What is the purpose of prayer?

It surely is enough to know that God would have us pray. Scores of scriptures might be cited to show that prayer is acceptable to God.

Nobody imagines that we pray in order to inform God of what He does not know. Nor do we pray in order to secure His interest or His love. The saint who prays intelligently realises that he is speaking to One who knows his every need far better than he does himself, whose interest in all that concerns His people is unbounded, and whose love could not possibly be greater than it is. The object of prayer is that dependence upon God might be expressed, and that our souls might be brought into touch with Him about what we pray for; that in waiting upon Him we might learn His mind; that utterance might be afforded for desires which the Holy Ghost has wrought within us, and that when the answer comes we might be conscious that it is indeed from God that it comes.

The Lord now speaks of prayer. Vain repetitions are needless, for "your Father," He declared, "knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him" (8). He not only sees each one, but knows all about each one, being cognisant of all that of which each has need. What confidence should this impart God is my Father, and He knows what things I have need of before I ask Him. But how often has each one surely in the past forgotten this, even if there have been times when the soul has stayed itself on the remembrance of it. Is prayer then unneeded, a useless exercise? It is unneeded as the medium for informing God of what it is that we are in want; but it is not an exercise thrown away, when the child unbosoms and unburdens itself to its Father who is in heaven; for it is the appointed way of relief for the heart of the creature thus to pour out its requests to God. So the Lord goes on to teach the disciples how they were to pray, and in doing so teaches them about the Father, who has a kingdom, who daily cares for His children, and who can act in grace, forgiving them when they have sinned.

"Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him." That our Father knows what we have need of is one side; the other side is that He wants us to constantly realise our own weakness and dependence on Him, and wants to maintain us in the enjoyment of communion with Him. Nothing helps the furtherance of this more than personal, confidential prayer.

We now have, insisted on in the strongest way, the necessity of prayer. As already said, the house of God is necessarily, by the fact that this God is the God of all, "a house of prayer for all nations." Prayer is the recognition of the creature place as such, — of the need of God; while at the same time it testifies, if it be true prayer, of the faith that counts upon Him. It is striking that it comes into so much prominence in this epistle. It is important that the very grace of Christianity, the positiveness of salvation and of the working of all things together for good to them that love God, should not be permitted practically to set aside the need of prayer. God is all-mighty, all-wise, all-good; spite of all opposition, He will accomplish His will, and His will is that which should be accomplished. God is the only one who in that sense is entitled to have a will. But here there is the need, as is evident, of looking at things all around. Prayer is, no doubt, in one sense a necessity on our side, rather than on God's. We did not pray Christ down from heaven, but God sent Him for the lost. All through He is the First in this way, the One who works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. While that is true, it must not for a moment be used in contradiction to the truth that "the fervent, effectual prayer of the righteous man availeth much," and that God would have us "always to pray and not to faint." We must take this almightiness, this wisdom and love of God, to energize us, therefore, to prayer, and not to hinder us. It should act as plain encouragement, and in no other way. We are not in heaven, but only on our way to it, and prayer is just that which in the answers which we find to it keeps us in constant remembrance of the living God whom we need, and whose grace towards us becomes in this way so much more consciously such. For how much are we indebted to the needs which we thus have, and which it is plain God permits us to be reminded of in so many and often very painful ways! Love acts also in prayer, gives voice to its desires, as we see here; and thus we are permitted to have our place with God Himself, and our communion with Him who is the Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.

In the next chapter our Lord gives us further teaching on the same subject. "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you" (John 15:7). We may connect with this another scripture: "And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us" (1 John 5:14). Here it is according to the will of God, thereby excluding everything which is not of this character. But our Lord says, "What ye will"; and this brings before us a very important aspect of prayer. In this case it is conditional: "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you"; that is, abiding in Christ, ever remembering our dependence upon Him for everything, that without Him we can do nothing; and His words abiding in us, moulding us after His own mind, forming Himself in us, we of necessity express His own thoughts and His own desires, and consequently "what we will" must, in such a case, be "according to His will." It will be seen, at the same time, that the power of our prayers depends upon our spiritual condition. This is an unfailing principle. It is stated by St. John: "If our heart condemn us not, [then] have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight" (1 John 3:21-22). St. James also tells us, "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (James 5:16). This is of all importance; for neglecting our spiritual state, and thereby losing present communion with God, our prayers become cold and lifeless, degenerate into a repetition of known truths or old phrases, and thus, losing all significance, pass over into dead forms. The words are uttered to satisfy conscience; but expressing no heart-felt needs, and no outgoings of soul after God, they find no response, and bring down no blessing. Beware of such a state, which is often the commencement of the backslider's path, and which, unless checked by the grace of God, will land the soul in open shame and dishonour, to the name of Christ.

The uses of prayer are manifold. In the first place, the Lord has associated us with Himself in all His own desires. Yea, our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3). God therefore counts upon our love to have fellowship with all that is dear to His own heart. He has made His interests ours; and consequently He would have us enter into and make these the object of our prayers. What a privilege! To be permitted to range through all His purposes as revealed to us in the Word; to watch with delight their unfoldings; to behold them all centring in, and radiating from, the person of His Christ, as well as bringing back a revenue of glory to His name! Truly if we are enabled to enter at all into this wondrous position, by the power of the Spirit, we shall lack neither subject for, nor motive to, prayer.

