“BEHOLD, HE IS PRAYING”
T. E. Druckenmiller
Acts 9: 11 (last phrase); Ephesians 1: 15–23; 3: 14–19; Philippians 1: 3–5, 9–11; Colossians 1: 3, 4
I would like to say a word, beloved brethren, about prayer. I have been thinking of the apostle Paul since the Lord’s supper on the Lord’s day when reference was made to the straitened conditions in which he was in the prison, and as the reading closed what one was impressed to speak about—rather than the straitened conditions—was the feelings of priestly grace and prayer that marked the apostle in those straitened conditions. The verse in Acts 9 came to one’s mind, “Behold, he is praying”. How early in his Christian history after his conversion Paul is marked by the feature of prayer, and it is evident from what we have read in these three prison epistles that he prayed unceasingly. Reference was made to that “unceasing prayer”, Acts 12: 5. Think of the unceasing prayer that was made when Peter was in the prison. We referred to Peter in the prison and the fact that James, one of those with whom Peter was on the holy mountain, was taken and slain. Herod took him, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews he took Peter; it was in his mind to slay Peter also.
God’s hand is over the bodies of His people; He tries us and He test us; the circumstances of one and another are a test to us all. I believe, dear brethren, we should be more marked by prayer and by exercise of heart to get the gain of the suffering time in which we pass our sojourn here. May we be more in the presence of the Lord and in the presence of the Father and the Holy Spirit so as to gain in our souls in the sufferings which divine grace in wisdom passes us through.
So what a moment that was when Ananias was a bit concerned as to going and speaking to Saul, but the Lord changed his feelings when He said to him, “Behold, he is praying”, showing that Paul was a different man; he was not the man that Ananias thought he was. It is wonderful to have your thoughts changed, changed so that you reflect the divine mind in what you do. That was the way with Ananias; he said, I have heard from many about this man; but the Lord said, He is an elect vessel to Me, and “Behold, he is praying”. So Paul must have been a praying man all his life from that moment on. He was led by the hand into the city. That is the first time, I suppose, that the apostle Paul was ever led by the hand. He was quite sufficient on his own, to do his own will, to go where he wanted.
He was taught in the highest schools of the day. But he was smitten down to the ground; he saw a light above the brightness of the noonday sun that changed his life. That is what we need, dear brethren; we need our lives changed, we need to be converted, we need to come around to the divine side. And so as led by the hand, and in blindness, it changed him. Think of him three days there in the city a blind man, but he was praying.
O, dear brethren, do you pray? Do I pray? Do we ‘pray with prayer’ like Elijah? He ‘prayed with prayer’, James tells us about it (James 5: 17). James must have known the need for prayer, and so he says, “Elias was a man of like passions to us, and he prayed with prayer that it should not rain”. It meant suffering for the prophet; he had to be fed by the ravens and there, he was by the river. But what happened? There was no, rain and soon the torrent dried up and he needed sustainment. So God said, You go to that widow woman and be fed by her.
He met her and said to her, You make me a little cake first. It seemed a bit demanding, but in the wisdom of the Lord it worked out that the meal in her barrel would not waste and the oil in the cruse would not fail. Then the son died. But think of the prayers of Elijah. He prayed that the soul of the child might come again into him. God answered the prayer. And then there was the matter of the rain. Oh the need for the rain—the grace of heaven upon the land at a time when sin was abroad. Elijah prayed with prayer and God gave rain. Think of it; he bowed his knees and he sent his servant seven times. That would show the urgency of the prayer. And the servant went time and again and came and said, “There is nothing”. The more urgent Elijah would be in his prayer.
So, dear brethren, I believe what is needed is more urgent prayer among us as we see the needs in a city like this, the needs of the testimony. How do we think about them? how do we pray to God about them? how do we pray for the recovery of our brethren? how do we pray for the sustainment of life among our brethren, for its strengthening and preservation, and for the recovery of the work of God in some of our younger brethren? The Lord would help us to be more frequently in His presence and to pray with prayer.
So as we go through these three prison epistles we are impressed with how Paul is thinking of the saints. We read rather extensively in Ephesians; these two sections bring out the feelings of the heart of the beloved apostle. May the Lord just help us to draw attention to one or two thoughts that might strengthen our exercises, dear brethren, to be more prayerful in our care for the testimony of the Lord. As we look at Ephesians 1, Paul says, “Wherefore I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is in you, and the love which ye have towards all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, making mention of you at my prayers”. Think of the beloved apostle making mention of the beloved saints at Ephesus in his prayers, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of him”.
