My dear friends, I want to talk to
you for a little while this morning about
prayer, or, perhaps more specifically, about Christian praying.
That is, prayer in the name of Jesus,
prayer through the virtue of the precious blood,
prayer on the ground of the new covenant,
prayer by a new and living way, a
new way because it is the new way
of the cross, thank you, and a living
way because it is through a saviour who
has conquered death and is the ever-living
one.
Now, it is no part of my present
intention to discuss the philosophy or the psychology
or even the theology of prayer.
I am concerned with its practical importance as
we see it in the straightforward teaching of
the Bible.
Dear friends, of all the privileges which our
sovereign God has given to us in Christ,
the highest is that of an ever-open
access to himself, the creator and controller of
the universe.
The access he has given to himself through
our dear saviour, his eternal son, the Lord
Jesus.
And of all the means of grace which
God has given us for our growth in
the Christian life, none is more important than
habitual prayer.
Without such prayer there simply cannot be any
true spiritual development in any individual believer, nor
can there be any outstanding movement of the
Holy Spirit among our evangelical churches.
There will not come revival until our churches
learn again the strategy of pertinacious, united praying.
I say again, if there is to be
Christian revival either in the individual believer or
in our churches collectively, there must be prayer.
As an introduction to my theme this morning,
let me now invite you to turn to
Ephesians.
Paul's letter to the Ephesians, chapter 3, verses
20 and 21.
This is the doxological finale to the
first half of Ephesians, which is the doctrinal
half of this epistle.
This is how it culminates in verses 20
and 21.
Now unto him who is able to do
exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or
think according to the power that worketh in
us, unto him be glory in the church
by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, age without
end.
Amen.
The six chapters of this Ephesian letter break
obviously into two main parts.
That is, chapters 1 and 2 and 3
constitute part 1.
Chapters 4 and 5 and 6 comprise part
2.
Part 1 is conspicuously doctrinal.
Part 2 is mainly practical.
By doctrinal, of course, we mean truth stated.
By practical, we mean truth applied.
The subject of part 1 is the believer's
wealth in Christ.
The subject of part 2 is the believer's
walk in Christ.
And part 1 winds to its climax in
that midway doxology which we have just read,
and that Pauline doxology states for us and
presents to us the New Testament norm or
standard for the prayer life of Christian believers.
You know, the late Dr. Arthur T.
Pearson used to call Ephesians the Switzerland of
the New Testament, because in this great Pauline
treatise, Ephesians, we are among the alpine peaks
and highest altitudes of Christian doctrine and experience.
Well now, if Ephesians is the Switzerland of
our New Testament, I think that this doxological
finale at the end of chapter 3 is
Mont Blanc.
Do you see the seven steps of ascent
here?
Now unto him that is 1.
able to do.
That is basic to everything, obviously.
2.
able to do what we ask.
3.
able to do what we think.
4.
able to do all that we ask or
think.
5.
able to do above all that we ask
or think.
6.
able to do abundantly above all that we
ask or think.
And 7.
able to do exceedingly above all that we
ask or even think.
Now of course, that can be spiritually tantalizing
to some of us, maybe to many of
us.
I wouldn't be surprised if many of us
in this very moment are asking, well if
that is the New Testament standard for my
intended prayer life, how is it that there
is such a dismaying disparity between that magnificent
ideal and my poverty-stricken actual?
I'll tell you why.
It's because we overlook the gauge here.
Listen.
According to.
Now unto him that is able to do
exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or
think.
According to.
Well according to what?
According to the power that worketh in us.
Oh and what is that power?
Well the context tells us.
Strengthened with all strength by his spirit in
your inward man.
When the Holy Spirit has the unobstructed monopoly
of your personality and mine, our prayer life
is nothing less than transformed.
I think while we are touching on this,
it might be good to get a little
photograph in which we see this kind of
praying in actual operation.
Will you turn quickly with me to Acts
chapter 4, the fourth chapter of the Acts
and verse 31.
Yes, verse 31.
Let me read.
