HOW
TO PRAY
R.
A. TORREY
CHAPTER
IV
PRAYING
IN THE NAME OF CHRIST AND ACCORDING TO THE WILL OF GOD
1. It was a wonderful word about prayer that
Jesus spoke to His disciples on the night before His crucifixion,
"Whatsoever you shall ask IN MY NAME, that will I do, that the Father may
be
glorified in the Son. If you shall ask anything in My name, I will do it."
Prayer
in the name of Christ has power with God. God is well pleased with His Son
Jesus Christ. He hears Him always, and He also hears always the prayer that is
really in His name. There is a fragrance in the name of Christ that makes
acceptable to God every prayer that bears it.
But
what is it to pray in the name of Christ?
Many
explanations have been attempted that to ordinary minds do not explain. But
there is nothing mystical or mysterious about this expression. If one will go
through the Bible and examine all the passages in which the expression "in
My name" or "in His name" or synonymous
expressions are used, he will find that it means just about what it does in modern
usage. If I go to a bank and hand in a check with my name signed to it, I ask
of that bank IN MY OWN NAME.
If
I have money deposited in that bank, the check will be cashed; if not, it will
not be. If, however, I go to a bank with somebody else's name signed to the
check, I am asking IN HIS NAME, and it does not matter whether I have money in
that bank or any other, if the person whose name is signed to the check has
money there, the check will be cashed.
If,
for example, I should go to the First National Bank of Chicago, and present a
check which I had signed for $50.00, the paying teller would say to me:
"Why,
Mr. Torrey, we cannot cash that. You have no money in
this bank."
But
if I should go to the First National Bank with a check for $5,000.00 made
payable to me, and signed by one of the large
depositors in that bank, they would not ask whether I had money in that bank or
in any bank, but would honor the check at once.
So
it is when I go to the bank of heaven, when I go to God in prayer. I have
nothing deposited there, I have absolutely no credit there, and if I go in my
own name I will get absolutely nothing; but Jesus Christ has unlimited credit
in heaven, and He has granted to me the privilege of going to the bank with His
name on my checks, and when I thus go, my prayers will be honored
to any extent.
To
pray then in the name of Christ is to pray on the ground, not of my credit, but
His; to renounce the thought that I have any claims on God whatever, and
approach Him on the ground of God's claims. Praying in the name of Christ is
not merely adding the phrase "I ask these things in Jesus' name" to
my prayer. I may put that phrase in my prayer and really be resting in my own
merit all the time. But when I really do approach God, not on the ground of my
merit, but on the ground of Christ's merit, not on the ground of my goodness,
but on the ground of the atoning blood (Heb. 10:19), God will hear me. Very
much of our modern prayer is vain because men approach God imagining that they
have some claim upon God whereby He is under obligations to answer their
prayers.
Years
ago when Mr. Moody was young in Christian work, he visited a town in Illinois.
A judge in the town was an infidel. This judge's wife besought Mr. Moody to
call upon her husband, but Mr. Moody replied:
"I
cannot talk with your husband. I am only an uneducated young Christian, and
your husband is a book infidel."
But the wife would not take no for an
answer, so Mr. Moody made the call. The clerks in the outer office tittered as
the young salesman from Chicago went in to talk with the scholarly judge.
The
conversation was short. Mr. Moody said:
"Judge,
I can't talk with you. You are a book infidel, and I have no learning, but I
simply want to say if you are ever converted, I want you to let me know."
The
judge replied: "Yes, young man, if I am ever converted I will let you
know. Yes, I will let you know."
The
conversation ended. The clerks tittered still louder when the zealous young
Christian left the office, but the judge was converted within a year. Mr. Moody
visiting the town again asked the judge to explain how it came about. The judge
said:
"One
night, when my wife was at prayer meeting, I began to grow very uneasy and
miserable. I did not know what was the matter with me,
but finally retired before my wife come home. I could not sleep all that night.
I got up early, told my wife that I would eat
no breakfast, and went down to the office. I told the
clerks they could take a holiday, and shut myself up in the inner office. I
kept growing more and more miserable, and finally I got down and asked God to
forgive my sins, but I would not say 'for Jesus' sake,' for I was a Unitarian
and I did not believe in the atonement. I kept praying 'God forgive my sins';
but no answer came. At last in desperation I cried, 'O God, for Christ's sake
forgive my sins,' and found peace at once."
The
judge had no access to God until he came in the name of Christ, but when he
thus came, he was heard and answered at once.
2.
