REFLECTIONS

“The Faithful Minister Of The New Covenant”.

 

“My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared Me, and was afraid before My name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips; he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many from iniquity-Malachi 2:5-6”

“We have the success of a faithful minister, “he did turn many from iniquity.” This is the great end (result) of our ministerial work-the conversion of souls, and it is this that makes it such a solemn, such a perilous undertaking, as one of the fathers describes it-“A burden which even angels’ shoulders might shrink from.” Nevertheless, having entered upon it, we are sacredly bound to give ourselves wholly to it, and to make full proof of our ministry.

Our errand is the same as our Master’s, to seek and save the lost. Our mind and feeling must be the same as His-compassion for souls. Our great desire and aim must be the conversion of sinners. Less than this we dare not seek. With less than this we cannot be content. To be admired, to be applauded, to be followed, is nothing, so long as our ministry is unfruitful and our labors unsuccessful. Such were the apostle’s feelings, when he went about warning and entreating sinners day and night “with tears”: and when he said, “My little children of whom I travail in birth again till Christ be formed in you.” These surely ought to be the feelings and desires of everyone who has given himself to the ministry of the gospel, and bound himself by solemn vows to watch for souls. If we are really earnest, nothing will satisfy us but success. If we have truly “the desire of saving souls,” which we solemnly vowed at ordination, we can never be at rest unless we see some fruit of our labor. How sad, how criminal must be our condition, if we can go in and out among our people, and yet feel no anxiety about their souls, no concern whether many or few, or none, are turned from their iniquity? If souls are committed to us, and if souls are to be required of us, how can we be indifferent about their state. To those who treat the doctrines of regeneration and conversion as the dreams of fanaticism, indifference may seem a virtue, but to those who believe them to be solemn realities, it might appear a crime of fearful magnitude. Remissness in duty may be lightly spoken of, and lightly thought of now; unfaithfulness in preaching, or negligence in visiting, may press lightly upon the conscience now; but, oh, how different in the day of recompense, when the blood of souls shall be required at the watchman’s hands! Then, how overwhelming the anguish of the hireling shepherd that fed himself and not the flock! How agonizing the remorse that shall seize upon is guilty conscience, and wring from him the cry of the traitor Judas, “I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood”? And how bitter the response from the companions of his despair-the spirits that kept not their first estate-his seducers upon earth-“What is that to us, see thou to that?” The sad state of unconverted men may not disturb the easy quiet of his life; but oh, how dismal shall be the cry of lost souls resounding throughout eternity in the ears of the unfaithful shepherd; the cry of souls that were lost through his neglect, that perished because he never watched for them, never warned them, never prayed for them, never sought their conversion and salvation!

But let us observe the connection here declared to subsist between faithfulness and success in the work of the ministry; between a godly life, and the “turning away of many from iniquity.” The end for which we first took office as we declared at ordination was the saving of souls; the end for which we still live and labor is the same; the means to this end are a holy life and a faithful fulfillment of our ministry. The connection between these two things is close and sure. We are entitled to calculate upon it. We are called upon to pray and labor with confident expectation of it being realized; and where it is not, to examine ourselves with all diligence lest the cause of failure be found in ourselves; in our want (lack) of faith-our want of love-our want of prayer-our want of zeal and warmth-our want of spirituality and holiness of life, for it is by these that the Holy Spirit is grieved away. Success is attainable; success is desirable; success is promised by God, and nothing on earth can be bitterer to the soul of a faithful minister than the want of it. To walk with God, and to be faithful to our trust is declared to be the certain way of attaining it. Oh, how much depends on the holiness of our life-the consistency of our character-the heavenliness of our walk and conversation. Our position is such that we cannot remain neutral. Our life cannot be one of harmless obscurity. We must either repel or attract-save or ruin souls! How loud then the call, how strong the motive, to spirituality of soul and circumspectness (carefulness) of life! How solemn the warning against worldly-mindedness and vanity, against levity and frivolity, against negligence and sloth, and cold formality!”

-From the Preaching of Horatius Bonar in 1840 in a sermon entitled “The Faithful Minister Of The New Covenant”.

REFLECTIONS

Love Leads Us To Pray For Others 

“Confess your faults one to another, that ye may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much-James 5:16”

“Let our last article touch once more the key of love wherein the article preceding that of prayer was set. To speak of the Spirit’s work in our prayers, omitting the intercession of the saints, betrays a lack of understanding concerning the Spirit of grace.

Prayer for others is quite different from prayer for ourselves. The latter indeed is lawful; God even commands us “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving to make our requests known unto God.” Yet it may contain refined egoism even though it be followed by thanksgiving; hence to prayer is added intercession, that in prayer the breath of love may quench gently, yet effectually, remaining egoism, and leads us to the still holier prayer for the heavenly King and His Kingdom.

