The prophecy to which these words belong is both brief and obscure. It stands, so to speak, apart and alone, disjoined equally from that which precedes, and from that which follows it. Instead of indulging in fruitless conjecture and speculation, I shall content myself with shortly stating that which alone can with any certainty be gathered out of it; and having done this, shall proceed at once to consider and use it as a call to examine the signs of this present time.
There are two things in the text that claim our attention. There is a promise, and a statement of the circumstances in which that promise will be realised. The promise is, “there am I in the midst of them.” The circumstances are, “where two or three are gathered together in my name.” Let us attend to these points in the order in which they have now been stated.
Now, my brethren, it is permitted the people of God to inquire into the mystery of divine providence, and into the reasons why God deals so hardly with those that are his own children. It is even lawful for them to use familiarity in these inquiries, but this familiarity must always be restrained by reverence, and tempered by deep humility. And it is of the first importance in entering on such inquiries, that we should keep in our minds, and have deeply impressed on them, the essential moral attributes of the Almighty.
Prayer is the element of worship which is most often mentioned in the Scriptures. From Genesis, chapter 4, when men began to call on the name of the Lord, to Revelation, chapter 22, when the church prays, “Come, Lord Jesus,” the Bible is full of prayer.
It is now many years since Mr. Stewart of Liverpool called the attention of Christians to the important duty of united and earnest prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, for the purpose of reviving true religion at home, and promoting its dissemination throughout the world. At that time he recommended ministers to preach upon the subject, and in other ways to diffuse information with regard to the person and work of the Holy Ghost.
As a young Christian I struggled to understand how to engage in religious fasting. That it was expected by Christ was undeniable, “…when ye fast…” (Matthew 6:16). However, when was this to happen? How was I to go about it? How could I avoid the errors of the hypocrites Christ mentioned? Doubtlessly, many today encountered similar questions when various days of humiliation were established over the past several months in light of God’s judgment upon our land and world. While excellent sections in several works exist, few book-length treatments can be found to address the topic. Fewer still are worthy of a Christian’s precious time.
He is crying unto us, “Sing, O heaven”—that is, “Sing, O Church; and rejoice, O earth. Sing, O State: sing both Church and State of Scotland.” Oh! how should we sing? Hath not the Lord forsaken and forgotten us? Nay, though it appears so, yet it is not really so. “A woman may forget her sucking child, but the Lord cannot forget his people.” The purpose of God is pregnant and about to bring forth a great deliverance unto the Church and State of Scotland. If we saw the days that our Lord is to bestow upon us in Scotland, and had a view of the ministers that shall be in it, it would make us sing. Ye think now that the ministers are gone. Indeed a great part of them are so, and the magistrates are rejected by us. We declare before sun, moon, and stars that this is the case. But the Lord hath yet ministers that shall be polished shafts in His quiver; and He will yet give us rulers, and will make out that promise: “And kings shall be thy nursing fathers;” so that if we saw the good days that are coming upon the back of these troubles, we would not get men and women kept from dancing for joy. Ye would all go home with gladness, rejoicing as if ye were frantic for joy. But you may say, “How can this be?” For there are two things to be objected against it:
We may often pray for things, the possession of which would prove really hurtful to us, and the denial of which things, therefore, is the most gracious answer to our prayer. God alone can tell what is really good for us, and graciously reserves to himself the prerogative of determining whether the petitions which we offer be fit to be granted.
Every Christian’s spiritual life begins and ends with prayer, from the first cry of the renewed soul to the last sigh of the departing saint. Prayer, basic as breathing, simultaneously demands rigor from even the most seasoned warrior.
