Notes of addresses at Bassenfell Manor, Cumbria, 1986
The exercise that has been placed on my heart for these meetings that we shall have in the Lord’s mercy is this tremendous matter of prayer. I think we would all confess that we do not pray enough and yet when we read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation we are convinced that prayer is one of the most essential things for any believer in Christ. No matter the dispensation, prayer has been the great service of those who were active for God and without it there was barrenness and failure. I have to confess that in my life I have not prayed enough, although one can humbly say that one feels that whatever prayer one has done has kept one to some extent. My wife and I were talking one night, and I confessed that I thought there were three things in my life that had kept me going as a Christian. One was the essential one, prayer; secondly, reading the Word of God, and thirdly, keeping in contact with the meetings, fellowship. If we pursue these three things, we will keep in the atmosphere of heaven and in spite of failures and weakness, we will be kept going on. We want in these meetings to concentrate on this great matter of prayer.
Solomon’s Prayer
“The Lord therefore hath performed his word that he hath spoken: for I am risen up in the room of David my father, and am set on the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised, and have built the house for the name of the Lord God of Israel. And in it have I put the ark, wherein is the covenant of the Lord, that he made with the children of Israel. And he stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands: For Solomon had made a brazen scaffold of five cubits long, and five cubits broad, and three cubits high, and had set it in the midst of the court: and upon it he stood, and kneeled down upon his knees before all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven. And said, O Lord God of Israel, there is no God like thee in the heaven, nor in the earth; which keepest covenant, and showest mercy unto thy servants, that walk before thee with all their hearts: Thou which hast kept with thy servant David my father that which thou hast promised him; and spakest with thy mouth, and hast fulfilled it with thine hand, as it is this day. Now therefore, O Lord God of Israel, keep with thy servant David my father that which thou hast promised him, saying, There shall not fail thee a man in my sight to sit upon the throne of Israel; yet so that thy children take heed to their way to walk in my law, as thou hast walked before me. Now then, O Lord God of Israel, let thy word be verified, which thou hast spoken unto thy servant David. But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built! Have respect therefore to the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee: That thine eyes may be open upon this house day and night, upon the place whereof thou hast said that thou wouldest put thy name there; to hearken unto the prayer which thy servant prayeth toward this place. Hearken therefore unto the supplications of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, which they shall make toward this place: hear thou from thy dwelling place, even from heaven; and when thou hearest, forgive.” (2 Chronicles 6:10-21)
These are tremendous words that we have read together. Here is a king in the full flush of fulfilment, the Temple built according to the divine plan, all accomplished according to the divine will, the glory of the Lord about to enter into it and a king on his knees praying to God, acknowledging His greatness and supremacy. That is one of the most essential things in prayer. Whether our prayers are weak or intelligent or whatever kind of prayers we offer, every time we bend our knees, every time we make a prayer to God it is an acknowledgement of His supremacy. We might not understand this completely but it to be so and we could write over our meetings this week, “prayer is honouring God”. We should keep this in our minds all the time: prayer is honouring God, it is an acknowledgement of the greatness of the God whom we have never seen and yet with whom we have a link. Robert Burns, the Scottish poet, wrote a poem to a young man in which he warned that there would be many attacks against him. Obviously, this young man was a man with some knowledge of God, and Burns warned him, “An atheist’s laugh is a poor defence against Deity offended”. That is a good thing to remember when atheists scorn and ridicule the Christian. But Burns went on to say, “A correspondence fixed with heaven is sure a noble anchor”. Now we must remember that we have “a correspondence fixed with heaven”. We do not need a poet to tell us this but his poetic language certainly fixes it in our minds. Now when Solomon bent his knees and cried aloud to God in the way he did, he was acknowledging the greatness of God; so great that the house he had built could not contain the presence of God, and well he knew it, but he bowed his knees in acknowledgment. What a sight.
Paul’s Prayer
“For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” (Ephesians 3:14-15)
Now in Ephesians 3 we come to a prison to consider the Lord’s servant, a great man formed by his Master to be an apostle, to serve Him, to be the apostle to the Gentiles—and what a servant he was. But now after a life of faithfulness, he is in prison. He is not despondent but is bowing his knees in worship and in prayer, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, of whom the whole family in the heaven and earth is named” (v. 15). What an impression Paul had of the greatness of God the Father. He bowed his knees in that Roman prison and it certainly would not have been congenial. What a contrast to Solomon. Solomon with this huge Temple reared to God with all its magnificence in the background; its gold, its silver and all the embellishment the Divine will had given to it, and now this man in a prison with all the difficulties and pressures upon him, bowing his knees to the Father. What a sight to see! What a man he was with his knowledge of God, with his knowledge of the truth and with his knowledge of Christ. One does not feel any note of despondency, defeat or weakness; rather the very opposite because that prayer of Paul takes us right into eternity, into the completion of the purpose of God: “unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end” (v. 21). Paul’s mind in prayer leaped far beyond the bounds of the prison he was in. His mind was occupied with God and God’s will, so there he was, his mind and his spirit soaring above the difficulties and trials. What a wonderful prayer; bowing his knees to the Father.
