At the conference, a brother who had earnestly confessed his neglect of prayer, but who was able, later, to declare that his eyes had been opened to see that the Lord really supplied grace for all that he required from us, asked if some hints could not be given as to the best way of spending time profitably in the inner chamber. There was no opportunity then for giving an answer. Perhaps the following thoughts may be of help:

1. As you enter the inner chamber let your first work be to thank God for the unspeakable love which invites you to come to him and to converse freely with him. If your heart is cold and head, remember that religion is not a matter of feeling, but has to do first with the will. Raise your heart to God and thank him for the assurance you have that he looks down on you and will bless you. Through such an act of faith you honour God and draw your soul away from being occupied with itself. Think also of the glorious grace of the Lord Jesus, who is willing to teach you to pray and to give you the disposition to do so. Think, too, of the Holy Spirit who was purposely given to cry, ‘Abba, Father’, in your heart, and to help your weakness in prayer. Five minutes spent thus will strengthen your faith for your work in the inner chamber. Once more I say, begin with an act of thanksgiving and praise God for the inner chamber and the promise of blessing there.

2. You must prepare yourself for prayer by prayerful Bible study. The great reason why the inner chamber is not attractive is that people do not know how to pray. Their stock of words is soon exhausted and they do not know what further to say, because they forget that prayer is not a soliloquy, where everything comes from one side; but it is a dialogue, where God’s child listens to what the Father says, and replies to it, and then asks for the things he needs.

Read a few verses from the Bible. Do not concern yourself with the difficulties contained in them. You can consider these later; but take what you understand, apply it to yourself, and ask the Father to make his word light and power in your heart. Thus you will have material enough for prayer from the word which the Father speaks to you; you will also have the liberty to ask for things you need. Keep on in this way, and the inner chamber will become at length, not a place where you sigh and struggle only, but one of living fellowship with the Father in heaven. Prayerful study of the Bible is indispensable for powerful prayer.

3. When you have thus received the word into your heart, turn to prayer. But do not attempt it hastily or thoughtlessly, as though you knew well enough how to pray. Prayer in our own strength brings no blessing. Take time to present yourself reverently and in quietness before God. Remember his greatness and holiness and love. Think over what you wish to ask from him. Do not be satisfied with going over the same things every day. No child goes on saying the same thing day after day to his earthly father .

Converse with the Father is coloured by the needs of the day. Let your prayer be something definite, arising either out of the word which you have read, or out of the real soul-needs which you long to have satisfied. Let your prayer be so definite that you can say as you go out, ‘I know what 1 have asked from my Father, and I expect an answer.’ It is a good plan sometimes to take a piece of paper and write down what you wish to pray for. You might keep such a paper for a week or more, and repeat the prayers till some new need arises.

4. What has been said is in reference to your own needs. But you know that we are allowed to Pray that we may help also in the needs of others. One great reason why prayer in the inner chamber does not bring more joy and blessing is that it is too selfish, and selfishness is the death of prayer.

Remember your family; your congregation, with its interests; your own neighbourhood; and the church to which you belong. Let your heart be enlarged and take up the interests of missions and of the church through the whole world. Become an intercessor, and you will experience for the first time the blessedness of prayer, as you find out that God will make use of you to share his blessing with others through prayer. You will begin to feel that there is something worth living for, as you find that you have something to say to God, and that he from heaven will do things in answer to your prayers which otherwise would not have been done.

A child can ask his father for bread. A full-grown son converses with him about all the interests of his business, and about his further purposes. A weak child of God prays only for himself, but a full-grown man in Christ understands how to consult with God over what must take place in the kingdom. Let your prayer list bear the names of those for whom you pray – your minister, and all other ministers, and the different missionary affairs with which you are connected. Thus the inner chamber will really become a wonder of God’s goodness and a fountain of great joy. It will become the most blessed place on earth. It is a great thing to say, but it is the simple truth, that God will make it a Bethel, where his angels shall ascend and descend, and where you will cry out: ‘The Lord shall be my God.’ He will make it also Peniel, where you will see the face of God, as a prince of God, as one who wrestled with the angel and overcame him.

5. Do not forget the close bond between the inner chamber and the outer world. The attitude of the inner chamber must remain with us all the day. The object of the inner chamber is so to unite us to God that we may have him always abiding with us. Sin, thoughtlessness, and yielding to the flesh, or to the world unfit us for the inner chamber and bring a cloud over the soul. If you have stumbled, or fallen, return to the inner chamber; let your first work be to invoke the blood of Jesus and to claim cleansing by it. Rest not till by confession you have repented of and put away your sin. Let the precious blood really give you a fresh freedom of approach to God. Remember that the roots of your life in the inner chamber strike far out in body and soul so as to manifest themselves in business life. Let ‘the obedience of faith’, in which you pray in secret, rule you constantly. The inner chamber is intended to bind man to God, to supply him with power from God, to enable him to live for God alone. God be thanked for the inner chamber and for the blessed life which he will enable us there to experience and nourish.

Time

Before the creation of the world time did not exist. God lived in eternity in a way which we little understand. With creation, time began, and everything was placed under its power. God has placed all living creatures under a law of slow growth. Think of the length of time it takes for a child to become a man in body and mind. In learning, in wisdom, in business, in handicraft, and in politics, everything somehow depends on patience and perseverance. Everything needs time.

It is just the same in religion. There can be no converse with a holy God, no fellowship between heaven and earth, no power for the salvation of the souls of others, unless much time is set apart for it. Just as it is necessary for a child for long years to eat and learn every day, so the life of grace entirely depends on the time men are willing to give to it day by day.

The minister is appointed by God to teach and help those who are engaged in the ordinary avocations of life to find time and to use it aright for the preservation of the spiritual life. The minister cannot do this unless he himself has a living experience of a life of prayer. His highest calling is not preaching, or speaking, or parochial visitation, but it is to cultivate the life of God daily, and to be a witness of what the Lord teaches him and accomplishes in him.

Was it not so with the Lord Jesus? Why must he, who had no sin to confess, sometimes spend all night in prayer to God? Because the divine life had to be strengthened in intercourse with his Father. His experience of a life in which he took time for fellowship with God has enabled him to share that life with us.

Oh, that each minister might understand that he has received his time from God with a servitude on it! God must have for fellowship with himself the first and the best of your time. Without this, your preaching and labour have little power. Here on earth 1 may spend my time for the money or the learning which I receive in exchange. The minister can exchange his time for the divine power and the spiritual blessings to be obtained from heaven. That, and nothing else, makes him a man of God and ensures that his preaching will be in the demonstration of the Spirit and power.

‘Be Ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.’ I Corinthians 11. 1

1. Paul was a minister who prayed much for his congregation

Let us read his words prayerfully and calmly so that we may hear the voice of the Spirit.

‘Night and day praying exceedingly that we … might perfect that which is lacking in your faith… The Lord make you to increase … to the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness’ (1 Thess. 3.10-13). ‘The very God of peace sanctify you wholly’ (I Thess. 5.23).

What food for meditation!

‘Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself … comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work’ (2 Thess. 2.16, 17).

‘Without ceasing, I make mention of you always in my prayers; Making request…that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established’ (Rom. 1.9-11).

