[AI translation] Last Sunday I spoke about the first half of the same Word, so now I just want to talk about the second half, the one about the power of prayer.The new Hungarian Bible translations, which are more adapted to the original Greek text, say this verse, "There is great power in the fervent supplication of the righteous". Or this: "Much can be done by the fervent supplication of a righteous man". So it is not only a useful thing when we pray, but a powerful, mighty action, an act in which power, heavenly energy, is at work, from which, in the context of the divine Word: the sick man is healed, the brother in trouble receives divine help. Now, if we understand this Word in this way, we must first of all say frankly that our prayer, our supplication, is not like this! It has no such power, it has no such effect, no such heavenly power, it is not so useful! It has no special use, neither for others nor for ourselves!
What is the meaning, for example, of the prayer we say before a meal, which a few minutes later, at the soup, we can't even remember if we have prayed it! We forget it right away. And if Jesus took this little prayer, "Be our guest", more seriously than we do, and actually showed up as our guest, he might be sadly listening to our conversation at the table. Our prayer, for example, is not worth that much! Or is the prayer worth more that one says in the evening, tired, lying in bed, so that afterwards, as one who has done all his work for the day, he can pull the duvet over his ears and go to sleep? Could this prayer be said to be 'very useful' or to have 'great power'? I think not! There is no power in it! It is of no use except to lull you to sleep. Or is it the prayer that we say together in the congregation at the beginning and end of the service that has such power and benefit? Which, when it gets a little longer, stretches: we get distracted, we doze off, which is just such a familiar way of beginning and ending our gatherings? Would these prayers have any particular effect on the life of the whole congregation?!
Fathers! I was horrified when I read this Word and added to it our usual prayers, our prayer requests. Because our prayers, let us be quite frank, without embellishment, are not "very useful, very powerful, very effective". Much sadder than we usually think. Jesus at the time was very sharply opposed to the powerless, empty prayer practice of his time. Do you remember the strange story of Jesus cursing the barren fig tree because it had only leaves and no fruit? Well: it was symbolic, because the fig tree was the tree under which the Jews used to pray. For the Jews of that time, prayer was a fruitless religious ritual, it was fruitless, it was of no use. Prayer which does not produce blessings, which does not produce the healing and cleansing powers of God: such prayer, like the fig tree which does not bear fruit, has no reason to exist! Such a prayer without profit, like the fig tree that bears no fruit, is useless! There is no need!
I believe, Brothers and Sisters, that we should learn anew the meaning and practice of prayer. From this Word we see that the prayer which the Apostle says is very useful, that it has great power: communal prayer. It is not a private, private affair, a spiritual exercise, an individual act of devotion, but a serious, difficult service of a community. Here, it is a matter of a member of the congregation being ill, in trouble, suffering, or in some great sin. So the life of the congregation has been invaded by the forces of the underworld, the demonic powers of Satan. Now: let the rest of you line up, weave a prayer ring around the troubled brother, confess the sin that has caused the disturbance, pray together for one another, for "the fervent supplication of the righteous is very profitable". So, once again, we are talking about several people, several believers praying together for a common cause. This has such a good effect, such great power, says the apostle.
We have become quite accustomed to thinking that true prayer is a communal matter: the common service of two or three or more people together in the name of Christ. Yet the Bible hardly speaks of private prayer, but more of the congregation praying together. When Jesus says, "Go into your inner room and pray," he is not trying to separate you from others, but to protect you against prayer that is an outward show. But he is no longer telling you to go into your inner room alone. You can go there with your wife and children, with your prayer partners, with your prayer community! The only problem is that we don't have one - not an inner room, but a prayer room - that we don't have such a prayer community! We are left to ourselves even in prayer. We do it alone! That's what it is!
Well, the Word warns us that it is in prayer together that the power lies. This is what has been given the greatest promises. Notice: plural second person: "Ask and it shall be given you" - "Whatever you ask the Father in my name shall be given to you" - "If you had as much faith as a mustard seed..." - "May it be done to you according to your faith". More people put their faith together than their hands: more blessings fit, more they can accept. - Here one is freed from one of the greatest dangers of prayer: the egocentric, self-centred attitude. That is to say, our prayers revolve mostly around our own individual needs, and because of this we forget that prayer is about the very task we are supposed to do for others. A praying life that does not make praying for others its primary task is a fruitless one! It is useless!
I don't know if you have noticed how many times I have said it this way: prayer service, prayer as a task, as a work to be done, as a service. Well, yes, it is precisely that prayer, this kind of communal prayer: it is indeed a very real task, a service, a work to be done, and therefore useful. It is just that we hardly know the meaning of such spiritual work, spiritual service. We are so accustomed to material things that we consider as realistic only the power that man exerts with machines, engines, explosives, that is, by technical means, or chemical means, that is, materially. Today, however, when atomic physics has shown that matter is not a material reality, that behind the whole visible material world there is an invisible, non-material world as a background, as a creative and sustaining force, it is becoming more and more realistic from a scientific point of view that other factors may also be involved in the development of life than what scientists have hitherto recognised and investigated. We are slowly beginning to realise that our ancestors of two thousand years ago were not wrong to attribute real power to thought, word and prayer.
