Luke 11 commentary

LUKE 11 COMMENTARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Jesus’ Teaching on Prayer
1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place.
When he finished, one of his disciples said to
him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John
taught his disciples.”
BARNES, "As he was praying - Luke has taken notice of our Saviour’s praying
often. Thus, at his baptism Luk_3:21; in the wilderness Luk_5:16; before the
appointment of the apostles, he continued all night in prayer Luk_6:12; he was alone
praying Luk_9:18; his transfiguration also took place when he went up to pray Luk_
9:28-29.
Teach us to pray - Probably they had been struck with the excellency and fervor
of his prayers, and, recollecting that “John” had taught his disciples to pray, they
asked him also to teach “them.” We learn, therefore:
1. That the gifts and graces of others should lead us to desire the same.
2. That the true method of praying can be learned only by our being properly
taught. Indeed, we cannot pray acceptably at all unless God shall teach us how
to pray.
3. That it is proper for us to meditate beforehand what we are to ask of God, and
to arrange our thoughts, that we may not come thoughtlessly into his presence.
CLARKE, "Teach us to pray - See the nature of prayer, with an ample
explanation of the different parts of the Lord’s Prayer, treated of in Mat_6:5-16
(note). The prayer related here by Luke is not precisely the same as that mentioned
by Matthew; and indeed it is not likely that it was given at the same time. That in
Matthew seems to have been given after the second passover; and this in Luke was
given probably after the third passover, between the feasts of tabernacles, and the
dedication. It is thus that Bishop Newcome places them in his Greek Harmony of the
Gospels.
There are many variations in the MSS. in this prayer; but they seem to have
proceeded principally from the desire of rendering this similar to that in Matthew.
Attempts of this nature have given birth to multitudes of the various readings in the
MSS. of the New Testament. It should be remarked, also, that there is no vestige of
the doxology found in Matthew, in any copy of St. Luke’s Gospel.
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GILL, "And it came to pass that as he was praying,.... The following
directions concerning prayer, though they agree with those in Mat_6:9 &c. yet were
delivered at another time, and in another place, and upon another occasion: Christ
was then in Galilee, now in Judea: he gave the former directions unasked for, these at
the request of one of his disciples; the other were given as he was preaching, these
immediately after he had been praying; as soon as he had done a work he was often
employed in, as man and mediator, on account of himself, his disciples, cause, and
interest: and this was done
in a certain place; perhaps in the Mount of Olives, which was not far from
Bethany, where we hear of him last, since this was a place where he used to abide in
the night, and pray, Luk_21:37. The Arabic version reads, "in a desert place"; and
after he had been at Bethany, he did go to a country near the wilderness, to a city
called Ephraim, Joh_11:54
when he ceased; from praying; when he had concluded his prayer, and finished all
his petitions, and was off of his knees:
one of his disciples; perhaps one of the seventy disciples who had not heard the
summary of prayer, and the directions about it before given on the mount, Mat_6:9
The Persic version reads, "his disciples": as if they all united in the request:
and said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples,
who, as Tertullian says (g), brought in a new order and method of praying, and gave
his disciples some instructions and directions concerning it, much better than what
the Jews in common had: and this disciple looking upon his Lord and master as
much better qualified to give directions in this important affair than even John
himself was, requests of him that he would; and what might put him upon it at this
time seems to be, his observing that Christ had now been at prayer.
HENRY, "Prayer is one of the great laws of natural religion. That man is a brute,
is a monster, that never prays, that never gives glory to his Maker, nor feels his
favour, nor owns his dependence upon him. One great design therefore of
Christianity is to assist us in prayer, to enforce the duty upon us, to instruct us in it,
and encourage us to expect advantage by it. Now here,
I. We find Christ himself praying in a certain place, probably where he used to
pray, Luk_11:1. As God, he was prayed to; as man, he prayed; and, though he was a
Son, yet learned he this obedience. This evangelist has taken particular notice of
Christ's praying often, more than any other of the evangelists: when he was baptized
(Luk_3:21), he was praying; he withdrew into the wilderness, and prayed (Luk_
5:16); he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer (Luk_
6:12); he was alone praying (Luk_9:18); soon after, he went up into a mountain to
pray, and as he prayed he was transfigured (Luk_9:28, Luk_9:29); and here he was
praying in a certain place. Thus, like a genuine son of David, he gave himself unto
prayer, Psa_109:4. Whether Christ was now alone praying, and the disciples only
knew that he was so, or whether he prayed with them, is uncertain; it is most
probable that they were joining with him.
II. His disciples applied themselves to him for direction in prayer. When he was
praying, they asked, Lord, teach us to pray. Note, The gifts and graces of others
should excite us to covet earnestly the same. Their zeal should provoke us to a holy
imitation and emulation; why should not we do as well as they? Observe, They came
to him with this request, when he ceased; for they would not disturb him when he
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was at prayer, no, not with this good motion. Every thing is beautiful in its season.
One of his disciples, in the name of the rest, and perhaps by their appointment, said,
Lord, teach us. Note, Though Christ is apt to teach, yet he will for this be enquired of,
and his disciples must attend him for instruction.
Now, 1. Their request is, “Lord, teach us to pray; give us a rule or model by which
to go in praying, and put words into our mouths.” Note, It becomes the disciples of
Christ to apply themselves to him for instruction in prayer. Lord, teach us to pray, is
itself a good prayer, and a very needful one, for it is a hard thing to pray well and it is
Jesus Christ only that can teach us, by his word and Spirit, how to pray. “Lord, teach
me what it is to pray; Lord, excite and quicken me to the duty; Lord, direct me what
to pray for; Lord, give me praying graces, that I may serve God acceptably in prayer;
Lord, teach me to pray in proper words; give me a mouth and wisdom in prayer, that
I may speak as I ought; teach me what I shall say.”
2. Their plea is, “As John also taught his disciples. He took care to instruct his
disciples in this necessary duty, and we would be taught as they were, for we have a
better Master than they had.” Dr. Lightfoot's notion of this is, That whereas the Jews'
prayers were generally adorations, and praises of God, and doxologies, John taught
his disciples such prayers as were more filled up with petitions and requests; for it is
said of them that they did deēseis poiountai - make prayers, Luk_5:33. The word
signifies such prayers as are properly petitionary. “Now, Lord, teach us this, to be
added to those benedictions of the name of God which we have been accustomed to
from our childhood.” According to this sense, Christ did there teach them a prayer
consisting wholly of petitions, and even omitting the doxology which had been
affixed; and the Amen, which was usually said in the giving of thanks (1Co_14:16),
and in the Psalms, is added to doxologies only. This disciple needed not to have
urged John Baptist's example: Christ was more ready to teach than ever John Baptist
was, and particularly taught to pray better than John did, or could, teach his
disciples.
JAMISON, "Luk_11:1-13. The disciples taught to pray.
one, etc. — struck with either the matter or the manner of our Lord’s prayers.
as John, etc. — From this reference to John, it is possible that disciple had not
heard the Sermon on the Mount. Nothing of John’s inner teaching (to his own
disciples) has been preserved to us, but we may be sure he never taught his disciples
to say, “Our Father.”
CALVIN, "It is uncertain whether this form was once only or twice delivered by
Christ to his disciples. (429) Some think that the latter is more probable; because
Luke says that he was requested to do it, while Matthew represents him as
teaching it of his own accord. But as we have said, that Matthew collects all the
leading points of doctrine, in order that the whole amount of them may be more
clearly perceived by the readers when they are placed in close succession, it is
possible that Matthew may have omitted to mention the occasion which is related
by Luke. On this subject, however, I am unwilling to debate with any person.
Luke 11:1As John also taught his diciples. John delivered to his disciples a
particular form of prayer; and he did so, in my opinion, because the time
required it. The state of affairs among the Jews was, at that time, exceedingly
corrupted. Every thing connected with religion had so miserably fallen, that we
need not be surprised to find few among them, by whom prayer was offered in a
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proper manner. (430) Besides, it was proper, that the minds of believers should
be excited, by prayer, to hope and desire the promised redemption, which was at
hand. John might, therefore, have collected, out of various passages of Scripture,
a certain prayer adapted to the time, and approaching more nearly to the
spiritual kingdom of Christ, which had already begun to be revealed.
BARCLAY, "TEACH US TO PRAY (Luke 11:1-4)
11:1-4 Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he stopped, one of his
disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." He
said to them, "When you pray, say,
O Father, let your name be held in reverence. Let your kingdom come. Give to us
each day our bread for the day. And forgive us our sins as we too forgive
everyone who is in debt to us. And lead us not into temptation."
It was the regular custom for a Rabbi to teach his disciples a simple prayer
which they might habitually use. John had done that for his disciples, and now
Jesus' disciples came asking him to do the same for them. This is Luke's version
of the Lord's Prayer. It is shorter than Matthew's, but it will teach us all we need
to know about how to pray and what to pray for.
(i) It begins by calling God Father. That was the characteristic Christian address
to God. (compare Galatians 4:6; Romans 8:15; 1 Peter 1:17). The very first word
tells us that in prayer we are not coming to someone out of whom gifts have to be
unwillingly extracted, but to a Father who delights to supply his children's needs.
(ii) In Hebrew the name means much more than merely the name by which a
person is called. The name means the whole character of the person as it is
revealed and known to us. Psalms 9:10 says, "Those who know thy name put
their trust in thee." That means far more than knowing that God's name is
Jehovah. It means that those who know the whole character and mind and heart
of God will gladly put their trust in him.
(iii) We must note particularly the order of the Lord's Prayer. Before anything is
asked for ourselves, God and his glory, and the reverence due to him, come first.
Only when we give God his place will other things take their proper place.
(iv) The prayer covers all life.
(a) It covers present need. It tells us to pray for our daily bread; but it is bread
for the day for which we pray. This goes back to the old story of the manna in
the wilderness (Exodus 16:11-21). Only enough for the needs of the day might be
gathered. We are not to worry about the unknown future, but to live a day at a
time.
"I do not ask to see
The distant scene--one step enough for me."
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(b) It covers past sin. When we pray we cannot do other than pray for
forgiveness, for the best of us is a sinful man coming before the purity of God.
(c) It covers future trials. Temptation means any testing situation. It includes far
more than the mere seduction to sin; it covers every situation which is a
challenge to and a test of a person's manhood and integrity and fidelity. We
cannot escape it, but we can meet it with God.
