We read throughout the history of the Gospels, again and again, of our blessed Lord being engaged in prayer. For this purpose He went out “a great while before day” (Mark 1:35). What an example! From it we can learn that in the midst of all confusion and activity of service, we should never forget prayer. If we neglect it, if in the activity even of ministering the Word of God we fail to be in the sanctuary alone with God, we will lose the power to present the precious truth. Luther once said, “To have prayed well is to have said well,” and on our knees we will gain instruction and knowledge; it is the place from which we will go forth in power to set forth the truth of God.
Christ’s Example
So in the midst of all His activities, with multitudes pressing and thronging Him, though going here and there in untiring service, our Lord would rob the night of its sleep in order to be alone with His Father. If He, the Son of God, did that, oh, how much more do we, poor feeble creatures, need to be alone with Him who is the source of all our strength!
We read that “He continued all night in prayer to God” (Luke 6:12). What did He pray for? When He came down from that holy vigil with His Father, He selected the twelve apostles. May we not believe that in this administration of His service, He considered with His Father the character of each to be selected—the impulsiveness of Peter, the loyalty of John, the boldness of others, and alas, the awful, awful treachery of one who knew Him not nor cared for Him? Then having reviewed it all with His Father in that night of prayer, He came down from the mountain and unflinchingly selected each one according to the will of the Father.
Thus He has given us not only a glimpse into His own holy life, but also the secret of how to be guided in the order and government that God may have put into our hands.
In passing, let me refer to the necessity of this in all the discipline and government of the house of God. It is so easy to get into a spirit of strife, so easy to seek our own wills, our own vindication, or even, alas, to vent our own displeasure! Oh, beloved, if we are alone with God in the sanctuary in prayer, He will guide us as to the administration of the government that He has entrusted to us.
Again, we read of Him in prayer on the Mount of Transfiguration, just as at His baptism (Luke 3:21; 9:28). How the Father must have delighted in the outflow of the heart of His holy Son to Him, so much so that He opened the heavens to declare, as it were, “This is He, this One here on His knees, this One praying in dependence on Me, this One who has no thought but My glory; He is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!” (see Matt. 17:5). May we ask what He was praying about on that mount? Was He asking for the glory? Do you think He was asking to be introduced to it? We know what Moses and Elijah spoke of with Him while there on the holy mount. It was the decease that He should accomplish at Jerusalem! I think that prayer of the Lord at the time of His transfiguration, when the glory shone out from Him and shone around about Him, all from God, I think it must have been that He too poured out His soul to His Father as to that decease, for which He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. Only by way of the cross could He enter that glory of which the Transfiguration was the anticipation.
Asking in Christ’s Name
I have been much impressed with the fact that in John 13-17 the Lord is bringing His people into communion with Himself, and that in various parts of it He emphasizes the spirit of prayer. For example, “Whatsoever you shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (14:13). In this He shows us the secret of what He says to those whom He is leaving here: “He who believes on Me… greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto My Father” (14:12). It is prayer. Notice, too, how in the Lord’s references to prayer in these chapters you find “in My name” mentioned with each one. What does “in My name” mean? Is it something like what you write at the close of a letter, “Yours respectfully,” or “Yours sincerely,” or whatever it may be, as a matter of courtesy? Are not perhaps many of our prayers closed with that courteous expression, if I may so say, “In the name of Thy dear Son?” I am sure we do not mean it as formality, but sometimes it almost seems like just an appendix to the prayer. No, beloved; to ask in His name means rather to be taken by the hand and led to prayer by Him; it means, may I say, His kneeling by our side and His desires flowing through our heart.
“In My name.” His name is what He is, His nature, and therefore to pray in the name of Christ must mean to pray according to His blessed will. Can I pray for evil in the name of the Son of God? What I pray for should really be an expression of His nature. Can I do that in prayer? Prayer should breathe the power of the Holy Spirit, the mind of Christ, the desires of Christ in us and for us. The Lord teach us more and more to pray in His name. We would not think of closing a prayer without the very words, “In the blessed name of our Lord,” but then the whole supplication should be infiltrated and permeated by the blessed name of Jesus—all according to that name.
Seeking the Father’s Glory
There is another thing: “That the Father may be glorified in the Son” (14:13). Is that why we pray, dear brethren? Not for ourselves, but “that the Father may be glorified in His Son”? What a holy and blessed motive under the power of which to guide our intercession and supplication! How it searches the heart! Let it test us. Is this our first thought of prayer? Am I asking this for the Father’s glory in the Son? This will eliminate a thousand selfish, fleshly, superficial requests! What will it leave? The glory of Christ, the glory of the Father. It will make us join with the Lord in the supplications of His heart.
Asking Anything
Again we have in 14:14, “If you shall ask anything in My name, I will do it.” Anything? There is no limit here because we have asked in His name. Because the glory of the Father in the Son is in view, God can not deny the glory of His Son; He can not deny His own glory. If we are praying in the name of Christ, according to the mind of Christ our Lord, we are praying His own thoughts and His own desires. “If you shall ask anything in My Name.” Have we tried it, beloved? Are we living in that atmosphere of prayer? I know for myself, beloved brethren, prayer is a conflict, and by that I mean, not that it is difficult, one may say, to have the regular seasons of prayer, but to instinctively, without effort, turn to God in prayer about everything.