Christ prays for us, but the Bride must also pray for her heavenly Bridegroom. David’s prayer for Solomon points beyond Solomon to the Messiah: “Give the King Thy judgments, O God” (Ps. 72:1). In the twentieth and sixty-first Psalm s the same thought is expressed. However, this is not a prayer for His Person (for as such He is glorified already), but for the coming of His Kingdom, for the extending of His Name to the ends of the earth, for the gathering in of the souls of His elect.

In the Lord’s Prayer, this most holy petition stands even in the foreground; for when we pray, “Hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done,” we are inspired, not by love of self or for others, but by love for Him who is in heaven. It is true, we realize that the fulfilling of that prayer is most desirable for others and ourselves; still it is the love of God that stands here in the foreground. It is the summary of prayer eminently fitting the summary of the law: “Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God.” This is the first and great commandment. Then, “Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself.” And so in our prayer: first, for the cause of God, this is the first and great petition; then, prayer for the neighbor as for ourselves. Our prayer is the test of our relation to the first and great commandment.

And what is the work of the Holy Spirit in the prayer of intercession?

It is necessary here, for a clear understanding, to distinguish between a twofold intercession: (1) there is a prayer for the things that pertain to the body of Christ; and (2) another for the things that do not belong to that body, according to our impression and conception of the matter.

Prayer for kings, and for all that are in authority, does not concern the things that pertain to the body of Christ; neither does the prayer for our enemies, nor that for the place of our habitation, for country, army, and navy, for a bountiful harvest, for deliverance from pestilence, for trade and commerce, etc. All these pertain to the natural life, and to persons, whether saints or sinners, in their relation to the life of creation, and not to the Kingdom of Grace. But our prayer does concern the body of Christ, when we pray for the coming of the Lord, for a fresh anointing of the priests of God, for their being clothed upon with salvation, for success in the work of missions, for a baptism of the Holy Spirit, for strength in conflict, for forgiveness of sins, for the salvation of our loved ones… The first intercession has reference to the realm of nature, the second to the Kingdom of Grace. Hence in each of these two we must look for the bond of fellowship from which springs our prayer of intercession.

For every prayer of intercession presupposes fellowship with them for whom we pray; a fellowship which casts us into the same distress, and from which we look for deliverance, and that in such a way that the sorrow of one burdens us, and the joy of another causes us to give thanks. Where such vital fellowship does not exist, nor the love which springs from it, or where these are temporarily inactive, there may be formal intercession of words, but real intercession from the heart there cannot be.

With reference to the intercession in the realm of nature, the ground of this fellowship is naturally found in the fact that we are created of one blood. Humanity is one. The nations form an organic whole. It is a mighty truck with leafy crown; the nations and peoples are the branches thereof, successive generations the boughs, and each of us is a fluttering leaf. Belonging  together, living together upon the same root of our human nature, it is one flesh and blood, which from Adam to the last-born child covers every skeleton and runs through every man’s veins. Hence the desire for universal philanthropy; the claim that nothing be alien to us that is human; the necessity of loving our enemy and of praying for him, for he also is of our flesh and of our bones.

If we were like grains in a heap of sand, each grain might possibly send forth a sigh, but the mutual prayer of intercession would be out of the question. Being leaves, however, of the same tree of life, there is, apart from the groaning of every leaf, also a prayer for one another, a mutual prayer of the entire human life; “the whole creation groaneth.”

But in the Kingdom of Grace the fellowship of love is much stronger, firmer, and more intimate. There is here also an organic whole, even the body of Christ under Him the Head. It is not one converted person independent of another, and the two united by a mere outward tie of sympathy; nay, but a multitude of branches all springing form the root of Jesse; growing from the one vine; all organically one; saved and redeemed by the same ransom of His blood; proceeding from the one act of election; born again by the self-same regeneration; brought nigh by the same faith; breaking one bread and drinking from one cup.

And let us notice it well, this unity is doubly strong; for it is not independent of the fellowship of nature, but added to it. They who become members of the body of Christ are with us created from the one blood of Adam, and with us they are redeemed by the one blood of Christ. Hence there is here double root of fellowship. Flesh of our flesh, bones of our bones. Moreover, born from one decree; sealed by one baptism; joined together in one body; included in one promise; by and by sharers with us of the same inheritance.

In this double fellowship of life is rooted the love which mutually unites the children of God, especially in their prayers of intercession, a union which appears sometimes in their mutual prayer. Vital fellowship does not spring from our love for the people of God, but that love springs from the fellowship of the life of grace, common to all His saints. That which grows not from one root, and, therefore, shares not the same life, cannot attain to love in higher sense. Prayer for one another is born of the love to one another; and the love which unites us ascends from the one root of life upon which we are all grafted through grace, upon which by virtue of our creation from Adam we all were set. And thus the work of the Holy Spirit in the prayer of intercession will appear in clearest light.”

-From Abraham Kuyper’s The Work Of The Holy Spirit  Published by AMG Publishers  Chattanooga, TN  1995  Originally Published in 1900  Pages 676-679