Someone has said that the Lord's Prayer has two great uses in our private
prayers. If we use it at the beginning of our devotions it awakens all kinds of holy
desires which lead us on into the right pathways of prayer. If we use it at the end
of our devotions it sums up all we ought to pray for in the presence of God.
BENSON, "Luke 11:1-4. As he was praying in a certain place — Our Lord’s
whole time was occupied, either in instructing his numerous followers, or in
confirming his doctrine by miracles of mercy, wrought for the relief of the
afflicted, or in the exercises of devotion. This evangelist has mentioned Christ’s
praying much more frequently than any of the other evangelists. He tells us,
Luke 3:21, when he was baptized he was praying; Luke 5:16, that he withdrew
into the wilderness and prayed; Luke 6:12, that he went out into a mountain to
pray, and continued all night in prayer; Luke 9:18, that he was alone, praying;
and soon after, that he went up into a mountain, and as he prayed was
transfigured, Luke 9:28-29; and here, that he was praying in a certain place.
Whether he was now praying alone, and the disciples only knew that he was so,
or whether he prayed with them, is uncertain; it is most probable they were
joining with him. One of his disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray — Inform us
what we ought especially to desire and pray for, and in what words we ought to
express our desires and petitions. It seems this disciple had not been present
when our Lord, in the beginning of his ministry, gave his hearers directions
concerning their devotions; or, if he was present, he had forgotten what had then
been said. As John also taught his disciples — The Jewish masters used to give
their followers some short form of prayer, as a peculiar badge of their relation to
them. This, it is probable, John the Baptist had done. And in this sense it seems
to be, that the disciples now asked Jesus, to teach them to pray. Accordingly he
here repeats that form which he had before given them in his sermon on the
Mount, and likewise enlarges on the same head, though still speaking the same
things in substance. And this prayer, uttered from the heart, and in its true and
full meaning, is indeed the badge of a real Christian: for is not he such whose
first and most ardent desire is the glory of God, and the happiness of man, by the
coming of his kingdom? who asks for no more of this world than his daily bread,
longing meantime for the bread that cometh down from heaven? and whose only
desires for himself are forgiveness of sins (as he heartily forgives others) and
sanctification? When ye pray, say — And what he said to them is undoubtedly
said to us also. We are therefore here directed not only to imitate this in all our
prayers, but frequently, at least, to use this very form of prayer. For an
explanation of this prayer, see the notes on Matthew 6:9-13. There are some
differences between the form in Matthew and this recorded here; by which it
appears it was not the design of Christ that we should be always confined to the
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very words of either form; for then there would have been no difference between
them. One difference, indeed, which the reader will probably notice, is in the
translation only, which ought not to have been, where there is none in the
original; and that is in the third petition, as in heaven, so in earth; whereas the
words are the very same, and in the same order, as in Matthew; but there is a
difference in the fourth petition: in Matthew we pray, Give us daily bread this
day; here, give it us [ καθ’ ημεραν] day by day: that is, Give us each day the
bread which our bodies require, as they call for it; not, Give us this day bread
for many days to come; but, as the Israelites had manna, let us have bread, to-
day for to-day, and to-morrow for tomorrow; that thus we may be kept in a
state of continual dependance upon God, as children upon their parents, and
may have our mercies fresh from his hand daily; and may find ourselves under
fresh obligations to do the work of every day in the day, according as the duty of
the day requires, because we have from God the supplies of every day in the day,
according as the necessity of the day requires. Here is, likewise, some difference
in the fifth petition. In Matthew it is, Forgive us our debts, as we forgive; here it
is, Forgive us our sins, (which proves that our sins are our debts,)
for we forgive; not that our forgiving those that have offended us can merit
pardon from God, or be an inducement to him to forgive us; he forgives for his
own name’s sake, and his Son’s sake: but this is a very necessary qualification
for forgiveness: and if God have wrought it in us, we may plead the work of his
grace, for the enforcing of our petitions for the pardon of our sins; Lord, forgive
us, for thou hast thyself inclined us to forgive others. There is another addition
here; we plead not only in general, we forgive our debtors, but in particular we
profess to forgive every one that is indebted to us, without exception. We so
forgive our debtors, as not to bear malice or ill-will to any, but true love to all,
without any exception whatsoever. Here also the doxology in the close is wholly
omitted, and the Amen; for Christ would leave his disciples at liberty to use that,
or any other doxology, fetched out of David’s Psalms; or rather, he left a space
here to be filled up by a doxology more peculiar to the Christian institutes,
ascribing glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
COFFMAN, "This chapter gives Jesus' instruction on prayer (Luke 11:1-13),
recounts his refutation of the Pharisees' insinuation that Christ was in league
with Satan (Luke 11:14-26), records his reaction to a compliment (Luke
11:27-28), details another instance of his reference to Jonah (Luke 11:29-32),
stresses his warning against spiritual blindness (Luke 11:33-36), tells of his lunch
with a Pharisee (Luke 11:42-44), includes an additional three "woes" against the
lawyers, and concludes with Luke's summary of the intensified evil cabal against
Jesus by the scribes and Pharisees (Luke 11:53-54).
Much of the material in this chapter is suggestive of very similar teachings found
in Matthew; but this must not be understood as variable accounts of the same
events and teachings, colored by the individual viewpoints of the narrators, and
therefore being inaccurate or deficient in one or another of the sacred
evangelists. The holy Gospels are totally accurate in all of their details; and the
conviction that underlies this series of commentaries makes it impossible to
receive as valid any type of exegesis that fails to respect this viewpoint.
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It is absolutely certain that Christ repeated, over and over again, all of the sacred
teachings regarding himself and the message which he brought from the Father;
and in the light of that certainty, how inane and puerile are the speculations
regarding the Lord's prayer, recorded both in this chapter and in Matthew, and
the pontifications of scholars about which is the "true" account! The same may
be said of many other things in this Gospel. How natural, and how impossible to
suppose that it could have been otherwise, that Jesus would have returned again
and again to the principal teachings that made up the burden of his four-year
campaign of enlightenment!
THE LORD'S PRAYER
And it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place, that when he ceased,
one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, even as John also
taught his disciples. (Luke 11:1)
He was praying ... Prayer was a characteristic habit of the Lord Jesus Christ;
and no prayerless person has any kinship whatever with the Saviour. "That man
is a brute, a monster, who never prays, never gives glory to his Maker, nor owns
his dependence upon him."[1]
When he ceased, one of his disciples said ... The circumstances here are utterly
different from those in which the similar Lord's prayer was given in Matthew.
Jesus repeated it "on two or more occasions"[2] for the instruction of his
followers; and it was most natural that the prayer should have been repeated in
different words, "for Jesus' view of prayer was that it should not be
mechanical."[3] The respect of that unnamed disciple who made the request for
instruction should be noted; he waited until Jesus had finished praying.
Lord, teach us to pray ... "This itself is a good prayer, and a very needful one;
for it is a hard thing to pray well."[4]
As John taught his disciples ... No other record of such action on John's part has
come down from that age.
[1] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Holy Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Baker Book House, 1960), p. 692.
[2] Norval Geldenhuys, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1951), p. 318.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Matthew Henry, op. cit., p. 692.
LIGHTFOOT, "[Teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.] What kind
of request is this, that this disciple, whoever he is, doth here make? Was he
ignorant of, or had he forgot, that form of prayer which the Lord had delivered
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to them in his sermon upon the mount? If he had not forgot it, why then doth he
require any other? Doth he mean, 'Lord, teach us to pray, for John hath taught
his disciples?' or thus, 'Teach us a form and rule of prayer like that which John
had taught his?' This latter is the most probable; but then it is something
uncertain what kind of form that might be which the disciples of John were
taught. As to this inquiry, we may consider these things:
I. It is said of the disciples of John, They fast often, and make prayers, Luke
5:33: where, upon many accounts, I could persuade myself that prayers ought to
be taken here in its most proper sense for supplications. To let other things pass,
let us weigh these two:
1. That the Jews' daily and common prayers, ordinary and occasional, consisted
chiefly of benedictions and doxologies, which the title of that Talmudic tract,
which treats of their prayers, sufficiently testifies, being called [Beracoth]
benedictions, as also that tephillah, the general nomenclature for prayer,
signifies no other than praising, i.e. benediction or doxology. To illustrate this
matter, we have a passage or two not unworthy our transcribing:
"Perhaps, a man begs for necessaries for himself, and afterward prayeth. This is
that which is spoken by Solomon, when he saith, To the prayer, and to the
supplication." I omit the version, because the Gemarists interpret it themselves;
rinna is tephillah, and tephillah is bakkashah. Their meaning is this: The first
word of Solomon's rinnah, signifies prayer (as the Gloss hath it, i.e. prayer with
praise, or doxology) the latter word, tephillah, signifies petition, or supplication;
Gloss, begging for things necessary.
It cannot be denied but that they had their petitionary or supplicatory prayers;
but then, the benedictory or doxological prayers were more in number, and more
large and copious: especially those which were poured out occasionally or upon
present emergency. Read the last chapter of the treatise I newly quoted, and
judge as to this particular: read the whole treatise, and then judge of the whole
matter.
2. It may be reasonably supposed that the Baptist taught his disciples a form of
prayer different from what the Jewish forms were. It stands with reason, that he
that was to bring in a new doctrine, (I mean new in respect to that of the Jewish)
should bring in a new way of prayer too; that is, a form of prayer that consisted
more in petition and supplication than the Jewish forms had done; nay, and
another sort of petitions than what those forms which were petitionary had
hitherto contained. For the disciples of John had been instructed in the points of
regeneration, justifying faith, particular adoption, and sanctification by the
Spirit, and other doctrines of the gospel, which were altogether unknown in the
schools or synagogues of the Jews. And who would imagine, therefore, that John
Baptist should not teach his disciples to pray for these things?
