(Continued)
I have listed the names of a few of those that practiced talking with God, the dates in which they lived and how they described their conversing with God in His own words. Some of these ancient ones were foreign and wrote in such archaic, abstruse and obsolete terminology that you might not be able to grasp what they are trying to say. Therefore, the writer has translated their words into modern, every-day English as is spoken today. The meaning, however, is carefully preserved to be the same as the original.
Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899)
“Prayer is important, but there is something else as important. When I pray I am talking to God; when I read the Bible God talks to me. We need both…
“Let me call attention to that prayer of David, in which he says: `Search me, O, God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!’ (Psalm 139:23,24). I wish all my readers would commit these verses to memory. If we should all honestly make this prayer once every day there would be a good deal of change in our lives… I do not know any better prayer than we can make than this prayer of David…
“Once again, let me call your attention to the prayer of David contained in Psalm 51. A friend of mine told me some years ago that he repeated this prayer as his own every week. I think it would be a good thing if we offered up these petitions frequently; let them go right up from our hearts.
“If we read the Word and do not pray, we may become puffed up with knowledge, without the love that buildeth up. If we pray without reading the Word, we shall be ignorant of the mind and will of God, and become mystical and fanatical, and liable to be blown about by every wind of doctrine…
“In order that our prayers may be for such things as are according to the will of God, they must be based upon the revelation of His own will to us; for of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things; and it is only by hearing His Word, in which we learn His purposes toward us and towards the world, that we can pray acceptably…”
Arthur T. Pierson (1837-1911)
“What profit there can be in thus prayerfully reading and searching the Scriptures in the very attitude of prayer. Having tried it for ourselves, we may add our humble witness to its value…
Perhaps the greatest advantage will be that the Holy Scriptures will thus suggest the very words which become the dialect of prayer. `We know not what we should pray for as we ought’ – neither what nor how to pray. But here is the Spirit’s own inspired utterance, and, if the praying be molded on the model of His teaching, how can we go astray?…
We turn precept and promise, warning and counsel, into supplication, with the assurance that we cannot be asking anything that is not according to His will, for are we not turning His own Word into prayer?…
The prayer habit, on the knees, with the Word open before the disciple, has thus an advantage which it is difficult to put into words: It provides a sacred channel of approach to God…“
Alexander Whyte (1837-1921)
“Tell Him: put Him in remembrance: search the Scriptures: collect the promises, and plead with Him to consider your case…
“Read the parable of the prodigal son, and read nothing else; plead the parable of the prodigal son, and plead nothing else–till it is all fulfilled to you, and till you, and your house, are all made as merry as heaven itself…
You must not charge God foolishly, till you have prayed, and pled your way through that wonderful book of Job…“
H.C.G. Moule (1841-1920)
“Pre-eminent, supreme, among the helps to Secret Prayer I place of course the secret study of the holy written Word of God. Christian, who would indeed speak to God, you must indeed listen to the words of God, to the voice of God. Oh read the Bible, learn the Bible, with a view not merely to sermon, or to class, or again with a view to the mere doing of a religious duty, but now especially with a view to Secret Prayer. Read it on your knees, at least on the knees of your spirit. Read it to reassure, to feed, to regulate, to kindle, to give to your Secret Prayer at once body and soul. Read it that you may hold faster your certainty of being heard. Read it that you may know with blessed definiteness Whom you have believed, and what you have in Him, and how He is able to keep your deposit safe. Read it in the attitude of mind in which the Apostles read it, in which the Lord read it. Read it, not seldom, to turn it at once into prayer. Open the 25th or the 119th Psalm, or the Savior’s own High Priestly Prayer in John 17; and transmit petition after petition through your own soul to the Throne…“
A.B. Simpson (1844-1919)
“Happy are they who suspend their desires until they know their Father’s will, and then, asking according to His will, they can rise to the height of His own mighty promise, `If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’ (John 15:7). `Thus saith the Lord… Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me.’ What more can we ask of ourselves and others than that God’s highest will, and that for us, shall be fulfilled? How shall we know that will? At the very least, we may always know it by His Word and promise, and we may be very sure we are not transcending its infinite bounds if we ask anything that is covered by a promise of His Holy Word, but we may immediately turn that promise into an order on the very Bank of Heaven and claim its fulfillment by all the power of His omnipotence and the sanctions of His faithfulness.“
F.B. Meyer (1847-1929)
“Above all, turn from the printed page to prayer. If a cluster of heavenly fruit hangs within reach, gather it. If a promise lies upon the page as a blank check, cash it. If a prayer is recorded, appropriate it, and launch it as a feathered arrow from the bow of your desire. If an example of holiness gleams before you, ask God to do as much for you. If a truth is revealed in all its intrinsic splendor, entreat that its brilliance may ever irradiate the hemisphere of your life like a star. Entwine the climbing vine of holy desire about the lattice work of Scripture. So shall you come to say with the Psalmist, `Oh, how I love Thy law, it is my meditation all the day!…’
It is sometimes well to read over, on our knees, Psalm 119, so full of devout love for the Bible…”
James M. Gray (1851-1935)