Are these not things we need, dear brethren? We too would like to be enlightened in the eyes of our heart so that we should know what is “the hope of his calling”, and what “the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints”. These are the things that are available to us. Are we in the enjoyment of them? Are we making them our chief joy? “And what the surpassing greatness of his power towards us who believe”. Sometimes we get looking at the things around and the tests that come in. One was away unfortunately on Thursday night, but they had a fine reading I am told on the wind, and the earthquake and the fire (1 Kings 19: 11).
God was not in those three, and yet God was behind them. He uses them in His wisdom to secure some touch of heart, maybe to make men pray. I wonder how many prayed in Charleston as the hurricane came; I wonder how many began to pray as the recent earthquake began. Then there was the terrible fire in Texas, with those lives being lost. You walk around these places where catastrophe has struck and you think that at any moment disaster could come, but you look to the Lord to care for you. So you pray, you wait on Him and seek His mercy. Man’s great achievements are tested by God’s movements in His wisdom, using the earthquake or the wind or the fire. But then it says Jehovah was not in those but He was in the soft gentle voice. I think, dear brethren, as we pray we will hear that voice. That is the impression one has—“Hear him”. Oh, that was a word for us in the reading—“Hear him”.
May the Lord help us to pray more, to be more dependent, to be cast upon God for everything in our lives.
We think of the young children going to school. We feel for our young people in this time of smallness. Oh, thank God for every one there is and let us pray for their preservation, for their salvation, trusting God as to how He will work in their hearts in view of their commitment to the testimony of the Lord, in view of their taking their place in the fellowship, and in view of their committal to the Lord’s supper and taking things on in simple lowliness, as the apostle says, “being enlightened”, and that we should prove “the surpassing greatness of his power towards us who believe, according to the working of the might of his strength”. We would not belittle the day of small things; we feel the smallness, but we would feel it with God in view of getting the gain of the strength and the power that are available from God to go through it with Him. Think of “the might of his strength, in which he wrought in the Christ in raising him from among the dead”. What a moment of weakness it was outwardly; ‘Through weakness and defeat He won the meed and crown’. Think of the outward weakness of Christ when He yielded Himself in the will of God to go the way of suffering and death. But then God wrought in the Christ in raising Him from among the dead. What a defeat of Satan’s power in the Lord being raised from among the dead!
“And he set him down at his right hand in the heavenlies”. We were speaking about that a few weeks ago—“the right hand of the greatness on high” (Hebrews l: 3), the place of exaltation where Christ is enthroned, and in that place where He is there above ever living to intercede for saints. That is the place where He is and you can pray to Him and your prayer can ascend to heaven, as the psalmist says, as incense; “Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense”, Psalm 141: 2. I can remember a brother often mentioning that psalm in the prayer meeting and it used to give a touch. When you think about it it thrills you the more and you would like to be that kind of man, or that kind of young person, or that kind of sister, whose prayers arise to God as incense, fragrant to the nostrils of heaven because you are thinking of the testimony in accord with heaven’s mind. That is what marks the apostle Paul in his prayer here.
Then you turn over the page. He has another prayer in this epistle and that is where he bows his knees—“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named”. How wide the outlook of the beloved apostle Paul is! He can see things; he is enlightened in the eyes of his heart, I suppose because he was a praying man. He waited on God to show him the divine way, and that is the way he moved in his pathway. And here he is in the straitened conditions of a Roman prison.
In the mercy of God he was given his own hired lodging, but there he was in bonds. In it all he shows how God is working out things and he is praying for the blessing of the saints. So he prays that the saints might be strengthened with power by His Spirit in the inner man. We know the outward man, we see the evidence of it in the frailty, the pressures, that there are upon the dear brethren, but then the apostle Paul is thinking of the inner man, being “strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man”. I think we see the evidence of that in the countenances of the saints. The strengthening of God is expressed in the joyful countenance of those who may be frail in physical weakness, but in spirit are beyond it, in a certain measure strengthened by His Spirit in the inner man. “That the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts, being rooted and founded in love”—that is a beautiful touch; would that we knew it more, to be strengthened in the way of which the beloved apostle speaks.
Now a wonderful thing, too, are the prayers of praying men and praying women. Think of your mother’s prayers, your father’s prayers; what prayers have gone up to heaven! Some, you might think, apparently unanswered, but then on the other hand you look for the divine answer. And so would we at the present time as we feel the sorrows of the testimony in a city like this. We would be with God about it and we would seek to make way for the answer to come from God to the prayers of godly men and women that have gone up to heaven and are not unnoticed there. The tears, the feelings of the saints, heaven puts them in a bottle. Think of that! That is in Psalm 56: 8. Think of tears being put in God’s bottle, God taking account of the feelings of heart that there are among His people. So Paul goes on here, “that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts, being rooted and founded in love, in order that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height; and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge; that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”. What a scope of things the beloved apostle sets before the saints, and he would be praying for this to be effective in the hearts of the dear saints at Ephesus.
