“ ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “For this, moreover, I will be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them: I will increase them with men like a flock.
Parallel Translations
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“ ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “For this, moreover, I will be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them: I will increase them with men like a flock.
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Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock.
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Thus saith the Lord GOD: I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock.
Cross-references (17)
Passages linked to Ezekiel 36:37 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Hebrews 10:21-22 and having a great priest over God’s house, let’s draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed with pure water,
- 1 John 5:14 This is the boldness which we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he listens to us.
- Ezekiel 14:3 “Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their heart, and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face. Should I be inquired of at all by them?
- Zechariah 10:6 “I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them back; for I have mercy on them; and they will be as though I had not cast them off: for I am Yahweh their God, and I will hear them.
- Zechariah 10:9 I will sow them among the peoples; and they will remember me in far countries; and they will live with their children, and will return.
- Ezekiel 20:3 “Son of man, speak to the elders of Israel, and tell them, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Is it to inquire of me that you have come? As I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “I will not be inquired of by you.” ’
- James 4:2-3 You lust, and don’t have. You murder and covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask. You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
- Psalms 10:17 Yahweh, you have heard the desire of the humble. You will prepare their heart. You will cause your ear to hear,
- Psalms 102:17 He has responded to the prayer of the destitute, and has not despised their prayer.
- Isaiah 55:6-7 Seek Yahweh while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to Yahweh, and he will have mercy on him, to our God, for he will freely pardon.
- Jeremiah 50:4-5 “In those days, and in that time,” says Yahweh, “the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping, and will seek Yahweh their God. They will inquire concerning Zion with their faces turned toward it, saying, ‘Come, and join yourselves to Yahweh in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten.’
- Ezekiel 20:31 When you offer your gifts, when you make your sons pass through the fire, do you pollute yourselves with all your idols to this day? Should I be inquired of by you, house of Israel? As I live, says the Lord Yahweh, I will not be inquired of by you!
- Philippians 4:6 In nothing be anxious, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
- Hebrews 4:16 Let’s therefore draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace for help in time of need.
- Jeremiah 29:11-13 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,” says Yahweh, “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future. You shall call on me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You shall seek me, and find me, when you search for me with all your heart.
- Zechariah 13:9 I will bring the third part into the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will test them like gold is tested. They will call on my name, and I will hear them. I will say, ‘It is my people;’ and they will say, ‘Yahweh is my God.’ ”
- Matthew 7:7-8 “Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (15 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Eze 36:37 Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will…
Eze 36:37 Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will yet [for] this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do [it] for them; I will increase them with men like a flock.
Ver. 37. I will yet for this be inquired of,] i.e., Though I have promised my people all these boons, yet I look they should put my promises in suite, by praying them over. Prayer is an indispensable duty, and must not on any pretence whatsoever be neglected.
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I will increase them with men like a flock.] Plenty of men and store of children is a great blessing of God. Yet some are ready to say of them, as that rustic did of his afflictions, when he was told they were God’s love tokens, Ah quam velim alios amare, non me. Oh how I wish to love others, not myself. {a}
{a} Luther.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Though I have repeated so often my promise to…
Though I have repeated so often my promise to return them, to rebuild, to multiply them, yet they shall know it is their duty to entreat it, to wait on me, and then I will give a merciful answer and do it. Thus Daniel prayed, when he knew the return was sure and near. Or else it may be thus; Above all this, or yet more than all this, I will be found of them when they do seek me: thus it is a promise made to their prayer, in the other it is a requiring them to pray, so they shall increase as a flock.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for…
Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel,.... Besought and prayed unto for the accomplishment of the above promises, as well as what follows: for though God has promised and will perform, yet he expects that his people will apply to him for it; it is our duty to put the Lord in mind of his promises, to plead them with him, and pray unto him for the fulfilment of them. The Syriac version is, "even for this I seek Israel"; and so the Arabic version; as if the sense was, that the Lord will seek the people of Israel wherever they are, and find them out, and call them by his grace, and gather them out of all countries, and bring them into their own land: "to do it for them"; everything before promised, and what next follows:
I will increase them with men like a flock; as a flock of sheep is increased, which is a very increasing creature: or, "as a flock of men" (p); it signifies that the people of the Jews will be very numerous at their conversion; see Hos 1:10.
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(p) "sicut gregem hominum", V. L. Syr.; "sicut pecus hominus", Montanus; "pecudes hominum", Pagninus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Inquired of - Though I have repeated so often…
Inquired of - Though I have repeated so often my promise to do this, yet it is their duty to intreat it, to wait on me, and then I will do it.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 37. Thus saith the Lord God] In answer…
Verse 37. Thus saith the Lord God] In answer to the question, "Who shall have such blessings?" we say, they that pray, that seek earnestly, that strive to enter in at the strait gate. "Thus saith the Lord, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel." Neither Jew nor Gentile shall be thus saved who do not earnestly pray to God; and for this thing; for this complete salvation; this setting up of the kingdom of Christ upon earth, and particularly in their own souls.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Eze 36:37-38. I will yet be inquired of by…
Eze 36:37-38. I will yet be inquired of by the house of Israel — The house of Israel must, 1st, Pray for these blessings; for by prayer God is sought unto and inquired after. What is the matter of God’s promises, must be the matter of our prayers. By asking for the mercy promised, we give glory to the donor, express our value of the gift, our own dependance upon God, and put honour upon prayer, upon which he has put honour. Christ himself must ask, and then God will give him the heathen for his inheritance; must pray the Father, and then he will send the Comforter; much more must we ask that we may receive. 2d, They must consult the oracles of God, for thus also God is sought unto and inquired after: the mercy must not be an act of providence only, but a child of promise; and therefore the promise must be looked at, and prayer made for it, with an eye of faith fixed upon it, which must be both the guide and the ground of our expectations. In both these ways we find Daniel inquiring of God, in the name of the house of Israel: then when God was about to do these great things for them, he consulted the oracles of God, for he understood by books, namely, the book of the Prophet Jeremiah, both what was to be expected, and when; and then he set his face to seek God by prayer, Dan 9:2-3. As the holy flock, &c. — Flocks designed for holy uses, as sacrifices, and therefore further described by the place where they were presented, namely, Jerusalem; in her solemn feasts — The three great annual feasts. These flocks were for quality the best of all, and for numbers very great on these solemn occasions: see 2Ch 35:7; and 1Ki 8:63. Thus shall men multiply, and fill the cities of replanted Judah. And the increase of the numbers of a people is then honourable, when they are all dedicated to God as a holy flock, to be presented to him as living sacrifices. Crowds are a lovely sight in God’s temple.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Their sin had prevented God’s hearing them. Now their…
Their sin had prevented God’s hearing them. Now their purification opens God’s ears to their words.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Find. Hebrew, "seek." I will cause great multitudes to…
Find. Hebrew, "seek." I will cause great multitudes to come to the solemn feast. This was seen still more after the conversion of the Gentiles. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain I will yet for this be inquired of--so as…
I will yet for this be inquired of--so as to grant it. On former occasions He had refused to be inquired of by Israel because the inquirers were not in a fit condition of mind to receive a blessing (Eze 14:3; Eze 20:3). But hereafter, as in the restoration from Babylon (Neh. 8:1-9:38; Dan. 9:3-20, 21, 23), God will prepare His people's hearts (Eze 36:26) to pray aright for the blessings which He is about to give (Psa 102:13-17, Psa 102:20; Zac 12:10-14; Zac 13:1).
