 CHAPTER 27 OF WITH CHRIST IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER In his parting address Jesus gives his disciples the full revelation of what the new life was to be, when once the Kingdom of God had come in power, in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, in union with him the heavenly vine, in their going forth to witness and to suffer for him, they were to find their calling and their blessedness. In between his setting forth of their future new life, the Lord had repeatedly given the most unlimited promises as to the power their prayers might have, and now in closing, he himself proceeds to pray. To let his disciples have the joy of knowing what his intercession for them in heaven as their high priest will be, he gives this precious legacy of his prayer to the Father. He does this at the same time, because they as priests are to share in his work of intercession, that they and we might know how to perform this holy work. In the teaching of our Lord on this last night, we have learned to understand that these astonishing prayer promises have not been given in our own behalf, but in the interest of the Lord and his Kingdom. It is from the Lord himself alone that we can learn what the prayer in his name is to be and to obtain. We have understood that to pray in his name is to pray in perfect unity with himself. The high priestly prayer will teach all that the prayer in the name of Jesus may ask and expect. This prayer is ordinarily divided into three parts. Our Lord first prays for himself, verses one to five. End for his disciples, six to nineteen. And last of all, for the believing people through all ages, twenty to twenty-six. The follower of Jesus who gives himself to the work of intercession and would feign try how much of blessing he can pray down upon his circle in the name of Jesus, will in all humility let himself be led of the spirit to study this wonderful prayer as one of the most important lessons of the school of prayer. First of all, Jesus prays for himself, for his being glorified, that so he may glorify the Father. Father, glorify thy Son, and now Father, glorify me. And he brings forward the grounds on which he thus prays. A holy covenant had been concluded between the Father and the Son in heaven. The Father had promised him power over all flesh as the reward of his work. He had done the work, he had glorified the Father. And his one purpose is now still further to glorify him. With the utmost boldness he asks that the Father may glorify him, that he may now be and do for his people all he has undertaken. Disciple of Jesus, here you have the first lesson in your work of priestly intercession, to be learned from the example of your great High Priest. To pray in the name of Jesus is to pray in unity, in sympathy with him. As the Son began his prayer by making clear his relation to the Father, pleading his work and obedience, and his desire to see the Father glorified, do so too. Draw near and appear before the Father in Christ, plead his finished work. Say that you are one with it, that you trust on it, live in it. Say that you too have given yourself to finish the work the Father has given you to do, and to live alone for his glory. And ask then confidently that the Son may be glorified in you. This is praying in the name, in the very words, in the spirit of Jesus, in union with Jesus himself. Such prayer has power. If with Jesus you glorify the Father, the Father will glorify Jesus by doing what you ask in his name. It is only when your own personal relation on this point, like Christ's, is clear with God, when you are glorifying him and seeking all for his glory, that like Christ you will have power to intercede for those around you. Our Lord next prays for the circle of his disciples. He speaks of them as those whom the Father has given him. Their chief mark is that they have received Christ's word. He says of them that he now sends them into the world in his place just as the Father had sent himself, and he asks two things for them, that the Father keep them from the evil one and sanctify them through his word, because he sanctifies himself for them. Just like the Lord, each believing intercessor has his own immediate circle for whom he first prays. Parents have their children, teachers their pupils, pastors their flocks, or workers their special charge, or believers those whose care lies upon their hearts. It is of great consequence that intercessions should be personal, pointed, and definite. And then our first prayer must always be that they may receive the word. But this prayer will not avail unless with our Lord we say, I have given them thy word. It is this gives us liberty and power in intercession for souls. Not only pray for them, but speak to them. And when they have received the word, let us pray much for their being kept from the evil one, for their being sanctified through that word. Instead of being hopeless, or judging, or giving up those who fall, let us pray for our circle. Father, keep them in thy name. Sanctify them through thy truth. Pray in the name of Jesus availeth much. What ye will shall be done unto you. And then follows our Lord's prayer for a still wider circle. I pray not only for these, but for them who through their word shall believe. His priestly heart enlarges itself to embrace all places and all time, and he prays that all who belong to him may everywhere be one, as God's proof to the world of the divinity of his mission, and then that they may ever be with him in his glory. Feel then that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. The disciple of Jesus, who has first in his own circle proved the power of prayer, cannot confine himself within its limits. He prays for the church universal and its different branches. He prays specially for the unity of the spirit and of love. He prays for its being one in Christ as a witness to the world that Christ, who hath wrought such a wonder as to make love triumph over selfishness and separation, is indeed the Son of God sent from heaven. Every believer ought to pray much that the unity of the church, not in external organizations, but in spirit and in truth, may be made manifest. So much for the matter of the prayer. Now for its mode. Jesus says, Father, I will. On the ground of his right as Son, and the Father's promise to him, and his finished work, he might do so. The Father had said to him, Ask of me, and I will give thee. He simply availed himself of the Father's promise. Jesus has given us a like promise, whatsoever ye will shall be done unto you. He asks me in his name to say what I will, abiding in him in a living union with him in which man is nothing in Christ all. The believer has the liberty to take up that word of his high priest, and, in answer to the question, what wilt thou, to say, Father, I will, all that thou hast promised? This is nothing but true faith. This is honouring God. To be assured that such confidence in saying what I will is indeed acceptable to him. At first sight, our heart shrinks from the expression. We feel neither the liberty nor the power to speak thus. It is a word for which alone in the most entire abnegation of our will grace will be given, but for which grace will most assuredly be given to each one who loses his will in his lords. He that loses his will shall find it. He that gives up his will entirely shall find it again renewed and strengthened with the divine strength. Father I will. This is the keynote of the everlasting, ever-active, all-prevailing intercession of our Lord in heaven. It is only in union with him that our prayer avails. In union with him it avails much. If we but abide in him, living and walking, and doing all things in his name. If we but come and bring each separate petition, tested and touched by his word and spirit, and cast it into the mighty stream of intercession that goes up from him, to be borne upward and presented before the Father, we shall have the full confidence that we receive the petitions we ask. The Father I will. Will be breathed into us by the Spirit himself. We shall lose ourselves in him and become nothing, to find that in our impotence we have power and prevail. Disciples of Jesus, call to be like your Lord in his priestly intercession. When oh when shall we awaken to the glory, passing all conception of this our destiny, to plead and prevail with God for perishing men? Oh when shall we shake off the slot that clothes itself with the pretense of humility, and yield ourselves wholly to God's Spirit, that he may fill our wills with light and with power, to know and to take and to possess, all that our God is waiting to give to a will that lays hold on him? Lord teach us to pray. O my blessed High Priest, who am I that thou shouldst thus invite me to share with thee in thy power of prevailing intercession? And why, O my Lord, am I so slow of heart to understand and believe and exercise this wonderful privilege to which thou hast redeemed thy people? O Lord, give thy grace that this may increasingly be my unceasing life-work, in praying without ceasing to draw down the blessing of heaven on all my surroundings on earth. Blessed Lord, I come now to accept this my calling. For this I would forsake all and follow thee. To thy hands I would, believingly, yield my whole being. Form, train, inspire me to be one of thy prayer legion, wrestlers who watch and strive in prayer, Israels, God's princes, who have power and prevail. Take possession of my heart and fill it with the one desire for the glory of God in the ingathering and sanctification and union of those whom the Father hath given thee. Take my mind and let this be my study and my wisdom, to know when prayer can bring a blessing. Take me holy and fit me as a priest, ever to stand before God and to bless in his name. Blessed Lord, be it here as through all the spiritual life, thou all, I nothing. And be it here my experience too, that he that has and seeks nothing for himself receives all, even to the wonderful grace of sharing with thee and thy everlasting ministry of intercession. With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray Twenty-eighth Lesson Father, not what I will, or Christ the Sacrifice And he said, Aber, Father, all things are possible unto thee, remove this cup from me, how be it not what I will, but what thou wilt. Mark 14 36 What a contrast within the space of a few hours. What a transition from the quiet elevation of that. He lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, I will. To that falling on the ground and crying in agony, my Father, not what I will. In the one we see the High Priest within the veil in his all-prevailing intercession. In the other, the Sacrifice on the altar, opening the way through the rent veil. The High Priestly, Father, I will, in order of time precedes the sacrificial, Father, not what I will. But this was only by anticipation, to show what the intercession would be when once the Sacrifice was brought. In reality, it was that prayer at the altar, Father, not what I will, in which the prayer before the throne, Father, I will, had its origin and its power. It is from the entire surrender of his will in Gethsemane that the High Priest on the throne has the power to ask what he will, has the right to make his people share in that power too, and ask what they will. For all who would learn to pray in the school of Jesus, this Gethsemane lesson is one of the most sacred and precious. To a superficial scholar it may appear