Prayer and Fruitfulness
Now in 15:16, “You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My name, He will give it you.” A fruitful life flows from a life of prayer. A soul growing in grace is one that pours itself out in prayer. I know there are dangers; sometimes intemperate expressions are used, for instance, that we should read our Bible less and pray more. There is no need for such a statement, for the more you read your Bible the more you are going to pray. The more you feed on it, and let your soul be filled with it, controlled by it, your very thoughts conformed by it, the more you will pray.
A prayerful life is a fruitful life. Even the ordinary normal affairs of life, our meat and drink, are sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. They go together. And so when “Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His Word,” the next chapter, in immediate connection with that lovely incident, shows the Lord praying and His disciples saying, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 10:39; 11:1). Beloved, the more you have His Word abiding in you, the more you will feel your need of prayer and the more you will be compelled to pray. Through the exercise it leads to we learn our nothingness, our helplessness; our own shortcomings and failures pass before us; and because of this we will be forced to turn and cry to Him in prayer. The Lord grant that the fruitfulness that He desires may be realized, but let us remember that for this prayer is essential.
Truth Without Prayer
As we come under sound teaching and become acquainted with the truth of His Word, we need to be warned of the great danger of holding the truth in a prayerless way. This means holding it without communion with God, and so without corresponding power in our lives. How vain to talk about the coming of the Lord without truly waiting for that coming; to talk about our complete standing in Christ without delighting, with adoring hearts, in that standing; to talk about knowing the Father, about having the Spirit, without having our whole lives bowed with gratitude and adoring worship because of such wondrous blessing. Oh, I pray for myself and for all of us, that we might not lose the mellowness, the holiness, the earnestness, and the prayer that go along with the marvelous endowment of truth! I believe that our failures, our shortcomings and inconsistencies—and alas, they are only too manifest—can be traced individually and collectively to a lack of true prayer among the people of God. I believe it to be so much so that I desire more and more to have my life marked by a spirit of prayer, and for that reason I speak of these things in introducing the wondrous, holy prayer of our blessed Lord.
Prayer to the Father and the Son
Look now at 16:23: “And in that day you shall ask Me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever you shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you.” The Lord had said, “I will give it you;” now He says, “He will give it you.” “I and My Father are One” (John 10:30). How completely is the Lord in the place of supremacy, and how perfectly He draws out our prayers to Himself and to His Father! I find myself—do you?—praying to the Lord Jesus again and again, and I find, thank God, that I pray to the Father. Some have taught that we ought not to pray to the Lord Jesus, but in the light of this Holy Word you can pray and praise directly to Him. Then, on the other hand, it is our holy, happy privilege to pray to the Father as well, and give thanks to the Father, who “has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1:12). Perhaps you say, “Why not pray to the Holy Spirit?” For a very blessed reason: we pray in the Holy Spirit. “You, beloved, building up yourselves in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit …” (Jude 21). It is prayer in His power. “We know not what things we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered” (Rom. 8:26). The Holy Spirit leads out our hearts in prayer, and He is with us and therefore we do not pray to Him; He prays in us and through us to the Father and to the Son.
How blessed, thus, to find the whole Trinity, the divine fullness of God, engaged in prayer. We read on, “Hitherto you have asked nothing in My name; ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full” (16:24). Beloved, joy is the power of our lives; joy and love go hand in hand, and they are both the fruit of a life of prayer. Oh, brethren, I speak to the younger believers and to all of us: snatch time for reading the Word early in the day, the first thing in the morning; and add to it that which belongs to it, namely, praying. The privilege of prayer is a wonderful, amazing privilege of pouring out our hearts to God, individually and unitedly. What are our prayer meetings, beloved? Is there any savor of dullness about them, any bit of formality, any holding back? Does some dear brother say, “I am not gifted with prayer?” Oh, there is nobody “gifted with prayer”; it is the power of the Holy Spirit in us. A man may have a gift of evangelizing, or teaching, or pastoral care, but I read not a line of having a gift of prayer. That is the mark of all the people of God, and we want to use our holy, happy privilege.
Our final verse is 16:26: “At that day you shall ask in My name, and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father Himself loves you because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came out from God.” We do not have to use the Lord as an intermediary; we are brought to the Father, we can speak directly to the Father, and because we can do that we never omit the Son. But then “the Father Himself loves you.” We look at ourselves; how unworthy of love we are, and yet our blessed Lord assures us that “the Father Himself”—the Father of glory, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Possessor of heaven and earth—“the Father Himself loves you.” Therefore we can ask what we will according to the blessed nature and name of our Lord Jesus, and the answers will surely be given. (From “None of Self … Christ Is All, a Memorial of S. Ridout,” in Help and Food, Vol. 48.)