Prayer and Praying Men by E. M. Bounds Chapter Thirteen Paul and His Praying He who studies Paul's praying, both his prayers and his commands about prayer, will find what a wide, general, minute, and diversified area it covers. It will appear that these men, like Wesley, Brunnet, Lutheran, and all their holy successors in the spiritual realms, were not guilty of fantasism nor superstition. when they ordered all things by prayer, great and small, and committed all things, secular and religion, natural and spiritual, to God in prayer. In this they were but following the great exemplar and authority of the Apostle Paul. To seek God as Paul did by prayer, to commune with God as Paul did, to supplicate Jesus Christ as Paul did, to seek the Holy Spirit by prayer as Paul did, to do this without ceasing, to be always a racer, and to win Christ as Paul did by prayer. All this makes a saint, an apostle, and a leader for God. This kind of a life engages, absorbs, enriches, and empowers with God and for God. Prayer, if successful, must always engage and absorb us. This kind of praying brings Pauline's days and secures Pauline's gifts. Pauline days are good. Pauline gifts are better. But Pauline praying is the best of all. For it brings Pauline days and secures Pauline gifts. Pauline praying costs much. It is death to self, the flesh, and the world. Pauline praying is worth all its cost. The prayer, which costs nothing, gets nothing. It is a beggary business at best. Paul's estimate of prayer is seen and enforced by the fact that Paul was a man of prayer. His high position in the Church was not one of dignity and position to enjoy and liquidate It was not one of officialism, nor was it one of arduous and exhaustless toil, for Paul was preeminently a praying man. He began his great career for Christ in the great struggle and school of prayer. God's convincing and wonderful argument to assure Ananias was, quote, Behold, he prayeth, unquote. Three days was he without sight, neither eating nor drinking, but the lesson was well was learned well. He went out on his first great missionary trip under the power of fasting and prayer. And they, Paul and Barnabas, established every church by the very same means, by fasting and praying. He began his work in Philippi, quote, where prayer was wont to be made, unquote. As, quote, they prayed as They went to prayer." The spirit of divination was cast out of the young woman, and when Paul and Silas were put in prison, at midnight they prayed and sang praises to God. Paul made praying a habit, a business, and a life. He literally gave himself to prayer. So with him, praying was not an outer garb, a mere coloring, a paint, a polish. praying made up the substance, the bone, the moral, and the very being of his religious life. His conversion was a marvel of grace and power. His apostolistic commission was full and royal, but he did not vainly expect to make full proof of his ministry by the marvels of conditions and by wonderful results in the conversion, nor by the apostolistic commission signed and sealed by divine authority. and carrying with it all highest gifts and apostolic enrichments, but by prayer, by ceaseless wrestling, agonizing, and Holy Spirit praying. Thus did Paul work his work, and crown his work, his life and the death, with martyr principles and with martyr glory. Paul had a spiritual trait which was very marked and especially promised, and it was that of prayer. He had a profound conviction that prayer was a great, as well as a solemn duty, that prayer was a world privilege, that prayer was a mighty force, that prayer gauges piety, makes faith mighty and mightier, that much prayer was necessary to Christian success, that prayer was a great factor in the ongoing of God's kingdom on earth, and that God in heaven expected to pray. Somehow we are dependent on prayer for great triumphs of holiness over sin, of heaven over hell, and of Christ over Satan. Paul took it for granted that men who knew God would pray, that men who lived for God would pray much, and that men could not live for God who did not pray. So Paul prayed much. He was in the habit of praying. He was used to praying. And that formed the habit of prayer. He estimated prayer so greatly that he knew fully its value, and that fastened the habit on him. Paul was in the habit of praying because he loved God. And such love in the heart always finds its expression in regular habits of prayer. He felt the need of much grace, and of more and more grace. And grace only comes through the channels of prayer, and only abounds more and more as prayer bounds more and more. Paul was in the habit of praying, but he prayed not by mere force of habit. Man is such a creature of habit that he is always in danger of doing things simply by heart and a routine for functionary manner. Paul's habit was regulative and hardy. To the Romans he writes, quote, For God is my witness, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers, end quote. Prison doors are opened and earthquakes take place by such praying as Paul did, even by such Now that is Pauline praying. All things are open to the kind of praying which was done by Paul and Silas. All things are open by prayer. They could shut up Paul from preaching, but this could not shut him up from praying. And the gospel could win its way by Paul's praying as well as by Paul's preaching. The apostle might be in prison, but the word of God was free and went like the mountain air. while the apostle is bound in prison, and it bounds in prayer. How profound their joy in Jesus, which expressed itself so happily and so sweetly in praise and prayer, under conditions so painful and so depressing. Prayer brought them into full communion with God, which made all things radiant with the divine presence, which enables them to, quote, Rejoice that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name, and to count it all joy when they fell into divers trials." Prayer sweetens all things and sanctifies all things. The prayerful saint will be a suffering saint. Suffering prayerfully, he will be a sweet saint. A praying saint will be a praising saint. Praise is but prayer set