PRAYER
[p. 30] PRAYER
Luke 3:21,22; 2 Chronicles 7:1,2; 2 Chronicles 7:12; Acts 4:23-31; Daniel 9:1-3; Daniel 9:20-25
My subject, dear brethren, is prayer. I wish not only to speak of those features that appear in these scriptures, the subject really being very extensive. I wish to show first how it appeared in Jesus. As in all else, He has the first place. In all things He has the pre-eminence. He is not only at the beginning, but He is the beginning. Although coming in later than many who prayed, yet all anticipated His presence here, God having had perfection in His mind from the outset. Christ was no afterthought in any sense. In making Adam, forming and creating Adam, Christ was in the mind of God, for he was the figure, we are told, of Him that was to come, and in taking others up, from Adam onwards, in any way, God always had Christ in His mind. However far short they may have come, all the great instrumentalities that God took up had Christ in God’s mind. In Abel, in Enoch, in Noah and in Abraham, one after another, taken up and fitted for some service, God always had Christ in mind, each representing some feature; however feebly expressed, the feature was there in the mind of God, and was there in a way that perhaps we have never seen it, for He is always occupied with His own idea. So this signal occasion meant that God had reached it in regard of prayer — in regard of other things, too, but Luke alone mentions the prayer, the attitude the Lord was in as coming up out of the waters of Jordan. Not that the Lord had not prayed before; of course He had. He says, indeed, that He was cast upon God from the very outset of His being here, the extent of His prayers in His early years only known to God and Himself. But now He is engaged [p. 31] in it at a peculiar time. It was an epoch-making time, a situation really intended for Him, although giving others an opportunity to set themselves right with God, for it was a time of setting things right under John’s ministry. Others were involved, of course, and came to John from all quarters to be baptised, but the occasion, the service, had Jesus in mind. It was to make the way of the Lord, to make way for Him. It was a great occasion, the most signal occasion of that great ministry of John’s, and it was arranged beforehand. God foreseeing and knowing what He would do, how Jesus should come into this wonderful picture; He had it all arranged, in no sense more than in John himself. The beautiful spirit that he always evinces always affects one. He was full of his own nothingness in the presence of Jesus. No one, perhaps, in the multitude that came had such a sense of the greatness of Jesus. According to John the evangelist, he disappears from this world saying, “He must increase, but I must decrease”, John 3:30. It shines here, for the Lord is praying, according to Luke, as if God were to call attention to prayer, knowing its history from the outset in the many that prayed, knowing how befitting it was in man, especially as entering on the service of God. This was a scene peculiarly fitted for heaven’s delight, but it was more than that; heaven would have attention called to it. Although the voice speaks to Jesus here, it speaks of Him elsewhere, and what comes out, dear brethren, as a practical lesson, is that God is pleased with us as in prayer. He was supremely pleased with Jesus and said so, but He is pleased with everyone that is truly engaged in prayer. It is an attitude that peculiarly delights the eye of heaven and the ear of heaven — an encouragement for us, for it may be that in the quiet hours of the night when we are wakeful, or even in the busy hours of the day when we are pressed, it is a pleasure to God to know a [p. 32] heart is turning to Him, however briefly; and however inarticulate the prayer, it is known to Him, it is part, if I might so say reverently, of the life of God. You understand what I mean. You must apply the idea to God; the very words are used: a certain thing is estranged from the life of God. We should not think He is different in that sense from us. God is capable of enjoying what is enjoyable according to Him. He expects it, He looks for it. Leviticus is full of this thought as in the offerings. The offerings, the types in Leviticus, open up a wonderful field for thought as to what God is. As the apostle reminds the Athenians, we ought to think something of God, because of what we are, because we are said to be His offspring. He brings that in in regard of what man is physically and constitutionally, but how much more so, dear brethren, in regard of Christians, who are partakers of the divine nature, who are brought to know God, who are born of Him, indeed, in a spiritual sense. We should understand, even from that point of view, that there are things He enjoys, that His life consists in that way, in Christ “in whom I have found my delight”, Luke 3:22. The life of God, the enjoyment of God, entered into that. Certain history has begun in Jesus now publicly; it had been there privately. God had been enjoying it all these thirty years. As I said, the sacrifices, as types, are full of this thought — the bread of God, what He enjoys; and the drink-offerings, all that would satisfy His heart and even, to speak carefully and reverently, to stimulate Him, for there is the wine required, the strong drink. So that relatively, in the weary, perhaps wakeful hours of the night, or in the pressing hours of the day, whatever the employment, the feeble Christian turning to God not only receives succour but occasions joy in measure. I shall come to that presently more fully, only to show you the perfection of the idea in Christ. Luke would have us [p. 33] to understand how God the Father found His joy in this sense — in other senses, of course, but Luke brings this point in, and greatly enlarges on the Lord praying, as many of us know, more than any other of the evangelists. It is that which is proper to man here, and not only that, but it occasions joy to God, and how much more so in regard of ourselves, dear brethren, when we come together, as it is said, for prayer. You will all remember how, in that well-known precious chapter, Acts 16, the Spirit of God says through the writer, even Luke, “As we went to prayer”, Acts 16:13. A certain damsel, having the spirit of Python, called attention to the apostle and his companions, “These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation”, Acts 16:17. This is what she said. What was heaven thinking about at that time? Heaven was thinking about those men going to prayer; not the millennium; Heaven was not thinking of the millennium then, that was long ahead. Heaven is always occupied with the present, with what there is; and what there was then was men going to prayer, and Satan knew that and would defeat the divine thought and rob the divine eye and the divine ear of its pleasure. Let us not forget this, dear brethren, that the enemy is set against us as we are going to the prayer meeting, as we call it, and would frustrate our efficiency, our priestly power, and defeat the divine end and divine pleasure.