And when they had prayed.
One.
The place was shaken where they were assembled
together.
In other words, the manifested presence of God.
Two.
And they were all filled with the Holy
Breath.
The Pneuma, the Spirit.
A new filling by the Holy Spirit for
a new emergency.
Three.
And they spake the word of God with
boldness.
Four.
And the multitude of them that believed were
of one heart and of one soul.
True Christian unity.
And the World Council of Churches had never
been heard of.
Neither said any of them the thought of
the things which he possessed was his own,
but they had all things in common.
Wonderful Christian unity.
Five.
And with great power gave the apostles witness
of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Witnessing to a living Savior with convincing power.
Six.
And isn't this lovely.
And great grace was upon them all, even
in the deacons' meetings.
And seven.
Neither was there anyone among them that lacked.
In other words, all need entirely answered.
Now I'm not a monger in sevens.
But there's another seven.
One.
The manifested presence of God.
Two.
A new filling by the Holy Spirit.
Three.
Speaking the word of God with boldness.
Four.
True Christian unity.
Five.
Witnessing with prevailing power to a living Savior.
Six.
Great grace upon them all.
And seven.
All need entirely met.
Brothers and sisters.
If there were praying like that in our
evangelical churches up and down the British Isles,
I believe that in a very short time,
instead of bemoaning our spiritual poverty and our
numerical paucity, we would lift up our dragging
banners, and like an army victorious we would
go forth to prevail upon our leaders and
people and countrymen in the cause of God
and Christ and light and truth.
I believe that.
Do you?
Well then, how much praying are you doing?
And Mr. Preacher, what about you?
Well now, friends, this brings up the whole
matter of prayer.
I sometimes think that when we come to
the end of the present age, and our
Lord has returned, I sometimes think that if
he allows us to look back over the
present age and see it as he sees
it, I think there will be three things
that surprise and shock us more than all
others.
One, the fearful perversion of the gospel by
the ecclesiasticism of the Middle Ages.
And two, the awful betrayal of the Bible
by the main denominations of latter-day Protestantism.
And three, the enigmatical neglect of prayer by
the continuing evangelical minority.
I would not dare to say what I'm
now going to say if I did not
believe it with every thoughtful conviction of which
I'm capable.
I believe, however bad things may be in
our beloved little Britain today, I believe that
the prayers of the evangelical minority could determine
the future destiny of Britain and could flood
these islands with a latter-day revival.
I believe that.
Well, as I was saying, this brings up
the whole matter of prayer.
And I thought I would like my parting
word with you this morning to be upon
this matter that I conceive to be simply,
unutterably vital.
I've dotted down here on my notes certain
pieces of advice that I want to pass
on to you.
Some of you are inwardly asking, Mr. Preacher,
can you tell me why my prayer life
is often so vapid, so seemingly unreal, sometimes
so disappointing and even frustrating?
Can you tell me how my prayer life
can be changed?
Well, I've dotted down some points of advice.
Let me have a look at you.
Are you open-minded this morning?
Are you open-hearted?
You're getting better, you know.
All right.
Here's the first piece of advice.
Nine out of every ten of us are
needing to rescue our prayer life from the
tyranny of our emotions and from bondage to
moods or feelings.
All too many of us pray only when
we feel emotionally drawn to do so or
when there seems some special need for prayer.
And thus our prayer times become sporadic, disconnected,
evanescent, and seemingly exasperating.
Also, there are many Christians who seem to
have the strange idea that unless they become
emotionally stimulated during a time of prayer, their
praying has been merely skyward talk lost in
empty space.
You know as well as I do how
often people talk about having, and I put
this in inverted commas, having a good time
in prayer by which they mean a kind
of emotional luxury in their season of prayer.
And if they don't get that inward emotional
stirring, they feel that their praying has been
empty and vain.
Now, listen to me.
All of us are needing to learn deeply
and permanently that the validity of prayer is
utterly independent of any emotional condition in the
one who prays.
Emotionally, at the time of my praying, I
may be either equatorially hot or arctically cold.
