THE PREACHER’S PRIVATE PRAYER
This was passed on to me by a friend in ministry. I pray God uses it to enrich and edify you; especially those in ministry. God bless you all.
Editor’s Note: This week, we bring you a classic message from the
great 19th century preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Among his
many impressive ministries, Spurgeon spent much time training up his fellow
pastors. This piece is an excerpt encouraging his students – above all – to be
frequent in private prayer.
I take it that as a minister he is always praying. Whenever his mind turns to his
work, whether he is in it or out of it, he ejaculates a petition, sending up
his holy desires as well-directed arrows to the skies. He is not always in the
act of prayer, but he lives in the spirit of it. If his heart be in his work,
he cannot eat or drink, or take recreation, or go to his bed, or rise in the
morning, without evermore feeling a fervency of desire, a weight of anxiety,
and a simplicity of dependence upon God; thus, in one form or other he continues
in prayer. If there be any man under heaven, who is compelled to carry out the
precept “Pray without ceasing,” surely it is the Christian minister. He has
peculiar temptations, special trials, singular difficulties, and remarkable
duties; he therefore needs much more grace than common men, and as he knows
this, he is led constantly to cry to the strong for strength, and say, “I will
lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
It
may scarcely be needful to commend to you the sweet uses of private devotion,
and yet I cannot forbear. To you, as the ambassadors of God, the mercy-seat has
a virtue beyond all estimate; the more familiar you are with the court of
heaven the better shall you discharge your heavenly trust. Among all the formative
influences which go to make up a man honoured of God in the ministry, I know of
none more mighty than his own familiarity with the mercy-seat. All that a
college course can do for a student is coarse and external compared with the
spiritual and delicate refinement obtained by communion with God. While the
unformed minister is revolving upon the wheel of preparation, prayer is the
tool of the great potter by which he moulds the vessel. All our libraries and
studies are mere emptiness compared with our closets. We grow, we wax mighty,
we prevail in private prayer.
Your prayers will be your ablest assistants while your discourses are yet
upon the anvil. While other men, like Esau, are hunting for their
portion, you, by the aid of prayer, will find the savoury meat near at home,
and may say in truth what Jacob said so falsely, “The Lord brought it to me.”
If you can dip your pens into your hearts, appealing in earnestness to the
Lord, you will write well; and if you can gather your matter on your knees at
the gate of heaven, you will not fail to speak well. Prayer, as a mental
exercise, will bring many subjects before the mind, and so help in the
selection of a topic, while as a high spiritual engagement it will cleanse your
inner eye that you may see truth in the light of God. Texts will often refuse
to reveal their treasures till you open them with the key of prayer. How
wonderfully were the books opened to Daniel when he was in supplication! How
much Peter learned upon the housetop! The closet is the best study. The
commentators are good instructors, but the Author himself is far better, and
prayer makes a direct appeal to him and enlists him in our cause. It is a great
thing to pray one’s self into the spirit and marrow of a text; working into it
by sacred feeding thereon. Prayer supplies a leverage for the uplifting of
ponderous truths. One marvels how the stones of Stonehenge could have been set
in their places; it is even more to be enquired after whence some men obtained
such admirable knowledge of mysterious doctrines: was not prayer the potent
machinery which wrought the wonder? Waiting upon God often turns darkness into
light. A certain Puritan divine at a debate was observed frequently to write
upon the paper before him, “More light, Lord,” “More light, Lord,” repeated
scores of times: a most suitable prayer for the student of the Word when
preparing his discourse.
You
will frequently find fresh streams of thought leaping up from the passage
before you, as if the rock had been struck by Moses’ rod; new veins of precious
ore will be revealed to your astonished gaze as you quarry God’s Word and use
diligently the hammer of prayer. You will sometimes feel as if you were
entirely shut up, and then suddenly a new road will open before you.
