>? ’ if 3 7 5 ee * ee’ f+ ; a) 7 LIFE of PRAYER Bovcnrew 1b LAM. -E. DOUG HOT Y FE wo SRV fe RSs. DEVOTIONAL 77. PSN A nS SERIES NO oS eae OS, = * 4, } a Sie ¢ x oa 2 a ¢ % f Yi ON 3 sa x o Aten i Fn, OR | Pe } THE GENERAL BOARD OF PROMOTION of the NORTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION 200 Fifth Avenue New York City amy DEVOTIONAL SERIES THE LIFE of PRAYER By WILLIAM E. DOUGHTY Being one of a series of devotional pamphlets designed to cultivate the spiritual resources of the church. Reprinted by courtesy of the INTERCHURCH WORLD MOVEMENT OF NORTH AMERICA 45 WEST 187s ST. NEW YORK CITY The Life of Prayer q TH deepest missionary need of our time is not for any material or external thing. The deepest need is spiritual; the need for a vitality in the church equal to its vast work of naturalizing Christianity over all the world. For this task no mere number of workers at home or on the field will be sufh- cient, nor will prayerless giving ever evangel- ize the world, no matter how great the amount. How to call forth and apply the boundless resources of Jesus Christ, are al- ways extremely important questions. One of the elemental means for releasing these forces is prayer—a supreme factor in missionary leadership. More and greater issues hang on this than on any other one thing. The story of every great Christian achievement is the history of answered prayer. The unfolding providence of our God has been a clarion call to the leaders of the church to devote themselves to inter- cession above every other activity. Here is truly “‘an open but unfrequented path to immortality.” How startling that this “cen- tral act” in victorious service should be called “the deeply buried talent,” and “the forgotten secret of the church. > The pur- pose of our present discussion is to state and illustrate three fundamental convictions re- garding the life of prayer. é i A CONTINUOUS DISCOVERY 5 I Tue Lire oF PRAYER IS A LIFE oF Continuous DIscovERY | the study of the Scriptures and the his- tory of the expanding church we find four discoveries in which prayer has a powerful influence. THE Discovery or Gop Ts 1s life’s greatest discovery. The practise of prayer is the fine art of be- coming acquainted with God. All the men of the kingdom, who have most fully re- vealed God to other men, have reached the heights here, for prayer vitalizes and clarifies all our thinking about God. It was Isaiah worshiping in the temple who saw the Lord high and lifted up. Paul states this truth in clear-cut words in Acts 22:17-18, “While I Baved it. ete saw Him.” The Book of Acts is the story of the growth of the early church from a small group of Jews in Jerusalem, to a world power. The expansion described in the first twelve chap- ters is largely a history of the expanding Peter. What a record this is of a man who, under the transforming power of the Holy Spirit given in answer to prayer, came to be a citizen of the world kingdom! It is with this outlook he can say, “ Neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). To him henceforth all personal values end in Jesus Christ, and all social ideals culminate in the kingdom of God. 6 THE LIFE OF PRAYER Sh Nothing less than a deep and consum a conviction, that there is no other man ané no other message save the Christ Man ai anc the Christ Message able to meet the bottom. most need of the world, will send us fort with relentless strength. It is this rock ; bottom truth which has sent men through fire and flood for the gospel’s sake. We need to believe this with a sincerity and earnest= ness that kindles all life into deepest devo- tion. — If we had no other illustrations than these three from the Scriptures, it would bi enough; but a host of witnesses in this mod- ern day testify to the same wonderful sft - nation of mind and heart in hours of prayer, so that God thenceforth is a new and living reality. Many an intercessor can say, “While I was praying there was in the room a fragrance as though all the flowers in the garden of God had opened there, a tender- ness like the pity of infinite parenthood flooded my life, and a Presence appeared shriveling up all that was mean and low, helping me to see life’s issues in proper pro- portion and perspective, and pointing th way to life’s great tasks.”” None but a ma: of prayer could say as did Zinzendorf, “ have only one passion: It is He, He alone The hearts of thousands have been we 1 by the story of how Horace Bushnell in