like a flock--resuming the image (Eze 34:23, Eze 34:31).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 37. I will yet [or, “moreover,” R.V.] for this…
37. I will yet [or, “moreover,” R.V.] for this be inquired of — While the people kept their old disobedient heart Jehovah had refused to respond to their petitions or inquiries (Eze_14:3; Eze_20:3), but now he is willing to answer their prayers, and the population of the Holy Land, which has been decimated, shall increase like the flock “for sacrifice” (Eze_36:38, R.V.), and the people shall fill the waste cities as the flocks at the time of the great feasts covered the hills. (Compare 34.) This illustration was drawn from Ezekiel’s memory of his boyhood, when he had seen what seemed to him countless numbers of sacrificial lambs driven into Jerusalem. At the time he spoke the holy city and the temple were both in ruins, but he sees in the future a vast and holy “flock of men” occupying the land now held by a vile and profane remnant (Eze_33:24).
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 37. yet … be inquired of] Almost: I will…
37. yet … be inquired of] Almost: I will let myself be inquired of, which embraces not merely the enquiry or request on the part of the people, but the response to it on the part of the Lord. Cf. Eze_14:3, Eze_20:3; Eze_20:31. As usual “this” refers to what follows—the multiplication of the people.
37, 38. A single point in the Lord’s restoration of Israel is made prominent, the multiplication of the people. The terrible threats of the diminution of their numbers (Eze_36:12), and of the destruction both of those remaining in the land and those going into exile, were no doubt to a great extent fulfilled (Lamentations 5). The scanty population of Jerusalem is referred to by Nehemiah nearly a century after the first exiles returned (Eze_7:4). The old promise that they should be as the sand of the sea is here repeated, cf. Eze_36:10-11; Eze_36:33; Jer_31:27; Hos_1:10; Zec_2:4.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (37) I will yet for this be enquired of.—Comp.…
(37) I will yet for this be enquired of.—Comp. Eze_14:3-4; Eze_20:3. Formerly God refused to be inquired of by a people whose hearts were far from Him; now that He has given them a new heart He is ready to hear them.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain I will yet for this be inquired of by…
I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel. On two previous occasions, (Eze_14:3 Eze_20:3) Jehovah had declined to be inquired of by the hypocritical and idol-loving elders of Israel, who pretended to consult him through his prophet; now he makes it known that in the future era no barrier of moral and spiritual unfitness on their part will prevent their free approach to his throne, but rather that they will come to him with fervent supplications for the very blessings he has pro-raised. In answer to their prayers, he engages, going back to the language of Eze_34:22, to increase them with men like a flock incorrectly rendered by Kliefoth to "multiply them so that they shall become the flock of mankind." Thus he meets the despondency of those among the exiles who, fixing their attention on the small number of them who should form the new Israel those who should return with those, perhaps, who still remained in the land-could not see how Israel"s future prosperity was to be secured.
Inquiry of God.
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Light is cast upon the function of prayer in the Divine economy by observing that in this passage explicit promises of blessing are first given to Israel; and then, afterwards, it is affirmed that, for this blessing, God requires that his people should make supplication to him. The fact is that unless there be a basis for prayer in the explicit assurances of God, although it may be a natural and instinctive, it can hardly be a reasonable, exercise.
I THE PROMISES OF GOD ARE AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE PRAYERS OF GOD"S PEOPLE. The fact that explicit promises have been given is a fact familiar to every reader of Scripture. These promises are numerous and repeated. They have respect to the varied wants of men, and accordingly are characterized by a wonderful and very precious variety. Blessings so valuable and so desirable may well be sought with earnestness and importunity.
II THE PRAYERS OF GOD"S PEOPLE ARE THE CONDITION OF THE OBTAINING OF GOD"S BLESSING. This affirmation rests upon the plain declarations of God"s Word. "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find." It rests also upon reason. The best gifts of God are of such a nature that they cannot be bestowed irrespectively of the moral condition, the spiritual attitude of the recipient. They are not material, they are not conferred as by mechanical, physical law. God opens the heart that it may receive the benefits he waits to bestow.
III THE PRAYERS OF GOD"S PEOPLE ARE THE OCCASION OF GOD"S CARRYING OUT HIS PURPOSES OF MERCY. We have looked at the matter from the human side, but it must be regarded also from the Divine side. The All-wise himself propounds his own terms; he carries out his intentions of mercy in the way that seems good to him. "For this moreover will I be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them." For reasons which are only very partially within our powers of comprehension, this is the ordinance, the arrangement of Jehovah himself. We may be content to understand that which is within our range, to trace the bearing of prayer upon our religious interests, and to learn from experience its reasonableness as respects ourselves. And we must, in childlike faith, accept upon God"s authority what is beyond our limited powers with any completeness to comprehend.
IV THE PRAYERS OF GOD"S PEOPLE ARE REQUIRED AND COMMANDED BY HIM WHO IS THE GIVER OF THE PROMISES. With one hand our Father in heaven offers the gifts; with the other hand he delivers to his Church his written and express command. "Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full;" "Pray without ceasing;" "If ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him! T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for…
Eze_36:37-38
Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.
