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{The Application
Application for the Godly
The Right Performance of Holy Duties
Directions for the Duty of Prayer
Saints: Learn the Skill to Plead with God in Prayer}
Learn the skill to plead with God in prayer. Though the breasts are full, they must be drawn hard before the milk will come. Though the Lord is willing to give to those who ask, He will have them first prove they are in earnest. He has furnished us with a store of arguments with which to press Him, and He wants us to use them.256 We must strive with God if we are to prevail, and the best striving is with His own weapons. The counsel I give you in this is to plead hard with God, but plead with Him using His own arguments. There are, among many others, these four bases257 on which to build your plea:
On God Himself
On Christ
On the promise
On experiences
{The Application
Application for the Godly
The Right Performance of Holy Duties
Directions for the Duty of Prayer
Saints: Learn the Skill to Plead with God in Prayer
Plead on God Himself}
When pleading on the basis of God Himself, there are two special things from which you may plead.
Pleading on God’s Gracious Nature
{The Application
Application for the Godly
The Right Performance of Holy Duties
Directions for the Duty of Prayer
Saints: Learn the Skill to Plead with God in Prayer
Plead on God Himself
Pleading on God’s Gracious Nature}
Fetch your arguments by which you plead with God for mercy from the same place He originally fetched His arguments to persuade Himself to show mercy: from His own mercy, compassion, and gracious nature and from His natural goodness and gracious inclination to mercy. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NASB). “Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven and which are on earth—in Him” (Ephesians 1:5–10 NKJV). Here we have heaped up in a few words the riches of mercy that God has bestowed on His people: Christ His beloved, redemption through Christ, forgiveness of our sins, adoption as His children, acceptance in His sight, and the revelation of the mystery of His will, that is His disclosure and making known these glorious mercies to us. But what is behind all of this? Who or what persuaded the Lord to this abundant kindness? Why, all this arose from Himself; He purposed in Himself; He consulted no other argument but what He found in His own heart. It was God’s love, the good pleasure of His will, His grace, and the riches of His grace that caused Him to abound toward us. “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath” (Hosea 11:8–9 ESV). How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? I cannot do it; I will not do it. I will not execute my burning anger. I will not destroy Ephraim. But why will you not be angry, Lord? Why will you not destroy Ephraim? Oh, says the Lord, “My heart recoils within me.” My heart says to spare him. My mercy and compassion say to destroy him not. “I am God and not a man.” I love him and my love is the love of a God. I have compassion on him and my compassion is the pity of a God. I will bear with him. I am a God of patience; love is my nature and pity, mercy, and compassion are my nature. I cannot destroy Ephraim without denying my own nature. Love, pity, mercy, and goodness are essential to God. He can as soon cease to be God as to cease to be gracious, and this is the source of all of our mercy. From God’s graciousness came Christ with the Gospel and all the unsearchable riches of mercy prepared for poor, lost, and undone creatures. When you come to pray, fetch your arguments from this. Plead with the Lord on the basis of His own nature, natural love, grace, and goodness. Thus we find the apostle Peter praying for the Christians to whom he wrote: “But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you” (1 Peter 5:10 NKJV).258 Plead with the Lord in your prayers like the psalmist pleads with himself in his affliction, “Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” (Psalm 77:7–9 ESV). It is not much wonder that people, in their low condition, should be merciless and forget themselves and their friends. But has God, who is all grace and all mercy and all pity—has God forgotten? Does mercy cease to be merciful and grace cease to be gracious? Does compassion cease to be full of pity? Has God not only forgotten His servant, but forgotten Himself? Remember yourself, Lord, remember your own heart and being, remember me according to it.259
Pleading on God’s Glorious Name
{The Application
Application for the Godly
The Right Performance of Holy Duties
Directions for the Duty of Prayer
Saints: Learn the Skill to Plead with God in Prayer
Plead on God Himself
Pleading on God’s Glorious Name}
The Lord’s nature is to be gracious, and according to His nature, so is His Name. “The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation’” (Exodus 34:5–7 ESV). This is an argument that the Lord puts into the mouths of His people, telling them, “But I had concern for my holy name. … It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name …” (Ezekiel 36:21–22). And, on this, we find His people frequently pleading with Him. “For Your name’s sake, Lead me and guide me” (Psalm 31:3 NKJV).260 “Do not despise us, for Your own name’s sake; Do not disgrace the throne of Your glory; Remember and do not annul Your covenant with us” (Jeremiah 14:21 NASB). Go, you, and plead likewise.
{The Application
Application for the Godly
The Right Performance of Holy Duties
Directions for the Duty of Prayer
Saints: Learn the Skill to Plead with God in Prayer
Plead on Christ}
There are four things from which you may plead with God concerning Christ.
{The Application
Application for the Godly
The Right Performance of Holy Duties
Directions for the Duty of Prayer
Saints: Learn the Skill to Plead with God in Prayer
Plead on Christ
God’s gift of Christ}
The Lord has given you Christ as your Lord and Savior. Therefore, because of this gift, you may call Him your own.
{The Application
Application for the Godly
The Right Performance of Holy Duties
Directions for the Duty of Prayer
Saints: Learn the Skill to Plead with God in Prayer Plead on Christ
The Purchase by Christ}
Christ has purchased from the hand of the Father all that you stand in need of. He has bought you your lives. “You were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20). He has bought you a livelihood and has purchased an inheritance and possession for you (1 Peter 1:4).