The Lord’s Prayer
“And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him. And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow, and said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” (Luke 22:39-46)
What can we say dear brethren when we come to the garden? The Son of God bowed, kneeling down. Around Him were His enemies, intrigue, hatred and pressure and above all this, the pressure upon His spirit as He anticipated what shortly He would endure upon the cross. There He is, bowed down, the humble, subject man in His attitude of humility before His God with tremendous pressures upon Him. And yet He kneeled down in the acknowledgement of the supremacy of His God: “Not my will, but Thine be done” (v. 42).
I can assure you it is not an easy thing to speak about prayer because there is so much in the Bible that we can draw upon but these three scriptures suggested themselves to me as an introduction to the subject. The king upon his knees, the apostle upon his knees, the Son of God upon His knees; all indicating, I believe, this acknowledgement of the tremendous greatness of God.
Appreciation of the Greatness of God
Now dear brethren, my humble desire for myself and for you, is that we might have an increased appreciation of the greatness of God. There is no good in us going to God with our problems, our difficulties and exercises unless we have, firmly embedded in our minds, the fact that our God is competent to deal with the problems that we present to Him. It is not all a question of problems when we are praying. There is the happy release of the Spirit in worship and singing to God, which we shall see is a form of prayer. It is so necessary to get the greatness, the glory and the supremacy of God into our hearts and that when we enter into His presence kneeling is the proper attitude for us when it is possible. It may be that it is physically impossible in some cases but when there is opportunity, if the king, the apostle and above all the Son of God kneeled, surely we should kneel in our acknowledgement of the greatness and glory of God. We are not forgetting that the Lord Jesus said, “When ye stand praying” (Mark 11:25), so there is no difficulty in standing whilst praying. There was also Nehemiah, who, in the exercise of his service before the king, stood and prayed a very short prayer (Neh. 2:4), brief and to the point. So we are not saying kneeling is the only way but, dear brethren, when we have the opportunity and when it is permissible, we ought to bow our knees. We have ample examples and that by that simple posture we are acknowledging the greatness of God. After all, we are only creatures and God is so infinitely great. How right it is that by this simple method in our acknowledgement of the greatness of God, we can bring Him pleasure. That is the first point in prayer I want to bring to you tonight. Oh that it might enter into our hearts more and more. Just let me quote one example in practice. The saints in the beginning of the church period in Acts 4 were being persecuted, Peter and John had been released from prison and then they went to their own company and had a prayer meeting. The place shook when they prayed (v. 31). Would to God our prayer meetings shook! And it says “they prayed aloud to the God who created everything” (v. 24, paraphrase). That was their impression of the greatness of God, and what a tremendous impression: the Creator God. Perhaps we do not use it enough in our prayers, the Creator God in all His wisdom, skill and understanding in bringing into being this vast universe in which we live. They prayed to the One who brought it into being, they asked Him for His protection, help and power, and they got it and so were able to continue in testimony for God. This is a concrete example of believers who trusted in the greatness of God, who then answered their prayers and helped them.
