Evening, November 13
Go To Morning Reading
“Men ought always to pray.”
Luke 18:1
If men ought always to pray and not to faint, much more Christian men. Jesus
has sent his church into the world on the same errand upon which he
himself came, and this mission includes intercession. What if I say
that the church is the world’s priest? Creation is dumb, but the church is to find a mouth for
it. It is the church’s high privilege to pray with acceptance. The door of grace is always
open for her petitions, and they never return empty-handed. The veil
was rent for her , the blood was sprinkled upon the altar for her , God constantly invites her to ask what she wills. Will she refuse
the privilege which angels might envy her? Is she not the bride of
Christ? May she not go in unto her King at every hour? Shall she allow
the precious privilege to be unused? The church always has need for
prayer. There are always some in her midst who are declining, or falling
into open sin. There are lambs to be prayed for, that they may be
carried in Christ’s bosom? the strong, lest they grow presumptuous; and the weak, lest
they become despairing. If we kept up prayer-meetings four-and-twenty
hours in the day, all the days in the year, we might never be without
a special subject for supplication. Are we ever without the sick and
the poor, the afflicted and the wavering? Are we ever without those
who seek the conversion of relatives, the reclaiming of back-sliders,
or the salvation of the depraved? Nay, with congregations constantly
gathering, with ministers always preaching, with millions of sinners
lying dead in trespasses and sins; in a country over which the darkness
of Romanism is certainly descending; in a world full of idols, cruelties,
devilries, if the church doth not pray, how shall she excuse her base
neglect of the commission of her loving Lord? Let the church be constant
in supplication, let every private believer cast his mite of prayer
into the treasury.