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Text— “ From whence comes wars and fightings
among you? Come they not hence, even of your
lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have
not; ye kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain; ye
fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, yet ye
may consume it upon your lusts.” James 4. 1-4.
SHALL never forget the time when my
attention was riveted upon these verses.
For a long time I had been praying for
a brother whose life had been given Jo
sin. Many times we had criticised him
and doubtless had dealt heavy blows be
cause of his wayward course. Finally,
while reading the scriptures one night
my eyes rested upon these verses, and
F
something seemed to say to me, “you have done ev
erything else but pray.” But, said I to myself, “I
have prayed.” Still the feeling lingered in my
heart. I did not have much rest that night. The next
day I asked my people if they would not join me at
ten o’clock the following day in a service of prayer
about a matter that was weighing heavily upon my
heart. At the hour appointed there came together
about three or four hundred earnest, praying people.
I told them the nature of my burden. One after
another prayed. Ido not think there was one in the
house who did not enter into the sprit of prayer.
I went home with the assurance that something
would come of it. I had a sense of answered prayer
in my heart. The next morning as I was going in
to breakfast my door bell rang, and when I opened
the door was handed a telegram from my uncle
nearly five hundred miles away. The telegram read,
“Your brother was converted last night.” I did
not know where he was until I received the tele
gram; but God found him and through prayer did
that which none of us had been able to accomplish
through our advice.
Christian friends, I am quite sure none of us have
properly magnified this subject. We have laid more
stress upon every thing else than prayer; but Jesus
was the opposite of ourselves: He never taught his
disciples how to preach. We spend much time in
teaching. Our young men are required to do much
hard studying before thev,get our indorsement for
preaching. I believe men ought to be as thoroughly
prepared as possible before they start the work of
the ministry. But let it not be forgotten that Jesus,
so far as -we know, never gave one address on the
subject of how to preach.
We lay great stress upon the teaching. And I do
not think we place as much stress upon it as we
should. Certainly this is true in my expe
rience with Sunday School teaching. How
poorly this work is done in the majority of
our schools. Men and women who know nothing of
the fundamental doctrines of the Word are teaching
children. I believe every pastor ought to teach, or
arrange for somebody else to (each, a class from
which teachers are gathered.
The one thing Jesus taught his disciples, to do
was how to pray. You remember when they came to
Him saying, “Lord, teach us to pray as John also
taught his disciples,” and Jesus in answer to that
request said, “When ye pray, pray after this man
ner. ’ ’
Jesus not only taught His disciples how to pray,
but was Himself a man of prayer. On two occas
ions in His life He spent whole nights in prayer:
once before preaching the Sermon on the Mount
and again before selecting the twelve. Surely Christ
understood the importance of prayer.
“But,” some one says, “1 have prayed and failed
to realize any direct answer or benefit from prayer.”
Then something is the matter. We have prayed
amiss, if such is the case.
Perhaps the trouble with such praying is that
there is unforgiven sin in the heart. David says,
“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will
not hear me.” The most sensitive being we meet
is the Holy Ghost, God-with-us. So sensitive is he
with respect to sin that He refuses to hear us so
"ZET US PRAY”
Tabernacle Sermon by Reb. Len G. Broughton, D. D.
Stenographically reported for The Golden Age. —Copyright applied for
long as we are holding on to conscious sin. If there
is one thing, however small it may be, standing be
tween us and God, and we see it; if His finger has
been laid upon any thing in our lives or in our
ambitions that is unholy, and we refuse to yield
it, there is no way of approach to the ear of God.
This is what David meant by “regarding iniquity
in the heart.”
Some time ago a man was stricken with paralysis
in one of our great cities. It was complete. He
could not move a muscle. He was practically dead.
They carried him to a hospital and opened his
cranium and expected to find a tumor pressing upon
certain brain centers; but instead they found a small
spicula of bone not larger than a pin which had
shivered off from the inner table of the skull.
Doubtless this had occurred during childhood as the
result of a fall. The presence of this little piece of
bone resulted finally in this complete paralysis.
The remedy was very simple. The surgeon simply
applied a small pair of forceps and extracted the
bone, then the wound was closed and soon the man
was well.
What a picture this presents of the church! What
a picture it presents of many individuals, dead and
lifeless. We have striven hard and long perhaps to
find the cause. A thousand and one things have
Feen accused, when all the time the great trouble
was in the heart. Down there in the heart was a
bit of conscious sin and God had closed his ears
against our cry. The first step, therefore, to be
taken is that of self-examination, and the surrender
of everything in the heart to the purifying of the
blood of Christ.
It may be that the sin that hinders the answer,
in the case of many of us, is that of jealousy. I
am sure this is my most sensitive point. It may be
so with some of you, brethren. How hard it is for
us to keep the devil of jealousy from occupying our
hearts. It may be the sin of unforgiveness. It may
be the sin of wounding our brother’s feelings or
character. Whatever the sin may be, till it is con
fessed to God and put away, we will have no power
in prayer.