The Example of the Lord Jesus on Earth
We have the example of our Lord Jesus. We have already read and spoken about His prayer in Luke 22. This should be quite sufficient an indication to us of the importance of prayer in our lives. The Lord Jesus, pre-eminently in the Gospel by Luke, is presented as a humble, obedient and dependent man. Again and again and again we read of Him praying. He prayed when He was being baptised, when He was upon the mountain top and in the wilderness. He prayed before He selected His disciples, when He was on the Mount of Transfiguration and when He was in the garden. He prayed on the cross. What a man! What a beautiful expression of dependence! There was never a moment when He was not dependent. There is a beautiful expression of the Lord Jesus in Psalm 22, “I was cast upon thee from the womb, thou art my God from my mother’s belly”. From the very moment that He was brought into this world as a babe He was absolutely dependent upon His God. That could only be true of One who was God; this is the greatness of the incarnation. And oh, dear friends, what a wonderful thing it is to see this glorious Man bowed in prayer again and again. How earnest He was in it. He prayed all night. Have you ever prayed all night? Have I ever prayed all night? We think of the multitude of problems that exist in the meetings whether locally, throughout the world or connected with the Christian testimony. Perhaps we have not sufficient knowledge in our minds about these things to keep us supplied for a prayer of five minutes. That is to our shame. The Lord prayed all night because He knew, as only He possibly could know, the extent of the need that existed and so He prayed all night for the very many problems and the many needs that existed amongst men and women. I remember reading about a Church of England bishop travelling all over this country and America in the days when planes were non-existent, and every day he spent five hours on his knees praying. He must have had plenty to pray about; five hours every day praying. I know there is the busy life that we live, business and many things connected with the home. God understands these, but oh how He appreciates it, if we have time and however small it might be, to use that time, in real earnest diligent prayer in relation to His interests. The Lord Jesus continued all night in prayer. The disciples went home to the comfort of their homes and the comforts of their beds but the Lord Jesus was engaged in prayer. It also says that He prayed alone (v. 41). There is tremendous value in collective prayer but I feel there is something special when you are alone with God. There are many things that you can say to God that you can only say in private. You could never utter them elsewhere, even in the presence of your beloved or in the presence of other believers. There are things between you and God that must be said alone. These are things that have to do with your own private relationship with God and your own personal needs as a believer in Christ. That is why you need to be alone. The Lord Jesus was alone. It was not that He felt that He was left out of things, no. He wanted to be alone and it is absolutely essential that we find time to be alone to tell God the things we require personally. What a man He was: continually praying, continual referring things to His God about so many matters pertaining to His service. He was never independent, never like man; man is self-assertive and cocksure thinking that he can manage, he can cope and so he forgets prayer—and then he comes a cropper. That was never so in the life of the Lord Jesus Who was humble, dependent and diligent in prayer.
The Intercession of the Lord Jesus for Us
There is one other thing. We have touched on His example on earth and now, praise God, He continues that intercession in glory. In Romans 8 and Hebrews 7 we find that Christ is carrying on a service of intercession day by day. He is God and He can do this, He is in the place of supremacy and glory. It is one of His outstanding unique glories that He maintains this service of intercession. Not one of us would be here on the Christian pathway today if that intercession had not been exercised on our behalf. You remember what He said in relation to Peter; “I have prayed for thee” (Luke 22:32)? Oh, how wonderful! I suppose if the Lord could speak to us in words that are to be heard He could say that to each of us; “I have prayed for thee”. Praise God for this; that His prayers, intercession, protection and care have kept us in the Christian pathway when we might easily have slipped away, when we might easily have succumbed to Satan’s power and wiles.
Exhortations to Pray
Now we come to the very many exhortations that we find in the Bible in relation to prayer. In 1 Thessalonians 5 Paul exhorts the Thessalonians to “Pray without ceasing”. Now that does not mean without ceasing literally. We have our work to do. It is obvious that we cannot give proper attention to it and pray at the same time. The Lord understands this. There are many situations in which it would be impossible to pray. It means to pray diligently. Keep on praying when you have the opportunity. When the Lord Jesus was preaching He was not praying. And so we find that this exhortation to “pray without ceasing” is simply an exhortation for us to use every moment that we can diligently, and righteously and to lift up our hearts to God in prayer. “Pray unceasingly.” The apostle did not forget, either, to ask the Christians to pray for him. Well he knew the power of prayer in connection with Christian service and throughout his letters we find this note coming again and again, “Brethren, pray for me!” (chap. 5:25). He is not exactly praying for himself, but for the exercise of his service that it might be for God’s glory and for the benefit of all concerned. Paul says “Persevere in prayer” (Col. 4:2 JND). I liked what someone said about prayer, “God’s delays are not denials”. That is a good thing to take note of. We want an immediate answer to our prayers, and that is understandable, but God might say “no, there are certain reasons why I am not answering this prayer at this particular moment” and so He delays answering the prayer. That does not, however, mean it is a denial. There are three answers to every prayer: “yes”, “no” and “wait”. And so how thankful we are that we can exercise this patience that is so necessary when we pray. We are to persevere in prayer. I like to think of that old sister that we read about in the second chapter of Luke: Anna. What tremendous testimony the Spirit of God gave to her. Night and day she prayed (v. 37). I do not know how long she carried on this service, but with fasting and prayers she continued this service. What a tremendous example. That is one of the most wonderful things about prayer. You do not need a gift to pray, because there is no such thing as the gift of prayer. Prayer is open for every brother and sister. It is not a question of how much you know about the Bible, it is how much you know about God. That is the great point and the more we know about God, the more we will be encouraged to pray.