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The prayers of the Church required for the conversion of souls
This chapter is full of exceeding great and precious promises. The text is associated with all these prophecies. Though God promises these blessings, and they are absolute blessings springing out of Divine grace and flowing from sovereign electing love to this people, yet He determined that for these blessings there should be prayer, and that not one of them should be communicated but through this channel. Two things God designs by this plan. The first is, to make the mercy we get, valuable. No man fancies a thing that comes without his care, without his concern, without his anxiety; hence, to render these mercies precious and valuable to us--as they are valuable in themselves, so also to make us account them so--God will have us ask for them. And next, we shall not only prize them more, but praise the Giver of them, when we have them in answer to prayer. Coming without prayer, we should be very apt to forget the hand that bestowed them; but coming immediately in answer to prayer, a song of gratitude naturally arises to God.
I. The subject of our prayers. What is it to be? I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.
1. The conversion or sanctity of souls, human souls, to God.
2. Not only that souls should be converted and sanctified, but that numbers should be converted. Why are we to ask for this so especially?
(1) Gods promises warrant it. All flesh, He says, shall see the salvation of God.
(2) Gods Spirit can easily accomplish it. If these seem great things to ask, yet we are straitened in our own bowels, not in Him.
(3) Gods honour is advanced by it.
(4) The Church is encouraged.
II. The impediments to prayer.
1. The want of vigorous personal piety.
2. The power of unbelief.
3. Private sins. Sometimes these sins are personal; sometimes relative; sometimes social.
III. The success of prayer. God then designs to do it for us. He ha made up His mind to the granting of the blessings. And here is our comfort--that no uncertainty exists when we ask Him to grant His blessings which He has promised.
1. It has been His practice to answer prayer in all generations of the Church.
2. He pledges His faithfulness and honour to hear and answer prayer.
3. Christs fulness is to be received by prayer--is to be communicated through this channel. (James Sherman.)
Inquire of the Lord
I. Why should we arouse ourselves to this inquiry at the hands of the Lord?
1. It is a great privilege to be allowed to inquire at the hands of the Lord.
2. Prayer is also to be looked upon as a precious gift of the Spirit of God. It is by virtue of covenant promise and covenant grace that men are made to pray: for the Lord has said, I will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants in Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications.
3. We must pray, because it is a needful work in order to the obtaining of the blessing. The Church of God is to be multiplied; but Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of.
4. It is a business which is above all others remunerative. I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock. That is a beautiful idea of multitude. You have perhaps seen an immense flock, a teeming concourse of congregated life. Such shall the increase of the Church be. But then it is added, to enhance the blessing, As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts. This to the Jewish mind conveyed a great idea of number.
5. The results of prayer as I have already described them are such as greatly glorify God. And they shall know that I am the Lord. When the kingdom of God is largely increased in answer to prayer, there is a wonderful power abroad to answer the arguments of sceptics, and put to silence the ribaldry of ungodly tongues. This is the finger of God, say they.
II. How should this duty be performed?
1. First, it should be by the entire body of the Church. For this will I be inquired of by--By the ministers? By the elders? By the little number of good people who always come together to pray? Look! Look carefully! By the house of Israel; that is by the whole company of the Lords people.
2. Next, the successful way to inquire of the Lord is for the Church to take personal interest in the matter. Thus saith the Lord God; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them. If the sinner will not repent, let us break our heart about him. Let us go and tell the Lord his sins, and mourn over them as if they were our own. If men will not believe, let us by faith bring them before God, and plead His promise for them. If we cannot get them to pray, let us pray for them and intercede on their behalf, and in answer to our repentance they shall be made to repent, in answer to our faith they shall be led to believe, and in reply to our prayer they shall be moved to pray.
3. The blessing will come to the prayer of a dependent Church. I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; that is to say, they will not dream of being able to do it for themselves, but will apply to God for it. Christian men should never speak of getting up a revival. Where are you going to get it up from? We must wait upon God, conscious that we can do nothing of ourselves, and we must look to the Holy Spirit as the alone power for the conversion of souls. If we pray in this dependent way we shall obtain an overflowing answer.
4. Again, the way to obtain the promised blessing is that the prayer must be offered by an anxious, observant, enterprising Church. The expression used, I will be inquired of, implies that the people must think and ask questions, must argue and plead with God. It is well to ask Him why He has not given the blessing, and to urge strong reasons why He should now do so.
5. If we are to obtain the blessing in answer to prayer, that prayer must be offered by a believing Church. Answers to prayer do not now appear to us to be contrary to the laws of nature; it seems to us to be the greatest of all the laws of nature that the Lord must keep His promises and hear His peoples prayers. Gravitation and other laws may be suspended, but this cannot be. Oh, says one, I cannot believe that. No, and so your prayers are not heard. You must have faith, for if faith be absent you lack the very backbone and soul of prayer.
III. On what ground can anybody be excused from the duty of prayer? Answer: On no ground whatever.
1. You cannot be excused on the ground of common humanity; for if it be so that God will save sinners in answer to prayer, and I do not pray, what am I? Surely the milk of human kindness has been drained from my breast, and I have Ceased to be human, and if so, it is idle to talk of communion with the Divine.
2. Next, can any excuse be found in Christianity for neglect of prayer? In Gods name, how can we make a profession of Christianity if our hearts do not ascend in mighty prayer to God for a blessing on the sons of men?
3. But perhaps an excuse is found in the fact that the Christian man does not feel that his prayer is of very much consequence, for his heart is in a barren state. Ah, well, this is no excuse, but an aggravation of the sin. At such a time there should be a double calling upon God that the Spirit of prayer may be vouchsafed.
4. I do charge you, professing Christians, not to restrain prayer to God for a blessing, for, if you do, you hurt all the rest of the brotherhood. Get a bit of dead bone into your body and it harms first the member in which it is placed and subsequently the whole body. So if there is a prayerless professor among us, he is an injury to the entire company.
5. Now, surely we ought to be much in prayer, because after all we owe a great deal to prayer. Those who were in Christ before me prayed for me: should I not pray for others?
6. I am afraid I shall have also to plead that I must suspect your soundness in the faith, brethren, if you do not join in prayer. Correct opinions are a poor apology for heartlessness towards our fellow men. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The necessity and power of prayer
Observe how God hangs all the blessings of salvation upon prayer. He says, as it were, I have had pity upon sinners; I have provided pardon for the guilty, justification through the righteousness, and life through the death of My Son; I have engaged to take away the heart of stone and replace it with one of flesh; I have promised My Spirit to sanctify, sufficient grace, and certain glory; all these blood-bought, gracious, happy, holy blessings shall be yours, freely yours; yet not yours, unless they are sought in prayer. I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.
