Words spoken by saints about to depart for their heavenly Home often affect us deeply. John Sung, who did so much to establish God’s work in China, had a dying message for the Church today. “The work of the future is to be the work of prayer,” he gasped.
“There is no way that Christians, in a private capacity, can do so much to promote the work of God and advance the Kingdom of Christ as by prayer,” said Jonathan Edwards.
“Prayer, unceasing and earnest,” comments William Burns, another laboror for God in China, “is that wherein the great strength of a revival of religion lieth. Who among us has the spirit of prayer?” he continues. “They are mighty who have this spirit, and weak who have it not . . . . The great fundamental error as far as I can see, in the economy of the Christian life, which many, and alas! I for one commit, is that of having too few and too short periods of solemn retirement with our gracious Father and His adorable Son, Jesus Christ.”
“Brother, if you would enter that Province, you must go forward on your knees,” wrote Hudson Taylor to a fellow-missionary who had asked his advice regarding pioneering in China.
“God Himself is the great source of power,” Mr. Taylor continues. “Power belongeth unto God. . . . Further, God’s power is available power. We are supernatural people, born again by a supernatural birth, kept by a supernatural power, sustained on supernatural food, taught by a supernatural Teacher from a supernatural Book. We are led by a supernatural Captain in right paths to assured victories.”
And still another missionary concludes: “The invisible results are, I verily believe, far greater and far more important than the visible. The growth of our work is similar to that of a plant. The root of a plant takes a longer time to grow than the stem; but maturation takes more time than either. The giant oak is wrapped up in that tiny acorn; but to develop it, the acorn must have time to strike its roots, and the sapling must be exposed to the necessary influences. Summer and winter, spring and autumn, the stormy winds and soft breezes have all had a share in, and were all necessary to, the development of the baby-oak into the fair tree you see today. So it is with our work. All great work requires time.”
– Griffith John
All the above quotations are taken from How They Prayed Volume 3, written and compiled by Edwin and Lillian Harvey, and published by Harvey Christian Publishers. This book is available in their Online Christian Bookstore.
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These quotations have been taken from How They Prayed Volume Three which is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their Online Christian Bookstore.
D. L. Moody said: “Next to the wonder of seeing my Savior will be, I think, the wonder that I have made so little of the power of prayer.” This statement was uttered by D. L. Moody and quoted in the book by Edwin and Lillian Harvey entitled How They Prayed Volume 3. A further quotation by R. A. Torrey reveals the fact that Mr. Moody was a man of prayer in the deepest and most meaningful sense:
Mr. Finney was also a praying man. A student of Oberlin College, forty-five years later, has this to say about his professor: “The class in Theology in 1838, met to hear one of the last lectures of the course. Our teacher, as usual, knelt with us in offering the opening prayer. But the burden on his soul for us, for Zion, for a lost world, could not be thrown off in a few petitions. He ‘stood in the gap’ and wrestled for the blessing. For a whole hour he led us up to God. We then arose and went in profound silence to our rooms. There was no lecture on that day. That prayer, never can we forget it!”
These quotations have been taken from How They Prayed Volume Three which is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their Online Christian Bookstore.
“Oh, for five hundred Elijahs,” exclaimed Charles Spurgeon, “each one upon his Carmel, crying unto God, and we should soon have the clouds bursting into showers! Oh, for more prayer, more constant, incessant prayer! Then the blessing would rain upon us.”
These words of Spurgeon’s are quoted on page sixty-one of the book, How They Prayed Vol. Two, written and compiled by Edwin and Lillian Harvey.
How They Prayed Vol. 2, written and compiled by Edwin and Lillian Harvey, is written to show how ministers of God’s word have discovered prayer to be the foundation of a work which endures and bears lasting fruit. “Get your sermon preparation well done before the Sabbath,” urges Samuel Chadwick. “Turn into bed in good time on Saturday night, and out of it early on Sunday morning. Get three hours with God before you go to the pulpit; get at Him by reading, believing, and praying over His Book. Talk with Him till He talks with you and says, “Go in this thy strength.”
S. Chadwick, p. 34
Alexander Whyte has further advice for every minister of the Gospel:
“Pray after the sermon. Prayer for ourselves and the people after preaching is much neglected. Do not neglect either.”
“With his closet, and with the key of his closet continually in his hand, no minister need despair, even though he is not a great orator with a great gift of public prayer.”
“Apart! Apart! Every minister―of all men―apart!”