Persevere in prayer, keep at it and do not give up. If there is something that lies upon your heart and feelings for the Lord’s glory, keep at it. A short time ago I was convinced that a certain thing that I prayed for was very definitely of the Lord. I kept at it and I prayed and I prayed and I prayed. I never forgot that particular matter and the time drew nearer when it would become evident whether my prayers were to be answered or not. The time came and I found I had been praying wrongly. It was not that I was insincere or that I was praying for something for myself. It was something that I felt was the Lord’s mind but He showed me that it was not. Well, one just has to bow one’s knees and confess one’s ignorance, one’s lack of wisdom and perception. But in other matters, if we know it is the Lord’s will, persevere, persevere and persevere. That is what the apostle says in Colossians 2 and also in Romans 12:12, he says this; “as regards prayer, persevering” (JND). If the air that we breathe is so absolutely necessary for us physically, likewise prayer is absolutely necessary for us as Christians. We would soon die if we could not breathe. We die spiritually if we do not pray and so Paul says “keep on praying” and he says “pray at all seasons” (Eph. 6:18 JND). There is not a particular season for prayer and then after that we can forget it. Oh no, every season is important in prayer. In every season, day, week, month and year, we have to keep going and pray and pray and pray. Think of the Lord Jesus when we find Him in the garden with His own. I like that little touch in the Gospel by Luke, the gospel of the grace of God, where it says they were “sleeping for sorrow” (Luke 22:45). We might say what a poor lot. The Lord Jesus, so upset, and they were all sleeping. No, says Luke, they were “sleeping for sorrow”. They were so sad, so upset, that it caused them to sleep. But think of Him there in the midst of His own sorrow. He exhorts his disciples, “Watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation” (v. 46).
Reality, Sincerity and Humility in Prayer
Now I hope we have all proved that when we pray we are brought near to reality with God. We realise that it is not a question of platitudes, beautiful expressions or eloquence when we address God, it is a question of sincerity and reality. The Lord Jesus expressed this in the Gospel when He spoke of the two men who went up to the Temple to pray (Luke 18:9-14). When the Pharisee prayed to God it was cold. He drew attention to himself although he was speaking to God. We believe, according to the book of Proverbs, that that kind of prayer would be an abomination to the Lord (Prov. 28:9). The other man, however, was absolutely sincere. “God be merciful to me a sinner” (v. 13). He was sincere and real, he got to God about the matter in a way that pleased God, and that man “went down justified” (v. 14). Now while that pertained to a sinner it also pertains to a saint: the reality of prayer. It is not something flowery and something that makes much of us. Oh no, if we realise the greatness of the One to whom we address we will be very humble indeed and yet, what a tremendous privilege it is to carry everything to God in prayer. How blessed for creatures like ourselves, so sinful, so weak, so foolish, so prone to go our own way and carve out our own path for ourselves. And yet we are privileged to bow our knees and directly address ourselves to God, the infinitely great God, the Creator, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are privileged to talk to Him directly with no intermediary. That is to say, no human intermediary. We address ourselves to God through Christ, who is our Intermediary. We need no human help in this matter of addressing ourselves in prayer to God. Oh, dear brethren what a privilege! What a privilege to get right into contact with the resources of power and wisdom infinitely beyond anything the world possesses. Is not this what Paul means when he wrote to the Philippians, saying, “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (4:19). What inexhaustible resources can be drawn upon through prayer.
Prayer in Psalms, Hymns and Songs
Now the last point I want to bring before you is of a dual character and that is the happy side of prayer. Prayer is a term that covers many means of addressing ourselves to God. Many of the Psalms for instance are prayers. At least 5 or 6 headings to the Psalms indicate them to be prayers while others without the heading breathe the spirit of prayer. They are crying to God for help, they are acknowledging God in His supremacy and wisdom as the One who can help. Some of them are imprecatory prayers and they would not be the prayers that Christians would pray, but we could quite happily adopt the language of many of them because they are drawing upon God in His greatness and in His wisdom.
Many of the songs and hymns we have in our hymn-book are prayers. “Oh, teach us more of Thy blessed ways”, a song that is in itself a prayer and many more will come to your mind. What a wonderful thing it is that we can raise in the voices that God has given to us in song. We can raise them and utter prayers in this happy and very privileged way.
