Profiting from the Word - Part Two

Extract

Profiting from the Word – Part Two
A. W. Pink

4. The Scriptures and Prayer 1
5. The Scriptures and Good Works 10
6. The Scriptures and Obedience 20

4. The Scriptures and Prayer
A prayerless Christian is a contradiction in terms. Just as a still-born child is a dead one, so a professing believer who does not pray is devoid of spiritual life. Prayer is the breath of the new nature in the saint, as the Word of God is its food. When the Lord would assure the Damascus disciple that Saul of Tarsus had been truly converted, He told him, “Behold, he prayeth” (Acts 9:11). On many occasions had that self-righteous Pharisee bowed his knees before God and gone through his “devotions,” but this was the first time he had ever really prayed. This important distinction needs emphasizing in this day of powerless forms (2 Tim. 3:5). They who content themselves with formal addresses to God know Him not; for “the spirit of grace and supplications” (Zech. 12:10) are never separated. God has no dumb children in His regenerated family: “Shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto Him?” (Luke 18:7). Yes, “cry” unto Him, not merely “say” their prayers.

But will the reader be surprised when the writer declares it is his deepening conviction that, probably, the Lord’s own people sin more in their efforts to pray than in connection with any other thing they engage in? What hypocrisy there is, where there should be reality! What presumptuous demandings, where there should be submissiveness! What formality, where there should be brokenness of heart! How little we really feel the sins we confess, and what little sense of deep need for the mercies we seek! And even where God grants a measure of deliverance …