“How to master the Bible? Read it prayerfully. Let not the triteness of the observation belittle it, or all is lost. The point is insisted on because, since the Bible is a supernatural book, it can be studied or mastered only by supernatural aid…
In the light of the foregoing, let the reader punctuate the reading of it and every part of it with prayer to its divine Author, and he will come to know how to master the Bible…”
R.A. Torrey (1856-1928)
“God is ready to come down and meet us and talk with us face to face every time we open our Bibles. Oh, it is great to have God call you into His Presence and say, `I have something I want to whisper right into your ear alone and into your heart,’ and then open your Bible and see God standing there and hear Him saying that which is written there in the Book before your eyes. Studying the Bible that way makes the Bible a new and living Book. It is great to study the Bible on your knees. It has been one of the rarest privileges of my life to read every chapter in the Bible and every verse in the Bible on my knees. And it is your privilege to do the same…
Here is one of the greatest secrets of prevailing prayer: To study the Word to find what God’s will is as revealed there in the promises, and then simply take these promises and spread them out before God in prayer with the absolutely unwavering expectation that He will do what He has promised in His Word…
What new light often shines from an old familiar text as you bend over it in prayer!…
I believe in studying the Bible a good deal on your knees. When one reads an entire book of the Bible through upon his knees – and this is easily done – that book has a new meaning and becomes a new book…
Prayer will do more than a college education to make the Bible an open and a glorious book…
These two things, prayer and study of the Word of God, always go hand-in-hand, for there is no true prayer without study of the Word of God, and there is no true study of the Word of God without prayer…
Study the Bible prayerfully. God, who is the author of the Bible, is willing to act as interpreter of it…
God’s power comes through prayer, it comes also through the Word of God (Psalm 1:2,3 and Joshua 1:8). Many have known the power that comes through the regular, thoughtful, prayerful, protracted meditation upon the Word, but business and perhaps Christian duties have multiplied, other studies have come in, the Word has been in a measure crowded out, and power has gone. We must meditate daily, prayerfully, profoundly upon the Word if we are to maintain power. Many a man has run dry through its neglect…”
S.D. Gordon (1859-1936)
“Read prayerfully. We learn how to pray by reading prayerfully. This Book does not reveal its sweets and strength to the keen mind merely, but to the Spirit enlightened mind…
As we listen to His voice in His Word, and accept His promises, our praying will take on the coloration of our listening…
Bible reading is the listening side of prayer. And the listening side controls the speaking side of prayer…“
W.H. Griffith Thomas (1861-1924)
“God’s Word is the fuel of our prayer. As we open the Bible in the morning, the promises prompt us to prayer, the examples incite us to prayer, the warnings urge us to prayer, the hopes of glory stir us to prayer–everything in the portion taken for our meditation can be turned into prayer… Depend on it, hiding God’s Word in the heart is the secret of prayer, and the reason why our prayer-life is so weak and barren is that we do not know God through His Word…
It is perhaps scarcely necessary to do more than call attention to the intimate and necessary connection between prayer and all Bible study, whether the study be mainly critical or purely devotional. Bible knowledge is at once a cause and an effect of prayer. We need prayer for spiritual and intellectual enlightenment before and as we study the Word of God, while the results of our study will in turn lead to more prayer and increasing waiting on God in fellowship. Thus the two act and react on each other, for prayer in its simplest definition is just our speaking to God, and the Bible is God speaking to us…
We must meditate on the Word of God. The food of the Scriptures, God’s revelation of His will, is needed to sustain prayer. The promises are to elicit prayer. The Word and prayer always go together, and no prayer is of use that is not based on, warranted by, and saturated with the Word of God…”
Jessie Penn-Lewis (1861 – 1927)
Jessica was born in Wales, saw much of the Welsh revival and the men of God that were used in it. She wrote many Christian books.
Her booklet “A Revival of Prayer Needed” states,
“See how Paul prayed for the Churches, so strenuously in the midst of his strenuous life. His epistles are saturated with prayer. Take Paul’s prayers for the Ephesians, for the Philippians, and other believers, and if you want to know how to pray in the will of God for others, pray those prayers. You are always safe in offering them for every child of God you know. It must be better to pray those prayers than any words of your own. You will be safe to ask in the will of God then, for the will of God is in them.”
John Hyde (1865-1912)
Better known as Praying Hyde, he was a pioneer missionary to India. One of his co-workers wrote this short article about him,
“Right on his face on the ground is Praying Hyde. This was his favorite attitude for prayer. Listen! He is praying; he utters a petition, and then waits; in a little time he repeats it, and then waits; and this many times until we feel that petition has penetrated every fibre of our being and we feel assured that God has heard and without doubt He will answer. How well I remember him praying that we might open our mouth wide that He might fill it (Psalm 81:10). I think he repeated the word `wide’ scores of times with long pauses between. `Wide, Lord, wide, open wide, wide.’ How effectual it was to hear him address God, `O Father, Father!'”
You (Contemporary)
Reader: “Who, me?”
Writer: “Yes, you, the very one that right now is reading these lines! You can have wonderful fellowship with God prayerfully reading God’s Word. God will greatly bless anyone who dares to believe His Word and reads it prayerfully. Your daily life will become a living testimony! Try it! Check it out! Be like the Bereans, of whom God’s Word declares that,
“These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Therefore, many of them believed…” (Acts 17:11,12a).
From Communing With God – Chapter 8