Month: October 2023

“Prayer for the Glory of God II“

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

November 17, 1957 Evening Service

I have again tonight three texts. This one: the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. And this one: ye have not because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Then this one: He spake a parable unto them teaching this, that men ought always to pray and not to faint.

Those are the three texts, and they say that prayer has a tremendous potency: it availeth much. They say that sometimes, we don’t have because we have failed to ask–that’s prayerlessness. Or, again, we have not failed to ask. We have asked, but we have asked amiss, secretly and maybe even unconsciously, we want to consume it upon our own selves. But that nevertheless, we ought always to pray, and not let any difficulties get in the way. Now, that’s what our Lord says in these three texts.

And I said this morning that our prayers and our desires and our work and our expectation should go along with each other and should go hand in hand. And I said that they should aim toward two things. And after I have said this, then I’ll go over under new ground. That those two things should be the return of the glory of God again: the elevating of the concept of God in His church. And the restoration of that church from her Babylonian captivity, back to New Testament pattern again. But you know, we can have those two requests and those two aims, but still ask amiss because we haven’t, we were not asking it for His glory so much as for our own. I’ll explain as I go along.

Now, there is a serpent in the garden still. He wasn’t killed. After Adam and Eve fell, nobody came with a hoe and slew him. The serpent is still in the garden, and it twines itself around the loveliest trees thereof and destroys the fruit. And self is the serpent that destroys our prayers so that we may pray and pray and pray and continue to pray. We may even fast and pray, rise in the night and pray, and still, they are not pure prayers, for we’re using religion to get something else. Whenever religion becomes a means to something else and not an end in itself, it is not pure. Whenever the worship of God becomes a means toward something else, it is no longer the worship of God. Whenever prayer and our relationship to God is held and had for an ulterior reason, it is no longer pure.

Now I say that there is much prayer going on today and people are forming prayer bands and groups everywhere and trying to get people to pray. But my friends, I am afraid that if it cannot be said, ye have not because ye asked not, it can be said, ye have not because ye ask amiss that you might consume it upon your own desire.

Now I want to point out to you how self entwines itself in our desires; crawls its sinuous way through the garden of prayer and spoils even our prayers for us. For instance, we want the glory of God revealed again to this generation. And cheerfully we say, yes, God. We want men once more to know how great Thou art. And we want Thy sovereign perfections to be displayed throughout all the world; true, the sun and the moon and the stars. And when the evening shades prevail, the moon takes up the wondrous tale, forever singing and forever shining and forever crying along with the stars and the planets the hand that made it is divine. But how many people look at the stars. More people have looked up to the heavens to see the Sputnik in the last month than they ever had looked at stars in the last 1000 years, the average man and woman. We take God’s stars for granted.

So the stars are singing to the heart of the Christian, but they’re saying nothing much to the fellow who’s either unsaved or is a carnal Christian. We want the glory of God revealed to His church again. But here’s the catch, we want to be the one He uses to reveal it. And there is where the serpent crawls and entwines itself through the rose bushes and fruit trees of the garden. We want the glory of God revealed, but we want to be the one to reveal it. We want the veil taken away from the face of God, but we want to be the one that can dramatically go up and pull the veil aside.

Now, I don’t say that all of us do at all. I don’t say that all of you do. But I have pointed out here what’s wrong with our prayers and why God hasn’t been able to answer them up to now. Some of us who see it may secretly want to be the one that pulls the veil away and shows the glory of God. Well, whose glory are we wanting to be revealed then? We’re wanting God to reveal His glory and ours. And God says, no man shall ever share my glory. God will not give His glory to any other. And therefore, we ask and receive not because we want to consume it upon our lusts. And we want the church to return to the New Testament standard as I said this morning.

You remember, I said that there were two things that the glory of God should be revealed, and the church should be restored. It’s my conviction now. I won’t have mobs hearing me say this, but there are key and strategic people all over the world that are hearing me say it, and surely, surely God will be finally bringing us together. But remember this, that that church is in Babylonish captivity, and even the evangelical church is. And the result, we pray, O God, deliver Thy church, but we want to be the one to deliver it.

Now, that’s how self destroys our prayers. Our motives are carnal, and God has no respect to them because they are carnal. And we can call a prayer meeting for all night or all day and pray an hour at a time all day and still only want to do get a bit of glory in order that we may share it or that God may share it with us. We want the church to be brought back but we want to be the one to lead it back.

But dear friends, we’re going to have to learn this and I’m going to have to learn it. And I speak of the two-edged sword tonight, and the one edge slashes, you remember, the other edge slashes me. And I want to have an understanding.

I thought the other day that I would write God a letter. You know, I can pray and talk to the Lord, but sometimes our in prayers, we’re talking to ourselves. But if you put it down in print and say now, God take this, this is what I mean. However, I might chatter, this is what I mean. Take this God, is what I mean to say. And I’d like to write God a letter and tell him this. Now God, I want Thee to understand something here, that I want Thy glory to be revealed. And I don’t insist that I be the one to reveal it. That if Thou wilt send who now was sent; if Thou wilt raise up whom Thou wilt raise up. If Thou wilt send a chariot and take one away and raise up another to reveal Thy glory. If Thou wilt push one man aside as He pushed aside Evan Robertson and He pushed aside certain others and we’ll not name because they’re still living and not using them much. Not because they backslide, but because God had done His work with them.

All right, I want God to know that, that I want the glory of God to be revealed again to the world, but I don’t insist upon being the one to reveal it. I want the church to be brought back from her Babylonian captivity, but I don’t insist upon being the one to bring her back.

Well then, we want the walls of Jericho, or the walls are Jerusalem. The walls of Jericho fell, but the walls of Jerusalem rotted away and tumbled down and the foxes ran on those walls. And we’d like to see the walls of Jerusalem again brought back. I’d like to see a church so purified all over, not this church only. That would be a small thing.