The
best and holiest men have ever made prayer the most important part of pulpit
preparation. It is said of [Robert Murray M'Cheyne]:
“Anxious to give his people on the Sabbath what had cost him
somewhat, he never, without an urgent reason, went before them without much previous
meditation and prayer. His principle on this subject was embodied in a remark
he made to some of us who were conversing on the matter. Being asked his view
of diligent preparation for the pulpit, he reminded us of Exodus 27:20, ‘Beaten oil–beaten oil for
the lamps of the sanctuary.’ And yet his prayerfulness was
greater still. Indeed, he could not neglect fellowship with God before entering
the congregation. He needed to be bathed in the love of God. His ministry was
so much a bringing out of views that had first sanctified his own soul, that
the healthiness of his soul was absolutely needful to the vigour and power of
his ministrations. With him the commencement of all labour invariably consisted
in the preparation of his own soul. The walls of his chamber were witnesses of
his prayerfulness and of his tears, as well as of his cries.”
Prayer will singularly assist you in the delivery of your
sermon; in fact, nothing can so gloriously fit you to preach as
descending fresh from the mount of communion with God to speak with men. None
are so able to plead with men as those who have been wrestling with God on
their behalf. It is said of [Joseph Alleine], “He poured out his very heart in
prayer and preaching. His supplications and his exhortations were so affectionate,
so full of holy zeal, life and vigour, that they quite overcame his hearers; he
melted over them, so that he thawed and mollified, and sometimes dissolved the
hardest hearts.” There could have been none of this sacred dissolving of heart
if his mind had not been previously exposed to the tropical rays of the Sun of
Righteousness by private fellowship with the risen Lord.
As
fresh springs of thought will frequently break up during preparation in answer
to prayer, so will it be in the delivery of the sermon. Most preachers who
depend upon God’s Spirit will tell you that their freshest and best thoughts
are not those which were premeditated, but ideas which come to them, flying as
on the wings of angels; unexpected treasures brought on a sudden by celestial
hands, seeds of the flowers of paradise, wafted from the mountains of myrrh.
Often and often when I have felt hampered, both in thought and expression, my
secret groaning of heart has brought me relief, and I have enjoyed more than
usual liberty. But how dare we pray in the battle if we have never cried to the
Lord while buckling on the harness! The remembrance of his wrestlings at home
comforts the fettered preacher when in the pulpit: God will not desert us
unless we have deserted him. You, brethren, will find that prayer will ensure
you strength equal to your day.
There
is a distinct connection between importunate agonising and true success, even
as between the travail and the birth, the sowing in tears and the reaping in
joy. “How is it that your seed comes up so soon?” said one gardener to another.
“Because I steep it,” was the reply. We must steep all our teachings in tears,
“when none but God is nigh,” and their growth will surprise and delight us.
Could anyone wonder at [David Brainerd's] success, when his diary contains such
notes as this: “Lord’s Day, April 25th–This morning spent about two hours in
sacred duties, and was enabled, more than ordinarily, to agonize for immortal
souls; though it was early in the morning, and the sun scarcely shone at all,
yet my body was quite wet with sweat.” The secret of Luther’s power lay in the
same direction. Theodorus said of him: “I overheard him in prayer, but, good
God, with what life and spirit did he pray! It was with so much reverence, as
if he were speaking to God, yet with so much confidence as if he were speaking
to his friend.” My brethren, let me beseech you to be men of prayer. Great
talents you may never have, but you will do well enough without them if you
abound in intercession.
When
we have done with preaching, we shall not, if we are true ministers of God,
have done with praying, because the whole church, with many tongues, will be
crying, in the language of the Macedonian, “Come over and help us” in prayer.
If you are enabled to prevail in prayer you will have many requests to offer
for others who will flock to you, and beg a share in your intercessions, and so
you will find yourselves commissioned with errands to the mercy-seat for
friends and hearers. Such is always my lot, and I feel it a pleasure to have
such requests to present before my Lord. Never can you be short of themes for
prayer, even if no one should suggest them to you. Look at your congregation.
