We should be ambitious to cultivate a healthy sensitiveness to this indwelling Spirit. And when there comes that quick inner wooing away to pray let us faithfully obey. Even though we be not clear what the particular pet.i.tion is to be let us remain in prayer while He uses us as the medium of His praying.
Oftentimes the best prayer to offer about some friend, or some particular thing, after perhaps stating the case the best we can is this: "Holy Spirit, be praying in me the thing the Father wants done. Father, what the Spirit within me is praying, that is my prayer in Jesus" name. Thy will, what Thou art wishing and thinking, may that be fully done here."
How to Find G.o.d"s Will.
We should make a study of G.o.d"s will. We ought to seek to become skilled in knowing His will. The more we know Him the better shall we be able to read intelligently His will.
It may be said that G.o.d has two wills for each of us, or, better, there are two parts to His will. There is His will of grace, and His will of government. His will of grace is plainly revealed in His Word. It is that we shall be saved, and made holy, and pure, and by and by glorified in his own presence. His will of government is His particular plan for my life.
G.o.d has every life planned. The highest possible ambition for a life is to reach G.o.d"s plan. He reveals that to us bit by bit as we need to know. If the life is to be one of special service He will make that plain, what service, and where, and when. Then each next step He will make plain.
Learning His will here hinges upon three things, simple enough but essential. I must keep _in touch_ with Him so He has an open ear to talk into. I must _delight_ to do His will, _because it is His_. The third thing needs special emphasis. Many who are right on the first two stumble here, and sometimes measure their length on the ground. _His Word must be allowed to discipline my judgment as to Himself and His will_. Many of us stumble on number one and on number two. And very many willing earnest men sprawl badly when it comes to number three. The bother with these is the lack of a disciplined judgment about G.o.d and His will. If we would prayerfully _absorb_ the Book, there would come a better poised judgment.
We need to get a broad sweep of G.o.d"s thought, to breathe Him in as He reveals Himself in this Book. The meek man--that is the man willing to yield his will to a higher will--will He guide in his judgment, that is, in his mental processes.[40]
This is John"s standpoint in that famous pa.s.sage in his first epistle.[41]
"And this is the boldness that we have towards Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us: and if we know that He heareth us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the pet.i.tions that we have asked of Him." These words dovetail with great nicety into those already quoted from Paul in the eighth of Romans. The whole supposition here is that we have learned His will about the particular matter in hand.
Having gotten that footing, we go to prayer with great boldness. For if He wants a thing and I want it and we join--that combination cannot be broken.
May we Pray With a.s.surance for the Conversion of Our Loved Ones
G.o.d"s Door into a Home.
The heart of G.o.d hungers to redeem the world. For that He gave His own, only Son though the treatment He received tore that father"s heart to the bleeding. For that He sent the Holy Spirit to do in men what the Son had done for them. For that He placed in human hands the mightiest of all forces--prayer, that so we might become partners with Him.
For that too He set man in the relationships of kinship and friendship. He wins men through men. Man is the goal, and he is also the road to the goal. Man is the object aimed at. And he is the medium of approach, whether the advance be by G.o.d or by Satan. G.o.d will not enter a man"s heart without his consent, and Satan _can_not. G.o.d would reach men through men, and Satan must. And so G.o.d has set us in the strongest relation that binds men, the relation of love, that He may touch one through another.
Kinship is a relation peculiar to man, and to the earth.
I have at times been asked by some earnest sensitive persons if it is not selfish to be especially concerned for one"s own, over whom the heart yearns much, and the prayer offered is more tender and intense and more frequent. Well, if _you_ do not pray for them who will? Who _can_ pray for them with such believing persistent fervour as you! G.o.d has set us in the relationship of personal affection and of kinship for just such a purpose.
He binds us together with the ties of love that we may be concerned for each other. If there be but one in a home in touch with G.o.d, that one becomes G.o.d"s door into the whole family.
