The last four of the six are in John"s gospel. In that last long quiet talk on the night in which He was betrayed. John preserves much of that heart-talk for us in chapters thirteen to seventeen.
Here in John 14:13, 14: "And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in My name, that will I do." The repet.i.tion is to emphasize the unlimited sweep of what may be asked.
John 15:7: "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you--" That word abide is a strong word. It does not mean to leave your cards; nor to hire a night"s lodging; nor to pitch a tent, or run up a miner"s shanty, or a lumberman"s shack. It means moving in to stay. "--Ask whatsoever ye will--" The Old Version says, "ye shall ask." But here the revised is more accurate: "Ask; please ask; I ask you to ask." There is nothing said directly about G.o.d"s will. There is something said about our wills. "--And it shall be done unto you." Or, a little more literally, "I will bring it to pa.s.s for you."
I remember the remark quoted to me by a friend one day. His church membership is in the Methodist Church of the North, but his service crosses church lines both in this country and abroad. He was talking with one of the bishops of that church whose heart was in the foreign mission field. The bishop was eager to have this friend serve as missionary secretary of his church. But he knew, as everybody knows, how difficult appointments oftentimes are in all large bodies. He was earnestly discussing the matter with my friend, and made this remark: "If you will allow the use of your name for this appointment, _I will lay myself out_ to have it made." Now if you will kindly not think there is any lack of reverence in my saying so--and there is surely none in my thought--that is the practical meaning of Jesus" words here. "If you abide in Me, and My words sway you, you please ask what it is your will to ask. And--softly, reverently now--I will lay Myself out to bring that thing to pa.s.s for you." That is the force of His words here.
This same chapter, sixteenth verse: "Ye did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide; that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give it you." G.o.d had our prayer partnership with Himself in His mind in choosing us. And the last of these, John 16:23, 24, second clause, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, if ye shall ask anything of the Father, He will give it you in My name. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be fulfilled."
These statements are the most sweeping to be found anywhere in the Scriptures regarding prayer. There is no limitation as to who shall ask, nor the kind of thing to be asked for. There are three limitations imposed: the prayer is to be _through Jesus_; the person praying is to be in fullest sympathy with Him; and this person is to have faith.
Words With a Freshly Honed Razor-Edge.
Now please group these six sweeping statements in your mind and hold them together there. Then notice carefully this fact. These words are not spoken to the crowds. They are spoken to the small inner group of twelve disciples. Jesus talks one way to the mult.i.tude. He oftentimes talks differently to these men who have separated themselves from the crowd and come into the inner circle.
And notice further that before Jesus spoke these words to this group of men He had said something else first. Something very radical; so radical that it led to a sharp pa.s.sage between Himself and Peter, to whom He speaks very sternly. This something else fixes unmistakably their relation to Himself. Remember that the sharp break with the national leaders has come. Jesus is charged with Satanic collusion. The death plot is determined upon. The breach with the leaders is past the healing point.
And now the Master is frequently slipping away from the crowd with these twelve men, and seeking to teach and train them. That is the setting of these great promises. It must be kept continually in mind.
Before the Master gave Himself away to these men in these promises He said this something else. It is this. I quote Matthew"s account: "If any man would come after Me let him deny himself and take up his cross (daily, Luke"s addition) and follow Me[30]." _These words should be written crosswise over those six prayer statements_. Jesus never spoke a keener word. Those six promises are not meant for all. Let it be said very plainly. They are meant only for those who will square their lives by these razor-edged words.
I may not go fully into the significance of these deep-cutting words here.
They have been gone into at some length in a previous set of talks as suggesting the price of power. To him whose heart burns for power in prayer I urge a careful review of that talk in this new setting of it. "If any man would come after Me" means a rock-rooted purpose; the jaw locked; the tendrils of the purpose going down around and under the gray granite of a man"s will, and tying themselves there; and knotting the ties; sailor knots, that you cannot undo.