And now I move on to the Old Testament, to show how this works out. Solomon’s prayer is perhaps the longest we get in the Old Testament, or in the whole Bible. It is a wonderfully laid out prayer — no mere repetition of words, no vain repetition. It is wonderfully copious, covering territory and time immensely. He had prepared, we are told, a platform of bronze, the measurements all denoting what is spiritual, and he kneeled down and spread forth his hands to heaven. Heaven saw all that. Attitudinarianism, in itself,
[p. 34] is not of any value, but certainly there is an attitude that God delights in, and Solomon here is in a proper attitude and prays, as I said, in the most orderly way. Heaven saw and heard. It was a great day for heaven, as it was for the myriads of Israel present — the very acme of the kingdom, of the exercises of David, the result of them, for Solomon was but a counterpart of David. Indeed, Solomon is Christ in heaven, the exalted Jesus. David is the suffering Jesus, and so as Jesus is about to enter heaven through death, He prayed, too — the greatest of all prayers, I need not say. We are not told what He was praying about on the banks of Jordan, but we are told what He was praying about in John 17, as He was about to die. He lifted up His eyes to heaven; it does not say His hands, but His eyes. Those eyes were met by the Father’s. What a moment it was! I might say, anticipating the true Solomon, for He is already anticipating that all is over on earth; and this is the attitude ever since on high. The first thing on high, we may say, He received of the Father the promise of the Spirit. But He has told us ere going up that He was about to beg for that, He was about to pray for that, so that we might understand the wonderful economy in which we are, that it is an economy set up in man, in that way in dependence, and that we are brought into it especially in prayer; that we are brought into the economy of God set up in Jesus, who is our great exemplar in everything, but particularly now in this. He says, “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter”, John 14:16, and as gone on high, Peter tells us “having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this”, Acts 2:33. The gift of the Spirit was the greatest possible result as a gift from heaven.
Well now, Solomon is anticipative of all this, foreshadowing it, only opening up some things as to the divine side; after the long orderly prayer in such an [p. 35] attitude as is described, it is said that when he finished the glory of the Lord filled the house, “the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt-offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the house”, 2 Chronicles 7:1. That is to say, Solomon is praying in regard of the house, a matter that should have our special attention in our meetings in our individual prayers and in our collective prayers. The house of God is a great thought with Him. It is that in which not only we find practical salvation, but in which He has scope Himself, for He has a free hand. It involves the family thought. It involves the banishment of all that is contrary to family feeling and affection, so that he promises in the prophets (Isaiah 56) to the eunuchs and to the sons of the alien that keep His sabbaths — that is those who rest in Christ, who observe the sign of the covenant, for us the Lord’s supper — to all such He says, “even them will I ... make joyful in my house of prayer”, Isaiah 56:7. That is a beautiful thought, for the prayer meetings are perhaps sometimes a little dull to us, in our minds at any rate, but it is not the divine intent that they should be. God will participate in them Himself, He has joy in them, and He would make us joyful. Whatever we may be externally, an alien without family, without children or relatives to reciprocate our affections; whatever there may be of that kind, those who keep the sabbaths of God, who abide in the covenant of God, who recognise the sign of it, which is the Lord’s supper today, those who do such things have a great place with God in heaven and in His house, and He says, I will make them “joyful in my house of prayer”. It is a great place, He says in it you will come into an atmosphere of universality — it is a place of prayer for all nations, and, dear brethren, that is an important thing, that we should not be narrowed up to our own localities and our own affairs, but have a universal outlook and feeling for [p. 36] the house of God. The house of prayer is a place of prayer for all nations. How the Lord felt all this when He made a scourge of small cords and cast out the dove sellers and money changers — that is to say, all that is contrary to this, all that interferes with what the divine intent is in the house. And so in Solomon’s case, we have a primary