There are always sick folk among them, and many more who are soul-sick. Some
are unsaved, others are seeking and cannot find. Many are desponding, and not a
few believers are backsliding or mourning. There are widows’ tears and orphans’
sighs to be put into our bottle, and poured out before the Lord. If you are a
genuine minister of God you will stand as a priest before the Lord, spiritually
wearing the ephod and the breast-plate whereon you bear the names of the
children of Israel, pleading for them within the veil. I have known brethren
who have kept a list of persons for whom they felt bound especially to pray,
and I doubt not such a record often reminded them of what might otherwise have
slipped their memory.
The
minister who does not earnestly pray over his work must surely be a vain and
conceited man. He acts as if he thought himself sufficient of himself, and
therefore needed not to appeal to God. Yet what a baseless pride to conceive
that our preaching can ever be in itself so powerful that it can turn men from
their sins, and bring them to God without the working of the Holy Ghost. If we
are truly humble-minded we shall not venture down to the fight until the Lord
of Hosts has clothed us with all power, and said to us, “Go in this thy might.”
The preacher who neglects to pray much must be very careless about his ministry.
He cannot have comprehended his calling. He cannot have computed the value of a
soul, or estimated the meaning of eternity. He must be a mere official, tempted
into a pulpit because the piece of bread which belongs to the priest’s office
is very necessary to him, or a detestable hypocrite who loves the praise of
men, and cares not for the praise of God. He will surely become a mere
superficial talker, best approved where grace is least valued and a vain show
most admired. He cannot be one of those who plough deep and reap abundant
harvests. He is a mere loiterer, not a labourer. As a preacher he has a name to
live and is dead. He limps in his life like the lame man in the Proverbs, whose
legs were not equal, for his praying is shorter than his preaching.
How few of us could compare ourselves with Mr. Joseph Alleine,
whose character I have mentioned before? “At the time of his health,” writes
his wife, “he did rise constantly at or before four of the clock, and would be
much troubled if he heard smiths or other craftsmen at their trades before he
was at communion with God; saying to me often, ‘How this noise shames me. Does
not my Master deserve more than theirs?’ From four till eight he spent in
prayer, holy contemplation, and singing of psalms, in which he much delighted
and did daily practise alone, as well as in the family. Sometimes he would
suspend the routine of parochial engagements, and devote whole days to these
secret exercises, in order to which, he would contrive to be alone in some void
house, or else in some sequestered spot in the open valley. Here there would be
much prayer and meditation on God and heaven.” Could we read Jonathan Edwards,
description of David Brainerd and not blush? “His life,” says Edwards, “shows
the right way to success in the works of the ministry. He sought it as a
resolute soldier seeks victory in a siege or battle; or as a man that runs a
race for a great prize. Animated with love to Christ and souls, how did he
labour always fervently, not only in word and doctrine, in public and private,
but in prayers day
and night, ‘wrestling with God’ in secret, and ‘travailing in birth,’ with
unutterable groans and agonies! ‘until Christ were formed’ in the hearts of the
people to whom he was sent! How did he thirst for a blessing upon his ministry,
‘and watch for souls as one that must give account!’ How did he ‘go forth in
the strength of the Lord God,’ seeking and depending on the special influence
of the Spirit to assist and succeed him! And what was the happy fruit at last, after
long waiting and many dark and discouraging appearances: like a true son of
Jacob, he persevered in wrestling through all the darkness of the night, until
the breaking of the day.”
How much of blessing we may have missed through remissness in
supplication we can scarcely guess, and none of us can know how poor we are in
comparison with what we might have been if we had lived habitually nearer to
God in prayer. Vain regrets and surmises are useless, but an earnest
determination to amend will be far more useful. We not only ought to pray more,
but we must. The fact is
the secret of all ministerial success lies in prevalence at the mercy-seat.
SOURCE: Spurgeon, Lectures to My
Students, pp. 43-54. [First published 1875-94]
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