Longing for God: The Art of Prayer
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In Job's uttermost extremity he cried after the Lord. The longing desire of an afflicted child of God is once more to see his Father's face. His first prayer is not oh that I might be healed of the disease which now festers in every part of my body, nor even oh that I might see my children restored from the jaws of the grave, and my property once more brought from the hand of the spoiler, but the first and uppermost cry is oh that I knew where I might find him who is my God that I might even come to his seat. [00:27:19]
God's children run home when the storm comes on. It is the heaven-born instinct of a gracious soul to seek shelter from all ills beneath the wings of Jehovah. He that hath made his refuge God might serve as the title of a true believer. A hypocrite when he feels that he has been afflicted by God resents the infliction, and like a slave would run from the master who has scourged him, but not so the true heir of heaven. [00:65:76]
You will observe that the desire to commune with God is intensified by the failure of all other sources of consolation. When Job first saw his friends at a distance, he may have entertained a hope that their kindly counsel and compassionate tenderness would blunt the edge of his grief, but they had not long spoken before he cried out in bitterness, miserable comforters are ye all. [01:10:07]
My brethren nothing teaches us so much the preciousness of the creator as when we learn the emptiness of all besides. When you have been pierced through and through with the sentence cursed is he that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm, then will you suck unutterable sweetness from the divine assurance blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is. [03:03:20]
It is further observable that though a good man hastens to God in his trouble, and runs with all the more speed because of the unkindness of his fellow men, yet sometimes the gracious soul is left without the comfortable presence of God. This is the worst of all griefs. The text is one of Job's deep groans far deeper than any which came from him on account of the loss of his children and his property. [03:30:04]
There is a vulgar notion that prayer is a very easy thing a kind of common business that may be done anyhow without care or effort. Some think that you have only to reach a book down and get through a certain number of very excellent words and you have prayed and may put the book up again. Others suppose that to use a book is superstitious and that you ought rather to repeat extemporaneous sentences. [09:00:40]
The ancient saints were won't with Job to order their cause before God, that is to say as a petitioner coming into court does not come there without a thought to state his case on the spur of the moment, but enters into the audience chamber with his suit well prepared, having moreover learned how he ought to behave himself in the presence of the great one to whom he is appealing. [10:13:36]
It is well to approach the seat of the king of kings as much as possible with premeditation and preparation knowing what we are about, where we are standing, and what it is which we desire to obtain. In times of peril and distress we may fly to God just as we are as the dove enters the cleft of the rock, even though her plumes are ruffled, but in ordinary times, we should not come with an unprepared spirit. [10:37:76]
The true spiritual order of prayer seems to me to consist in something more than mere arrangement. It is most fitting for us to feel what we are now doing, something that is real, that we are about to address ourselves to God, whom we cannot see, but who is really present, whom we can neither touch nor hear, nor by our senses can apprehend but who nevertheless is as truly with us as though we were speaking to a friend of flesh and blood like ourselves. [16:03:19]
The arguments to be used are for our own benefits, not for his. He requires for us to plead with him and to bring forth our strong reasons as Isaiah saith, because this will show that we feel the value of the mercy. When a man searches for arguments for a thing it is because he attaches importance to that which he is seeking. Again our use of arguments teaches us the ground upon which we obtain the blessing. [25:33:84]
The very act of prayer is a blessing, to pray is as it were to bathe oneself in a cool pearling stream, and so to escape from the heats of earth's summer sun, to pray is to mount on eagle's wings above the clouds and get into the clear heaven where God dwelleth, to pray is to enter the treasure house of God and to enrich oneself out of an inexhaustible storehouse. [27:54:32]
The man who has his mouth full of arguments in prayer shall soon have his mouth full of benedictions in answer to prayer. Dear friend thou hast thy mouth full this morning hast thou what of full of complaining, pray the Lord to rinse thy mouth out of that black stuff, for it will little avail thee and it will be bitter in thy bowels one of these days. [49:15:56]
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God's children run home when the storm comes on. It is the heaven-born instinct of a gracious soul to seek shelter from all ills beneath the wings of Jehovah. He that hath made his refuge God might serve as the title of a true believer. A hypocrite when he feels that he has been afflicted by God resents the infliction, and like a slave would run from the master who has scourged him, but not so the true heir of heaven. [00:65:76]
You will observe that the desire to commune with God is intensified by the failure of all other sources of consolation. When Job first saw his friends at a distance, he may have entertained a hope that their kindly counsel and compassionate tenderness would blunt the edge of his grief, but they had not long spoken before he cried out in bitterness, miserable comforters are ye all. [01:10:07]
My brethren nothing teaches us so much the preciousness of the creator as when we learn the emptiness of all besides. When you have been pierced through and through with the sentence cursed is he that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm, then will you suck unutterable sweetness from the divine assurance blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is. [03:03:20]
It is further observable that though a good man hastens to God in his trouble, and runs with all the more speed because of the unkindness of his fellow men, yet sometimes the gracious soul is left without the comfortable presence of God. This is the worst of all griefs. The text is one of Job's deep groans far deeper than any which came from him on account of the loss of his children and his property. [03:30:04]
There is a vulgar notion that prayer is a very easy thing a kind of common business that may be done anyhow without care or effort. Some think that you have only to reach a book down and get through a certain number of very excellent words and you have prayed and may put the book up again. Others suppose that to use a book is superstitious and that you ought rather to repeat extemporaneous sentences. [09:00:40]
The ancient saints were won't with Job to order their cause before God, that is to say as a petitioner coming into court does not come there without a thought to state his case on the spur of the moment, but enters into the audience chamber with his suit well prepared, having moreover learned how he ought to behave himself in the presence of the great one to whom he is appealing. [10:13:36]
It is well to approach the seat of the king of kings as much as possible with premeditation and preparation knowing what we are about, where we are standing, and what it is which we desire to obtain. In times of peril and distress we may fly to God just as we are as the dove enters the cleft of the rock, even though her plumes are ruffled, but in ordinary times, we should not come with an unprepared spirit. [10:37:76]
The true spiritual order of prayer seems to me to consist in something more than mere arrangement. It is most fitting for us to feel what we are now doing, something that is real, that we are about to address ourselves to God, whom we cannot see, but who is really present, whom we can neither touch nor hear, nor by our senses can apprehend but who nevertheless is as truly with us as though we were speaking to a friend of flesh and blood like ourselves. [16:03:19]
The arguments to be used are for our own benefits, not for his. He requires for us to plead with him and to bring forth our strong reasons as Isaiah saith, because this will show that we feel the value of the mercy. When a man searches for arguments for a thing it is because he attaches importance to that which he is seeking. Again our use of arguments teaches us the ground upon which we obtain the blessing. [25:33:84]
The very act of prayer is a blessing, to pray is as it were to bathe oneself in a cool pearling stream, and so to escape from the heats of earth's summer sun, to pray is to mount on eagle's wings above the clouds and get into the clear heaven where God dwelleth, to pray is to enter the treasure house of God and to enrich oneself out of an inexhaustible storehouse. [27:54:32]
The man who has his mouth full of arguments in prayer shall soon have his mouth full of benedictions in answer to prayer. Dear friend thou hast thy mouth full this morning hast thou what of full of complaining, pray the Lord to rinse thy mouth out of that black stuff, for it will little avail thee and it will be bitter in thy bowels one of these days. [49:15:56]
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