idea. It says, “as he finished praying”. He was allowed to finish. It was a greater thing really than Peter’s address to Cornelius and his company, because God acted and filled them with His Spirit before Peter finished. It says, “When Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord” (or Jehovah) “filled the house”, 2 Chronicles 7:1. He had made an end — another suggestion that it is important to make an end; that is, if we are praying, to have a definite end in mind — a beginning and an end, not a wandering thing. God has no pleasure in that; He wants definiteness, something that has a beginning and an end, and that there should not be too much space between the beginning and the end, for the apostle says, “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also”, 1 Corinthians 14:15. Your spiritual feelings are in it and your spiritual understanding is in it — there is a beginning and an end. Solomon made an end of praying. God allowed him to finish. Every word was pleasing; the attitude of the prayer, of the priest, as I may call him, was pleasing to heaven, and as he made an end the fire came out and consumed the burnt-offering. That is to say, God, in that remarkable way, showed His delight in what was representative, sacrificially, of Solomon and the people. They were in reconciliation, as I may say, and then the glory filled the house — a point in the meeting for prayer that is, perhaps, hardly ever reached, but it simply means, as I understand it, that a point is reached as the brethren proceed, praying [p. 37] with the spirit, praying with the understanding, covering the ground, covering the needs, when God would say, ‘I like that; I want all that; I am restful in that’. It is turned from a scene of need into a scene of glory, such is the wonderful transforming power, dear brethren, that is here. And so we find in Luke as to the Lord, that as He prayed on the mount of Transfiguration, the fashion of His countenance became different, that is, there was a change. That is the idea, that you change from the sense of need into the sense of glory, God Himself taking over the scene and filling it with a sense of what He is, of His appreciation of man lifting up holy hands in intelligence — in priestly intelligence — without wrath or reasoning. And then we are told after this in the verse I read down the chapter, that there was an appearing subsequently. Jehovah appeared to Solomon, “Then Jehovah appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: I have heard thy prayer, and I have chosen for myself this place for a house of sacrifice”, 2 Chronicles 7:12. For a house of sacrifice. Now I would just call attention, dear brethren, to how that God is not only content — and it brings out what He is and what we should prove, too, in our relations with Him — that He is not only content to fill the scene with His glory, a scene of prayer, to show how pleased He is with the brethren as together according to His mind, but He comes in later and tells us that He has heard what we have prayed for. We know that He hears us. We are told in the first epistle of John, “And this is the boldness which we have towards him, that if we ask him anything according to his will he hears us”, 1 John 5:14. How sweet that is, to have the sense that you are heard. “I have heard thy prayer” — and what an answer, too. First of all, “I have chosen for myself this place for a house of sacrifice”. How sweet that is in the night seasons. You know, as we get older, we do not need as much [p. 38] sleep as the younger ones do. The night seasons have a place in Scripture — a great place. If you look through, you will see how God seizes the night seasons, and even sleep, to reveal Himself. Here He appeared. This word ‘appeared’ is a most suggestive and instructive word. It is not merely that you get a communication but you get an impression in an appearing. It is not the same as you saw before. Solomon had an earlier appearing. It is, indeed, stated that Jehovah appeared to him twice, and it was a serious matter when he turned aside. A second appearing is not a repetition of the first — it is different. There is some other feature shown, for the divine features are varied. God would have us to be impressed with them, and the appearing here would have relation to the prayer; He says I have taken on this house, I have taken it over, and He goes on to say that He had listened to the prayer and He would answer it. All this is most practical, dear brethren, as to our prayers: how God gives us a sense that He has heard and that He will take account and that He will do, that all is noted, that nothing will ever be forgotten by God. What I am speaking of particularly now is the impression that He would convey in an appearing — that you get a fresh conception of God in an appearing.