II. It is probable, therefore, that when this disciple requested our Saviour that he
would teach his disciples as John had done, he had respect to such kind of
prayers as these; because we find Christ so far condescending to him, that he
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delivers him a form of prayer merely petitionary, as may appear both from the
whole structure of the prayer, as also in that the last close of all the doxology,
"For thine is the kingdom," &c. is here left wholly out; he took care to deliver [a
form] that was merely supplicatory. This is confirmed by what follows
concerning the man requesting some loaves of his neighbour, adding withal this
exhortation, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find." Which two
things seem to answer those two things by which supplicatory prayer is defined;
these are sheelah, asking, and bakkashah, seeking: for if there may be any
difference in the meaning of these two words, I would suppose it thus,
bakkashah, or seeking, may respect the things of God; so, "Seek ye first the
kingdom of God," &c.: and sheelah, or asking, may respect those things which
are necessary for ourselves: which texture we find very equally divided in this
present form of prayer, where the three first petitions are in behalf of God's
honour, and the three last in behalf of our own necessaries.
It was in use amongst the Jews, when they fasted, to use a peculiar sort of prayer,
joined with what were daily, terming it the prayer of the fast. This we have
mentioned in Taanith, where it is disputed whether those that fasted for certain
hours only, and not for the whole day, ought to repeat that prayer of the fast: as
also, in what order and place that prayers is to be inserted amongst the daily
ones. Now if it should be granted that John had taught his disciples any such
form, that might be particularly adapted to their fastings, it is not very likely this
disciple had any particular reference to that, because the disciples of Christ did
not fast as the disciples of John did. It rather respected the whole frame of their
prayers which he had instructed them in, which consisted chiefly of petitions and
supplications.
Object. But probably this disciple was not ignorant that Christ had already
delivered to them a petitionary form in that Sermon of his upon the Mount: and
therefore what need had he to desire, and for what reason did he importune
another?
Answer. It is likely he did know it; and as likely he did not expect the repetition
of the same again: but being very intent upon what John had done for his
disciples, did hope for a form more full and copious, that might more largely and
particularly express what they were to ask for, according to what he had
observed probably in the form that had been prescribed by John: but the divine
wisdom of our Saviour knew, however, that all was sufficiently comprehended in
what he had given them. And as the Jews had their short summary of those
eighteen prayers epitomized, so would he have this form of his a short summary
of all that we ought to ask for.
COKE, ". As he was praying— While Jesus was in the country beyond Jordan,
he happened to pray publicly with such fervency, that one of his disciples,
exceedingly affected both with the matter and manner of his address, begged
that he would teach them to pray. This disciple probably had not been present,
when our Lord, in the beginning of his ministry, gave his hearers directions
concerning their devotions. Wherefore Jesus, who always rejoiced to find his
hearers desirous of instruction, willinglyembraced this opportunity, and
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repeated the discourse on prayer, which he had formerly delivered in his sermon
on the mount; but with this difference, that he now handled the arguments which
he had offered as motives to the duty, a little more fully than before. Many
learned men suppose, that the Jewish masters used to give their followers some
short form of prayer, as a peculiar badge of their relation to them. John the
Baptist had probably done this; in which view only we can suppose the disciples
could now ask Jesus to teach them to pray; for it is not to be thought, that, in the
three preceding years of his ministry, he had not often given them instructions
both as to the matter and manner of prayer.
SIMEON, "FORMS OF PRAYER, GOOD
Luke 11:1. And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when
he ceased, one of his Disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also
taught his Disciples.
SCARCELY any thing can more strongly mark our defection from God, than
our inability to pray. It might well be supposed, that, considering how many sins
we have to be forgiven, how many wants to be supplied, and how many blessings
to be acknowledged, that we should never be at a loss for matter in our addresses
at the throne of grace, or for a suitable frame in drawing nigh to God. But the
truth is, that there is no duty more difficult than that of prayer: for as, on the
one hand, “we know not what to pray for as we ought;” so neither, on the other
hand, are we able to plead with God as we ought, unless “the Holy Spirit help
our infirmities, and assist us in relation to every part of this duty [Note: Romans
8:26.].” The Apostles themselves felt their need of instruction upon this head,
and received from their Divine Master a form of prayer fitted for the use of the
Church in all ages. From this circumstance, I shall take occasion to shew,
I. The importance of sound formularies of instruction and prayer, for the
use of the Church of Christ—
Every society has some ground of mutual agreement, and some principle on
which the members are formed into one collective body. Now the Church of
Christ is a society collected out of the world, and united in one common
sentiment of adherence to Christ, as their only Lord and Saviour. There have
been minor differences between the different parts of this body; and different
societies have been formed, to confirm in their respective views the members
attached to each. But on the subject of these differences I have at present no call
to speak: my purpose, in this part of my discourse, being simply to shew, that, by
the common consent of all, certain formularies have been judged expedient, for
the marking and perpetuating of their respective sentiments. Some, indeed, have
limited their formularies to a statement of principles; others have extended them
to forms of prayer: and it is of these latter that I intend more especially to speak.
I mean not to condemn those who differ in this respect; but only to vindicate
those who, in addition to a statement of their principles, have also adopted a
form of prayer.
A statement of principles is good—
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[It forms a bond of union between the members of the same Church. Doubtless,
if the principles themselves be false, the record that contains them cannot be
good: but, supposing the principles to be sound, the forming of them into an
accredited and unchanging standard cannot but be a signal benefit to the
Church that is governed by them. Such a statement is a great preservative from
error; it strengthens the hands of the faithful members, and is a witness against
those who are unfaithful; and it serves, in perpetuity, as a rallying point, both for
those who adhere to truth and those who have departed from it.]
A form of prayer is good also—
[That there are persons capable of conducting public worship in a truly edifying
manner without a form, is readily acknowledged. But the great mass of those
who lead the devotions of the people (I mean not to offend any, but only to
“speak the truth in love,”) are far from equal to the task: and even those whose
gifts are sufficient, find themselves too often destitute of the grace of prayer.
They can utter words, perhaps, with fluency: but their words betray the absence
of the heart: and the barrenness felt by those who speak, is diffused over all who
hear. I grant that there may also be a hardness and barrenness in one who uses a
pre-conceived form: but still, if that form express all that a devout spirit could
wish, the persons who join in it may themselves, through the influence of the
Holy Spirit, supply the unction, which the minister has failed to manifest.
In family devotions, a pre-conceived form is not only useful, but necessary, for
the generality of Christians. In ministers, a kind of official fluency is obtained by
habit: but in others, even in men of learning and of great intelligence, who can
deliver themselves with ease in a popular harangue, there is a straitness, both of
conception and expression, when they come before God in prayer; and if they
had not somewhat of a form prepared for them, they must abandon the use of
family prayer altogether.
As to the lawfulness of such forms, I conceive that to be placed beyond a doubt,
by the answer which our Lord gave to the request made to him in our text. His
Disciples desired him to teach them to pray, as John had taught his Disciples:
and our Lord gave them a prayer, which they were directed to use, either in form
or substance, whenever they drew nigh to God at the throne of grace: a clear
proof that forms are good; and that in the use of them we may “worship God in
spirit and in truth.”]
Assuming that sound formularies are good, I proceed to point out,
II. The peculiar excellence of those which are used and sanctioned by the
Church of England—
The Articles, the Homilies, and the Liturgy, are the standard of Divine truth, as
embraced and professed by our Established Church. Now,
The Articles are peculiarly excellent, both as to the soundness of their principles,
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and the moderation of their statement—
[They have evidently been drawn up with a view to comprehend all persons
whose views, upon the whole, are right. The Calvinist and the Arminian meet
upon the ground there stated, each being satisfied that his own sentiments are
contained in them. And this, considering how unqualified the Scriptural
expressions, on which their respective creeds are founded, often are, is very
desirable. They are articles of peace, and not of war: and they serve to combine
in one Church all that is truly good, whilst they repudiate those only who deny
some fundamental truth of Christianity.]
The Homilies are a pattern of simplicity and godly sincerity—
[Never was truth more plainly stated than in them. The language in which they
are written is indeed antiquated; in consequence of which, the use of them has
been discontinued: but, in their mode of stating divine truth, and enforcing it
upon the conscience, they never have been excelled by any composition whatever.
It were well if they were more regarded as a pattern for popular addresses at this
day: for, in comparison of them, the great mass of public addresses, if viewed
with candour and with Apostolic zeal, would be found, it is to be feared,
exceedingly defective, both in energy and in scriptural instruction.]
As for the Liturgy, no commendation can be too great for it—
[Being of human composition, it must, of necessity, partake of human infirmity.
But, taken all together, it comes nearer to inspiration than any book that ever
was composed. Only let a person be humbled as a sinner before God, and he will
not find in the whole universe any prayers so suited to his taste. They express
exactly what a broken-hearted penitent before God would desire to express: yet
is there in them nothing of extravagance or of cant: all is sober, chaste, judicious;
so minute, as to comprehend every thing which the largest assembly of
suppliants could wish to utter; and at the same time so general, as not to involve
any one to a greater extent than his own experience sanctions and approves.
Throughout the whole, the suppliant is made to stand on the only true
foundation, and to urge every request in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, his
atoning Saviour, his all-prevailing Advocate. Throughout the whole, also, is the
Holy Spirit’s influence acknowledged as the only source of light and life, and
implored as the gift of God to sinners for Christ’s sake. In point of devotion,
whether prayer or praise be offered, nothing can exceed the Liturgy, either in
urgency of petition or in fervour of thanksgiving. In truth, if a whole assembly
were addressing God in the spirit of the Liturgy, as well as in the word there
would be nothing to compare with such a spectacle upon the face of the earth: it
would approximate more to heaven than any thing of the kind that was ever yet
seen in this world.
Taking, then, the formularies of our Church in a collective view, I must say, that
we have unbounded reason for thankfulness to Almighty God for the provision
which has been made for the instruction of our minds, and the assistance that
has been given us for our advancement in the divine life.]
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Now, then, let me state to you,
III. The claim which the Prayer-book and Homily Society has upon us in this
particular view—
[Here a summary view was given of the services rendered by that Society to the
world. And they were shewn to be such as to deserve the countenance and
support of every pious man. Its having translated our Liturgy into so many
languages, renders it an institution of far greater importance than would, at first
sight, be supposed: for, if Bible Societies and Mission Societes are useful in
gathering Churches, this is useful in confirming, establishing, comforting, and
edifying all who are so united — — —]
Let me then recommend,
1. That these formularies be duly estimated by yourselves—
[The Homilies are too much laid aside at this time. It is well that the attention of
the world is now more called to them than it has been for the last hundred years.
