Prayer
Spurgeon on Hebrews 4:1-2
I fear that many religionists of all denominations fall short in this; they are satisfied because they have attended to their sacraments and their ceremonies, or they are quite content because they have taken their place at a simple, unadorned service; but the mysterious power of the Holy Spirit is not felt, nor is His absence lamented by them.
Oh, how strong the modern church is in the flesh! We are so well-established, well-run, and well-rehearsed in our Sunday service unto the Lord that we no longer carry the weakness to lament the absence of the Holy Spirit!
Faith must also be judged of by its power upon the character. The man who really believes in Jesus becomes a man of prayer. Never had a man faith and yet despised the mercy seat. “Behold, he prays,” is a declaration akin to, “Behold, he believes.” How about your private prayers, then, my dear friends? Are they neglected? Are they performed in a slovenly manner? I will not inquire so much as to your formal prayers, as to the spirit of prayer—does your heart, all the day long, go up to God in silent cries and secret groans? Do you speak to God out of your inmost soul by snatches while at your work? Do you say, “My God, my Father, help me,” when none could tell that your lips are moving? If you have not the spirit of prayer, you are destitute of one of the surest signs of spiritual life—and you may conclude that your faith is dead, and that you come short of God’s rest.
As faith starts in the heart, so does the earnestness of our prayers. Do not be merely deceived by expressions that infer what starts in the heart. Be confident in the spirit that now lives in us.
Spurgeon on Hebrews 9:13-14
Sermon pdf For instance, in prayer, our prayer in its form and fashion may be right enough, but if it lacks earnestness and persistence, it will be a dead work. A sermon may be orthodox and correct, but if it is devoid of that holy passion, that divine inspiration, without which sermons are but mere harangues, it is a dead work. Alms given to the poor are good as a work of humanity, but it will be only a dead work if a desire to be seen of men is found at the bottom of it. Like the almsgiving of the Pharisee, it will be a mockery of God. Without a spiritual motive, the best work is dead. I confess that I never appear before you without a fear that my preaching may be a dead work among you. It must be so, as it comes from me; its life must depend upon the spiritual power with which the Lord clothes it. Do you not think that very much of common Christian conversation is dead, or very near to it? You stand and sing, but your hearts do not sing; you bow your heads in prayer, but you are not praying; you read the Scripture, but it is not inspired to you, so as to breathe its own life into you. Even our meditations and thoughts about God’s work may be mere intellectual exercises, and so may be devoid of that power which alone can make them living works, fit for the service of the living God. Beloved friends, we want the precious blood of Christ to purge our consciences from this death and its working, and to lift us into holy and heavenly life. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. God accepts not the dead sacrifice, but the living sacrifice. Even of old there were no fish presented on His altar, because they could not come there alive, the victim must be brought alive to the horns of the altar, or God could not receive it. We must not bring our dead faith or our dead words as an offering to God, our prayers without emotion, our praises without gratitude, our testimonies without sincerity, our gifts without love—all these will be dead, and consequently unacceptable. We must present a living sacrifice to the living God, or we cannot hope to be accepted, and for this reason we greatly need the blood of Christ to purge our conscience from dead works.
This is the crux of the New Covenant. Christ’s atonement has greater effect than external ceremonial cleanliness, it cleanses purifies our conscience. The Christian without a purified conscience lives in the Old Covenant where there is no remission without the shedding of blood - to which is impossible to atone for with their own life/resources.
Spurgeon on James 4:8
Sermon link He who sincerely believes in Christ will be much in prayer. Yet there are some who say, “We want to be saved,” but they neglect prayer. They cannot make out how it is that they have no enjoyment of religion. But why need they be puzzled? Ask your neglected closet. Ask your own heart how you can be happy and prosperous and blessed in divine things if you do not pray. Remember that the mere saying of prayers is not praying. The essence of prayer lies in the heart drawing near to God. And it can do that without words. Prayer is the feeling that God is present and the desire of the soul to come near to Him, so as to know His influence, to know His love, to feel His power and to be conformed to His will. This kind of praying can be continued by the power of God’s Holy Spirit all day long. We must know something of this. “Behold he prays” is one of the first marks of a saved soul and if you think that by some momentary act of faith which you suppose you exercised you are therefore saved, while your heart remains at a distance from God, prayerless and careless, you are fatally deceived. Such is not the teaching of Scripture and there is no guarantee for it in the promises of God. If prayer is utterly neglected, the soul is dead.
