10.
Prayer and
Devotion
United
There is a manifest want of spiritual influence on the ministry of
the present day. I feel it in my own case and I see it in that of
others. I am afraid there is too much of a low, managing, contriving,
maneuvering temper of mind among us. We are laying ourselves out more
than is expedient to meet one man's taste and another man's
prejudices. The ministry is a grand and holy affair, and it should
find in us a simple habit of spirit and a holy but humble indifference
to all consequences. The leading defect in Christian ministers is want
of a devotional habit.
-Richard Cecil
Never was there greater need for saintly men and
women...
Never was there greater need for saintly men and women; more
imperative still is the call for saintly, God-devoted preachers. The
world moves with gigantic strides. Satan has his hold and rule on the
world, and labors to make all its movements subservient to his ends. Religion
must do its best work, present its most attractive and perfect models.
By every means, modern sainthood must be inspired by the loftiest ideals
and by the largest possibilities through the Spirit.
Paul lived on his
knees, that the Ephesian Church might measure the heights, breadths, and
depths of an unmeasurable saintliness, and "be filled with all the
fullness of God." Epaphras laid himself out with the exhaustive
toil and strenuous conflict of fervent prayer, that the Colossian Church
might "stand perfect and complete in all the will of God."
No amount of money, genius, or culture can move things for God.
Everywhere, everything in apostolic times was on the stretch that the
people of God might each and "all come in the unity of the faith,
and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." No premium was
given to dwarfs; no encouragement to an old babyhood. The babies were to
grow; the old, instead of feebleness and infirmities, were to bear fruit
in old age, and be fat and flourishing. The divinest thing in religion
is holy men and holy women.
No amount of money, genius, or culture can move things for God.
Holiness energizing the soul, the whole man aflame with love, with
desire for more faith, more prayer, more zeal, more consecration -- this
is the secret of power. These we need and must have, and men must be the
incarnation of this God-inflamed devotedness. God's advance has been
stayed, his cause crippled: his name dishonored for their lack.
The genius of a Milton fails. The
imperial strength of a Leo fails. Brainerd's spirit can move it.
Brainerd's spirit was on fire for God, on fire for souls.
Genius
(though the loftiest and most gifted), education (though the most
learned and refined), position, dignity, place, honored names, high
ecclesiastics cannot move this chariot of our God. It is a fiery one,
and fiery forces only can move it. The genius of a Milton fails. The
imperial strength of a Leo fails. Brainerd's spirit can move it.
Brainerd's spirit was on fire for God, on fire for souls. Nothing
earthly, worldly, selfish came in to abate in the least the intensity of
this all-impelling and all-consuming force and flame.
Prayer is the creator as well as the channel of devotion. The spirit
of devotion is the spirit of prayer. Prayer and devotion are united as
soul and body are united, as life and the heart are united. There is no
real prayer without devotion, no devotion without prayer. The preacher
must be surrendered to God in the holiest devotion. He is not a
professional man, his ministry is not a profession; it is a divine
institution, a divine devotion. He is devoted to God. His aim,
aspirations, ambition are for God and to God, and to such prayer is as
essential as food is to life.
If he does not preach by life, character,
conduct, he does not preach at all.
The preacher, above everything else, must be devoted to God. The
preacher's relations to God are the insignia and credentials of his
ministry. These must be clear, conclusive, unmistakable. No common,
surface type of piety must be his. If he does not excel in grace, he
does not excel at all. If he does not preach by life, character,
conduct, he does not preach at all. If his piety be light, his preaching
may be as soft and as sweet as music, as gifted as Apollo, yet its
weight will be a feather's weight, visionary, fleeting as the morning
cloud or the early dew.
Devotion to God -- there is no substitute for
this in the preacher's character and conduct. Devotion to a Church, to
opinions, to an organization, to orthodoxy -- these are paltry,
misleading, and vain when they become the source of inspiration, the
animus of a call. God must be the mainspring of the preacher's effort,
the fountain and crown of all his toil.
...no inspiration but the name of Jesus Christ, no ambition but to
have him glorified,
The name and honor of Jesus
Christ, the advance of his cause, must be all in all. The preacher must
have no inspiration but the name of Jesus Christ, no ambition but to
have him glorified, no toil but for him. Then prayer will be a source of
his illuminations, the means of perpetual advance, the gauge of his
success. The perpetual aim, the only ambition, the preacher can cherish
is to have God with him.
Never did the cause of God need perfect illustrations of the
possibilities of prayer more than in this age. No age, no person, will
be ensamples of the gospel power except the ages or persons of deep and
earnest prayer. A prayerless age will have but scant models of divine
power. Prayerless hearts will never rise to these Alpine heights.
...the increase of holiness and
Christ-likeness by the energy of prayer.
The
age may be a better age than the past, but there is an infinite distance
between the betterment of an age by the force of an advancing
civilization and its betterment by the increase of holiness and
Christlikeness by the energy of prayer. The Jews were much better when
Christ came than in the ages before. It was the golden age of their
Pharisaic religion. Their golden religious age crucified Christ.
Never
more praying, never less praying; never more sacrifices, never less
sacrifice; never less idolatry, never more idolatry; never more of
temple worship, never less of God worship; never more of lip service,
never less of heart service (God worshiped by lips whose hearts and
hands crucified God's Son!); never more of churchgoers, never less of
saints.
It is prayer-force which makes saints. Holy characters are formed by
the power of real praying. The more of true saints, the more of praying;
the more of praying, the more of true saints.
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