Our Father ! there follow in the same breath. Thy IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 27 Kaine, Thy Kingdom, Thy Will ; — for this we look up and long. * Hallowed he Thy name! What name ? This new name of Father. The word Holy is the central word of the Old Testament ; the name Father of the New. In this name of Love all the holiness and '^lory of God are now to be revealed. And how is the naiae to be hallowed ? By God Himself : * 1 will hallow My great name which ye have profaned.' Our prayer must be that in ourselves, in all God's children, in presence of the world, God Himself would reveal the holiness, the Divine power, the hidden glory of the name of Father. The Spirit of the Father is the Holy Spirit : it is only when wo yield ourselves to be led of Him, that the name will be hallowed in our prayers and our lives. Let us learn tlie prayer : * Our Father, hallowed be Thy name.' ' Thy kingdom come.' The Father is a King and has a kingdom. The son and heir of a king has no higher ambition than the glory of his father's king- dom. In time of war or danger this becomes his passion ; he can think of nothing else. The children of the Father are here in the enemy's territory, where the kingdom, which is in heaven, is not yet fully manifested. Wliat more natural than that, when they learn to hallow the Father-name, they should long and cry with deep enthusiasm : * Thy kingdom come.' The coming of the kingdom is the one great event on which the revelation of the Father's glory, the blessedness o'l His cliildren, the salvation of the 28 WITH CHRIST 'i world depends. On our prayers too tlie coming of the kingdom waits. Shall we not join in the deep longing cry of the redeemed : ' Thy kingdom come ' ? Let us learn it in the school of Jesus. * Thy will he done, as in heaven, so on earth.' This petition is too frequently applied alone to the suffer- ing of the will of God. In heaven God's will is clone, and the Master teaches the child to ask that the will may be done on earth just as in heaven : in the spirit of adoring submission and ready obedi- ence. Because the will of God is the glory of heaven, the doing of it is the blessedness of heaven. As the will is done, the kingdom of heaven comes into the heart. And wherever faith has accepted the Father's love, obedience accepts the Father's will. The surrender to, and the prayer for a life of heaven-like obedience, is the spirit of childlike prayer. ' Give us this day our daily bread.' When first the child has yielded himself to the Father in the care for His Name, His Kingdom, and His Will, he has full liberty to ask for liis daily bread. A master cares for the food of his servant, a general of his soldiers, a father of his child. And v/ill not the Father in heaven care for the child who has in prayer given himself up to His interests ? We may indeed in full confidence say : Father, I live for Thy honour and Thy work ; I know Thou carest for me. Consecration to God and His will gives wonderful liberty in prayer for temporal things : the whole earthly life is given to the Father's loving care. IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 29 * And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.' As bread is tlie first need of tlie body, so forgiveness for the soul. And the provision for the one is as sure as for the other. We are children, but sinners too ; our right of access to the Father's presence we owe to the precious blood and the for- giveness it has won for us. Let us beware of the prayer for forgiveness becoming a formality : only what is really confessed is really forgiven. Let us in faith accept the forgiveness as promised : as a spiritual reality, an actual transaction between God and us, it is the entrance into all the Father's love and all the privileges of children. Such forgive- ness, as a living experience, is impossible without u forgiving spirit to others : as forgiven expresses the heavenward, so forgiving the earthward, relation of God's child. In each prayer to the Father I must be able to say that I know of no one whom I do not heartily love. * And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one! Our daily bread, the pardon of our sins, and then our being kept from all sin and the power of the evil one, in these three petitions all our per- sonal need is comprehended. The prayer for bread and pardon must be accompanied by the surrender to live in all things in holy obedience to the Fatlicr's will, and the believing prayer in everything to be kept by the power of the indwelling Spirit from the power of the evil one. • Children of God ! it is thus Jesus would liave us to pray to the Father in heaven. let Ilis Name, and Kingdom, and Will, liave the first place in our 80 WITH CHRIST love ; His providing, and pardoning, and keeping love will be our sure portion. So the prayer will lead us up to the true child-life : the Father all to the child, the Father all for the child. We shall understand how Father and child, the Thine and the OuVy are all one, and how the heart that begins its . prayer with the God-devoted Thine, will have the power in faith to speak out the Our too. Such prayer will, indeed, be the fellowship and inter- change of love, always bringing us back in trust and worship to Him wlio is not only the Beginning but the End: 'For Thine is the kingdom, and the POWER, AND the GLORY, FOR EVER, AmEN.' SoU of the Father, teach us to pray, ' Our Father.' ' Lord, teach us to pray/ Thou who art the only-begotten Son, teach us, we beseech Thee, to pray, ' Our Father.' We thank Thee, Lord, for these Living Blessed Words which Thou hast given us. We thank Thee for the millions wlio in them have learnt to know and worship the Father, and for what they have been to us. Lord ! it is as if we needed days and weeks in Thy school with each separate petition ; so deep and full are they. But we look to Thee to lead us deeper into their meaning : do it, we pray Thee, for Thy Name's sake ; Thy name is Son of the Father. Lord! Thou didst once say: 'No man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son willeth to reveal Him.' And again : ' I made known IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 31 unto them Thy name, and will make it known, that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them.' Lord Jesus ! reveal to us the Father, Let His nar^.o, His infinite Father-love, the love with which He loved Thee, ancording to Thy prayer, be m us. Then shall we say aright, ' Our Father ! ' Then shall we apprehend Thy teaching, and the first spontaneous breathing of our heart will be : • Our Father, Thy Name, Thy Kingdom, Thy Will.* And we shall bring our needs and our sins and our temptations to Him in the confidence that the love of such a Father cares for all. Blessed Lord 1 we are Thy scholars, we trust Thee; do teach us to pray, 'Our Father.' Amen. 32 WITH CHRIST WITH CHRIST 5n the Scljool o( JPrager^ y Or, Fifth Lesson. 'Ask, and it shall be given you ; * The Certainty of the Answer to Prayer^ * Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you : for every one that asketh receiveth , and he that seekefh Jindeth ; and to him tliat knocketh it shall bt opened.' — Matt. vii. 7, 8. * Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss. ' — Jas. iv. 3. OUR Lord returns here in the Sermon on the Mount a second time to speak of prayer, The first time He had spoken of the Father who is to be found in secret, and rewards openly, and had given us the pattern prayer (Matt. vi. 5-15). Here He wants to teach us what in all Scrip- ture is considered the chief thing in prayer : the assurance that prayer will be heard and answered. Observe how Pie uses words which mean almost the same thing, and each time repeats the promise so distinctly : * Ye shall receive, ye shall find, it shall be opened unto you ; * and then gives as ground for such assurance the law of the kingdom : * He that asketh, receiveth; he that sceketh, Jiriacih ; to him that IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 33 knockotli, it shall he opened.' We cannot but feel how in tliis sixfold repetition He wants to impress deep on our minds this one truth, that we may and must most confidently expect an answer to our prayer. Next to the revelation of the Father's love, there is, in the whole course f)f tlie school of prayer, not a more important lesson than this : Every one that asketli, receiveth. In tlie three words the Lord uses, ask, seek, knoek, a dillerence in meaning has been sought. If such was indeed His purpose, then the first, AsK, refers to the gifts we pray for. But I may ask and receive the gift without the Giver. Seek is the word Scrip- ture uses of God Himself ; Christ assures me tliat I can find Himself. But it is not enough to find God in time of need, witliout coming to abiding fellow- ship : Knock speaks of admission to dwell with Him and in Him. Asking and receiving the gift would thus lead to seeking and finding the Giver, and this again to the knocking and opening of tlic door of the Father's liome and love. One thing is sure : the Lord does want us to count most certaiidy on it that asking, seeking, knocking, cannot be in vain : receiving an answer, finding God, the opened heart and home of God, are the certain fruit of prayer. That the Lord should have thought it needful in so many forms to repeat the truth, is a lesson of deep import. It proves that He knows our heart, how doubt and distrust toward God are natural to us, and how easily we are inclined to rest in prayer as a 34 WITH CHRIST religious work without an answer. lie knows too how, even when we believe that God is the Hearer of prayer, believing prayer that lays hold of the promise, is something spiritual, too high and difficult for the half- hearted disciple. He therefore at the very outset of His instruction to those who would learn to pray, seeks to lodge this truth deep into their hearts : prayer does avail much ; ask and ye shall receive ; every one that asketh, receiveth. This is the fixed eternal law of the kingdom : if you ask and receive not, it must be because there is something amiss or wanting in the prayer. Hold on ; let the Word and Spirit teach you to pray aright, but do not let go the confidence He seeks to waken: Every one that asketh, receiveth. *Aslc, and it shall he given yoxi! Christ has no mightier stimulus to persevering prayer in His school than this. As a child has to prove a sum to be correct, so the proof that we have prayed aright is, the answer. If we ask and receive not, it is ' ecause we have not learned to pray aright. Let every learner in the school of Christ therefore take the Master's word in all simplicity: Every one that asketh, receiveth. He had good reasons for speaking so unconditionally. Let us beware of weakening the Word with our human wisdom. When He tells us heavenly things, let us believe Him : His Word will explain itself to him who believes ii fully. If questions and difhculties arise, let us not seek to have them settled before we accept the AVord. No ; let us entrust them all to Him : it is His to solve them : our work is first and fully to accept and hold IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 35 rs too how, • of prayer, promise, is ir the half- y outset of pray,seelut ilet us look to Jesus to teach us as none but He can I teach. If we take His words in simplicity, and [trust Him by His Spirit to make them within us life and power, they will so enter into our [inner being, that the spiritual Divine reality [of the truth they contain will indeed take pos- iBcssion of us, and we shall not rest content until [every petition we offer is borne heavenward on I Jesus' own words : * Ask, and it shall be given rou.' Beloved fellow-disciples in the school of Jesus . let us set ourselves to learn this lesson well. Let ius take these words just as they were spoken. Let fvLS not suffer human reason to weaken their force. ^Let us take them as Jesus gives them, and believe bhem. He will teach us in due time how to understand them fully : let us begin by implicitly believing them. ^et us take time, as often as we pray, to listen to [is voice : Every one that asketh, receiveth. Let us lot make the feeble experiences of our unbelief the leasure of what our faith may expect. Let us seek, lot only just in our seasons of prayer, but at all times, hold fast the joyful assurance luari's prayer on jarth and God's answer in heaven are meant for each )ther. Let us trust Jesus to teach us so to pray, 38 WITH CHRIST that the auswer can come. He will do it, if we hold fast the word He gives to-day : ' Ask, and yo shall receive.' * Lord, teach us to pray.' Lord Jesus ! teach me to understand and believe what Thou hast now promised me. It is not hid from Thee, my Lord, with what reasonings : ' oart seeks to satisfy itself, when no answer comes. There is the thought that my prayer is not in harmony with the Father's secret counsel ; that there is perhaps something better Thou wouldest give me ; or that prayer as fellowship with God is blessing enough without an answer. And yet, my blessed Lord, I find in Thy teaching on pruy^r that Thou didst not speak of these things, but didst say so plainly, that prayer may and must expect an answer. Thou dost assure us that this is the fellowship of a chil*"' with the Father : the child asks and the Father g Blessed Lord ! Thy words are faithful and true. It must be, because I pray amiss, that my experience of answered prayer is not clearer. It must be, because I live too little in the Spirit, that my prayer is too little in the Spirit, and that the power for the prayer of faith is wanting. Lord ! teach me to pray. Lord Jesus ! I trust Thee for it ; teach me to pray in faith. Lord ! teach me this lesson of to-day : Every one that asketh, receiveth. Amen. IN Till-: SCHOOL of niAYKR. 