I go on to the Acts, for a moment. It is a well-known passage and the point in it I have in mind, is that it is a prayer in relation to the conflict; two servants, Peter and John, had been in conflict, and had stood well and God gave victory after victory, and “being let go, they came to their own company”, Acts 4:23 — a very beautiful thought. The outstanding servants came back to their own company, like Paul and Barnabas, later, who come back to Antioch, to take their places with the brethren. They came to their own company, and if you take the word ‘company’ out of it, it would be accurate enough:
[p. 39] they came to their own — the stress is on that word, a word that is found often in this sense — and they related what had happened. What a season they must have had together, the brethren recounting the support they had in the conflict and in their sufferings, and how the testimony was making headway. It was a time of great triumph. And now, what comes out is “as they prayed”. I do not go into the details of the prayer. You will observe that the words, the phrases used, and the things referred to are but a little removed from the Old Testament way and form, but the words are just what were suitable at this juncture. They speak of the creation, they refer to the second Psalm, a very intelligible and intelligent prayer at this particular juncture, but not such as you get later. Only, as I said, it was not very much removed from the Old Testament in words, but very much removed as regards the spirit that entered into it, because instead of asking for vengeance, they are asking God to heal their enemies, to stretch forth His hands in healing. It is a very great triumph for the testimony in conflict, and that is most pleasing to God. Earlier, Solomon had asked for certain things from God and God said to him, I have heard what you asked and I am going to give you what you asked for. I like very much what you asked for; you did not ask for anything against your enemies. We have to be careful in our prayers not to pray for our brethren as our enemies. It is the last thought one should have, that a Christian could be his enemy. The more I learn to look at the saints abstractly with the divine view, the less I will allow such a thought as that. The spirit is to overcome evil with good. Stretch forth Thy hand, they say, in healing. They ask God to come in and carry on as He had been. As a matter of fact, this prayer is not only an inauguration prayer, it is a continuing prayer — a great matter to be in our minds. God gives impulses, at [p. 40] times, but the thing is to maintain what He inaugurates and supports, that it may be carried on at its proper level, and that is what this chapter means. The prayer is according to the mind of God, and it says, “And when they had prayed, the place in which they were assembled shook”, Acts 4:31. Now, dear brethren, what I mean to convey to you is that this is for continuance. It is that the testimony should be maintained at its proper level, a very important thing, that if God gives us any advantage, we do not lose that, we maintain it. He would have it maintained. He has given it to be maintained, and the way is by prayer. It can only be done by divine power, nothing can be done without divine power. The way of obtaining divine power is by prayer and hence they prayed here, and they prayed delightfully to heaven, that is, it was suitable for the moment, and heaven, as they finished, shook the place where they were assembled. That was not a shake to cause alarm, there was no suggestion in it whatever of that kind. They were not alarmed. It was a friendly shake, it was love, as much as to say, ‘This is the kind of thing you can rely upon. Your attitude is right. Maintain that attitude and heaven will maintain you’. It is a great matter to keep the right attitude, the right outlook, whatever your feelings or your outward circumstances. Maintain the right outlook, even if it is only abstractly, and God will support you. Then your prayers will be according to that, and God will support us. So that the place, it says, was shaken. What a moment that was! There was no suggestion of fear, but it goes on to say that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spake the word of God with boldness, and then in verse 33, “with great power did the apostles give witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all”. There are other verses, but there is not time to go into them, but to take the whole [p. 41] passage as it stands, it means that the testimony is still on the level of the second chapter, there is no deterioration, and God is pleased with the attitude of the persons who pray and He says, ‘I am with you in it. I will maintain you in that attitude’, and they did not have long to wait. There was a friendly shake of the building, whatever it was — the upper room or any other — and they were all filled with the Spirit; not with fear, but with the Spirit and they spake the word of God with power, and then the general state of the saints is according to what we get in chapter 2; the level is the same, God is maintaining the level. It is a very important matter that there should be no deterioration but a full maintenance of the level that God has inaugurated, and it says “with great power did the apostles give witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus”, Acts 4:33. That was the point for the moment. Later on, other things came in — a heavenly testimony — but the point for the moment was the power of God in the resurrection of Jesus, and with great power the apostles gave witness to that, and the saints were all in accord with what the leaders were going on with.
