(Continuing From Last Week)
FOR CLEAR understanding of the subject of wrong and right approach to prayer, it is necessary to deal with it by first dividing it into two sections – the false way of praying and the true way of praying. Our Lord deals with both of them in this passage (Matt. 6:5-7).
The problem of the false way is that its approach is wrong. Its essential fault is that of concentrating attention on the one praying, rather than on the One to whom the prayer is offered. That is the error, and our Lord Jesus Christ in this passage shows this in a very graphic and striking way. He says: ‘ When thou pray est, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men” (Matt. 6:5). They stand in the synagogue in a prominent position. They stand forward – thus typifying the Lord’s parable of the ‘Pharisee and the publican’ at prayer (Luke 18:10-14) This is the first error.
The second is, put in the word of Christ: “when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking” (Matt. 6:7). These taken together inevitably shows that there are two main errors underlying this whole approach to God in prayer. The first is that when a believer praying concentrates on his person and those around him, he becomes like the Pharisee, the place he stands, kneels or sits, to offer the prayer notwithstanding. The degree of the worthlessness of such a prayer depends on the level of his concentration or shifting of it to his person and the people around him. This first error invariably leads to the second, vain repetitions – either to impress those around him that he is a prayerful devout Christian, or, as a result of loss of concentration or both.
In the first instance, the igniting danger to error, is, being interested in self as one who is praying. This shows itself in the following ways: the first and the basic problem is the anxiety of such a man, to be known and acclaimed among others as a great man of prayer. He is anxious to have a reputation as a great man of prayer. This is not only wrong, but vitiates everything being done in and about the prayer and worship. This now leads to the next wrong step in the process, that of positive and actual desire to be seen and acclaimed by people as a man of prayer, and he begins to do things to attract attention to himself and thereby forgets God. The steps and actions are very subtle and not always blatant and obvious.
Again, the Lord said in verse 6 of Matt. 6 “But thou when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly Yes! It is still possible for a man to pray in secret in such a way that everybody knows he is praying in secret, because he gives the impression that by spending so much time there, he is a great man of prayer. The thoughts that usually come to a man in a secret closet with the door shut, are thoughts about people who know that he is there. Try the Holy Spirit as much as He can, to steady the man’s concentration and make him focus on God he is offering the prayer to, such a man may resist the devil for sometime, and unless he rounds up his prayer soon, he is bound to lose focus and begin to degenerate into vain repetitions and loss of concentration due to thoughts about other people in relation to himself and what he is doing, and the why he is doing their However, the Christian must get rid of the notion that this on1 works in the blatant and obvious way of the Pharisees of old.
Another very subtle way of calling attention to oneself is by doing anything unusual or out of the way in our prayer approach or worship. This is ultimately calling attention to oneself. This is same as the Pharisee who stands in the corner of the street o front of the altar in the synagogue to pray. Another form which this takes, is to pray in a public worship in a manner that suggests a desire to have an effect on the congregation (to earn applause), rather than to approach God with reverence and godly fear. This often takes the form of shouting while praying, as if God cannot hear unless by shouting; and also pacing up and down irreverently with pronounced gesticulations that attract the attention of the people to judge the man as a pious and devout Christian.
However, it must be stated that the controlling principle of prayer is that the whole being of the person praying should be intent upon God and should concentrate upon Him, and to be oblivious of all other things. Public or congregational prayer should be such that people who are praying silently and those who are uttering the words, should no longer be conscious of each other, but should be carried on the wings of prayer into the very presence of God.
And, far from desiring people to congratulate or thank us for our so-called pulpit beautiful prayer, we should rather be disturbed when they do so. These very subtle disregard for the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, and, for the doctrine of the church, He handed down to the church through Apostle Paul, have altered the course and channel to heaven, to that of canal social gospel of power, and prosperity. This has consequently led to lack of genuine spirituality and the present state the church in general in which both the worshippers and the clergy are unconsciously occupied with themselves in the desire for canal applause and consequently forget that in the church, they are supposed to be in communion with the living God. It is a very subtle thing!
The second arm of the problem in connection with the wrong approach to prayer arises from the tendency to concentrate on the form of our prayers and/ or on the amount or length of time spent in prayer. Jesus says “When ye pray use not vain repetitions, as the heathens do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking” (Matt.6:7). Vain repetition (Gr. “battologeo” occurs only in this passage in the NT and connotes the following meanings: “to speak stammaringly; to say the same thing over and over again; to babble; to rattle off; to speak without giving thought to what is spoken”. This type of speech is characteristic of pagan, heathen praying as an effort to overcome God’s unwillingness to respond by wearying Him with words. Yet it is not mere length or repetition hat Christ condemns (Jesus prayed all night, see Luke 6:12; and repeated His petitions in the Garden of Gethsemane, Matt. 26:44), but the unworthy motive that prompts such religious acts. This repetition of prayer may be seen in Eastern countries where the have “prayer wheels” The same tendency obtains in some Christian denominations in the counting of beads, as the Moslems do.
On to the true way. There is a right way of praying, and again the whole secret is in the matter of the approach. That is the essence of our Lord’s teaching in Matt. 6:7. (entering into the closet and shutting the door). This verse stated in terms of the essential principle, emphasizes that the one thing that is important when one is praying anywhere, is that one must realize that the one is approaching God. It is simply the question of “recollection”, as it is called. This done, all other things will be done rightly.