39 WITH CHRIST In ti)e Sciiool of ^^ragec Or, Sixth Lesson. 'How much more?* The Infinite Fatherlineaa of God, * Or what man is there of you, who, if his son ask him for a loaf, A'ill give him a stone ; or if he shall ask for a fish, will give him a serpent ? If ye then, beiug evil, know how to give good gifts unto your chUdren, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him ? ' — IiIatt. vii. 9-11. IN these words our Lord proceeds further to confirm what He had said of he certainty of an answer to prayer. To remove all doubt, and show us on what sure ground His promise rests, He appeals to what every one has seen and experienced here on earth. We are all children, and know what we expected of our fathers. We are fathers, or con- tinually see them ; and everywhere we look upon it as the most natural thing there can be, for a father to hear his child. And the Lord asks us to look up from earthly parents, of whom the best are but evil, and to calculate now much more the heavenly Father will give good gifts to them that ask Him. Jesus would lead us up to see, that as much greater as God is than sinful man, so much greater our assur- ■M hi) i (it "I t '}; 1 40 WITH CHRIST H ^il! H w ance ought to be that He will more surely than any earthly father grant our childlike petitions. Aa much greater as God is than man, so much surer is it that prayer will be heard with the Father in heaven than with a father on earth. As simple and intelligible as this parable is, so deep and spiritual is the teaching it contains. The Lord would remind us that the prayer of a child owes its influence entirely to the relation in which he stands to the parent. The prayer can exert that influence only when the child is really living in that relationship, in the home, in the love, in the service of the Father. The power of the promise, * Ask, and it shall be given you,' lies in the loving relationship between us as children and the Father in heaven ; when we live and walk in that relationship, the prayer of faith and its answer will be the natural result. And so the lesson we have to-day in the school of prayer is this : Live as a child of God, then you will be able to pray as a child, and as a child you will most assuredly be heard. And what is the true child-life ? The answer can be found in any home. The child that by preference forsakes the father's house, that finds no pleasure in the presence and love and obedience of the father, and still thinks to ask and obtain what he will, will surely be disappointed. On the con- trary, he to whom the intercourse and will and honour and love of the father are the joy of his life, will find that it is the father's joy to grant his I IN THE SCHOOL OF TRAYER. 41 A requests. Scripture says, ' As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God : * the childli]<:e privilege of asking all is inseparable from the childlike life under the leading of the Spirit. He that gives himself to be led by the Spirit in his life, will be led by Him in his prayers too. And he will find that Fatherlike giving is the Divine response to childlike living. To see what this childlike living is, in which childlike asking and believing have their ground, we have only to notice what our Lord teaches in the Sermon on the Mount of the Father and His children. In it the prayer-promises are imbedded in the life-precepts ; the two are inseparable. They form one whole ; and He alone can count on the fulfilment of the promise, who accepts too all that the Lord has connected with it. It is as if in speaking the word, * Ask, and ye shall receive,* He says : I give these promises to those whom in the beatitudes I have pictured in their childlike poverty and purity, and of whom I have said, * They shall be called the children of God' (Matt. v. 3-9): to children, who * let your light shine before men, so that they may glorify your Father in heaven : * to those who walk in love, * that ye may be children of your Father which is in heaven,' and who seek to be perfect * even as your Father in heaven is per- fect ' (v. 45) : to those whose fasting and praying and almsgiving (vi. i-18) is not before men, but * before your Father which seeth in secret ; * who forgive 'even as your Father forgiveth you' (vi. 15); who f 4 i d 42 WITU CHRIST n ! i trust the heavenly Father in all earthly need, seek- ing first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (vi. 26-32); who not only say, Lord, Lord, but do the will of my Father which is in heaven (vii. 21). Such are the children of the Father, and such is the life in the Father's love and service ; in such a child- life answered prayers are certain and abundant. But will not such teaching discourage the feeble one ? If we are first to answer to this portrait of a child, must not many give up all hope - answers to prayer ? The difficulty is removed ii we think again of the blessed name of father and child. A child is weak ; there is a great difference among children in age and gift. The Lord does not demand of us a perfect fulfilment of the law ; no, but only the childlike and whole-hearted surrender to live as a child with Him in obedience and truth. Nothing more. But also, nothing less. The Father must have the whole heart. When this is given, and He sees the child with honest purpose and steady will seeking in everything to be and live as a child, then our prayer will count with Him as the prayer of a child. Let any one simply and honestly begin to study the Sermon on the Mount and take it as his guide in life, and he will find, not- withstanding weakness and failure, an ever-growing liberty to claim the fulfilment of its promises in regard to prayer. In the names of father and child he has the pledge that his petitions will be granted. This is the one chief thought on which Jesus IN THE SCHOOL OP PRAYER. 43 dwells here, and which He would have all His scholars take in. He would have us see that the secret of effectual prayer is : to have the heart filled with the Father-love of God. It is not enough for us to know that God is a Father : He would ht^ve us take time to come under the full impression of what that name implies. We must take the best earthly father we know ; we must think of the tenderness and love with which he regards the request of his child, the love and joy with which he grants every reasonable desire ; we must then, as we think in adoring worship of the infinite Love and Fatherliness of God, consider with how much more tenderness and joy He sees us come to Him, and gives us what we ask aright. And then, when we see how much this Divine arithmetic is bevond our comprehension, and feel how impossible it is for us to apprehend God's readiness to hear us, then He would have us come and open our heart for the Holy Spirit to shed abroad God's Father-love there. Let us do this not only when we want to pray, but let us yield heart and life to dwell in that love. The child who only wants to know the love of the father when he has something to ask, will be dis- appointed. But he who lets God be Father always and in every thing,, who would fain live his whole life in the Father's presence and love, who allows God in all the greatness of His love to be a Father to him, oh ! he will experience most gloriously that a life in God's infinite Fatherliness and continual answers to prayer are inseparable. Hi 44 WITH CHRIST I; Beloved fellow-disciple ! we begin to see what the reason is that we know so little of daily answers to prayer, and what the chief lesson is which the Lord has for us in His school. It is all in the name of Father. We thought of new and deeper insight into some of the mysteries of the prayer- world as what we should get in Christ's school ; He tells us the first is the highest lesson ; we must learn to say well, 'Abba, Father!' * Our Father which art in heaven.' He that can say this, has the key to all prayer. In all the compassion with which a father listens to his weak or sickly child, in all the joy with which he hears his stammering child, in all the gentle patience with which he bears with a thoughtless child, we must, as in so many mirrors, study the heart of our Father, until every prayer be borne upward on the faith of this Divine word : ' IIoiu much more shall your heavenly Father give good gifts to them that ask Him.* ' Lord, teach us to pray.' Blessed Lord ! Thou knowest that this, though it be one of the first and simplest and most glorious lessons in Thy school, is to our hearts one of the hardest to learn : we know so little of the love of the Father. Lord ! teach us so to live with the Father that His love may be to us nearer, clearer, dearer, than the love of any earthly father. And let the assurance of His hearing our prayer be as much greater than the confidence in an earthly IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 45 parent, as the heavens are higher than earth, as God is infinitely greater than man. Lord ! show us that it is only our unchildlike distance from the Fatlier that hinders the answer to prayer, and lead us on to the true life of God's children. Lord Jesus ! it is fatherlike love that wakens childlike trust. O reveal to us the Father, and His tender, pitying love, that we may become childlike, and experience how in the child-life lies the power of prayer. Blessed Son of God ! the Father loveth Thee and hath given Thee all things. And Thou lovest the Father, and hast done all things He commanded Thee, and therefore hast the power to ask all things. Lord ! give us Thine own Spirit, the Spirit of the Son. Make us childlike, as Thou wert on earth. And let every prayer be breathed in the faith that as the heaven is higher than the earth, so God's Father-love, and His readiness to give us what we ask, surpasses all we can think or conceive. Amen. N T E.i * Your Father which is in heaven.^ Alas ! we speak of it only as the utterance of a reverential homage. We think of it as a figure borrowed from an earthly life, and only in some faint and shallow meaning to be used of God. We are afraid to take God as our own tender and pitiful father. He is a schoolmaster, or almost farther ^ From Thoughts on Holiness, by Mark Guy Pearse. What is so beaatifully said of the knowledge of God's Fatherliness as the ttarting-poiiit of holiness is no less true of prayer. 46 WITH CHRIST \ i'« off than that, and knowing less about us — an inspector, who knows nothing of us except through our lessons. His eyes are not on the scholar, but on the book, and all alike must come up to the standard. Now open the ears of the heart, timid child of God ; let it go sinking right down into the innermost depths of the soul. Here is the starting-point of holiness, in the love and patience and pity of our heavenly Father. We have not to learn to be holy as a hard lesson at school, that we may make God think well of us ; we are to learn it at home with the Father to help us. God loves you not because you are clever, not because you are good, but because He is your Father. The Cross of Christ does not make God love us ; it is the outcome and measure of His love to us. He loves all His children, the clumsiest, the dullest, the worst of His children. His love lies at the back of everything, and we must get upon that as the solid foundation of our religious life, not growing up into that, but growing up out of it. We must begin there or our beginning will come to nothing. Do take hold of this mightily. We must go out of ourselves for any hope, or any strength, or any confidence. And what hope, what strength, what confidence may be ours now that we begin here, your Father which is in heaven / We need to get in at the tenderness and helpfulness which lie in these words, and to rest upon it — your Father. Speak them over to yourself until something of the wonderful truth is felt by us. It means that I am bound to God by the closest and tenderest relationship ; that I have a right to His love and His power and His blessing, such as nothing else could give me. the boldness with which we can draw near! the great things we have a right to ask for! You/r Father. It means that all His infinite love and patience and wisdom bend over me to help me. In this relationship lies not only the possibility of holiness ; there is infinitely more than that. Here we are to begin^ in the patient love of our Father. Think how He knows us apart and by ourselves, in all L^ IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 47 our peculiarities, and in all our weaknesses and diflfi- culties. The master judges by the result, but our Father judges by the eflfort. Failure does not always mean fault. He knows how much things cost, and weighs them where others only measure. Your Father. Think how great store His love sets by the poor beginnings of the little ones, clumsy and unmean- ing as they may be to others. All this lies in this blessed relationship and infinitely more. Do not fear to take it all as your own I 5'ii 48 WITU CHRIST WITH CITRIST In tjie Scfjool of ^prayer* I Or, Seventh Lesson. 