If you will bear with me, I will say a word about Daniel. I have spoken about Jesus as illustrating the great thought of prayer and why God has pleasure in it, and the house taken over in Chronicles, and now the testimony maintained in its full power in answer to prayer. Now I want to say a word as to the time, as to the dispensation, as to what is coming. It is said that the Lord God would do nothing but He would make it known to His servants the prophets. That is to say, God has what may be called His friends. He would look for us to be His friends. Friendship for God is a very great thought, and it affords Him great satisfaction that He has those in whom He can confide and to whom He can make communications, to whom He can unfold what is in [p. 42] His mind as to the present and as to the future. In the book of Daniel, this is connected with prayer. This is one of the most interesting prayers that we get in Scripture. In Daniel we get a great deal of instruction in regard of time. Daniel says that he understood by books, that is, he was going to pray intelligently; that is, we get the mind of God from the Scriptures — this prayer refers to the aid that we get from the Scriptures — the prophetic word particularly. Daniel tells us that he writes at the time of Darius, the Mede, and tells us something about him, and then says, “In the first year of his reign, I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem”, Daniel 1:2. Now there is a word for all young brothers and sisters. My impression is that our book-cases are not large enough, not well selected. There is a great deal in them that is of very little value morally, and there are many works, many books that God intended should be in our book-cases that are not there. They are available. Of course, Daniel is here referring to the prophet Jeremiah, to an inspired record, but he says “I understood by books”, and it would be well that the brethren should be conversant with books. The apostle Paul says, “bring ... the books, especially the parchments”, 2 Timothy 4:13. Bring the books, for every bit of aid that God has furnished He looks for its appropriation. He looks for us to be conversant, to fully follow up, as was said to Timothy, what God gives, so that we might have understanding of the times and to know what Israel ought to do. So Daniel understood by books. It is not a revelation here, yet; he is going to get one. We are encouraged from this passage to read, and God would help us as we move in the light of what we get, and He gives us more. “He that hath, to him shall be given”, Mark 4:25. It is a general principle,
and it is unalterable. “And he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath”, — a very solemn matter. God looks for diligence in following up what He gives. And so, as Daniel understood, he says, “And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sack-cloth, and ashes”, Daniel 9:3. This is a very beautiful picture of a man who valued prayer, who sought the mind of God, and who valued it and knew how to get it. Indeed, in Daniel’s history, you hear of him getting things on his bed, meaning that God gave them sovereignly to him; it is not a question of his own exercise. Exercise is well set out here, as it is in Paul and Elijah — he put his face between his knees. Here you have sackcloth and fasting, as well as prayer. He goes on to pray and confess his sins, and then in the latter verses I read, you find he says, “And whiles I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin”, Daniel 9:20. Speaking and praying. I just read this. It speaks for itself. What a praying man or woman is to God, that is, in the true sense of the word, especially if one is harassed by international conditions and what is going to happen. God would have us turn to Him to get His mind as to things, and He opens up to us far more than we ask for. Daniel had only in his mind seventy years, but Gabriel says “thou art greatly beloved”. “I am now come forth to make thee skilful of understanding. At the beginning of thy supplications the word went forth, and I am come to declare it”, Daniel 9:22. Is that written for Daniel only? No, beloved, it is written for us, for our encouragement, that we through the comfort and encouragement of the Scriptures might have hope. No situation is too difficult. We have the Scriptures, and we have it in books that help us to understand the Scriptures, but we get more. And so, Daniel here not only gets something about seventy years which were now coming to an [p. 44] end — the desolations were to be over in seventy years, but that was only preliminary — Gabriel has much more in his mind than that. He has got seventy weeks of years, and those seventy weeks of years began well over two thousand years ago. You see how God enlarges far beyond our expectations. He does “exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think”, Ephesians 3:20, and it is not only the ending of the desolations — desolations indeed would come, greater and more terrible than had even been known in Israel, and they are to come yet — a terrible consummation of all the thoughts of God in regard to Jerusalem and His earthly people; but there are seventy weeks, a determined time. There would be sixty-nine weeks of years unto the Messiah, the Prince; there would be the bringing in of everlasting righteousness and there would be an anointing of the holy of holies. What a word that was for Daniel! We can go further than that. The book of Revelation opens up much more than that, dear brethren. It includes this wonderful prophecy that Daniel, and no one else, had, but it includes the heavenly side as well, that God would show to a praying brother or sister who is exercised about international matters, what He is going to do, what is coming in. The glory of the assembly in its heavenly relations is added to all this. It is not only the establishment of Jerusalem, the bringing in of everlasting righteousness, but the coming out from God of the heavenly city, depicted so wonderfully, inclusive of ourselves — the heavenly city lying four-square, so beautifully depicted in the twenty-first chapter of the book of Revelation.
That is all I had in mind; to show you what prayer means, and how God would lead us to it, and how, if we are led to it and take it up in this way, we shall find much more than we ever anticipated. We shall find “exceeding abundantly” above all that we have asked or thought. There is no limit to what God will do for His people. “Thou art greatly beloved”. How near it is to the word on the banks of the Jordan, but it anticipated that same blessed Man, for Daniel was but an anticipation, a foreshadowing of Jesus, the Man greatly beloved.