But I’d like to see the church of Christ so purified, so visited again with the gifts of the Spirit, so filled with the Spirit, so lofty in her spiritual standards, so pure and so spiritually cultured, that she would recognize a racketeer when she saw him. And she wouldn’t listen to the “come on,” what did somebody say to somebody. There wouldn’t be any of that stuff possible. There wouldn’t be any of this stuff possible. The saying of putting in the newspaper, this man is a wonderful man of God and preaches in power and come and hear so and so. There wouldn’t be any of that possible, for the church would instantly boycott the whole thing. The church of Christ was as pure and as open-eyed and is full of vision, they should boycott all that instantly. And as the Methodists used to do; the man who wasn’t spiritual couldn’t get a hearing.

But you know, I’ve got to be willing that God should build the walls of Jerusalem and not use me for a Nehemiah. I’ve got to be perfectly willing that God should take somebody else and let him be the one to build the walls. We study the book of Nehemiah and say, wouldn’t it be wonderful to build the walls of Jerusalem again? Yes, but suppose that God said, Nehemiah, I’m going to build the walls of Jerusalem in answer to your prayer, but I’m not going to use you. You stay back of the things and pray. I don’t know what Nehemiah would have said, but I suspect that Nehemiah would have said, be it unto Thy servant even as Thou wilt. And if he hadn’t, his prayer would have gone for nothing. God will not answer the prayer of any man, not even to build the walls of Jerusalem, if he insists on building them.

And then I think that also that we want the prophets of Baal defeated. Jehovah’s Witnesses are just around the corner here now. They’ve got a Kingdom Hall which is a storefront church though they won’t call it that. And we’ve got them all up and down the country, this boom of religion which is incidentally, let me open my mouth and say something wise to you Brother. Just let me say something to you that’s wise. Here it is. Religion is running on financial inflation.

And the reason we’re booming is we have the money to boom. And when financially we bust religion, we’ll bust along with it. You bet you boy, if it doesn’t bring in shekels, and the legal tender doesn’t come in so easy when you’re working for $26 a week, or 16 as they were in the Depression. It killed a whole of depression in 1929, killed as by a pistol shot. I could name evangelists that it killed dead, and they couldn’t turn a wheel because the legal tender wasn’t forthcoming and the do-ray-me in the E Pluribus Unum wasn’t available. And the result was that they died overnight. And it’ll be the same, you watch it.

We’re booming. We’re not only booming In Christianity, were booming in all the cults and booming in all the religions that deny the truth our fathers died to promote. And it’s possible because there’s money, lots of money, lots of money. You can wipe your shoes off with $10 bills now all over our country. I mean it we’ve got more money than is good for us and religion is booming, and the devil is using the fact that there’s an inflation on.

Well, I don’t know how I got over on that, but I thought I wanted to say that to you. It wasn’t a part of my outline. I say we want the prophets of Baal defeated, these prophets of Baal. And God knows how many there are. Every once in a while, in our religious news service, in the Alliance Weekly we take the RNS, the Religious News Service, and they keep feeding news constantly in from all parts of the world to us. And we got it into our office here. And it’s strained out and a bit of it put in the Alliance Weekly. But remember that the cults are claiming millions now.

And this cult, they’ll suddenly announce, we’re now, we have 1 million memberships. Another cult will announce, we have $27 million this last year to promote our work. And the cults, the prophets of Baal are still moving up and down under the sponsorship of that evil woman Jezebel. And we’d like to see the prophets of Baal set back on their haunches and the altar of Jehovah blaze again with the glory of God that would make these theological rodents run back into the ash cans and hide.

But you know, the trouble is when we pray, we’ve got to sneak and hope the Lord will use us to chase them out. We want to be the one to get the stick and start driving out the theological rodents. We want everybody to say, ah hah, that man. Isn’t he wonderful? He’s God’s Elijah. We would like to be Elijah. And there’s just the sad thing my brother. If you insist on being Elijah, you will never call down fire from heaven. Elijah did that because God told him to. But if Elijah had wanted to do it and had insisted upon doing it so that he might look around and bring up his publicity rating, he’d never have done it. They would have pull him apart and tore him limb for limb and thrown him off the top of Mount Carmel. They wouldn’t have found a piece to bury. But Elijah was God’s servant, devoted to the glory of God alone, and he didn’t care about Elijah. And the result was, God did use the man.

And we want Israel brought back from Babylon all right. And this is my cry. I tell you; this is my cry. We want Israel brought back from Babylon. But we want to be Israel and say now, I’d like to be the one Israel. We want to be like Israel.

Well, my brother and sister, it just won’t do. The only kind of praying God will hear will be, O God, bring Israel back from Babylon by whom Thou wilt bring Israel back from Babylon. And we humble ourselves and take the lowly place and say, Father, use me if you will. I’m before Thee. I’m like a sword lying here on the table, Lord. Pick me up or let me lie there and rust. Use me or ignore me. But for Thy glory, Father, bring back Israel from Babylon. Build again the walls of Jerusalem. Bring Israel out of Egypt and let somebody else be Moses.

And we want a reformation without a doubt. We want a reformation. God knows how desperately bad we need a reformation. You know what they’re doing now in evangelical churches, and we’ve slid into it? And they wouldn’t listen. They won’t listen to you. We have become kitchen orientated. Do you know what I mean by that? I mean that instead of the cross of Jesus being at the center and all of us gathered around the cross of Jesus and it’s said of us, we’ve ministered unto the Lord and prayed and fasted. Instead of that, we minister unto the stomachs of the multitudes.

I have come almost to the place where I don’t know whether I’ll ever attend another banquet or not. We occasionally have one in this church, one or two years, because we don’t need them; we get along without them. And if we never had one, we wouldn’t lose one soul. And the having of them has never yet won one soul. And we’ve never had two more people that I’ve ever discovered ever attend our Sunday school or church as a result of any of our gatherings. So that we haven’t, because we don’t need them. But if we needed them, it would be a sin to have them. Whenever you have to gather around the smorgasbord in order to keep spiritual, you’re not spiritual any longer, your God is your belly and you glory is your shame.