‘My heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved’ (Rom. 10. 1).

‘I … cease not … making mention of you in my prayers; that God … may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him … that ye may know … what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe’ (Eph. 1. 16-19).

‘For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father … that he would grant you … to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted … in love … might be filled with all the fullness of God’ (Eph. 3:14-19).

‘Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy … I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more … that ye may be sincere … filled with the fruits of righteousness’ (Phil. 1.4, 9-11).

‘But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus’ (Phil. 4.19).

‘We … do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will … that ye might walk worthy of the Lord … strengthened with all might according to his glorious power’ (Col. 1.911). ‘I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you … as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love’ (Col. 2.1, 2).

What a study for the inner chamber! These passages teach us that unceasing prayer formed a large part of Paul’s service in the gospel; we see the high spiritual aim which he set before himself, in his work on behalf of believers; and the tender and self-sacrificing love with which he ever continued to think of the Church and its needs. Let us ask God to bring each one of us, and all the ministers of his word, to a life of which such prayer is the healthy and natural outflow. We shall need to turn again and again to these pages if we would really be brought by the Spirit to the apostolic life which God has given us as an example.

2. Paul was a minister who asked his congregation to pray much

Read again with prayerful attention:

‘I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me; that I may be delivered from them that do not believe in Judea’ (Rom. 15.30,31). ‘We … trust … in God … that he will yet deliver us; Ye also helping together by prayer for us’ (2 Cor. 1.9-11).

‘Praying always, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel … as I ought to speak’ (Eph. 6.18-20).

‘For I know that this shall turn to my salvation, through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ’ (Phil. 1. 19).

‘Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak … as I ought to speak’ (Col. 4.2-4).

‘Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you’ (2 Thess. 3. 1).

What a deep insight Paul had as to the unity of the body of Christ and the relation of the members one to another! It is as we permit the Holy Spirit to work powerfully in us that he will reveal this truth to us, and we too shall have this insight. What a glimpse he gives us of the power of the spiritual life among these Christians, by the way in which he reckoned that at Rome, and Corinth, and Ephesus, and Colossae, and Philippi, there were men and women on whom he could rely for prayer that would reach heaven and have power with God! And what a lesson for all ministers, to lead them to inquire if they truly appreciate the unity of the body at its right value; if they are endeavouring to train up Christians as intercessors; and if they indeed understand that Paul had that confidence because he was himself so strong in prayer for the congregation! Let us learn the lesson and beseech God that ministers and congregations together may grow in the grace of prayer, so that their entire service and Christian life may witness that the Spirit of prayer rules them. Then we may be confident that God will avenge his own elect which cry out day and night unto him.

Ministers of the Spirit

What is the meaning of the expression: the minister of the gospel is a minister of the Spirit (see 2 Cor. 3.6, 8)? It means:

1. That the preacher is entirely under the power and control of the Spirit, so that he may be led and used by the Spirit as he wills.

2. Many pray for the -Spirit, that they may make use of him and his power for their work. This is certainly wrong. It is he who must use you. Your relationship toward him must be one of deep dependence and utter submission. The Spirit must have you entirely, and always, and in all things under his power.

3. There are many who think they must preach the word only, and that the Spirit will make the word fruitful. They do not understand that it is the Spirit in and through the preacher who will bring the word to the heart. I must not be satisfied with praying to God to bless, through the operation of his Spirit, the word that 1 preach. The Lord wants me to be filled with the Spirit: then 1 shall speak aright and my preaching will be in the manifestation of the Spirit and power.

4. We see this on the day of Pentecost. They were filled with the Spirit and began to speak, and spoke with power through the Spirit who was in them.

5. Thus we learn what the relationship of the minister toward the Spirit should be. He must have a strong belief that the Spirit is in him, that the Spirit will teach him in his daily life and will strengthen him to bear witness to the Lord Jesus in his preaching and visiting; he must live in ceaseless prayer that he may be kept and strengthened by the power of the Spirit.

6. When the Lord promised the apostles that they should receive power when the Holy Spirit had come upon them and commanded them to wait for him, it was as though he had said: ‘Do not dare to preach without this power. It is the indispensable preparation for your work. Everything depends on it.’

7. What then is the lesson we may learn from the phrase ‘ministers of the Spirit’? Alas, how little we have understood this! How little have we lived in it! How little have we experienced of the power of the Holy Spirit! What must we do then? There must be deep confession of guilt, that we have so constantly grieved the Spirit, because we have not lived daily as his ministers; and simple childlike surrender to his leading in sure confidence that the Lord will work a change in us; and further, daily fellowship with the Lord Jesus in ceaseless prayer. He will bestow on us the Holy Spirit as rivers of living water.

Little of the word with little prayer is death to the spiritual fife. Much of the word with little prayer gives a sickly life. Much prayer with little of the word gives more life, but without steadfastness. A full measure of the word and prayer each day gives a healthy and powerful life. Think of the Lord Jesus. In his youth and manhood he treasured the word in his heart. In the temptation in the wilderness, and on every opportunity that presented itself – till he cried out on the cross in death, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ (Matt. 27.46). He showed that the word of God filled his heart. And in his prayer life he manifested two things: first, that the word supplies us with material for prayer and encourages us in expecting everything from God. The second is that it is only by prayer that we can live such a life that every word of God can be fulfilled in us. And how then can we come to this, so that the word and prayer may each have its undivided right over us? There is only one answer. Our lives must be wholly transformed. We must get a new, a healthy, a heavenly life, in which the hunger after God’s word and the thirst after God express themselves in prayer as naturally as do the needs of our earthly life. Every manifestation of the power of the flesh in us and the weakness of our spiritual life must drive us to the conviction that God will, through the powerful operation of his Holy Spirit, work out a new and strong life in US.

Oh, that we but understood that the Holy Spirit is essentially the Spirit of the word and the Spirit of prayer! He will cause the word to become a joy and a light in our souls, and he will also most surely help us in prayer to know the mind and will of God, and find in it our delight. If we as ministers wish to explain these things and to train God’s people for the inheritance which is prepared for them, then we must commit ourselves from this moment forward to the leading of the Holy Spirit; must, in faith in what he will do in us, appropriate the heavenly life of Christ as he lived it here on earth, with certain expectation that the Spirit, who filled him with the word and prayer, will also accomplish that work in us,

Yes, let us believe that the Spirit who is in us is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, and that he is in us to make us truly partakers of his life. If we firmly believe this and set our hearts upon it, then there will come a change in our intercourse with the word and prayer such as we could not have thought possible. Believe it firmly; expect it surely.

We are familiar with the vision of the valley of dry bones. We know that the Lord said to the prophet: ‘Prophesy upon these bones … Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live’ (Ezek. 37.4, 5). And we know how, when he had done this, there was a noise, and bone came together to its bone, and flesh came up, and skin covered them – but there was no breath in them. The prophesying to the bones – the preaching of the word of God – had a powerful influence. It was the beginning of the great miracle which was about to happen, and there lay an entire army of men newly made. It was the beginning of the work of life in them, but there was no spirit there.