Great light is thrown upon the subject "How to Pray" by 1_John
5:14,15: "And this is the boldness which we have toward Him, that if we
ask anything ACCORDING TO HIS WILL, He heareth us;
and if we know that He heareth us whatsoever we ask,
we know that we have
the petitions which we have asked of Him."
(R.V.)
This
passage teaches us plainly that if we are to pray aright, we must pray
according to God's will, then will we beyond a peradventure get the thing we
ask of Him.
But
can we know the will of God? Can we know that any specific prayer is according
to His will?
We
most surely can.
How?
(1)
First by the Word. God has revealed His will in His Word
When
anything is definitely promised in the Word of God, we know that it is His will
to give that thing. If then when I pray, I can find some definite promise of
God's Word and lay that promise before God, I know that He hears me, and if I
know that He hears me, I know that I have the petition that I have asked of
Him. For example, when I pray for wisdom I know that it is the will of God to
give me wisdom, for He says so in James 1:5: "If any of you lack wisdom,
let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally,
and upbraideth not;and it
shall be given him." So when I ask for wisdom I know that the prayer is
heard, and that wisdom will be given me. In like manner
when I pray for the Holy Spirit I know from
Luke 11:13 that it is God's will, that my prayer is heard, and that I have the
petition that I have asked of Him: "If you then, being evil, know how to
give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father
give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?"
Some
years ago a minister came to me at the close of an address on prayer at a
Y.M.C.A. Bible school, and said,
"You
have produced upon those young men the impression that they can ask for
definite things and get the very things that they ask."
I
replied that I did not know whether that was the impression that I produced or
not, but that was certainly the impression that I desired to produce.
"But,"
he replied, "that is not right. We cannot be
sure, for we don't know God's will."
I
turned him at once to James 1:5, read it and said to him, "Is it not God's
will to give us wisdom, and if you ask for wisdom do you not know that you are
going to get it?"
"Ah!"
he said, "we don't know what wisdom is."
I
said, "No, if we did, we would not need to ask; but whatever wisdom may
be, don't you know that you will get it?"
Certainly
it is our privilege to know. When we have a specific promise in the Word of
God, if we doubt that it is God's will, or if we doubt that God will do the
thing that we ask, we make
God a liar.
Here
is one of the greatest secrets of prevailing prayer: To study the Word to find
what God's will is as revealed there in the promises, and then simply take
these promises and spread them out before God in prayer with the absolutely
unwavering expectation that He will do what He has promised in His Word.
(2)
But there is still another way in which we may know the will of God, that is,
by the teaching of His Holy Spirit. There are many things that we need from God
which are not covered by any specific promise, but we are not left in ignorance
of the will of God even then. In Rom. 8:26,27 we are
told, "And in like manner the Spirit also helpeth
our infirmity: for we know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings
which cannot be uttered; and He that searcheth the
hearts knoweth what is the mind of the spirit,
because He maketh intercession for the saints
ACCORDING TO THE WILL OF GOD." (R.V.)
Here
we are distinctly told that the Spirit of God prays in us, draws out our
prayer, in the line of God's will. When we are thus led out by the Holy Spirit
in any direction, to pray for any given object, we may do it in all confidence
that it is God's will, and that we are to get the very thing we ask of Him,
even though there is no specific promise to cover the case. Often God by His
Spirit lays upon us a heavy burden of prayer for some given individual. We
cannot rest, we pray for him with groanings which
cannot be uttered. Perhaps the man is entirely beyond our reach, but God hears
the prayer, and in many a case it is not long before we hear of his definite
conversion.
The
passage 1_John 5:14,15 is one of the most abused passages in the Bible:
"This is THE CONFIDENCE that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything
according to His will, He heareth us; and if we know
that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we
desired of Him." The Holy Spirit beyond a doubt put it into the Bible to
encourage our faith. It begins with
"This is THE CONFIDENCE that we have in
Him," and closes with "WE KNOW that
we have the petitions that we desired of Him;" but
one of the most frequent usages of this passage, which was so manifestly given
to beget confidence, is to introduce an element of uncertainty into our
prayers. Oftentimes when one waxes confident in prayer, some cautious brother
will come and say:
"Now,
don't be too confident. If it is God's will He will do it. You should put in,
'If it be Thy will.'"
Doubtless
there are many times when we do not know the will of God, and in all prayer
submission to the excellent will of God should underlie it; but when we know
God's will, there need be no "ifs"; and this passage was not put into
the Bible in order that we might introduce "ifs" into all our
prayers, but in order that we might throw our "ifs" to the wind, and
have CONFIDENCE" and "KNOW that we have the petitions which we have
asked of Him."