But whether my feelings are tropic or frigid,
the thing that makes prayer valid and vital
is that my faith lays hold on God's
truth and presses for an answer in the
name that is above every name.
Get rid of your blessed emotions.
They are a perfect nuisance in this matter
of prayer.
I would say to all, guard your prayer
times vigilantly from all subtle tyranny of your
emotions and from all bondage to mere mood.
Why, when you reflect on it, a good
part of praying consists in intercessory pleadings for
unsaved souls.
And another aspect of prayer is that of
warfare against the powers of evil.
Such praying as that, other than merely engendering
exuberant emotions, often means tears and sometimes sweat.
It certainly does not induce any subjective ecstasy,
though it does develop a joy of communion
with God which is as much above mere
emotional thrills as the Himalayan peaks are high
above the valleys.
Yes, make sure that your prayer life is
a matter of will and of resolute habit,
completely free from all bondage to your changeful
emotions.
Otherwise, your prayer history will be that of
a limping cripple.
Well, that's point number one.
Have I hammered it in?
Right.
But now, secondly, and just as necessarily, we
must emancipate our praying from egocentricity or self
-centeredness.
Most of us never know the larger power
and richer depths of prayer because our praying
is a continual running in circles around our
own self.
We are so full of our wants that
we forget our greatest need of all, that
is, to be lifted completely out of our
hereditary selfism into a Christ-like otherism, a
burning concern for the saving and blessing of
others.
Our praying is self-circling instead of outgoing.
It's nearly all begging instead of largely interceding.
Such self-preoccupied praying soon becomes a withered
fig tree.
All the liberation that comes to our own
spirit when we forget ourselves and give ourselves
to praying for others.
May I remind you of the epilogue to
that magnificent poem, The Book of Job?
It says, And the Lord turned the captivity
of Job when he prayed for himself.
Does it?
No.
Now, if ever a man needed to pray
for himself, Job did.
And if ever a man pleaded for himself,
Job did.
But the Lord turned the captivity of Job
when he prayed for his friends.
His what?
Ooh, what friends they were.
They came ostensibly to be his sympathizers and
they turned out to be his cruelest condemners.
And they talked and talked and talked until
their cloudy verbosity nearly sent poor Job dotty.
They all needed to have their blocks knocked
off.
But God said to Job, Pray for those
three friends of yours.
And the Lord turned the captivity of Job
when he prayed for his friends.
I'll give you a motto for prayer.
Ego-centricity triangulates it.
Catholicity sublimates it.
And if you want to know the wonderful
reflexive benefits of prayer, forget yourself and pray
for others.
I'll bear my grateful testimony this morning to
this fact.
When the embers of my own spiritual fire
have been burning low, there are two procedures,
either of which or both of which together,
have always brought me wonderful emancipation and restoration.
First is this.
Put your jacket on and go out and
sidle up to somebody in the street somewhere
and begin talking about Jesus.
Try and win a soul.
And if I can't do that, the other
is to go for an hour of prayer
and never mention Sid Lowe Baxter.
There's a wonderful liberating power comes to your
own heart if you forget yourself and pray
for others.
Now, I'm looking at you again.
Has that got home?
Oh, you're doing well this morning.
Three.
Many of us never know the enriching deeper
meanings and rewards of prayer because our prayer
times are too broken apart from each other
by inconstancy.
Our praying is too intermittent, too fragmentary to
give God any real chance of transacting with
us.
Our praying is too irregular, too random to
make us practiced pleaders at the throne.
I heard some time ago about a certain
vagrant.
I think he was a hippie type and
he went to one of our British, do
you still call them unemployment bureaus?
Do you still call them that?
Yes.
Well, this hippie type chap went to one
of these unemployment bureaus.
He wanted a job.
So the official behind the counter said, Oh,
so you want a job, mister?
All right.
What have you been doing until now?
Well, he said, Just this and that.
Just this and that.
Well, where have you been doing it?
Oh, just here and there.
Just this and that, just here and there.