I. Nature herself teaches us to pray. Prayer must be natural, for it is universal. Never yet did traveller find a nation on this earth but offered prayers in some form or other to some demon or God. Races of men have been found without raiment, without houses, without manufactures, without the rudiments of arts, but never without prayers. Prayer is as common as speech, human features, or natural appetites. It is universal, and seems to be as natural to man as the instinct which prompts an infant to draw the milk of a mothers bosom, and by its cries to claim a mothers protection.
II. Some difficulties connected with this duty. The decrees of God, say some, render prayer unnecessary, useless. Are not all things, they ask, fixed by these decrees, irrevocably fixed? By prayer I may, indeed, prevail on a man to do a thing which he has not previously resolved not to do, and even although he should have so resolved, man is changeable; and I may show him such good reasons for doing it, as to change his resolution. But if an immutable God has foreseen everything, and indeed, foresettled everything by an eternal and irreversible decree, what purpose can prayer serve? The objection admits of a conclusive answer. We might show that the decrees of God embrace the means as well as the end; and since prayer is a means of grace, being a means to an end, it must therefore be embraced within these very decrees, and cannot be excluded by them. I content myself, however, with simply remarking, that this objection is not honestly, at least not intelligently, entertained by any man. For, if the objection is good against prayer, is it not good against many things else? If it stops action in the direction of prayer, if it arrests the wheels of prayer, it ought also to stop the wheels of our daily business. If it is a valid argument against prayer, it is an equally good objection to ploughing, sowing, taking meat or medicine, and a thousand other things. Others, more earnest and honest, reading that without faith it is impossible to please God, reading and misunderstanding what they read, He who doubteth is damned, say that from want of faith, their prayers must be useless. Most false reasoning! What says the apostle? I will that men pray everywhere. God will have all men to be saved. Like little children, we take our Fathers simple word, nor trouble ourselves with the metaphysics of the question. If you were sufficiently alive to your danger, oh, these difficulties would have no more power to hold you than the fragile meshes of a spiders web. I knew of one who, while wandering along a lonely and rocky shore at the ebb of tide, slipped his foot into a narrow crevice. Fancy his horror on finding that he could not withdraw the imprisoned limb. Dreadful predicament! Did he cry for help? Cry for help! Who dreams of asking such a question? True, none heard him. But, how he shouted to the distant boat! how his heart sank as her yards swung round, and she went off on the other tack! how his cries sounded high above the roar of breakers! how bitterly he envied the white sea mew her wing, as, wondering at this intruder on her lone domains, she sailed above his head, and shrieked back his shriek! how at length, abandoning all hope of help from man, he turned his face to heaven, and cried loud and long to God! All that God only knows. But as sure as there was a terrific struggle, so sure, while he watched the waters rising inch by inch, these cries never ceased till the wave swelled up, and washing the dying prayer from his lips, broke over his head with a melancholy moan. There was no help for him. There is help for us, although fixed in sin as fast as that man in the fissured rock. Whether we have true faith, may be a question which is not easily settled; but to pray is a clear and commanded duty. The help, oh, help, Lord, never yet burst from an anxious heart, but it rose to be heard in heaven, and accepted by God.
III. Prayer must be earnest. It is the heart that prays; not the knees, nor the hands, nor the lips. Have not I seen a dumb man, who stood with his back to the wall, beg as well with his imploring eye and open hand, as one that had a tongue to speak? If you would have your prayers accepted, they must be arrows shot from the heart; none else reach the throne of God. You may repeat your prayers day by day; you may be punctual in your devotions as a Mohammedan who, at the Mollahs call from the top of the minaret, drops on his knees in the public assembly or crowded street. What then? The prayer of the lip, the prayer of the memory, the prayer of the wandering mind in its dead formality, is, in Gods eyes, of no more value than the venal masses of Rome, or the revolutions of a Tartars wheel. The sacrifice of the hypocrite is an abomination to the Lord.
IV. Prayer is powerful. An angel, says our great poet, keeping ward and watch on the battlements of heaven, caught sight of Satan as he sailed on broad wing from hell to this world of ours. The celestial sentinel shot down like a sunbeam to the earth; and communicated the alarm to the guard at the gates of Paradise. Search was made for the enemy, but for a time without success. Ithuriel at length entered a bower, whose flowery roof showered roses which the morn repaired, and where our first parents, lulled by nightingales, embracing slept. There he saw a toad sitting squat by the ear of Eve. His suspicions were awakened. In his hand he bore a spear that had the power of revealing truth, unmasking falsehood, and making all things to stand out in their genuine colours. He touched the reptile with it. That instant the toad, which had been breathing horrid dreams into the womans ear, changes it shape, and there, confronting him face to face, stands the proud, malignant, haughty form of the Prince of Darkness. With such a spear as that with which Milton, in this flight of fancy, arms Ithuriel, prayer arms us. Prayer moves the hand that moves the universe. It secures for the believer the resources of Divinity. What great battles has it fought! what victories won! what burdens carried! what deep wounds healed! what sore griefs assuaged! Prayer is the wealth of poverty; the refuge of affliction; the strength of weakness; the light of darkness. Prayer has just two limits. The first is, that its range is confined to the promises; but within these, what a bank of wealth, what a mine of mercies, what a store of blessings! The second is, that God will grant or deny our requests as He judges best for His own glory and our good. And who that knows how we are, in a sense, but children, would wish it otherwise?
V. Prayer is confident. It is easy to know the knock of a beggar at ones door. Low, timid, hesitating, it seems to say, I have no claim on the kindness of this house; I may be told I come too often; I may be dismissed as a troublesome and unworthy mendicant; the door may be flung in my face by some surly servant. How different, on his return from school, the loud knocking, the bounding step, the joyous rush of the child into his fathers presence; and, as he climbs his knee and flings his arms round his neck, the bold face and ready tongue with which he reminds his father of some promised favour! Now, why are believers bold? Glory to God in the highest! It is to a father in God, to an elder brother in Christ, that Faith conducts our steps in prayer; therefore, in the hour of need, bold of spirit, she raises her suppliant hands, and cries, O that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, and come down. I know a parents heart. Have I not seen the quivering of a fathers lip, the tear start into his eye, and felt his heart in the grasp and pressure of his hand, when I expressed some good hope of a fallen child? Have I not seen a mother, when her infant was tottering in the path of mettled coursers, with foam spotting their necks, and fire flying from their feet, dash like a hawk across the path, and pluck him from instant death? Have I not seen a mother, who sat at the coffin head, pale, dumb, tearless, rigid, terrible in grief, spring from her chair, seize the coffin which we were bearing away, and, with shrieks fit to pierce a heart of stone, struggle to retain her dead? And if we, that are but worms of the earth, will peril life for our children, and, even when they are mouldered into dust, cannot think of our dead, nor visit their cold and lonesome grave, but our hearts are wrung, and our old wounds bleed afresh, can we adequately conceive or measure, far less exaggerate--with fancy at its highest flight--the paternal love of God? (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
The necessity of prayer
I. The blessings for which we should inquire.
1. We should pray for ourselves. We are sinful, indigent, and dependent creatures. God only can supply our wants and satisfy our desires.