The Lord Jesus Christ divides further instructions on this into two sections. First of all, there is the process of “exclusion” for one to realize that he is approaching God, the one must exclude certain things, that is, entering “into the closet and shutting the door”. This means, the one must shut out and forget other people, then one shuts out himself. By this, one can enter into the closet when walking alone or going from one room to another in the house. One enters into that closet when in communion with God and nobody knows what the one is doing. Even, if it is an actual public act of prayer, the same can be done. In the church leading a prayer session, the leader must forget the congregation in a certain sense, for he is not speaking to them, but to God. He is leading in prayer to God, so, he has to shut out and forget both the people and himself. There is no value in any one entering into secret chamber and locking the door, if in the whole time he is full of self and thinking about himself, and priding himself on his prayer, such might as well be standing at the street corner. No! He must exclude himself, as well as, other people. His heart has to open entirely only to God, and say with the Psalmist “Teach me thy way O Lord; I will walk in Thy truth: unite my heart to fear Thy name. I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify Thy name for ever more”. (Ps. 86:11,12)
After exclusion then realization. We must realize that we are in the presence of God, that is realizing something of who God is, and what God is. We must do this before we begin to utter any word in prayer. We must say to ourselves. 7 am now entering into the audience chamber of that God, the Almighty, the Absolute, the Eternal and great God with all His power and His might and majesty,, that God who is a consuming fire, that God who is “light and in whom there is no darkness at all”. That utter, absolute and Holy God’. We must recollect and realize all this. But above all, our Lord Jesus Christ insists that we must realize in addition that He is our Father. The relationship is that of father and child “/or your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him”. (Matt. 6:8).
If only we realize that this almighty God is our Father through the Lord Jesus Christ, if only we realize that indeed we are His children, and that whenever we pray, it is like a child going to his father. He knows all about us; He knows our every need before we tell Him. As the father cares for the child and looks at the child, and is concerned about the child, and anticipates the needs of the child, so is God with respect to all those who are in Christ Jesus. He desires to bless us very much more than we desire to be blessed. He has a view of us. He has a plan and programme for us; He has an ambition for us. He has counted the hairs on our head and has purposed that no evil can befall us.
We must remember what Apostle Paul puts so gloriously in Eph. 3:20; “He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think …” That is the true notion of prayer, says Christ. You do not just go and turn a wheel. You do not just count the beads. You do not say. ‘I must spend hours in prayer, I have decided to do it and must do it’ You do not say that the way to get a blessing is to spend whole nights in prayer. What we have to do first of all is to realize who God is, what God is, and our relationship with Him. We must get rid of mechanical notion of prayer.
Finally, we must have confidence – the simple confidence of a child. We need child-like faith. We must assure ourselves that God being truly our Father, we must therefore rigidly exclude any idea that we must go on repeating our petitions in the erroneous notion that such repetition will produce our blessing. God likes us to show our keenness, our anxiety to worship Him and our desire of any thing. He tells us to ‘hunger and thirst after righteousness’ (Matt. 5:6), and to seek it. He tells us to ‘pray and not to faint’; we are told to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). Yes! But this does not mean mechanical repetition; it does not mean believing that we shall be heard for our “much speaking”. It means that when we pray, we know that God is our Father, and that he delights to bless us, and that He is much more ready to give, than we are to received and that He is always concerned about our welfare.
Therefore in every properly thought out prayer, there must be “recollection”, “exclusion”, “realization” and “confidence i.e Faith” Any prayer that is not anchored on these principles is “praying amiss” This can only happen, when, instead of excluding and shutting out ourselves, others and situations around us when we are praying, we exclude the Holy Sprit who “… helpth our infirmities …” of not knowing “what we should pray for, as we ought…” (see Rom. 8:26a) Again, any prayer in which the Holy Spirit is not participating is useless, for it is the exclusive duty of the Holy Spirit to move us to pray, to teach us what to say and even speak through us (see Matt. 10:19,20; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6).
And in 26b of the same verse, the apostle says “… but the Spirit maketh intercession for us with groanings which can not be uttered” Every prayer through Christ – who is our great advocate (Greek – ‘parakletos’) with the Father, must be uttered by the Holy Spirit within us, according to the will of God who knows the mind of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit intercedes in accordance with God’s own will and purpose ‘for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Cor. 2:10) This intercession of the Spirit is for the “Saints” – believers, Christians who “love God”, “who are called according to His purpose” (see Rom. 8:28b). The Saints are special objects of the divine purpose in accordance with which the Spirit intercedes. And the Spirit pleads or intercedes for the saints with sighs (groanings – Gr. “stenagmoi” which occurs only here and in Acts 7:34 in the NT) too deep for words. Sometime we cannot pray because words cannot express the needs we feel at this point and the Holy Spirit within the saint rises to the fore to plead our course with sigh’ (groanings) in our behalf (hence the Greek ‘huperentugcham meaning to ‘entreat strenuously’) and God through the Holy Spirit comes into our experience. The Holy Spirit is the life giving presence in the church. He communicates His power to t individual Christians. He is the mediator to him of new birth a of forgiveness. He strengthens and purifies the Christians whole personality, and knits him closely into the fabric of the body? saints, crowing all by bringing him to eternal life