How then the Lord said to the prophet: ‘Prophesy unto the wind … Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, 0 breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live’ (verse 9). And when the prophet had done this, the Spirit came upon them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a very great army. Prophesying to the bones, that is, preaching, has accomplished a great work. There lay the beautiful new bodies. But the prophesying to the Spirit, ‘Come, 0 Spirit’, that is, prayer, accomplished a far more wonderful thing. The power of the Spirit was revealed through prayer.

Is not the work of our ministers mostly this prophesying to dry bones in making known the promises of God? This is followed sometimes by great results. Everything which belongs to the form of godliness has been brought to perfection; a careless congregation becomes regular and devout, but it remains true for the most part: ‘There is no life in them. ‘Preaching must be followed by prayer. The preacher must come to see that his preaching is comparatively powerless to bring in a new life till he begins to take time for prayer and, according to the teaching of God’s word, strives and labours and continues in prayer, and takes no rest, and gives God no rest, till he bestows the Spirit in overflowing power.

Do you not feel that a change must come in our work? We must learn from Peter to continue in prayer in our ministry of the word. Just as we are zealous preachers, we must be zealous in prayer. We must, with all our power, constantly like Paul, pray unceasingly. For the prayer: ‘Come, breathe on these slain’ (Ezek. 37.9), the answer is sure.

Wholeheartedness

Experience teaches us that if anyone is engaged in a work in which he is not wholehearted, he will seldom succeed. Just think of a student, or his teacher, a man of business, or a warrior. He who does not give himself wholeheartedly to his calling is not likely to succeed. And that is still more true of religion, and above all of the high and holy task of intercourse in prayer with a holy God and of being always well pleasing to him. It is because of this that God has said so impressively: ‘Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart’ (Jer. 29.13).

As also more than one of God’s servants has said: ‘I seek thee with my whole heart.’ Have you ever thought how many Christians there are of whom it is all too plain that they do not seek God with the whole heart? When they were in trouble over their sins, they seemed to seek God with the whole heart. But when they knew that they had been pardoned one could see by their lives that they were religious, it is true but no one would think: ‘This man has surrendered himself with his whole heart to follow God, and to serve him as the supreme work of his life.’

How is it with you? What does your heart say? While you, as minister, for instance, have given yourself up with wholehearted devotion to fulfil your office faithfully and zealously, will you not perhaps acknowledge: ‘I fear, or rather 1 am convinced, that my unsatisfactory prayer life is to be attributed to nothing else than that 1 have not lived with a wholehearted surrender of all on earth that could hinder me in fellowship with God.’ What a deeply important question to consider in the inner chamber and to give the answer to God! How important to arrive at a plain answer and to utter it all before God! Prayerlessness cannot be overcome as an isolated thing. It is in the closest relationship to the state of the heart. True prayer depends on an undivided heart.

But I cannot give myself that undivided heart which can enable me to say: ‘I seek God with my whole heart.’ No, that is impossible for you, but God will do it. ‘I will give them an heart to know me’ (Jer. 24.7). ‘I will … write it [my law] [as a power of life] in their hearts’ (Jer. 31.33; Heb. 8. 10). Such promises serve to awaken desire. How ever weak the desire may be, if there is but the sincere determination to strive after what God holds out to us, then he will himself work in our hearts both to will and to do. It is the great work of the Holy Spirit in us to make us willing and to enable us to seek God with the whole heart. May there not be found in us confusion of face because, while we have given ourselves to so many earthly things with all our heart and strength, yet if anything is said about fellowship with our glorious God it so little affects us that we have not sought him with the whole heart.

The Lord did not speak these words to all who believed on him, or who hoped to be blessed by him, but to those whom he would make fishers of men. He said this not only at the first calling of the apostles, but also later on to Peter: ‘Henceforth thou shalt catch men’ (Luke 5. 10). The holy art of winning souls, of loving and saving them, can be learned only in close and persistent intercourse with Christ. What a lesson for ministers and for Christian workers and others! This intercourse was the great and peculiar privilege of his disciples. The Lord chose them that they might be always with and near him. We read of the choice of the twelve apostles in Mark 3.14: ‘And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach. ‘So also our Lord said on the last night (John 15.27): ‘And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.’

This fact was noticed by outsiders. Thus, for instance, the woman who spoke to Peter: ‘This fellow was also with Jesus’ (Matt. 26.71). So in the Sanhedrin: ‘They took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus’ (Acts 4.13). The chief characteristic and indispensable qualification for the man who will bear witness to Christ is that he has been with him. Continuous fellowship with Christ is the only school for the training of ministers of the Holy Spirit. What a lesson for all ministers! It is only he who, like Caleb, follows the Lord fully, who will have power to teach other souls the art of following Jesus. But what an unspeakable grace that the Lord Jesus himself would train us after his own likeness, so that others may learn from us! Then we might say with Paul to our converts: ‘Ye became followers of us, and of the Lord…’ (I Thess. 1. 6), ‘Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ’ (1 Cor. 11.1).

Never was there a teacher who took such trouble with his scholars as Jesus Christ will with us who preach his word. He will spare no pains; no time will be too precious or too long for him. In the love which brought him to the cross, he would hold intercourse, converse with us, fashion us, sanctify us, and make us fit for his holy service. Dare we still complain that it is too much for us to spend so much time in prayer? Shall we not commit ourselves entirely to the love which gave up all for us, and look upon it as our greatest happiness now to hold fellowship with him daily? Oh, all you who long for blessing in your ministry, he calls you to be with him. Let this be the greatest joy of your life; it will be the surest preparation for blessing in your service. 0 my Lord, draw me, help me, hold me fast, and teach me how daily to live in thy fellowship by faith.

The Holy Trinity

1. God is an ever flowing fountain of pure love and blessedness.

2. Christ is the reservoir wherein the fullness of God was made visible as grace, and has been opened for us.

3. The Holy Spirit is the stream of living water that flows from under the throne of God and of the Lamb.

4. The redeemed, God’s believing children, are the channels through which the love of the Father, the grace of Christ, and the powerful operation of the Spirit are brought to the earth, there to be imparted to others.

5. What an impression we gain here of the wonderful partnership into which God takes us up, as dispensers of the grace of God! Prayer, when we chiefly pray for ourselves, is but the beginning of the life of prayer. The glory of prayer is that we have power as intercessors to bring the grace of Christ, and the energising power of the Spirit, upon those souls which are still in darkness.

6. The more surely the channel is connected with the reservoir, the more certainly will the water flow unhindered through it. The more we are occupied in prayer with the fullness of Christ, and with the Spirit who proceeds from him, and the more firmly we abide in fellowship with him, the more surely will our lives be happy and strong. This, however, is still only a preparation for the reality. The more we give ourselves up to fellowship and converse with the triune God, the sooner shall we receive the courage and ability to pray down blessing on souls, on ministers, and on the Church around us.

7. Are you truly a channel which is always open, so that the water may flow through you to the thirsty ones in the dry land? Have you offered yourself unreservedly to God, to become a bearer of the energising operations of the Holy Spirit?

8. Is it not, perhaps, because you have thought only of yourself in prayer that you have experienced so little of the power of prayer? Do understand that the new prayer life into which you have entered in the Lord Jesus can be sustained and strengthened only by the intercession in which you labour for the souls around you, to bring them to know the Lord? Oh, meditate on this–God an ever flowing fountain of love and blessing, and I his child, a living channel through which every day the Spirit and life can be brought to the earth!