Sermon link That is the question, you may have said certain words, morning and night for many years, yet you may never once have prayed all the while. Do you know that prayer is the soul speaking to God? It is not the act of repeating something that you have learned, or heard, or read, the mere utterance of any particular form of words is nothing. You might as well set up one of the prayer windmills, at which so many have smiled, as expect to pray by the mere repetition of good words. No, no, speak to God. Any true speech, straight from the heart, is accepted by God.
Mr. Rowland Hill stayed one night at an inn, and he told the landlord that he must have family prayer there. “But sir,” said the man, “we never had such a thing in our lives.” “Then,” said Mr. Hill, “order out my horses, for I will not stop in any house where I cannot get the people together to pray.” “They shall all come in, sir,” said the landlord, hardly realizing the preacher’s purpose. Then the Bible was read, and Mr. Hill said, “Now, sir, you pray, every master should pray in his own house.” “But I cannot pray,” said he, “I wish I could.” “Tell the Lord that,” said Mr. Hill, and the man said, “Lord, I cannot pray, I wish I could.” Then Mr. Hill said, “You have begun to pray already, so I will go on for you. Only tell the Lord, from your heart, anything that is true about yourself, and you have begun praying.” I pray you, dear friends, to draw nigh to God in prayer. Make it your habit to ask of Him what you really need, and He will draw nigh to you, and you will get what you have asked of Him. You will be surprised to find what gracious answers you will receive to your supplications, for I have noticed that if the Lord delays His answers to the prayers of His saints when they grow strong, He generally hears them very quickly indeed when they first begin to pray. I have often known the answer come while they have yet been speaking.
Enduring Word on 1 John 5:14
In this, we see the purpose of prayer and the secret of power in prayer. It is to ask; to ask anything; to ask anything according to His will; and once having so asked, to have the assurance that He hears us.
i. First, God would have us ask in prayer. Much prayer fails because it never asks for anything. God is a loving God, and a generous giver – He wants us to ask of Him.
ii. Secondly, God would have us ask anything in prayer. Not to imply that anything we ask for will be granted, but anything in the sense that we can and should pray about everything. God cares about our whole life, and nothing is too small or too big to pray about. As Paul wrote in Philippians 4:6: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
iii. Next, God would have us ask according to His will. It is easy for us to only be concerned with our will before God, and to have a fatalistic view regarding His will (“He will accomplish His will with or without my prayers anyway, won’t He?”). But God wants us to see and discern His will through His Word, and to pray His will into action. When John wrote this, John may have had Jesus’ own words in mind, which he recorded in John 15:7: If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. When we abide in Jesus – living in Him, day by day – then our will becomes more and more aligned with His will, and we can ask what you desire, and more and more be asking according to His will. Then we see answered prayer.
iv. If something is God’s will, why doesn’t He just do it, apart from our prayers? Why would He wait to accomplish His will until we pray? Because God has appointed us to work with Him as 2 Corinthians 6:1 says: as workers together with Him. God wants us to work with Him, and that means bringing our will and agenda into alignment with His. He wants us to care about the things He cares about, and He wants us to care about them enough to pray passionately about them.
Barnes on Revelation 8:4
The meaning of the whole symbol, thus explained, is that, at the time referred to, the anxiety of the church in regard to the events which were about to occur would naturally lead to much prayer. It is not necessary to attempt to verify this by any distinct historical facts, for no one can doubt that, in a time of such impending calamities, the church would be earnestly engaged in devotion. Such has always been the case in times of danger; and it may always be assumed to be true, that when danger threatens, whether it be to the church at large or to an individual Christian, there will be a resort to the throne of grace.
which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God out of the angel’s hand; alluding to the incense the priest took in his hand, and cast upon the burning coals; and shows how that by the smoke of the incense, or the virtue of Christ’s mediation, the imperfections of the prayers of the saints are covered; and how they are it perfumed and made acceptable to God; and so are said to ascend up before him, and to be regarded by him, as the prayers of Cornelius were, Acts 10:4; now all this is expressive of the wonderful affection of Christ for his church and people, and care of them; that before the angels sound their trumpets, and bring on wars and desolations into the empire, Christ is represented as interceding for them, and presenting their prayers both for deliverance for themselves, and vengeance on their enemies.
The emblem of the rising column of smoke, in which incense and prayer now mingled, is the token that the prayers of the saints, now rendered acceptable, and no longer premature, are about to be answered. These prayers of God’s people, weak and imperfect as they are, are yet invincible weapons in the hands of Christ’s soldiers, and will be found mightier than any carnal weapons. As Jericho fell without Israel needing to strike a blow, so now the Israel of God will be seen to be omnipotent through true and faithful prayer. The charter of the Church’s power is in the words of Christ: “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15:7). The judgments that follow are not indeed specifically prayed for by the Church of Christ, but they are the results of their prayers, and prove the might of all prayer.