to take away the courage to pray in faith. If even the earnest supplication of the Son was not heard, if even the beloved had to say, not what I will, how much more do we need to speak so? And thus it appears impossible that the promises which the Lord had given only a few hours previously, whatsoever ye shall ask, whatsoever ye will, could have been meant literally. A deeper insight into the meaning of Gethsemane would teach us that we have just hear the sure ground and the open way to the assurance of an answer to our prayer. Let us draw nigh in reverent and adoring wonder to gaze on this great sight, God's Son thus offering up prayer and supplications with strong crying and tears, and not obtaining what he asks. He himself is our teacher, and will open up to us the mystery of his holy sacrifice as revealed in this wondrous prayer. To understand the prayer, let us note the infinite difference between what our Lord prayed a little ago as a royal high priest, and what he here supplicates in his weakness. There it was for the glorifying of the Father he prayed, and the glorifying of himself and his people as the fulfilment of distinct promises that had been given him. He asked what he knew to be according to the Word and the will of the Father. He might boldly say, Father, I will. Here he prays for something in regard to which the Father's will is not yet clear to him. As far as he knows, it is the Father's will that he should drink the cup. He had told his disciples of the cup he must drink. A little later he would again say, the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? It was for this he had come to this earth, but when in the unutterable agony of soul that burst upon him, as the power of darkness came upon him, and he began to taste the first drops of death as the wrath of God against sin, his human nature, as it shuddered in presence of the awful reality of being made a curse, gave utterance in this cry of anguish, to its desire that, if God's purpose could be accomplished without it, he might be spared the awful cup. Let this cup pass from me. That desire was the evidence of the intense reality of his humanity. The not-as-I-will kept that desire from being sinful. As he pleadingly cries, all things are possible with thee, and returns again to still more earnest prayer, that the cup may be removed. It is his thrice repeated, not what I will, that constitutes the very essence and worth of his sacrifice. He had asked for something for which he could not say, I know it is thy will. He had pleaded God's power and love, and had then withdrawn it in his final, thy will be done. The prayer that the cup should pass away could not be answered. The prayer of submission that God's will be done was heard, and gloriously answered in his victory first over the fear, and then over the power of death. It is in this denial of his will, this complete surrender of his will to the will of the Father, that Christ's obedience reached its highest perfection. It is from the sacrifice of the will in Gethsemane, that the sacrifice of the life on Calvary derives its value. It is here, a scripture sayeth, that he learned obedience, and became the author of everlasting salvation to all that obey him. It was because he there in that prayer became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, that God hath highly exalted him, and given him the power to ask what he will. It was in that Father not what I will, that he obtained the power for that other Father I will. It was by Christ's submittal in Gethsemane to have not his will done, that he secured for his people the right to say to them, ask whatsoever ye will. Let me look at them again, the deep mysteries that Gethsemane offers to my view. There is the first, the Father offers his well beloved the cup, the cup of wroth. The second, the Son, always so obedient, shrinks back, and implores that he may not have to drink it. The third, the Father does not grunt the Son his request, but still gives the cup. And then the last, the Son yields his will, is content that his will be not done, and goes out to Calvary to drink the cup. O Gethsemane, in thee I see how my Lord could give me such unlimited assurance of an answer to my prayers, as my surety he wanted for me, by his consent to have his petition unanswered. This is in harmony with the whole scheme of redemption. Our Lord always wins for us the opposite of what he suffered. He was bound that we might go free. He was made sin that we might become the righteousness of God. He died that we might live. He bore God's curse that God's blessing might be ours. He endured the not answering of his prayer, that our prayers might find an answer, yea he spoke not as I will that he might say to us, if ye abide in me, ask what ye will. It shall be done unto you. Yes, if ye abide in me. He in Gethsemane the word acquires new force and depth. Christ is our head, who as surety stands in our place, and bears what we must for ever have borne. We had deserved that God should turn a deaf ear to us, and never listen to our cry. Christ comes and suffers this too for us. He suffers what we had merited, for our sins he suffers beneath the burden of that unanswered prayer. But now his suffering this avails for me, what he has borne is taken away for me. His merit has won for me the answer to every prayer, if I abide in him. Yes, in him, as he bows there in Gethsemane, I must abide. As my head he not only once suffered for me, but ever lives in me, breathing and working his own disposition in me too. The eternal spirit through which he offered himself unto God is the spirit that dwells in me too, and makes me partaker of the very same obedience, and the sacrifice of the will unto God. That spirit teaches me to yield my will entirely to the will of the Father, to give it up even unto the death, in Christ to be dead to it, whatever is my own mind and thought and will, even though it be not directly sinful, he teaches me to fear and flee. He opens my ear to wait in great gentleness and teachableness of soul for what the Father has day by day to speak and to teach. He discovers to me how union with God's will in the love of it is union with God himself, how entire surrender to God's will is the Father's claim, the Son's example and the true blessedness of the soul. He leads my will into the fellowship of Christ's death and resurrection. My will dies in him, in him to be made alive again. He breathes into it as a renewed and quickened will, a holy insight into God's perfect will, a holy joy in yielding itself to be an instrument of that will, a holy liberty and power to lay hold of God's will to answer prayer. With my whole will I learn to live for the interests of God and his kingdom, to exercise the power of that will, crucified but risen again in nature and in prayer, on earth and in heaven, with men and with God. The more deeply I enter into the Father not what I will of Gethsemane, and into him who spake it, to abide in him, the fuller is my spiritual access into the power of his Father I will, and the soul experiences that it is the will which has become nothing that God's will may be all which now becomes inspired with the divine strength to really will what God wills, and to claim what has been promised it in the name of Christ. Oh, let us listen to Christ in Gethsemane as he calls, if ye abide in me, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Being of one mind and spirit with him in his giving up everything to God's will, living like him in obedience and surrender to the Father. This is abiding in him. This is the secret of power in prayer. Lord teach us to pray. Blessed Lord Jesus, Gethsemane was thy school where thou didst learn to pray and to obey. It is still thy school where thou leadest all thy disciples who would feign learn to obey and to pray even as thou. Lord teach me there to pray in the faith that thou hast atoned for and conquered our self-will, and canst indeed give us grace to pray like thee. O Lamb of God, I would follow thee to Gethsemane, there to become one with thee, and to abide in thee as thou dost unto the very death yield thy will unto the Father. With thee, through thee, in thee, I do yield my will in absolute and entire surrender to the will of the Father. Conscious of my own weakness and the secret power with which self-will would assert itself and again take its place on the throne, I claim in faith the power of thy victory. Thou didst triumph over it and deliver me from it. In thy death I would daily live, in thy life I would daily die. Abiding in thee, let my will through the power of thine eternal spirit only be the tuned instrument which yields to every touch of the will of my God. With my whole soul do I say with thee and in thee, Father, not as I will, but as thou wilt. And then, blessed Lord, open my heart and that of all thy people, to take in fully the glory of the truth, that a will given up to God is a will accepted of God to be used in his service, to desire and purpose and determine, and will what is according to God's will. A will which, in the power of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling God, is to exercise its royal prerogative in prayer, to loose and to bind in heaven and upon earth, to ask whatsoever it will, and to say it shall be done. O Lord Jesus, teach me to pray. Amen. End of Chapter 28 Chapter 29 of With Christ in the School of Prayer This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Joy Chan. With Christ in the School of Prayer. By Andrew Murray. 29th Lesson. According to his will, or our boldness in prayer. 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 hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him. First John, 14 and 15. One of the greatest hindrances to believing prayer is with many undoubtedly this. They know not of what they ask is according to the will of God. As long as they are in doubt on this point, they cannot have the boldness to ask in assurance that they certainly shall receive. And they soon begin to think that, if once they have made known their requests and receive no answer, it is best to leave it to God to do according to his good pleasure. The words of John, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us, as they understand them, make certainty as to answer to prayer impossible, because they cannot be sure of what really may be the will of God. They think of God's will as his hidden counsel. How should man be able to fathom what really may be the purpose of the all wise God? This is the very opposite of what John aimed at in writing thus. He wished to rouse us to boldness, to confidence, to full assurance of faith in prayer. He says, this is the boldness which we have toward him, that we can say, Father, thou know us, and I know that I ask according to thy will. I know thou hearest me. This is the boldness that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. On this account he adds at once, if we know that he heareth us whatsoever we ask, we know, through this faith that we have, that we now, while we pray, receive the petition, the special things, we have asked of him. John supposes that when we pray, we first find out if our prayers are according to the will of God. They may be according to God's will and yet not come at once, or without the persevering prayer of faith. It is to give us courage thus to persevere and to be strong in faith that he tells us, this gives us boldness or confidence in prayer. If we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. It