Life and Prayer

Our life has a great influence on our prayer, just as our prayer influences our life. The entire life of man is a continuous prayer, to nature or to the world, to provide for his wants and make him happy. This natural prayer and desire can be so strong in a man who also prays to God that the words of prayer which his mouth utters cannot be heard. God cannot at times hear the prayer of your lips because the desires of your heart after the world cry out to him much more strongly and loudly.

The life exercises a mighty influence over prayer. A worldly life, a self-seeking life, makes prayer powerless and an answer impossible. With many Christians there is a conflict between the life and prayer, and the life holds the upper hand. But prayer can also exercise a mighty influence over the life. If 1 give myself entirely to God in prayer, then prayer can conquer the life of the flesh and sin. The entire life may be brought under the control of prayer. Prayer can change and renew the whole life, because prayer calls in and receives the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit to purify and sanctify the life.

Many think that they must, with their defective spiritual life, work themselves up to pray more. They do not understand that only in proportion as the spiritual life is strengthened can the prayer life increase. Prayer and life are inseparably connected. What do you think? Which has the stronger influence over you, prayer for five or ten minutes, or the whole day spent in the desires of the world? Let it not surprise you if your prayers are not answered. The reason may easily lie here; your life and your prayer are at strife with each other; your heart is more wholly devoted to living than to prayer. Learn this great lesson: my prayer must rule my whole life. What I request from God in prayer is not decided in five or ten minutes. 1 must learn to say: ‘I have prayed with my whole heart. ‘What I desire from God must really fill my heart the whole day; then the way is open for a certain answer.

Oh, the sacredness and power of prayer, if it takes possession of the heart and life! It keeps one constantly in fellowship with God. We can then literally say, ‘On thee do I wait all the day’ (Ps. 25.5). Let us be careful to consider not only the length of the time we spend with God in prayer, but the power with which our prayer takes possession of our whole life.

Perseverance in Prayer

‘It is not reason,’ said Peter, ‘that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables’ (Acts 6.2). For that work deacons were chosen. And this word of Peter serves for all time and for all who are set apart as ministers. ‘But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word’ (Acts 6.4). Dr Alexander Whyte, in an address, once said: ‘I think sometimes, when my salary is paid to me so faithfully and punctually: the deacons have performed faithfully their part of the agreement; have I been so faithful in my part, in persevering in prayer and the ministry of the word?’ Another minister has said: ‘How surprised people would be if I proposed to divide my time between these two equallyone half given to prayer, the other to the ministry of the word!’

Notice, in the case of Peter, what perseverance in prayer meant. He went up on the roof to pray. There, in prayer, he received heavenly instruction as to his work among the heathen. There, the message from Cornelius came to him. There, the Holy Spirit said to him: ‘Behold, three men seek thee. Arise therefore, and get thee down, and go with them’ (Acts 10. 19-20). And from there he went to Caesarea, where the Spirit was so unexpectedly outpoured on the heathen. All this is to teach us that it is through prayer God will give the instruction of his Spirit to make us understand his will, to let us know with whom we are to speak, to give us the assurance that his Spirit will make his word powerful through us.

Have you ever earnestly thought over why it is that you have a salary and a parsonage, and are set free from the need of following earthly business? It is for nothing else than that you should continue in prayer and the ministry of the word. That will be your wisdom and power. That will be the secret of a blessed service of the gospel.

No wonder that there is complaint about the ineffective spiritual life in minister and congregation, while that which is of prime importance, perseverance in prayer, does not hold its rightful place-the first place.

Peter was able to speak and act as he did because he was filled with the Spirit. Let us not be satisfied with anything less than hearty surrender to and undivided appropriation of the Spirit, as leader and Lord of our lives. Nothing less will help us. Then, for the first time, we shall be able to say that God ‘hath made us able ministers … of his Spirit’ (2 Cor. 3.6).

Carnal or Spiritual?

There is a great difference between those two states which is but little understood or pondered. The Christian who ‘walks in the Spirit’ and has ‘crucified the flesh’ (Gal. 5.24) is spiritual. The Christian who walks after the flesh and wishes to please the flesh is carnal (see Rom. 13.14). The Galatians, who had begun in the Spirit, were ending in the flesh. Yet there were among them some spiritual members who were able to restore the wandering with meekness.

What a difference between the carnal and the spiritual Christian (I Cor. 3.1-3)! With the carnal Christian there may be much religion and much zeal for God, and for the service of God. But it is for the most part in human power. With the spiritual, on the other hand, there is a complete subjection to the leading of the Spirit, a deep sense of weakness and entire dependence on the work of Christ-it is a life of abiding fellowship with Christ, wrought out by the Spirit.

How important for me it is to find out and plainly to acknowledge before God whether I am spiritual or carnal! A minister may be very faithful in his orthodoxy, and be most zealous in his service, and yet be so, chiefly, in the power of human wisdom and zeal. And one of the signs of this is that there is little pleasure or perseverance in fellowship with Christ through prayer. Love of prayer is one of the marks of the Spirit.

What a change is necessary for a Christian who is chiefly carnal to become truly spiritual! At first he cannot understand what must happen, or how it can come to pass. The more the truth dawns upon him, the more he is convinced that it is impossible, unless God does it. Yet to believe truly that God will do it requires earnest prayer. Quiet retirement and meditation are indispensable, along with the death of all confidence in ourselves. But along this road there ever comes the faith that God can, God is willing, God will do it. The soul which earnestly clings to the Lord Jesus will be led by the Spirit to this faith.

How will you be able to say to others: I brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ’? (1 Cor. 3. 1). It is impossible unless you yourself have the experience of having passed from the one state to the other. But God will teach you. Persevere in prayer and faith.

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Just as God gave the apostle Paul as an example in his prayer life for Christians of all time, so he has also given George Mueller in these latter days as a proof to his church how literally and wonderfully he still always hears prayer. It is not only that he gave him in his lifetime over a million pounds sterling to support his orphanages, but Mr Mueller also stated that he believed that the Lord had given him more than thirty thousand souls in answer to prayer. And that not only from among orphans, but also many others for whom he (in some cases for fifty years) had prayed faithfully every day, in the firm faith that they would be saved. When he was asked on what ground he so firmly believed this, his answer was: ‘There are five conditions which I always endeavour to fulfil, in observing which I have the assurance of answer to my prayer:

1. I have not the least doubt because I am assured that it is the Lord’s will to save them, for he willeth that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (see 1 Tim. 2.4); and we have the assurance ‘that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us’ (1 John 5.14).

2. I have never pleaded for their salvation in my own name, but in the blessed name of my precious Lord Jesus, and on his merits alone (see John 14.14).

3. I always firmly believed in the willingness of God to hear my prayers (see Mark 11.24).

4. I am not conscious of having yielded to any sin, for ‘if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me’ when I call (Ps. 66.18).

5. I have persevered in believing prayer for more than fiftytwo years for some, and shall continue till the answer comes: ‘Shall not God avenge his own elect which cry day and night unto him?’ (Luke 18.7).