Spurgeon on Exodus 14:15
There is a time for praying, but there is also a time for holy activity. Prayer is adapted for almost every season, yet not prayer alone, for there comes, every now and then, a time when even prayer must take a secondary place and faith must come in, and lead us not to cry unto God, but to act as He bids us, even as the Lord said to Moses, “Wherefore cry you unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward; but lift you up your rod and stretch out your hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.”
It is perfectly clear, then, that there may come a time when crying unto God becomes unseasonable. Our Lord’s command to His disciples is, “Ask.” But what follows that command? Why, the promise, “you shall receive.” Then there must be a time for receiving as well as season for asking. But if, instead of stretching out my hands gratefully to receive what God is waiting to give, I continue still to ask, and forget or neglect to receive, I put prayer out of its proper place. Our Savior also said, “Seek, and you shall find.” Well, if I have sought and at last have found the treasure I have been seeking, if instead of perceiving that it is there and taking possession of it, and blessing God that I have found it, if I still go on seeking for it, then I have forgotten that, while there is a time to seek, there is also a time to find, and my seeking then becomes unseasonable.
It is idle to talk of praying about things which are clearly according to the will of God. Cease praying about them, and practice them.
I. Now, leaving that part of our theme altogether, I come to a more general subject, which is this, IT IS GOOD FOR A MAN OFTEN TO ASK HIMSELF THE QUESTION, “WHY DO I PRAY? WHEREFORE DO I CRY UNTO GOD?”
In some cases, I fear that the answer will be exceedingly unsatisfactory. One replies, “I pray because I was always trained to do so. My dear mother, now in heaven, taught me a form of prayer and that is why I continue to repeat it.” If your mother had taught you the Muslim form of prayer, I suppose you would have kept on repeating it. Or if she had taught you to worship a block of wood or stone, you would have done so?
You must pray to God from your inmost heart. Your soul must have real fellowship with Him, or else the prayer your mother taught you may be of no more avail for you than if you repeated the alphabet backwards or forwards.
Another friend replies, “I pray because it is a right thing to do.” There is something hopeful about that answer, but the question is, What sort of prayer do you pray? I make that inquiry because, although it is right to pray, it is not right to pray some sorts of prayer.
If you do not mean the petitions that you present, you mock God when you utter them, for they are only words and nothing but words.
There are some who would not like to say, just in so many words, exactly what they think, but they really pray because they regard prayer as being more or less meritorious… All these things go into the scale and at last, they make up the weight required, that seems to be their idea.
I will speak about this error very strongly, lest I should not be understood by all and I state my final conviction that if any man thinks that his prayers have any merit in them of themselves, every prayer that he presents is an insult to the Lord Jesus Christ, for He is set forth as the only propitiation for sin. If you think that your prayers help in any degree to put away sin, you make an antichrist of your prayers. Christ’s blood and righteousness form the only ground of your acceptance before God. If you reckon your prayers as a ground, or medium, or help to your acceptance with God, you so far push the cross of Christ into the background and put your prayers into the place of the only Substitute for sinners, and the more you pile them up, the more you multiply your sin.
How would it be with some of us if we were put into the condition of the Highland soldier of whom I have read? In our war with our American colonists, before they gained their freedom from this country, a certain Highland regiment was engaged. Every evening one of the men was observed to go away from the camp into an adjacent wood, and it was suspected that he had gone to give information to the enemy. He was, therefore, arrested and brought before the colonel of the regiment, and the other officers said to him, “Now tell us what you have been doing while you have been absent from the camp.” “Well,” he said, “I have been accustomed, whenever I can, to retire for an hour or two of private prayer.”
The colonel happened to be a Scotchman and a Presbyterian, so he said to the soldier, “Well, you never had such reason to pray before as you have tonight. If you do go for an hour together to pray, you can pray, so let us hear you now.” The man knelt down and poured out his soul before God, seeking deliverance at the Lord’s hands and resigning his spirit into the keeping of his heavenly Father. And he prayed with such an earnest, simple power that, when he had finished, the colonel said to the other officers, “A man who can come on parade like that, must have been drilled a good many times. I think we may confidently accept what he has said as being true. There is no doubt about his having been alone in prayer to God, now that he can pray like that before us.”
Happy is the man whose prayer would bear to be listened to by his fellow-men in such a critical season as that, so that they should be compelled to say of him, “That man has often prayed before tonight, he has the very brogue of one who communes with heaven.” But he who gives such answers as I have been quoting, would certainly not be able to pray before others as that soldier did.
