PRAYER MEETING
4666 Minimum Of Organization
The ancient church had a minium of organization, but it had a maximum of power. The average church today has a maximum of organization but tragically lacks power.
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan once warned, “One of Satan’s methods today is to start so many organizations in a church that the members have no time for unhurried communion with God. Many Christians are so busy that they can hear only the clink and clatter of church machinery.”
Too often we are over-organized and under-agonized.
—Walter B. Knight
4667 Spurgeon’s Heating Apparatus
C. H. Spurgeon was showing some visitors over the Tabernacle (London). After taking them to the main part of the building, he said, “Come, and I’ll show you the heating apparatus.” Imagine their surprise, when he took them to a room where four hundred were gathered in a prayer meeting. The church with warmth of spirit must have the warmth-producing prayer meeting.
—Al Bryant
4668 Faraday’s Escape To Prayer Meeting
A crowded gathering of distinguished scientists had been listening spellbound to the masterly expositions of Michael Faraday. For an hour he had held his brilliant audience enthralled as he demonstrated the nature and properties of the magnet. He had brought his lecture to a close with an experiment so novel, so bewildering, and so triumphant, that for some time after he resumed his seat, the house rocked with enthusiastic applause. And the Prince of Wales—afterwards King Edward VII—rose to propose a motion of congratulations. The resolution, having been duly seconded, was carried with renewed thunders of applause.
Suddenly the uproar ceased and a strange silence settled over the audience. The assembly waited for Faraday’s reply.
But he did not appear.
Only his most intimate friends knew what had become of him. He was an elder in a little Sandemanian church—a church that never boasted more than twenty members.
The hour at which Faraday concluded his lecture was the hour of the weeknight prayer meeting.
—Christus Medicus Magnus
4669 Judge Black’s “Previous Engagement”
Judge Black, of Georgia, when he was a young lawyer, was invited to deliver an address of welcome to the Governor of the State on Monday evening. He took great pains to prepare his address, but a telegram came on Monday, saying that the Governor’s visit would be deferred till Wednesday evening. Mr. Black at once wrote the committee that a previous engagement would prevent his being present on Wednesday evening.
Few persons besides the pastor of his church knew that the previous engagement was the regular weekly prayer-meeting which the young Christian lawyer had set apart as sacredly devoted to the public worship of God; and no service to man or State, though it might be for his own promotion, could make him swerve from his purpose.
—Current Anecdotes
4670 General Gordon’s Value Scheme
When the heroic General Gordon went to the Sudan, his parting message to me was written on a card, and referring to a prayer meeting held at his house: “I value more the prayer of that little circle than all the wealth of the Sudan.”
—Selected
4671 From Prayer To Praise
Charles Spurgeon once called a meeting of his board to consider a pressing financial need of his famous Tabernacle. The members all agreed that the thing to do was to pray until the Lord sent the supply. At this point Mr. Spurgeon interrupted, “Wait a minute! Before you begin this prayer meeting there is something I’d like to do.” Taking a sheet of paper, he wrote, “C. H. Spurgeon gives 50 pounds.”
Next he passed it around that the others might write down how much they would give. When the “subscriptions” were totaled, the prayer meeting turned out to be a “praise and glory” session, for the need had been fully met!
—M. R. De Haan
4672 Wagon Delivers Answers
A family of a certain neighborhood was in dire need. This need was discussed, and it was decided to meet at the church at a certain hour and pray about the matter. Everyone present offered an urgent prayer for the relief of the family and were preparing to leave when a wagon loaded with groceries stopped at the door of the church. A lad shouted, “Folks, here’s my dad’s prayer for that family.”
—Mrs. Paul Evans
4673 A Special Place
Mohammedans tell us that one prayer offered in Mecca is worth eighty thousand prayers offered anywhere else. The followers of some other religions entertain similar beliefs. Christ clearly taught that there is a place for prayer to which he attaches special importance.
—D. J. Burrell
4674 The Manuscript Slave
There was a preacher who was a manuscript slave. He not only wrote his sermons, but he read them, word for word, from the pulpit. One Sunday night the lights went out in the church. The minister thought someone was playing a practical joke on him. “Turn the lights on,” he demanded in a stern voice. He was told that the lights were definitely off. What could he do? He could not speak extemporaneously, even in an emergency. He wisely said, “If the power is off, it is time to pray!” The service was turned into a prayer meeting, and all went well.
—Tom M. Olson
4675 Meaningless Meetings
Finney tells how a lifeless prayer meeting, before his conversion, nearly made him an atheist. He says: “This inconsistency, the fact that these Christians prayed so much and were not answered, was a sad stumblingblock to me. I knew not what to make of it.” When he was asked if he did not desire their prayers, he said: “No; I am conscious that I am a sinner, but I do not see that it will do any good for you to pray for me, for you are continually asking, but you do not receive.”
—J. H. Bomberger
4676 Epigram On Prayer Meeting
• The popularity of a CHURCH is measured by its Sunday morning attendance and the popularity of the PREACHER by its Sunday evening attendance. However, the popularity of the LORD is measured at the prayer meeting.
—The Bible Friend