is evident that if it be a matter of uncertainty to us whether our petitions be according to his will, we cannot have the comfort of what he says. We know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him. But just this is the difficulty. More than one believer says, I do not know of what I desire be according to the will of God. God's will is the purpose of his infinite wisdom. It is impossible for me to know whether he may not count something else better for me than what I desire, or may not have some reasons for withholding what I ask. Everyone feels how with such thoughts the prayer of faith, of which Jesus said, whosoever shall believe that these things which he sayeth shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he sayeth, becomes an impossibility. There may be the prayer of submission and of trust in God's wisdom. There cannot be the prayer of faith. The great mistake here is that God's children do not really believe that it is possible to know God's will. Or if they believe this, they do not take the time and trouble to find it out. What we need is to see clearly in what way it is that the Father leads his waiting, teachable child, to know that his petition is according to his will. It is through God's holy word taken up and kept in the heart, the life, the will, and through God's holy spirit, accepted in his indwelling and leading, that we shall learn to know that our petitions are according to his will. Through the word. There is a secret will of God with which we often fear that our prayers may be at variance. It is not with this will of God, but his will as revealed in his word, that we have to do in prayer. Our notions of what the secret will may have decreed, and of how it might render the answers to our prayers impossible, are mostly very erroneous. Childlike faith as to what he is willing to do for his children, simply keeps the Father's assurance that it is his will to hear prayer, and to do what faith in his word desires and accepts. In the word the Father has revealed in general promises the great principles of his will with his people. The child has to take the promise, and apply it to the special circumstances in his life to which it has reference. Whatever he asks within the limits of that revealed will, he can know to be according to the will of God, and he may confidently expect. In his word God has given us the revelation of his will and plans with us, with his people, and with the world, with the most precious promises of the grace and power with which through his people he will carry out his plans and do his work. As faith becomes strong and bold enough to claim the fulfilment of the general promise in the special case, we may have the assurance that our prayers are heard. They are according to God's will. Take the words of John in the verse following our text as an illustration. If any man see his brother sinning, a sin not under death, he shall ask, and God will give him life. Such is the general promise, and the believer who pleads on the ground of this promise prays according to the will of God, and John would give him boldness to know that he has the petition which he asks. But this apprehension of God's will is something spiritual, and must be spiritually discerned. It is not as a matter of logic that we can argue it out. God has said it, I must have it. Nor has every Christian the same gift or calling. While the general will revealed in the promise is the same for all, there is for each one a special, different will according to God's purpose, and herein is the wisdom of the saints. We know this special will of God for each of us, according to the measure of grace given us, and so to ask in prayer just what God has prepared and made possible for each. It is to communicate this wisdom that the Holy Ghost dwells in us. The personal application of the general promises of the Word to our special, personal needs. It is for this that the leading of the Holy Spirit is given us. It is this union of the teaching of the Word and Spirit that many do not understand, and so there is a twofold difficulty in knowing what God's will may be. Some seek the will of God in an inner feeling or conviction, and would have the Spirit lead them without the Word. Others seek it in the Word without the living leading of the Holy Spirit. The two must be united, only in the Word, only in the Spirit, but in these most surely can we know the will of God and learn to pray according to it. In the heart the Word and the Spirit must meet. It is only by indwelling that we can experience their teaching. The Word must dwell, must abide in us. Heart and life must day by day be under its influence. Not from without, but from within, comes the quickening of the Word by the Spirit. It is only he who yields himself entirely in his whole life to the supremacy of the Word and the will of God, who can expect in special cases to discern what that Word and will permit him boldly to ask. And even as with the Word, just so with the Spirit. If I would have the leading of the Spirit in prayer to assure me what God's will is, my whole life must be yielded to that leading, so only can minded heart become spiritual and capable of knowing God's Holy Will. It is he who, through Word and Spirit, lives in the will of God by doing it, who will know to pray according to that will in the confidence that he hears us. Would that Christians might see what incalculable harm they do themselves by the thought that because possibly their prayer is not according to God's will, they must be content without an answer? God's Word tells us that the great reason of our unanswered prayer is that we do not pray a right. You ask and receive not because you ask a miss. In not granting an answer the Father tells us that there is something wrong in our praying. He wants to teach us to find it out and confess it, and so to educate us to true believing and prevailing prayer. He can only attain his object when he brings us to see that we are to blame for the withholding of the answer. Our aim, or our faith, or our life is not what it should be. But this purpose of God is frustrated as long as we are content to say. It is perhaps because my prayer is not according to his will that he does not hear me. Or let us no longer throw the blame of our unanswered prayers on the secret will of God, but on our praying a miss. Let that word ye receive not because ye ask a miss. Be as the lantern of the Lord, searching heart and life, to prove that we are indeed such as those to whom Christ gave his promises of certain answers. Let us believe that we can know if our prayer be according to God's will. Let us yield our heart to have the word of the Father dwell richly there, to have Christ's word abiding in us. Let us live day by day with the anointing which teaches us all things. Let us yield ourselves unreservedly to the Holy Spirit, as he teaches us to abide in Christ, to dwell in the Father's presence. And we shall soon understand how the Father's love longs that the child should know his will, and should, in the confidence that that will includes all that his power and love have promised to do. Know too that he hears the petitions which we ask of him. This is the boldness which we have, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. Lord, teach us to pray. Blessed Master, with my whole heart I thank thee for this blessed lesson, that the path to a life full of answers to prayers through the will of God. Lord, teach me to know this blessed will by living it, loving it, and always doing it. So shall I learn to offer prayers according to that will, and to find in their harmony with God's blessed will, my boldness in prayer, and my confidence in accepting the answer. Father, it is thy will that thy child should enjoy thy presence and blessing. It is thy will that everything in the life of thy child should be in accordance with thy will, and that the Holy Spirit should work this in him. It is thy will that thy child should live in the daily experience of distinct answers to prayer, so as to enjoy living and direct fellowship with thyself. It is thy will that thy name should be glorified in and through thy children, and that it will be in those who trust thee. O my Father, let this thy will be my confidence in all I ask. Blessed Saviour, teach me to believe in the glory of this will. That will is the eternal love which with divine power works out its purpose in each human will that yields itself to it. Lord, teach me this. Now canst make me see how every promise and every command of the word is indeed the will of God, and that its fulfillment is secured to me by God himself. Let thus the will of God become to me the sure rock on which my prayer and my assurance of an answer ever rest. Amen. Note, there is often great confusion as to the will of God. People think that what God wills must inevitably take place. This is by no means the case. God wills a great deal of blessing to his people which never comes to them. He wills it most earnestly, but they do not will it, and it cannot come to them. This is the great mystery of man's creation with the free will, and also of the renewal of his will in redemption, that God has made the execution of his will in many things dependent on the will of man. Of God's will revealed in his promises, so much will be fulfilled as our faith accepts. Prayer is the power by which that comes to pass which otherwise would not take place, and faith, the power by which it is decided how much of God's will shall be done in us. When once God reveals to a soul what he is willing to do for it, the responsibility for the execution of that will rests with us. Some are afraid that this is putting too much power into the hands of man, but all power is put into the hands of man in Christ Jesus. The key of all prayer and all power is his, and when we learn to understand that he is just as much with us as with the Father, and that we are also just as much one with him as he with the Father, we shall see how natural and right and safe it is that to those who abide in him as he and the Father, such power should be given. It is Christ the Son who has the right to ask what he will. It is through the abiding in him and his abiding in us, in a divine reality of which we have too little apprehension, that his spirit breathes in us what he wants to ask and obtain through us. We pray in his name, the prayers are really ours, and as really his. Others again fear that to believe that prayer has such power is limiting the liberty and the love of God, or if we only knew how we are limiting his liberty and his love by not allowing him to act in the only way in which he chooses to act, now that he has taken us up into fellowship with himself through our prayers and our faith. A brother in the ministry once asked, as we were speaking on this subject, whether there was not a danger of our thinking that our love to souls and our willingness to see them blessed were to move God's love and God's willingness to bless them. We were just passing some large water pipes by which water was being carried over hill and dale from a large mountain stream to a town at some distance. Just look at these pipes was the answer. They did not make the water willing to flow downwards from the hills, nor did they give it its power of blessing and refreshment. This is its very nature, all that they could do to decide its direction. By it the inhabitants of the town said they want the blessing there. And just so, it is the very nature of God to love and to bless. Downward and ever-downward his love longs to come with its quickening and refreshing streams, but he has left it to prayer to say where the blessing is to come. He has committed it to his believing people to bring the living water to the desert places. The will of God to bless is dependent upon the will of man to say where the blessing must descend. Such honor have his saints, 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 hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him. According by Joy Chan, with Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray, 30th lesson, and Holy Priesthood, or the Ministry of Intercession, and Holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, 1st Peter 2.5. You shall be named the Priests of the Lord, Isaiah 61.6. