“YE HAVE NOT, BECAUSE YE ASK NOT."-JAMES 4: 2.
I bring you a message from GOD contained in seven short words. Six of the seven words are mono- syllables, and the remaining word has but two syllables and is one of the most familiar and most easily understood words in the English language. Yet there is so much in these seven short, simple words that they have transformed many a life and brought many an inefficient worker into a place of great power. You will find these seven words in Jas. 4: 2, the seven closing words of the verse, “YE HAVE NOT, BECAUSE YE ASK NOT." These seven words contain the secret of the poverty and powerlessness of the average Christian, of the average minister, and of the average Church.
“ Why is it,” many a Christian is asking, “ that I make such poor progress in my Christian life? Why do I have so little victory over sin ? Why do I win so few souls to Christ ? Why do I
grow so slowly into the likeness of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? ” And God answers in the words of our text “ Neglect of prayer. You have not, because you ask not.” I believe that the Devil stands and looks at the Church today and laughs in his sleeve, as he sees how its members depend upon their own scheming and powers of organization and skillfully devised machinery. “Ha, ha,” he laughs, “you may have your Y. M. C. A.‘s; and Y. W. C. A.'s, and your W. C. T. U.‘s, and Y. P. S. C. E.‘s, and B. Y. P. U.‘s., and your Boy Scouts, and your costly church-edifices, and your fifty-thousand dollar church organs, and your brilliant university-bred preachers, and your high-priced choirs, and your gifted sopranos, and altos, and tenors, and basses, and your wonderful quartets, your immense Men’s Bible Classes, yes, and your Bible Conferences, and your Bible Institutes, and your special evangelistic services, all you please of them, it does not in the least trouble me, if you will only leave out of them the power of the Lord God Almighty sought and obtained by the earnest, persistent, believing prayer that will not take ‘no’ for an answer.” But when the Devil sees a man or woman who really believes in prayer, who knows how to pray, and who really does pray, and above all, when he sees a whole church on its face before God in prayer, “he trembles ” as much as he ever did, for he knows that his day in that church or community is at an end. Prayer has as much power today, when men and women are themselves on praying ground and meeting the conditions of prevailing prayer, as it ever has had. God has not changed; and His ear is just as quick to hear the voice of real prayer, and His hand is just as long and strong to save, as it ever was. “ Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save: neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear.” But “our iniquities ” may “have separated between us and our God, and our sins ” may “ have hid his face from us, that he will not hear.” (Is. 59: 1, 2.) Prayer is the key that unlocks all the storehouses of God’s infinite grace and power. All that God is, and all that God has, is at the disposal of prayer. But we must use the key. Prayer can do anything that God can do, and as God can do anything, prayer is omnipotent. No one can stand against the man who knows how to pray and who meets all the conditions of prevailing prayer and who really prays. “ The Lord God Omnipotent ” works for him and works through him.
PRAYER WILL PROMOTE OUR PERSONAL HOLINESS AS NOTHING ELSE EXCEPT THE STUDY OF THE WORD OF GOD
But what, specifically, will prayer do? We have been dealing in generalities, let us come down to the definite and specific. The Word of God very plainly answers the question.
In the first place, prayer will promote our personal piety, our individual holiness, our individual growth into the likeness of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as almost nothing else, as nothing else but the study of the Word of God; and these two things, prayer and study of the Word of God, always go hand-in-hand, for there
is not true prayer without study of the Word of God, and there is no true study of the Word of God without prayer. Other things being equal, your growth and mine into the likeness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be in exact proportion to the time and to the heart we put into prayer. Please note exactly what I say: “Your growth and mine into the likeness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be in exact proportion to the
time and to the heart we put into prayer.” I put it in that way because there are many who put a great deal of time into praying but they put so little heart into their praying that they do very little praying in the long time they spend at it; while there are others who perhaps may not put so much time into praying but who put so much
heart into their praying, that they accomplish vastly more by their praying in a short time than the others accomplish by their praying a long time. God Himself has told us in Jer. 29: 13:“And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”
2. PRAYER WILL BRING THE POWER OF GOD INTO OUR WORK
But not only will prayer promote as almost nothing else our personal holiness, but Prayer will also bring the power of God into our work. We read in Isaiah 40: 31:” They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk [plod right along day after day, which is far harder than running or flying], and not faint.”
It is the privilege of every child of God to have the power of God in their service. And the verse just quoted tells us how to obtain it, and that is by “waiting upon the Lord.” Sometimes you will hear people stand up in meeting, not so frequently perhaps in these days as in former days and say: “I am trying to serve God in my poor, weak way.” Well, if you are trying to serve God in your poor, weak way, quit ii: your duty is to serve God in His strong triumphant way. But you say I have no natural ability; then get supernatural ability. The religion of Jesus Christ is a supernatural religion from start to finish, and we should live our lives in super- natural power, the power of God through Jesus Christ, and we should perform our service with supernatural power, the power of God ministered by the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ. You say, “I have no natural gifts.” Then get supernatural gifts. The Holy Spirit is promised to every believer in order that he may obtain the supernatural gifts which qualify him for the service to which God calls him. “He” (the Holy Spirit), “divided to each one (that is, to each and every believer) severally even as He will.” (I Cor. 12: 11.) It is ours to have the power of God, if we will only seek it by prayer, in any and every line of service to which God calls us.