"Come after Me" means all the power of Jesus" life, and has the other side, too. It means the wilderness, the intense temptation. It may mean the obscure village of Nazareth for you. It may mean that first Judean year for you--lack of appreciation. It may mean for you that last six months--the desertion of those hitherto friendly. It will mean without doubt a Gethsemane. Everybody who comes along after Jesus has a Gethsemane in his life. It will never mean as much to you as it meant to Him. That is true. But, then, it will mean everything to you. And it will mean too having a Calvary in your life in a very real sense, though different from what that meant to Him. This sentence through gives the process whereby the man with sin grained into the fibre of his will may come into such relationship with G.o.d as to claim without any reservation these great prayer promises. And if that sound hard and severe to you let me quickly say that it is an easy way for the man who is _willing._ The presence of Jesus in the life overlaps every cutting thing.
If a man will go through Matthew 16:24, and habitually live there he may ask what he wills to ask, and that thing will come to pa.s.s. The reason, without question, why many people do not have power in prayer is simply because they are unwilling--I am just talking very plainly--they are unwilling to bare their b.r.e.a.s.t.s to the keen-edged knife in these words of Jesus. And on the other side, if a man will quietly, resolutely follow the Master"s leading--nothing extreme--nothing fanatical, or morbid, just a quiet going where that inner Voice plainly leads day by day, he will be startled to find what an utterly new meaning prayer will come to have for him.
The Controlling Purpose.
Vital relationship is always expressed by purpose. The wise amba.s.sador has an absorbing purpose to further the interests of his government. Jesus said, and it at once reveals His relationship to G.o.d, "I do always those things that are well pleasing to him."
The relationship that underlies prayer has an absorbing purpose. Its controlling purpose is to please Jesus. That sentence may sound simple enough. But, do you know, there is no sentence I might utter that has a keener, a more freshly honed razor-edge to it than that. That the purpose which _controls_ my action in every matter be this: to please Him. If you have not done so, take it for a day, a week, and use it as a touch stone regarding thought, word and action. Take it into matters personal, home, business, social, fraternal. It does not mean to ask, "Is this right? is this wrong?" Not that. Not the driving of a keen line between wrong and right. There are a great many things that can be proven to be not wrong, but that are not best, that are not His preference.
It will send a business man running his eye along the shelves and counter of his store. "The controlling purpose to please Jesus ... hm-m-m, I guess maybe that stuff there ought to come out. Oh, it is not wrong: I can prove that. My Christian brother-merchants handle it here, and over the country: but _to please Him_: a good, clean sixty per cent, profit too, cash money, but _to please Him_--" and the stuff must go down and out.
It would set some woman to thinking about the next time the young people are to gather in her home for a delightful social evening with her own daughters. She will think about some forms of pastime that are found everywhere. They are not wrong, that has been conclusively proven. But _to please Him_. Hm-m. And these will go out. And then it will set her to work with all her G.o.d-given woman-wit and exquisite tact to planning an evening yet more delightful. It will make one think of his personal habits, his business methods, and social intercourse, the organizations he belongs to, with the quiet question cutting it razor-way into each.
And if some one listening may ask: Why put the condition of prayer so strongly as that? I will remind you of this. The true basis of prayer is sympathy, oneness of purpose. Prayer is not extracting favours from a reluctant G.o.d. It is not pa.s.sing a check in a bank window for money. That is mandatory. The roots of prayer lie down in oneness of purpose. G.o.d up yonder, His Victor-Son by His side, and a man down here, in _such sympathetic touch_ that G.o.d can think His thoughts over in this man"s mind, and have His desires repeated upon the earth as this man"s prayer.
The Threefold Cord of Jesus" Life.
Think for a moment into Jesus" human life down here. His marvellous activities for those few years over which the world has never ceased to wonder. Then His underneath hidden-away prayer-life of which only occasional glimpses are gotten. Then grouping around about that sentence of His--"I do always the things that are pleasing to Him"--in John"s gospel, pick out the emphatic negatives on Jesus" lips, the "not"s": not My will, not My works, not My words. Jesus came to do somebody"s else will. The controlling purpose of His life was to please His Father. That was the secret of the power of His earthly career. Right relationship to G.o.d; a secret intimate prayer-life: marvellous power over men and with men--those are the strands in the threefold cord of His life.