GOD’S PART AND OURS.
It may be that our prayers are not effective be
cause we have been asking God to do His part and
ours, too. You remember that picture of the resur
rection of Lazarus. Jesus stands in the midst.
Mary and Martha are there, a company of friends
are there; and they are all expecting the resurrec
tion. Jesus said to them, “Roll ye away the stone.”
Now He could have easily have brought Lazarus up
in spite of the stone. He could have spoken the
word and the stone would have disintegrated, or
He could have caused it to move away without the
aid of man; but He had a deep and lasting lesson
to teach the world. Here was the opportunity for
teaching it. What was this lesson? “My oppor
tunity is man’s extremity.”
This is the lesson He taught, and this is the lesson
we need to learn as much as any other today.
If I ask God to bless and prosper the church I
am to put my shoulder to the wheel and try to
bring prosperity to pass. This does not mean that
I am to miss the first prayer meeting, or business
conference, or Sunday school. It means that I am
to help forward that for which I have prayed. If
I ask God to beautify my child and make her glori
ous in His sight, I am not to allow her to be put
into such associations as may mar her character.
I am to look after the books she reads, the company
she keeps, the places she attends, and in every way,
by God’s help, to answer my own prayer. If I pray
for the conversion of sinners I am to try by personal
effort to bring them to Christ. If I pray for the
heathen, I am to labor for his salvation.
I shall never forget one occasion, just after
preaching on the life of William Cary. I was to
take a collection for foreign missions. A rich old
brother in the audience arose and said he thought
we ought to pray, and then he thought we ought to
sing. After leading the congregation in a long
The Golden Age for February 25, 1909.
prayer for the heathen he then started that old
hymn, “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains.” Every
body sang it. I noticed him very carefully. When
he came to that part of the old hymn, “Waft, waft
ye winds the story,” it seemed that he took special
delight in singing. Then after the hymn was fin
ished he put into the collection plate an old, thin,
much-abused ten cent piece. Though he was one of
the richest men in the community, this was what he
gave. I confess I grew a bit indignant, and without
stopping to think what I did I took the hymn book
and tore this old hymn out of it and then tore it
to pieces. My brethren, hear me, if I know 7 any
thing of the plan of God, He will never waft the
ship until we lift the sails.
Again we must understand that prayer is only an
swered when it is persistently made. Christ said:
“Though ye would not rise and let Him in because
of his friendship; still because of his importunity
ye would let him in.” It is the man that importunes
God that gets the blessing.
What we want in the churches is praying mem
bers. Would that we could find even one who would
thus resolve to pray God for the salvation and
power to come upon the church. This the need of
today —importunate prayer like the Syro-Phoenician
woman’s, “Lord, help! Lord, help!”
Our prayers are often not heard because they are
not uttered in faith. We are all perfectly familiar
with the promises conditioned on faith. I need not
stop to point them out to you. Many of us are lack
ing on this point when perhaps we least expect it.
Many times it is because we have a false conception
of what faith is. Surely if we had the idea of faith
held out in the lives of the apostles we would haw
more answers to our prayers; and yet we all realize
that we have much more reason for faith than even
these men who walked and talked with Christ Him
self.
What is faith ? I do not mean that you shall give
me the literal wording of some Scripture definition;
but in your own language what is faith? Here is
my conception of it: Faith is that which enables
us to undertake for God a thing the end of which
we can not see at the time of the undertaking.
See the disciples gathered about the Master on
the mount. Thousands of people are at the base of
the little hill or mountain. They are hungry. Jesus
says to Philip, “Where shall we get food with
which k) feed this multitude?” Philip answers by
saying: “It will take two hundred penny-worths,”
just as if it were not as easy for Jesus to get that
amount as it would a smaller portion. Just at that
time Andrew appears and says: “Master, there is
a lad here with three loaves and two fishes-; but
what are they to so many?” Jesus answers and
says, “Tell the people to sit down.” Then He
takes the three loaves and two fishes and hands to
the disciples and commands them to distribute to
the people. What a sublime act of faith this was
on the part of the disciples to bear this commission
of the Lord. If He had given us such a commis
sion, we would have been disposed to argue the
matter. We would have said, “Lord, what use is
there in having the people sit down unless we have
enough to go around?” But the disciples had more
faith than that. They took Jesus at His word and'
trusted him for the supply.
I remember a man in my church who took the
position that he would not vote to give our new
building to contract until every dollar of the money
was in hand. I said to him, My brother, you have
splendid business judgment but no faith. There is
no faith in such a position. God wants us to un
dertake things big enough to give Him a chance
to come in and show supernatural power. That is
one thing for which the Almighty is waiting today.
He wants men and women to have such a view of
Him as will enable them to undertake something
that is beyond their power, trusting Him, that He
may have a chance to show His power.
You remember Peter when he saw the Lord walk
ing on the water. At first he thought it was a