Take these thoughts into your hearts and practice prayer according to these rules. Let prayer be not only the utterance of your desires, but a fellowship with God, till we know by faith that our prayer is heard. The way George Mueller walked is the new and living way to the throne of grace, which is open for us all.

Hudson Taylor

When Hudson Taylor, as a young man, had given himself over unreservedly to the Lord, there came to him a strong conviction that God would send him to China. He had read of George Mueller and how God had answered his prayers for his own support and that of his orphans, and he began to ask the Lord to teach him also so to trust him. He felt that if he would go to China with such faith, he must first begin to live by faith in England. He asked the Lord to enable him to do this. He had a position as a doctor’s dispenser, and asked God to help him not to ask for his salary, but to leave it to God to move the heart of the doctor to pay him at the right time. The doctor was a good-hearted man, but very irregular in payment. This cost Taylor much trouble and struggle in prayer because he believed, as did George Mueller, that the word, ‘Owe no man any thing’ (Rom. 13.8), was to be taken literally, and that debt should not be incurred.

So he learned the great lesson to move men through God – a thought of deep meaning, which later on became an unspeakably great blessing to him in his work in China. He relied on that – in the conversion of the Chinese, in the awakening of Christians to give money for the support of the work, in the finding of suitable missionaries who would hold as faith’s rule of conduct that we should make our desires known to God in prayer and then rely on God to move men to do what he would have done.

After he had been for some years in China, he prayed that God would give twenty-four missionaries, two for each of the eleven provinces and Mongolia, each with millions of souls and with no missionary. God did it. But there was no society to send them out. He had indeed learned to trust God for his own support, but he dared not take upon himself the responsibility of the twentyfour, if possibly they had not sufficient faith. This cost him severe conflict, and he became very ill under it, till at last he saw that God could as easily care for the twenty-four as for himself. He undertook it in a glad faith. And so God led him, through many severe trials of faith, to trust him fully. Now these twenty-four have increased, in course of time, to a thousand missionaries who rely wholly on God for support. Other missionary societies have acknowledged how much they have learned from Hudson Taylor, as a man who stated and obeyed this law. Faith may rely on God to move men to do what his children have asked of him in prayer.

Read the book, Hudson Taylor’s Early Years by Dr and Mrs Howard Taylor. There will be found in it a treasure of spiritual thought and experience concerning a close walk with God in the inner chamber and in mission work.

Light from the Inner Chamber

‘But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly’ (Matt. 6.6).

Our Lord had spoken of the prayer of the hypocrites who desire to be seen of men and also of the prayer of the heathen who trust in the multitude of their words. They do not understand that prayer has no value except it is addressed to a personal God who sees and hears. In the text our Lord teaches us a wonderful lesson concerning the inestimable blessing which the Christian may have in his inner chamber. If we would understand the lesson aright we must notice the light that the inner chamber sheds on

1. The wonderful love of God

Think of God, his greatness, his holiness, his unspeakable glory, and then on the inestimable privilege to which he invites his children, that each one of them, however sinful or feeble he may be, every hour of the day, may have access to him and hold converse with him as long as he wishes. If he enters his inner chamber, then God is ready to meet him, to have fellowship with him, to give him the joy and strength which he needs with the living assurance in his heart that he is with him and will undertake for him in everything. In addition he promises that he will enrich him in his outward life and work with those things which he has asked for in secret. Ought we not to cry out with joy? What an honour! What a salvation! What an overflowing supply for every need!

One may be in the greatest distress, or may have fallen into the deepest sin, or may in the ordinary course of life desire temporal or spiritual blessing; he may desire to pray for himself or for those belonging to him, or for his congregation or church; he may even become an intercessor for the whole world – the promise for the inner chamber covers all: ‘Pray to thy Father which is in secret; he will reward thee openly.’

We might well suppose that there would be no place on earth so attractive to the child of God as the inner chamber with the presence of God promised, where he may have unhindered intercourse with the Father. The happiness of a child on earth if he enjoys the love of his father; the happiness of a friend as he meets a beloved benefactor; the happiness of a subject who has free access to his king and may stay with him as long as he wishes; these are as nothing compared with this heavenly promise. In the inner chamber you can converse with your God as long and as intimately as you desire; you can rely on his presence and fellowship.

Oh, the wonderful love of God in the gift of an inner chamber sanctified by such a promise! Let us thank God every day of our lives for it as the gift of his wonderful love. In this sinful world he could devise nothing more suitable for our needs than a fountain of unspeakable blessing.

2. The deep sinfulness of man

We might have thought that every child of God would have availed himself with joy of such an invitation. But, see! What is the response? There comes a cry from all lands that prayer in the inner chamber is, as a general rule, neglected by those who call themselves believers – . Many make no use of it; they go to church, they confess Christ, but they know little of personal intercourse with God. Many make a little use of it, but in a spirit of haste, and more as a matter of custom, or for the easing of conscience, so that they cannot speak of any joy or blessing in it. And, what is more sad, many who know something of its blessedness confess that they know little about faithful, regular, and happy fellowship with the Father, all the day, as something which is as necessary as their daily bread.

Oh, what is it, then, that makes the inner chamber so powerless? Is it not the deep sinfulness of man, and the aversion of his fallen nature for God, which make the world with its fellowship more attractive than being alone with the heavenly Father?

Is it not that Christians do believe the word of God, where that word declares that ‘the flesh’ which is in them, ‘is enmity against God’, and that they walk too much after ‘the flesh’, so that the Spirit cannot strengthen them for prayer? Is it not that Christians allow themselves to be deprived by Satan of the use of the weapon of prayer, so that they are powerless to overcome him? Oh, the deep sinfulness of man! We have no greater proof of it than this despite that is done to the unspeakable love which has given us the inner chamber.

And what is still more sad is that even ministers of Christ acknowledge that they know they pray too little. The word tells them that their only power lies in prayer: through that only, but through that certainly, they can be clothed with power from on high for their work. But it seems as though the power of the world and the flesh has bewitched them. While they devote time to and manifest zeal in their work, that which is the most necessary of all is neglected, and there is not the desire or strength for prayer to obtain the indispensable gift of the Holy Spirit to make their work fruitful. God give us grace to understand in the light of the inner chamber the deep sinfulness of our nature.

3. The glorious grace of Christ Jesus

Is there, then, no hope of a change? Must it be always thus? Or is there a means of recovery? Thank God! There is.

The man through whom God has made known to us the message of the inner chamber is no other than our Lord Jesus Christ, who saves us from our sins. He is able and willing to deliver us from this sin, and will deliver. He has not undertaken to redeem us from all our other sins and left us to deal with the sin of prayerlessness in our own strength. No, in this also we may come to him and cry out, ‘Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make me clean’ (Matt. 8.2). ‘Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbefief’ (Mark 9.24).

Do you wish to know how you may experience this deliverance? By none other than the well-known way along which every sinner must come to Christ. Begin by acknowledging, by confessing before him, in a childlike and simple manner, the sin of neglecting and desecrating the inner chamber. Bow before him in deep shame and sorrow. Tell him that your heart has deceived you by the thought that you could pray as you ought. Tell him that through the weakness of ‘the flesh’, and the power of the world, and self-confidence, you have been led astray and that you have no strength to do better. Let this be done heartily. You cannot by your resolution and effort put things right.

