Job 15:4 - Homiletics

Restraining prayer.

Of the reasons leading men to either neglect or discontinue the exercise of prayer, these will be found to be the chief.

I. THERE IS NO GOD TO PRAY TO . This the reason of the atheist. But the existence of a supreme First Cause, possessed of intelligence and moral character, is to faith assured by:

1 . The intuitions of the human mind , which may sometimes attempt to argue itself out of, but never needs to reason itself into, the belief in a Divine Being.

2 . The witness of the creatures , which, by countless instances of special contrivance and design, attest the eternal power and Godhead of their Artificer ( Romans 1:20 ).

3 . The intimations of Scripture , which never demonstrate, but always assume, that a God exists, and man knows it. Hence, since there is a Supreme Being, the folly, as well as sin, of withholding from him that tribute of devotion which is his due.

II. THERE IS NO EFFICACY IN PRAYER . The usual objections to the possibility of prayer may be here stated, such as that the whole universe having been placed under the dominion of fixed and invariable law, there can, properly speaking, be no room for the exercise of prayer; that the Bible itself, by representing all things as coming to pass in accordance with a prearranged plan, seems expressly to exclude the idea of prayer; that the multiplicity and even contradictoriness of human interests is so great as to reduce the whole business of praying to an absurdity; and that, as no one pretends to be able to dispense with his own labours even while he prays, it seems hard to know precisely wherein lies the special virtue of devotion. Without replying to these seriatim in this place, it may suffice to observe:

1 . The exact import of the assertion that there is no efficacy in prayer, which is that the individual so asserting has been able to place himself precisely where God stands in relation to the universe, to make a survey of the entire compass of created things, to sound the unfathomable depths of the Divine resources, and, as the result of his examination, to announce that prayer cannot be answered; in other words, such a confident dogmatist arrogates to himself the attributes of God.

2 . The complete worthlessness of the assertion when set against the testimony of the human consciousness, especially when supported by the evidence of incontrovertible fact that prayer can be, and has been, answered.

III. THE ABSENCE OF A FELT NEED OF PRAYER . This is the reason of the worldling. The things he regards as constituting the summum bonum of existence—wealth, pleasure, fame, power, and such like—seem to belong to a sphere that is not much affected by prayer; while, having never experienced any desire for those spiritual realities comprehended in the gospel, blessing of salvation, viz. the pardon of sin, the renovation of the heart, the spirit of adoption, and so on, he has never deemed it necessary to trouble the King of heaven with supplications for their bestowal. But

IV. THE LACK OF ANSWERS TO PRAYERS . This is the reason of the faithless Christian. And it is undoubtedly hard for a soul to keep on praying when to all appearance the ear of God is deaf. But in such circumstances the petitioner should consider

V. THE WANT OF ANY TRUE RELISH IN PRAYER . This is the reason of the spiritually declining saint. Now

VI. THE INDULGENCE OF KNOWN SIN . This is the reason of the conscious backslider. Nothing so effectually extinguishes the altar-fire of a spiritual devotion as the practice of secret sin.