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me. These are the words of Jesus in Isaiah. As the fruit of his work, all redeemed ones, are priests, fellow partakers with him of his anointing with the Spirit as high priest. Like the precious ointment upon the beard of Aaron, that went down to the skirts of his garments. As every son of Aaron, so every member of Jesus' body has a right to the priesthood, but not everyone exercises it. Many are still entirely ignorant of it, and yet it is the highest privilege of a child of God, the mark of greatest nearness and likeness to him, whoever liveth to pray. Do you doubt if this really be so? Think of what constitutes priesthood. There is, first, the work of the priesthood. This has two sides, one godward, the other manward. Every priest is ordained for men in things pertaining to God. Hebrews 5.1. Or, as it is said by Moses, Deuteronomy 10.8. See also 21.5. 33.10. Malachi 2.6. The Lord separated the tribe of Levi to stand before the Lord, to minister unto him, and to bless his name. On the one hand the priest had the power to draw nigh to God, to dwell with him in his house, and to present before him the blood of the sacrifice or the burning incense. This work he did not do, however, on his own behalf, but for the sake of the people whose representative he was. This is the other side of his work. He received from the people their sacrifices, presented them before God, and then came out to bless in his name, to give the assurance of his favor and to teach them his law. A priestess thus a man who does not at all live for himself, he lives with God and for God. His work is as God's servant to care for his house, his honor, and his worship, to make known to men his love and his will. He lives with men and for men. Hebrews 5.2. His work is to find out their sin and need, and to bring it before God, to offer sacrifice and incense in their name, to obtain forgiveness and blessing for them, and then to come out and bless them in his name. This is the high calling of every believer. Such honor have all his saints. They have been redeemed with the one purpose to be in the midst of the perishing millions around them. God's priests, who in conformity to Jesus, the great high priest, are to be the ministers and stewards of the grace of God to all around them. And then there is the walk of the priesthood in harmony with its work. As God is holy, so the priest was to be especially holy. This means not only separated from everything unclean, but holy unto God, being set apart and given up to God for his disposal. The separation from the world and setting apart unto God was indicated in many ways. It was seen in the clothing, the holy garments made after God's own order marked them as his. Exodus 28. It was seen in the command as to their special purity and freedom for all contact from death and effilement. Leviticus 11.22. Much that was allowed to an ordinary Israelite was forbidden to them. It was seen in the injunction that the priest must have no bodily defect or blemish. Bodily perfection was to be the type of wholeness and holiness in God's service. And it was seen in the arrangement by which the priestly tribes were to have no inheritance with the other tribes. God was to be their inheritance. Their life was to be one of faith set apart unto God. They were to live on him as well as for him. All this is the emblem of what the character of the New Testament priest is to be. Our priestly power with God depends on our personal life and walk. We must be of them of whose walk on earth Jesus says they have not defiled their garments. In the surrender of what may appear lawful to others in our separation from the world, we must prove that our consecration to be holy to the Lord is wholehearted and entire. The bodily perfection of the priest must have its counterpart in our two being without spot or blemish. The man of God perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works, perfect and entire, wanting nothing. The Viticus 21, 17-20, Ephesians 5, 27, 2 Timothy 2, 7, James 1, 4. And above all we consent to give up all inheritance on earth, to forsake all, and like Christ to have only God as our portion, to possess as not possessing, and hold all for God alone. It is this, marks the true priest, the man who only lives for God and his fellow men. And now the way to the priesthood. In Aaron God has chosen all his sons to be priests. Each of them was a priest by birth, and yet he could not enter upon his work without a special act of ordinance, his consecration. Every child of God is priest in light of his birth, his blood relationship to the great high priest. But this is not enough. He will exercise his power only as he accepts and realises his consecration. With Aaron and his sons it took place, thus. Exodus 29. After being washed and clothed, they were anointed with the holy oil. Sacrifices were then offered, and with the blood the right ear, the right hand, and the right foot were touched. And then they and their garments were once again sprinkled with the blood and the oil together. And so it is as the child of God enters more fully into what the blood and the spirit of which he already is partaker, are to him, that the power of the holy priesthood will work in him. The blood will take away all sense of unworthiness, the spirit or sense of unfitness. Let us notice what there was new in the application of the blood to the priest. If ever he had as a penitent brought a sacrifice for his sin, seeking forgiveness, the blood was sprinkled on the altar, but not on his person. But now, for priestly consecration, there was to be closer contact with the blood, ear and hand and foot were by a special act brought under its power, and the whole being taken possession of and sanctified for God. And so when the believer, who had been content to think chiefly of the blood sprinkled on the mercy seat, as what he needs for pardon, is led to seek full priestly access to God, he feels the need of a fuller and more abiding experience of the power of the blood, as really sprinkling and cleansing the heart from an evil conscience, so that he has no more conscience of sin. Hebrews 10 too. As cleansing from all sin, and it is as he gets to enjoy this, that the consciousness is awakened of his wonderful right of most intimate access to God, and of the full assurance that his intercessions are acceptable. And as the blood gives the right, the spirit gives the power, and fits for believing intercession. He breathes into us the priestly spirit, burning love for God's honor and the saving of souls. He makes us so one with Jesus that prayer in his name is a reality. He strengthens us to believing in fortunate prayer. The more the Christian is truly filled with the spirit of Christ, the more spontaneous will be his giving himself up to the life of priestly intercession. Beloved fellow Christians, God needs, greatly needs, priests who can draw near to him, who live in his presence and by their intercession draw down the blessings of his grace on others. And the world needs, greatly needs, priests who will bear the burden of the perishing ones and intercede on their behalf. Are you willing to offer yourself for this holy work? You know the surrender it demands, nothing less than the Christ's light giving up of all, that the saving purposes of God's love may be accomplished among men. O be no longer of those who are content if they have salvation, and just do work enough to keep themselves warm and lively. O let nothing keep you back from giving yourselves to be holy and only priests, nothing else, nothing less than the priests of the Most High God. The thought of unworthiness, of unfitness, need not keep you back. In the blood, the objective power of the perfect redemption works in you. In the spirit, its full subjective personal experience as a divine life is secured. The blood provides an infinite worthiness to make your prayers most acceptable. The spirit provides a divine fitness, teaching you to pray just according to the will of God. Every priest knew that when he presented a sacrifice according to the law of the sanctuary, it was accepted. Under the covering of the blood and spirit, you have the assurance that all the wonderful promises to prayer in the name of Jesus will be fulfilled in you. Abiding in union with the Great High Priest, you shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you. You will have power to pray the effectual prayer of the righteous man that availeth much. You will not only join in the general prayer of the Church for the world, but be able in your own sphere to take up your special work and prayer, as priests, to transact it with God, to receive and know the answer, and so to bless his name. Come brother, come and be a priest, only priest, all priest. Seek now to walk before the Lord in the full consciousness that you have been set apart for the holy ministry of intercession. This is the true blessedness of conformity to the image of God's Son. Lord, teach us to pray. O thou, my blessed High Priest, accept the consecration in which my soul now would respond to thy message. I believe in the Holy Priest of thy saints, and that I too am a priest, with power to appear before the Father, and in the prayer that avails much, bring down blessing on the perishing around me. I believe in the power of thy precious blood to cleanse from all sin, to give me perfect confidence toward God, and bring me near the full assurance of faith that my intercession will be heard. I believe in the anointing of the Spirit, coming down daily from thee, my great High Priest, to sanctify me, to fill me with the consciousness of my priestly calling, and with love to souls, to teach me what is according to God's will, and how to pray the prayer of faith. I believe that as thou my Lord Jesus art thyself in all things my life, so thou too art the surety for my prayer life, and wilt thyself draw me up into the fellowship of thy wondrous work of intercession. In this faith I yield myself this day to my God, as one of his anointed priests, to stand before his face to intercede in behalf of sinners, and to come out and bless in his name. Holy Lord Jesus, accept and seal my consecration. Yea, Lord, do thou lay thy hands on me, and thyself consecrate me to this thy holy work, and let me walk among men with the consciousness and the character of a priest of the Most High God, unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Or a life of prayer. Our Lord spec the parable of the widow and the unjust judge to teach us that men ought to pray always and not faint, as the widow persevered in seeking one definite