There is a very striking turn of a word in the second chapter of John"s gospel down almost at its close. The old version says that "Many believed on His name beholding His signs which He did, but Jesus did not commit Himself unto them" because He knew them so well. The word "believed," and the word "commit" are the same word underneath our English. The sentence might run "many _trusted_ Him beholding what He did; but He did not _trust_ them for He knew them." I have no doubt most, or all of us here to-day, trust Him. Let me ask you very softly now: Can He trust you? While we might all shrink from saying "yes" to that, there is a very real sense in which we may say "yes," namely, in the purpose of the life. Every life is controlled by some purpose. What is yours? To please Him? If so He knows it. It is a great comfort to remember that G.o.d judges a man not by his achievements, but by his purposes: not by what I am, actually, but by what I would be, in the yearning of my inmost heart, the dominant purpose of my life. G.o.d will fairly flood your life with all the power He can trust you to use wholly for Him.
Commercial practice furnishes a simple but striking ill.u.s.tration here. A man is employed by a business house as a clerk. His ability and honesty come to be tested in many ways constantly. He is promoted gradually, his responsibilities increased. As he proves himself thoroughly reliable he is trusted more and more, until by and by as need arises he becomes the firm"s confidential clerk. He knows its secrets. He is trusted with the combination to the inner box in the vault. Because it has been proven by actual test that he will use everything only for the best interests of his house, and not selfishly.
Here, where we are dealing, the whole thing moves up to an infinitely higher level, but the principle does not change. If I will come into the relationship implied in these words:--it shall be the one controlling desire and purpose of my life to do the things that please Him--then I may ask for what I will, and it shall be done. That is how to pray: the how of relationship. The man who will live in Matthew 16:24, and follow Jesus as He leads: simply that: no fanaticism, no morbidism, no extremism, just simply follow as He leads, day by day,--then those six promises of Jesus with their wonderful sweep, their limitless sweep are his to use as he will.
The "How" of Method
Touching the Hidden Keys.
One of the most remarkable ill.u.s.trations in recent times of the power of prayer, may be found in the experience of Mr. Moody. It explains his unparalleled career of world-wide soul winning. One marvels that more has not been said of it. Its stimulus to faith is great. I suppose the man most concerned did not speak of it much because of his fine modesty. The last year of his life he referred to it more frequently as though impelled to.
The last time I heard Mr. Moody was in his own church in Chicago. It was, I think, in the fall of the last year of his life. One morning in the old church made famous by his early work, in a quiet conversational way he told the story. It was back in the early seventies, when Chicago had been laid in ashes. "This building was not yet up far enough to do much in," he said; "so I thought I would slip across the water, and learn what I could from preachers there, so as to do better work here. I had gone over to London, and was running around after men there." Then he told of going one evening to hear Mr. Spurgeon in the Metropolitan Tabernacle; and understanding that he was to speak a second time that evening to dedicate a chapel, Mr. Moody had slipped out of the building and had run along the street after Mr. Spurgeon"s carriage a mile or so, so as to hear him the second time. Then he smiled, and said quietly, "I was running around after men like that."
He had not been speaking anywhere, he said, but listening to others. One day, Sat.u.r.day, at noon, he had gone into the meeting in Exeter Hall on the Strand; felt impelled to speak a little when the meeting was thrown open, and did so. At the close among others who greeted him, one man, a minister, asked him to come and preach for him the next day morning and night, and he said he would. Mr. Moody said, "I went to the morning service and found a large church full of people. And when the time came I began to speak to them. But it seemed the hardest talking ever I did.
There was no response in their faces. They seemed as though carved out of stone or ice. And I was having a hard time: and wished I wasn"t there; and wished I hadn"t promised to speak again at night. But I had promised, and so I went.
