By J.C. Philpot
Preached at North Street Chapel, Stamford, on Lord's Day Morning, April 27, 1862
"Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation, and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work." 2 Thess. 2:16, 17
Have you ever sought to enter by faith into the mind and meaning of the Spirit as expressed in the prayers of the saints of old, recorded for our instruction in the inspired Scripture? Or have you ever been led to compare your own prayers with them? As you may not be prepared to give an immediate reply to these two inquiries, let me make the attempt to answer them for you in my own person. First, then, when I look at the prayers of the saints of old, as recorded in the Scriptures of truth, I see in them a simplicity, a beauty, a power, a savour, a nearness of access to God, which I feel better than I can describe. And when I compare my prayers with theirs, O how poor, how meagre, how feeble, how imperfect are they when thus laid by their side! Many thousands of times have I prayed in private, in the family, and before the assembled saints of God; but how often have I been ashamed both of myself and of my prayers! How dark often has been my mind, how void my heart, how confused my thoughts, how feeble my expressions! But, perhaps, it is hardly fair to judge of one's own prayers or of the prayers of others by this high standard, except as a cheek upon self-conceit; for the prayers which we have preserved for us in the Scripture are treasured up there not only for our instruction and consolation, but as patterns of what true prayer should be. They were inspired by the Holy Ghost in the breasts of the ancient worshippers of God in spirit and in truth; and when they had been presented before the footstool of mercy, were written down by inspired pens that they might be standing testimonies of what real, spiritual prayer is in the heart of God's people.
As being such, I shall devote a few moments' attention to them.
1. When, then, we come to look at these prayers a little more closely, we see that some of them were very short. But O how effectual! Prayer is something like the rifle contests which are now so much in vogue. It is not the number of times that a man shoots which decides the prize, but how many times he can hit the centre of the target. So with prayer: it is not how many times a man prays that makes him a winner in the contest: he may pray seven times, yea seventy times a day, and yet his prayers may be all wide of the mark. It is the prayer that brings down the answer which hits the target in the centre. I will give you two short prayers recorded in the Old Testament, and you will see how effectual they were and what an answer they obtained. One was the prayer of Jacob when he wrestled with the angel: "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." (Gen. 32:26.) How short, but O how effectual! For we read, "And he blessed him there." Another is the prayer of David: "O Lord, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness." (2 Sam 15:31.) Few words, but how effective! for the Lord did in very truth turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness. He gave counsel which would have been David's destruction; but the Lord turned it into foolishness, for it was rejected, and the counsel of Hushai preferred; for "the Lord," we read, "had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom." And not only did this short prayer of David overthrow the counsel, but it overthrew the counsellor; for when "Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed," maddened with vexation, and seeing that Absalom's case was now desperate, he "saddled his ass, gat him home, put his household in order, and hanged himself." (2 Sam 17:23.)