Well, when have you been doing it?
Oh, he said, Just off and on.
So the clerk behind the counter began to
ponder and he said, Uh-huh, just this
and that.
Just here and there.
Just off and on.
Well, he said, I think you'd better call
in just now and then.
I sometimes wonder, Could it be that some
of ourselves look rather like that to the
angels in heaven?
Are we rather like that vagrant when we
apply for help at the heavenly throne?
Just now and then.
Just off and on.
I remember during the war one of my
most delightful and loved members, a dear elderly
lady at Charlotte Chapel, Edinburgh, with troubled look
on her dear face, said to me one
morning, Oh, Pastor, I've been praying so hard
for the people at Random.
Oh, where?
She said, At Random.
Oh, I said, Is that in Britain?
Yes, oh yes, she said, It's somewhere down
in the south.
Oh, well, she said, I read yesterday that
the German bombers had come over and they'd
been bombing at Random.
I wouldn't be surprised if there were dozens
of bombers at Random here this morning.
You'll never know the meaning of prayer if
you're just a random prayer.
It's got to be a matter of the
will.
And you've got to stick at it and
stick at it and then stick at it.
Many of us are needing to learn that,
don't you think?
But now, you're not getting tired, are you?
No.
The fourth thing that I have dotted down
is this.
Our prayer times should be orderly.
My advice to you is don't let your
prayer times be either over-planned or under
-planned.
If your prayer seasons are over-elaborate, you
may find yourself flying a balloon instead of
transacting business.
On the other hand, if you have no
system at all, your prayer life will become
without form and void and soon there'll be
darkness on the face of the one who
prays.
There must be some kind of order.
But it's the order that belongs to the
nature of the business.
We're not coming to an accountant.
We're coming to a father, to a savior,
to a comforter.
I'll tell you one thing that I would
like to recommend to you.
Oh, yes, here it is.
See, I'll tell you.
And although you may not know it, some
of your names are in this little yellow
book.
It's just a sheet of yellow paper.
I divide it in half and cut it
through, then divide it again and fold it
round, and every so often I have a
new one, but I don't trust my memory
in the matter of prayer.
My memory is rather like that definition given
by the little Lancashire boy when somebody asked
him, well, what is memory?
He said, oh, it's the thing you forget
with.
So, I won't trust a memory.
And as King Hezekiah long ago spread the
letter of Sennacherib before Jehovah, every morning when
I'm at home in Santa Barbara, out comes
my little yellow book, and some of the
brethren on the platform this morning are prayed
for every morning from that little yellow book.
Now, I would recommend you get your little
yellow book and put down those persons and
concerns for whom and for which you should
pray.
And day after day spread your little book,
and I always keep an empty column there
to make a note of answers.
And some of them are getting quite full
now.
See?
Well, you can't see, but they're here anyway.
So, I'm recommending you have some kind of
order.
Don't start sectionizing your praying into one, adoration,
and two, contemplation, and three, supplication, and four,
intercession, or you'll get really mixed up.
But have some order, the kind of order
that helps and doesn't destroy sanctified spontaneity.
And now I come to another point that
I think is exceedingly important.
You're listening.
We should learn the practice of anticipative praying.
I'll say it again.
Anticipative praying.
Prayer beforehand is a far better preservative than
any hasty emergency prayer after an event has
hit us.
The old proverb says to be forewarned is
to be forearmed.
Similarly, to be spiritually conditioned in advance by
prayer is eight-tenths of the battle against
temptation or trouble of any kind when it
comes.
You see, we all know that every day
we're going to meet certain persons, some of
whom may be very difficult.
We're going to go to the same place
of business.
We're going to encounter continually recurring temptation.
And in many other ways we can anticipate
things that are likely to come and we
should learn the practice of getting in first.
Oh, we can learn that again and again
from the life of our dear Master.
Let me remind you quickly.
Lazarus was seriously ill and the two disturbed
and anxious sisters sent a special emergency call
to Jesus.