Come in your sin and weakness to the inner chamber, and begin to thank God, as you have never thanked him, that the grace of the Lord Jesus will surely make it possible for you to converse with your Father as a child ought to do. Hand over afresh to the Lord Jesus all your sin and misery, as well as your whole life and will, that he may cleanse and take possession of you and rule over you as his very own.

Even though your heart be cold and dead, persevere in the exercise of faith that Christ is an almighty and faithful Saviour. You may be sure that deliverance will come. Expect it, and you will begin to understand that the inner chamber is the revelation of the glorious grace of the Lord Jesus, which makes it possible for one to do what he could not do himself; that is, to hold fellowship with God, and to experience that the desire and power are received which fit a man for walking with God.

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We seek sometimes for the operation of the Spirit, with the object of obtaining more power for work, more love in the life, more holiness in the heart, more light on Scripture or on our path. And yet all these gifts are only subordinate to what is the great purpose of God. The Father has bestowed the Spirit on the Son, and the Son has given him to us, with the one great object of revealing and glorifying Christ Jesus himself in us.

The heavenly Christ must become for us a real living personality, always with us and in us. Our life on earth must be every day lived in the unbroken and holy fellowship of our Lord Jesus in heaven. This must be the first and the greatest work of the Holy Spirit in believers, that they should know and experience Christ as the life of their life. God desires that we should become strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, and that so we may be filled with his love unto all the fullness of God.

This was the secret of the joy of the first disciples. They had received the Lord Jesus, whom they feared they had lost, as the heavenly Christ into their hearts.

And this was their preparation for Pentecost: they were entirely taken up with him. He was literally their all. Their hearts were empty of everything, so that the Spirit might fill them with Christ. In the fullness of the Spirit they had power for a life and service such as the Lord desired. Is this, now, with us, the great object in our desires, in our prayers, in our experience? ‘Me Lord teach us to know that the blessing for which we have so earnestly prayed can be preserved and increased in no other way than through intimate fellowship with Christ in the inner chamber, every day practised and cultivated.

And yet it has seemed to me that there was a still deeper secret of Pentecost to be discovered. The thought came that perhaps our conception of the Lord Jesus in heaven was limited. We think of him in the splendour, the glory of God’s throne. We also think of the unsearchable love which moved him to give himself for us. But we forgot too often that, above all, it is as the crucified one he was known here on earth; and that, above all, it is as the crucified one he has his place on the throne of God. ‘And, lo, in the midst of the throne … stood a Lamb as it had been slain’ (Rev. 5.6).

Yes, it is as the crucified one that he is the object of the Father’s eternal good pleasure and of the worship of the entire creation. And it is, therefore, of the first importance, that we here on earth should know and have experience of him as the crucified one, so that we may make men see what his disposition and ours is, and what the power is that can make them partakers of salvation.

I feel deeply that, as the cross is Christ’s highest glory, and as the Holy Spirit neither has done nor can do anything greater or more glorious than he did when he ‘through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God’ (Heb. 9.14); so it is evident that the Holy Spirit can do nothing greater or more glorious for us than to take us up into the fellowship of that cross, and to work out also in us the same spirit of the cross which was seen in our Lord Jesus. In a word, the question arose whether this was not the real reason why our prayers for the powerful operation of the Holy Spirit could not be answered, because we had sought too little to receive the Spirit, in order that we might know and become like the glorified Christ in the fellowship of his cross.

Have we not here the deepest secret of Pentecost? The Spirit comes to us from the cross, where he strengthened Christ to offer himself to God. He comes from the Father, who looked down with unspeakable good pleasure on the humiliation and obedience and self-sacrifice of Christ, as the highest proof of his surrender to him. He comes from Christ, who through the cross was prepared to receive from the Father the fullness of the Spirit, that he might share it with the world. He comes to reveal Christ to our hearts, as the Lamb slain, in the midst of the throne, so that we on earth may worship him as they do in heaven. He comes, chiefly,- to impart to us the life of the crucified Christ, so that we may be able to say truly, ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not 1, but Christ liveth in me’ (Gal. 2.20).

To understand this secret in any way, we must first meditate on what the meaning and what the worth of the cross is.

The mind that was in the crucified Christ

The cross must necessarily be viewed from two standpoints. First, the work it has accomplished – the pardon and conquest of sin. This is the first message with which the cross comes to the sinner. It proclaims to him free and full deliverance from the power of sin. And then the second, the spirit or disposition which was there manifested. We find this expressed in Philippians 2.8: ‘He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.’ Here we see self-abasement to the lowest place which could be found under the burden of our sin and curse; obedience to the uttermost to all the will of God; self-sacrifice to the death of the cross these three words reveal to us the holy perfection of his person and work. Therefore God hath so greatly exalted him. It was the spirit of the cross which made him the object of his Father’s good pleasure, of the worship of the angels, of the love and confidence of all the redeemed. The self-abasement of Christ, his obedience to the will of God even to death, his self-sacrifice even to the death of the cross – these made him to be ‘the Lamb, as it had been slain, standing in the midst of the throne’.

The spirit of the cross in us

All that Christ was, he was for us and desires to become in us. The spirit of the cross was his blessedness and glory. It should be this even more for us. He desires to manifest his likeness in us and to give us a full share of all that is his. Thus Paul writes the words we have so often quoted: ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus’ (Phil. 2.5). Elsewhere he writes: ‘We have the mind of Christ’ (1 Cor. 2.16). The fellowship of the cross is not only a holy duty for us, but an unspeakably blessed privilege, which the Holy Spirit himself will make ours according to the promise: ‘He shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you’ (John 16.15); ‘He shall glorify me’ (John 16.14). The Holy Spirit wrought this disposition in Christ and will also work it in us.

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When the Lord told his disciples that they must take up the cross to follow him, they could have little understanding of his meaning. He wished to rouse them to earnest thought and so prepare them for the time when they should see him carrying his cross. From the Jordan, where he had presented himself to be baptised and reckoned among sinners, onward, he carried the cross always in his heart. That is to say, he was always conscious that the sentence of death, because of sin, rested on him, and that he must bear it to the uttermost. As the disciples thought on this and wondered what he meant by it, one thing only helped them – it was the thought of a man who was sentenced to death, and carried his cross to the appointed place.

Christ had said at the same time: ‘He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it’ (Matt. 10.39). He taught them that they must hate their own life. Their nature was so sinful that nothing less than death could meet their need; it deserved nothing less than death. So the conviction gradually dawned upon them that the taking up of the cross meant: ‘I am to feel that my life is under sentence of death, and that under the consciousness of this sentence I must constantly surrender my flesh, my sinful nature, to death.’ So they were slowly prepared to see later on that the cross which Christ had carried was the one power to deliver truly from sin, and that they must first receive from him the true cross spirit. They must learn from him what self-humiliation in their weakness and unworthiness was to mean; what the obedience was which crucified their own will in all things, in the greatest as well as in the least; what the self-denial was which did not seek to please the flesh or the world. ‘Take thy cross and follow me’ (see Matt. 16.24; Mark 8.34; 10.21; Luke 9.23) – that was the word with which Jesus prepared his disciples for the great thought that his mind and disposition might become theirs, that his cross might in very deed become their own.