Now the peace and joy of conversion it is one great use of prayer to reproduce and perpetuate. It brings the soul into the presence of that Saviour, whom in the day of salvation it found, and renewing the intercourse, it renews the joy. When prayer is what it ought to be — when it is earnest and realizing — it gives the believer conscious fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. It brings him in contact with those perfections of the Godhead which may at the moment be chiefly revealed to his view: and in the pavilion of prayer beneath the canopy of the sure atonement, and on the safe standing-point of acceptance — the soul surveys the God of majesty, or surrenders itself to the God of grace hearkens to his voice in the thundering power of startling providences, or melts in sweet amazement beneath the full flood of his marvellous mercies — but from every aspect of awful solemnity or benignant endearment, the assuring thought comes home, "And this God is our own God for ever."

The One who is our shield against the enemy becomes a resource for ourselves. As we avail ourselves of this great resource — as we cast our cares upon the Lord, He fills our hearts with His peace. The effect of prayer is not necessarily to change our circumstances, but to change ourselves. In place of being distressed and distracted we are kept in peace and sustained in the trial (Phil. 4:6-7). This is blessedly seen in the experiences of the psalmist. In the midst of his trials he cries to the Lord, has the consciousness of being heard, with the result, that, though the trials continue as before, he is kept in peace; he sleeps and is sustained; he awakes to the full consciousness of the trial but can face it without fear.

An eminent clergyman, one of the chief pillars of the New Theology, has said that prayer is entirely subjective in its bearing; that is, it cannot effect any purpose outside the soul of the one who prays and is thus only useful in putting us in a more pleasant frame of mind. The devil is well aware that a flat contradiction of the truth would stand little chance of being believed. Hence he has always sought to substitute a half-truth for the whole truth. Ever since he beguiled our first parents in Eden how notoriously successful he has been. There he suggested that by obeying him, man would become as God, knowing good and evil. That was a statement perfectly true so far as it went, but one which required the complementary statement that man would also be unable to do the good or to resist the evil. So Satan wishes to instil into the minds of Christians the half-truth that prayer is subjective, well knowing that limitation of the truth invariably results in its being given up. That prayer is subjective is blessedly true. It has a wonderful, stimulating, purifying influence on the soul of the supplicant. But it is equally true that prayer has an objective side. It fulfils the purpose of moving the Hand that controls the physical universe, that holds the spirits of men, and that moulds everything material and moral to the accomplishment of His will! Elijah was a man such as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain. When Elijah stood before the people on Mount Carmel, he was God's envoy and as such, spoke and acted in virtue of his high commission. But at the close of that busy memorable day when he came into the presence of the Lord, he humbled himself in the dust. The beautiful view from Carmel's summit had no place in his thoughts.

The fact is, it is the expression of a heart open, not only for God to speak to us, which was always true, but for us to draw near to God. It is intercourse with God that is the point, and not only the expression of want: free, simple, happy, communication with God — such is the idea. And this should be our thought and feeling and way in partaking of anything that God's mercy grants to us, whether we have it at the present moment or not. If we have it not before our eyes, it is before His eyes. He loves us, and cares for us — why should we trouble? Does He really hear us as we speak to Him? We have only to bethink ourselves for a moment in order to rebuke our unbelief. But suppose we have the things needed: are we to be independent? God forbid. If there be no wants to present to God now, have you no wish to speak to God now ? — no sense of the blessing of God upon you? Do you not want to tell Him how greatly He loves you, how truly He is caring for you? This is what is specified here; and in this sense to us every creature of God is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

The word translated "prayer" here, you may not have perceived, is the opening of this intercourse with God by which we can speak to Him about anything and everything — even the commonest matters which concern us day by day. I refer to it because all this is very intimately connected with the strength of our testimony. Abram knew its principle well; but now God has revealed Himself incomparably more fully than in the days of Abram, and our familiarity with God ought to be in the measure of His communications to us. As it is said, "every creature of God is sanctified by the word of God." It must begin with Him. It is first He who speaks to us; then we speak to Him; and the consequence of His so speaking to us is that we freely speak to Him. It was just the want of simplicity and vigour, if not reality, the want of living thus before God, that enfeebled the testimony of Lot. Assuredly power of public testimony depends, after all, on faith in what is unseen, and the resulting intercourse that goes on between God and our souls.

We have, moreover, direct exhortations to prayer; as for example, "Continuing instant in prayer"; "Pray without ceasing" (Rom. 12:12; 1 Thess. 5:17. See also Luke 18, etc.). And if you read the introductory parts of St. Paul's epistles you will see how he embodied his own exhortations. As you trace his path, as recorded for us in the Acts, you would think that he never did anything else than preach; but if you read these parts of the epistles you would almost think that he never did anything else than pray. Approximating to the example of our blessed Lord in his unwearied labours, he found, yea, he learnt, the need of constant waiting upon God. In like manner, prayer is a necessity for every child of God. For we are in ourselves weak and helpless, entirely dependent; and prayer is but the expression of our dependence on Him to whom we pray. Dependent upon God for everything, our very needs urge us into His presence; and having liberty of access through Christ, because of the place we occupy, and because of the relationship we enjoy, we "come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Heb. 4:16).