2. We should pray for the Church of God. Good men feel interested in each others welfare, and desire the peace and prosperity of Zion (Psa_122:6-9). They pray for the extension and stability of her borders--the increase of her converts--and the unity and progression of her members (Hab_3:2; Eph_3:14-21; Php_1:9-11).
3. We should pray for the world (Psa_43:3; Isa_62:1; Mat_6:10; Rev_11:15).
II. The manner how we should inquire for them.
1. In the method which He appoints. We cannot approach unto Him acceptably, but through Jesus Christ, who is the high priest over the House of God forever (Joh_14:6; Heb_7:17).
2. With devout dispositions of mind.
(1) Sincerely, without hypocrisy (Mat_15:8);
(2) Humbly, with reverence and godly fear (Psa_89:7);
(3) Fervently, with holy ardour (Gen_32:26);
(4) Affectionately, with hearts filled with love to God, and goodwill to all mankind (Mat_6:14-15);
(5) Believingly, in the lively exercise of faith (Mat_21:22; 1Jn_5:14-15).
3. In every situation of human life. In private retirement (Mat_6:6);--in our families (Jos_24:15)--in the public ordinances of the Gospel (Psa_27:4)--and in our daily occupations, we should pray always, with all prayer, and everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting (Eph_6:18; 1Ti_2:8).
4. With diligent perseverance unto death.
III. The reasons why we should inquire of the Lord.
1. Prayer is an ordinance of Divine authority. The Lord commands us to pray (Psa_4:4-5; Jer_29:12; Luk_18:1)--He promises to hear and answer prayer (Psa_91:15-16); and He directs how to pray (Mat_6:9-13).
2. Prayer evinces the dependence of the creature on the Creator.
3. Prayer demonstrates the connection between duty and interest. As intellectual beings, we are capable of moral actions and spiritual enjoyments. The Lord is therefore pleased to suspend the blessings He promises, on the performance of the duties He enjoins: and it is only by complying with the latter, that we can realise the former (Psa_34:17; Jer_33:3). (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)
Prayer
I. Prayer is a reasonable service. This can be best shown by examining those speculative objections which have been preferred by sceptics against it.
1. That prayer is inconsistent with the Divine omniscience. If God knows your wants, and your disposition to have them supplied, why inform and importune Him in prayer? The objection proceeds from a misapprehension of the design of prayer. Its ostensible design is indeed the attainment of the blessing for which we pray; but there is an ulterior and higher object for which it was appointed, namely, the spiritual influence, the disciplinary effect of the habit.
2. Another objection alleges that prayer is inconsistent with Gods immutability. I answer, God is immutable in the principles of His administration, but not in His acts. The laws protect you today because you conform to them, tomorrow they may put you to death for transgressing them; not because they change--the change is in yourself. So the sinner is heard if he truly prays, but lost if he prays not; yet God does not change, it is His ordained economy that it should be so. And this economy is founded in His immutable wisdom.
3. It is objected again that the universe is governed by secondary causes; and, in order that prayer should bring about results different from what would take place without it, there must be an interference with--a suspension of--those fixed causes; but there is no such interference. I have three remarks to make on this objection. The first is, that it applies to prayer only so far as physical blessings are concerned, for these alone are affected by physical causes. I remark, secondly, that the objector is incompetent to the assumption, that there is no Divine interference with fixed causes in answer to prayer. How does he know it? And how can he assert it against Gods own assertion if he is incompetent to know it? Thirdly, I remark it is not necessary to assume that there is any rupture of natural causes in the case. We notice but the lowest links in the chain of those causes; how then can we assume that the higher ones are not adapted or controlled, so as to meet this peculiarity of the moral system? The last link of the series is in the hand of Omnipotence.
4. Another objection is, mans comparative insignificance. Can it be supposed that the infinite God will stoop from amid all worlds to regard our wants and prayers? The objection includes two elements,--the insignificance of man and the greatness of the Deity. The first is a mere fallacy. Man is, indeed, physically insignificant, but not morally nor intellectually. Weakest and most imbecile of all living creatures at his birth, in a few years he masters all others, controls the elements by his arts, and by his science transcends his own sphere to survey kindred worlds. This he does amid innumerable impediments, physical, mental, and moral. What then must be his progress in his purely spiritual sphere? It is not improbable that an hours exercise of his faculties there will unfold them more than the labour of a life here. Let us pass to the next element in the objection--the greatness of the Deity. Can it be supposed that the infinite God will stoop from amid all worlds to regard our wants and prayers? Yes, the greatness of God, the very ground of the objection, is the ground of our confidence. God is infinite; were He finite, however great, there might be plausibility in the objection. Then it might be supposed that His attention would be so absorbed in the more general affairs of the universe, as to exclude from it entirely our minute interests; but infinite greatness implies that the small as well as the great, the minutia as well as the aggregate--that all things are comprehended by it.
II. Prayer is a salutary exercise. It is so, in the first place, because it is the means of the blessings prayed for. Faith is the condition of salvation; it is faith that is imputed for righteousness: yet prayer is the expression, the vehicle of faith; prayer is the wing on which faith rises to the mercy seat. In the second place, its disciplinary effect is salutary. If our spiritual blessings were not conditional, but matters of course, like the blessings of light, air, or water, we would forget, as the world has in regard to the latter, the merciful agency of God in conferring them. Prayer, therefore, tends to humility. Gratitude, likewise, is produced by it in the same manner; for every blessing received in answer to it comes to us as a gratuity of the Divine mercy. There is no virtuous affection with which it is not congenial. It is serene, tranquillising, spiritualising. It cannot consist with sin. Prayer, says one, will make us either cease sinning, or sin make us cease praying.