Israel returns from Babylon, and I pray that she may. And God knows how far, far we are and how desperately we’re in need of a reformation to orientate the church around the person of Jesus instead of around the kitchen and around the table. We’re sliding into that more and more. We’re sliding into days and seasons and weeks and Mother’s days and Father’s days and Kiddies days, Poppy days and all the rest of the days. And we’re listening to the world. And Martin Luther almost lost his life, and many people did, to bring back again the pure Christianity to the world. And we’ve took that holy legacy stained with sacred blood, and now we’re letting it get away from us. And back we are going again to days and seasons and years; back to the celebration of this and that and the other and forgetting that a true church is a group of people separated from the world to Jesus Christ.

Well, there’s a dozen or whether there is 1200, it’s all the same. And we need a reformation, and we need it desperately bad. But when we pray for it, let’s watch out for that serpent. For the serpent will crawl in and hiss in our ears, wouldn’t it be wonderful if God would send that reformation and let you be Luther? Ah, Brother Martin Luther is gone, and I don’t know. I still think that the great reformations and the great openings up of areas weren’t done by the men who we thought did it. I still believe that Martin Luther wasn’t the important figure that the world thought he was.

When we get to glory, we’re very likely to find some anonymous saint who prayed Martin Luther through. He was the warhead in the nose of the missile. And God Almighty used that tough German to do what the weak pastor couldn’t do. The weak pastor, he couldn’t have done it. He wouldn’t have had the fortitude. He had no nose on him, but Luther had. So, God used the man with a hard nose and brought about the Reformation. But I still believe that if there hadn’t been some people, unknown and unheralded and unknown to this hour praying him through, there wouldn’t have been any Reformation.

So, I believe with Dr. Jaffrey. Dr. Jaffrey opened sections of South China. He opened Indochina and he opened Borneo and what they used to call the Netherland East Indies. But Dr. Jaffrey was a busy man and a man hurrying about. Somebody was back of him, or some persons, for there might have been easily more than one. And I believe that that tough customer, that Canadian who didn’t know how to retire and couldn’t retire. And when they offered to retire him, he said, sure, I’ll retire. Retire means to put on a new set of tires. So, he said, I’ll do it. And he went right on and opened another country for Christ and then died in a prison camp.

But who was backing him? We have his name, and I wrote his life and it’s all very well. But who was backing him? Somewhere, there was somebody that didn’t insist on being Elijah. Somewhere there were humble men and women praying who were willing that somebody else could take the spotlight. They worked back of the stage and operated the machinery. And when the solo was sung and the multitudes cried bravo, they weren’t even known to be back there, hiding away, sitting on the barrelhead, somewhere waiting for it to get over with, doing their part backstage.

But as old Meister Eckhart said in a burst of grief and anger; he said, who is there that’s found that will even open the house door of the house of God for nothing? Well, there were some and he overstated it, but there weren’t many. And we want the army of the Lord to win, and I do. I belong to the army of Lord.

Brethren, I’ll tell you something. But if the army of the Lord doesn’t win, I’m going to be one, the first one the enemy hunts up to liquidate. I’ll tell you that now. God had better win if I’m going to escape liquidation because I’ve made myself an unholy pest to the devil. And I intend to continue to do it till I die. And if there’s any place in heaven, where God hears prayers. I don’t know whether we can pray up there or not as we can down here, but if it’s permitted, I still want to pray against what our dear old brother William Nicholson called that dirty pig, the devil. I still want to pray against him.

Well, we want the army of the Lord to win, but you know when we dream about the host of Israel rushing out and holding their banners high and driving out the Philistines and coming back conquering, we’d like to think we’re riding up ahead in an open car like Mac Arthur and the mobs lined the streets to see us.

Well, battles aren’t won by Mac Arthurs. They’re won by dog faces and navy boys and marines and kids that only have to shave two or three times a week. They’re won by kids that lie out there; now some of them buried row on row like the seats here in this church that ought to be filled. Row on row. There lies Junior. There lies Bobby. There lies young Chuck. There lies John. Their lies Ed. There lies the boys that used to drive the old junk cars around and work on all Saturday afternoon, come in dirty and grimy to suffer. They won the wars. And when the next war comes, if it comes, they’ll win it. They’re not heard of. And when they come back crippled and disabled, hard to find a job, they’re forgotten. And a half dozen generals get the credit.

And a general, not a one of them ever smelled powder. They’ve got to be there. I believe in them. And if it hadn’t been for them to head it up, there would have been no winning. I admit that. But not one of them ever smelled powder. The boys had walked out there and took it. They get enough. Get a Purple Heart if they cut themselves shaving somebody said, they give you a Purple Heart. They can tear you to pieces, and if you don’t bleed, you don’t get it. Kids come back home; they’ve lost three, four years out of their lives. They’ve been disillusioned and embittered. And their faith in God shocked by what they’ve seen. And they go back to a job someplace, America’s unheralded heroes. And the generals ride in the big car.

We all want to be the generals. But the battles of God are not won by the generals. They are won by the privates and corporals. They’re won by those who don’t expect anything but hard work and mud holes and bullet pierced planes, a wing and a prayer if they ever do get back.

So, in the kingdom of God, my brother, we want the army of the Lord to win, but we want to ride up front. And we want our church to triumph over its enemies here. I’m searching my heart these days about our church. We want our church to triumph over its enemies. But the temptation is to pray and work toward that end but do it with a selfish motive. Do it to prove that we’re right. Do it to show that we’re a better-class Christian than those others. Just as soon as that enters, prayer dies. You can pray all night and fast and miss two meals a week, your prayer is dead. It never rises above the ceiling.

Prayer, said old Molina, let me give it to you again. Prayer is an ascent or elevation of the mind to God. That that prayer never ascends or elevates itself to the presence of God if there’s a desire that isn’t pure, selfish motives. We want our church to grow, but then we want it to grow because we’ve got a vested interest in it. Do we pray just as much?

Some years ago, I was in a campaign with some other preachers and God was blessing us quite tremendously. And God made me pray for the others as much as for myself. And He made me have an understanding with Him, that if the Lord wanted to bless these other preachers in that campaign more than me and just let me come along and be ignored, I would agree to it. I wanted God to know that. And I think God knows I mean it.