Sadly, sorrow came in. What decline!—they left their first love; such is the history of things; there has been the power of the enemy working against what is of God. May the Lord help us; may He strengthen us. I think we need more prayer and more dependence upon God so that the enemy is kept at bay, so that his power is weakened. You think of the time when Joshua was out there in the field fighting against Amalek and on the mount were Moses, Aaron and Hur (Exodus 17: 8–l6). There were times when Joshua prevailed, there were times when Amalek prevailed. It says that when Moses raised his hand Joshua prevailed. So Aaron and Hur supported his hands. What priestly grace, what power from God, and hence Amalek was defeated by Joshua because of that priestly power. I suppose it is like prayer, the feelings of Moses, great intercessor that he was. We need to acquire these feelings, dear brethren, in view, of the strengthening and the support of the testimony in view of its continuance in power. So we have these thoughts in Ephesians and Paul says, “But to him that is able to do far exceedingly above all which we ask or think, according to the power which works in us, to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages. Amen”. What a prayer!—ending in a doxology, in a response Godward.
Then we turn to Philippians and we have these touches in this epistle. Maybe we can read them at our leisure, read through them and see a good many other references to prayer in this epistle. At the beginning Paul says, “I thank my God for my whole remembrance of you, constantly in my every supplication, making the supplication for you all with joy”. Think of the beloved apostle; there he was in bonds, but he is thinking of God’s testimony universally. Oh, let us expand, dear brethren, in our thoughts and feelings and be more universal in our outlook and in prayer for all the saints. We had that in Ephesians and we get it again in Colossians. And here is Paul feeling for the dear saints in Philippi. That is the place where they put him and Silas in the prison and that is the place where at midnight they were praying and praising God and the prisoners listened to them. Then God intervened with the earthquake. What a time that was; it shook everything and the bonds of all were loosed. Oh, what a triumph! I think, dear brethren, we want to be more with God and see how He can change things and help us through the times of weakness and pressure that we go through in the physical order of things that we are in. So in verse 9 Paul says, “And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in full knowledge and all intelligence, that ye may judge of and approve the things that are more excellent”. You see, you get another outlook, you get God’s outlook as you go into the divine presence and you begin to see things as God sees them, and that helps you to work your way through the trials of the pathway here. And then we have “being complete as regards the fruit of righteousness, which is by Jesus Christ, to God’s glory and praise”.
Then just a further touch in Colossians. We love these epistles that bring out the feelings of the apostle, and what impressions he was able to convey to those beloved saints in these cities; it would be like a letter to the dear brethren in New York. We have those two books of letters that a beloved servant of God in this city wrote, a few letters that came to him are in those books too, giving us impressions of how the Lord was working and how the hearts and affections of those who served the saints were cared for by priestly feelings from a beloved servant of God. These prayers are the priestly feelings of the beloved apostle. So when you come to Colossians he says, “We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ continually when praying for you, having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and the love which ye have towards all the saints, on account of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens”. That is where our hope is, dear brethren; it is in the heavens. Soon we shall be there. The Lord is about to come and claim His own to be with Himself. Are you ready to go, or do you like it here? Maybe you have so many nice things that you would rather stay. I trust that is not so. It is a wonderful thing to anticipate that day. We are tried here, but the Lord would help us, He would strengthen us, He would give us an impression in our souls that He is with us right through to the completion of the age. How that stimulates our hearts! He is with us, but then our desire is to be with Him. That is like the word to the king of Judah, “Jehovah is with you while ye are with him”, 2 Chronicles l5: 2. May the Lord help us. I think prayer would help us to be with Him.
We could also speak about that beloved man Epaphras in this epistle. Paul says, “Epaphras, who is one of you, the bondman of Christ Jesus, salutes you, always combating earnestly for you in prayers, to the end that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God” (Colossians 4: 12). May we close on that note. I think that is what the Lord would do; He wants us to stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. May He strengthen us through this time of refreshing today to be more committed to Him and to be exercised to enter into matters more prayerfully, more with the Lord, so that perhaps we say less and pray more and we shall prove the answers that come from the Lord. May we prove it, for His name’s sake.
Address in Brooklyn, N.Y.
28 October 1989
Published by F. C. Mutton, 22 Christchurch Road, Ilford, Essex, IG1 4QY, England Printed by Crystal Stationery, 22 Western Road, Billericay, Essex, CM12 9DZ, (T) (0277) 650661