I would recommend you all to read them for your own edification, and to
circulate them for the edification of others. The Liturgy, also, is too much used as
a form, without a suitable endeavour to enter into the spirit of it. But if we will,
from time to time, compare our own frame of mind in prayer with the words
which are provided for our use, we shall see how exceedingly defective we are in
every thing that is good; and how much we need a supply of the Spirit of God to
bring us to any measure of that experience which we are bound, as Christians to
attain — — —]
2. That your regard for them be shewn by your endeavours to circulate
them throughout the world—
[From the records of that society, you will see that nothing but a want of funds
has prevented a still greater extension of their labours than has yet taken place.
If the generosity of the Christian public enable them to proceed according to
their wishes, there will not be a country under heaven that will not, in due time,
be blessed with the same advantages as we enjoy.]
NISBET, "A HEARTY DESIRE TO PRAY
‘Lord, teach us to pray.’
Luke 11:1
Have we this ‘hearty desire’ to pray of which the Collect for the Third Sunday
after Trinity speaks to us?
I. Whence does it come?—It comes from God; it is His gift. Let us never forget
this. We cannot too often call to mind that of ourselves we can do nothing that is
good. Do, did I say? We cannot even wish it or conceive it; we are not ‘sufficient
of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves,’ but ‘our sufficiency is of God.’
‘The Spirit helpeth our infirmities,’ and surely one of our greatest infirmities is
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the reluctance and the shrinking we feel in the matter of prayer. Here, then, the
Holy Spirit comes to our aid, and gives us the desire we so much need.
II. Hindrances to this desire.
(a) Inability.—We have already noticed an inability of ourselves to have this
desire.
(b) Unworthiness.—We are not worthy to put up one single request to heaven.
Holy men have always recognised and confessed this truth.
(c) Want of faith.—In one place Christ could not do many mighty works
‘because of their unbelief.’ And common sense will tell us that we shall never get
a real love of prayer unless we are convinced of the good of it. If we do not feel
any real need of the things for which we ask, nor any expectation of their being
granted, must not the asking for them be a very dreary and irksome
performance?
(d) Inconsistency of life.—Our lives do not match our prayers, and we are not in
earnest in trying to make them do so. If a man has no longing for prayer, is it not
too often because he has no longing for a holy life?
III. What is the remedy?
(a) Clearly to go on praying, and to pray more earnestly and perseveringly;
never to give up, because we do not feel the delight in it that we know we ought
to feel; because perseverance will bring its own reward; the more we pray, the
more we shall want to pray.
(b) Doing this with the constant thought of our own weakness—always going
back to the one source of strength, so that when God tells us to turn to Him, our
prayer must be, ‘Turn Thou us, O Lord, and so shall we be turned.’
(c) Trying in the same strength to make our lives match our prayers, and praying
for this with St. Augustine, ‘Grant, Lord, that the things we pray for and crave
of Thee, for them we may also labour.’
Rev. F. J. Middlemist.
Illustration
‘My Lord and Master, be Thou my Teacher. Enrol my name among those who
know not how to pray as we ought. I would be a learner in Thy school of prayer.
Lord, teach me! Thou art prayer (Psalms 109:4). Breathe within me the spirit of
prayer. Live within me as the Divine Intercessor. Lord, teach me to pray. Prayer
that will really take hold of God’s strength. Prayer that is full of holy
expectations. Prayer that “will not keep silence.” Prayer that will wait at the foot
of the Cross, at the foot of the throne, at my Father’s feet. “I will direct my
prayer unto Thee, and will look up” (Psalms 5:3). There is nothing too small for
His care. There is nothing too great for His power. There is nothing too wearying
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for His love.’
BURKITT, "The learned Mr. Mead upon this place apprehends, that it was the
custom of the Jewish doctors to deliver some certain form of prayer to their
disciples to use, at least that John the Baptist had done so to his disciples;
thereupon our Saviour's disciples besought them, that he also would give them in
like manner some form of his own composing, that they might pray with their
master's spirit, as John's disciples did with his. Accordingly our Saviour gives
them here a form of his own, and commands them when they pray to use it.
Indeed he had given them this prayer about a year and a half before, in his
Sermon upon the Mount. Matthew 6:9
After this manner pray ye: where it is probable that the disciples looked upon it
only as a pattern of prayer, and not as a form; for had they thought that Christ
hd given them a form of prayer before, they had not asked him for one now;
therefore says Christ, When ye pray, say. Certainly this gives us to understand
that our Saviour intended and commanded it for a set form of prayer unto his
church.
Learn hence, that the Lord's prayer is both a pattern and platform, according to
which all our prayers ought to be framed; and also an exact form of prayer,
which ought to be used by us in our addresses to the throne of grace: After this
manner pray ye, says St. Matthew; When ye pray, say, says St. Luke.
PETT, "‘And it came about, as he was praying in a certain place, that when he
ceased, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, even as John also
taught his disciples.”
The disciples constantly saw Jesus at prayer. Possibly it would be a little unfair
to judge their own prayer lives on the basis of silence (one must hope so), but we
read little of such prayer. Here, however, we have the indication that they did
pray. And indeed Luke does emphasise that all must pray. So Luke’s purpose in
pointing constantly to Jesus as praying (Luke 5:16; Luke 6:12; Luke 9:18; Luke
9:28; Luke 11:1) is to bring out His close relationship with, and dependence on,
His Father.
Now His disciples, through one of their number, express their concern that they
might learn to pray better. They knew that John the Baptiser had taught his
disciples to pray. They too wanted to learn how to do so.
Verses 1-4
The Giving of The Lord’s Prayer For Worldwide Evangelisation (11:1-4).
Learning to pray follows aptly on from Mary sitting at His feet, so this follows on
the previous passage very satisfactorily. It was quite normal for disciples to seek
a guide to prayer from their teachers, and here we find Jesus’ disciples doing the
same. Jewish Rabbis regularly composed special prayers for their disciples. So
Jesus is asked to do the same. His model prayer brings out what we should be
emphasising when we pray. It was a pattern to follow, not a rhyme to recite, with
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its six headings giving a full pattern of prayer. Matthew 6:9-13 fills it out more
fully when Jesus provides it at a different time in a different context.
Many pray from a list, but that list is not usually like this. It is usually full of our
own near concerns. To us it is our little world that is important. The prayer that
Jesus taught, however, emphasised rather the wider concerns of God. Indeed in
Matthew, in the context of the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6), He points out that we
should leave our detailed anxieties in our Father’s hand and rather be assisting
in establishing the Kingly Rule of God and His righteousness. We should be like
Mary rather than Martha, concentrating on things above.
As we have seen this prayer is central to this section. It reveals all that Jesus has
come to do and achieve. All His effort is expended towards these ends. He has
come to hallow God’s name, to bring in His Kingly rule, to feed His people, to
bring them forgiveness, and to deliver them from all testing. And His disciples
can participate in it with Him, both through their activities and through their
prayers. It is Jesus’ timetable of events, God’s blueprint of what our lives should
be.
Analysis.
The analysis is simple consisting of two parts:
· As He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples
said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, even as John also taught his disciples.”
· ‘And he said to them, “When you pray, say,
Father,Hallowed be your name.Your Kingly Rule come.Give us today
Tomorrow’s bread.And forgive us our sins,For we ourselves also forgive every
one who is indebted to us.And bring us not into testing.”
MACLAREN, "THE PRAYING CHRIST
It is noteworthy that we owe our knowledge of the prayers of Jesus principally to the
Evangelist Luke. There is, indeed, one solemn hour of supplication under the
quivering shadows of the olive-trees in Gethsemane which is recorded by Matthew
and Mark as well; and though the fourth Gospel passes over that agony of prayer, it
gives us, in accordance with its ruling purpose, the great chapter that records His
priestly intercession. But in addition to these instances the first Gospel furnishes but
one, and the second but two, references to the subject. All the others are found in
Luke.
I need not stay to point out how this fact tallies with the many other characteristics of
the third Gospel, which mark it as eminently the story of the Son of Man. The record
which traces our Lord’s descent to Adam rather than to Abraham; which tells the
story of His birth, and gives us all we know of the ‘child Jesus’; which records His
growth in wisdom and stature, and has preserved a multitude of minute points
bearing on His true manhood, as well as on the tenderness of His sympathy and the
universality of His work, most naturally emphasises that most precious indication of
His humanity-His habitual prayerfulness. The Gospel of the King, which is the first
Gospel, or of the Servant, which is the second, or of the Son of God, which is the
fourth, had less occasion to dwell on this. Royalty, practical Obedience, Divinity, are
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their respective themes. Manhood is Luke’s, and he is ever pointing us to the
kneeling Christ.
Consider, then, for a moment, how precious the prayers of Jesus are, as bringing
Him very near to us in His true manhood. There are deep and mysterious truths
involved with which we do not meddle now. But there are also plain and surface
truths which are very helpful and blessed. We thank God for the story of His
weariness when He sat on the well, and of His slumber when, worn out with a hard
day’s work, He slept on the hard wooden pillow in the stern of the fishing-boat
among the nets and the litter. It brings Him near to us when we read that He
thirsted, and nearer still when the immortal words fall on our wondering ears, ‘Jesus
wept.’ But even more precious than these indications of His true participation in
physical needs and human emotion, is the great evidence of His prayers, that He too
lived a life of dependence, of communion, and of submission; that in our religious
life, as in all our life, He is our pattern and forerunner. As the Epistle to the Hebrews
puts it, He shows that He is not ashamed to call us brethren by this, that He too
avows that He lives by faith; and by His life-and surely pre-eminently by His prayers-
declares, I will put my trust in Him.’ We cannot think of Christ too often or too
absolutely as the object of faith; and as the hearer of our cries; but we may, and some
of us do, think of Him too seldom as the pattern of faith, and as the example for our
devotion. We should feel Him a great deal nearer us; and the fact of His manhood
would not only be grasped more clearly by orthodox believers, but would be felt in
more of its true tenderness, if we gave more prominence in our thoughts to that
picture of the praying Christ.