Now, I know all about our hearts being desperately wicked and all the rest, but I also know that there are times when you know where you stand, Brother. There are sometimes when you could write God a letter and sign it and say, now God, however I feel, however my emotions may float around like clouds, remember, this is what I want. And I want Thee to bless this campaign. And if You can, bless me and bless the other brethren. And whenever you want any other part of the church that you’re not particularly in, whenever you want that blessed as much as the part you’re pushing, then your prayers are likely to be pure. But if you’ve got anything that centers around you and your prayers are for the success of that, it’s not likely to be pure.

Now, we must elevate our hearts and pray. And here’s the kind of praying we’ve got to do. We’ve got to pray, O God, honor Thyself in this fellowship during this week ahead and all the days ahead and months and years. But particularly God, honor Thyself in this fellowship. Honor Thyself through me, or ignore me, and honor Thyself through others. Honor Thyself apart from me if it please Thee, O God, but honor Thyself. Restore Thy glory to the church but do it in Thine own way. And if that means passing me by, Lord, all right.

I wonder tonight how many young men there are in Bible schools and Christian seminaries burning the midnight oil, working to pay expenses, losing weight, and getting jumpy in their nervous eagerness to get through. And secretly in back of it all is a hope that someday they can be as popular as Billy Graham; that someday they can be leaders of great Christian movements. No, it won’t work, Junior. It won’t work. God will never elevate you until you humble yourself.

But we’ve got to pray, O God, do it, but do it through me or apart from me. Ignore me or use me. It makes little difference, God, but just so you do it. O God, reform this church. Reform this church but use Thine own way of doing it. For there might be another that God delights to honor. You remember Haman who wanted the honor, and you remember how they twisted it around and finally the Jew got the honor and Haman got the noose. And there may be another that God delights to honor, and He may ignore you and overlook you. If you had to take a lowly place among the shadows and your name, not be bandied about at all or heard, would you pray just as earnestly for these two things I’ve set before you, that God’s name might be glorified once more among men and that the church of Christ might be restored again from her Babylonian captivity?

Well, if you can pray like that, O God, at any cost, let it cost me. Let it cost me, Father. Not give me something, but let it take something out of me, Lord. Then your prayer is pure. But you can pray all night and not be heard if there’s any sneaking idea that you’re going to share in the glory?

Now, can you pray, O God, we want Thy glory to be revealed by whomsoever Thou revealest? We want the church to be restored to New Testament pattern by whomsoever Thou wilt restore it. We want the walls of Jerusalem rebuilt by whomsoever Thou wilt rebuild it. We want the prophets of Baal, the cultists to be defeated, and we want them defeated by whomsoever Thou wilt defeat them. We do not insist upon being Elijah. We want Israel brought back from Babylon, but we’ll go along as a red cap to carry his suitcase. We want a Reformation, O God, but we will not insist upon being Luther, Lord. But let it cost us something and let us be not heard of.

We want an army of the Lord to win, but we’ll stay on the ground and, and re-service the planes and let the generals have the credit. And Lord we’ll live our humble lives, but you’ll hear from us God. And our prayer is going to be that you’ll do these things. But we don’t insist upon having any glory out of it nor any credit and nor getting known. You know, the awful thing about it is, my friends, that when you take this place before God, you do get known. And just as soon as you take this place before God, the chances are very strong, the percentage is very high, that you will be. And if nothing else, you’ll become known as a prayer warrior. And when you get to be known as a prayer warrior, then you pray in order to stay in character with your saga, with the story they tell about you.

And you get a myth grows up around you, being a great praying soul, and that’s dangerous too. And yet, the Bible says men ought always to pray. And it says that the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. And then it gives us illustrations by the dozen from the Bible of prayer that brought down hailstones that closed the heavens, that made it rain, that made the sun and moon stand still. God answered the prayers of the people and you and I have got to pray. And the difficulties in prayer that I’ve placed before you tonight are not difficulties. They should challenge you. They should not stop you but challenge you. You should purify your praying.

And we should purify our praying as a company of people. And I want to lead a good company of people starting Tuesday night, every night at seven o’clock in prayer. But I want a people who are unselfish, who want two things above all, that we should have again the name of God brought up before the world and before the church so that men might tremble at His presence and that the church might be restored again from her captivity. And as this church as a part of that church we might triumph in holiness. We want this, but we don’t want anybody to get any credit except our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, can you pray like that? And do you want God to do anything bad enough to insist that He do it at whatever costs, even if it costs you something? Jesus wanted the world redeemed. He wanted the world redeemed. The Father said, I’ll answer your prayer and redeem the world. But you know what it’ll cost you? And He replied, I lay down My life of Myself. He was willing. He redeemed the world and answered His own prayer by giving His life for others. Do you want to be a useful Christian? Are you willing to let your usefulness cost you anything that He chooses in order that His glory should be revealed.

My dear friends, I think I might have a reputation of being a bit critical, and that’s an understatement. But I’ll tell you this much. When I see the glory of God moving, I want in it. I want to be there. I want to go along with that. And even though I’m just an office boy and go along and help and file cards, anything that would bring the church of God back again to the Holy Land and build up the walls of Jerusalem. And my criticism is not of those who are seeking to glorify God and restore his church. But I recognize merchants when I see them in the temple. I want to pick them up by the scruff of the neck and throw them out. I have good precedence for that. Great God, hear us and enable us to pray.

I wonder how many tonight there are here who would say, I agree with you, Brother Tozer. I believe these two things that are so desperately needed, that the name of God might be exalted and that hallowed, His name should be hallowed above all else, and that a new concept of God might be brought back to the church again, the concept our Baptist and Presbyterian and Methodist fathers had. The concept of God, the opinions, the notion concerning God, the idea of God in the hearts of the reformers.