'How much more the Holy Spirit; The All-Comprehensive Gift. ' If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him ? ' — Luke xi. 13. IN the Sermon on tlie Mount, the Lord had already given utterance to His wonderful How MUCH MORE ? Here in Luke, where He repeats the question, there is a difference. Instead of sj^cak- ing, as then, of giving good gifts, He says, ' How much more shall the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit ? ' He thus teaches us that the chief and the best of these gifts is the Holy Spirit, or rather, that in this gift all others are comprised. The Holy Spirit is the first of the Father's gifts, and the one Ho delights most to bestow. The Holy Spirit is therefore the gift we ought first and chiefly to seek. The unspeakable worth of this gift we can easily understand. Jesus spoke of the Spirit as 'the promise of the Father ; ' the one promise in which TTi""" IN THE SCHOOL OF PEAYER. 49 God's Fatherhood revealed itself. The best gift a good and wise father can bestow on a child on eartli is his own spirit. This is the great object of a father in education — to reproduce in his child his own disposition and character. If the child is to know and understand his father ; if, as he grows up, he is to enter into all his will and plans ; if he is to have his highest joy in the father, and the father in him, — he must be of one mind and spirit with him. And so it is impossible to conceive of God bestowing any higher gift on His child than this, His own Spirit. God is what He is through His Spirit ; the Spirit is the very life of God. Just think what it means — God giving His own Spirit to His child on earth. Or was not this the glory of Jesus as a Son upon earth, that the Spirit of the Father was in Him ? At His baptism in Jordan the two tilings were united, — the voice, proclaiming Him the Beloved Son, and the Spirit, descending upon Him. And so the apostle says of us, * Because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.' A king seeks in the whole education of his son to call forth in him a kingly spirit. Our Father in heaven desires to educate us as His children for the holy, heavenly life in which He dwells, and for this gives us, from the depths of His heart. His own Spirit. It was this which was the whole aim of Jesus when, after having made atonement with His own blood. He entered for us into God's presence, that He miglit D !( . i "1 I. "'u ■\{'i m ,'!,? ^j^^Bmgmm 60 WITH CHRIST \\ I obtain for us, and send down to dwell in us, the Holy Spirit. As the Spirit of the Father, and of the Son, the whole life and love of the Father and the Son are in Him ; and, coming down into us. He lifts us up into their fellowship. As Spirit of tlie Father, He sheds abroad the Father's love, with N^hich He loved the Son, in our hearts, and teaches us to live in it. As Spirit of the Son, He breathes in us the childlike liberty, and devotion, and obedi- ence in which the Son lived upon earth. The Father can bestow no higher or more wonderful gift than this : His own Holy Spirit, the Spirit of sonship. This truth naturally suggests the thought that this first and chief gift of God must be the first and chief object of all prayer. For every need of the spiritual life this is the one thing needful : the Holy Spirit. All the fulness is in Jesus ; the fulness of grace and truth, out of which we receive grace for grace. The Holy Spirit is the appointed conveyancer, whose special work it is to make Jesus and all there is in Him for us ours in personal appropriation, in blessed experience. He is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus ; as wonderful as the life is, so wonderful is the provision by which such an agent is provided to communicate it to us. If we but yield ourselves entirely to the disposal of the Spirit, and let Him have His way with us. He will mani- fest the life of Christ within us. He will do this with a Divine power, maintaining the life of Christ in us in uninterrupted continuity. Surely, if there is one prayer that should draw us to the Father's IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 51 throne and keep us there, it is this : for the Holy Spirit, whom we as children have received, to stream into us and out from us in greater fuhiess. In the variety of the gifts which the Spirit has to dispense, He meets the believer's every need. Just think of the names He bears. The Spirit of grace, to reveal and impart all of grace there is in Jesus. The Spirit of faith, teaching us to begin and go on and increase in ever believing. The Spirit of adoption and assurance, who witnesses that we are God's children, and inspires the con- fiding and confident Abba, Father 1 The Spirit of truth, to lead into all truth, to make each word of God ours in deed and in truth. The Spirit of prayer, through whom we speak with the Father ; prayer that must be heard. The Spirit of judg- ment and burning, to search the heart, and con- vince of sin. The Spirit of holiness, manifesting and conmiunicating the Father's holy presence within us. The Spirit of power, through whom we are strong to testify boldly and work efifectually in the Father's service. The Spirit of glory, the pledge of our inheritance, the preparation and the foretaste of the glory to come. Surely the child of God needs but one thing to be able really to live as a child : it is, to be filled with this Spirit. And now, the lesson Jesus teaches us to-day in His school is this : That the Father is just longing to give Him to us if we will but ask in the cliildlike dependence on what He says : * If ye know to give good gifts unto your children, how much moke shall ■m I] ill J:h 'l! 52 WITH CHRIST ■li I I !1 your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them tliat ask Him.' In the words of God's promise, 'I will pour out my Spirit abundantly;' and of His command, ' Be yu filled with the Spirit,' we have the measure of what God is ready to give, and what we may obtain. As God's children,we have already received the Spirit. But we still need to ask and pray for His special gifts and operations as we require them. And not only this, but for Himself to take complete and entire possession ; for His unceasing momentary guidance. Just as the branch, already filled with the sap of the vine, is ever crying for the continued and increasing flow of that sap, that it may bring its fruit to per- fection, so the believer, rejoicing in the possession of tlie Spirit, ever thirsts and cries for more. And what the great Teacher would have us learn is, that nothing less than God's promise and God's command may be the measure of our expectation and our prayer; we must be filled abundantly. He would have us ask this in the assurance that the wonderful now MUCH MOKE of God's Fathcr-love is the pledge that, when we ask, we do most certainly receive. Let us now believe this. As we pray to be filled with the Spirit, let us not seek for the answer in our feelings. All spiritual blessings must be received, that is, accepted or taken in faith.^ Let me believe, the Father gives the Holy Spirit to * Tlie Greek word for receiving and tak" ilie sam* "When Jesus said, ' Every one that askcth rec^ He used tl Biuno verb as at tlie Supper, ' T^a^'c, eat, ' or o che resurrection morning, ' lieccive,' accept, take, 'the Holy Spirit.' \cceiving not only implies God's bestowment, but our acceptance. IN THE SCHOOL OF PIIAYER. 53 His praying child. Even now, while I pray, 1 must say in faith : I have what I ask, the fulness of the Spirit is mine. Let us continue stcdfast in this faith. On the strength of God's Word we know that we have what we ask. Let us, with thanksgiving that we have been heard, with thanks- giving for what we have received and taken and now hold as ours, continue stedfast in believing prayer that the blessing, which has already been given us, and which we hold in faith, may break through and fill our whole being. It is in such believing thanksgiving and prayer, that our soul opens up for the Spirit to take entire and undis- turbed possession. It is such prayer that not only asks and hopes, but takes and holds, that inherits the full blessing. In all our prayer let us remember the lesson the Saviour would teach us this day, that, if there is one thing on earth ive can he sure of, it is this, that the Father desires to have us filled mth His Spirit, that He delights to give us His Spirit. And when once we have learned thus to believe for ourselves, and each day to take out of the treasure we hold in heaven, what liberty and power to pray for the outpouring of the Spirit on the Church of God, on all flesh, on individuals, or on special efforts ! He that has once learned to know the Father in prayer for himself, learns to pray most confidently for others too. The Father gives the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him, not least, but most, when they ask for others. • Lord, teacu us to piiay.' ;ff. ■I'll 54 WITH CHRIST Father in heaven ! Thou didst send Thy Son to reveal Thyself to us, Thy Father-love, and all that that love has for us. And He has taught us, that the gift above all gifts which Thou wouldest bestow in answer to prayer is, the Holy Spirit. my Father ! I come to Thee with this prayer ; there is nothing I would — may I not say, I do — desire so much as to be filled with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. The blessings He brings are so un- speakable, and just what I need. He sheds abroad Thy love in the lieart, and fills it with Thyself. I long for this. He breathes the mind and life of Christ in me, so that I live as He did, in and for the Father's love. I long for this. He -endues with power from on high for all my walk and work. I long for this. Father ! I beseech Thee, give me this day the fulnciss of Thy Spirit. Father ! I ask this, resting on the words of my Lord : * How MUCH more the Holy Spirit.' I do believe that Thou hearest my prayer ; I receive now what I ask; Father! I claim and I take it: the fulness of Thy Spirit as mine. I receive the gift tliis day again as a faith gift ; in faith I reckon my Father works through the Spirit ^11 He has promised. The Father delights to breathe His Spirit into His waiting child as He tarries in fellowship with Him- self. Amen. IN THE SCHOOL OF niAYER. 55 WITH CHRIST Intlje Scljool of JPrager* ,1 Or, Eighth Lesson. * Because of hia importunity ;* The Boldness of God's Friends, ' And He said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and say to him, Frievxl, lend me three loaves ; for a friend of mine is come to me from a jounioy, and I have nothing to set before him ; and he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not : the door is now shut, and my children are with me in l/ed ; I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his impo^uniiy he will rise and give him as many as he ncedeth.' — Luke xi. 5-8. THE first teaching to His disciples was given by our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount. It was near a year later that the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. In answer He gave them a second time the Lord's Prayer, so teaching them what to pray. He then speaks of ho^o they ought to pray, and repeats what he formerly said of God's Fatherliness and the certainty of an answer. But in between He adds the beautiful parable of the friend at midnight, to teach them the twofold lesson, that God does not only want us to pray for our- 1'% * -'.i '■->¥ 50 WITH CHRIST '1 selves, but for the perishing around us, and that in such intercession great boldness of entreaty is often needful, and always lawful, yea, pleasing to God. The parable is a perfect storehouse of instruction in regard to true intercession. There is, first, the love which seeks to help the needy around us : 'my friend is come to me.* Then the need which urges to the cry : * / have nothing to set before Iiini.' Then follows the confidence that help is to be had : * which of you shall have a friend, and say, Friend, lend me three loaves.* Then comes the unexpected refusal; * I cannot rise and give thee.* Then again the perscver- anee that takes no refusal : ' because of his impor- tunity.' And lastly, the reward of such prayer: 'lie will give him as many as he necdeth.' A wonderful setting forth of the way of prayer and faith in which the blessing of God has so often been sought and found. Let us confine ourselves to the chief thought: prayer as an appeal to the friendship of God ; and we shall find that two lessons are specially suggested. The one, that if we are God's friends, and come as such to Him, we must prove ourselves the friends of the needy ; God's friendship to us and ours to others go hand in hand. The other, that when we come thus we may use the utmost liberty in claiming an answer. There is a twofold use of prayer : the one, to obtain strength and blessing for our own life ; the other, the higlier, the true glory of prayer, for which Christ has taken us into His fellowship and teach- IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 67 ing, is intercession, where prayer is the royal power a child of God exercises in heaven on behalf of others and even of the kingdom. We see it in Scripture, how it was in intercession for others that Abraham and Moses, Samuel and Elijah, with all the holy men of old, proved that they had power with God and prevailed. It is when we give our- selves to be a blessing that we can specially count on the blessing of God. It is when we draw near to God as the friend of the poor and the perishing that we may count on His friendliness ; the righte- ous man who is the friend of the poor is very specially the friend of God. This gives wonderful liberty in prayer. Lord ! I have a needy friend whom I must help. As a friend I have undertaken to help him. In Thee I have a Friend, whose kindness and riches I know to be infinite : I am sure Thou wilt give me what I ask. If I, being evil, am ready to do for my friend wliat I can, how much more wilt Thou, my heavenly Friend, now do for Thy friend what he asks ? The question might suggest itself, whether the Fatherliood of God does not give such confidence in prayer, that the thought of His Friendship can hardly teach us ar vthing more : a father is more than a friend. And yet, if we consider it, this pleading the friendship of God opens new wonders to us. That a child obtains what he asks of his father looks so perfectly natural, we almost count it the father's duty to give. Ikit with a friend it is as if the kindness is more free, dependent, not on -M 1 58 WITH CHRIST 1 Ii 1 nature, but on sympathy and character. And then the relation of a child is more that of perfect depend- ence ; two friends are more nearly on a level. And so our Lord, in seeking to unfold to us the spiritual mystery of prayer, would fain have us approach God in this relation too, as those whom He has acknow- ledged as His friends, whose mind and life are in sympathy with His. But then we must be living as His friends. I am still a child even when a wanderer ; but friendship depends upon the conduct. * Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.