"At night it was the same thing: house full, people outwardly respectful, but no interest, no response. And I was having a hard time again. When about half-way through my talk there came a change. It seemed as though the windows of heaven had opened and a bit of breath blew down. The atmosphere of the building seemed to change. The people"s faces changed.
It impressed me so that when I finished speaking I gave the invitation for those who wanted to be Christians to rise. I thought there might be a few.
And to my immense surprise the people got up in groups, pew-fulls. I turned to the minister and said, "What does this mean?" He said, "I don"t know, I"m sure." Well," Mr. Moody said, "they misunderstood me. I"ll explain what I meant." So he announced an after-meeting in the room below, explaining who were invited: only those who wanted to be Christians; and putting pretty clearly what he understood that to mean, and dismissed the service.
They went to the lower room. And the people came crowding, jamming in below, filling all available s.p.a.ce, seats, aisles and standing room. Mr.
Moody talked again a few minutes, and then asked those who would be Christians to rise. This time he knew he had made his meaning clear. They got up in clumps, in groups, by fifties! Mr. Moody said, "I turned and said to the minister, "What _does_ this mean?" He said, "I"m sure I don"t know."" Then the minister said to Mr. Moody, "What"ll I do with these people? I don"t know what to do with them; this is something new." And he said, "Well. I"d announce a meeting for to-morrow night, and Tuesday night, and see what comes of it; I"m going across the channel to Dublin."
And he went, but he had barely stepped off the boat when a cablegram was handed him from the minister saying, "Come back at once. Church packed."
So he went back, and stayed ten days. And the result of that ten days, as I recall Mr. Moody"s words, was that four hundred were added to that church, and that every church near by felt the impulse of those ten days.
Then Mr. Moody dropped his head, as though thinking back, and said: "I had no plans beyond this church. I supposed my life work was here. But the result with me was that I was given a roving commission and have been working under it ever since."
Now what was the explanation of that marvellous Sunday and days following?
It was not Mr. Moody"s doing, though he was a leader whom G.o.d could and did mightily use. It was not the minister"s doing; for he was as greatly surprised as the leader. There was some secret hidden beneath the surface of those ten days. With his usual keenness Mr. Moody set himself to ferret it out.
By and by this incident came to him. A member of the church, a woman, had been taken sick some time before. Then she grew worse. Then the physician told her that she would not recover. That is, she would not die at once, so far as he could judge, but she would be shut in her home for years.
And she lay there trying to think what that meant: to be shut in for years. And she thought of her life, and said, "How little I"ve done for G.o.d: practically nothing: and now what can I do shut in here on my back."
And she said, "I can pray."
May I put this word in here as a parenthesis in the story--that G.o.d oftentimes allows us to be shut in--He does not shut us in--He does not need to--simply take His hand off partly--there is enough disobedience to His law of our bodies all the time to shut us aside--no trouble on that side of the problem--_with pain to Himself_, against His own first will for us, He allows us to be shut in, because only so _can_ He get our attention from other things to what He wants done; get us to see things, and think things His way. I am compelled to think it is so.
She said, "I _will_ pray." And she was led to pray for her church. Her sister, also a member of the church, lived with her, and was her link with the outer world. Sundays, after church service, the sick woman would ask, "Any special interest in church to-day?" "No," was the constant reply.
Wednesday nights, after prayer-meetings, "Any special interest in the service to-night? there must have been." "No; nothing new; same old deacons made the same old prayers."
But one Sunday noon the sister came in from service and asked, "Who do you think preached to-day?" "I don"t know, who?" "Why, a stranger from America, a man called Moody, I think was the name." And the sick woman"s face turned a bit whiter, and her eye looked half scared, and her lip trembled a bit, and she quietly said: "I know what that means. There"s something coming to the old church. Don"t bring me any dinner. I must spend this afternoon in prayer." And so she did. And that night in the service that startling change came.