Contact means opportunity, and that in turn means responsibility. The closer the contact the greater the opportunity and the greater too the responsibility. Unselfishness does not mean to exclude one"s self, and one"s own. It means right proportions in our perspective. Humility is not whipping one"s self. It is forgetting one"s self in the thought of others.
Yet even that may be carried to a bad extreme. Not only is it not selfish so to pray, it is a part of G.o.d"s plan that we should so pray. I am most responsible for the one to whom I am most closely related.
A Free Agent Enslaved.
One of the questions that is more often asked in this connection than any other perhaps is this: may we pray with a.s.surance for the conversion of our loved ones? No question sets more hearts in an audience to beating faster than does that. I remember speaking in the Boston noonday meeting, in the old Broomfield Street M. E. Church on this subject one week.
Perhaps I was speaking rather positively. And at the close of the meeting one day a keen, cultured Christian woman whom I knew came up for a word.
She said, "I do not think we can pray like that." And I said, "Why not?"
She paused a moment, and her well-controlled agitation revealed in eye and lip told me how deeply her thoughts were stirred. Then she said quietly, "I have a brother. He is not a Christian. The theatre, the wine, the club, the cards--that is his life. And he laughs at me. I would rather than anything else that my brother were a Christian. But," she said, and here both her keenness and the training of her early teaching came in, "I do not think I can pray positively for his conversion, for he is a free agent, is he not? And G.o.d will not save a man against his will."
I want to say to you to-day what I said to her. Man _is_ a free agent, to use the old phrase, so far as G.o.d is concerned; utterly, wholly free.
_And_, he is the most enslaved agent on the earth, so far as sin, and selfishness and prejudice are concerned. The purpose of our praying is not to force or coerce his will; never that. It is to _free_ his will of the warping influences that now twist it awry. It is to get the dust out of his eyes so his sight shall be clear. And once he is free, able to see aright, to balance things without prejudice, the whole probability is in favour of his using his will to choose the only right.
I want to suggest to you the ideal prayer for such a one. It is an adaptation of Jesus" own words. It may be pleaded with much variety of detail. It is this: deliver him from the evil one; and work in him _Thy will_ for him, by Thy power to Thy glory in Jesus, the Victor"s name. And there are three special pa.s.sages upon which to base this prayer. First Timothy, second chapter, fourth verse (American version), "G.o.d our Saviour, who would have all men to be saved." That is G.o.d"s will for your loved one. Second Peter, third chapter, ninth verse, "not wishing (or willing) that any should perish but that all should come to repentance."
That is G.o.d"s will, or desire, for the one you are thinking of now. The third pa.s.sage is on our side who do the praying. It tells who may offer this prayer with a.s.surance. John, fifteenth chapter, seventh verse, "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you ask what it is your will to ask, and I will bring it to pa.s.s for you."
There is a statement of Paul"s in second Timothy that graphically pictures this:[42] "The Lord"s servant must not strive "--not argue, nor combat--"but be gentle towards all, apt to teach"--ready and skilled in explaining, helping--"in meekness correcting (or, instructing) them that oppose themselves; if peradventure G.o.d may give them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth, and _they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil_, having been taken captive by him unto his will."
That word "deliver" in this prayer, as used by Jesus, the word under our English, has a picturesque meaning. It means _rescue_. Here is a man taken captive, and in chains. But he has become infatuated with his captor, and is befooled regarding his condition. Our prayer is, "rescue him from the evil one," and because Jesus is Victor over the captor, the rescue will take place.
Without any doubt we may a.s.sure the conversion of these laid upon our hearts by such praying. The prayer in Jesus" name drives the enemy off the battle-field of the man"s will, and leaves him free to choose aright.
There is one exception to be noted, a very, very rare exception. There may be _extreme_ instances where such a prayer may not be offered; where the spirit of prayer is withdrawn. But such are very rare and extreme, and the conviction regarding that will be unmistakable beyond asking any questions.