* * Thou seest that faith wrought with his works, and by works was iaith made perfect ; and the scripture was fulfilled which saith. And Abraham believed God, and he was called the friend of God! It is the Spirit, * the same Spirit,* that leads us that also bears witness to our acceptance with God ; * likewise, also,' the same Spirit helpeth us in prayer. It is a life as the friend of God that gives the wonderful liberty to say : I have a friend to whom I can go even at midnight. And how much more when I go in the very spirit of that friendliness, manifesting myself the very kindness I look for in God, seeking to help my friend as I want God to help me. Wlien I come to God in prayer. He always looks to what the aim is of my petition. If it be merely for my own com- fort or joy I seek His grace, I do not receive. But if I can say that it is that He may be glorified in my dispensing His blessings to others, I sTiall not ask in vain. Or if I ask for others, but want to IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 69 hen wait until God has made me so rich, that it is no sacrifice or act of faith to aid them, I shall not obtain. But if I can say that I have already under- taken for my needy friend, that in my poverty I have already begun the work of love, because I know I had a friend Wlio would help me, my prayer will be heard. Oh, we know not how much the plea avails : the friendship of earth looking in its need to the friendship of heaven : * He will give him as much as he needeth.* But not always at once. The one thing by which man can honour and enjoy his God is faith. Inter- cession is part of faith's training-school. There our friendship with men and with God is tested. There it is seen whether my friendship with the needy is so real, that I will take time and sacrifice my rest, will go even at midnight and not cease until I have obtained for them what I need. There it is seen whether my friendship with God is so clear, that I can depend on Him not to turn me away and there- fore pray on until He gives. what a deep heavenly mystery this is of per- severing prayer. The God who has promised, who longs, whose fixed purpose it is to give the blessing, holds it back. It is to Him a matter of such deep importance that His friends on earth should know and fully trust their rich Triend in heaven, that He trains them, in the school of answer delayed, to find out how their perseverance really does prevail, and what the mighty power is they can wield in heaven, if they do but set themselves to it. There 'ill! I IT '? ! 60 WITH CHRIST is a faith that sees the promise, and embraces it, and yet does not receive it (Heb. xi. 13, 39). It is when the answer to prayer does not come, and the promise we are most firmly trusting appears to be of none effect, that the trial of faith, more precious than of gold, takes place. It is in this trial that the faith that has embraced the promise is purified and strengthened and prepared in personal, holy fellowship with the living God, to see the glory of God. It takes and holds the promise until it has received the fulfilment of what it had claimed in a living truth in the unseen but living God. Let each child of God who is seeking to work the work of love in his Father's service take courage. Tlie parent with his child, the teacher with his class, the visitor with his district, the Bible reader with his circle, the preacher with his hearers, each»one who, in his little circle, has accepted and is bearing the burden of hungry, perishing souls, — let them all take courage. Nothing is at first so strange to us as that God should really require persevering prayer, that there should be a real spiritual needs-be for impor- tunity. To teach it us, the Master uses this almost strange parable. If the unfriendliness of a selfish eartlily friend can be conquered by importunity, how much more will it avail with the heavenly Friend, who does so love to give, but is held back by our spiritual unfitness, our incapacity to possess what He has to give. let us thank Him that in delaying His answer He is educating us up to our true position and the exercise of all our power with m THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 61 Him, training us to live with Him in the fellowship of undoubting faith and trust, to be indeed the friends of God. And let us hold fast the threefold cord that cannot be broken : the hungry friend needing the help, and the praying friend seeking the help, and the Mighty Friend, loving to give as much as he needeth. * Lord, teach us to pray.' O my Blessed Lord and Teacher ! I must come to Thee in prayer. Thy teaching is so glorious, and yet too high for me to grasp. I must confess that my heart is too little to take in these thoughts of tlie wonderful boldness I may use with Thy Father as my Friend. Lord Jesus ! I trust Thee to give me Thy Spirit with Thy "Word, and to make the Word quick and powerful in my heart. I desire to keep Thy Word of this day : * Because of his importunity he will give him as many as he needeth.' Lord ! teach me more to know the power of per- severing prayer. I know that in it the Father suits Himself to our need of time for the inner life to attain its growth and ripeness, so that His grace may indeed be assimilated and made our very own. I know that He would fain thus train us to the exercise of that strong faith that does not let Him go even in the face of seeming disappointment. I know He wants to lift us to that wonderful liberty, in which we understand how really He has If' ft fi 6^ WITH CHRIST made the dispensing of His gift dependent on our prayer. Lord ! I know this : teach me to see it in spirit and truth. And may it now be the joy of my life to become the almoner of my Eich Friend in heaven, to care for all the hungry and perishing, even at midnight, because I know my Friend, who always gives to him who perseveres, because of his importunity, as many as he needeth, Amen. b IN THE SCHOOL OF PKAYEK. 63 WITH CHEIST In tf)^ School of grayer* Or, Ninth Lesson. 'Pray the Lord of the harvest;* Prayer provides Labourers. * Then saith He unto His disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lcjrd of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest.' — Matt. ix. 37-38. THE Lord frequently taught His disciples that they must pray, and Iww ; but seldom what to pray. This he left to their sense of need, and the leading of the Spirit. But here we have one thing He expressly enjoins them to remember : in view of the plenteous harvest, and the need of reapers, they must cry to the Lord of the harvest to send forth labourers. Just as in the parable of the friend at midnight, He would have them under- stand that prayer is not to be selfish ; so here it is the power through which blessing can come to others. The Father is Lord of the harvest ; when we pray for the Holy Spirit, we must pray for Him .to prepare and send forth labourers for the work. Strange, is it not, tliat He should ask His 11 ■iiii ipli 64 WITH CHRIST i disciples t«) pray for this ? And could He not pray Himself ? And would not one prayer of His avail more than a thousand of theirs ? And God, the Lord of the harvest, did He not see the need ? And would not He, in His own good time, send forth labourers without their prayer ? Such ques- tions lead us up to the deepest mysteries of prayer, and its power in the Kingdom of God. The answer to such questions will convince us that prayer is indeed a power, on which the ingathering of the harvest and the coming of the Kingdom do in very truth depend. Prayer is no form or show. The Lord Jesus was Himself the truth ; everything He sj^ake was the deepest truth. It was when (see ver. 36) 'He saw the multitude, and was moved with compassion on them, because they were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd,* that He called on tlie discijiles to pray for labourers to be sent among them. He did so because He really believed that their prayer was needod, and would help. The veil which so hides the invisible world from us was wonderfully transparent to the holy human soul of Jesus. He had looked long and deep and far into the hidden connection of cause and effect in the spirit world. He had marked in God's Word how, when God called men like Abraham and Moses, Joshua and Samuel and Daniel, and given them authority over men in His name, He had at the same time given them authority and right to call in- the powers of heaven to their aid as they needed IN THE SCHOOL OF FKAYEPv. G5 them. He knew that as to these men of oUl, and to Himself for a time, liore upon earth, the work of God had heen entrusted, so it was now ahout to pass over into the hands of His disciples. He knew that when this work should he given in charge to them, it would not he a mere matter of form or show, hut that on them, and their being faithful or unfaithful, the success of the work would actually depend. i\s a single individual, within the limita- tions of a human body and a human life, Jesus feels how little a short visit can accomplisli among these wandering sheep He sees around Him, and He longs for help to have them properly cared for. And so He tells His disciples now to begin and pray, and, when they have taken over tlie work from Him on earth, to make this one of the chief petitions in their prayer : That the Lord of the harvest Himself would send forth labourers into His harvest. The God who entrusted them with the work, and made it to so large extent dependent on tliem, gives them authority to apply to Him for labourers to help, and makes the supply dependent on their prayer. How little Christians really feel and mourn the need of labourers in the lields of the world so white to the harvest. And how little they believe that our labour -supply depends on prayer, that prayer will really provide * as many as he needeth.' Not that the dearth of labour is not known or dis- cussed. Not that efforts are not sometimes put forth to supply the want. But how little the burden of the sheep wandering witliout a Shepherd S i 66 WITH cimisT ,1 4 1'- is really borne in the faith that the Lord of tho harvest will, in answer to prayer, send fortli tlie labourers, and in the solemn conviction tliat without tliis prayer fields ready for reaping will be left to perish. And yet it is so. So wonderful is the surrender of His work into the hands of His Church, so dependent has the Ijord made Himself on them as His body, tlirough whom alone His work can be done, so real is the power which the Lord gives His people to exercise in heaven and earth, that the number of the labourers and the measure of the harvest does actually depend upon their prayer. Solemn thought 1 wliy is it that we do not obey the injunction of the Master more heartily, and cry more earnestly for labourers 1 There are two reasons for this. The one is : We miss the com- passion of Jesus, which gave rise to this request for prayer. When believers learn that to lovo their neighbours as themselves, tliat to live entirely for God's glory in their fellow-men, is the Father's first commandment to His redeemed ones, they will accept of the perishing ones as the charge entrusted to them by their Lord. And, accepting them not only as a field of labour, but as the objects of loving care and interest, it will not be long before com- passion towards the hopelessly perishing will touch their heart, and the cry ascend with an earnestness till then unknown : Lord ! send labourers. The other reason for the neglect of the command, the want of faith, will then make itself felt, but will IN THE SCHOOL OF PllAYEU. e7 be overcou)u as our pity pleads for litjlp. Wo helievo too little in the power of prayer to bring about definite results. We do not live close enough to God, and are not enough entirely given up to His service and Kingdom, to be capable of the con- fidence that He will give it in answer to our prayer. let us pray for a life so one with Christ, that His compassion may stream into us, and His Spirit be able to assure us that our prayer avails. Such prayer will ask and obtain a twofold bless- ing. There will first be the desire for the increase of men entirely given up to the service of God. It is a terrible blot upon the Church of Christ that there are times when actually men cannot be found for the service of the Master as ministers, missionaries, or teachers of God's Word. As God's children make this a matter of supplication for their own circle or Church, it will be given. The Lord Jesus is now Lord of the harvest. He has been exalted to bestow gifts — the gifts of the Spirit. His chief gifts are men filled with the Spirit. But the supply and distribution of the gifts depend on the co-operation of Head and members. It is just prayer will lead to such co-operation ; the believing suppliants will be stirred to find the men and the means for the work. The other blessing to be asked will not be less. Every believer is a labourer ; not one of God's children who has not been redeemed for service, and has not liis work waiting. It must be our 68 WITH OH HIST 1 1 i fl prayer ,liat the Lord would so lill all His people with the spirit of devotion, that not one may be found standing idle in the vineyard. Wherever there is a complaint of the want of helpers, or of fit helpers in God's work, prayer has the promise of a supply. There is no Sunday school or dif-trict visiting, no Bible reading or rescue work, where God is not ready and able to provi^le. It may take time P,nd importunity, but the command of Christ to ask the Lord of the liarvest is the pledge that the prayer will be heard : ' I say unto you, he will arise and give him as many as he needeth.