And we read, Now Jesus loved Martha and
her sister and Lazarus, therefore he abode two
days in the same place where he was.
It seemed a very strange way of showing
love.
But you have to follow it through to
the sequel.
By the time Jesus came, Lazarus was dead
and was in the sepulcher.
And Martha and Mary thought he'd let them
down badly.
Ah, they had to learn something big and
wonderful.
There came the moment when our Master stood
against that forbidding-looking sepulcher and with the
voice that wakes the dead he raised Lazarus,
but before he called him out he lift
up his eyes to heaven and in the
hearing of the multitude he said, Father, I
thank thee that thou dost hear me.
Oh, but the Greek is in the Aries
tense.
Father, I thank thee thou didst hear me.
Thou didst?
When?
Why, it was in those two days that
Jesus carried.
He knew somehow at once that he was
going to be confronted by a climactic challenge
at Bethany and he wouldn't go until he
had the Father's pledge that he was going
to conquer the enemy and either restore or
raise from the dead his friend Lazarus.
And now with that anticipated prayer and its
pledged answer in his mind he says, Father,
I know that thou didst hear me.
And then he turns to the grave and
he says, Lazarus, come forth.
And Lazarus came forth.
Of course, he couldn't walk out because he
was wrapped by the funereal wrappings.
He couldn't clamber down from the rocky ledge
where his corpse had been deposited.
But while the people looked out through the
dark mouth of that grave that body came
floating three or four feet above the ground
and then gently deposited itself on the ground.
I'd love to have been there, wouldn't you?
And Jesus had to say, because they were
all so thunderstruck, he had to say, now,
hadn't you better loose him and let him
go?
Don't you remember also how Jesus said to
Simon, Simon, Simon, uttering the name twice to
express intensity of feeling.
Simon, Simon, Satan hath obtained you by asking
that he may sift you as wheat.
But, I've got there first, but I have
prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.
Are you getting the idea?
Anticipative praying.
Let me give you one quick illustration and
then we'll leave that.
I took my training for the ministry at
Spurgeon's Theological College, London.
And I knew very well a student there
who was in pretty poor circumstances financially.
Now, there used to be four lectures every
morning Monday to Friday, nine to ten, ten
to eleven, then to noon, and then to
one.
And believe me, after four hours of that
kind, when one o'clock came, what an
appetite we had.
But, there was a break at eleven o
'clock for fifteen minutes, and we used to
go and sit in the common room.
And one of the students would come round
with a tray of chocolate.
And he would say, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.
And you'd see the saliva glands all round
the common room, working away.
And a look of despair on many of
the faces of the holy brethren.
Now, this particular student, he was very, very
fond of milk chocolate.
I knew him well, and he was very
frank with me.
And he told me, he said, you know,
Sid, it's an awful problem to me, this
chocolate.
He said, I'm so empty by eleven, but
I've no money to buy.
And then I go and commit sin, because
I say, come here, Bob.
And I take a packet of chocolate, and
I say, put it down to my account.
And then he said, when the end of
the month comes, I'm in debt, and no
Christian should be in debt.
But he went on to tell me this.
He said, I've learned a secret.
If I get up earlier, and if at
seven o'clock in the morning I deal
with that temptation, when eleven o'clock comes,
I've got victory.
But if I get up late, and I
haven't had that time of prayer, when eleven
o'clock comes, I'm vulnerable.
And it's agony.
And I know he wasn't exaggerating, because I
was the student.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Are you clapping for my victory?
I might have thought you would have wept
for my lack of chocolate.
But have you got hold of that idea?
Don't wait till eleven o'clock.
Anticipate it at seven.
And you'll find then, when the dragon comes,
you've got a sharp sword that's too much
for him.
Now, have I time for anything else?
Hmm.
Ha, hmm.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Yes.
I, I, I'll just quickly add this.
Do some of you here this morning have
a problem with wandering of the mind?
Well now, don't, don't keep slogging yourself about
that.
It's no argument against prayer.
I'm not sure that it's an argument against
you.
You see, our grandsires lived by the sundial.
