Brethren! we, at all events, should learn the lesson of historical experience. The Gospel and the Book which is its record, have met with eager, eloquent, learned antagonists before to-day, and they have passed. Little more than a generation has sufficed to sweep them to oblivion. So it will be again. The forms of opinion, the tendencies of thought, which now seem to some of its enemies so certain to conquer, will follow these forgotten precursors into the dim land. May we not see them--these ancient discrowned kings that ruled over men and rebelled against Christ, these beliefs that no man now believes--rising from their shadowy thrones in the underworld to meet the now living and ruling unbelief, when it, too, shall have gone down to them; 'All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?' Yes, each in its turn 'becomes but a noise' when he 'passes the time appointed'--the time when God arises to do His act and vindicate His word.
II. We have here, secondly, earnest prayer which brings that divine energy.
The confidence that God _will_ work underlies and gives energy to the prayer that God _would_ work. The belief that a given thing is in the line of the divine purpose is not a reason for saying, 'We need not pray; God means to do it,' but is a reason for saying on the contrary, 'God means to do it; let us pray for it.' And this prayer, based upon the confidence that it is His will, is the best service that any of us can render to the Gospel in troublous times.
I shall have a word to say presently on the _sort_ of outflow of the divine energy which we should principally expect and desire; but let me first remind you, very briefly, how the prayers of Christian men do condition--I had almost said regulate--that outflow.
I need not put this matter on its abstract and metaphysical side. Two facts are enough for my present purpose--one, a truth of faith, that the actual power wherewith God works for His word remains ever the same; one, a truth of observation and experience, that there are variations in the intensity of its operations and effects in the world. Wherefore? Surely because of the variations in the human recipients and organs of the power. Here at one end is the great fountain, ever brimming. Draw from it ever so much, it sinks not one hair's-breadth in its pure basin. Here, on the other side, is an intermittent flow, sometimes in scanty driblets, sometimes in painful drops, sometimes more full and free on the pastures of the wilderness. Wherefore these jerks and spasms? It must be something stopping the pipe. Yes, of course. God's might is ever the same, but our capacity of receiving and transmitting that might varies, and with it varies the energy with which that unchanging power is exerted in the world. Our faith, our earnestness of desire, our ardour and confidence of prayer, our faithfulness of stewardship and strenuousness of use, measure the amount of the unmeasured grace which we can receive. So long as our vessels are brought, the golden oil does not cease to flow. When they are full, it stays. The principle of the variation in actual manifestation of the unvarying might of God is found in the Lord's words: 'According to your faith be it unto you.' So, then, we may expect periods of quickened energy in the forth-putting of the divine power. And these will correspond to, and be consequent on, the faithful prayers of Christian men. See to it, brethren! that you keep the channels clear, that the flow may continue full and increase. Let no mud and ooze of the world, no big blocks of sin nor subtler accumulations of small negligences, choke them again. Above all, by simple, earnest prayer keep your hearts, as it were, wide open to the Sun, and His light will shine on you, and His grace fructify through you, and His Spirit will work in you mightily.