Show PRAY WITHOUT CEASING Sermon by Dr Lockwood at the ri Church THE NATURE AND EFFICACY OF PRAYER Not Petition Only Butin Its Widest Sense Prayer is Conscious Communion I Com-munion With God and is Often the Sole Source of Comfort I e T TIE HiT M B church yesterday g yes-terday morning the sermon S was on the subject of prayer I a It Jl Dr Lockwood took for his text II Thesalonians 517 I f Pray without ceasing and Luke 21 Lord teach us to pry V The snbftance of the doctors doc-tors remarks was as follows There are a few great religious c I doctrines which I not only hold f but which likewise hold me with a grip of steel There are man other doctrines that are fearfully and wonderfully rriadc by the cunning of I mens minds withOut particular regard to the canons of either reason or revelation revela-tion Among the first mentioned are the I existence of a nersonal God the sinful condition of man and the necessity nof I I redemption the divinity of Christ and the efficacy of his atonement the essential I inspiration of the holy scripture the immortality mortality of the soul the efficacy of I prayer and other doctrines of similar importance im-portance I This I morning I wish that we might for aT tJ f gn fg a few moments earnestly consider the nature and the efficacy of prayer And I what Is prayer It may be well to begin with to state what it is not I is not dictation Some people seem to think that they can command God at pleasure and that they have a perfect right to expect ex-pect that their whims and demands will be promptly satisfied I is for God and not for man to determine whether or not a request shall be granted Prayer is not instruction of the divine by the human I is not uncommon for Christians to proceed upon the assumption that God is Ignorant concerning certain vital Issues Is-sues and that he must be Instructed before be-fore he can grant relief This is a mistake I mis-take God is allwise he knoweth all things Tfet he delights to have us ask 1li nJsiho J hr even though he is thoroughly aware beforehand be-forehand what the nature of our petition I will be Again prayer is not petton Yncludes tition I includes petition but the object I ob-ject of prayer Is not solely nor chiefly to I secure benefits In its widest sense prayer is conscious communion with God It is I the instinctive movement of the finite I dependent spirit toward the divine omnipotent omni-potent spirit of God Says the poet Prayer is the hearts sincere desire Uttered or unexpressed The motion of a hidden tire tre That trembles in the breast Prayer is the Christians Vital breath The Christians native air His watchword at the gates of death He enters heaven with prayer Prayer is m universal and Instinctive It instncthc is rooted In the very nature of thing By this I mean that prayer was prtf vided for in the 1 itr draft of the I universe God created man as a creature of prayer and when he created the universe he did not forget to provide for I an eternal harmony between the Prayer I Of his conscious nraVr prnntiiros nnrl flu nn conscious adjustments of nnr nature He wanted man to pray he knew that he ought to pray he knew that he would pray and accordingly so far as prayer relates to temporal blessings he made provision from the beginning to meet the requirements of real prayer Nor does it seem strange to me tnat God would thus ordain that in the very nature of things nature should be subservient to spirit that the unconscious should bend to the conscious wants of man As to the nature of prayer considered as personal intercourse with God and as to the nature of prayer considered with refer ence ta its subjective benefits to the human spirit I have nothing to say just now but viewing prayer from the aspect of temporal good it seems tp me that the prayeness man forfeits many blessings simply because he declines to place him self in such an attitude before the father as instinct suggests and the divine being desires The chief purpose of this discourse however is to set forth the subjecthe benefits of prayer It Is my belief that I prayer while not foreign to the order of nature nevertheless finds highest and I purest exercise in the realm of spirit What of the effect of prayer upon our own souls First it is by mens of prayer that our lives are knit to the life of God How can we be rooted and built up and established In the faith How can we live and move and have our being in God unless we sink ourselves Into the very nature of the divine by means of prayer Tile child is not con tent simply to sit In its mothers lap or recline upon her arm it desires to feel I the mothers warm kiss and to nestle dose to her beating heart I is neste with the child of Godp and it is by our prayers that we are thus enabled to settle ourselves 11 the enfolding arms of divine love Our raycrs our earnest yearning for higher things our spiritual desires dtlhes spiriual our aspiration for truthall of these arc fibers that km us to the heart of God The tides of life begin to surge to and fro and the result is that we come to share the very nature of the supreme rJ FuAn oak tnJ does not root itself in the earth in a single day iself takes years under the combined I I fiuence of rain and frost combine and shower of wInd and sleet to attach itself to the earth by its 10000 roots and fibers so that no storm can overturn and no pOWEr can Uproot it I is impossible likewise for a strong and Christjike character to blossom in a Christlke sincle instant may be sufficient to mark a radical change in a life and to secure forgiveness for past sins but it requires fcure I rtquires years of good report and ill report of i temptation and triumph of victory and defeat to perfect a Godlike character Godlke lharacter And prayer fr110 atmosphere in which the Christian life must grow whleh and blossom Again i is by means of prayer that we are afforded guidance atorled guldanle and instruction V e are told to commit our way unto the Lord to trust also in him for he will bring It to pass We are exhorted wi trust in the Lord with our whole heart ami to lean not to our own understand Inn we are told that if we acknowledge bin in all our walks he will direct our paths And how many many times in our life we have been obliged to resort to God for instruction when our own wisdom has been insufficient and when humancounsel has failed Look back over your life and recall its trying situa tions and its dare crises and then answer candidlyfrom what source did your de liverance come I is when we pray that the light flashes upon our darkened and Obstructed nnthwnv Whon nv nra fnn fused and bewildered as to the path v of t duty i we pray the whole horizon of II our life past and future Is lit up with a blaze o light from the divine spirit as whoi a belated traveler lost in the midnight mid-night storm Is apprised of his whereabouts where-abouts by a flash of lightning tlHrt i luminates the entire heavens and revels re-vels every tree and rock and shrub about him There is no education like that which results from long continuance in the school of nrayer God reveals to us the deep things of the spirit he pours light upon the sacred page so that certain texts that had before been lifeless and meaningless to our fleshly eyes prow apt and Tuminous he gives us indications whereby we are able to discern between the true and the false We are dependent upon God for all that Is best in us whether of thought or sentiment How do you account for the golden floods of thought that sometimes flow unbidden through your mind or find eloquent utter nico from your lips These tides of thought thrse splerdld sentiments the th-e and anon come surging in from hi unknown ocean of God to warm your heart and to control your life come throuch no effort of yours You know neither their soiiree nor their outlet You only know that for the time being you ar possessed by divine truths that you rrc compelled to seize and transmit I t Xjoti who teaches and inspires us and truth comes inresponse to prayer Finally prayer is a source of comfort to us Tile human heart grows lowly i is oppressed by fears it is crushed by sin remorse devours it We seek in vain fcr human companionship and human re HPI There Isa loneliness that neither Irfend nor brother neither father nor husband nor child cal assuage or drive away There is no recourse hut to seek God ill prayer Ho alone knows us and he alone can satisfy our heartaches Just so when sin weighs heavily upon us We seeU in ain to make amends for the evil that we Have wrought we ask the forgiveness uf those whom wt have injured in-jured we make restitution for our injustice in-justice wo endeavor to chasten and purify our spirits by devotion and self sacrifice hut the anguish of our soul only grows more and more intenseas the > t stands out that we have sinned I against God and that our hearts are In r rebellion against him But what joy and r comfort enter the soul when contrite and brokenhearted confess our sins to i God in humble prayer and seek hiS constant I i con-stant guidance and companionship In the I extremities of life our sole source of I comfort is in prayer I |