Then, again, permit me to say, how are you to prove your love to Christ or to
his church if you refuse to pray for men? “We know that we have passed from
death unto life, because we love the brethren.” If we do not love the
brethren, we are still dead. I will aver no man loves the brethren who does
not pray for them. What! It is the very least thing you can do, and if you do
not perform the least, you certainly will fail in the greater. You do not
love the brethren unless you pray for them, and then it follows you are dead
in trespasses and sins. Let me ask you again how is it that you hope to get
your own prayers answered if you never plead for others? Will not the Lord
say, “Selfish wretch, thou art always knocking at my door, but it is always
to cry for thine own welfare and never for another’s; inasmuch as thou hast
never asked for a blessing for one of the least of these my brethren, neither
will I give a blessing to thee. Thou lovest not the saints, thou lovest not
thy fellow men, how canst thou love me whom thou hast not seen, and how shall
I love thee and give thee the blessing which thou askest at my hands?”
Brethren, again I say I would earnestly exhort you to intercede for others,
for how can you be Christians if you do not? Christians are priests, but how
priests if they offer no sacrifice? Christians are lights, but how lights
unless they shine for others? Christians are sent into the world, even as
Christ was sent into the world, but how sent unless they are sent to pray?
Christians are meant not only to be blessed themselves, but in them shall all
the nations of the earth be blessed, but how if you refuse to pray? Give up
your profession, cast down, I pray you, the ephod of a priest if you will not
burn the incense, renounce your Christianity if you will not carry it out,
make not a mock and sport of solemn things. And you must do so if you still
refuse selfishly to give to your friends a part and a lot in your
supplications before the throne. O brethren, let us unite with one heart and
with one soul to plead with God for this neighbourhood! Let us carry “London”
written on our breasts just as the high priest of old carried the names of
the tribes. Mothers, bear your children before God! Fathers, carry your sons
and your daughters! Men and brethren, let us take a wicked world and the dark
places thereof which are full of the habitations of cruelty! Let us cry aloud
and keep no silence, and give to the Lord no rest till he establish and make
his Church a praise in the earth. Wake, ye watchmen upon Zion’s walls, and
renew your shouts! Wake, ye favourites of heaven, and renew your prayers! The
cloud hangs above you, it is yours to draw down its sacred floods in genial
showers by earnest prayers. God hath put high up in the mountains of his
promise springs of love, it is yours to bring them down by the divine channel
of your intense supplications. Do it, I pray you, lest inasmuch as you have
shut your bowels of compassion and have refused to plead with God for the
conversion of others, he should say in his wrath, “These are not my children.
They have not my spirit. They are not partakers of my love, neither shall
they enter into my rest.” Why, there are some of you that have not prayed for
others for months, I am afraid, except it be at a prayer meeting. You know
what your night prayers are. It is, “Lord, take care of my family.” You know
how some farmers pray. “Lord, send fair weather in this part of the country.
Lord, preserve the precious fruits of the field all round this neighbourhood.
Never mind about their being spoilt anywhere else, for that will send the
markets up.” And so there are some who make themselves special objects of
supplication; and what care they for the perishing crowd. This is the drift
of some men’s wishes, “Lord, bless the Church, but don’t send another
minister into our neighbourhood lest he should take our congregations from
us. Lord, send labourers into the vineyard, but do not send them into our
corner lest they should take any of our glory from us.” That is the kind of
supplication. Let us have done with such. Let us be Christians; let us have
expanded souls and minds that can feel for others. Let us weep with them that
weep, and rejoice with them that rejoice; and as a Church and as private
persons, we shall find the Lord will turn our captivity when we pray for our
friends. God help us to plead for others! And as for you that have never
prayed for yourselves, God help you to believe in the Lord Jesus! Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