thing. The parable appears to have reference to persevering prayer for some one blessing, when God delays or appears to refuse. The words in the epistles which speak of continuing instant in prayer, continuing in prayer, and watching in the same, of praying always in the spirit, appear more to refer to the whole life being one of prayer. As the soul is filling with the longing for the manifestation of God's glory to us and in us, through us and around us, and with the confidence that he hears the prayers of his children, the inmost life of the soul is continually rising upward in dependence and faith, in longing desire and trustful expectation. At the close of our meditations it will not be difficult to say what is needed to live such a life of prayer. The first thing is undoubtedly the entire sacrifice of the life to God's kingdom and glory. He who seeks to pray without ceasing because he wants to be very pious and good, will never attain to it. It is the forgetting of self and yielding ourselves to live for God in his honor that enlarges the heart, that teaches us to regard everything in the light of God and his will, and that instinctively recognizes in everything around us the need of God's help and blessing, an opportunity for his being glorified. Because everything is weighed and tested by the one thing that fills the heart, the glory of God, and because the soul has learnt that only what is of God can really be to him and his glory, the whole life becomes a looking up, a crying from the inmost heart, for God to prove his power and love and so show forth his glory. The believer awakes to the consciousness that he is one of the watchmen on Zion's walls, one of the Lord's remembrances, whose call does really touch and move the king in heaven to do what would otherwise not be done. He understands how real Paul's exhortation was, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit for all the saints and for me, and continuing prayer with all praying also for us. To forget oneself, to live for God and his kingdom among men, is the way to learn to pray without ceasing. This life devoted to God must be accompanied by the deep confidence that our prayer is effectual. We have seen how our blessed Lord insisted upon nothing so much in his prayer lessons as faith in the Father, as the God who most certainly does what we ask. Ask and you shall receive. Count confidently on an answer. Is with him the beginning and the end of his teaching? Compare Matthew 7, 8, and John 16, 24. In proportion as this assurance masters us, and it becomes a settled thing that our prayers do tell and that God does what we ask, we dare not neglect the use of this wonderful power. The soul turns wholly to God and our life becomes prayer. We see that the Lord needs and takes time, because we and all around us are the creatures of time under the law of growth, but knowing that not one single prayer of faith can possibly be lost, that there is something in needs be for the storing up and accumulating of prayer. That persevering prayer is irresistible. Prayer becomes the quiet, persistent living of our life of desire and faith in the presence of our God. I do not let us any longer by our reasonings limit and enfeeble such free and sure promises of the living God, robbing them of their power, and ourselves of the wonderful confidence they are meant to inspire. Not in God, not in his secret will, not in the limitations of his promises, but in us, in ourselves is the hindrance. We are not what we should be to obtain the promise. Let us open our whole heart to God's words of promise in all their simplicity and truth. They will search us and humble us. They will lift us up and make us glad and strong. And to the faith that knows it gets what it asks, prayer is not a work or a burden, but a joy and a triumph. It becomes a necessity and a second nature. This union of strong desire and firm confidence again is nothing but the life of the Holy Spirit within us. The Holy Spirit dwells in us, hides himself in the depths of our being, and stirs the desire after the unseen and the divine, after God himself. Now in groanings that cannot be uttered, then in clear and conscious assurance, now in special distinct petitions for the deeper revelation of Christ to ourselves, then in pleadings for a soul, a work, the church or the world, it is always and alone a Holy Spirit who draws out the heart to thirst for God, to long for his being made known and glorified. Where the child of God really lives and walks in the Spirit, where he is not content to remain carnal, but seeks to be spiritual, in everything a fit organ for the divine Spirit to reveal the life of Christ and Christ himself, there the never-ceasing intercession life of the blessed Son cannot but reveal and repeat itself in our experience. Because it is the Spirit of Christ who prays in us, our prayer must be heard. Because it is we who pray in the Spirit, there is need of time and patience and continual renewing of the prayer, until every obstacle be conquered, and the harmony between God's Spirit and ours is perfect. But the chief thing we need for such a life of unceasing prayer is, to know that Jesus teaches us to pray. We have begun to understand a little what his teaching is, not the communication of new thoughts or views, not the discovery of failure or error, not the stirring up of desire and faith, of however much important all this be, but the taking us up into the fellowship of his own prayer life before the Father, this it is by which Jesus really teaches. It was the sight of the praying Jesus that made the disciples long and asked to be taught to pray. It is the faith of the ever praying Jesus, whose alone is the power to pray that teaches us truly to pray. We know why. He who prays is our head and our life. All he has is ours and is given to us when we give ourselves all to him. By his blood he leads us into the immediate presence of God. The inner sanctuary is our home. We dwell there. And he that lives so near God, and knows that he has been brought near to bless those who are far, cannot but pray. Christ makes us partakers with himself of his prayer power and prayer life. We understand then that our true aim must not be to work much and have prayer enough to keep the work right, but to pray much and then to work enough for the power and blessing obtained in prayer to find its way through us to men. It is Christ who ever lives to pray, who saves and reigns. He communicates his prayer life to us. He maintains it in us if we trust him. He is surety for our praying without ceasing. Yes, Christ teaches to pray by showing how he does it, by doing it in us, by leading us to do it in him and like him. Christ is all, the life and the strength too for a never ceasing prayer life. It is the sight of this, the sight of the ever praying Christ as our life that enables us to pray without ceasing. Because his priesthood is the power of an endless life, that resurrection life that never fades and never fails, and because his life is our life, praying without ceasing can become to us nothing less than the life-joy of heaven. So the apostle says, rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks. Born up between the never ceasing joy and the never ceasing praise, never ceasing prayer is the manifestation of the power of the eternal life, where Jesus always prays. The union between the vine and the branch is in very deed a prayer union. The highest conformity to Christ, the most blessed participation in the glory of his heavenly life, is that we take part in his work of intercession. He and we live ever to pray. In the experience of our union with him, praying without ceasing becomes a possibility, a reality, the holiest and most blessed part of our holy and blessed fellowship with God. We have our abode within the veil, in the presence of the Father. What the Father says we do. What the Son says the Father does. Praying without ceasing is the earthly manifestation of heaven come down to us, the foretaste of the life where they rest not day or night in the song of worship and adoration. Lord, teach us to pray. O my Father, with my whole heart, do I praise thee for this wondrous life of never ceasing prayer, never ceasing fellowship, never ceasing answers, and never ceasing experience of my oneness with him who ever lives to pray. O my God, keep me ever so dwelling and walking in the presence of thy glory, that prayer may be the spontaneous expression of my life with thee. Blessed Saviour, with my whole heart I praise thee that thou didst come from heaven to share with me in my needs and cries, that I might share with thee in thy all-prevailing intercession, and I thank thee that thou has taken me into the school of prayer to teach the blessedness and the power of a life that is all prayer, and most of all that thou has taken me up into the fellowship of thy life of intercession, that through me too thy blessings may be dispensed to those around me. Holy Spirit, with deep reverence I thank thee for thy work in me. It is through thee I am lifted up into a share in the intercourse between the Son and the Father, and enter so into the fellowship of the life and love of the Holy Trinity Spirit of God. Perfect thy work in me. Bring me into perfect union with Christ my intercessor. Let thine unceasing indwelling make my life one of unceasing intercession. And let so my life become one that is unceasingly to the glory of the Father and to the blessing of those around me. Amen. End of Chapter 31 Appendix to With Christ in the School of Prayer This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Joy Chan. With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray George Muller and the secret of his power in prayer. When God wishes anew to teach his church a truth that is not being understood or practiced, he mostly does so by raising some man to be in word and deed and living witness to its blessedness. And so God has raised up in this 19th century, among others, George Muller, to be his witness that he is indeed the hero of prayer. I know of no way in which the principal truths of God's word in regard to prayer can be more effectually illustrated and established than a short review of his life and of what he tells of his prayer experiences. He was born in Prussia on 25th September 1805, and is thus now 80 years of age. His early life, even after having entered the University of Hall as a theological student, was wicked in the extreme. Led by a friend one evening, when just twenty years of age, to a prayer meeting, he was deeply impressed, and soon after brought to know the Saviour. Not long after he began reading missionary papers, and in course of time offered himself to the London Society for Promoting Christianity to the Jews. He was accepted as a student, but soon found that he could not in all things submit to the rules of the society, as leaving too little liberty for the leading of the Holy Spirit. The connection was dissolved in 1830 by mutual consent, and he became the pastor of a small congregation in Tainmouth. In 1832 he was led to Bristol, and it was as pastor of Bethesda Chapel that he was led to the orphan home and other work, in connection with which God has so remarkably led him to trust his word and to experience how God fulfills that word. A few extracts in regard to his spiritual life will prepare the way for what we especially wish to quote of his experiences in reference to prayer. In connection with this I would mention that