Worship in Prayer
Worship is also a form of prayer. We find that the prayer that Solomon uttered at the dedication of the Temple was both a prayer of supplication and worship. It indicated, as far as he was concerned, how great God was. The covenant He had made with David and the promises He had made; all this involved the purpose and the will of God and it was all involved in this tremendous prayer that Solomon made. So we too can have this happy experience of addressing God in worship, in song and in praise. Oh, how wonderful. Think of Paul and Silas. When they were in that prison in Philippi, their backs lacerated by the Roman’s scourging, they might well have been depressed, they might well have had a sense of defeat, but did they?! It says they prayed and they sang praises. There was the note of worship along with their supplications for help and strength. What a tremendous thing it is then that when we sing we are singing to a God who hears our song just in the same way as He hears our prayers.
Function of Prayer
I have already spoken about individual prayer. Each one must determine how to maintain individual prayer and determine what time is best suited to set aside for this specific purpose of devoting oneself to prayer. This is why we find prayer and fasting so often in the Bible. It was not simply that they abstained from food for the sake of abstaining. They abstained from food to apply themselves to prayer. Time that would have been spent in the preparing and partaking of food would now be spent in prayer. I say again that it is absolutely essential that we are praying individually if we are going to be maintained fresh, energetic, diligent and strong in the interests of the Lord.
Then there is household prayer. What a happy thing it is, and what a tremendous thing for heaven, to look down upon a husband and wife, and children if necessary, kneeling together at the throne of grace, praying. If you read ‘The Cottar’s Saturday Night’ by the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, it will rejoice your heart because he speaks of something that was the norm in Scotland in those days. Sad to say it has largely disappeared. He describes the cottar, his wife, the children and their daughter’s young man kneeling down together and praying after reading the word of God. Then when they had all gone on their way “the saint, the father and the husband” as Burns describes him, kneels down with his wife and they pray for their children. What a tremendous sight! and oh that it were true in the homes of the saints, not only in Scotland but throughout Britain. Household prayer; husband, wife and children, diligent and constant. When Paul says, “Thou shalt be saved, and thy house,” (Acts 16:31), he was not only thinking of their freedom from the guilt of their sins and going onto heaven. Salvation means much more than that. That household would be saved from many of the activities that had formerly marked it and would be given over to different kinds of activities, prayer being one of them. That would be the real evidence that salvation had entered into that home. Burns said:
From scenes like these, old Scotia’s grandeur springs,
That makes her lov’d at home, rever’d abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
“An honest man’s the noblest work of God.”
Oh, dear friends! whatever the poet might say, it is what the word of God says that impresses upon us the tremendous need for prayer; individually, in the home and collectively.
It is the truth that if any meeting is sacrificed, it is very often the prayer meeting. Ah yes, at the Bible reading we can air our knowledge and in addresses or gospel meetings there can be a great deal of activity. But the prayer meeting, well maybe that does not matter so much, does it? When we neglect the prayer meeting we are neglecting the powerhouse as it has often been called. It was Charles Spurgeon who took his visitor down to the basement of his church and he said, “This is the powerhouse.” The visitor looked around to see what he was talking about, maybe there was some furnace that supplied heat. “No,” said Spurgeon, “we are talking about the place where prayer is made. This is the powerhouse.” This is why that man of God was so powerful in his ministration of the gospel. We can be sure that when any assembly neglects prayer, they are neglecting the very means to draw upon the power and wisdom of God. The power and wisdom that is needed not only for their own encouragement, but also for the interest and blessing of those around through the gospel or through the ministration of the word.
The three areas where we can function, individually, in the home and in the assembly, are areas that should be governed by the great service of prayer. Prayer is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, service that can be carried out and we can all have our part in it, thank God. We have looked at the scope of prayer by individuals: a king, a servant, the Son of God and Anna the widow, all engaged in prayer, and effective prayer. Husbands, wives and all young people who are newly converted can all exercise this tremendous prerogative. We need to think on prayer more and more. We have looked at the supremacy of God, the example of the Lord Jesus, the many exhortations in Scripture and the functions that we can carry on individually, in the home or in the meeting. These are sufficient reasons for us to be more and more exercised in the great matter of prayer. I read something recently that appealed to me very much: the writer said that, “prayer is the nerve that moves the muscle of omnipotence.” I might be a very weak nerve but my prayers can move the power of God in whatever way it is necessary for help, for encouragement, for blessing. Let us be encouraged in the matter of prayer. I am sure if I could look into your hearts they would all be like mine. We would all be confessing, “Yes we could pray more than we do,” and when we do make that confession the reality of it will be seen when we do pray a little more and effectively than we did before.