We want this back again to a church whose God is too small. And we want the church restored again to New Testament pattern. And we want it so bad that we will pray and work and labor, even if it means loss to us. And even if it means that we are overlooked and neglected, and God gets all the glory and all we get is the blame. Are you ready for that? Are you ready? Is there anybody here that can write God a letter tonight and sign it and fold it and put it where you can get to it and say, now, God, here’s what I want to say to Thee. I want to say that I want Thy church restored and I want Thy name hallowed and I want this fellowship blessed for Thy glory only. And I don’t ask a thing but the privilege of seeing it happen.

Could you do that? Come down here to the place of prayer–right now. Is that real with you, Brother? Sister? When you get down here start to pray. Don’t let’s wait on each other. Let’s call on God tonight. Kneel in the seats. Kneel along the platform here as an altar. Lead right out. Somebody lead us right out.

I want you to pray that God will bless our fellowship and give us success here in a mighty tough situation, for this changing population and people moving away over the last two years. We’ve suffered, but we’re a long way from this. The God of our fathers is with us. But we don’t want anybody to get any credit out of this. Don’t anybody say, Tozer won. Tozer never won anything but sin. Will you pray? Somebody, lead us out. Who else wants to come. Anybody else want to come and join us? Come on. Come and join us. I think there ought to be others here. You want to get down on your knees. Have you ever had anybody go after you and penetrate through to you the Holy Ghost maybe has done. Come on down and join us we pray. Amen. Amen. Now somebody lead us out. I see you here, you lead, and we’ll join you then, one after the other.

“Prayer for the Glory of God I“

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

November 17, 1957

Without any doubt, I have spoken on the text I will be using this morning. Not once, but I suppose 100 times, more or less. But on Tuesday, or perhaps it was Wednesday, I was with the Lord in prayer and it came so very clearly to me, not from heaven direct. I don’t claim inspiration in that sense, but through the Word, that I was to talk to you twice today. And I grabbed a pencil and took down some notes. It’s almost as though I were taking dictation. I don’t mean to make the Lord responsible for all my mistakes, but only say that at least the gist of what I’m going to say, certainly, came from the Scriptures and from God.

So, I want to read a very familiar verse, part of a verse from James 5, the latter part of verse 16. It really starts another verse, another paragraph: The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Now, there is a positive statement, positive. Then 4:2,3 of the same book: Ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss that ye may consume it on your lusts. There’s a negative statement. Fortunately, James hadn’t read any books about presenting the truth positively only. He presented the other side. Then our Lord in Luke 18:1: and He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men are always to pray and not to faint.

Now, there are the three texts. And we’re to talk about prayer. And I want to give you a definition of prayer which I got from Molina, the great Spanish saint, who said this: that prayer is an ascent, or elevation of the mind to God. Very simple, isn’t it? Prayer is an ascent of the mind to God. It is an elevation of the mind. Saying that it is an ascent, simply means that it ascends to God, but saying that it is an elevation of the mind indicates that there’s something you’ve got to do to elevate it. God is above all creatures. And the soul cannot see Him nor converse with Him unless she raise herself above all creatures. Now, that’s what Molina said, that prayer is the elevation of the soul, the flight of the soul of the mind to God.

Now, that’s a definition of prayer, but the texts we have before us say some specific things about prayer. The first one says that prayer is a potent thing; that it availeth much. And I would cite those words “availeth much” as constituting a terrific understatement. For the Old Testament and the New Testament combine to teach and demonstrate how much prayer availeth.  And the Holy Ghost Himself, labors in this same James, the fifth chapter to show us by example how much prayer available by citing Elijah’s ability to turn to heaven off and on; the clouds to make them rain or not rain as he please. Now, that’s the one statement: prayer availeth much. The second statement says that sometimes we do not have the advantage of prayer for one of two reasons: either we have failed to ask or we have asked selfishly. And therefore, we do not have the benefits that prayer could bring. That’s the negative side. Prayer availeth much, but you’re not getting much availed. Therefore, it could be because we have failed to ask or having asked, we’ve done so selfishly. That’s what James says.

Then our Lord says that, nevertheless, in spite of the difficulties and the problems that are before us, we ought always to pray. And in this 18th of Luke, as far as I know, the only parable that starts out by telling what it’s going to teach. This is one parable that none of the commentators ever quarrel over. Mostly, they quarrel in a good natured, nice way, but they disagree over what the parable teaches. But this one they can’t disagree over because we are told, He spake a parable unto them to this end. In other words, before He told us the parable, He told us what the parable would teach. He made His statement and illustrated it with a story, a short one, but a story. And He said, the reason I tell you this story is, that men ought always to pray and not to faint, and I want to make that point. So, there we have those three texts.

Now, my friends, there’s a lot of prayer going on these days, a lot of prayer being sent up currently. In fact, I don’t think it would be irreverent to say that God seems to be on everybody’s mailing lists. Because you know, mailing lists are made up of persons who have something that the mailee can get or that he wants from the mailer. The mailer is the man who sends it out and the mailee is the man who receives it. And so, if you’re on the list, you’re a mailee. And the mailer knows that you have some thing that he wants, and therefore he writes you. And we have now a God who is on everybody’s mailing list all over the country and all over the world, asking for things. But I think that mostly the motive is not any higher than the motive of the man who sent the mail that we referred to.

Some years ago, I read a very amusing and also a very enlightening article about rich men. Somebody had gone around, investigated and interviewed rich men of the Edsel Ford and Rockefeller stripe, and had gotten enough anecdotes and information that he wrote a very fine article about it in one of the national magazines. And you wouldn’t believe it if you didn’t know that it’s been documented and was true. What these rich men suffer are from the people who want to get something out of them. They’re being bombarded continually by people who want something of what they had.

One I remember, this sticks in my mind. It might have been the most ridiculous, but I do remember this one, that a man wrote into one of the two great, rich men Ford or Rockefeller, and said, Dear Mr. so and so, I have a little proposition that I want to make. You are a rich man, and you also are familiar with finance. And you know where money can be best invested to multiply itself. Therefore, my request is that you lend me $500, and then invest it for me. And then send me the proceeds. Now, can you imagine anything as foolish as that, and yet they say things like that happen. Not only lend me the money but invest it for me and then send me the proceeds. Well, that’s philanthropy was a double “F”.

