A Sample by Prayer Demo
XIV. PRAYER AND THE HOUSE OF GOD PRAYER stands related to places, times, occasions and circumstances. It has to do with Prayer is always in place in the house of God. When prayer is a stranger there, then it ceases to be God's house at all. Our Lord put peculiar emphasis upon what the Church was when He cast out the buyers and sellers in the Temple, repeating the words from Isaiah, "It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer." He makes prayer preeminent, that which stands out above all else in the house of God. They, who sidetrack prayer or seek to minify it, and give it a secondary place, pervert the Church of God, and make it something less and other than it is ordained to be. Prayer is perfectly at home in the house of God. It is no stranger, no mere guest; it belongs there. It has a peculiar affinity for the place, and has, moreover, a Divine right there, being set, therein, by Divine appointment and approval. The inner chamber is a sacred place for personal worship. The house of God is a holy
place for united worship. The prayer-closet is for individual prayer. The house of God is
for mutual prayer, concerted prayer, united prayer. Yet even in the house of God, there The life, power and glory of the Church is prayer. The life of its members is dependent
on prayer and the presence of God is secured and retained by prayer. The very place is
made sacred by its ministry. Without it, the Church is lifeless and powerless. Without it, Without prayer, a church is like a body without spirit; it is a dead, inanimate thing. A
church with prayer in it, has God in it. When prayer is set aside, God is outlawed. When
prayer becomes an unfamiliar exercise, then God Himself is a stranger there.
As God's house is a house of prayer, the Divine intention is that people should leave
their homes and go to meet Him in His own house. The building is set apart for prayer
especially, and as God has made special promise to meet His people there, it is their
duty to go there, and for that specific end. Prayer should be the chief attraction for all
spiritually minded church-goers. While it is conceded that the preaching of the Word
has an important place in the house of God, yet prayer is its predominating,
distinguishing feature. Not that all other places are sinful, or evil, in themselves or in
their uses. But they are secular and human, having no special conception of God in Prayer is the one distinguishing mark of the house of God. As prayer distinguishes Christian from unchristian people, so prayer distinguishes God's house from all other houses. It is a place where faithful believers meet with their Lord. As God's house is, preeminently, a house of prayer, prayer should enter into and underlie everything that is undertaken there. Prayer be longs to every sort of work appertaining to the Church of God. As God's house is a house where the business of praying is carried on, so is it a place where the business of making praying people out of prayerless people is done. The house of God is a Divine workshop, and there the work of prayer goes on. Or the house of God is a Divine schoolhouse, in which the lesson of prayer is taught; where men and women learn to pray, and where they are graduated, in the school of prayer. Any church calling itself the house of God, and failing to magnify prayer; which does
not put prayer in the forefront of its activities; which does not teach the great lesson of
prayer, should change its teaching to conform to the Divine pattern or change the name And then, Josiah thought of God, and commanded Hilkiah, the priest, to go and make inquiry of the Lord. Such neglect of the Word of the Law was too serious a matter to be treated lightly, and God must be enquired of, and repentance shown, by himself, and the nation: "Go enquire of the Lord for me, and for them that are left in Israel and in Judah,
concerning the words of the book that is found; for great is the wrath of the Lord
that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord,
to do after all that is written in this book." When Ezra, returned from Babylon, was seeking the reconstruction of his nation, the people, themselves, were alive to the situation, and, on one occasion, the priests, Levites and people assembled themselves together as one man before the water gate. "And they spake unto Ezra the scribe, to bring the book of the law of Moses, which
the Lord had commanded to Israel. And Ezra the priest brought the law before the
congregation, both of men and women, and all that could hear with
understanding. And he read therein before the street that was before the water
gate from the morning until midday; and the ears of all the people were attentive This was Bible-reading Day in Judah -- a real revival of Scripture-study. The leaders
read the law before the people, whose ears were keen to hear what God had to say to
them out of the Book of the Law. But it was not only a Bible-reading day. It was a time "So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." Here then is the Scriptural definition of preaching. No better definition can be given. To
read the Word of God distinctly -- to read it so that the people could hear and
understand the words read; not to mumble out the words, nor read it in an undertone
or with indistinctness, but boldly and clearly -- that was the method followed in
Jerusalem, on this auspicious day. Moreover: the sense of the words was made clear in
the meeting held before the water gate; the people were treated to a high type of
expository preaching. That was true preaching -- preaching of a sort which is sorely
needed, today, in order that God's Word may have due effect on the hearts of the
people. This meeting in Jerusalem surely contains a lesson which all present-day
preachers should learn and heed. For its successful accomplishment, however, a preacher needs must be a man of prayer. For every hour spent in his study-chair, he will have to spend two upon his knees. For
every hour he devotes to wrestling with an obscure passage of Holy Writ, he must have
two in the which to be found wrestling with God. Prayer and preaching: preaching and
prayer! They cannot be separated. The ancient cry was: "To your tents, O Israel! "The The previous excerpt is taken from our wonderful guide, "The Necessity of Prayer." Order this entire collection for only $19.95 today and get all of the following: THERE'S MORE! Order today and get every single one of our ebooks with Resell Rights - Spread the word of God by selling our ebooks for 100% profit from your church, personal or prayer website! |