* Solemn, blessed thought ! this power has been given us in prayer to provide in the need of the world, to secure the servants for God's work. The Lord of the harvest will hear. Christ, who called us so specially to pray thus, will support our prayers ofTered in Ilis name and interest. Let us set apart time and give ourselves to this part of our intercessory work. It will lead us into the fellowship of that compassionate heart oi' His that led Him to call for our prayers. It will elevate us to the insight of our regal position, as those whoso will counts for something with the great God in the advancement of His Kingdom. It will make us feel how really we are God's fellow-workers on earth, to whom a share in His work has in down- right earnest been entrusted. It will make us par- takers in the soul travail, but also in the soul satisfaction of Jesus, as »ve know how, in answer to j^"****"! IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 68 our prayer, blessing has been given that otherwise would not have come. ' Lord, teach us to pray.' Blessed Lord ! Thou hast this day again given us another of Thy wondrous lessons to learn. We humbly ask Thee, give us to see aright the spiritual realities of which Thou hast been speak- ing. There is the harvest which is so large, and perishing, as it waits for sleepy disciples to give the signal for labourers to come. Lord, teach us to look out upon it with a heart moved with compas- sion and pity. There are tlie labourers, so few. Lord, show us how terrible the sin of the want of prayer and faith, of which this is the token. And there is the Lord of the harvest, so able and ready to send them forth. Lord, show us how He does indeed wait for the prayer to which He has bound His answer. And there are the disciples, to whom the commission to pray has been given : Lord, show us how Thou canst pour down Thy Spirit and breathe upon them, so that Tliy compassion and the faith in Thy promise shall rouse them to unceasing, prevailing prayer. our Lord ! we cannot understand how Thou canst entrust such work and give such power to men so slothful and unfaithful. We thank Tlice for all whom Thou art teaching to cry da-"- and niglit for labourers to be sent forth. Lord, breatlie Thine own Spirit on all Thy children, that they may J. ^ ■ * ft ■ ir .[' * ■ I'l ro WITH CIIIUST I * t > learn to live for this one thing alone — the Kingdom and glory of their Lord — and become fully awake to tlie faith of what their prayer can accomplish. And let all our hearts in this, as in every petition, be filled with the assurance that prayer, offered in loving faith in the living God, will bring certain and abundant answer. Amen. IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 71 WITH CHRIST In tl)e Sdiool of IPrager. Or. Tenth Lesson. 'What win thou?' Prayer must be Definite. 'And Jesus answered him, and said, What wilt thou that J should do unto thee?'— Mauk x. 51 ; Luke xviii. i\. niHE blind man had been crying out aloud, and J- that a great deal, ' Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.' The cry had reached the ear of the Lord ; He knew what he wanted, and was ready to grant it him. But ere He does it, He asks him : ' What wilt thou that I should do unto thee ? * He wants to hear from his own lips, not only the general petition for mercy, but the distinct expres- sion of what his desire was. Until he speaks it out, he is not healed. There is now still many a suppliant to whom the Lord puts the same question, and who cannot, until it has been answered, get the aid he asks. Our prayers must not bo a vague appeal to His mercy, an indefinite cry for blessing, but the dis- tinct expression of definite need. Not that His loving heart docs not understand our cry, or is not 1^' mmmmm JLII.lll l JJtl. I W w mmmm 72 WITH CHEIST ready to hear. Put He desires it foi our own salces. Such definite r^rayer teaches us to know our own needs better. It demands time, and thought, and self-scrutiny to find out what really is our greatest need. It searches us and puts us to the test as to whether our desires are honest and real, such as wc are ready to persevere in. It leads us to judge wliether our desires are according to God's Word, and whether we really believe that we shall receive the things we ask. It helps us to wait for the special answer, and to mark it when it comes. And yet how much of our prayer is vague and pointless. Some cry for mercy, but take not the trouble to know what mercy must do for them. Others ask, perhaps, to be delivered from sin, but do not begin by bringing any sin by name from which the deliverance may be claimed. Still others pray for God's blessing on those around them, for the outpouring of God's Spirit on their land or the world, and yet have no special field where they wait and expect to see the answer. To all the Lord says : And wliat is it now you really want and expect Me to do ? Every Christian has but limited powcis, ?.m\ as he nnist have his own special field of labour In wliich lie works, so with his prayers too. Each believer has his own circle, his family, his friends, his neighbours. If he were to take one or more of these by name, he would find that this really brings him into the training-school of faith, and leads to personal and pointed dealing with his God. It is when in such distinct matters ■tWiiUBIfirrtiiaJWitftr I IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 73 I i u we have in faith claimed and received answers, that our more general prayers will be believing and effectual. We all know with what surprise the whole civilised world heard of the way in which trained troops were repulsed by the Transvaal Boers at Majuba. And to what did they owe their success ? In the armies of Europe the soldier fires upon the enemy standing in large masses, and never thinks of seeking a,i<. aim for every bullet. In hunting game the Boer had learnt a different lesson : his practised eye knew to send every bullet on its special message, to seek and find its man. Such aiming must gain the day in the spiritual world too. As long as in prayer we just pour out our hearts in a multitude of petitions, without taking time to see whether every petition is sent with the purpose and expecta- tion of getting an answer, not many will reach tlie mark. But if, as in silence of soul we bow before the Lord, we were to ask such questions as these : What is now really my desire ? do I desire it in faith, expecting to receive ? am I now ready to place and leave it in the Father's bosom ? is it a settled thing between God and me tliat I am to have the answer ? we should learn so to pray that God would see and we would know what we really expect. It is for this, among other reasons, that the Lord warns us against the vain repetitions of tlie Gentiles^ who think to be heard for their much praying. We often hear prayers of great earnestness and fervour, in which a multitu(h' of petitions are poured forth, but to whicli the Saviour would undoubtedly answer, 74 wrni oiiRisT • What wilt thou that I should do unto thee ? ' If 1 am in a strange land, in the interests of the business which my father owns, I would certainly write two diflerent sorts of letters. There will be family letters giving expression to all the intercourse to which aflection prompts ; and there will be business letters, containing orders for what I need. And there may be letters in which both are found. The answers will correspond to the letters. To each sentence of the letters containing the family news I do not expect a special answer. But for each order I send I am confident of an answer whether the desired article has been forwarded. In our dealings with God the business element must not be wanting. With our expression of need and sin, of love and faith and consecration, there must be the pointed statement of what we ask and expect to receive ; it is in the answer that the FaMier loves to give us the token of His approval and acceptance. ]5ut the word of the Master teaches us more. He does not say, What dost thou jvish? but. What dost thou tuill ? One often wishes for a thing with- out willing it. I wish to have a certain article, but I find the price too high ; I resolve not to take it ; I iciah, but do not will to have it. The sluggard wishes to be rich, but does not will it. Many a one wishes to be saved, but perishes because he does not will it. The will rules the whole heart and life ; if I really will to hnve anything that is within my reach, T do not rest till 1 li;ive it. And s(», wlion Jesus Bavs to us, 'AV'luit wilt thou V He askij wlicihcr IN THE SCHOOL OF mAYER. 75 it is indeed our purpose to have what we ask at any price, however great the sacrifice. Dost thou indeed so will to have it that, though He delay it long, thou dost not hold thy peace till He hear thee ? Alas ! how many prayers are wishes, sent up for a short time and then forgotten, or sent up year after year as matter of duty, while we rest content with the prayer without the answer. But, it may be asked, is it not best to make our wishes known to God, and then to leave it to Him to decide what is best, without seeking to assert our will ? By no means. This is the very essence of the prayer of faith, to which Jesus sought to train His disciples, that it does not only make known its desire and then leave the decision to God. That would be the prayer of submission, for cases in which we cannot know God's will. But the prayer of faith, find- ing God's will in some promise of the Word, pleads for that till it come. In Matthew (ix. 28) we read Jesus said to the blind man : * Believe ye that I can do this?' Here, in Mark, He says: ' What wilt thou that that I should do ? ' In botii cases He said that faitli had saved them. And so He said to the Syropheni- cian woman, too : ' Great is thy faith : be it unto thee even as thou wilt.* Faith is nothing bat the purpose of the will resting on God's word, and saying : I must have it. To believe truly is to will firmly. But is not such a will at variance with our dependence on God and our submission to Him ? By no means ; it is much rather the true submis- sion that honours God. It is only when the child m !■■■ HMHIVMiaM M»u 76 WITil CHUIST Y, M ' has yielded his own will in entire surrender to the Father, that he receives from the Father liberty and power to will what he would have. But, when once the believer has accepted the will of God, as revealed through the Word and Spirit, as his will, too, then it is the will of God that His child should use this renewed will in His service. The will is the highest power in the soul ; grace wants above everything to sanctify and restore this will, one of the chief traits of God's image, to full and free exercise. As a son, who only lives for his father's interests, who seeks not his own but his father's will, is trusted by the fatlier with his business, so God speaks to His cliild in all truth, ' What wilt thou V It is often spiritual sloth that, under the appearance of humility, pro- fosses to have no will, because it fears the trouble of searching out the will of God, or, when found, the struggle of claiming it in faith. True humility is ever in company with strong faith, which only seeks to know what is according to the will of God, and then boldly claims the fulfilment of the promise : * Ye shall ask what ye mil, and it shall be done unto you.