Crucified with Christ

The lesson which the Lord wished his disciples to learn from his statement concerning the taking up of the cross and the losing of their life finds its expression in the words of Paul, after Christ had died on the cross and had been exalted on high, and the Spirit had been poured out. Paul says: ‘I am crucified with Christ’; ‘God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world’ (Gal. 2.20; 6.14). He wished every believer to live so as to prove that he was crucified with Christ. He wished us to understand that the Christ who comes to dwell in our hearts is the crucified Christ, who will himself, through his life, impart to us the true mind of the cross. He tells us that ‘our old man is crucified with him’ (Rom. 6.6). Yea, more, that ‘they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh’ (Gal. 5.24). When they received by faith the crucified Christ, they gave over the flesh to the death sentence which was executed to the full on Calvary. Paul says ‘we have been planted together in the likeness of his death’ (Rom. 6.5), and that therefore we must reckon that we are dead to sin in Christ Jesus.

These words of the Holy Spirit, through Paul, teach us that we must abide constantly in the fellowship of the cross, in fellowship with the crucified and living Lord Jesus. It is the soul that lives ever under the cover and shelter and deliverance of the cross that alone can expect constantly to glory in Christ Jesus and in his abiding nearness.

The fellowship of the cross

There are many who place their hope for salvation in the redemption of the cross who understand little about the fellowship of the cross. They rely on what the cross has purchased for them, on forgiveness of sin and peace with God; but they can often live for a length of time without fellowship with the Lord himself. They do not know what it means to strive every day after heart communion with the crucified Lord as he is seen in heaven -‘A Lamb in the midst of the throne’. Oh, that this vision might exercise its spiritual power upon us, that we might really experience every day that as truly as the Lamb is seen there on the throne, so we may have the power and experience of his presence here!

Is it possible? Without doubt it is. Why did that great miracle happen, and why was the Holy Spirit given from heaven, if it were not to make the glorified Jesus -‘the Lamb standing, as slain, in the midst of the throne’- present with us here in our earthly surroundings? Let us endeavour to make this more plain in our further meditations.

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The Holy Spirit ever leads us to the cross. It was so with Christ. The Spirit taught him and enabled him to offer himself without spot to God.

It was so with the disciples. The Spirit, with whom they were filled, led them to preach Christ as the crucified one. Late on he led them to glory in the fellowship of the cross when they were deemed worthy to suffer for Christ’s sake.

And the cross directed them again to the Spirit. When Christ had borne the cross, he received the Spirit from the Father, that he might be poured out. When the three thousand bowed before the crucified one, they received the promise of the Holy Spirit. When the disciples rejoiced in their experience of the fellowship of the cross, they received the Holy Spirit afresh. The union between the Spirit and the cross is indissoluble; they belong inseparably to one another. We see this especially in the epistles of Paul. ‘Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you… Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?’ (Gal. 3.1, 2).

‘Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law … that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith’ (Gal. 3.13, 14). ‘God sent forth his Son … To redeem them that were under the law … and … hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts’ (Gal. 4.4-6). ‘And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh … . If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit’ (Gal. 5.24, 25). ‘Ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ … that we should serve in newness of spirit’ (Rom. 7.4-6). ‘For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For … God … condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit’ (Rom. 8.24).

In everything and always the Spirit and the cross are inseparable. Yes, even in heaven. The Lamb, as it had been slain, standing in the midst of the throne had ‘seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth’ (Rev. 5.6). Again: ‘He shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal [Is this other than the Holy Spirit?] proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb’ (Rev. 22. 1). When Moses smote the rock, the water streamed out and Israel drank. When the Rock Christ was actually smitten and he had taken his place as the slain Lamb on the throne of God, there flowed out from under the throne the fullness of the Holy Spirit for the whole world.

How foolish it is to pray for the fullness of the Spirit if we have not first placed ourselves under the full power of the cross! Just think of the one hundred and twenty disciples. The crucifixion of Christ had touched, broken, and taken possession of their entire hearts. They could speak or think of nothing else, and when the crucified one had shown them his hands and his feet, he said unto them: ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost’ (John 20.22). And so also, with their hearts full of the crucified Christ, now received up into heaven, they were prepared to be filled with the Spirit. They dared to proclaim to the people: ‘Repent and believe in the crucified one’; and they also received the Holy Spirit.

Christ gave himself up entirely to the cross. ‘The disciples also did the same. The cross demands this also from us; it would have our entire life. To comply with this demand requires nothing less than a powerful act of the will, for which we are unfit, and a powerful act of God of which he may be assured who casts himself, in helplessness, but unreservedly on God.

The Spirit and the Cross

Why are there not more men and women who can witness, in the joy of their hearts, that the Spirit of God has taken possession of them and given them new power to witness for him? Yet more urgently arises the heartsearching question to which an answer must be given: what is it that hinders? The Father in heaven is more willing than an earthly father to give bread to his child, and yet the cry arises: ‘Is the Spirit straitened? Is this his work?’

Many will acknowledge that the hindrance undoubtedly lies in the fact that the Church is too much under the sway of the flesh and the world. They understand too little of the heartpiercing power of the cross of Christ. So it comes to pass that the Spirit has not the vessels into which he can pour his fullness.

Many complain that the subject is too high or too deep for them. This is a proof of how little we have appropriated and brought into practice the teaching of Paul and Christ about the cross. I bring you a message of joy. The Spirit who is in you, in however limited a measure, is prepared to take you under his teaching, to lead you to the cross, and by his heavenly instruction to make you now something of what the crucified Christ wills to do for you and in you.

But then he wants you to take time, so that he may reveal the heavenly mysteries to you. He wants to make you see how the neglect of the inner chamber has hindered fellowship with Christ, the knowledge of the cross, and the powerful operations of the Spirit. He will teach you what is meant by the denial of self, the taking up of your cross, the losing of your life, and following him.

In spite of all that you have felt of your ignorance, and lack of spiritual insight and fellowship with the cross, he is able and willing to take you under his teaching and to make known to you the secret of the spiritual life above all your expectations.

Begin at the beginning. Be faithful in the inner chamber. Thank him that you can reckon on him to meet you there. Although everything appears cold, and dark, and strained, bow in silence before the loving Lord Jesus, who so longs after you. Thank the Father that he has given you the Spirit. And be assured that all you do not yet know, and still must know – about ‘the flesh’, and ‘the world’, and the cross – the Spirit of Christ, who is in you, will surely make known to you. 0 soul, only believe that this blessing is for you! Christ belongs entirely to you. He longs to obtain full possession of you. He can and will possess you through the Holy Spirit. But for this, time is necessary. Oh, give him time in the inner chamber every day. You can rest assured that he will fulfil his promise in you. ‘He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and 1 will love him, and will manifest myself to him’ (John 14.21).

Persevere, in addition to all that you ask for yourself, in prayer for your congregation, your church, your minister; for all believers; for the whole Church of God, that God may strengthen them with power through his Spirit, so that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith. Blessed time when the answer comes! Continue in prayer. The Spirit will reveal and glorify Christ and his love, Christ and his cross ‘as the Lamb slain standing in the midst of the throne’.

