Thoughts on Our Training for the Ministry of Intercession

BY REV. ANDREW MURRAY

FIFTEENTH LESSON.

'If two agree;' Or, The Power of United Prayer

'Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as

touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my

Father which is in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered together

in my Name, there am I in the midst of them.  Matt 18:19-20.

One of the first lessons of our Lord in His school of prayer was:  Not

to be seen of men.  Enter thy inner chamber; be alone with the Father.

When He has thus taught us that the meaning of prayer is personal

individual contact with God, He comes with a second lesson: You have

need not only of secret solitary, but also of public united prayer.  And

He gives us a very special promise for the united prayer of two or three

who agree in what they ask.  As a tree has its root hidden in the ground

and its stem growing up into the sunlight, so prayer needs equally for

its full development the hidden secrecy in which the soul meets God

alone, and the public fellowship with those who find in the name of

Jesus their common meeting-place.

The reason why this must be so is plain.  The bond that unites a man to

his fellow-men is no less real and close than that which unites him to

God: he is one with them.  Grace renews not alone our relation to God

but to man too.  We not only learn to say 'My Father,' but 'Our

Father.'  Nothing would be more unnatural than that the children of a

family should always meet their father separately, but never in the

united expression of their desires or their love.

Believers are not only members of one family, but even of one body.

Just as each member of the body depends on the other, and the full

action of the spirit dwelling in the body depends on the union and

co-operation of all, so Christians cannot reach the full blessing God is

ready to bestow through His Spirit, but as they seek and receive it in

fellowship with each other.

It is in the union and fellowship of believers that the Spirit can

manifest His full power.  It was to the hundred and twenty continuing in

one place together, and praying with one accord, that the Spirit came

from the throne of the glorified Lord.

The marks of true united prayer are given us in these words of our

Lord.  The first is agreement as to the thing asked.  There must not

only be generally the consent to agree with anything another may ask:

there must be some special thing, matter of distinct united desire; the

agreement must be, as all prayer, in spirit and in truth.  In such

agreement it will become very clear to us what exactly we are asking,

whether we may confidently ask according to God's will, and whether we

are ready to believe that we have received what we ask.

The second mark is the gathering in, or into, the Name of Jesus.  We

shall afterwards have much more to learn of the need and the power of

the Name of Jesus in prayer; here our Lord teaches us that the Name must

be the centre of union to which believers gather, the bond of union that

makes them one, just as a home contains and unites all who are in it.

'The Name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it

and escape.'

That Name is such a reality to those who understand and believe it, that

to meet within it is to have Himself present.  The love and unity of His

disciples have to Jesus infinite attraction:  'Where two or three are

gathered in my Name, there am I in the midst of them.'  It is the living

presence of Jesus, in the fellowship of His loving praying disciples,

that gives united prayer its power.

The third mark is, the sure answer:  'It shall be done for them of my

Father.'  A prayer-meeting for maintaining religious fellowship, or

seeking our own edification, may have its use; this was not the

Saviour's view in its appointment.  He meant it as a means of securing

special answer to prayer.  A prayer meeting without recognised answer to

prayer ought to be an anomaly.  When any of us have distinct desires in

regard to which we feel too weak to exercise the needful faith, we ought

to seek strength in the help of other.  In the unity of faith and of

love and of the Spirit, the power of the Name and the Presence of Jesus

acts more freely and the answer comes more surely.  The mark that there

has been true united prayer is the fruit, the answer, the receiving of

the thing we have asked:  'I say unto you, It shall be done for them of

my Father which is in heaven.'

What an unspeakable privilege this of united prayer is, and what a power

it might be.  If the believing husband and wife knew that they were

joined together in the Name of Jesus to experience His presence and

power in united prayer (1 Peter); if friends believed what mighty help

two or three praying in concert could give each other; if in every

prayer meeting the coming together in the Name, the faith in the

Presence, and the expectation of the answer, stood in the foreground; if

in every Church united effectual prayer were regarded as one of the

chief purposes for which they are banded together, the highest exercise

of their power as a Church; if in the Church universal the coming of the

kingdom, the coming of the King Himself, first in the mighty outpouring

of His Holy Spirit, then in His own glorious person, were really matter

of unceasing united crying to God;--O who can say what blessing might

come to, and through, those who thus agreed to prove God in the

fulfilment of His promise.