* 'LOliD, TEACH us TO PRAY.' t( n 1 : ii Lord Jesus ! teach me to pray with all ray heart and strength, that there may be no doubt with Thee or with me as to what I have asked. May I so know what I desire that, even as my petitions are recorded in heaven, I can record them on earth IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYKR. i i Ihe iid CQ ed len too, and note each answer as it comes. And may my faith in wliat Thy Word has promised be so clear that the Spirit may indeed work in me the liberty to will that it shall come. Lord ! renew, strengthen, sanctify wholly my will for the work of efTectual prayer. Blessed Saviour ! I do beseech Thee to reveal to me the wonderful condescension Thou showest us, thus asking us to say what we will that Thou shouldest do, and promising to do whatever we will. Son of God ! I cannot understand it ; I can oidy believe that Thou hast indeed redeemed us wholly for Thyself, and dost seek to make the will, as our noblest part. Thy most efficient servant. Lord ! I do most unreservedly yield my will to Thee, as the power through which Thy Spirit is to rule my whole being. Let Him take possession of it, lead it into the truth of Thy promises, and make it so strong in prayer that I may ever hear Thy voice saying: ' Great is thy faith : be it uuto thee even as thou wilt.* Amen. i m 78 WITH CHRIST I WITH CHRIST In t|)e Sc{)ool of $ra^er* 'i ! «> ; |L, ;S Or, Eleventh Lesson. ' Believe that ye have received ; ' The Faith that Tahea, ' Tlioi'c'oro I say unto you, All things whatsoever yc pray ami a.«k for, bclicvo that yo have received them, and ye shall have thoni.' —Mark xi. 24. WHAT a promise ! so large, so Divine, that our little hearts cannot take it in, and in every possible way seek to limit it to what we think safe or probable ; instead of allowing it, in its quickening power and energy, just as He gave it, to enter in, and to enlarge our hearts to the measure of what His love and power are really ready to do for us. Faith is very far from being a mere conviction of tlie truth of God's word, or a conclusion drawn from certain premises. It is the ear which has heard God say what He will do, the eye which has seen Him doing it, and, therefore, where there is true faith, it is impossible but the answer must come. If we only see to it that we do the one thing that He asks of us as we pray : Bp:lieve that yc have received ; He will see to it that He does the IN THE SCHOOL OF I'UAYEK, 71) I.' .r y thing Tie hag promised: ' Ve shall have them! Tlio key-noto of Solomon's prayer (2 Chron. vi. 4), ' Blessed bo the Lord God of Israel, who hath with His hands fulfilled that which He spahc wUh His mouth to my father David,' is the key-note of all true prayer: the joyful adoration of a God whoso hand always secures the fulfilment of what His mouth hath spoken. Let us in this spirit listen to the promise Jesus gives ; each part of it has its Divine message. * All things whatsoever! At this first word our human wisdom at once begins to doubt and ask : This surely cannot be literally true ? ]>ut if it be not, why did the Master speak it, using the very strongest expression He could find: 'All thing's whatsoever.' And it is not as if this were the oidy time He spoke thus ; is it not He who also said, ' If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth ; ' ' If ye have faith, nothing shall be impossible to you.' Faith is so wholly the work of God's Spirit through His word in the prepared heart of the believing disciple, that it is impossible that the fulfilment should not come ; faith is the pledge and forerunner of the coming answer. Yes, 'all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer helicving, ye receive! The tendency of human reason is to interpose here, and with certain qualifying clauses, ' if expedient,' ' if accord- ing to God's will,' to break the force of a statement which appears dangerous. let us beware of dealing thus with the Master's words. His promise IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) <^.^ % 1.0 I.I ■■ 1132 lU It ^ U. Ik IIM 2_2 20 1.8 1-25 1.4 1.6 •• 6" ► «^. ^m V] ^a ■c)a "^' ^^^^' ^ 0^. '\ /A ^'V-'y o 7 Hiotographic Sdences Corporation \ lication, and the reward is the sweet peace of God keeping heart and mind. This is the prayer of trust. It has reference to things of which we cannot find out if God is gohig to give them. As children we make known our desires in the countless things of daily life, and leave it to the Father to give or not as He thinks best. But the prayer of faith of which Jesus speaks is something I it 82 WITH CHRIST (lifTercnt, soinething higher. Wicn, whetlicr in tlio greater interests of the Master's work, or in the lesser concerns of our daily life, the soul is led to see how there is nothing that so honours the Father as the faith that is assured that He will do what lie has said in giving us whatsoever we ask for, and takes its stand on the promise as brought home by the Spirit, it may know most certainly tliat it does receive exactly what it asks. Just see how clearly the Lord sets this before us in verse 23 : • Whosoever shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass, he shall have it.' This is the blessing of the prayer of faith of which Jesus speaks. * Believe that ye have received* Tins is the word of central importance, of which the meaning is too often misunderstood. Believe that you have re- ceived ! now, while praying, the tiling you ask for. It may only be later that you sliall have it in personal experience, that you sliall see what you believe ; but now, without seeing, you are to believe that it has been given you of the Father in heaven. The receiving or accepting of an answer to prayer is just like the receiving or accepting of Jesus or of pardon, a spiritual thing, an act of faith apart from all feeling. When I come as a supplicant for pardon, I believe that Jesus in heaven is for me, and so I receive or take Him. When I come as a snpplicant for any special gift, which is according to God's word, I believe that what I ask is given me : I believe that I have it, I iiold it in faith ; 1 |lJAb»^^ IN THE SCHOOL OF PRATER. 88 thank God that it is mine. * If we know that Ho heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know tliat wo have the petitions wliich we have asked of Him.' ' And ye shall have them.* That is, the gift which wc first hold in faith as bestowed upon us in heaven will also become ours in personal exjierience. But will it be needful to pray longer if once we know we have been heard and have received wliat we asked ? There are cases in which such prayer will not be needful, in which the blessing is ready to break through at once, if we but hold fast our con- fidence, and prove oui faith by praising for what we have received, in the face of our not yet having it in experience. There are other cases in whicli the faith that has received needs to be still further tried and strengthened in persevering prayer. God only knows when everything in and around us is fully ripe for the manifestation of the blessing that has been given to faith. Elijah knew for certain that rain would come ; God had promised it ; and yet he had to pray the seven times. And that prayer was no show or play ; an intense spiritual reality in the heart of him who lay pleading there, and in the heaven above where it had its effectual work to do. It is * through faith and patience we inherit the promises.' Faith says most confidently, I have received it. Patience perseveres in prayer until the gift bestowed in heaven is seen on earth. ' Believe that ye have received, and ye shall have* Between the have received in heaven, and the shall have of QdiXt\lclicve ; believing praise and prayer is the link. % ■aUiil WP^ 84 WITH CHRIST And now, rcnionibcr one tiling more : It is Jesns who said this. As we see heaven thus opened to us, and the Father on tlie Tlirone offering to give us whatsoever we ask in fuitli, our hearts feel full of shame that we have so little availed ourselves of our privilege, and full of fear lest our feeble faith still fail to grasp what is so clearly placed within our reach. There is one thing must make us strong and full of hope : it is Jesus who has brought' us this message from the Father. He Himself, when He was on earth, lived the life of faith and prayer. It was when the disciples expressed their surprise at what He had done to the fig-tree, that Hfe told them that the very same life He led could be theirs ; that they could not only command the fig-tree, but the very mountain, and it must obey. And He is our life : all He was on earth He is in us now ; all He teaches He really gives. He is Himself the Author and the Perfecter of our faith : He gives the spirit of faith ; let us not be afraid that such faith is not meant for us. It is meant for every child of the Father ; it is within reach of each one who will but be childlike, yielding himself to the Father's Will and Love, trusting the Father's Word and Power. Dear fellow-Christian I let the thought that this word comes through Jesus, the Son, our Brother, give us courage, and let our answer be : Yea, Blessed Lord, we do believe Thy Word, we do believe that we receive. ' Lord, teach us to pray.' "TT IN THE SCHOOL OF PRA.J'ER. 85 s o Blessed Lord ! Thou didst come from the Fallier to show us all Ilis Love, and all the treasures of blessing that Love is waiting to bestow. Lord ! Thou hast this day again flung the gates so wide open, and given us such promises as to our liberty in prayer, that we must blush that our poor hearts have so little taken it in. It has been too largo for us to believe. Lord ! we now look up to Thee to teach us to take and keep and use this precious word of Thine : ' All things whatsoever ye ask, believe that ye have received.* Llessed Jesus ! it is Thyself in whom our faith must be rooted if it is to grow strong. Thy work has fr^od us wholly from the power of sin, and opened the way to the Father ; Thy Love is ever long- ing to bring us into the full fellowship of Thy glory and power ; Thy Spirit is ever drawing us upward into a life of perfect faith and confidence ; we are assured that in Thy teaching we shall learn to pray the prayer of faith. Thou wilt train us to pray BO that we believe that we receive, to believe that we really have what we ask. Lord ! teach me so to know and trust and love Thee, so to li/e and abide in Thee, that all my prayers rise up and come before God in Thee, and that my soul may have in Thee the assurance that I am heard. Amen. - ^i I i; M m 86 WITH CHBIST WITH CHRIST in tfie Sd)ool of ^rager. ""*■ I ii I Or, Twelfth Lesson. 'Have faith in God,'' Tiie Secret of believing Prayer. 'Jesus, answering, said unto them, J lave faith in God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what He saith cometh to pass ; he shall have it. Therefore I say unto you. All things whatsoever ye pray and ash for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them.'— Maiik xi. 22-24. THE promise of answer to prayer which formed our yesterday's lesson is one of the most won- derful in all Scripture. In how many hearts it has raised the question : How ever can I attain the faith that knows that it receives all it asks ? It is this question our Lord would answer to-day. Ere He gave that wonderful promise to His disciples, He spoke another word, in which He points out where the faith in the answer to prayer takes its rise, and ever finds its strength. Have faith in God : this word precedes the other, Have faith in the promise of an answer to prayer. The power to believe a promise depends entirely, but only, on faith in the promiscr. Trust in the person begets trust in IN THE SCHOOL OP PRAYER. 87 if! y 11 t. his word. It is only where we live and associate with God in personal, loving intercourse, where God Himself is all to us, where our whole being is con- tinually opened up and exposed to the mighty inihi* ences that are at work where His Holy Presence is revealed, that the capacity will be developed for believing that He gives whatsoever wo ask. This connection between faith in God and faith in His promise will become clear to us if we think what faith really is. It is often compared to the hand or the mouth, by which we take and appro- priate what is offered to us. r>ut it is of importance that we should understand that faith is also the ear by which I hear what is promised, the eye by which I see what is offered me. On this the power to take depends. I must Jwar the person who gives me the promise : the very tone of his voice gives me courage to believe. I must see him : in the light of his eye and countenance all fear as to my right to take ])asses away. The value of the promise depends on the promiser : it is on my knowledge of what the promiser is that faith in the promise depends. It is for this reason that Jesus, ere He gives that wonderful prayer-promise, llrst says, 'Have faith IN God.' That is, let thine eye be open to the Living God, and gaze on Him, seeing Him wlio is Invisible. It is through the eye that I yield myself to the in- fluence of what is before me ; I just allow it to enter, to exert its influence, to leave its impression uj)()n my mind. So believing God is just looking to God and what He is, allowing Him to reveal His presence, w 88 WITH CHUIST j^'iving Him time and yielding the wliule being to take in the full impression of what He is as God, the suul opened up to receive and rejoice in the over- shadowing of His love. Yes, faitli is the eye to wliich CJod shows what He is and does : througli faith the light of His presence and the workings of His mighty power stream into the soid. As that which I see lives in me, so by faitli God lives in me too. And even so fuith is also the car through which the voice of God is always heard and intercourse with Him kept up. It is through the Holy Spirit the Father speaks to us ; the Son is the Word, the substance of wliat God says ; the Spirit is the living voice. This the child of God needs to lead and guide him ; the secret voice from heaven must teach him, as it taught Jesus, what to say and what to do. An ear opened towards God, that is, a believing heart waiting on Him, to hear what He says , will hear Him speak. The words of God will not only be the words of a r>ook, but, proceeding from the mouth of God, they will be spirit and trutli, life and power. They will bring in deed and living experience what are otherwise only thoughts. Througli tins opened ear the soul tarries under the inlhience of tlie life and power of God Himself. As tlie words 1 hear enter tlie mind and dwell and work there, so through faith God enters the heart, and dwells and works there. When faith now is in full exercise as eye and ear, as the faculty of the soul by which we see and hear God. then it will be able to exercise its full --rn IN THE SCHOOL OF PUAYFJi, 89 power as hand and mouth, by which wc appropriate (Jod and His blessings. The power of reception will depend entirely on the power of spiritual perception. For this reason Jesus said, ere lie gave the jjroniiso that God would answer believing prayer: 'Have faith IN God.