ol North College at Yale, in the darkness < despair of doubt, by prayer and obedient discovered God. The story of the hot fre =. of that moral struggle and victory may b read in a sermon which he preached hs ars A CONTINUOUS DISCOVERY 7 afterward in the college chapel entitled, “The Dissolving of Doubts.” If we would be ex- plorers in the realm of spiritual realities, we must be men of prayer. Tue Discovery oF THE WILL oF Gop For a Man’s LIFE I" was after much prayer as recorded in Acts that the new disciple was chosen to take the place of Judas. That was the be- ginning of a new era, and the first Christians depended, as never before, on prayer and the Holy Spirit, whose leadership is recognized sixty times in that one book. We discover that it was the habit of the early church to introduce new disciples at once to the life of prayer, with the result that, when they were all scattered abroad in the persecutions that followed, each disciple was a beacon light preaching the Word with power. It was during those three days of prayer that Paul discovered that it was the will of God that he preach Christ among the Gen- tiles. His epistles are strewn with the record of repeated crises in his life where he was made conscious of God’s will in answer to prayer. Gossner tells how, while pastor in Berlin, when three or four humble men came to him and told of their burning desire to take the gospel to the non-Christian world, he at first firmly refused to approve their plans. ‘They requested that-he pray with them about the matter, and after much prayer he came to see that it was the will of God for his life that he train them for service. He says his chief business was “ringing the 8 THE LIFE OF PRAYER prayer bell.”” So clearly was this the leading of God that he was enabled to send out and support more than one hundred and forty missionaries. Among the instructions given to his work- ers is this one: “Believe, hope, love, pray! Hold fast by prayer; wrestle like Jacob.” While Gossner is the outstanding figure in this movement, much credit for his success is to be attributed to the deep life of prayer of his associates, who had so much to do with - his work. Louis Harms was opposed and stood alone in his plans to carry the gospel outside of Germany. He describes how he discovered © the will of God in prayer. He says, “‘I had knocked at many doors and found them shut; and yet the plan was manifestly good, and for the glory of God. I prayed fervently to the Lord, laid the whole matter in his hands, and as J rose up at midnight from my knees I said in a voice that almost startled me in the quiet room, ‘Forward now in God’s name.’ From that moment there never came a thought of doubt into my mind.” In the case of Gossner the difficulty was subjective, while with Harms it was objec- tive. Prayer is equally effective both in changing a man’s personal relation to mis- sions, and also in transforming indifference in others into zeal and devotion. THE DiscovERY OF THE PLANS oF Gop FoR THE WoRLD [" REQUIRES much spirituality and much | walking with God to see the world through the eyes of Christ. The tenth chapter of A CONTINUOUS DISCOVERY 9 Acts contains the record of a man whose whole thought of the world was transformed during a time of meditation and prayer. Peter on the housetop and Cornelius in the palace, both praying! God showing the Roman that he must send for the Jew; God showing the Jew that the Gentiles must be included in the scope of the gospel. It was nothing less than a genuine revolu- tion for him to say, “The Spirit bade me go with them, making no distinction” (Acts 11:12), and “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteous- ness, is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35). Prayer not only illuminates the Word, but lights up the world. Here Peter had his second Pentecost. This opened up the gos- pel to the Roman world even as the Jerusa- lem Pentecost was an unmeasured blessing to the Jews. There are two other notable outpourings of the Holy Spirit in Acts; one in which Peter was the human leader at Sa- maria (Acts 8). Philip and others had been sent out after special prayer (Acts 6:5-6). The other was at Ephesus, where the Greek world was touched in Acts 19:5-7._ God was here reaching Jew, Samaritan, Greek, Ro- man—the world! In each case prayer had formed a notable part of the preparation, and revealed the largeness of God’s purpose for the world. 10 Tue LIFE OF PRAYER © ee. .