In the Apostle Paul we see very distinctly what a reality his faith in

the power of united prayer was.  To the Romans he writes (xv. 30):  'I

beseech you, brethren, by the love of the Spirit, that ye strive

together with me in your prayer to God for me.'  He expects in answer to

be delivered from his enemies, and to be prospered in his work.  To the

Corinthians (2 Cor. i. 11), 'God will still deliver us, ye also helping

together on our behalf by your supplications;' their prayer is to have a

real share in his deliverance.  To the Ephesians he writes:  'With all

prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit for all the

saints and on my behalf, that utterance may be given unto me.'  His

power and success in his ministry he makes to depend on their prayers.

With the Philippians (i. 19) he expects that his trials will turn to his

salvation and the progress of the gospel 'through your supplications

and  the supply of the spirit of Jesus Christ.;  To the Colossians (iv.

3) he adds to the injunction to continue stedfast in prayer:  'Withal

praying for us too, that God may open unto us a door for the word.'  And

to the Thessalonians (2 Thess. iii. 1) he writes:  'Finally, brethren,

pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run and be glorified, and

that we may be delivered from unreasonable men.'  It is everywhere

evident that Paul felt himself the member of a body, on the sympathy and

co-operation of which he was dependent, and that he counted on the

prayers of these Churches to gain for him, what otherwise might not be

given.  The prayers of the Church were to him as real a factor in the

work of the kingdom, as the power of God.

Who can say what power a Church could develop and exercise, if it gave

itself to the work of prayer day and night for the coming of the

kingdom, for God's power on His servants and His word, for the

glorifying of God in the salvation of souls?  Most Churches think their

members are gathered into one simply to take care of and build up each

other.  They know not that God rules the world by the prayers of His

saints; that prayer is the power by which Satan is conquered; that by

prayer the Church on earth has disposal of the powers of the heavenly

world.  They do not remember that Jesus has, by His promise, consecrated

every assembly in His Name to be a gate of heaven, where His Presence is

to be felt, and His Power experienced in the Father fulfilling their

desires.

We cannot sufficiently thank God for the blessed week of united prayer,

with which Christendom in our days opens every year.  As proof of our

unity and our faith in the power of united prayer, as a training-school

for the enlargement of our hearts to take in all the needs of the Church

universal, as a help to united persevering prayer, it is of unspeakable

value.  But very specially as a stimulus to continued union in prayer in

the smaller circles, its blessing has been great.  And it will become

even greater, as God's people recognise what it is, all to meet as one

in the Name of Jesus to have His presence in the midst of a body all

united in the Holy Spirit, and boldly to claim the promise that it shall

be done of the Father what they agree to ask.

'LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY'

Blessed Lord! who didst in Thy high-priestly prayer ask so earnestly for

the unity of Thy people, teach us how Thou dost invite and urge us to

this unity by Thy precious promise given to united prayer.  It is when

we are one in love and desire that our faith has Thy presence and the

Father's answer.

O Father! we pray for Thy people, and for every smaller circle of those

who meet together, that they may be one.  Remove, we pray, all

selfishness and self-interest, all narrowness of heart and estrangement,

by which that unity is hindered.  Cast out the spirit of the world and

the flesh, through which Thy promise loses all its power.  O let the

though of Thy presence and the Father's favour draw us all nearer to

each other.

Grant especially Blessed Lord, that Thy Church may believe that it is by

the power of united prayer that she can bind and loose in heaven; that

Satan can be cast out; that souls can be saved; that mountains can be

removed; that the kingdom can be hastened.  And grant, good Lord! that

in the circle with which I pray, the prayer of the Church may indeed be

the power through which Thy Name and Word are glorified.  Amen.

The previous fourteen lessons may be obtained on request -

Intercessors.Network@Telia.com

Murray, Andrew (1828-1917)

Dutch Reformed minister in South Africa; born in Graaff-Reinet,

South Africa; studied in Aberdeen, master's degree (1845); to

Utrect U. to study theology and formed Students' Missionary

Society; served in Bloemfontein, South Africa (1850-60),

Worcester (1860-64), Cape Town (1864-71), Wellington

(1871-1906); moderator of Dutch Reformed Council; founded

Huguenot Seminary (1874); established missionary training

school (1877); father of South African Keswick (1889); greatly

influenced by William Law; evangelistic meetings in United

States, Canada, England, Iceland, Scotland, Holland, South

Africa; writings: Spirit of Christ, Abide in Christ, Like Christ,

With Christ in the School of Prayer, and many others.