* Faith is simply surrender : I yield myself to the impression the tidings T lioar make on me. By faith I yidd myself to the liviiuj God. His glory and love fill my heart, and have tlie mastery over my life. Faith is fellowship; I give myself up to the inlluence gf the friend who makes me a promise, and become linked to him bv it. And it is when we enter into this living fellowship with God llimscl/, in a faith that always sees and hears Him, that it becomes easy and natural to believe His promise as to prayer. Faith in the promise is the fruit of faith in tlie pro- miser: the prayer of faith is rooted in the life of faith. And in this way tlie faith that prays ellec- tually is indeed a gift of God. Not as something that He bestows or infuses at once, but in a far deeper and truer sense, as the blessed disposition or habit of soul which is wrouglit and grows up in us in a life of intercourse with Him. Surely fur pne who knows his Fat her well, and lives in con- stant close intercourse with Him, it is a simi)le tiling to believe the promise that He will do the will of His child who lives in union with Himself. It is because very many of God's children do not understand this connection between the life of faitlv and the prayer of faith that their experience of the power of prayer is so limited. When they desire Tinr it ¥' 90 WITH CIIHIST earnestly to obtain an answer fiom God, they fix their whole heart upon the promise, and try their utmost to grasp that promise in faith. When they do not succeed, they are ready to give up hope ; the promise is true, but it is beyond their powur to take liold of it in fiiith. Listen to the lesson Jesus teaches us this day : Have faith in God, the Living God : let faith look to God more than the thing promised : it is His love. His power. His living presence will waken and work the faith. A physician would say, to one asking (or some means to get more sLreuf-th in his arms and hands to seize and hold, tliat his whole constitution must be built up and strengthened. So the cure of a feeble faith is alone to be found in the invigoration of our whole spiritual life by intercourse with God. Learn to believe in God, to take hold of God, to let God take possession of thy life, and it will be easy to take hold of the promise. He that knows and trusts God finds it easy to trust the promise too. Just note how distinctly this comes out in the saints of old. Every special exhibition of the power of faith was the fruit of a special revelation of God. See it in Abraham : 'And the word of the Lord came unto Abram, saying. Fear notj Abram ; / a7?i thy shield. And He h'oitght him foiih sibioad, and said . . . And he believed the Lord.' And later again : * The Lord appeared unto him, and said unto him, I am God Almighty. And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold my covenant is with thee.' L was the revelation of IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 91 God Himself that gave the promise i^s living power to enter the heart and work the faith. Because they knew God, these men of faith could not do anything hut trust His promise. God's promise will be to us what God Himself is. It is the m<\n who walks before the Lord, and falls upon his face to listen while the living God speaks to him, who will really receive the promise. Though wc have God's promises in the Bible, with fulJ liberty to take them, the spiritual power is waging, oxcey)*^ as God Hiwself speaks them to «s. And He fijuaks to those tvho walk and live ivith Him. 'J'iiorefore, have FAITH IN GoD: let faith be all eye and ear, the surrender to let God make His full impression, and reveal Himself fully in the soul. Couiit it one o? the chief blessings of prayer to exercise faiili in God, as the Living Mighty God who waits to fulfil in us all the good pleasure of His will, and the work of faith with power. See in Him the God of Love, whose delight it is to bless and impart Him- self. In such worship of faith in God the power will speedily come to believe the promise too : * All THINGS WHATSOEVER YE ASK, BELIEVE THAT YE RECEIVE.' Yes, see that thou dost in faith make God thine own ; the promise will be thine too. Precious lesson that Jesus has to teach us this day. We seek God's gifts : God Wiiuts to give us Himself first. We think of prayer as the power to draw down good gifts from heaven ; Jesus as the means to draw ourselves up to God. We want to stand at the door and cry ; Jesus would have us !' I IT 92 WITH cnuisT first enter in and realize that we are friends and children. Let us accept the teaching. Let every experience of the littleness of our faith in prayer urge us first to have and exercise more faith in the living God, and in such faith to yield ourselves to Ilim. A heart full of God has power for the prayer of faith. Faith in God begets faith in the promise, in the promise too of an answer to prayer. Therefore, child of God, take time, take time, to bow before Hmiy to wait on Him to reveal Iliimdf. Take time, and let thy soul in holy awe and worship exercise and express its faith in the In- finite One, and as He imparts Himself and takes possession of thee, the prayer of faith will crown thy faith in God. * Lord, teach us to puay.* my God ! I do believe in Thee. I believe in Thee as the Father, Infinite in Thy Love and Tower. And as the Son, my liedeemer and my Life. And as the Holy Spirit, Comforter and Guide and Strength. Three-One God, I have faith in Thee. I know and am sure that all that Thou art Thru art to me, that all Thou hast promised Thou wilt perform. Lord Jesus ! increase this faith. Teach me to take time, and wait and worship in the Holy Presence until my faith takes in all there is in my God for me. Let it see Him as the Fountain of all Life, working with Almighty Strength to IN THE SCHOOL OF rUAVER. 93 accomplish His will on the world and in nic. Let it see Him in His Love longing to meet and fulfil my desires. Let it so take possession of my heart and life that through faith God alone may dwell there. Lord Jesus, help me ! with my whole heart would I believe in God. Let faith in God each moment fill me. my Blessed Saviour ! how can Thy Church glorify Thee, how can it fulfil that work of interces- sion through which Thy kingdom must come, unless our whole life be faith in God. Blessed Lord ! speak Thy Word, 'Have faith in God,' into the depths of our souls. Amen. 'I i^: i] WT WITH CHRIST WITH CHRIST Sn tiie Scfiool of ^rager. Or, Thirteenth Lesson. 'Prayer and fasting; ' The Cure of Unbelief. •Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out ? And Jesus said unto them, Became of your unhdief: for verily I say unto you, // ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, nothing shall be impossible to you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer andfastinep silence of soul that yields itself for God to reveal Himself, that the capa- city for knowing and trusting God will be developed. It is as we take His word from the Blessed l>ook, and bring it to Himself, asking Him to speak it to us with His living loving voice, that the power will come fully to believe and receive the word as God's own word to us. It is in prayer, in living contact with God in living faith, that faith, the power to trust God, and in tliat trust, to accept ever}'thing He says, to accept every possibility He has ottered to our faith, will become stn^ng in us. Many Christians cannot understand what is meant by the mucli prayer they sometimes hear spoken of : they can form no conception, nor do they feel the need, of sptiiding hours with God. But what the Master ■ '1 1^ 'If ii WITH CIIIUST says, the experience of His people has confirmeil : men of strong faith are men of much prayer. Tliis just brings us back again to the lesson we learned when Jesus, before telling us to believe that we receive what we ask, first said, ' Have failh in God.' It is God, the living God, into whom our faith must strike its roots deep and broad ; tlien it will be strong to remove mountains and cast out devils. * If ye ;iave faith, nothing shall be impossible to you.* Oh ! if we do but give ourselves up to the work God has for us in the world, coming into contact with the mountains and the devils t lere are to be cast away and cast out, we should soon com- prehend the need there is of much faith, and of mucli prayer, as the soil in which alone faith can be cultivated. Christ Jesus is our life, the life of our faith too. It is His life in us that makes us strong, and makes us simple to believe. It is in the dying to self which much ])rayer implies, in closer union to Jesus, tliat the spirit of faitli will come in power. Failli needs prai/cr for its full growth. And prayer needs fcistAng for its full growth : this is the second lesson. Prayer is the one hand with which we grasp the invisible ; fasting, the other, with which we let loose and cast away the visible. In nothing is man more closely connected with the world of sense than in his need of food, and his enjoyment of it. It was the fruit, good for food, with which man was tempted and fell in Paradise. It was with bread to be made of stones that Jesus, when an hungered, was tempted in the wilderness, 11*.. IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 99 Hi I and in fasting that He triumphed. The body has been redeemed to be a temple of the Holy Spirit ; it is in body as well as spirit, it is very specially, Scripture says, in eating and drinking, we are to glorify God. It is to be feared that there are many Christians to whom this eating to the glory of God, lias not yet become a spiritual reality. And the first thought suggested by Jesus' words in regard to fasting and prayer, is, that it is only in a life of moderation and temperance and self-denial that there will be the heart or the strength to pray much. But then there is also its more literal meaning. Sorrow and anxiety cannot eat : joy celebrates its feasts with eating and drinking. There may come times of intense desire, when it is strongly felt how the body, with its appetites, lawful though they be, still hinder the spirit in its battle with the powers of darkness, and the need is felt of keeping it under. We are creatures of the senses : our mind is helped by what comes to us embodied in concrete form ; fasting helps to express, to deepen, and to confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, to sacrifice ourselves, to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God. And He who accepted the fasting and sacrifice of the Son, knows to value and accept and reward with spiritual power the soul that is thus ready to give up all for Chtist and His kingdom. And then follows a still wider application. Prayer is the reaching out after God and the unseen ; fasting, •rf! ti ;':f 'f 100 WITH CHRIST the lotting; ^o of all that is of the seen and temporal. While ordinary Christians imagine that all that is not positively forbidden and sinful is lawful to them, and seek to retain as much as possible of this world, with its property, its literature, its enjoyments, the truly consecrated soul is as the soldier who carries only what he needs for the warfare. Laying aside every weight, as well as the easily besetting sin, afraid of entangling himself with tlie affairs of this life, he seeks to lead a Nazarite life, as one specially set apart for the Lord and His service. Witliout such voluntary separation, even from what is lawful, no one will attain power in prayer : thia kind [5iteth not out but by fasting and prayer. Disci'tlus of Jesus 1 who have asked the Master to teacli you to pray, come now and accept His lessons. He tells you that prayer is the path to faith, strong faith, that can cast out devils. He tells you : * If ye have faith, nothing shall be impossible to you;' let this glorious promise encourage you to pray much. Is the prize not worth the price ? Shall we not give up all to follow Jesus in the path He opens to us here ; shall we not, if need be, fast ? Shall we not do anything that neither the body nor the world around hinder us in our great life-work, — having intercourse with our God in prayer, that we may become men of faith, whom He can use in His work of saving the world. *LOKD, TEACH US TO PKAY.