The Relationship That Christ Has with the Father
{The Application
Application for the Godly
The Right Performance of Holy Duties
Directions for the Duty of Prayer
Saints: Learn the Skill to Plead with God in Prayer
Plead on Christ
Relationship Christ Has with the Father}
We may plead on Christ’s relationship with the Father. Christ is the Son of God and the Son of His love. He is the Servant of God in whom the Father’s soul delights. “Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights” (Isaiah 42:1 NASB). Christ’s name is so precious and powerful with the Father that it will carry any appeal or obtain any request. “In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you” (John 16:23 ESV).
The Relationship That You Have with Christ
{The Application
Application for the Godly
The Right Performance of Holy Duties
Directions for the Duty of Prayer
Saints: Learn the Skill to Plead with God in Prayer
Plead on Christ
The Relationship You Have with Christ}
We may plead on the relationship we have with Christ. As Christ is precious to His Father, so you are precious to Him. As the Father can deny Christ nothing, so Christ can deny His people nothing. “And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it” (John 14:13–14 ESV). Christ gives you commission to put His name on all your requests, and whatever prayer comes up with His name on it, He will procure an answer to it. Now when you are praying for any mercy, especially for any soul mercy, make use of all these arguments. Lord, You have given Christ to me; will You not, with Him, give all things I stand in need of? Have You given me the spring, and will You deny me the stream? When I beg pardon of sin, power against sin, holiness, and so forth, is not all this granted me in Your gift of Christ to me? Is not Christ mine, and is not His blood mine to obtain my pardon? Is not His Spirit mine to subdue my iniquities? Are these mine and will You withhold them from me? Oh, shall this guilt lie upon me, these sins live in me, and these lusts rule over me—when, if You were to put in my hand that which You have already given me as a grant, all this would be removed from me? Look on Christ, Lord; You have said to me, “Look to Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2); give your servant leave to say the same to You, “Look on Jesus,” and give out to me that which You have given to me in giving Him to me. Look on the purchase of Christ. Do I need anything or desire anything except what my Lord has bought and paid for at a price You accepted? Look upon the name of Christ, which You may see is written on every prayer I make. You may say that for my own sake [merit], I will get nothing, not a drop, not a crumb. Yet will You say that for Christ’s sake [merit], I will have nothing? Is not that name still a mighty name and a precious name before the Lord?
Plead on Promises and Experiences
{The Application
Application for the Godly
The Right Performance of Holy Duties
Directions for the Duty of Prayer
Saints: Learn the Skill to Plead with God in Prayer
Plead on Promises and Experiences}
By the hints given above, you may learn how to plead with God from any other arguments drawn from His promises, your experience, and so on.
The Use and Benefit of the Saint’s Pleading with God in Prayer
{The Application
Application for the Godly
The Right Performance of Holy Duties
Directions for the Duty of Prayer
Saints: Learn the Skill to Plead with God in Prayer
Use and Benefit of Pleading with God in Prayer}
Question:
But of what use is this pleading with God and how does it help us to prevail upon Him?
Answer 1:
It is not of use to change the purpose of God, that is, to prevail upon Him to do something for us that He had not [eternally] resolved to do. Rather, it is to bring forth His purposes into action. We may say, concerning the purposes of God, what He Himself says concerning the accomplishment of His promise: “Thus says the Lord God: This also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them: to increase their people like a flock” (Ezekiel 36:37 ESV). Such praying fetches out those mercies that were in the heart of God and puts them into our hand.261
Answer 2:
By pleading with God for His attention, we plead ourselves into trust, a more firm belief that the Lord accepts and will answer. And if by all these arguments we can plead ourselves into a stronger faith, our faith will certainly bring us down a more full answer.
256God does not at all need our arguments, nor are they necessary to prayer in any absolute sense, especially in an emergency. The alert reader will note as he or she reads on that the use of these arguments will help us humbly glorify God, ask according to His will, and trust His character and promises. When such prayers are answered, God is glorified, faith is increased, and thanksgiving abounds.
257bases: here, plural of basis
258In 1 Peter 5:10, translators differ in how they render the passage. The KJV and NKJV render it as a blessing, benediction, or prayer. The ESV, KJ3, and NASB render it as a promise. Thus, not every translation will reflect Alleine’s treatment of the passage as a prayer.
259As God is omniscient and all-knowing, He must necessarily remember all things. But, in condescending to communicate with people, God, in Scripture, often uses anthropomorphic language to describe Himself and His actions. As exemplified in the Psalms, He invites us to reverently use the same language if we are so helped in our prayers. Similar examples include “make haste,” “give ear,” “behold,” and so on. When God “remembers” His people, He brings things to pass for their good.
260Most modern translations insert “you” or “you will” in front of “lead me.” These insertions are not in the Hebrew. The KJV and NKJV translate the w after “fortress” as “therefore,” a meaning that w occasionally has. In this context, it makes sense to make no insertions and treat the following text as a prayer. But w is much more commonly rendered “and.” When this is done, the insertions reasonably follow from a grammatical standpoint. Alleine, following the KJV or similar version, treats the end of the passage as a prayer instead of a promise.
261In the final analysis, prayer remains a holy mystery unexplainable by humans. We must simply trust what the Scriptures teach by precept and example (especially in the Psalms) and leave the mystery to God.
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