the Lord very graciously gave me, from the very commencement of my divine life, a measure of simplicity and of childlike disposition in spiritual things, so that whilst I was exceedingly ignorant of the scriptures, and was still from time to time overcome even by outward sins, yet I was enabled to carry most minute matters to the Lord in prayer, and I have found godliness profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. Though very weak and ignorant, yet I had now, by the grace of God, some desire to benefit others, and he who so faithfully had once served Satan, sought now to win souls for Christ. It was at Taimoth that he was led to know how to use God's word, and to trust the Holy Spirit as the teacher given by God to make that word clear. He writes, God then began to show me that the word of God alone is our standard of judgment in spiritual things, that it can be explained only by the Holy Spirit, and that in our day, as well as in former times, he is the teacher of his people. The office of the Holy Spirit I had not experimentally understood before that time. It was my beginning to understand this latter point in particular, which had a great effect on me, for the Lord enabled me to put it to the test of experience, by laying aside commentaries, and almost every other book, and simply reading the word of God and studying it. The result of this was, that the first evening that I shut myself into my room, to give myself to prayer and meditation over the Scriptures, I learned more in a few hours than I had done during a period of several months previously. But the particular difference was that I received real strength from my soul in so doing. I now began to try by the test of the Scriptures the things which I had learned and seen, and found that only those principles which stood the test were of real value. Of obedience to the word of God, he writes as follows in connection with his being baptized. It had pleased God in his abundant mercy, to bring my mind into such a state, that I was willing to carry out into my life whatever I should find in the Scriptures. I could say, I will do his will. And it was on that account I believe, that I saw which doctrine is of God. And I would observe here by the way, that the passage to which I have just alluded, John 7.17, has been a most remarkable comment to me on many doctrines and precepts of our most holy faith. For instance, resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will soothe thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away. Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. Matthew 5.39-44 Sell that ye have, and give alms. Luke 12.33 O no man anything but to love one another. Romans 12.8 It may be said, surely these passages cannot be taken literally, for how then would the people of God be able to pass through the world? The state of mind enjoined in John 7.17 will cause such objections to vanish. Whosoever is willing to act out these commandments of the Lord literally, will I believe, be led with me to see that to take them literally is the will of God. Those who do so take them will doubtless often be brought into difficulties, hard to the flesh to bear. But these will have a tendency to make them constantly feel that they are strangers and pilgrims here, that this world is not their home, and thus to throw them more upon God, who will assuredly help us through any difficulty into which we may be brought by seeking to act in obedience to his word. This implicit surrender to God's word led him to certain views and conduct in regard to money, which mightily influenced his future life. They had their root in the conviction that money was a divine stewardship, and that all money had therefore to be received and dispensed in direct fellowship with God himself. This led him to the adoption of the following four great rules. One, not to receive any fixed salary, both because in the collecting of it there was often much that was at variance with the free will offering with which God's service is to be maintained, and in the receiving of it a danger of placing more dependence on human sources of income than in the living God himself. Two, never to ask any human being for help, however great the need might be, but to make his wants known to the God who has promised to care for his servants and to hear their prayer. Three, to take this command, Luke 1233, literally, sell that thou hast and give arms, and never to save up money, but to spend all God entrusted to him on God's poor, on the work of his kingdom. Four, also to take Romans 138, oh no man anything, literally, and never to buy on credit, or be in debt for anything, but to trust God to provide. This mode of living was not easy at first, but Muller testifies it was most blessed in bringing the soul to rest in God, and drawing it into closer union with himself when inclined to backslide. For it will not do, it is not possible to live in sin, and at the same time, by communion with God, to draw down from heaven everything one needs for the life that now is. Not long after his settlement at Bristol, the scriptural knowledge institution for home and abroad was established for aiding in day, Sunday school, mission, and Bible work. Of this institution the orphan homework, by which Mr. Muller's best known, became a branch. It was in 1834 that his heart was touched by the case of an orphan brought to Christ in one of the schools, but who had to go to a poor house where its spiritual wants would not be cared for. Meeting shortly after with the life of Frank, he writes November 20th 1835. Today I have had it very much laid on my heart no longer merely to think about the establishment of an orphan home, but actually to set about it, and I have been very much in prayer respecting it in order to ascertain the Lord's mind. May God make it plain. And again November 25. I have been again much in prayer yesterday and today about the orphan home, and I'm more and more convinced that it is of God. May he and his mercy guide me. The three chief reasons are, one, that God may be glorified, should he be pleased to furnish me with the means, in its being seen that it is not a vain thing to trust him, and that thus the faith of his children may be strengthened. Two, the spiritual welfare of fatherless and motherless children. Three, their temporal welfare. After some months of prayer and waiting on God, a house was rented, with room for thirty children, and in course of time three more, containing in all one hundred and twenty children. The work was carried on in this way for ten years, supplies for the needs of the orphans being asked and received of God alone. It was often a time of sore need and much prayer, but a trial of faith more precious than of gold was found unto praise and honor and glory of God. The Lord was preparing his servant for greater things. By his providence and his Holy Spirit, Mr. Muller was led to desire, and to wait upon God till he received from him the sure promise of fifteen thousand pounds for a home to contain three hundred children. This first home was opened in 1849. In 1858, a second and third home for nine hundred and fifty more orphans was opened, costing thirty five thousand pounds. And in 1869 and 1870 a fourth and fifth home for eight hundred and fifty more, at an expense of fifty thousand pounds, making the total number of the orphans two thousand one hundred. In addition to this work, God has given him almost as much as for the building of the orphan homes and the maintenance of the orphans for other work, the support of schools and missions, Bible and tract circulation. In all he has received from God to be spent in his work during these fifty years more than one million pounds sterling. How little he knew, let us carefully notice, that when he gave up his little salary of thirty five pounds a year in obedience to the leading of God's Word and the Holy Spirit, what God was preparing to give him as the reward of obedience and faith. And how wonderfully the Word was to be fulfilled to him. Thou hast been faithful over few things. I will set thee over many things. And these things have happened for an example to us. God calls us to be followers of George Muller, even as he is of Christ. His God is our God. The same promises are for us. The same service of love and faith in which he labored is calling for us on every side. Let us, in connection with our lessons in the school of prayer, study the way in which God gave George Muller such power as a man of prayer. We shall find in it the most remarkable illustration of some of the lessons which we have been studying, with the blessed master in the Word. We shall especially have impressed upon us his great lesson, that if we will come to him in the way he has pointed out, with definite petitions made known to us by the Spirit through the Word as being according to the will of God, we may most confidently believe that whatsoever we ask it shall be done. Prayer and the Word of God We have more than once seen that God's listening to our voice depends upon our listening to his voice. See Lessons 22 and 23 We must not only have a special promise to plead when we make a special request, but our whole life must be under the supremacy of the Word. The Word must be dwelling in us. The testimony of George Muller, on this point, is most instructive. He tells us how the discovery of the true place of the Word of God, and the teaching of the Spirit with it, was the commencement of a new era in his spiritual life. Albert he writes, Now the scriptural way of reasoning would have been, God himself has condescended to become an author, and I am ignorant about that precious book which his Holy Spirit has caused to be written through the instrumentality of his servants, and it contains that which I ought to know, and the knowledge of which will lead me to true happiness. Therefore I ought to read again and again this most precious book, this book of books, most earnestly, most prayerfully, and with much meditation. And in this practice I ought to continue all the days of my life. For I was aware, though I read it but little, that I knew scarcely anything of it. But instead of acting thus and being led by my ignorance of the Word of God to study it more, my difficulty in understanding it, and the little enjoyment I had in it, made me careless of reading it. For much prayerful reading of the Word gives not merely more knowledge, but increases the delight we have in reading it. And thus, like many believers, I practically preferred, for the first four years of my divine life, the works of uninspired men to the oracles of the living God. The consequence was that I remained a babe, both in knowledge and grace. In knowledge I say, for all true knowledge must be derived by the Spirit, from the Word. And as I neglected the Word, I was for nearly four years so ignorant that I did not clearly know even the fundamental points of our holy faith. And this lack of knowledge most sadly kept me back from walking steadily in the ways of God. For when it pleased the Lord in August 1829 to bring me really to the Scriptures, my life and walk became very different. And though ever since that I have very much fallen short of what I might and ought to be, yet by the grace of God I have been enabled to live much nearer to Him than before. If any believers read this who practically prefer other books to the holy Scriptures, and who enjoy the writings of men much more than the Word of God, may they be