to music and song. After that notable charge to the elders at Ephesus, as he tarried there while on his way to Jerusalem, his characteristic record is made in Acts, quote, and when he had thus spoken he kneeled down and prayed with them, and they all wept sore and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him, unquote. Quote, he kneeled down and prayed, unquote. Note these words. Kneeling in prayer was Paul's favorite attitude. the fitting posture of an earnest, humble supplicant. Humility and intensity were in such position in prayer before Almighty God. It is the proper attitude of man before God, of a sinner before a Savior, and of a beggar before his benefactor, to seal his sacred and living charge to those Ephesian elders by prayer was that which made the charge efficient, beneficial, and abiding. Paul's religion was born in the thrones of that three-day struggle in prayer while he was in the house of Ananias, and there he received a divine impetus which never slacked till it brought him to the grace of the eternal city. That spiritual history and religious experience, projected along the line of unceasing prayer, brought him to the highest spiritual altitudes and yields the largest spiritual results. Paul lived in the very atmosphere of prayer. His first missionary trip was projected by prayer. It was by prayer and fasting that he was called into the foreign mission field. By the same means, the church at Antioch was moved to Sanford, Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey. Here is the scripture record of it. Now there were in the church, which was at Antioch, certain prophets and teachers, as Barnabas and Simon, which was called Niger, and Lucas of Cyrene, and many, which had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. And as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and had laid their hands on them, they sent them away." Here is a model for all missionary outgoings, a prestige of success. Here is the Holy Spirit directing a prayerful church, obedient to the divine leadership in this condition of things, brought forth the very largest possible results in the mission of these two men of God. We may confidently assert that no church in which Paul was preeminent prominent would be a prayerless church. Paul lived, toiled, and suffered in an atmosphere of prayer. To him, prayer was the very heart and life of religion, its bone and moral, the motor of the gospel and the sign by which it conquered. We are not left in for that spirit established churches, putting in them the everlasting requisite of self-denial, in the shape of fasting and in the process of prayer. Here is the divine record of Paul's work on this line, quote, confirming the souls of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith and that we must, through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God. And when they had ordained them elders in every church and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord on whom they believed." In obedience to a heavenly vision, Paul lands in Europe and finds himself at Philippi. There is no synagogue, and few, if any, Jews are there. A few pious women, however, have a meeting place for prayer, and Paul is drawn by spiritual attraction and spiritual affinities to the place where prayer is wont to be made. Paul's first planting of the gospel in Europe is at that little prayer meeting. He is there at the chief prayer and the leading talker. Lydia was the first convert at that prayer meeting. They protracted the meeting. They called it a meeting for prayer. It was while they were going to that protracted prayer meeting that Paul performed the miracle of casting the devil or divination out of the poor demon possessed girl. who had been made a source of gain by some covetous men, the results of which, by the magistrate's orders, were his scourging and imprisonment. The result, by God's orders, was the conversion of the jailer and his whole household. To the praying apostle no discouragements are allowed. A few praying women are enough for apostles to leave the field of labor. In this last incident, we have a picture of Paul at midnight. He is in the inner prison, dark and deadly. He has been severely and painfully scourged. His clothing is covered with blood. while there are blood clots on his gashed and torn body. His feet are in stocks. Every nerve is feverish and swollen, sensitive and painful. But we find him under these very unfavorable and suffering conditions at his favorite pursuit. Paul is praying with Cyrus, his companion, in his joyous, triumphant strength. And at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was an earthquake, so that the foundation of the prison was shaken, and immediately all the doors were shaken, and everyone's bandage was loosed, and the keeper of the prison Awaking out of the sleep, and seeing the prison's doors open, he drew out his sword and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had fled. But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, Do they self no harm? We are all here." Never was prayer so beautiful, never more resultful. Paul was adept at prayer, a lover of prayer, a wondrous devotee of prayer, who could pursue it with such joyous strands. under such conditions of despondency and despair. What a mighty weapon of defense was prayer to Paul! How songful! The angels, doubtless, stilled their highest and sweetest notes to listen to the music which bore those prayers to heaven. The earthquake trod along the path made by the mighty forces of Paul's praying. He did not go out when his chains were loosed and the stocks fell off. His praying taught him that God had nobler purposes that night than his own individual freedom. His praying and the earthquake alarm were to bring salvation to that prison, freedom from the slavery and prison house of sin which was prefigured to him by his body emancipation. God's mighty providence had opened the prison door and had broken his prison bonds, not to give freedom, but to give freedom to the jailer. God's provincial openings are often to test our ability to stay rather than to go. He tested Paul's ability to stay.