The Cross and the Flesh

These two are deadly enemies. The cross desires to condemn and put to death ‘the flesh’. ‘The flesh’ desires to cast aside and conquer the cross. Many, as they hear of the cross as the indispensable preparation for the fullness of the Holy Spirit, will find out what there is in them which must yet be crucified. We must understand that our entire nature is sentenced to death and must become dead by the cross, so that the new life in Christ may come to rule in us. We must obtain such an insight into the fallen condition of our nature and its enmity against God that we become willing, nay desirous, to be wholly freed from it.

We must learn to say with Paul: ‘In me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing’ (Rom. 7.18). ‘The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be’ (Rom. 8.7). It is its very essence to hate God and his holy law. This is the wonder of redemption, that Christ has borne on the cross the judgment and curse of God on ‘the flesh’, and has forever nailed it to the cursed tree. If a man only believes God’s word about this ‘cursed mind of the flesh’, and then longs to be delivered from it, he learns to love the cross as his deliverer from the power of the enemy.

‘Our old man is crucified’ with Christ, and our one hope is to receive this by faith and to hold it fast. ‘They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh’ (Gal. 5.24). They have willingly declared that they will daily regard ‘the flesh’ which is in them as the enemy of God, the enemy of Christ, the enemy of their soul’s salvation, and will treat it as having received its deserved reward in being nailed to the cross.

This is one part of the eternal redemption which Christ has brought to us. It is not something which we can grasp with our understanding or accomplish with our strength. It is something which the Lord Jesus himself will give us if we are willing to abide in his fellowship day by day, and to receive everything from him. It is something which the Holy Spirit will teach us, and he will impart it to us as an experience, and will show how he can give victory in the power of the cross over all that is of the flesh.

The Cross and the World

What the flesh is in the smallest circle of my own person, that the world is in the larger circle of mankind. ‘The flesh’ and ‘the world’ are two manifestations of the same ‘god of this world who is served by both. When the cross deals with ‘the flesh’ as accursed, we at once discover what the nature and power of the world are. ‘They … hated both me and my Father’ (John 15.24). The proof of this was that they crucified Christ. But Christ obtained the victory on the cross and freed us from the power of ‘the world’. And now we can say: ‘God forbid that 1 should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world’ (Gal. 4.14).

The cross was to Paul every day a holy reality, both in what he had to suffer from the world and in the victory which the cross constantly gave. John also writes: ‘The whole world lieth in wickedness’ (1 John 5.19). ‘Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ … And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth’ (1 John 5.5, 6). Against the two great powers of the god of this world, God has given us two great powers from heaven, namely, the cross and the Spirit. greatest victory with his hands and feet nailed to the cross. We abide in the shadow of the

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In the following quotations from Starlight, by G. Sterrenberg, the great truth about the cross is expressed in simple and powerful words. Let the chapters on ‘The Fellowship of the Cross’ and ‘The Holy Spirit and the Cross’ especially be read.

Our Head Christ took the lowest place on the cross, and so He has marked out for us His members the lowest place. The brightness of God’s glory (Heb. 1.3) became the rejected of men (Isa. 53.3). Since that time the only right we have is to be the last and the lowest. When we claim anything more we have not yet rightly understood the cross.

We seek for a higher life; we shall find it if we sink deeper into the cross fellowship with our Lord. God has given the crucified One the highest place (Rev. 5). Shall we not do the same? We do this when from hour to hour we act as those who are crucified with him (Gal. 2.19, 20). Thus we honor the crucified Lord.

We long for full victory. We find this as we more fully enter into the fellowship of His cross. The Lamb obtained His Almighty only so long as we abide under the shadow of the cross. The cross must be our home. There alone are we sheltered. We first understand our own cross when we have understood his. And we desire to get so close to it that we not only view it but touch it, yes, still more that we take up the cross, and so it becomes as someone has said, an inner cross. Then the cross asserts itself in us, and we experience His power which especially manifests itself in this, that we do not faint under it but carry it with joy.

What would Jesus be without His cross? His pierced feet have bruised the head of the enemy, and His pierced hands have despoiled him utterly (Matt. 12.29). What are we without the cross? Do not let the cross go, but hold it fast. Do we think that we can go by another road than that He trod? Many can make no progress because they will not take up the cross.

Epilogue

A single word to the reader concerning the disposition of mind to which this book appeals! It is not enough that one should understand and appropriate the thought of the writer, and then rejoice because of the new insight he has obtained and the pleasure which knowledge has brought. There is something else which is of great importance. 1 must surrender myself to the truth so that I shall be ready, with an undivided will, immediately to perform all that 1 shall learn to be God’s will.

In a book such as this, dealing with the life of prayer and hidden fellowship with God, it is indispensable that we should be prepared to receive and obey all that we see to be according to the word and will of God. Where this disposition is lacking, knowledge only serves to make the heart less capable of receiving fuller life. Satan endeavours to become master of the Christian’s inner chamber because he knows that if there has been unfaithfulness in prayer the testimony will bring but little loss to his kingdom. Spiritual power to lead the unsaved to the Lord, or to build up the children of God, will not be experienced under it. Persevering prayer, through which alone this power comes, has been lacking.

The great living question has been before many: shall we really set ourselves to win back again the weapon of believing prayer which Satan has, in a measure, taken away from us? Let us set before ourselves the serious importance of this conflict. As far as each minister is concerned, everything depends on whether or not he is a man of prayer-one who in the inner chamber must be clothed each day with power from on high. We, in common with the church throughout the whole world, have to complain that prayer has not the place in our service of God that it ought to have, according to the will and promise of God and according to the need of minister and congregation and church.

The public consecration which many a believer has been led to make of himself at conferences is not an easy thing. And even when the step is taken, old custom, and the power of the flesh, will tend to bring it to naught. The power of faith is not yet vigorous. It will cost strife and sacrifice to conquer the devil in the name of Christ. Our churches are the battlefield where Satan will bring forth all his power to prevent us from becoming men of prayer, powerful in the Lord to obtain the victory in heaven and on earth. How much depends on this for ourselves, for our congregations, and for the kingdom!

Do not be surprised if I say that it is with fear and trembling, and not without much prayer, that I have written what 1 trust will help to encourage the brethren in the conflict. It is with a feeling of deep unworthiness that 1 venture to offer myself as a guide to the inner chamber, which is the way to holiness and to fellowship with God.

Do not wonder that I have asked the Lord that he would give this book a place in some inner chambers, and that he may assist the reader, so that, as he sees what God’s will is, he may immediately give himself up to the doing of it. In war, everything depends on each soldier being obedient to the word of command, even though it costs him his life. In our strife with Satan we shall not conquer unless each one of us holds himself ready even in the reading of this simple book, to say from the heart: ‘What God says I will do; and if I see that anything is according to his will, I will immediately receive it and act upon it.’

Do not wonder that I have written this testimony to remind the brethren that everything depends on the spirit of surrender to immediate obedience, in which we read all that is said according to the word of God. God grant that, in his great grace, this book may prove a bond of fellowship by which we may think of and help one another, and strengthen each other for the conflict in prayer by which the enemy may be overcome and the life of God may be gloriously revealed!