warned by my loss. I shall consider this book to have been the means of doing much good, should it please the Lord, through its instrumentality, to lead some of His people no longer to neglect the holy Scriptures, but to give them that preference which they have hitherto bestowed on the writings of men. Before I leave the subject, I would only add, if the reader understands very little of the Word of God, he ought to read it very much, for the Spirit explains the Word by the Word. And if he enjoys the reading of the Word little, that is just the reason why he should read it much, for the frequent reading of the Scriptures creates a delight in them, so that the more we read them, the more we desire to do so. Above all, he should seek to have it settled in his own mind, that God alone by his Spirit can teach him, and that therefore, as God will be inquired of for blessings, it becomes him to seek God's blessing previous to reading, and also whilst reading. He should have it moreover settled in his mind, that although the Holy Spirit is the best and sufficient teacher, yet this teacher does not always teach immediately when we desire it, and that therefore we may have to entreat him again and again for the explanation of certain passages, but that he will surely teach us at last, if indeed we are seeking for light prayerfully, patiently, and with a view to the glory of God. The extracts are from a work in four volumes, The Lord's dealings with George Moeller, Jane Nisbet and Company, London. We find in his journal frequent mention made of his spending two and three hours in prayer over the Word for the feeding of his spiritual life. As the fruit of this, when he had need of strength and encouragement in prayer, the individual promises were not to him so many arguments from a book to be used with God, but living words which he had heard the Father's living voice speak to him, and which he could now bring to the Father in living faith. Prayer and the Will of God One of the greatest difficulties with young believers is to know how they can find out whether what they desire is according to God's will. I count it one of the most precious lessons God wants to teach through the experience of George Moeller, that he is willing to make known of things of which his Word says nothing directly, that they are his will for us, and that we may ask them. The teaching of the Spirit, not without or against the Word, but as something above and beyond it, in addition to it, without which we cannot see God's will, is the heritage of every believer. It is through the Word and the Word alone that the Spirit teaches, applying the general principles or promises to our special need, and it is the Spirit and the Spirit alone who can really make the Word a light on our path, whether the path of duty in our daily walk or the path of faith in our approach to God. Let us try and notice in what childlike simplicity and teachableness it was that the discovery of God's will was so surely and so clearly made known to his servant. With regard to the building of the first home and the assurance he had of its being God's will, he writes in May 1850, just after it had been opened, speaking of the great difficulties there were, and how little likely it appeared to nature that they would be removed. But while the prospect before me would have been overwhelming had I looked at it naturally, I was never even for once permitted to question how it would end, for as from the beginning I was sure it was the will of God that I should go to the work of building for him this large orphan home, so also from the beginning I was as certain that the whole would be finished as if the home had already been filled. The way in which he found out what was God's will comes out with special clearness in his account of the building of the second home, and I asked the reader to study with care the lesson the narrative conveys. December 5th 1850 Under these circumstances I can only pray that the Lord in his tender mercy would not allow Satan to gain an advantage over me. By the grace of God my heart says, Lord, if I could be sure that it is thy will that I should go forward in this matter, I would do so cheerfully. And, on the other hand, if I could be sure that these are the vain, foolish, proud thoughts that they are not from thee, I would by thy grace hate them and entirely put them aside. My hope is in God. He will help and teach me. Judging, however, from his former dealings with me, it would not be a strange thing to me, nor surprising, if he called me to labor yet still more largely in this way. The thoughts about enlarging the orphan work have not yet arisen on account of an abundance of money having lately come in, for I have had of late to wait for about seven weeks upon God, whilst little, very little comparatively, came in, i.e. about four times as much going out as came in, and had not the Lord previously sent me large sums, we should have been distressed indeed. Lord, how can thy servant know thy will in this matter? Will thou be pleased to teach him? During the last six days since writing the above, I have been, day after day, waiting upon God concerning this matter. It has generally been more or less all the day on my heart. When I have been awake at night it has not been far from my thoughts, yet all this without the least excitement. I am perfectly calm and quiet respecting it. My soul would be rejoiced to go forward in this service. Could I be sure that the Lord would have me to do so? For there notwithstanding the numberless difficulties, all would be well, and his name would be magnified. On the other hand, were I assured that the Lord would have me to be satisfied with my present sphere of service, and that I should not pray about enlarging the work? By his grace I could, without an effort, cheerfully yield to it, for he has brought me into such a state of heart, that I only desire to please him in this matter. Moreover hitherto I have not spoken about this thing even to my beloved wife, the share of my joys, sorrows, and labours for more than twenty years. Nor is it likely that I shall do so for some time to come. For I prefer quietly to wait on the Lord, without conversing on this subject, in order that thus I may be kept the more easily by his blessing, from being influenced by things from without. The burden of my prayer concerning this matter is, that the Lord would not allow me to make a mistake, and that he would teach me to do his will. December 26th. Fifteen days have elapsed since I wrote the preceding paragraph. Every day since then I have continued to pray about this matter, and that with a goodly measure of earnestness by the help of God. There has passed scarcely an hour during these days in which, whilst awake, this matter has not been more or less before me. But all without even a shadow of excitement. I converse with no one about it. Hitherto have I not even done so with my dear wife. For this I refrain still, and deal with God alone about the matter, in order that no outward influence and no outward excitement may keep me from attaining unto a clear discovery of his will. I have the fullest and most peaceful assurance that he will clearly show me his will. This evening I have had again a special solemn season for prayer, to seek to know the will of God. But whilst I continue to entreat and beseech the Lord, that he would not allow me to be deluded in this business, I may say I have scarcely any doubt remaining on my mind as to what will be the issue, even that I should go forward in this matter. As this however is one of the most momentous steps that I have ever taken, I judge that I cannot go about this matter with too much caution, prayerfulness and deliberation. I am in no hurry about it. I could wait for years by God's grace with that his will, before even taking one single step toward this thing, or even speaking to anyone about it. And on the other hand, I would set to work tomorrow with the Lord to bid me do so. This calmness of mine, this having no will of my own in the matter, this only wishing to please my Heavenly Father in it, this only seeking his and not my honor in it, this state of heart, I say, is the fullest assurance to me that my heart is not under a fleshly excitement, and that if I am helped thus to go on, I shall know the will of God to the full. But while I write this, I cannot but add at the same time that I do crave the honor and the glorious privilege to be more and more used by the Lord. I desire to be allowed to provide scriptural instruction for a thousand orphans instead of doing so for three hundred. I desire to expound the holy scriptures regularly to a thousand orphans instead of doing so to three hundred. I desire that it may be yet more abundantly manifest, that God is still the hearer and answerer of prayer, and that he is the living God now as he ever was and ever will be. When he shall simply, in answer to prayer, have condescended to provide me with a house for seven hundred orphans, and with means to support them. This last consideration is the most important point in my mind. The Lord's honor is the principal point with me in this whole matter, and just because this is the case, if he would be more glorified by not going forward in this business, I should by his grace be perfectly content to give up all thoughts about another orphan house. Surely in such a state of mind, obtained by the Holy Spirit, thou, O my Heavenly Father, wilt not suffer thy child to be mistaken, much less deluded. By the help of God I shall continue further day by day to wait upon him in prayer, concerning this thing, till he shall bid me act. January 2nd, 1851 A week ago I wrote the preceding paragraph. During this week I have still been helped day by day, and more than once every day, to seek the guidance of the Lord about another orphan house. The burden of my prayer has still been that he in his great mercy would keep me from making a mistake. During the last week the Book of Proverbs has come in the course of my scripture reading, and my heart has been refreshed in reference to the subject by the following passages. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. By the grace of God I do acknowledge the Lord in all my ways, and in this thing in particular. I have therefore the comfortable assures that he will direct my paths concerning this part of my service, as to whether I shall be occupied in it or not. Further, the integrity of the upright shall preserve them. Proverbs 6 3 By the grace of God I am upright in this business. My honest purpose is to get glory to God. Therefore I expect to be guided aright. Further, commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established. Proverbs 16 3 I do commit my works unto the Lord, and therefore expect that my thoughts will be established. My heart is more and more coming to a calm, quiet, and settled assurance, that the Lord will condescend to use me still further in the orphan work. Here, Lord, is thy servant. When later he decided to build two additional houses, numbers four and five, he writes thus again, 12 days have passed away since I wrote the last paragraph. I have still day by day been enabled to wait upon the Lord, with reference to enlarging the orphan work, and have been during the whole of this period also in perfect peace, which is the result of seeking in this thing only the Lord's honour and the temporal and spiritual benefit of my fellow men. Without an effort could I by his grace put aside all thoughts about this whole affair, if only assured that it is the will of God that I should do so, and, on the other hand, would at once go forward if he would have it be so. I have still kept this matter entirely to myself, though it be now about seven weeks since day by day, more or less, my mind has been exercised about it, and since I have been daily praying about it, yet not one human being knows of it. As yet I have not even mentioned it to my dear wife, in order that thus, by quietly waiting upon God, I might not be influenced by what might be said to me on the subject. This evening has been particularly set apart for prayer, beseeching the Lord once more not to allow me to be mistaken in this thing, and much less to be deluded by the devil. I have also sought to let all the reasons against building another orphan house, and all the reasons for doing so, pass before my mind, and now for the clearness and definiteness write them down. Much, however, as the nine previous reasons weigh with me, yet they would not decide me were there not one more. It is this. After having for months pondered the matter, and having looked at it in all its bearings and with all its difficulties, and then having been finally led after much prayer, to decide on this enlargement, my mind is at peace. The child who has again and again besought his heavenly father not to allow him to be deluded, nor even to make a mistake, is at peace, perfectly at peace concerning this decision, and has thus the assurance that the decision come to, after much prayer during weeks and months, is the leading of the Holy Spirit, and therefore purposes to go forward, assuredly believing that he will not be confounded, for he trusts in God. Many and great may be his difficulties. Thousands and ten thousands of prayers may have ascended to God before the full answer may be obtained. Much exercise of faith and patience may be required. But in the end, it will again be seen that his servant, who trusts in him, has not been confounded. Prayer and the glory of God. We have sought more than once to enforce the truth, that while we ordinarily seek the reasons of our prayers not being heard, in the thing we ask not being according to the will of God, Scripture warns us to find the cause in ourselves, and our not being in the right state, or not asking in the right spirit. The thing may be in full accordance with his will, but the asking, the spirit of the supplicant, not. Then we are not heard. As the great root in all sin is self and self-seeking, so there is nothing that even in our more spiritual desires, so effectually hinders God in answering is this. We pray for our own pleasure or glory. Prayer to have power and prevail must ask for the glory of God, and he can only do this as he is living for God's glory. In George Muller we have one of the most remarkable instances on record of God's Holy Spirit leading a man deliberately and systematically at the outset of a course of prayer to make the glorifying of God his first and only object. Let us ponder well what he says and learn the lesson God would teach us through him. I had constantly cases brought before me which proved that one of the special things which the children of God needed in our day was to have their faith strengthened. I longed therefore to have something to point my brethren to, as a visible proof that our God and Father is the same faithful God as ever he was, as willing as ever to prove himself to be the living God in our day is formally to all who put their trust in him. My spirit longed to be instrumental in strengthening their faith by giving them not only instances from the word of God of his willingness and ability to help all who rely upon him, but to show them by proofs that he is the same in our day. I knew that the word of God ought to be enough and it was by grace enough for me, but still I considered I ought to lend a helping hand to my brethren. I therefore judged myself bound to be the servant of the Church of Christ, in the particular point in which I had obtained mercy, namely in being able to take God at his word and rely upon it. The first object of the work was, and is still, that God might be magnified by the fact that the orphans under my care provided with all they need, only by prayer and faith, without anyone being asked. Thereby it may be seen that God is faithful still and he is prayer still. I have again these last days prayed much about the orphan house and have frequently examined my heart, that if it were at all my desire to establish it for the sake of gratifying myself I might find it out. For as I desire only the Lord's glory, I shall be glad to be instructed by the instrumentality of my brother, if the matter be not of him. When I began the orphan work in 1835, my chief object was the glory of God, by giving a practical demonstration as to what could be accomplished simply through the instrumentality of prayer and faith, in order thus to benefit the Church at large, and to lead a careless world to see the reality of the things of God, by showing them in this work that the living God is still, as four thousand years ago, the living God. This, my aim, has been abundantly honoured. Multitudes of sinners have been thus converted, multitudes of the children of God in all parts of the world have been benefited by this work, even as I had anticipated. But the larger the work has grown, the greater has been the blessing, bestowed in the very way in which I looked for blessing. For the attention of hundreds of thousands has been drawn to the work, and many tens of thousands have come to see it. All this leads me to desire further and further, to labour on in this way, in order to bring yet greater glory to the name of the Lord, that he may be looked at, magnified, admired, trusted in, relied on at all times, is my aim in this service, and so particularly in this intended enlargement. That it may be seen how much one poor man, simply by trusting in God, can bring about by prayer, and that thus other children of God may be led to carry on the work of God and dependence upon him, and that children of God may be led increasingly to trust in him in their individual positions and circumstances. Therefore I am led to this further enlargement. Prayer and Trust in God There are other points on which I would be glad to point out what is to be found in Mr. Muller's narrative, but one more must suffice. It is the lesson of firm and unwavering trust in God's promise as the secret of persevering prayer. If once we have, in submission to the teaching of the Spirit in the Word, taken hold of God's promise and believed that the Father has heard us, we must not allow ourselves by any delay or unfavourable appearances be shaken in our faith. The full answer to my daily prayers was far from being realised, yet there was abundant encouragement granted by the Lord to continue in prayer. But suppose even that far less had come in than was received. Still, after having come to the conclusion upon scriptural grounds, after much prayer and self-examination, I ought to have gone on without wavering in the exercise of faith and patience concerning this object, and thus all the children of God, when once satisfied that anything which they bring before God in prayer is according to his will, ought to continue in believing, expecting, persevering prayer, until the blessing is granted. Thus am I myself now waiting upon God for certain blessings, for which I have daily besought him for ten years and six months, without one day's intermission. Still the full answer is not yet given concerning the conversion of certain individuals, though in the meantime I have received many thousands of answers to prayer. I have also prayed daily without intermission for the conversion of other individuals about ten years, for others six or seven years, for others from three or two years, and still the answer is not yet granted concerning those persons, while in the meantime many thousands of my prayers have been answered, and also souls converted, for whom I had been praying. I lay particular stress on this for the benefit of those who may suppose that I need only to ask of God and receive at once, or that I might pray concerning anything and the answer would surely come. One can only expect to obtain answers to prayers which are according to the mind of God, and even then patience and faith may be exercised for many years, even as mine are exercised in the matter to which I have referred. And yet I am daily continuing in prayer and expecting the answer, and so surely expecting the answer, that I have often thanked God that he will surely give it, though now for nineteen years faith and patience have thus been exercised. Be encouraged, dear Christians, with fresh earnestness to give yourselves to prayer, if you can only be sure that you ask things which are for the glory of God. But the most remarkable point is this, that six pounds, six shillings, and six pennies from Scotland supplied me, as far as can be known now, with all the means necessary for fitting up and promoting the new orphan houses. Six years and eight months I have been day by day, and generally several times daily, asking the Lord to give me the needed means for this enlargement of the orphan work, which according to calculations made in the spring of 1861, appeared to be about fifty thousand pounds, the total of this amount I had now received. I praise and magnify the Lord for putting this enlargement of the work into my heart, and for giving me courage and faith for it, and above all for sustaining my faith day by day without wavering. When the last portion of the money was received I was no more assured concerning the whole, that I was at the time I had not received one single donation towards this large sum. I was at the beginning, after once having ascertained his mind, through most patient and heart-searching waiting upon God, as fully assured that he would bring it about, as if the two houses with the hundreds of orphans occupying them had been already before me. I make a few remarks here for the sake of young believers in connection with this subject. 1. Be slow to take new steps in the Lord's service, or in your business, or in your families. Way everything well. Way all in the light of the Holy Scriptures and in the fear of God. 2. Seek to have no will of your own, in order to ascertain the mind of God regarding any steps you propose taking, so that you can honestly say you are willing to do the will of God, if he will only please to instruct you. 3. But when you have found out what the will of God is, seek for his help and seek it earnestly, perseveringly, patiently, believingly, expectantly, and you will surely, in his own time and way, obtain it. To suppose that we have difficulty about money only would be a mistake. There occur hundreds of other wants and of other difficulties. It is a rare thing that a day occurs without some difficulty or some want. But often there are many difficulties and many wants to be met and overcome the same day. All these are met by prayer and faith, our universal remedy, and we have never been confounded. Patient, persevering, believing prayer offered up to God in the name of the Lord Jesus has always, sooner or later, brought the blessing. I do not despair by God's grace of obtaining any blessing, provided I can be sure it would be for any real good and for the glory of God. End of appendix. End of with Christ in the School of Prayer.