And now there is danger, my friends, that God shall simply be the great rich man, the composite of all rich men. That He shall be the buyer, the consumer, with His big pocket book at which we aim all our advertising, and whom we try to win to our side in order that we can get something from Him. There’s a great danger, because you see, every sort of personal and selfish interest these days is being baptized with the waters of prayer. And though they may be unscriptural or unspiritual and even downright injurious, and they may have no higher motive than to relieve the receivee from the necessity of earning an honest living, or, to provide him an opportunity to travel at other people’s expense. There are a lot of people that are doing that. They don’t want to earn an honest living and they want to travel. They like to do the two things, and wouldn’t you like to travel? And wouldn’t you like to do it at other people’s expense and have no obligation and audit your own books and be responsible to yourself?

Well, a lot of people are praying and boasting of how they’re succeeding because they’re praying; asking everybody everywhere to pray, forgetting that after you’ve persuaded a man to pray with you for a sum of money, he is psychologically persuaded to give you that amount of money. Well, we even call prayer meetings and continue all night in prayer in order that a project might succeed, and that project, I say, may be nothing, but to save a fellow from going to work and getting the 8:17 and sitting at a desk and doing an honest job or driving a truck or running a grocery store. And the fellow wants to run around.

Well now, let’s not imagine that you can’t take personal things to God. In fact, there is nothing so personal that you can’t go to God about it. Brother McAfee and I have often quoted together and talk together about a little saying of Julian, the lady Julian, that Saint of Norwich, England who lived 600 years ago. He calls her my girlfriend. And when I go, he says are you taking your girlfriend along? Well, my girlfriend is a little book that you could put the average woman. Oh, well, that’s no illustration. You could put a dictionary in your pocket book. But it’s just a little book you could slip down here and not notice it. And she wrote on the revelations of divine love.

And she tells about how utterly amazed and filled with joy she was to think that her Lord, so high and lofty, yet not considered Himself too high to humble Himself to be concerned about the commonest, little things that belong to our earthly lives and to our bodies, she said. The Lord looks after everything, and the Lord is more concerned about your temperature than your nurse is. And He’s more concerned about your health than your doctor. He’s more concerned about your business than you are. He’s more concerned about your family than you are.

So, all the little details we dare take to God, let nobody preach that out of you. That’s in the Bible. We can talk to God about the little, simple things. But always remember that these things should be talked over with God. There are things you men don’t talk over even with the family. You talk them over with your wife. Well, there are things then that you can’t even talk over with your wife. There are things that you talk over only with God. God is the final One who understands and who will hear us for all the personal, intimate things. These things need not be and mostly should not be brought to prayer meetings.

I think we kill most prayer meetings. And most prayer meetings I’ve ever been in are dead. Some people don’t like the way I conduct a prayer meeting, but I’ve never been to one conducted any better. They just meet and then we go over the same things. These things are brought up and we take our friends into our confidence and tell us things that we only ought to tell God. When we pray in private, we ought to pray about private things. And when we pray corporate prayers, we ought to pray about things that pertain to the corporate body and to the glory of God. Often, it’s embarrassing and a waste of other people’s time.

For me, I have a cousin in Oil City, Pennsylvania. I don’t, but suppose I had, and his son is getting into bad company. And the teacher wrote and said, would you want to do something about Elmer. And so, I get that letter from my cousin in Oil City, PA. So, I take that to a prayer meeting.

Now, my brethren, that’s too intimate a thing to take to a prayer meeting, and that concerned me and my cousin and his boy Elmer. And that does not concern the corporate body. There’s a lot of waste of prayer, and I believe the Holy Ghost is displeased because of our so-called prayer requests which turn out to be personal, private, and sometimes I’m afraid, selfish things. So, the Holy Ghost says you don’t get your prayers answered often because either you don’t ask. You get discouraged and quit asking, or if you do ask, your motives aren’t right.

Now I want to talk about the corporate prayer in the time I have left. That is, the body praying, the people praying, we, praying together Wednesday night, the women praying on Wednesdays and Tuesday nights, and the men praying as it did here last night, and we praying as we do and will be praying.

Now what should be the aim of our prayers? Well, the aim of our prayers should be also the aim of our lives, so that our prayers and our lives parallel each other. That we don’t live one way and pray another, but that we should want something and then we should live for that thing. We must pray in harmony with our work. I say that a great many people are carrying on work, and numerically they’re successful, and financially they’re successful because they happen to have strong personalities at the head of it, and they know skillfully how to take advantage of the known habits of the public.

You see my friends; you know how Christian people are going to behave. I know about how you will behave. You may fool me on details, but you won’t over the long haul. We know the expectation created by the known conduct of God’s people. And we know that God’s people have a generous streak. Newspapers know how to play that up. They know that a beautiful woman not too well-dressed, always get the interest of the public. They know that a little animal, a little pet will always get the interest of the public and they know that a baby always will.

So these are the three things the newspapers play up continually. And we see it every day. We see it almost every time there’s a pretty baby’s picture appears for any reason, I hand it and say, look at this, to my wife. Well, I’m a sucker for pretty babies and I’m a sucker for pets. I confess that I don’t go for the other, as avidly as some might. But there are a number of readers that it must, because the newspapers know the habits of the public. And all they have to do is know their habits and play to them and they succeed.

Well, it’s possible for religious leaders to know the habits of the religious public and then play to their habits. And when they take bold steps of faith after praying all night, they’re always careful to move in the direction that they know the public has proved they’ll be there to support them.

Well, you and I don’t want anything to do with that at all. I began preaching on the street corner and I suppose I can go back to it. But we’ve got to pray in harmony with high purposes, and we’ve got to work in harmony with high purposes and give in harmony with high purposes.

Now what are these purposes? Don’t brace yourself for a dozen, for there are only two that I am going to bring to you now, just two. And out from them, they may grow others, but these are two. And I stand to say to you, my friends, that these two requests, or desires, should be primary. They should be critically prior. They should be first. They should take priority over all other prayer requests, including even the intimate and little prayer requests that I might want to make about myself and family.

