Prayer

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[2] It must be a melting prayer. ‘The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.’ Psa 51: 17. The incense was to be beaten to typify the breaking of the heart in prayer. Oh! says a Christian, I cannot pray with such gifts and elocution as others; as Moses said, ‘I am not eloquent;’ but can’t thou weep? Does thy heart melt in prayer? Weeping prayer prevails. Tears drop as pearls from the eye. Jacob wept and made supplication; and ‘had power over the angel.’ Hosea 12: 4.

Thomas Watson

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[7] Prayer that would prevail with God, must be joined with reformation. ‘If thou stretch out thy hands toward him; if iniquity be in thy hand, put it far away.’ Job 11: 13, 14. Sin, lived in, makes the heart hard, and God’s ear deaf. It is foolish to pray against sin, and then sin against prayer. ‘If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.’ Psa 66: 18. The loadstone loses its virtue when bespread with garlic; so does prayer when polluted with sin. The incense of prayer must be offered upon the altar of a holy heart.

Thomas Watson

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There are CHOCOLATES MEROZ, who earned the curse of the angel of the Lord. War was declared; the battle about to begin; the odds were outrageous, and Meroz remained in England attending conventions until the battle was over, then he went, in comfort and security, as a Cook's tourist! Doubtless they said, "They couldn't fight till they had been properly ordained, and, besides, there was so very much to be done in fat, overfed Meroz, and surely to feed a flock of fat sheep in a safe place has always been considered the ideal training of war"; as though the best training for the soldier was to become a nurse-maid!!! (Judges 5:23.)

C. T. Studd

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We Christians too often SUBSTITUTE PRAYER FOR PLAYING THE GAME. Prayer is good: but when used as a substitute for obedience, it is naught but a blatant hypocrisy, a despicable Pharisaism. We need as many meetings for action as for prayer--perhaps more. Every orthodox prayer-meeting is opened by God saying to His people, "Go work today; pray that laborers be sent into My vineyard." It is continued by the Christian's response, "I go, Lord, whithersoever Thou sendest me, that Thy Name may be hallowed everywhere, that Thy Kingdom may come speedily, that Thy Will may be done on earth as in heaven." But if it ends in nobody going anywhere, it had better never have been held at all. Like faith, prayer without works is dead. That is why many PRAYER-MEETINGS might well be styled "much cry, yet little wool". Zerubbabel didn't only hold prayer-meetings; he went and cut down trees, and started to build. Hence God said, "From this day will I bless thee."

C. T. Studd

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Naturally the name of God is dreadful to us, especially when he is discovered to us by those names that declare his justice, holiness, power, and glory; but the word FATHER is a familiar word; it frighteth not the sinner, but rather inclineth his heart to love and be pleased with the remembrance of him. Hence Christ also, when he would have us to pray with godly boldness, put this word FATHER into our mouths, saying, "When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven;" concluding thereby that in the familiarity which by such a word is intimated, the children of God may take more holdness to pray for and ask great things. I myself have often found that when I can say but this word, FATHER, it doth me more good than when I call him by any other scripture name.

John Bunyan

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Alas, how few there be in the world whose heart and mouth in prayer shall go together. Dost thou, when thou askest for the Spirit, or faith, or love to God, to holiness, to saints, to the word, and the like, ask for them with love to them, desire of them, hungering after them? Oh, this is a mighty thing; and yet prayer is no more before God than as it is seasoned with these blessed qualifications. Wherefore it is said, that while men are praying, God is searching the heart to see what is the meaning of the Spirit, or whether there be the Spirit and his meaning in all that the mouth hath uttered, either by words, sighs, or groans, because it is by him and through his help only that any make prayers according to the will of God. Rom. 8:26,27.

John Bunyan