4 Tendencies to Be Avoided
Let us often look at Brainerd in the woods of America pouring
out his very soul before God for the perishing heathen without whose salvation
nothing could make him happy. Prayer -- secret fervent believing prayer --
lies at the root of all personal godliness. A competent knowledge of the
language where a missionary lives, a mild and winning temper, a heart given up
to God in closet religion -- these, these are the attainments which, more than
all knowledge, or all other gifts, will fit us to become the instruments of
God in the great work of human redemption. -- Carrey's Brotherhood,
Serampore
THERE are two extreme tendencies in the ministry. The one is to shut itself
out from intercourse with the people. The monk, the hermit were illustrations of
this; they shut themselves out from men to be more with God. They failed, of
course. Our being with God is of use only as we expend its priceless benefits on
men. This age, neither with preacher nor with people, is much intent on God. Our
hankering is not that way. We shut ourselves to our study, we become students,
bookworms, Bible worms, sermon makers, noted for literature, thought, and
sermons; but the people and God, where are they? Out of heart, out of mind.
Preachers who are great thinkers, great students must be the greatest of
prayers, or else they will be the greatest of backsliders, heartless
professionals, rationalistic, less than the least of preachers in God's
estimate.
The other tendency is to thoroughly popularize the ministry. He is no longer
God's man, but a man of affairs, of the people. He prays not, because his
mission is to the people. If he can move the people, create an interest, a
sensation in favor of religion, an interest in Church work -- he is satisfied.
His personal relation to God is no factor in his work. Prayer has little or no
place in his plans. The disaster and ruin of such a ministry cannot be computed
by earthly arithmetic. What the preacher is in prayer to God, for himself, for
his people, so is his power for real good to men, so is his true fruitfulness,
his true fidelity to God, to man, for time, for eternity.
It is impossible for the preacher to keep his spirit in harmony with the
divine nature of his high calling without much prayer. That the preacher by dint
of duty and laborious fidelity to the work and routine of the ministry can keep
himself in trim and fitness is a serious mistake. Even sermon-making, incessant
and taxing as an art, as a duty, as a work, or as a pleasure, will engross and
harden, will estrange the heart, by neglect of prayer, from God. The scientist
loses God in nature. The preacher may lose God in his sermon.
Prayer freshens the heart of the preacher, keeps it in tune with God and in
sympathy with the people, lifts his ministry out of the chilly air of a
profession, fructifies routine and moves every wheel with the facility and power
of a divine unction.
Mr. Spurgeon says: "Of course the preacher is above all others distinguished
as a man of prayer. He prays as an ordinary Christian, else he were a hypocrite.
He prays more than ordinary Christians, else he were disqualified for the office
he has undertaken. If you as ministers are not very prayerful, you are to be
pitied. If you become lax in sacred devotion, not only will you need to be
pitied but your people also, and the day cometh in which you shall be ashamed
and confounded. All our libraries and studies are mere emptiness compared with
our closets. Our seasons of fasting and prayer at the Tabernacle have been high
days indeed; never has heaven's gate stood wider; never have our hearts been
nearer the central Glory."
The praying which makes a prayerful ministry is not a little praying put in
as we put flavor to give it a pleasant smack, but the praying must be in the
body, and form the blood and bones. Prayer is no petty duty, put into a corner;
no piecemeal performance made out of the fragments of time which have been
snatched from business and other engagements of life; but it means that the best
of our time, the heart of our time and strength must be given. It does not mean
the closet absorbed in the study or swallowed up in the activities of
ministerial duties; but it means the closet first, the study and activities
second, both study and activities freshened and made efficient by the closet.
Prayer that affects one's ministry must give tone to one's life. The praying
which gives color and bent to character is no pleasant, hurried pastime. It must
enter as strongly into the heart and life as Christ's "strong crying and tears"
did; must draw out the soul into an agony of desire as Paul's did; must be an
inwrought fire and force like the "effectual, fervent prayer" of James; must be
of that quality which, when put into the golden censer and incensed before God,
works mighty spiritual throes and revolutions.
Prayer is not a little habit pinned on to us while we were tied to our
mother's apron strings; neither is it a little decent quarter of a minute's
grace said over an hour's dinner, but it is a most serious work of our most
serious years. It engages more of time and appetite than our longest dinings or
richest feasts. The prayer that makes much of our preaching must be made much
of. The character of our praying will determine the character of our preaching.
Light praying will make light preaching. Prayer makes preaching strong, gives it
unction, and makes it stick. In every ministry weighty for good, prayer has
always been a serious business.
The preacher must be preeminently a man of prayer. His heart must graduate in
the school of prayer. In the school of prayer only can the heart learn to
preach. No learning can make up for the failure to pray. No earnestness, no
diligence, no study, no gifts will supply its lack.
Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is
greater still. He will never talk well and with real success to men for God who
has not learned well how to talk to God for men. More than this, prayerless
words in the pulpit and out of it are deadening words.