“Our friends! How bad we all are to our friends! How short-sighted, how cruel, how thoughtless, how inconsiderate! We send them gifts. Our children cover their Christmas tree with Christmas presents to our friends. Our friends cost us a great deal of thought and trouble and money, from time to time. We send them sheaves of cards with all manner of affectionate devices and verses. We take time and we write our old friends, at home and abroad, letters full of news and of affection on Christmas Day and on New Year’s Day. But we never pray for them! Or, at best, we pray for them in a great hurry.
“Why do we do everything for our friends, but the best thing? How few of us shut our door during all the leisure of the last two weeks, and deliberately, and particularly, and with discrimination, and with importunity prayed for our dearest and best friends! We discriminate in our purchases for our friends, lest we should slight or offend our friends; but not in our prayers.”
Why should we wonder at the flight
Of any streaking satellite,
When every worshipping heart can share
A gold immensity of prayer
That circles earth and reaches far
Beyond the mightiest gleaming star―
More bright than any galaxy,
More wide than all infinity!
―Grace V. Watkins.
(Used by Permission of Herald of Holiness).
How They Prayed Vol. 2 is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their Online Christian Bookstore.
When the glory of the Father
Is the goal of every prayer―
When before the Throne in Heaven
Our High Priest presents it there―
When the Spirit prompts the asking,
When the waiting heart believes―
Then we know of each petition
Everyone who asks receives.
This poem is on the back cover of the book, How They Prayed Vol. 2, written and compiled by Edwin and Lillian Harvey. This volume particularly emphasizes the need for ministers of the Gospel to be steeped in prayer and quotes from various preachers and pastors of past generations to show how they have stressed and practiced the importance of prayer in their ministry.
The opening chapters stress the importance of early rising as can be seen by the following excerpts:
On the lone mountain side,
Before the morning’s light,
The Man of sorrows wept and cried
And rose refreshed with might:
O hear us, then, for we
Are very weak and frail;
We make the Savior’s name our plea,
And surely must prevail.
―Charles Spurgeon. p. 8
This (early rising) used to be easier than it is now. The whole habit of life of the modern world has been changed, and for the worse spiritually, by two inventions, rapid locomotion and brilliant artificial lights. By the latter, night can be turned into day; the world sits up late and cannot rise early. The evident rule of the Creator for His creatures is disregarded by man, and one inevitable result is that while birds and beasts go on without nervous disorders, the human race gets more and more neurotic and undependable.―From An Ordered Life, by G. H. Lang, by permission of Paternoster Press, Exeter. Quoted in Royal Insignia, p. 14
If you receive what I call ‘the full composure’ in the morning, the mind stayed upon God, the solid rest, this will carry you into all your little concerns with the utmost patience, and the daily cross will be the blessed means of increasing your heaven. And this is a constant heaven; this is your place―to have God your all. William Bramwell. p. 22
“A plain man once said in the presence of the writer, ‘You must get up soon of a morning if you intend to get to windward of the Almighty.’ He spoke the truth.”―Thomas Champness, How They Prayed Vol. 2, p. 33
This is the main thrust of the first two chapters of How They Prayed Vol. 2, written and compiled by Edwin and Lillian Harvey, a book which focuses on the importance of prayer in the lives of all who would serve God and minister to others. Gerhardt Tersteegen echoes the same thought:
“O brothers; in these silent hours
God’s miracles are wrought;
He giveth His beloved in sleep
A treasure all unsought.
“I sit an infant at His feet,
Where moments teach me more
Than all the toil and all the books
Of all the ages hoar.”
―Tersteegen. p. 23
“Though I am apt to be unsettled and quickly set off the hinges,” writes Joseph Alleine, “yet methinks I am like a bird out of the nest; I am never quiet till I am in my old way of communion with God, like the needle in the compass that is restless till it be turned toward the pole. I can say, through grace, with the Church, ‘with my soul have I desired thee in the night, and with my spirit within me have I sought thee early.’ My heart is early and late with God; ’tis the business of my life and the delight of my life to seek Him.” p. 25
Yet never sleep the sun up; prayer should
Dawn with the day: these are set awful hours
’Twixt Heaven and us: the manna was not good
After sun-rising; for day sullies flowers:
Rise to prevent the sun; sleep doth sins glut,
And Heaven’s gates open when the world’s is shut.
―J Henry Vaughan p. 23
How They Prayed Vol. Two is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their Online Christian Bookstore.