* IN THK SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 101 Lord Jesus ! how continually Thou hast to re- prove us for our unbelief! How strange it must appear to Thee, this terrible incapacity of trusting our Father and His promises. Lord ! let Thy reproof, with its searching, * Because of your unbelief,' sink into the very depths of our hearts, and reveal to us how much of the sin and sufl'ering around us is our blame. And then teach us, Blessed Lord, that there is a place where faith can be learned and gained, — even in the prayer and fasting that brings into living and abiding fellowship with Thyself and the Father. Saviour ! Thou Thyself art the Author and the Perfecter of our faith ; teach us what it is to let Thee live in us by Thy Holy Spirit. Lord ! our efforts and prayers for grace to believe have been so unavailing. We know why it was : we sought for strength in ourselves to be given from Tliee. Holy Jesus ! do at length teach us the mystery of Thy life in us, and how Thou, by Thy Spirit, dost undertake to live in us the life of faith, to see to it that our faith shall not fail. O let us see that our faith will just be a part of that wonderful prayer-life which Thou givest in them who expect their training for the ministry of intercession, not in word and thought only, but in the Holy Unction Thou givest, the inflowing of the Spirit of Thine own life. And teach us how, in fasting and prayer, we may grow up to the faith to which nothing shall be impossible. A.men. •' i 41 T T 102 WITH CHUIST NOTE. At the time when Blumhardt was passing through his terrible conflict with tlie evil spirits in those who wore possessed, and seeking to cast them out by prayer, he often wondered what it was that hindered the answer. One day a friend, to whom he had spoken of his trouble, directed his attention to our Lord's words about fasting. Blumhardt resolved to give himself to fasting, sometimes for more than thirty hours. From reflection and experience he gained the conviction that it is of more importance than is generally thought. He says, ' Inasmuch as the fasting is before God, a practical proof that the thing we ask is to us a matter of true and pressing interest, and inasmuch as in a high degree it strengthens the intensity and power of the prayer, and becomes the unceasing practical expression of a i)rayer without words, I could believe that it would not be without efficacy, especially as the Master's words had reference to a case like the present. I tried it, without telling any one, and in truth the later conflict was extraordinarily lightened by it. I could speak with much greater restfulness and decision. I did not require to be so long present with the sick one ; and I felt that I could influence without being present.' JMs^ IN TIIK SCHOOL OF I' II AY K lo;? WITH CHRIST Or, Fourteenth Lesson. ' When ye stand praying, forgive; ' Prayer and Love. 'And whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye liavo aught against any one ; that your Father also which is in l.cavcn may forgive you your trespasses.' — Mark xi. 25. THESE words follow immediately on the gi-eat prayer-promise, 'All things whatsoever ye pray, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them.' ^Ve have already seen how the words that preceded that promise, ' Have faith in God,' taught us that in prayer all depends upon our relation to God being clear ; these words tliat follow on it remind us that our relation with fellow-men must be clear too. Love to God and love to our neighbour are inseparable : the prayer from a heart, that is either not right with God on the one side, or with men on the other, cannot prevail. Faith and love are essential to each other. We find that this is a thought to which our Lord frequently gave expression. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 23, 24), when speaking of 'ir •III ;ii ni I 104 WITH CHRIST llie sixth cominandiiuMit, lie tair^'ht His disciples how impossible acceptable worship to the Father was if everything were not right with the brother : * If thou art ofllering thy gift at the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way ; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.* And so later, when speaking of jmiyer to God, after having taught us to pray, ' Forgive us our debts, as we also have for- given our debtors,' He added at the close of the prayer : ' If you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.' At the close of the parable of the unmerciful servant lie applies His teaching in the words: * So shall also my Heavenly Father do unto you, if ye forgive not every one his brother from your hearts.' And so here, beside the dried-up fig-tree, where He speaks of the wonderful power of faith and the prayer of faith. He all at once, apparently without connection, introduces the thought, * Whensoever ye stand pray- ing, forgive, if ye have aught against any one ; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.' It is as if the Lord had learned during His life at Nazareth and afterwards that disobedience to the law of love to men was the great sin even of praying people, and the great cause of the feebleness of their prayer. And it is as if He wanted to lead us into His own blessed ex- perience that nothing gives such liberty of access and such power in believing as the consciousness I IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAVER. 105 *]ial wc li.ivc f,'iveri ourselvcvs in love and compassion, for lliosc wliom God loves. Tlie first lesson taught here is that of a forgiving disjiosition. We pray, ' Forgive, even as we have forgiven.' Scripture says, ' Forgive one another, even as God also in Christ forjC^ave vou.' God's full find free forgiveness is to he tlie rule of ours with men. Otherwise our reluctant, half-hcarlecl forgiveness, which is not forgiveness at all, will ho Go ' )ule with us. Every prayer rests upon our faith in God's pardoning grace. If God dealt with us after our sins, not one prayer could he heard. Pardon opens the door to all God's love and hlessing : because God has pardoned all our sin, our prayer can prevail to ohtain all we need. The deep sure ground of answer to prayer is God's forgiving love. When it has taken possession of the heart, we pray in faith. But also, when it has taken possession of the heart, we live in love. God's forgiving dis- position, revealed in His love to us, becomes a dis- position in us ; as the power of His forgiving love shed abroad and dwelling within us, we forgive even as He forgives. If there be great and grievous injury or injustice done us, we seek first of all to possess a Godlike disposition ; to be kept from a sense of wounded honour, from a desire to maintain our rights, or from rewarding the offender as he has deserved. In the little annoyances of daily life, we are watchful not to excuse the hasty temper, the sharp word, the quick judgment, with the thought that we mean no harm, that we do not ''11 ;i; ^ Fi 106 WITH CHRIST keep the anger long, or that it would be too much to expect from feeble human nature, that we should really forgive the way God and Christ do. No, we take the command literally, ' Evc7i as Christ forgave, so also do ye.' The blood that cleanses the con- science from dead works, cleanses from selfishness too ; the love it reveals is pardoning love, that takes possession of us and flows through us to others. Our forgiving love to men is the evidence of the reality of God's forgiving love in us, and so the condition of the prayer of faith. There is a second, more general lesson : our daily life in the world is made the test of our intercourse with God in prayer. How often the Christian, when he comes to pray, does his utmost to cultivate certain frames of mind which he thinks will be pleasing. He does not understand, or forgets, that life does not consist of so many loose pieces, of which now the one, then the otlier, can be taken up. Life is a whole, and the pious frame of the hour of prayer is judged of by God from the ordinary frame of the daily life of which the hour of prayer is but a small part. Not the feeling I call up, but the tone of my life during the day, is God's criterion of what I really am and desire. My drawing nigh to God is of Olio piece with my intercourse with men and earth : failure here will cause failure there. And that not only when there is the distinct conscious- ness of anything wrong between my neighbour and myself ; but the ordinary current of my thinking and judging, the unloving thoughts and words I IN THE SCHOOL OF PHAYER. 107 allow to pass unnoticed, can hinder my prayer. The effectual prayer of faith comes out from a life given up to the will and the love of God. Not according to what I try to be when praying, but wliat I am when not praying, is my prayer dealt with bv God. We may gather these thoughts into a third lesson . In our life with men the one thing on which everything depends is love. The spirit of forgiveness is the spirit of love. Because God is love. He forgives : it is only when we are dwelling in love that we can forgive as God forgives. In love to the brethren we have the evidence of love to the Father, the ground of confidence before God, and the assurance that our prayer will be heard. (1 John iv. 20, iii. 18-21, 23.) 'Let us love in deed and truth ; hereby shall we assure our heart before Him. If our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God, and whatever we ask, we receive of Him.' Neither faith nor work will profit if we have not love ; it is love that unites with God, it is love that proves the reality of faith. As essential as in the word that precedes the great prayer-promise in Mark xi. 24, 'Have faith in God,' is this one that follows it, * Have love to men.' The right relations to the liWng God above me, and the living men around me, are the conditions of effectual prayer. This love is of special consequence when we labour for such and pray for them. We some- times give ourselves to work for Christ, from zeal ■«! ;; :"\ f ■ '; ' --f 1 J —Jll ■ 'if lilt llf;. 108 WITH CHRIST for Ilis cause, as wc call it, or for our own spiritual health, without giving ourselves in personal self- sacrificing love for those whose souls we seek. No wonder that our faith is feeble and does not conquer. To look on each wretched one, however unloveable he be, in the light of the tender love of Jesus the Shepherd seeking the lost ; to see Jesus Christ in him, and to take him up, for Jesus* sake, in a heart that really loves, — this, this is the secret of believing prayer and successful effort. Jesus, in speaking of forgiveness, speaks of love as its root. Just as in the Sermon on the Mount He connected His teaching and promises about prayer with the call to be merciful, as the Father in heaven in merciful (Matt. v. 7, 9, 22, 38-48), so we see it here : a loving life is the condition of believing prayer. It has been said : There is nothing so heart- searching as believing prayer, or even the honest effort to pray in faith. let us not turn the edge of that self-examination by the thought that God does not hear our prayer for reasons known to Himself alone. By no means. *Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss.* Let that word of God search us. Let us ask whether our prayer be indeed the expression of a life wholly given over to the will of God and the Jove of man. Love is the only soil in which faith can strike its roots and thrive. As it throws its arms up, and opens its heart heavenward, the Father always looks to see if it has them opened m THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER. 109 ^f i**_ H towards the evil and the unworthy too. In that love, not indeed the love of perfect attainment, but the love of fixed purpose and sincere obedience, faith can alone obtain the blessing. It is he who gives himself to let the love of God dwell in him, and in the practice of daily life to love as God loves, who will have the power to believe in the Love that hears his every prayer. It is the Lainh, who is in the midst of the throne : it is Suffering and forbearing love that prevails with God in prayer. The merciful shall obtain mercy ; the meek shall inherit the earth. ' Lord, teach us to piiay.' Blessed Father ! Thou art Love, and only ho that abideth in love abideth in Thee and in fellowship with Thee. The Blessed Son hath this day again taught me how deeply true this is of my fellowship with Thee in prayer. my God ! let Thy love, shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit, be in me a fountain of love to all around me, that out of a life in love may spring the power of believing prayer. my Father ! grant by tlie Holy Spirit that tliis may be my experience, that a life in love to all around me is the gate to a life in the love of my God. And give me especially to find in the joy with which I forgive day by day whoever might offend me, the proof that Thy for- giveness to me is a power and a life. Lord Jesus ! my Blessed Teacher ! teach Thou ■Ml 110 WITH CHRIST me to forgive and to love. Let the power of Thy blood make the pardon of my sins such a reality, that forgiveness, as shown by Thee to me, and by me to others, may be the very joy of heaven. Show me whatever in my intercourse with fellow- men might hinder my fellowship with God, so that my daily life in my own home and in society may be the school in which strength and confidence are gathered for the prayer of faith. Amen. 11 IN THE SCHOOL OF riJAYER. Ill I WITH CHRIST in tl)e Srfjool of ^Prajjcr. Or, Fifteenth Lesson. ^ If two agree;' "^he Power of United Prayer. \ ' Again I say unto you, Tliat if two of you shall agree on eaith as t