The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1886-06-30
IN EVERY THING By PRAYER.

~ seek rlrBt Sne hlnRuOm OI OOu anu HIS
RighteOusness"-The Law Of the Pre-
Eminence OF Spiritual Things.
The latitude allowed the believer in
prayer is as wide as human need is 1t
would be hard to frame more unlim
tied privilege of petition than this one
found in Philippians iv. The apostle
here speaks Of prayer and supplica-
ton" 1t has been suggested that the
term prayer in this passage is meant
to cover general prayer; that is, the
souls attitude toward God in commun-
ion, IN confession, in thanksgiving,
and in all audible or articulate wOr-
ship; and that "supplication'' is in
tended to cover specific petition for
any felt need Of spirit, soul or body.
1t does not matter much whether this
is correct exegesis or not; the ''ev-
erything' of the injunction is broad
enough. Certainly we are warranted
in laying all our petitions before God
without hesitancy or reserve. We must
believe that specific petition is in
cluded in this promise or permission;
that it covers definite needs, and is
not meant simply to be spiritual ex-
ercise which will work reflex benefit
upon the spiritual life OF the petitioner.
When our Lord babe us ask, and
said we should receive; seek, and we
should find; knock, and it should be
opened unto us, He certainly diu not
mean that this promise would be met
by spiritual benefit only. and not by
the reception of the thing asked for. 1t
is not to be understood as though a
mother should say to her children:
'When you are hungry, come to me
and Ask, and ye shall receive;'" and
when the children came again, and
again asked and did not receive, the
mother should say: "Of course l did
not mean that would give you any
thing to eat; l only wanted to train
you into sense of dependence upon
me. Keep on asking. 1t will do you
good; and by and by you will learn to
do without food" This is not the
meaning of Gods promise to the ask
ing, seeking and knocking believer.
Most of the difficulties in prayer lie
in the region between the theory of
mere subjective benefit and that of
specific answer 10 prayer. The man
who wants specific answer to prayer is
not content with mere reflex benefit;
and if specific answer Is not realized,
then the believer wonders why 1t is
that there is, to say the least, a SEEM
ing failure of the promise. We think
it is not difficult to clear this difficulty.
All our wants are either in the class
spiritual or temporal. As to the spir-
itual needs, these are c0nfessedly al
most always answered when prayer
for them is perseverlng. But as to the
temperoral needs, these are confessed
ly not SO frequently answered. The
reason for this may be two-fold. First,
those of Gods people who are found in
most frequent trouble on this score are
not those who are the most assiduOus
in the cultivation of their spiritual life.
In other words, it seems to us that the
moment we put temporal benefits in
advance Of spiritual things, either in
the order or in the frequency of our
prayer. we are cOntravening the very
first condition of prayer. As to tenn
poral things the Lord has clearly
taught us that while He will supply
them and will have us seek from His
hand our daily bread, He does not
want us to be careful about these
things. for the reason that "He
knoweth that we have need of them, "
and as a father will supply them
without our asking or being urgent
about them. He teaches us that the
body Is more than the raiment, and the
life is more than the body. He shows
us how it is that the heather. who
have no knowledge nor sense OF Divine
Fatherhood, are always seeking after
these things" They have no care MOI
even thought of the higher spiritual
realities which our Father de-
sires us to be careful about. There
fore, the general injunction of oul
Lord Is that we "Seek first the King.
dom of God and His righteousness
and He adds the promise: "And al
these things shall be added unto YOU
He would have us careless about tenn
poral things and urgent about spiritual
things. He has given US in His owr
life illustrations of this. He voluntarily
became poor, not that He might glorif,
poverty into an ordinance. but that HI
might dignity that poverty which il
poor, because spiritual wealth and Di
vine service is preferred before it. 81
have meat to eat that ye know not Of '
my meat is to do the will of Hin
that sent me-" This lets us into tn,
secret of the utter subordination of tn,
temporal to the spiritual. Now, in oul
Judgment, the, most of us are not com
ing within long range of reducing this
rule of the Kingdom of God to prac
tice. And so long as we are not walk
ing by this rule we may not wonder i
prayer for temporary things remains
to u great extent unanswered. w,
warrant the assertion that there is n,
disciple who is honestly seeking frs
the Kingdom of God and His right
eousness," who will be found maxim!
any complaint of the lack of Temporal
things.
Then. again, is it not true that aver,
large proportion of the temporal thing
which We are seeking after are alon.
the line of mere carnal desirep Tn,
great apostle had at the end of his lif,
reached Gf he had not before) this es
tate. II know how to be sbased and