It will never do for any man to hope to be saved by putting prayer into the place of genuine repentance and immediate forsaking of sin.
I will tell you my own answer to this question. I cry to God, principally, because I cannot help doing so. I cry to God for the same reason that I eat when I feel hungry and for the same reason that I groan when I am in pain. It is the outward expression of the condition of my inward life. I cannot help praying. I think if anyone were to say to me, “You must not kneel down to pray,” it would not make any difference to my praying. If I were not allowed to utter a word all day long, that would not affect my praying. If I could not have five minutes that I might spend in prayer by myself, I should pray all the same. Minute by minute, moment by moment, somehow or other, my heart must commune with my God.
A man who never speaks to his Maker! A man? Can he be a man? Let me look him up and down. A man, “fearfully and wonderfully made” by God, yet he never speaks to his Creator!
Spurgeon on Psalm 130:4
Sermon link But the very best prayer in all the world is that which comes from a broken heart and a contrite spirit—when, away in the corner there, beside the conscience stricken publican, we smite upon our breast and cry, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Do not, I beg you, think that your prayer will not succeed because you are in the depths. There is no place for praying like that, if ever a man is more sure to succeed with God at one time than at another, it is when he is in his greatest straits.
Sermon link But pardon—free pardon, perfect pardon, pardon given on the spot to simple faith—they tell us that this would tend to demoralize people. Well, that is a subject on which they can speak, for nobody has demoralized people more than so-called “priests” have done, but it is evident that God does not agree with them. It is written here, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “There is forgiveness with thee, that thou may be feared,” so that, instead of destroying any man’s fear, or reverence, or religion, the gift of a free pardon is to be the very means of producing such a condition of heart and life.
Maclaren on Ephesians 1:18
A man’s prayers for others are a very fair thermometer of his own religious condition. What he asks for them will largely indicate what he thinks best for himself; and how he asks it will show the firmness of his own faith and the fervour of his own feeling. There is nothing colder than the intercession of a cold Christian; and, on the other hand, in no part of the fervid Apostle Paul’s writings do his words come more winged and fast, or his spirit glow with greater fervour of affection and holy desire than in his petitions for his friends.
Maclaren on 1 Thessalonians 5:16
Petition is an element in prayer, and that it shall be crystallised into words is necessary sometimes; but there are prayers that never get themselves uttered, and I suppose that the deepest and truest communion with God is voiceless and wordless. ‘Things which it was not possible for a man to utter,’ was Paul’s description of what he saw and felt, when he was most completely absorbed in, and saturated with, the divine glory. The more we understand what prayer is, the less we shall feel that it depends upon utterance. For the essence of it is to have heart and mind filled with the consciousness of God’s presence, and to have the habit of referring everything to Him, in the moment when we are doing it, or when it meets us. That, as I take it, is prayer. The old mystics had a phrase, quaint, and in some sense unfortunate, but very striking, when they spoke about ‘the practice of the presence of God.’ God is here always, you will say; yes, He is, and to open the shutters, and to let the light always in, into every corner of my heart, and every detail of my life—that is what Paul means by ‘Praying without ceasing.’ Petitions? Yes; but something higher than petitions—the consciousness of being in touch with the Father, feeling that He is all round us. It was said about one mystical thinker that he was a ‘God-intoxicated man.’ It is an ugly word, but it expresses a very deep thing; but let us rather say a God-filled man. He who is such ‘prays always.’
GotQuestions on intercessory prayer
All Christians have the Holy Spirit in their hearts and, just as He intercedes for us in accordance with God’s will (Romans 8:26-27), we are to intercede for one another. This is not a privilege limited to an exclusive Christian elite; this is the command to all. In fact, not to intercede for others is sin. “As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you” (1 Samuel 12:23).
Barnes on Isaiah 65:24
Even the most faithful and prayerful of his people receive numerous favors and comforts at his hand for which they have not directly asked him.
When his people have been deeply impressed with a sense of the languishing state of religion; when they have gone unitedly before God and implored a blessing; God has heard their prayers, and even while they were speaking has begun a work of grace. Hundreds of such instances have occurred, alike demonstrating the faithfulness of God to his promises, and suited to encourage his people, and to excite them to prayer. It is one of the precious promises pertaining to the blessings of the reign of the Messiah, that the answer of prayer shall be immediate - and for this his people should look, and this they should expect. God can as easily answer prayer at once as to delay it; and when the proper state of mind exists, he is as ready to answer it now as to defer it to a future time. What encouragement have we to pray! How faithful, how fervent should we be in our supplications! How full of guilt are we if one single blessing is withheld from our world that might have been imparted if we had prayed as we ought; if one single soul shall be lost who might have been saved if we had not been unfaithful in prayer!