Another point that may be suggested is, that the highest, holiest life needs specific
acts and times of prayer. A certain fantastical and overstrained spirituality is not
rare, which professes to have got beyond the need of such beggarly elements. Some
tinge of this colours the habits of many people who are scarcely conscious of its
presence, and makes them somewhat careless as to forms and times of public or of
that of private worship. I do not think that I am wrong in saying that there is a
growing laxity in that matter among people who are really trying to live Christian
lives. We may well take the lesson which Christ’s prayers teach us, for we all need it,
that no life is so high, so holy, so full of habitual communion with God, that it can
afford to do without the hour of prayer, the secret place, the uttered word. If we are
to ‘pray without ceasing,’ by the constant attitude of communion and the constant
conversion of work into worship, we must certainly have, and we shall undoubtedly
desire, special moments when the daily sacrifice of doing good passes into the
sacrifice of our lips. The devotion which is to be diffused through our lives must be
first concentrated and evolved in our prayers. These are the gathering-grounds which
feed the river. The life that was all one long prayer needed the mountain-top and the
nightly converse with God. He who could say, ‘The Father hath not left Me alone, for
I do always the things that please Him,’ felt that He must also have the special
communion of spoken prayer. What Christ needed we cannot afford to neglect.
Thus Christ’s own prayers do, in a very real sense, ‘teach us to pray.’ But it strikes me
that, if we will take the instances in which we find Him praying, and try to classify
them in a rough way, we may gain some hints worth laying to heart. Let me attempt
this briefly now.
First, then, the praying Christ teaches us to pray as a rest after service.
The Evangelist Mark gives us, in his brief, vivid way, a wonderful picture in his first
chapter of Christ’s first Sabbath-day of ministry in Capernaum. It was crowded with
work. The narrative goes hurrying on through the busy hours, marking the press of
rapidly succeeding calls by its constant reiteration-’straightway,’ ‘immediately,’
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‘forthwith,’ ‘anon,’ ‘immediately.’ He teaches in the synagogue; without breath or
pause He heals a man with an unclean spirit; then at once passes to Simon’s house,
and as soon as He enters has to listen to the story of how the wife’s mother lay sick of
a fever. They might have let Him rest for a moment, but they are too eager, and He is
too pitying, for delay. As soon as He hears, He helps. As soon as He bids it, the fever
departs. As soon as she is healed, the woman is serving them. There can have been
but a short snatch of such rest as such a house could afford. Then when the shadows
of the western hills began to fall upon the blue waters of the lake, and the sunset
ended the restrictions of the Sabbath, He is besieged by a crowd full of sorrow and
sickness, and all about the door they lie, waiting for its opening. He could not keep it
shut any more than His heart or His hand, and so all through the short twilight, and
deep into the night, He toils amongst the dim, prostrate forms. What a day it had
been of hard toil, as well as of exhausting sympathy! And what was His refreshment?
An hour or two of slumber; and then, ‘in the morning, rising up a great while before
day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed’ (Mar_1:35).
In the same way we find Him seeking the same repose after another period of much
exertion and strain on body and mind. He had withdrawn Himself and His disciples
from the bustle which Mark describes so graphically. ‘There were many coming and
going, and they had no leisure, so much as to eat.’ So, seeking quiet, He takes them
across the lake into the solitudes on the other side. But the crowds from all the
villages near its head catch sight of the boat in crossing, and hurry round; and there
they all are at the landing-place, eager and exacting as ever. He throws aside the
purpose of rest, and all day long, wearied as He was, ‘taught them many things.’ The
closing day brings no respite. He thinks of their hunger, before His own fatigue, and
will not send them away fasting. So He ends that day of labour by the miracle of
feeding the five thousand. The crowds gone to their homes, He can at last think of
Himself; and what is His rest? He loses not a moment in ‘constraining’ His disciples
to go away to the other side, as if in haste to remove the last hindrance to something
that He had been longing to get to. ‘And when He had sent them away, He departed
into a mountain to pray’ (Mar_6:46; Mat_14:23).
That was Christ’s refreshment after His toil. So He blended contemplation and
service, the life of inward communion and the life of practical obedience. How much
more do we need to interpose the soothing and invigorating influences of quiet
communion between the acts of external work, since our work may harm us, as His
never did Him. It may disturb and dissipate our communion with God; it may
weaken the very motive from which it should arise; it may withdraw our gaze from
God and fix it upon ourselves. It may puff us up with the conceit of our own powers;
it may fret us with the annoyances of resistance; it may depress us with the
consciousness of failure; and in a hundred other ways may waste and wear away our
personal religion. The more we work the more we need to pray. In this day of activity
there is great danger, not of doing too much, but of praying too little for so much
work. These two-work and prayer, action and contemplation-are twin-sisters. Each
pines without the other. We are ever tempted to cultivate one or the other
disproportionately. Let us imitate Him who sought the mountain-top as His
refreshment after toil, but never left duties undone or sufferers unrelieved in pain.
Let us imitate Him who turned from the joys of contemplation to the joys of service
without a murmur, when His disciples broke in on His solitude with, ‘all men seek
Thee,’ but never suffered the outward work to blunt His desire for, nor to encroach
on the hour of, still communion with His Father. Lord, teach us to work; Lord, teach
us to pray.
The praying Christ teaches us to pray as a preparation for important steps.
Whilst more than one Gospel tells us of the calling of the Apostolic Twelve, the
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Gospel of the manhood alone narrates (Luk_6:12) that on the eve of that great epoch
in the development of Christ’s kingdom, ‘He went out into a mountain to pray, and
continued all night in prayer to God.’ Then, ‘when it was day,’ He calls to Him His
disciples, and chooses the Twelve.
A similar instance occurs, at a later period, before another great epoch in His course.
The great confession made by Peter, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’
was drawn forth by our Lord to serve as basis for His bestowment on the Apostles of
large spiritual powers, and for the teaching, with much increased detail and
clearness, of His approaching sufferings. In both aspects it distinctly marks a new
stage. Concerning it, too, we read, and again in Luke alone (Luk_9:18), that it was
preceded by solitary prayer.
Thus He teaches us where and how we may get the clear insight into circumstances
and men that may guide us aright. Bring your plans, your purposes to God’s throne.
Test them by praying about them. Do nothing large or new-nothing small or old
either, for that matter-till you have asked there, in the silence of the secret place,
‘Lord, what wouldest Thou have me to do?’ There is nothing bitterer to parents than
when children begin to take their own way without consulting them. Do you take
counsel of your Father, and have no secrets from Him. It will save you from many a
blunder and many a heartache; it will make your judgment clear, and your step
assured, even in new and difficult ways, if you will learn from the praying Christ to
pray before you plan, and take counsel of God before you act.
Again, the praying Christ teaches us to pray as the condition of receiving the Spirit
and the brightness of God.
There were two occasions in the life of Christ when visible signs showed His full
possession of the Divine Spirit, and the lustre of His glorious nature. There are large
and perplexing questions connected with both, on which I have no need to enter. At
His baptism the Spirit of God descended visibly and abode on Jesus. At His
transfiguration His face shone as the light, and His garments were radiant as sunlit
snow. Now on both these occasions our Gospel, and our Gospel alone, tells us that it
was whilst Christ was in the act of prayer that the sign was given: ‘Jesus being
baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended’ (Luk_
3:21-22). ‘As He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment
was white and glistening’ (Luk_9:29).
Whatever difficulty may surround the first of these narratives especially, one thing is
clear, that in both of them there was a true communication from the Father to the
man Jesus. And another thing is, I think, clear too, that our Evangelist meant to lay
stress on the preceding act as the human condition of such communication. So if we
would have the heavens opened over our heads, and the dove of God descending to
fold its white wings, and brood over the chaos of our hearts till order and light come
there, we must do what the Son of Man did-pray. And if we would have the fashion of
our countenances altered, the wrinkles of care wiped out, the traces of tears dried up,
the blotches of unclean living healed, and all the brands of worldliness and evil
exchanged for the name of God written on our foreheads, and the reflected glory
irradiating our faces, we must do as Christ did-pray. So, and only so, will God’s Spirit
fill our hearts, God’s brightness flash in our faces, and the vesture of heaven clothe
our nakedness.
Again, the praying Christ teaches us to pray as the preparation for sorrow. Here all
the three Evangelists tell us the same sweet and solemn story. It is not for us to
penetrate further than they carry us into the sanctities of Gethsemane. Jesus, though
hungering for companionship in that awful hour, would take no man with Him there;
and He still says, ‘Tarry ye here, while I go and pray yonder.’ But as we stand afar off,
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we catch the voice of pleading rising through the stillness of the night, and the
solemn words tell us of a Son’s confidence, of a man’s shrinking, of a Saviour’s
submission. The very spirit of all prayer is in these broken words. That was truly ‘The
Lord’s Prayer’ which He poured out beneath the olives in the moonlight. It was heard
when strength came from heaven, which He used in ‘praying more earnestly.’ It was
heard when, the agony past and all the conflict ended in victory, He came forth, with
that strange calm and dignity, to give Himself first to His captors and then to His
executioners, the ransom for the many.
As we look upon that agony and these tearful prayers, let us not only look with
thankfulness, but let that kneeling Saviour teach us that in prayer alone can we be
forearmed against our lesser sorrows; that strength to bear flows into the heart that
is opened in supplication; and that a sorrow which we are made able to endure is
more truly conquered than a sorrow which we avoid. We have all a cross to carry and
a wreath of thorns to wear. If we want to be fit for our Calvary-may we use that
solemn name?-we must go to our Gethsemane first.
So the Christ who prayed on earth teaches us to pray; and the Christ who intercedes
in heaven helps us to pray, and presents our poor cries, acceptable through His
sacrifice, and fragrant with the incense from His own golden censer.
‘O Thou by whom we come to God,
The Life, the Truth, the Way;
The path of prayer Thyself hast trod;
Lord! teach us how to pray.’
Luke 11:1-13
HOW TO PRAY
Christ’s praying fired the disciples with desire to pray like Him. There must have
been something of absorption and blessedness in His communion with the Father
which struck them with awe and longing, and which they would fain repeat. Do our
prayers move any to taste the devotion and joy which breathe through them? But low
conceptions mingled with high desires in their request. They think that if He will give
them a form, that will be enough; and they wish to be as well off as John’s disciples,
whose relation to their master seems to them parallel with theirs to Jesus.