So what the apostle says, that there is great power in the fervent supplication of the righteous man, is not so outdated a view, but is becoming very modern. For prayer is nothing other than conscious involvement in that invisible, non-material world which is the creative and sustaining background of the whole visible, material world, of our bodies, of the history of the world; conscious involvement, involvement in that other factor, let us say, the thought and will of God, which is the supreme guide of life here on earth. So prayer is really an inner spiritual work, and in a double sense: one accepts and passes on something. In other words: he accepts and understands the heavenly influences, he opens himself to the forces of Christ. On the other hand, he immediately transmits the same to others, he involves others in the same power. So prayer is not really a relic of an outmoded lifestyle of the modern age, but something very sober, realistic and indispensable! What? Service! The service of men for men! - Imagine two men digging a well, each in his own garden. Later it turns out that both wells get their water from the same water vein underground. If one person poisons the water in his own well, the water in the other well will also be poisoned. And if one purifies the water in his own well, the water in the other well will also be purified by him. Such is the effect of true prayer for one another! Outwardly we humans are separated from each other by the boundaries of our bodies. But psychology has long said that in the realm of the unconscious there are no sharp boundaries between one soul and another soul, between the prayers of a group of people for a person or group in trouble.
Can you already feel the real help that prayer can bring? Do you sense what mysterious depths are here when the apostle James says: "Pray for one another that you may be healed, for it is very profitable for the righteous to pray earnestly." Do you already feel what an important service, a service for the sake of one another, for the benefit of one another, for the healing of one another, is involved in prayer?! Prayer is one of the chief ministries of the church of Christ. It is just as much a concrete service of prayer as, for example, caring for the poor, proclaiming the Word, witnessing to Christ. The sacred task of the church of Christ is to help, support and advance God's cause in this world through prayer: to help the preaching of the Word and the church's conversion through prayer; to fight against all the powers of evil through prayer; to help world politics to move in the right direction through prayer; to prepare the way for the kingdom of God through prayer...
Do you know that all over the world the Christian Church is now beginning to realise this task, and more and more places are forming prayer groups and prayer communities which are undertaking and carrying out prayer for others as a task, work and service entrusted to them?! And when the congregation meets here in the church, is it not in the house of prayer? Did not Jesus call the church a house of prayer? And we have made our churches into auditoriums, that is, into halls for an "audience" - not an army of worshippers, but an audience! And yet the climax of every church service should be when the congregation is engaged in the service of prayer. Unfortunately, we no longer go to church so much to worship together as to listen to a pastor's sermon and then, at best, discuss how it went. Yet in church we also receive another great gift: the opportunity to join in prayer, to share in the active ministry of prayer.
Finally, I would like to emphasise just one small word in this Word: "The fervent supplication of the just is very profitable." In other words, the prayer and prayer service of the not-true man is not useful, it is not worth much. There is a terrible example of this in the Old Testament. We recently read in our keynote and discussed it in Bible class: the Ark of the Covenant, symbolizing the presence of God, is carried in a chariot to Jerusalem. The oxen overturn the cart, the holy ark almost topples over. Uzzah, one of the men beside the cart, with great good will and human fervour, leaps to it, extends his hand to protect the holy relic from toppling over. At that moment it falls dead. Why?! He meant well! He wanted to help the cause of God. By this terrible example God shows that His cause is a holy cause, not to be touched with unclean hands and an unclean heart! Human zeal and good will are in vain: it is not that that is needed, but clean hands and a clean life. The service of prayer is the most sacred service and the most difficult service. Only the righteous man and the community of righteous men can do it in such a way that it is useful, that there is power in it, that healing, awakening, renewal arise in the congregation as a result of it.
The righteous man is not the sinless man, but the man declared righteous on the merits of Christ's death, acquitted of the condemnation of Jesus in his place. The man who repents of his sins, the man who confesses his sins, the man who has received forgiveness of sins, the man who has been cleansed from his sins by the blood of Christ: this is the righteous man! There is nothing in the world that so hinders, so clogs up the power of prayer, as unrepented of, unconfessed, and unconfessed sin, and unconfessed sin put under the blood of Christ. Only the community of prayer of men cleansed by the blood of Christ can be a channel through which the blessings of God, the restoring, healing powers of the Spirit of God, can flow into this world. There will be no power in your prayers until you are cleansed from all sin in the blood of Christ. But then it is true here, it is true now, that "the fervent supplication of the just is very profitable."
Would that the consciousness of the powerlessness of our own prayers would bring us down at the feet of Jesus, and that our souls would be filled with sincere supplication:
"Christ, I have no one else to come to but you,
I have no one to heal me in my sickness;
From such an ulcer I have no one to cleanse me,
From my dangerous wounds and deliverance.
Kindle the web of thy blessed holy Word,
And wake in me the day of thy mercy;
Show me the right way for my poor,
That I may please thy holy Majesty.
(Canto 226, verses 1-2)
Amen
Date: 20 October 1957.
Lesson
1Krón 13,5-14