Barnes on Matthew 6:6
The meaning of the Saviour is, that there should be some place where we may be in secret - where we may be alone with God. There should be some “place” to which we may resort where no ear will hear us but “His” ear, and no eye can see us but His eye. Unless there is such a place, secret prayer will not be long or strictly maintained. It is often said that we have no such place, and can secure none. We are away from home; we are traveling; we are among strangers; we are in stages and steamboats, and how can we find such places of retirement? I answer, the desire to pray, and the love of prayer, will create such places in abundance. The Saviour had all the difficulties which we can have, but yet he lived in the practice of secret prayer. To be alone, he rose up “a great while before day,” and went into a solitary place and prayed, Mark 1:35. With him a grove, a mountain, a garden, furnished such a place, and, though a traveler, and among strangers, and without a house, he lived in the habit of secret prayer. What excuse can they have for not praying who have a home, and who spend the precious hours of the morning in sleep, and who will practice no self-denial that they may be alone with God? O Christian! thy Saviour would have broken in upon these hours, and would have trod his solitary way to the mountain or the grove that he might pray. He did do it. He did it to pray for thee, too indolent and too unconcerned about thy own salvation and that of the world to practice the least self-denial in order to commune with God! How can religion live thus? How can such a soul be saved?
The Saviour does not specify the times when we should pray in secret. He does not say how often it should be done. The reasons may have been:
(1) that he designed that his religion should be “voluntary,” and there is not a better “test” of true piety than a disposition to engage often in secret prayer. He intended to leave it to his people to show attachment to him by coming to God often, and as often as they chose.
(2) an attempt to specify the times when this should be done would tend to make religion formal and heartless. Mohammed undertook to regulate this, and the consequence is a cold and formal prostration at the appointed hours of prayer all over the land where his religion has spread.
(3) the periods are so numerous, and the seasons for secret prayer vary so much, that it would nor be easy to fix rules when this should be done.
Yet without giving rules, where the Saviour has given none, we may suggest the following as times when secret prayer is proper:
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In the morning. Nothing can be more appropriate when we have been preserved through the night, and when we are about to enter upon the duties and dangers of another day, than to render to our great Preserver thanks, and to commit ourselves to His fatherly care.
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In the evening. When the day has closed, what would be more natural than to offer thanksgiving for the mercies of the day, and to implore forgiveness for what we have said or done amiss? And when about to lie down again to sleep, not knowing but it may be our last sleep and that we may awake in eternity, what more proper than to commend ourselves to the care of Him “who never slumbers nor sleeps?”
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We should pray in times of embarrassment and perplexity. Such times occur in every man’s life, and it is then a privilege and a duty to go to God and seek his direction. In the most difficult and embarrassed time of the American Revolution, Washington was seen to retire to a grove in the vicinity of the camp at Valley Forge. Curiosity led a man to observe him, and the father of his country was seen on his knees supplicating the God of hosts in prayer. Who can tell how much the liberty of this nation is owing to the answer to the secret prayer of Washington?
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We should pray when we are beset with strong temptations. So the Saviour prayed in the garden of Gethsemane (compare Hebrews 5:7-8), and so we should pray when we are tempted.
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We should pray when the Spirit prompts us to pray; when we feel lust like praying; when nothing can satisfy the soul but prayer. Such times occur in the life of every Christian, (and they are “spring-times” of piety - favorable gales to waft us on to heaven. Prayer to the Christian, at such times, is just as congenial as conversation with a friend when the bosom is filled with love; as the society of father, mother, sister, child is, when the heart glows with attachment; as the strains of sweet music are to the ear best attuned to the love of harmony; as the most exquisite poetry is to the heart enamored with the muses; and as the most delicious banquet is to the hungry.
Prayer, then, is the element of being - the breath the vital air; and, then, the Christian must and should pray. He is the most eminent Christian who is most favored with such strong emotions urging him to prayer. The heart is then full; the soul is tender; the sun of glory shines with unusual splendor; no cloud intervenes; the Christian rises above the world, and pants for glory. then we may go to be alone with God. We may enter the closet, and breathe forth our warm desires into his ever-open ear, and He who sees in secret will reward us openly.
In secret - Who is unseen.
Who seeth in secret - Who sees what the human eye cannot see; who sees the real designs and desires of the heart. Prayer should always be offered, remembering that God is acquainted with our real desires; and that it is those real desires, and not the words of prayer, that he will answer.