Our Lord’s answer meets and transcends their wish. He does give them a model
prayer, and He adds encouragements to pray which inculcate confidence and
persistence. The passage, then, falls into two parts-the pattern prayer (Luk_11:2-4),
and the spirit of prayer as enforced by some encouragements (Luk_11:5-13). The
material is so rich that we can but gather the surface wealth. Deep mines must lie
unexplored here.
I. The pattern of prayer.
We call it the Lord’s Prayer, but it is so only in the sense that He gives it. It is our
prayer for our use. His own prayers remain unrecorded, except those in the upper
room and at Gethsemane. This is the type to which His servants’ prayers are to be
conformed. ‘After this manner pray ye,’ whether in these words or not. And the
repetition of the words is often far enough away from catching their spirit. To
suppose that our Lord simply met the disciples’ wish by giving them a form
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misconceives the genius of His work. He gave something much better; namely, a
pattern, the spirit of which we are to diffuse through all our petitions,
Two salient features of the prayer bring out the two great characteristics of all true
Christian prayer. First, we note the invocation. It is addressed to the Father. Our
prayers are, then, after the pattern only when they are the free, unembarrassed,
confident, and utterly frank whispers of a child to its father. Confidence and love
should wing the darts which are to reach heaven. That name, thoroughly realised,
banishes fear and self-will, and inspires submission and aspiration. To cry,’ Abba,
Father,’ is the essence of all prayer. Nothing more is needed.
The broad lesson drawn from the order of requests is the second point to be noticed.
If we have the child’s spirit, we shall put the Father’s honour first, and absolutely
subordinate our own interests to it. So the first half of the prayer, like the first half of
the Decalogue, deals with God’s name and its glory. Alas! it is hard even for His child
to keep this order. Natural self-regard must be cast out by love, if we are thus to pray.
How few of us have reached that height, not in mere words, but in unspoken desires!
The order of the several petitions in the first half of the prayer is significant. God’s
name (that is, His revealed character) being hallowed (that is, recognised as what it
is), separate from all limitation and creatural imperfection, and yet near in love as a
Father is, the coming of His kingdom will follow; for where He is known and
honoured for what He is He will reign, and men, if they rightly knew Him, would fall
before Him and serve Him. The hallowing of His name is the only foundation for His
kingdom among us, and all knowledge of Him which does not lead to submission to
His rule is false or incomplete.
The outward, visible establishment of God’s kingdom in human society follows
individual acquaintance with His name. The doing of God’s will is the sign of His
kingdom having come. The ocean is blue, like the sky which it mirrors. Earth will be
like heaven.
The second half of the prayer returns to personal interests; but God’s child has many
brethren, and so His prayer is, not for ‘me’ and ‘my,’ but for ‘us’ and ‘ours.’ Our first
need, if we start from the surface and go inwards, is for the maintenance of bodily
life. So the petition for bread has precedence, not as being most, but least, important.
We are to recognise God’s hand in blessing our daily toil. We are to limit our desires
to necessaries, and to leave the future in His hands. Is this ‘the manner’ after which
Christians pray for perishable good? Where would anxious care or eager rushing
after wealth be, if it were?
A deeper need, the chief in regard to the inner man, is deliverance from sin, in its two
aspects of guilt and power. So the next petition is for pardon. Sin incurs debt.
Forgiveness is the remission of penalty, but the penalty is not merely external
punishment. The true penalty is separation from God, and His forgiveness is His
loving on, undisturbed by sin. If we truly call God Father, the image of His
mercifulness will be formed in us; and unless we are forgiving, we shall certainly lose
the consciousness of being forgiven, and bind our sins on our backs in all their
weight. God’s children need always to pray ‘after this manner, ‘for sin is not entirely
conquered.
Pardon is meant to lead on to holiness. Hence the next clause in effect prays for
sanctification. Knowing our own weakness, we may well ask not to be placed in
circumstances where the inducements to sin would be strong, even while we know
that we may grow thereby, if we resist. The shortened form of the prayer in Luke,
according to the Revised Version, omits ‘deliver us from evil’; but that clause is
necessary to complete the idea. Whether we read ‘evil’ or ‘the evil one,’ the clause
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refers to us as tempted, and, as it were, in the grip of an enemy too strong for us. God
alone can extricate us from the mouth of the lion. He will, if we ask Him. The only
evil is to sin away our consciousness of sonship and to cling to the sin which
separates us from God.
II. A type of prayer is not all that we need.
The spirit in which we pray is still more important. So Jesus goes on to enjoin two
things chiefly; namely, persistence and filial confidence. He presents to us a parable
with its application (Luk_11:5-10), and the germ of a parable with its (Luk_11:11-13).
Observe that these two parts deal with encouragements to confidence drawn, first,
from our own experience in asking, and, second, with encouragements drawn from
our own experience in giving. In the former we learn from the man who will not take
‘no,’ and so at last gets ‘yes’; in the latter, from the Father who will certainly give His
child what he asks.
In the parable two points are to be specially noted-the persistent suppliant pleads not
for himself so much as for the hungry traveller, and the man addressed gives without
any kindliness, from the mere wish to be left at peace. As to both points, an a fortiori
argument is implied. If a man can so persevere when pleading for another, how much
more should we do so when asking for ourselves! And if persistence has such power
with selfish men, how much more shall it avail with Him who slumbers not nor
sleeps, and to whom we can never come at an inopportune moment, and who will
give us because we are His friends, and He ours! The very ugliness of character
ascribed to the owner of the loaves, selfish in his enjoyment of his bed, in his refusal
to turn out on an errand of neighbourliness, and in his final giving, thus serves as a
foil to the character of Him to whom our prayers are addressed.
The application of the parable lies in Luk_11:9-10. The efforts enjoined are in an
ascending scale, and ‘ask’ and ‘knock’ allude to the parable. To ‘seek’ is more than to
ask, for it includes active exertion; and for want of seeking by conduct appropriate to
our prayers, we often ask in vain. If we pray for temporal blessings, and then fold our
hands, and sit with our mouths open for them to drop into, we shall not get them. If
we ask for higher goods, and rise from our knees to live worldly lives, we shall get
them as little. Knocking is more than either, for it implies a continuous hammering
on the door, like Peter’s when he stood in the morning twilight at Mary’s gate. Asking
and seeking must be continuous if they are to be rewarded.
Luk_11:10 grounds the promise of Luk_11:9 on experience. It is he who asks that
gets. In men’s giving it is not universally true that petitions are answered, nor that
gifts are not given unasked. Nor is it true about God’s lower gifts, which are often
bestowed on the unthankful, and not seldom refused to His children. But it is
universally true in regard to His highest gifts, which are never withheld from the
earnest asker who adds to his prayers fitting conduct, and prays always without
fainting, and which are not and cannot be given unless desire for them opens the
heart for their reception, and faith in God assures him who prays that he cannot ask
in vain.
The germ of a parable with its application (Luk_11:11-13) draws encouragement from
our own experience in giving. It guards against misconceptions of God which might
arise from the former parable, and comes back to the first word of the Lord’s Prayer
as itself the guarantee of every true desire of His child being heard and met. Bread,
eggs, and fish are staple articles of food. In each case something similar in
appearance, but useless or hurtful, is contrasted with the thing asked by the child.
The round loaves of the East are not unlike rounded, wave-washed stones, water-
serpents are fishlike, and the oval body of a quiescent scorpion is similar to an egg.
Fathers do not play tricks with their hungry children. Though we are all sinful,
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parental love survives, and makes a father wise enough to know what will nourish
and what would poison his child.
Alas! that is only partially true, for many a parent has not a father’s heart, and is
neither impelled by love to give good things to, nor to withhold evil ones from, his
child. But it is true with sufficient frequency to warrant the great a fortiori argument
which Jesus bases on it. Our heavenly Father’s love, the archetype of all parental
affection, is tainted by no evil and darkened by no ignorance. He loves perfectly and
wisely, therefore He cannot but give what His child needs.
But the child often mistakes, and thinks that stones are bread, serpents fish, and
scorpions eggs. So God often has to deny the letter of our petitions, in order not to
give us poison. Luke’s version of the closing promise, in which ‘the Holy Spirit’
stands instead of Matthew’s ‘good things,’ sets the whole matter in the true light; for
that Spirit brings with Him all real good, and, while many of our desires have, for our
own sakes, to be denied, we shall never hold up empty hands and have to let them fall
still empty, if we desire that great encyclopediacal gift which our loving Father waits
to bestow. It cannot be given without our petition, it will never be withheld from our
petition.
SBC, "I. Our Lord seems to have undertaken no great work without earnest prayer
for God’s guidance. If we undertook everything in this spirit we should have more
success, and more happiness in our success than we have. And it was not merely
when He had some special boon to ask that our Saviour prayed; to pray was with
Him something more than merely asking for favours—it was to worship and adore
the Father, to rise in spirit from the world, and above all bodily cares and wants, and
join in spirit that glorious company of angels and Cherubim and Seraphim, who ever
live in the light of God’s countenance, and cry, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God.
II. Consider some general features which ought to belong to prayer, according to our
Lord. (1) Christ warned His disciples against the Pharisees; whomsoever they
imitated, it must not be those hollow professors with their high pretence and rotten
hearts: it must not be those who sought the praise of men, and thought little of the
praise of Him who seeth in secret. Any man follows the example of these hypocrites
who comes to the house of prayer with any hollow purpose. (2) For the matter of
prayer, I will only allude to that advice of our Saviour’s, where He says "Use not vain
repetitions." It is chiefly to guard against this danger that the Church has ever used
fixed forms of prayer, that no prayers may be offered which are unworthy of God. (3)
Again, our Lord taught us that though we are to pray reverently, yet we are to pray
earnestly, as those who will take no denial. He spoke the parable of the widow
applying to the unjust judge, and who obtained her suit by her constancy, to show us
how we ought to pray; and He promises that those things which we ask in faith we
certainly shall have. Wherefore it appears that the Spirit which God approves is that
of earnestness and perseverance; He does not love coldness and lukewarmness; He
loves genuine heartfelt zeal which is ever praying to Him for increased blessings, and
ever pressing on, and never satisfied with what has been given, but desiring more
abundant supplies.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, p. 1.
Forms of Prayer.