And I cannot resist the conviction--I greatly dislike to say this, I would much rather not if I regarded either my own feelings or yours. But I cannot resist the conviction--listen very quietly, so I may speak in quietest tones--that there are people ... in that lower, lost world ...
who are there ... because some one failed to put his life in touch with G.o.d, and pray.
The Place Where G.o.d is Not.
Having said that much let me go on to say this further, and please let me say it all in softest sobbing voice--there is a h.e.l.l. There must be a h.e.l.l. You may leave this Bible sheer out of your reckoning in the matter.
Still there must be a place for which that word of ugliest a.s.sociations is the word to use. _Philosophically_ there must be a h.e.l.l. That is the name for the place where G.o.d is not; for the place where they will gather together who insist on leaving G.o.d out. G.o.d out! There can be no worse h.e.l.l than that! G.o.d away! Man held back by no restraints!
I am very clear it is _not_ what men have pictured it to be. It is not what my childish fancy saw and shrank from terrified. And, please let us be very careful that we never consign anybody there, in our thinking or speaking about them. When that life whose future might be questioned has gone the most we can say is that we leave it with a G.o.d infinitely just and the personification of love.
There has been in some quarters an unthinking consigning of persons to a lost world. And there has been in our day a clean swing of the pendulum to the other extreme. Both drifts are to be dreaded. Let us deal very tenderly here, yet with a right plainness in our tenderness. We are to warn men faithfully. We know the Book"s plain teaching that these who prefer to leave G.o.d out "shall go away." The going is of their own accord and choice. Regarding particular ones we do not know and are best silent.
The grave is closing. Let us deal with the living.
One day at the close of the morning hour at a Bible conference in the Alleghany Mountains a young woman came up for a moment"s conversation. She spoke about a friend, not a professing Christian, for whom she had prayed much, and who had died unexpectedly. He had pa.s.sed away during unconsciousness, with no opportunity for exchange of words. She was much agitated as the facts were recited, and then said as she finished, "he is lost and in h.e.l.l: and I can never pray again."
We talked quietly awhile and I gathered the following facts. He was of a Christian family, perfectly familiar with the Bible, was a thoughtful man, of outwardly correct life in the main, had talked about these matters with others but had never either in conversation or more openly confessed personal faith in Christ. He was not in good health. Then came the sudden end. One other fact came out. She had prayed for his conversion for a long time. She was herself an earnest Christian woman, solicitous for others.
There were four facts to go upon regarding him. He knew the way to G.o.d. He was thoughtful. He had never openly accepted. Some one had prayed.
Can one _know_ anything certainly about that man"s condition? There are two sorts of knowledge, direct and inferential. I know there is such a city as London for I have walked its streets. That is direct knowledge. I know there is such a city as St. Petersburg because though I have never been there, yet through my reading, pictures I have seen, and friends who have been there I am clear of its existence to the point of _knowledge_.
That is inferential knowledge.
Now regarding this man after he slipped from the grasp of his friends, I have no direct knowledge. But I have very positive inferential knowledge based upon these four facts. Three of the facts, namely, the first, second, and fourth were favourable to the end desired. The third swings neither way. The great dominant fact in the case is the fourth, and a great and dominating fact it is in judging--some one in touch with G.o.d had been persistently, believingly praying up to the time of the quick end.
That fact with the others gives strong inferential knowledge regarding the man. It is sufficient to comfort a heart, and give one renewed faith in praying for others.
Saving the Life.
We cannot know a man"s mental processes. This is surely true, that if in the very last half-twinkling of an eye a man look up towards G.o.d longingly, that look is the turning of the will to G.o.d. And that is quite enough. G.o.d is eagerly watching with hungry eyes for the quick turn of a human eye up to Himself. Doubtless many a man has so turned in the last moment of his life when we were not conscious of his consciousness, nor aware of the movements of his outwardly unconscious sub-consciousness. One may be unconscious of outer things, and yet be keenly conscious towards G.o.d.