III. Prayer is a consolatory exercise. Man has a moral nature. His moral faculties are as distinguishable and as constitutional as his physical or intellectual. His most perfect happiness consists in the due gratification of all his faculties. There is a higher gratification than that of sense; there is a higher exercise than that of thought. It is the satisfaction of the conscience and the exercise of the heart. God made man for intercourse with Himself; all other exercises and enjoyments were to be but secondary to this. Prayer is the means of this intercourse; its language is the converse of this communion. But it is consolatory in a second sense. It is a source of aid and security. A devout mind, constant in the habit of prayer, may acquire such a lively sense of the immediate presence and sympathy of God as to exult in the most trying danger, and be almost superior to even the instinctive fears of human nature.
IV. Prayer is a sublime exercise. The reach of a mighty mind, transcending the discoveries of ages, and evoking to view new principles or new worlds, is sublime. Newtons discoveries, pushing human comprehension higher in the series of natural causes and effects, were sublime. But there may be a progress remaining, compared with which his discoveries, as he said himself, are like the bubble compared with the ocean, But prayer sweeps over all secondary causes, and lays hold on the first cause; it bends not its flight to repose its wing, and refresh itself amid the light of undiscovered worlds, but rises above stars and suns, until it bathes its pinions in the light of the excellent glory.
Conclusion--
1. These views should lead us to estimate prayer as a privilege, not merely as a duty.
2. Our interest in it may be considered a criterion of our piety. (A. Stevens, M. A.)
Prayer--the forerunner of mercy
The word used here to express the idea of prayer is a suggestive one. I will yet for this be inquired of. Prayer, then, is an inquiry. No man can pray aright, unless he views prayer in that light. First, I inquire what the promise is, I turn to my Bible, and I seek to find the promise whereby the thing which I desire to seek is certified to me as being a thing which God is willing to give. Having inquired so far as that, I take that promise, and on my bonded knees I inquire of God whether He will fulfil His own promise. I take to Him His own word of covenant, and I say to Him, O Lord, wilt Thou not fulfil it, and wilt Thou not fulfil it now? So that there, again, prayer is inquiry. After prayer I look out for the answer; I expect to be heard; and if I am not answered I pray again, and my repeated prayers are but fresh inquiries. Wilt Thou answer me, O Lord? Wilt Thou keep Thy promise? Or wilt Thou shut up Thine ear, because I misunderstand my own wants and mistake Thy promise?
I. Prayer is the forerunner of mercies. We bid you turn back to sacred history, and you will find that never did a great mercy come to this world unheralded by prayer. The promise comes alone, with no preventing merit to precede it, but the blessing promised always follows its herald, prayer. You shall note that all the wonders that God did in the old times were, first of all, sought at His hands by the earnest prayers of His believing people. Our Lord Jesus Christ was the greatest blessing that men ever had. He was Gods best boon to a sorrowing world. And did prayer precede Christs advent? Was there any prayer which went before the coming of the Lord, when He appeared in the temple? Oh yes, the prayers of saints for many ages had followed each other. Abraham saw his day; and when he died Isaac took up the note; and when Isaac slept with his fathers, Jacob and the patriarchs still continued to pray; yea, and in the very days of Christ, prayer was still made for Him continually: Anna the prophetess, and the venerable Simeon, still looked for the coming of Christ; and day by day they prayed and interceded with God, that He would suddenly come to His temple. It has been so in the history of the modern Church. Whenever she has been roused to pray, it is then that God has awaked to her help. Jerusalem, when thou hast shaken thyself from the dust, thy Lord hath taken His sword from the scabbard. When thou hast suffered thy hands to hang down, and thy knees to become feeble, He has left thee to become scattered by thine enemies; thou hast become barren, and thy children have been cut off; but, when thou hast learned to cry, when thou hast begun to pray, God hath restored unto thee the joy of His salvation, He hath gladdened thine heart, and multiplied thy children. And now, again, to come nearer home: this truth is true of each of you, my dearly beloved in the Lord, in your own personal experience. God has given you many an unsolicited favour, but still great prayer has always been the great prelude of great mercy with you. And now some will say to me, In what way do you regard prayer, then, as affecting the blessing? God, the Holy Ghost, vouchsafes prayer before the blessing; but in what way is prayer connected with the blessing? I reply, prayer goes before the blessing in several senses. It goes before the blessing, as the blessings shadow. Even as the cloud foreshadoweth rain, so prayer foreshadoweth the blessing; even as the green blade is the beginning of the harvest, so is prayer the prophecy of the blessing that is about to come. Again: prayer goes before mercy, as the representative of it. The prayer comes, and when I see the prayer, I say, Prayer, thou art the vice-gerent of the blessing; if the blessing be the king, thou art the regent; I know and look upon thee as being the representative of the blessing I am about to receive. But I do think also that sometimes, and generally, prayer goes before the blessing, even as the cause goes before the effect. Some people say, when they get anything, that they get it because they prayed for it; but if they are people who are not spiritually minded, and who have no faith, let them know that whatever they may get it is not in answer to prayer; for we know that God heareth not sinners, and the prayer of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. Well, says one, I asked God for such-and-such a thing the other day; I know I am no Christian, but I got it. Dont you consider that I had it through my prayers? No, sir, no more than I believe the reasoning of the old man who affirmed that the Goodwin Sands had bean caused by the building of Tenterden steeple, for the sands had not been there before, and the sea did not come up till it was built, and therefore, said he, the steeple must have caused the flood. Now, your prayers have no more connection with your blessing than the sea with the steeple; in the Christians case it is far different. Ofttimes the blessing is actually brought down from heaven by the prayer. Oh! the testimonies to the power of prayer are so numberless, that the man who rejects them flies in the face of good testimonies. We are not all enthusiasts; some of us are cold blooded enough; we are not all fanatics; we are not all quite wild in our piety; some of us in other things, we reckon, act in a tolerably common sense way. But yet we all agree in this, that our prayers have been heard; and we could tell many stories of our prayers, still fresh upon our memories, where we have cried unto God, and He has heard us.
II. Why it is that God is pleased to make prayer the trumpeter of mercy, or the forerunner of it.
1. I think it is, first, because God loves that man should have some reason for having a connection with Him. It is as if some father should say to his son, who is entirely dependent upon him, I might give you a fortune at once, so that you might never have to come upon me again; but, my son, it delights me, it affords me pleasure to supply your wants; I like to know what it is you require, that I may oftentimes have to give you, and so may frequently see your face. Now I shall give you only enough to serve you for such a time, and if you want to have anything you must come to my house for it. Oh, my son, I do this because I desire to see thee often; I desire often to have opportunities of showing how much I love thee.