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I. That liturgies were of Divine appointment under the Jewish dispensation there can
be no question. The songs of Moses and Miriam, and the titles prefixed to a large
number in the Book of Psalms, bear evidence of being composed for congregational
use. Besides, through the writings of Josephus and other Hebrew historians, no
inconsiderable part of the ancient Jewish liturgies have been preserved to us, and a
remarkable coincidence has been discovered between the order and method of these
early compositions with our own Book of Common Prayer. Unsafe as it might be, as a
rule, to base an argument on the silence of Scripture, yet we can hardly suppose that
if our Lord had intended that in such an important particular the Christian worship
was to differ from the Jewish, He would not have told His disciples so plainly, rather
than just join in such pre-composed devotions Himself, and then institute a form,
which from being expressed throughout in the plural number, must have been
intended for public and social use.
II. Note some objections to prepared forms of private prayer, however spiritual and
excellent they may be, if they be used exclusively. (1) It is obvious we are thereby
confined in regard to the matter of our prayers; we restrict our conversation with
Heaven to a fixed routine of subjects, and preclude the mention of those hourly
spiritual experiences which, though unseen, and unknown to the world, make up the
great incidents of the soul’s life, and may give, day by day, a new complexion to its
prayers. (2) Again, there is a danger lest the exclusive use of forms should have a
tendency to deaden the spirit of prayer. It is a question to be entertained calmly,
whether the heart be not kept closer to its work when it has to search out of its own
experiences and its own feelings the materials of its sacrifice, than when in the
prepared human composition the fire and the wood are laid ready to its hand. Words,
we know, are but outward things. Words are but the priest’s censer which, whether it
be made of gold or of clay, affects not the fragrance of the incense, nor the height to
which the cloud ascends. In the estimates of Heaven the tongue of the eloquent, and
the lips of the stammering, have a common value, and both are only so far regarded
by God as they proceed from an honest heart—as they discover a lowly spirit, as they
evidence a strength of faith, as they bespeak an earnest longing for the approval and
regards of Heaven.
D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, No. 3,199.
Forms of Private Prayer—the Uses of them.
I. Let us bear in mind the precept of the wise man: "Be not rash with thy mouth, and
let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God." Prayers framed at the
moment are likely to be irreverent. To avoid the irreverence of many or unfit words
and rude, half-religious thoughts, it is necessary to pray from book or memory, and
not at random.
II. Forms of prayer are necessary to guard us against the irreverence of wandering
thoughts. If we pray without set words (read or remembered), our minds will stray
from the subject; other thoughts will cross us, and we shall pursue them; we shall
lose sight of His Presence whom we are addressing. This wandering of mind is in
good measure prevented, under God’s blessing, by forms of prayer.
III. Next, they are useful as securing us from the irreverence of excited thoughts. If
we are encouraging with us an excitement, an unceasing rush and alternation of
feelings, and think that this, and this only, is being in earnest in religion, we are
harming our minds, and even grieving the peaceful Spirit of God, who would silently
and tranquilly work His Divine work in our hearts. This, then, is an especial use of
forms of prayer. When we are in earnest, as we ought always to be: viz., to keep us
from self-willed earnestness, to still emotion, to calm us, to remind us what and
where we are, to lead us to a purer and serener temper, and to that deep unruffled
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love of God and man, in which is really the fulfilling of the law, and the perfection of
human nature.
IV. Forms are necessary to help our memory, and to set before us at once,
completely, and in order, what we have to pray for.
V. How short are the seasons which most men have to give to prayer. Before they can
collect their memories and minds their leisure is almost over, even if they have the
power to dismiss the thoughts of this world, which just before engaged them. Now
forms of prayer do this for them. They keep the ground occupied, that Satan may not
encroach upon the seasons of devotion.
VI. The Forms of the Church have ever served her children, both to restrain them in
their career of sin, and to supply them with ready utterance on their repentance.
VII. Let us recollect for how long a period our prayers have been the standard forms
of devotion in the Church of Christ, and we shall gain a fresh reason for loving them,
and a fresh source of comfort in using them. They have become sacred from the
memory of saints departed who have used them, and whom we hope one day to meet
in heaven.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. i., p. 257.
BI, “Lord, teach us to pray
The Christian taught to pray
I.
WHAT THE REQUEST IMPLIES.
1. A conviction of the importance of prayer. This, in this ease, seems to have had
its origin in the habits and example of Christ. He prayed often and much; in
sorrow, and in joy; alone, and with His disciples.
2. This request implies also some knowledge of the real nature of prayer. The
disciples had heard their Master pray. They had witnessed His fervour, the
seriousness, the abasement, and perhaps something of the elevation, of His spirit
in His supplications, and their understandings were opened. Prayer appeared to
them in a new light. Before, it was a ceremony; it was now an inward, spiritual
service. They regarded it for the first time as the work of the heart, and conscious
that their own hearts had hitherto been but little engaged in it, their request was,
“Lord, teach us to pray.” They wished their prayers to be in future of a higher and
more spiritual character, and, beyond this, they scarcely knew, perhaps, their
own meaning or object.
3. An impression, too of the difficulty of prayer is plainly to be traced in the
disciples’ words. And this undoubtedly sprung out of their conviction of its
importance, and their newly-acquired knowledge of its real nature. That which is
so important must, they concluded, be done aright; and that which is so spiritual,
they were conscious they could not do at all; and thus they were constrained to
seek help and instruction.
4. Besides intimating a conviction of the importance, the real nature, and the
difficulty of prayer, it plainly indicates also a desire for an increased ability to
pray.
II. How MAY WE EXPECT SUCH A PETITION AS THIS TO BE ANSWERED? In the
instance before us, it was answered at once. We owe to it the well-known prayer we
call the Lord’s prayer—a model of supplication, which claims at once our admiration
and gratitude. But with all its excellencies it is in itself powerless. It could not teach
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these disciples to pray. It showed them indeed what their prayers ought to be, but it
did not communicate to them the power of making their prayers like it. Our Lord well
knew this. Accordingly, as soon as He had given His disciples a pattern for their
supplications, we find Him immediately directing them where to go for the ability to
follow it. He sends them to the Holy Spirit for the inward principle of prayer, urging
them to importunity in their petitions for His grace, and assuring them at the same
time that their importunity shall not be lost. How then does this Holy Spirit teach us
to pray? In many ways. Among others, in these four:
1. By discovering to us our spiritual poverty; showing us our wants and
helplessness, or giving us a more lively sense of them.
2. Affliction, too, is often made to answer the same gracious end.
3. At other times Christ stirs up the soul to prayer, by glving it an enlarged view
of the Divine promises and goodness.
4. Sometimes the Holy Spirit carries us yet farther. He teaches us to pray by
giving us clearer views of Christ as a Mediator and Intercessor. You are aware,
brethren, that I might still go on. I might say, Christ teaches us to pray by much
that is passing around us, by what we call accidents—events that make, perhaps,
a whole parish or nation start; crushing, and crushing in an hour, the hopes and
prospects and happiness that seemed almost out of the reach of decay or change.
And He teaches us by deliverances, by bringing us to the edge of some precipice,
and then, as our foot goes over it, snatching us away from it; showing us in the
same moment our danger and our deliverance. (G. Bradley, M. A.)
Christ the Teacher of prayer
I. THE DISCIPLES’ REQUEST:—
1. This was a pertinent request, considering them as dependent, needy, sinful,
and dying creatures.
2. A seasonable request, as Christ had been just now praying before them, and
was shortly to be taken from them.
3. A short and comprehensive request, much being contained in a few words.
4. It would also appear to have been an acceptable request, for it was
immediately answered, and that in a very gracious manner.
II. WHAT WAS IMPLIED IN THE REQUEST.
1. A consciousness of the importance and necessity of prayer. The breath of the
newborn soul. Prayer softens our affections, sweetens our enjoyments, and is the
principal means of keeping up an intercourse with heaven. God approves of it,
and the soul is every way benefited by 2:2. A sense of weakness and inability, and
that this duty cannot be performed aright without Divine assistance.
3. It also implies that those who are appointed of God to instruct others, will,
among other things, teach them to pray.
III. THE PROPRIETY OF THIS APPLICATION, AS MADE TO CHRIST:—
1. None ever prayed like Christ—so pertinently, fervently, and effectually.
2. As none ever prayed, so none ever taught like Christ.
3. It was Christ who taught John to pray, else He could not have taught His
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disciples. He teaches those who are teachers of others. (B. Beddome, M. A.)
The disciples’ request
I. WHAT IS IMPLIED IN THIS REQUEST? Clearly it implies—
1. A conviction of the propriety of prayer.
2. It implies a sense of their need of being taught.
3. It implies a sincere desire to learn.
4. It implies something of the true spirit or disposition of prayer already
possessed.
5. The request implies a high opinion of the ability and grace of Christ.
II. THE MANNER IN WHICH THE REQUEST WAS REGARDED. We may observe,
in the general, it was answered. The disciples said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” The Lord
Jesus did teach them.
1. By convincing us more clearly of the necessity of prayer,
2. By giving us more impressive views of our wants.
3. By strengthening our faith in Divine promises.
4. By instructing us in the great utility of His own mediation.
5. By increasing our pleasure and delight in the duty. (T. Kidd.)
Lord, teach us to pray
After listening to a fervent prayer we sometimes say, “We wish we could pray like the
person who has offered it”; how much more should we have thus wished, if we had
heard Jesus Christ pray! No doubt His manner was very impressive, sincere, fervent,
reverent.
1. “Lord, teach us to pray,” because we are ignorant in asking. St. Paul says, “We
know not what we should pray for as we ought.” A consciousness of inability to
pray aright grows with a Christian’s growth.
2. Again, a sense of our sinfulness, as well as of our ignorance, should cause us to
offer the petition in our text. Who does not feel at times as if it was a wonder of
mercy that God does not cut us down in anger, even while in the act of praying, so
miserable and defective are our purest offerings! What a gift of prayer would it be
if our God would enable us always to delight in the duty, restrain every wandering
thought, and fix our whole soul in sweet and full communion with Him! Can you
think of many things more desirable in this world, Christians, than the perfect
spirit of prayer? If we could enjoy always as much as we do in our happiest
devotional seasons, that would be a blessed privilege; but, alas! our happy
seasons are few and far between, and even in them “there was much
imperfection. “Lord, teach us to pray.”