One of them is the restoration of the vision of the Most High God to the world again. When our Brother Fuller comes, I don’t know whether he will preach on any such sermon as that. But that’s the one thing his cry has been as he’s talked with me and as I’ve heard him pray and exhort in his Bible conferences. It is, that once more, this world should see a vision of the God who would strike them down. A God who wouldn’t hesitate to drive them dumb as he drove Daniel dumb, or cause John to fall flat on his face as John fell. This kind of God is gone from the church. He’s gone not only from liberalism, but he’s gone from the evangelical churches almost entirely. The honor of God has been lost to men. And the God of today’s Christianity is a very rich weakling that can be manipulated by certain psychological laws.

Now that the glory should return is imperative, my brethren. The glory should return, and that the glory of God should return and be seen among men. You know, we read it in the Psalms and don’t know what we’re reading. Let thy glory be above all the earth. Manifest Thy glory among the nations, cried the Psalmsist. And all the way through the Old Testament it says, the glory of Jehovah should be known among the nations. And we come to the New Testament it is, do this said Jesus to His Father, that men may know, and that I have manifested Thy name unto the men Thou has gave to me, always given me. Always it was the wish and desire of Jesus Christ. He died for it in fact, that God’s glory might be manifested to the world.

And the coming of Jesus to the world in the first place was, that a world that had lost the vision of God should regain it again. And when the Holy Ghost came at Pentecost, it was that He should give to the heart, as well as to the intellect, a vision of the glory of God.

Now, this is the first of the desires, and I have no hesitation to say to you, that God’s glory should be rediscovered, and the world should see what kind of God God is, and that the church should once more worship a God whom they could respect, the God of the Bible, the God who is the only God. That is more important to God than the salvation of sinners.

Now, that may sound terrible, but the Baptists and Presbyterians in other days boldly preached that and didn’t care what people thought. But we have gotten into this soft humanism in our time that will weep over rebels and weep over rebels and imagine that that’s the divine order. My brethren, the divine order is that God should be glorified among the nations and His honor revealed to His people. And that’s more valuable and more to be desired in heaven among the holy angels and seraphim and among all the elders and creatures around the throne than that people should be saved.

But here’s the wonderful story. It is this, that the glory of God and the salvation of men have so been harmonized in the loving heart of God, that God’s glory can be revealed as men are converted, so that it’s not an either or, I must choose one or the other. But it is that both can happen, one at the same time as the other. God will both glorify Himself by saving men, but He also glorifies Himself otherwise. And so I say, if we have to take a choice between the salvation of men or the glory of God, every being in heaven would say, Thine be the glory. Before they would say, man should be saved.

Now, the first corporate prayer of this New Testament begins: Our Father. And by the word “our,” it makes it a corporate prayer. That is, a prayer of a body of people. And the first request of that corporate body is what. Hallowed be Thy name. Have you noticed this, my friend, that when Jesus said, when you pray, you, as a body, pray and say “our,” the Lord’s prayer as we call it, is not for individuals, it’s for corporate praying. It’s for all of us to pray. It’s when the body of Christians unite to want something, to do something, to desire something, then we pray, our Father. And the first request, the first, our Father, is a salutation. It’s not a request. Then comes the request, hallowed be Thy name.

And before any other request, is that God’s name should be hallowed. That His holy, sacred name should be hallowed before mankind. And if we are to follow the teachings of Jesus, then we are to follow this procedure. Hallowed be Thy name, this is first, and not second and not third, but first. That the glory of God should be restored and that the vision of the Most High God should once more appear to men. And I want to tell you that if this vision should ever appear to men in churches and should be preached again; if the ministers of the sanctuary should go back to preaching on the perfections and attributes and character and being of God and keep at it and keep at it, it would soon have an effect of bringing sinners to their knees in confession. It would have an effect of making Christians separate from the world and hate themselves and their carnal ways. Even as Isaiah, when he saw the vision cried, I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips.

So, the glory of God is first and John 14:13 says, Jesus speaking, whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do that the Father may be glorified in the Son. So, notice here, will you, that the reason Jesus said I do it, is that He should glorify the Father in the doing of it. And anything that is done that is simply to help people but doesn’t glorify God, God will not answer. The humanist will. The tender, weeper will, but God won’t. For God says that the Father may be glorified is the reason I answer prayer. If he shall ask it that the Father may be glorified.

So, you see that no project, no organization, no need, no anything, is valid till the glory of God is restored. And in all that we do in all of our prayers, we ought to pray. Don’t take preachers for granted, dear people. They are the weakest of all the people. Don’t take preachers for granted. They’ll go along with anything.

I was a great, big boy when I learned that doctors went along with the advertisers. You go to Doctor Pill, and you say, Doctor, I’ve got a pain. And he remembers what he read in the medical journal, the advertiser. I looked at their advertising, their ads, and he prescribed something that he seen advertised. I was a big boy before I found that out. And I don’t say that universally. I don’t say that’s all they do. Certainly, they earn an honest living. But I do say that they yield to it.

And preachers are like that. If we were all holy prophets who walked down out of the presence of God with the dew of holiness on our brows, then I would say you better listen. And I would say that you dare to take us for granted. But when I know that preachers are subject to all the subtle persuasion of the religious advertiser that you are, then we better begin to pray for God’s ministers of the sanctuary, that they might get their eyes open to the fact that better than that their church should prosper, is that the name of God should once more be a hallowed among men.

Let me prophesy to you. Now I’m going to give you a prophecy. None of you will believe it probably, now. But the nice thing about true prophecy is, that it proves itself. Here’s my prophesy: we are now riding the wave of religion, and Christianity is more popular than it’s ever been since Jesus Christ died on the cross. And even though over on the Bible-believing side, it’s more popular. The very fact that this editorial of mine could get into newspaper proves it. They’re ready for anything religious now–anything. All right.

