John Bunyan

Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Spirit, for such things as God has promised (Mat 6:6-8).

Prayer is only true when it is within the compass²⁸ of God’s Word; it is blasphemy, or at best vain babbling, when the petition is unrelated to the Book. David therefore in his prayer kept his eye on the Word of God. “My soul,” says he, “cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word.” And again, “My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word” (Psa 119:25, 28. See also verses 41-42, 58, 65, 74, 81-82, 107, 147, 154, 169, 170). And, “Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope” (119:49). Indeed, the Holy Ghost does not immediately quicken and stir up the heart of the Christian without the Word, but by, with, and through [it], by bringing that to the heart and by opening that whereby the man is provoked to go to the Lord to tell Him how it is with him, to argue, and to supplicate,²⁹ according to the Word. Thus it was with Daniel, that mighty prophet of the Lord. He, understanding by books that the captivity of the children of Israel was nearing its end, then, according unto that word, he makes his prayer to God. “I Daniel,” says he, “understood by books,” viz.,³⁰ the writings of Jeremiah, “the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes” (Dan 9:2-3).

As the Spirit is the helper and the governor of the soul when it prays according to the will of God, so it guides by and according to the Word of God and His promise. Hence it is that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself did make a stop, although His life lay at stake for it. “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” (Mat 26:53-54). “Were there but a word for it in the Scripture, I should soon be out of the hands of mine enemies, I should be helped by angels”; but the Scripture will not warrant this kind of praying, for that says otherwise.

It is a praying, then, according to the Word and promise. The Spirit by the Word must direct in the manner, as well as in the matter of prayer. “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also” (1Co 14:15). But there is no understanding without the Word. For if they reject the word of the Lord, “What wisdom is in them?” (Jer 8:9).

For the good of the Church.

This clause covers whatsoever tends to the honor of God, Christ’s advancement, or His people’s benefit. For God, Christ, and His people are so linked together that if the good of the one be prayed for, [then] the others must needs be included. As Christ is in the Father, so the saints are in Christ; and he that touches the saints touches the apple of God’s eye. Therefore, pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and you pray for all that is required of you. For Jerusalem will never be in perfect peace until she be in heaven; and there is nothing that Christ more desires than to have her there. That also is the place that God through Christ has given her. He, then, that prays for the peace and good of Zion, or the Church, asks in prayer [for] that which Christ has purchased with His blood; and also [for] that which the Father has given to Him as the price thereof. Now he that prays for this must pray for abundance of grace for the Church, for help against all her temptations, that God would let nothing be too hard for her; that all things might work together for her good; that God would keep His children blameless and harmless, the sons of God, to His glory, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation (Phi 2:15).

This is the substance of Christ’s own prayer in John 17. And all Paul’s prayers run that way, as one of his prayers eminently³¹ shows: “And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God” (Phi 1:9-11). But a short prayer, you see, and yet full of good desires for the church from the beginning to the end that she may stand and go on and that in the most excellent frame of spirit, even without blame, sincere, and without offence until the day of Christ, let her temptations or persecutions be what they will (Eph 1:16-21; 3:14-19; Col 1:13).

And because, as I said, prayer submits to the will of God and says, “Thy will be done,” as Christ has taught (Mat 6:10).

Therefore, the people of the Lord in all humility are to lay themselves and their prayers and all that they have at the foot of their God, to be disposed of by Him as He in His heavenly wisdom sees best. Yet not doubting but God will answer the desire of His people that way that shall be most for their advantage and His glory. When the saints therefore pray with submission to the will of God, it does not argue that they are to doubt or question God’s love and kindness to them. But because they at all times are not so wise, [and] sometimes Satan may get advantage of them, [tempting] them to pray for that which, if they had it, would prove neither to God’s glory nor [to] His people’s good. “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him” (1Jo 5:14-15), that is, [if we ask] in the Spirit of grace and supplication.

For, as I said before, that petition that is not put up in and through the Spirit is not to be answered because it is beside the will of God. For the Spirit only knows that, and so consequently knows how to pray according to that will of God. “For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God” (1Co 2:11).

______

From Prayer, The Banner of Truth Trust

John Bunyan (1628-1688): English Baptist preacher and influential author of The Pilgrim’s Progress and numerous other titles; born at Elstow near Bedford, England. (Bunyan’s complete works are available at www.chapellibrary.org.)

28. within the compass within the compass within the compass – within the boundaries or limits.
29. supplicate supplicate supplicate – ask for humbly or earnestly.
30. viz. – abbreviation for Latin vidicelet: that is; namely.
31. eminently eminently eminently – plainly; obviously.

Courtesy of Chapel Library