2. God would make prayer the preface to mercy, because often prayer itself gives the mercy. You are full of fear and sorrow; you want comfort--God says, pray, and you shall get it; and the reason is because prayer is of itself a comforting exercise. Take another case. You are in difficulty; you dont know which way to go, nor how to act. God has said that He will direct His people. You go forth in prayer, and pray to God to direct you. Are you aware that your very prayer will frequently of itself furnish you with the answer? For while the mind is absorbed in thinking over the matter, and in praying concerning the matter, it is just in the likeliest state to suggest to itself the course which is proper; for whilst in prayer I am spreading all the circumstances before God, I am like a warrior surveying the battlefield, and when I rise I know the state of affairs, and know how to act. Often, thus, you see, prayer gives the very thing we ask for in itself.
3. But again it seemeth but right, and just, and appropriate, that prayer should go before the blessing, because in prayer there is a sense of need. A sense of need is a Divine gift; prayer fosters it, and is therefore highly beneficial.
4. And yet again, prayer before the blessing serves to show us the value of it. If we had the blessings without asking for them, we should think them common things; but prayer makes the common pebbles of Gods temporal bounties more precious than diamonds; and in spiritual, prayer cuts the diamond, and makes it glisten more.
III. Let me close by stirring you up to use the holy art of prayer as a means of obtaining the blessing. Do you demand of me, and for what shall we pray? The answer is upon my tongue. Pray for yourselves, pray for your families, pray for the Churches, pray for the one great kingdom of our Lord on earth.
Prayer
Almost every page of the Bible is radiant with exceeding great and precious promises, which God in His love has given and in His faithfulness has fulfilled. When we have pleaded them confidingly in prayer, and obtained the fulfilment of anyone, even the least of them, how rich and happy have we become! Prayer is the golden link which binds promise to fulfilment. If men say, God has purposed this, and it will be done whether we pray or not, this passage asserts just the contrary. In this utterance, stern in its condemnation of all that is not simple in prayer, and yet encouraging to all that is so, the Lord solves the ever-recurring doubt, Will God, in deference to our prayer, interfere with the order of the world? He has already, in arranging that order, provided for the answer to every prayer.
I. One reason why God looks for prayer before the fulfilment of a promise is that we may be reminded the more strongly of our entire dependence upon Him. This dependence is taught us in various ways. Sometimes we have grasped something as if it were our own, and it has been suddenly taken from us. Sometimes, when we have fancied that we had attained some strength of virtue so as to be able to resist temptation, we have been made to feel, by our sins and our failures, what utter weakness ours is. Now, of the various ways in which God teaches us the lesson of dependence on Him, I know none at once so powerful and so pleasant as that which He has adopted when He says: If you are to have any promise fulfilled you must plead it with Me; come to Me as one who remembers that all the sufficiency of man is in God; come to take good from My gracious hands, as the bestowment of My unchanging love and faithfulness, the fulfilment of My certain promises; come and ask of Me and you shall receive; seek Me and ye shall find Me; knock at My door and it shall be opened unto you.
II. Another reason which may be adduced why God particularly desires that we should pray is in order that we may have a due estimate of the worth of His gifts. You must look at things in the light which the eternal world throws upon them. You are apt to miscalculate their value amidst your fellow men, who themselves estimate amiss the true proportion of the things that God either gives or withholds. You are too liable to take their estimate of them; and when you are enjoying Gods earthly gifts you are too apt to undervalue the higher blessings which are most to be enjoyed in quiet communion with Himself. Therefore He draws you away from the glare of the world, and from the false notions prevalent among your fellow men, and brings you into your closet, that there, as you think of Him, as you approach Him, as you remember that these things come from Him, you may estimate that as the best which speaks most of Him, that which has most of His own nature, and brings you most into harmony with Himself. Then you begin to see that it is comparatively immaterial whether you be strong or feeble in body, if only you be strong in faith, giving glory to God; that it matters little whether you be rich or poor, if only you be rich in faith and have firm hold of the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven.
III. Another reason is to connect the gifts more particularly with the giver and with the purposes for which those gifts are bestowed. In Fatherly love He looks down upon His children, and for His childrens happiness He pours out His bounties of every kind upon them. But we are not to let our thoughts terminate here. No; we must love Him beyond ourselves. Why are His blessings given? As of Him and from Him, so to Him are all things. Everything that He bestows is indeed intended to enrich and to bless those who receive His gifts, but it is intended also to come back to Himself in love and praise and service. God has connected the fulfilment of His promises with prayer, in order that we, asking these blessings, and being heard in our prayers, and receiving Gods gifts, may also remember that, if given by Him, they are given for His own purposes and to be used according to His will. How can we bend our knees before Him, and earnestly solicit some benefit, some one of Gods blessings, with the thought in our minds that the gifts of God may be used merely for ourselves? Is there not in the very position we are made to occupy, as creatures dependent upon His will, something which suggests to the mind which has been renewed, the heart in which the love of God has been in some measure shed abroad by the Holy Spirit, that all with which God enriches us, should be used for Him? We feel then that we are stewards of the manifold grace of God. Observe, too, another thing in connection with this recognition of God as the Giver, and the use and purpose of His gifts. We find that those who obtain Gods blessings in answer to prayer constantly pass on from the benefit to recognise in their gratitude the Divine beneficence of Him who gives it. When you have received a blessing there may be a transient feeling of happiness, but it is important that we should remember that every blessing we have is but an isolated instance of the exercise of that Divine beneficence, a putting forth of those Divine attributes, which are always and everywhere at work.
IV. Yet another reason is in order to encourage the habit of intercourse with himself. It is impossible for anyone fully to understand, until he experiences it himself, what the coming into the secret presence of God is; what it is to shut the door and have communion with the Father who seeth in secret. But every renewed soul, the soul of every true Christian believer, knows what it is to have access to God through Jesus Christ. Yet there are influences which so drag us down, so draw us away from God, so shut up the channels of communication, so send the heart, as it were, coldly back into its own selfishness, that we continually need to be drawn again and again into this intercourse with God. We mourn oftentimes that it is so; yet so it is; and because it is so, God has coupled His blessings with prayer. He gives us a promise of a blessing, and then, in order that we may be drawn to intercourse with Him, He tells us that if we would have the promise fulfilled, we must come to Him and ask as His children; we must enter into our Fathers presence and must kneel before Him; we must lift up the pleading eye and utter words of entreaty, and endeavour, with the strength of faith, to grasp all His declarations. We must do this, and then, and not till then, shall we have the fulfilment of Gods promise. (W. A. Salter.)