3. To make us prevalent in prayer, we have need also to offer the petition in our
text. We might have unnumbered mercies more than we do enjoy if we prayed for
them aright. There are favours in God’s right hand for ourselves, our children,
our friends, and fellow-creatures, the bestowal of which is suspended on our
faithfulness in asking. Here is more than life, here is eternal welfare resting on
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our prayers to God.
4. And who can so well teach us how to pray as that blessed Saviour to whom the
request of our text was addressed! Prayer was His frequent work on earth,
intercession is His employ in heaven. He knows what pleas will prevail with God,
and He can put them into our hearts and order them aright upon our tongues.
(W. H. Lewis, D. D.)
Teach us to pray
1. It would be difficult, I think impossible, to prove that our Lord ever
commanded His disciples to pray. He always assumes that they pray; teaches
them plainly that unless they pray they cannot do what they must do. He moved
His disciples to pray, not by telling them to do so, but by exciting in them desires
which compelled them to supplication. You cannot pray by direct force of
resolution. You must put yourself under conditions which will inspire desire for
communion with God.
(1) Because for most men it is hard to pray, and easy to pretend, we are
warned against that easily besetting sin. The hypocrites wanted of the king
only to be seen in his company. They stood at his door that they might be
mistaken for his friends. The same temptation assails us at all times, and is
acutely dangerous now. It is insidious as malaria.
(2) Most of us say grace before our meals. If we realize who feeds us, we
cannot help doing so, unless we are brutes. Most of us have family worship. If
we are alert to spiritual facts, it will be more natural to omit our meals than
our devotions. But what are the motives we often hear unblushingly advanced
for continuing these spiritual exercises? The children will be surprised if they
do not hear grace at table I For the sake of the example upon them, daily
prayers must be inexorably maintained! But is it permitted to pray that we
may be seen of children, and forbidden to pray that we may be seen of men?
The “closet” is the cure for hypocrisy in prayer.
2. When we pray, we are forbidden to use vain repetitions as the heathen do.
There are men, good men, men meaning to be honest, who think their prayers
must be right if couched in Scriptural phrases. Many say prayers every night and
morning, who never pray except when they are scared. Repeating David’s or
Isaiah’s petitions, or even our Lord’s Prayer, is not necessarily praying because
we do it on our knees. Saying over even the Lord’s Prayer is for us a vain
repetition until we so understand its meaning and so sympathize with its spirit
that the words express our real desires. For “vain repetitions” are simply “empty
phrases,” sayings which do not express what we really mean. The cure for this
habit of making vain repetition lies in creating right desires. We must learn to
know what we need, and to desire that. Therefore we are told—
3. When we pray, to pray after this manner. The prayer tells us what we need, but
rarely crave. If we were sure that one wish, and one only, would be granted us this
day for the asking, would that wish be the petition which stands first in the Lord’s
Prayer?
(1) We shall not pray effectively until we pray according to the mind of God.
(2) Few of us do greatly desire the things God desires for us.
(3) We need such a change of heart as shall make us crave what God declares
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we need. And this is only another way of saying—
(a) That we cannot pray effectually until we can sincerely pray in the
manner of our Lord’s Prayer,
(b) That few of us can yet do that.
(c) That we need to learn to do so. (W B. Wright.)
Barrenness in prayer
There are, no doubt, many who have experienced at times an intense dissatisfaction
with their prayers. They seem so lame, so cold, so profitless, till you are inclined to
exclaim, “What a weariness, what a mockery it is!” You are constantly disappointed
with yourselves. The heart that seemed so full has run empty ere you reached your
knees. You have nothing to say; all your thoughts have fled from you; and the intense
longing comes across your heart that some one would teach you how to pray. I do not
pretend to supply the want here indicated; but I wish to touch upon some of the
causes of this trying sense of barrenness in prayer.
I. SELF-CONCEIT. We are very slow to learn the lesson of our own inability. We feel
at some time, perhaps, that our hearts are prompted by an earnest desire to pray. We
grow keenly alive for the moment to our own wants; but when we attempt to pray, we
find the edge of that sense of need is gone. The heart appeared full, but when we
knelt we found it empty. Vexed and disappointed, we murmur at our privation, but
are too blind to see its cause. We cannot see that our own self-conceit lies at the root
of our failure. We thought we could do it of ourselves—we anticipated rich heart
communion; but we were miserably mistaken, because we did not realize that we are
not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but that our whole
sufficiency is of God. We need, then, to pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is the
very dawn of spiritual light, the very threshold of prayer.
II. SELF-IGNORANCE. They tell God that they have sinned, that they have
grievously broken His commandments; they ask God to give them true repentance,
and to forgive them for Jesus Christ’s sake. Such a prayer might be from a certain
heart a true and noble expression of spiritual longing; but with the persons alluded to
this prayer is the stereotyped plate from which all their prayers for themselves,
morning and evening, are struck off. With very little variation, and in the most
conventional way—though, perhaps, with very real desire—they confess that they are
sinners, unworthy and polluted, but there is not the confession of a single definite
sin, or if there is, it is perhaps the result of some very rare circumstance which has
impressed some special transgression more vividly upon their minds. To realize our
sinfulness, we must adopt a more particular mode of dealing with our own hearts,
taking them to task; recalling each special sin, and confessing it before God.
III. SELFISHNESS IN PRAYER. By this I mean that spirit in prayer which confines
all our supplications to our own individual needs. Often God visits us with
barrenness because we fail to grow in heart-sympathy and Christian longing for the
welfare of others. It is the very law of Christ that His love should spread, as it is the
law of hydrostatics that pressure should circulate in all directions through a volume
of water; and when we in a niggardly forgetfulness of others violate that law, we are
met with the punishment of a straitening in ourselves. (Bishop Boyd Carpenter.)
Acceptable prayer, the gift of Christ
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I. I shall begin by mentioning TWO QUALIFICATIONS THAT ARE
INDISPENSABLY NECESSARY, AS PREPARATORY TO ACCEPTABLE PRAYER.
1. The first of them is a due sense of our wants. Christ alone by His Spirit,
teacheth this first preparatory lesson. “Lord, teach us to pray,” by revealing to us
our guilt and misery, our vileness and our helplessness.
2. The second qualification which is indispensable, as preparatory to acceptable
prayer, is an acquaintance with the true way of access to God. Alas! the tendency
of our corrupt hearts is, to resist this Divine appointment. O, then, what need is
there to ask of the Lord a right understanding, a cordial approbation, of that way
which He hath appointed.
II. Supposing you, then, to have made some proficiency in these two preparatory
lessons, I proceed, in the second place, to mention SOME PARTICULARS, WITH
RESPECT TO WHICH EVEN THE WELL-INSTRUCTED CHRISTIAN WILL HAVE
PERPETUAL OCCASION TO USE THE LANGUAGE OF MY TEXT, “Lord, teach me
to pray”
1. The power of devout attention while praying is one of those gifts which we
must obtain by prayer.
2. Spirituality in our devotional exercises is another gift, for which we must often
pray.
3. Furthermore, the Christian has need to pray for simplicity and godly sincerity
in his prayers.
4. We must request of the Saviour that a patient confidence in God may
accompany all our prayers. (J. Jowett, M. A.)
The rule of direction in prayer
I. WE NEED DIRECTION IN PRAYER. This is evident from—
1. God’s greatness.
2. Our own guiltiness.
3. The importance of the subject.
4. Our weakness and aptness to go wrong.
5. The danger of mistaking and miscarrying in prayer.
II. WHAT RULE GOD HAS GIVEN for our direction in prayer.
1. A general rule in the whole of the Bible, where His will is revealed.
(1) It furnishes us abundantly with matter of prayer, in all the parts of it—
petition, confession, &c. (Psa_51:4-5; Php_4:6). And whoso has the Word of
God dwelling richly in him, will not want matter for prayer, for himself or for
others. There is a storehouse of it there, of great variety; and we are welcome
to the use of it, agreeable to our own case.
(2) It fully directs us as to the manner of prayer: as, for instance, that we
must pray with sincerity (Heb_10:22); with humility (Psa_10:17); in faith
(Jas_1:6); and with fervency (Jas_5:16). And there is no qualification
necessary in prayer, but what we may learn from the Holy Word.
(3) It furnishes us with the most fit words to be used in prayer. Do ye want
30

words to express your desires before the Lord? He has given us His own
words in the Bible, that we may use them according to our needs Hos_14:2).
2. There is a special rule given us by Jesus Christ for that end, namely, that form
of words which Christ taught His disciples, commonly called “the Lord’s Prayer.”
(1) The Lord’s Prayer is given us as a directory for prayer, a pattern and an
example, by which we are to regulate our petitions, and make other prayers.
(2) It may also be used as a prayer, so that it be done with understanding,
faith, reverence, and other praying graces.
Inferences:
1. How gracious and ready to hear prayer is our God, who has been pleased
Himself to direct us how to pray to Him!
2. Let us acquaint ourselves with the blessed Word, that contains such a full rule
of practice as well as faith; and study the Holy Scriptures, that we may be the
better instructed to pray.
3. See the absolute necessity for prayer in a Christian life. (T. Boston, D. D.)
Prayer
What is prayer?
I. IT IS AN OFFERING UP OF OUR DESIRES TO GOD. These are, as it were, the
soul of prayer, without which the most elegant and warm expressions that can
possibly be invented and used would not be acceptable to God.
II. Our request must be FOR SUCH THINGS AS ARE AGREEABLE TO THE WILL
OF GOD. Things which are not so it is not fit we should receive; and for that reason
we should not be rash and hasty to utter anything before God.
III. Our prayers are to be offered up to God IN THE NAME OF CHRIST; for His
sake; in dependence upon the merit and intercession of the beloved Son of God, in
whom the Father is well pleased.
IV. CONFESSION OF SIN IS A BRANCH OF THAT WORSHIP WE CALL PRAYER.
V. A THANKFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF GOD’S MERCIES justly claims a place
in this part of Divine worship. (John Whitty.)
Prayer
I. WHAT IS PRAYER? The presenting of our requests to God, and breathing out our
desires before Him. In prayer—
1. The heart must be the agent.
2. God is the object.
3. Jesus Christ the medium.
4. Prayer must be our constant exercise.
II. WHY SHOULD WE DESIRE TO BE TAUGHT HOW TO PRAY?
1. Because of the importance of prayer.
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