Essentials of prayerBounds, Edward M. (Edward McKendree)
Religion
Essentials of prayer
Bounds, Edward M. (Edward McKendree)
Prayer -- Christianity
It is praying missionaries who are needed for the work, and it is a
praying church who sends them out, which are prophecies of the success
which is promised. The sort of religion to be exported by missionaries
is of the praying sort. The religion to which the heathen world is to
be converted is a religion of prayer, and a religion of prayer to
the true God. The heathen world already prays to its idols and false
gods. But they are to be taught by praying missionaries, sent out by a
praying Church, to cast away their idols and to begin to call upon the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No prayerless church can transport to
heathen lands a praying religion. No prayerless missionary can bring
heathen idolaters who know not our God to their knees in true prayer
until he becomes pre-eminently a man of prayer. As it takes praying
men at home to do God’s work, none the less does it take praying
missionaries to bring those who sit in darkness to the light.
The most noted and most successful missionaries have been pre-eminently
men of prayer. David Livingstone, William Taylor, Adoniram Judson,
Henry Martyn, and Hudson Taylor, with many more, form a band of
illustrious praying men whose impress and influence still abide
where they laboured. No prayerless man is wanted for this job. Above
everything rise, the primary qualification for every missionary is
prayer. Let him be, above everything else, a man of prayer. And when
the crowning day comes, and the records are made up and read at the
great judgment day, then it will appear how well praying men wrought in
the hard fields of heathendom, and how much was due to them in laying
the foundations of Christianity in those fields.
The one only condition which is to give world-wide power to this Gospel
is prayer, and the spread of this Gospel will depend on prayer. The
energy which was to give it marvelous momentum and conquering power
over all its malignant and powerful foes is the energy of prayer.
The fortunes of the kingdom of Jesus Christ are not made by the
feebleness of its foes. They are strong and bitter and have ever been
strong, and ever will be. But mighty prayer――this is the one great
spiritual force which will enable the Lord Jesus Christ to enter into
full possession of His kingdom, and secure for Him the heathen as His
inheritance, and the uttermost part of the earth for His possession.
It is prayer which will enable Him to break His foes with a rod of
iron, that will make these foes tremble in their pride and power, who
are but frail potter’s vessels, to be broken in pieces by one stroke of
His hand. A person who can pray is the mightiest instrument Christ has
in this world. A praying Church is stronger than all the gates of hell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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