And a little bit later, by the old
grandfather's clock.
But we twentieth century moderns, we live by
the alarm clock.
Doing the next thing next, the next thing
next, the next thing next.
Until there develops a, a mental habit of
doing, doing, doing.
And then we become bodily stationary.
And we want to pray.
But the mind keeps, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm,
hmm, hmm.
Don't you find that?
Now, I want to tell you of a
simply infallible cure.
I've never once known it to fail.
It's this.
Start praying your Bible.
Oh?
What do you mean?
Well, let me ask you.
Have you ever prayed right through an epistle?
I mustn't wear my heart on my sleeve
in a way that is unbecoming for a
public speaker.
But if I can be affectionately frank for
a moment, I could never tell you, and
I'm picking the word carefully, I could never
tell you the thrill I have had in
going verse by verse in prayer through Philippians
and Ephesians.
Taking every promise and praying that it might
be fulfilled in me.
Taking every admonition and praying that God would
help me to obey.
Taking every great truth, pondering it, praying about
it, thanking God for it.
Oh, brothers and sisters, there are wonderful hours
of communing with God if you pray through
an epistle.
Have you ever prayed through the Sermon on
the Mount?
I have.
And it's a wonderful mixture of torture and
conviction with wonderful liberation Pray through the Sermon
on the Mount and you'll soon know what
a sinner you are and what a saint
you can become.
Do you use your hymn book in prayer?
I could never tell you what the hymn
book has meant in my prayer life.
Oh, I've had great times with some of
Francis Haberghal's hymns.
Do you ever pray a hymn like this?
Lord, speak to me that I may speak
in living echoes of thy tone.
As thou hast sought, so let me seek
thine erring children lost and lone.
Oh, strengthen me that while I stand firm
on the rock and strong in thee I
may stretch forth a loving hand to wrestlers
with life's troubled sea.
Oh, fill me with thy fullness, Lord until
my very heart o'erflows in kindling thought
and glowing word thy love to tell, thy
praise to show.
Oh, use me, Lord, use even me just
as thou wilt and when and where until
thy blessed face I see thy rest, thy
joy, thy glory share.
You might not think it, but not long
since I had a wonderful time in prayer
with a hymn that you'd never think suitable.
It was Rescue the Perishing.
Lord, help me to do it.
Care for the dying.
Lord, give me sympathy and urgency.
Snatch them in pity from sin and the
grave.
Oh, Lord, may I never get used to
seeing souls on the way to destruction.
Weep o'er the erring one.
Father, Savior, give me tears.
Lift up the fallen.
Lord, help me to do it with sympathy
and kindliness.
Tell them of Jesus, the mighty to save.
Lord, save me from dumbness.
Give me the overflowing heart and the tongue
that speaks easily of Jesus.
Are you following?
Well, hmm, time has gone.
But you can't see my Bible, can you?
But I have the week here in columns.
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
And in those seven columns I travel right
round the world in prayer once every week.
You know, Mr. Gleg, I think that's another
good thing to do.
Well, I'll have to leave you because there's
another meeting and it's 11 o'clock.
But, brothers and sisters, my parting word to
you here at Filey, except I think I
have to speak again tonight, but so far
as the Bible readings are concerned, my parting
word to you is decide that from Filey
1973 prayer is not just going to be
one little spot on the rim of the
wheel.
You're going to make prayer the hub in
the wheel of your available time.
And if you make prayer the hub and
not a mere incidental, you'll soon find, as
we all do, the whole wheel runs better.
And strange as it may seem, the more
you stick at it and keep prayer in
the middle, the more time you'll have for
other things because it brings a divine orderliness
into your days.
And keep praying for Britain.
When our God beholds us there wrestling in
the place of prayer, then the tide of
battle turns, then the flame of conquest burns,
then the faltering wail of fear turns to
victory's ringing cheer, then the flag of truth
prevails.
Oh, slink back and Satan quail.
Bring us, Lord.
Oh, bring us there where we learn prevailing
prayer.
God bless you.