A Call to Prayer # 3

A Call to Prayer # 3

Never be surprised if you hear ministers of the gospel dwelling much on the importance of prayer. This is the point they want to bring to you. They want to know that you pray. Your views of doctrine may be correct. Your love of Protestantism may be warm and unmistakable. But still this may be nothing more than head knowledge and party spirit. They want to know whether you are actually acquainted with the throne of grace, and whether you can speak to God as well as speak about God.

Do you wish to find out whether you are a true Christian? Then rest assured that my question is of the very first importance - DO YOU PRAY?

III. I ask whether you pray, because there is no duty in religion so neglected as as private prayer. We live in days of abounding religious profession. There are more places of public worship than there ever was before. There are more people attending them than there ever was before. And yet in spite of all this public religion, I believe there is a vast neglect of private prayer. It is one of those private transactions between God and our souls which no eye sees, and therefore one which people are tempted to pass over and leave undone.

I believe that thousands never utter a word of prayer at all. They eat. They drink. They sleep. They rise. They go forth with their work. They return to their homes. They breathe God's air. They see God's sun. They travel on God's earth. They enjoy God mercies. They have dying bodies. They have judgment and eternity before them. But they never speak to God. They live like the animals that perish. They behave like creatures without souls. They have not one word to say to Him in whose hand are their life and breath, and all things, and from whose mouth they must one day receive their everlasting sentence. How dreadful this seems; but if the secrets of men were only known, how common.

I believe there tens of thousands whose prayers are nothing but mere form, a set of words repeated by rote, without a thought about there meaning. Some say over a few hasty sentences picked up in the nursery when they were children. Some content themselves with repeating the Creed, forgetting that thee is not a request in it. Some add the Lord's prayer, but without the slightest desire that its solemn petitions may be granted.

Does this surprise you? I will show you that I am not speaking as I do without reason. 

Have you forgotten that it is not natural to anyone to pray? "The carnal mind is enmity against God." (Romans 8:7). The desire of a person's heart is to get far away from God, and have nothing to do with Him. Their feeling towards Him is not love. Why then should a person pray when they have no real sense of sin, no real feeling of spiritual needs, no thorough belief in unseen things, no desire after holiness and heaven? Of all these things the vast majority of people know and feel nothing. The multitudes walk in the broad way. I cannot forget this. Therefore I say boldly, I believe that few pray.

Have you forgotten that it is not fashionable to pray? Have you forgotten the lives that many live? Can we really believe that people are praying against sin night and day, when we see them plunging into it? 

I cannot see your heart. I do not know your private history in spiritual things. But from what I see in the Bible and in the world, I am certain I cannot ask you a more necessary question than that before you - DO YOU PRAY?

IV. I ask whether you pray, because diligence in prayer is the secret of eminent holiness. Without controversy there is a vast difference among true Christians. There is an immense interval between the foremost and the hindermost in the army of God.

They are all fighting the same good fight but how much more valiantly some fight than others. They are all doing the Lord's work; but how much more some do than others. They are all light in the Lord; but how much more brightly some shine than others. They all love the same Lord and Saviour; but how much more some love Him than others. I ask any true Christian whether this is not the case. Are these things not so?

There are some of the Lord's people who seem never able to get on from the time of their conversion. They are born again, but they remain babies all their lives. 

~J. C. Ryle~

(continued with # 4)