Who among us relishes being told his or her faults? Self-justification is generally our spontaneous reaction. Yet Pascal advises otherwise: “When people detect in us what are actually imperfections and faults, it is clear that they do us no wrong, since it is not they who caused them; and it is clear, too, that they do us a service, inasmuch as they help us to free ourselves from an evil, namely, the ignorance of these defects. We should not be angry because they know them and despise us; for it is right that they should know us for what we are, and that they should despise us if we are despicable.”
Pascal. p. 179
“Ah, Lord, since in Thy hands the most feeble things gain power and strength, and a reed placed within them becomes a scepter, take Thou my heart; it is but a reed, flexible and versatile, turning with every wind; a hollow reed, empty of charity, of devotion, empty of all good. But from the moment it is placed in Thy hands, it will be filled with the strength of Thy divine Spirit, and will become a generous heart, a firm heart, an ardent and fervent heart, ready to surmount all difficulties, and to make all obstacles give way before its indefatigable perseverance.” Ibid, p. 188
I asked of God that He should give success
To the high task I sought for Him to do;
I asked that every hindrance might grow less
And that my hours of weakness might be few;
I asked that far and lofty heights be scaled;
And now I humbly thank Him that I failed.
For with the pain and sorrow came to me
A dower of tenderness in act and thought;
And with the failure came a sympathy,
An insight which success had never brought.
Father, I had been foolish and unblest
If Thou hadst granted me my blind request.
—J. Stuart Holden. P. 146
“I could not do without Thee!
I cannot stand alone:
I have no strength or goodness,
No wisdom of my own.
But Thou, beloved Savior,
Art all in all to me;
And weakness will be power,
If leaning hard on Thee.”
—Frances Ridley Havergal, Royal Insignia, p. 178
Without humility religious progress is impossible. The true growth of the soul is not to be measured by our attempting many extraordinary duties but by our power of doing simple duties well. And humility, when it reigns in the soul, carries this principle into practice. It bids us hallow our work, especially whatever may be to us hard or distasteful work.—H. P. Liddon, Ibid, p. 146
Royal Insignia is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their Online Christian Bookstore.
Most of us find that we are being urged in a thousand ways to step up, make something of ourselves often at the cost of others, and realize our full potential. While in Christ, we certainly can become the full-orbed person we were created to be, the way to achieve this is often the reverse of what the world would advise. In the book Royal Insignia, we are reminded of our Master’s example and urged to follow in His steps. On page 194, we read Campbell Morgan’s comments on Christ’s washing His disciples’ feet in the thirteenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel:
What condescension,
Bringing us redemption . . .
God, gracious, tender,
Laid aside His splendor,
Stooping to woo, to win, to save my soul.
—W. E. Booth-Clibborn. Royal Insignia, p. 196
O blessed name of SERVANT! comprehending
Man’s highest honor in his humblest name;
For Thou, God’s Christ, that office recommending,
The throne of mighty power didst truly claim;
He who would rise like Thee, like Thee must owe
His glory only to his stooping low.
—Bethune. Ibid, p. 194
Royal Insignia is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their Online Christian Bookstore.
Royal Insignia is the title given to a compilation on the subject of humility, written and compiled by Edwin and Lillian Harvey, and it makes us ask the question, “What indeed is the sign that we are true followers of Jesus Christ? Watchman Nee puts this exact question to us in the following quotation from the above-mentioned book:
“Circumcision was a sign that marked out the Jew from the rest of mankind. What is the corresponding mark of our Christian life before men? Is it charity? Wisdom? Sincerity? Zeal? Other men have these. None of them is peculiar to the people of God, but there is one that is. It is a seemly absence of self-confidence! What distinguishes God’s own is that their confidence in the flesh is destroyed and they are cast back upon Him.
“Meekness,” states Oswald Chambers, “is a state of flexibility in the hand of God and a condition of inflexibility to evil. It is a domestic word used of a disciplined animal. Meekness is self-control and like the mighty engine can polish a needle or cut a bar of iron. It is man’s spirit under the control of God’s Spirit.
—Oswald Chambers. Royal Insignia, p. 168
Live Christ—and though thy road may be
The strait way of humility;
He Who first trod that way of God
Will clothe thee with His dignity.
—John Oxenham. Royal Insignia, p.176
Royal Insignia is published by Harvey Christian Publishers and is available in their Online Christian Bookstore.