Why God requires His people to pray, even though He has told them what He is about to do
I. In order that He may teach us that we have nothing at all to do with His purposes and determinations. Suppose God has fixed something, His decree is nothing to you,--that is not to be the law of your action. He calls you to a nobler and a more profitable study than the study of His determinations would be. You would soon be lost in such a subject, and never would arrive at any reasonable and satisfactory result respecting them. He calls you to search deep down into the eternal principles of your own nature, and of those Scriptures which He has given you for your guidance. He calls you to exercise your own sense of right and wrong. He has not revealed His determinations that He may lessen your activity or repress your thought. He calls you to exercise and make use of the powers He has given you. And that His determinations may not have a wrong influence over you, He has enjoined upon you the duty of prayer, even in reference to their execution.
II. In order that He may teach us that He accomplishes nothing without the use of means. If everything has been fixed absolutely, then clearly there is no occasion for any means to be employed to secure the result. It is equally clear that things have not been fixed and determined in this manner; and anyone who should presume that they have been, and act upon his presumption, would soon discover, in his utter ruin and destruction, the error he had Committed. In all matters relating to this present life, we never entertain such ideas for a moment. We all know that God has fixed and promised that there shall be a harvest every year whilst the world lasts. This fixing, however, does not secure the harvest. Suppose the husbandman, relying upon the promise, had refused to sow the seed, he would most assuredly have been taught his folly by being deprived of any harvest. But it is not in this direction that we need to be cautioned. We shall never be deterred from working in temporal matters by the knowledge we have of Gods decrees. But there is still danger in the principle, and that danger is sometimes realised in religious matters. The knowledge that God has promised success, and that we are entirely dependent upon God for our success, may lead us to inactivity. Because we know what God intends to do, we may rashly and foolishly conclude that He will accomplish His purpose without the employment of any means at all. But I do not find God acting in this way in the world around us. There was a time when God would prepare the world for the coming of His own Son. He might have done so by an immediate act of His own will; but He chose to raise up a visible messenger, and sent John the Baptist to prepare in the wilderness a highway for our God. There was a time when God would gather the fulness of the Gentiles unto His Church. He might have done so by causing some mysterious and unseen influence to be felt simultaneously throughout the world; but He raised up Paul, and sent him to preach amongst them the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ. He works through means. It matters not that those means are trifling and insignificant, and disproportioned to the end they serve to secure. The slightest means, so long as they are used, serve to substantiate and justify the principle that God works not without them, and the weakest instrumentality becomes strong and powerful when it is wielded by the hands of an Almighty God, and serves, too, to show us that we have some part to do in the carrying out and accomplishment of the purposes of God. And this is the lesson we have to learn here. God has promised; but He says that the fulfilment of the promise rests with ourselves. It may not be much that we have to do, but that little must be done before Gods work will he accomplished.
III. In order that He may teach us what immense capacities for doing good He has endowed us with. The whole world is within the range of our influence, because it may be made the object of our prayer. There is not a single living person who is not within reach of our power. Our prayer can rise up unto the highest, and it can sink down to the lowest and most depraved. Our friends may be separated from us by distances which we cannot destroy; but distance is a thing unknown to prayer, and so, for all practical purposes, they are near, and we can bring to bear upon them an immense, an omnipotent power. Our feelings may not allow us to talk upon religious subjects to some of our friends, and yet we can use, on their behalf, an instrumentality that has never been known to fail. We may have no wealth with which to carry forward the cause of Christ, and yet, out of our poverty, we may enrich its treasures and augment its affluence. We may have no talents to set forward, and no eloquence to describe, the glories of our Redeemer,--we may never be able to speak a single word in support of the claims of religion, and yet we may do more to Promote the cause of Christ, to magnify the glories of our Lord, and to support the claims of religion, than the man who has at his command wealth and talents and eloquence, but who is not a man of prayer.
IV. In order that He may teach us that, after all our efforts, success cometh wholly from the Lord. The husbandman never thinks of taking to himself the credit when he reaps a bountiful harvest. He blesses Him who made the seed to burst forth into life, even when it had died; who watered the earth with His showers, and matured its fruits by the genial influence of His sun. He praises God for His faithfulness to His promise. Such, too, ought our feelings to be. We knew beforehand what the result would be. We were sure of success, for God had said that He would do it. We only prayed for the fulfilment of a promise thus graciously given, and the very fact that we were only told to pray, ought to teach us that God meant that we should attribute all the glory, and ascribe all the praise to Him. Had He meant that we should share with Him the glory of securing the result, He would have given us some greater portion of the toil. He only told us to pray; and those few words that we breathe,--what are they towards securing so grand a result? They are nothing. It is only the fact that they are told to God that makes them strong and efficacious. Clearly, then, there is no glory belonging unto us. Success only humbles us: and as we look upon the answers to our Prayers in souls renewed and converted, piety and reason alike dictate the confession: I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. (F. Edwards, B. A.)
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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh continues speaking to Ezekiel.
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I will be asked by the house of Israel
Here "house" represents people. This can be stated in active form. AT: "The people of Israel will ask me" (See: Metonymy and Active or Passive)
to increase them like a flock of people
Yahweh causing the people to multiply greatly and quickly is spoken of as if they were a flock of sheep. Sheep multiply very quickly. AT: "to make them multiply like a flock of sheep" or "to make the people multiply quickly like sheep" (See: Metaphor)
Like the flock is set apart for sacrifices, like the flock in Jerusalem at her appointed feasts
The phrase "is set apart" can be stated in active form. AT: "Like the great number of sheep that the people set apart for sacrifices or bring to Jerusalem for the appointed feasts" (See: Active or Passive)
so will the ruined cities be filled with flocks of people
This speaks of the people of Israel as if they were a flock of sheep. This can be stated in active form. AT: "so will the great number of people be who will be living in the cities that are now ruined but the people will rebuild" (See: Metaphor and Active or Passive)
translationWords
Lord Yahweh
flocks
Jerusalem
appoint
feast
desolate
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.