Now, let me tell you something, friends, and here’s my prophesy. The time is coming unless God should just upset the whole prophecy by a revival. If He did that, a genuine revival, then, of course, I’d be happy, happy if I’m around to say, Lord, I was mistaken. But I wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t come to our help. If the Lord doesn’t help us and the glory of God isn’t revealed and man’s mouth isn’t shut and God’s glory isn’t elevated, here’s what’s going to happen. We are going to have a reaction from modern popular Christianity that will be on a scale unprecedented in Christian history. We are going to have a bitterness, a disillusionment, and we are going to breed a cynical contempt for God and religion and the church that will turn this country of ours almost completely apart from believing Christians into a camp of religion haters. We’re going back where we were in the 20s or further down than that yet. And you will find cynicism and disillusionment and disappointment and bitterness and hostility, because people are thinking this way, that what we’ve got is Christianity when it is not. And the reason I know it is not, is hallowed be Thy name isn’t at the front of it, but it’s something else. But if God ever hears the prayer of a few of us and hallows His name.

I talked about this to R.R. Brown, Stacy Woods, Paris Reidhead and James Stewart of the European mission. The five of us stood around and discussed it and said, what are we going to do? What are we going to do that the glory of God should be manifested again and that we might be able to stave off this awesome, awful backwash? Well, it’s coming. I may not live to see it, but it’s coming. And the day will be when the people who are now singing over the radio and on the barn dance about God, how good He is, wouldn’t be caught dead singing about God, a disillusioned, embittered, hostile, angry, cynical crowd, the people that tasted Christianity that wasn’t Christianity. We’re going to have him on our hands. Well, that’s the first, the glory of God.

The second, I’ll be brief. It’s 12 o’clock. The second great desire is that the church should be delivered, and maybe I’ve already said that. That the church, not this church only, but the church of God should be delivered from her Babylonish captivity. Remember that the Scripture talked about the great harlot and her daughters. Well, when the great harlot spread herself all over Europe, there arose a thick-necked man by the name of Dr. Martin Luther. And he brought a reformation that set that lady back on her honches and gave us the Reformation and Protestantism and the present evangelicalism.

Let me say to you, my friends, that her daughters have now gotten almost as bad as she was, only in a different way. We don’t have a pope, but we have other things as bad. We don’t have holy water, but we have water not so holy. We don’t have holy bones, but we have other things. If you don’t believe this, come up to my office and I’ll let you run through some of the religious magazines that come to my desk. You’ll see holy bones there all right. The daughters have become as bad as their mother. The great harlot has had children. And the Scripture says, I’ll judge that great harlot and her children and her daughters.

Now, those daughters are in Babylonian captivity just as the church was in Luther’s day. And Luther brought a part of that church out of Babylonian captivity. And the disgraceful fornication with the world now going on among the churches–this you must pray about my brothers and sisters. This you must pray about. This is what we ought to pray about. This should be our corporate prayer. This is the reason we have meetings such as the ones we’ve announced. And until this is accomplished and until the church has been delivered from her mental bondage and from her way of living and her Babylonian captivity, then I say that nothing else is of first importance.

You say, evangelism? What does evangelism do but cause the church to bring forth in Babylon? The church’s children are brought forth, but they’re brought forth under Babylonish captivity when they ought to be brought forth in the land. You say missions, but what do missions do but transplant a socially corrupt and scrub Christianity on foreign soil? And you say books and schools and magazines and all the rest–very well– but my brother, many Christian activities are about the working of the bacteria in a decaying church, that’s all. You go if you want to do it and can stand it to a barrel of swill. But barrel of swill, look at it and watch it and see what it does. It bubbles and hisses and whispers, but it’s always active, always active. It is decaying and fermenting and rotting. And it shows itself by a constant activity.

And an awful lot of activity now is little more than the activity of bacteria in the decaying church. And we must pray and work that the church may be freed. We must pray and work that she may come back to separation and devotion and purity and sanctification. That she may come back again to the glory of God, and that she may devote herself not to being known, publicizing herself, but to the glory of God.

Now brethren, these are the two things that every church is under binding, terrible obligation to get done–to pray enough and labor enough and live in line with their prayers, that God’s glory should one time more appear among men. Oh, that God might appear again as He did for the Moravians, when God bestowed upon them a loving newness of the Savior instantaneously. And they went out hardly knowing whether they were on earth or in heaven.

This can only come to a church that takes itself seriously. This can only come to a church that accepts truth and will yield itself and settle itself to do two things. To pray for the glory of God to be restored and the church to be purified. Another generation of decay and rot in our churches, and what will we be sending to the mission field? We’ll be sending a decaying and burned-out brand of Christianity that will do the heathen very little good. To prove that this is true, you only have to go to some places now where liberal preachers have been and sociologists instead of preachers have been with their gospel of sociology and the toothbrush. Go where they’ve been. You’ll find Christians that are not Christians at all.

A transplantation of a humanistic, sociological Christianity into the foreign field is not fulfilling the text which says, go ye into all around and preach the gospel to every creature. And the transplantation of a publicity-mad, entertainment-rotten evangelicalism into Borneo or somewhere else, is not fulfilling it either. We must go, taking the glory of God and the blood of the Lamb, and calling the people to separate and come together in two minority groups, hated by the world, but loved of God; to be different and changed and transformed by the glory and the power of God. We must take that kind of gospel.

And we continue to go downhill; and our religious colleges and missionary colleges and Bible institutes continue to go downhill and rot and decay and tear apart and pull away at the seams, the next generation of missionaries won’t be worth sending to the field.

Oh, that we might have revival that would purge us, me, as a minister of the sanctuary and you and all of us, so that there may go out from us, not only evangelists and missionaries–and you can’t be a Bible church and not have both-but that they may go out with those two great things in mind, particularly the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And take to the heathen world and take to the dying world, not the story only that God loves them, but the story of a great God, high and lifted up Who made heaven and earth, and before whose face the heaven and the earth will someday flee away. Who, in His Majesty, rides across the heavens, but Who also, in His love, gave His only begotten Son. That’s the only kind of gospel worth taking and the only kind of preaching worth hearing.

Father, we pray Thy blessing upon the Word this morning. Meet us and meet us tonight we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.