Men and women of prayer

Before Pentecost the apostles had only glimpses of the importance of prayer. But the Spirit who descended and filled them at Pentecost raises prayer to its vital and decisive position in the gospel of Christ. The call to prayer to all the faithful constitutes the highest and most demanding demand of the Spirit. The piety of the saints is refined and perfected by prayer. The gospel marches with slow and timid steps when the saints do not pray long prayers early in the day.

Where are the Christian leaders who can put modern saints to pray and teach them this devotion? Have we realized that we are raising a collection of prayerless saints? Where are the apostolic leaders who can get God's people to pray? Let them come forward and do the work, it will be the greatest work they can do. An increase in educational facilities and financial resources would be the most terrible curse if these elements were not sanctified by more fervent and frequent prayers. But deep devotion won't come naturally. The campaign for twentieth or thirtieth century funds will not benefit but will hinder our prayers if we are not careful. Only a specific and well-directed action will produce effect.

The most distinguished members should lead in the apostolic effort to place the vital importance and fact of prayer in the heart and life of the church. Only leaders who pray can have followers in prayer. Praying leaders will produce praying saints. A pulpit that prays will result in a congregation that prays. We greatly need someone to put the saints in the task of praying. We are not a generation of praying saints. The saints that were not are a mendicant group that has neither the ardor, nor the beauty, nor the power of the saints. Who will restore this gap? It will be the greatest of the reformers and apostles who sets the church to pray.

We regard as our most sober judgment that the great need of the church in this and in all ages is for men of overwhelming faith, spotless holiness, marked spiritual vigor, and consuming zeal; May your prayers, faith, life, and ministry be so radical and aggressive that they effect spiritual revolutions that epoch individual and church life.

We do not mean men who cause a sensation with their novel plans, or who attract with pleasant entertainment; but men who produce movement and commotion by the preaching of the Word of God and by the power of the Holy Spirit, a revolution that changes the whole course of things.

Natural ability and the advantages of education are not factors in this matter, but the capacity for faith, the ability to pray, the power of complete consecration, the ability to be humble, an absolute surrender of the self to glory. of God and a constant and insatiable longing to seek all the fullness of God, men who can ignite the church in fervor to God; not in a noisy and ostentatious way, but with a still fire that melts and moves everything toward God.

God can work wonders with man on purpose. Men can perform miracles if they allow God to direct them. The full endowment of the spirit that transformed the world would be eminently helpful in these days. The universal need of the church is for men who can powerfully stir up everything around them for God, whose spiritual revolutions change the whole face of things.

The church has never marched without these men, they adorn its history; they are the permanent miracles of the divinity of the church; His example and deeds are one of unceasing inspiration and blessing. Our prayer must be because they increase in number and power. What has been done in spiritual matters can be verified again and in better conditions. This was the opinion of Christ. He said: "Truly, truly, I say to you: whoever believes in me, the works that I do he will also do; and greater than these he will do; because I am going to the Father." The past has not limited the possibilities or the demands to do great things for God.

The church that relies solely on its past history for its miracles of power and grace is a fallen church.

God wants chosen men, men for whom self and the world have disappeared through a severe crucifixion, through a bankruptcy that has so totally ruined self and the world that there is neither hope nor desire to recover them; men who by this crucifixion have turned to God with a perfect heart. Let us pray earnestly that the promise that God has made to prayer will be fulfilled beyond what we imagine.