Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1893-12-06

ny text there Wis Eparoxysm OF earnestness
100 mighty for words. 1t will take half of an
sternity to tell of all the answers OF earnest
md faithful prayer. In his last Journal
David Livingstone, in Africa, records the
| prayer so soon to be answered: ''19 March
! ny birthday. My Jesus, my God, my life,
| ny all, again dedicate my whole self TO
| Thee. Accept me, and grant. o gracious
'ather, that ere this wear is gone may finish
| " task. In Jesus name 1 ask it. Amen"
When the dusky servant looked into Liy-
| ngstone's tent and found him dead on his
Knees, he saw that the prayer had been an
/ swered. But notwithstanding the earnest
hess OF the prayer of Moses in the text, it
was a defeated prayer and was not an
| swered think the two ''ifs" in the PRAYER
any prayer, whatever other good character
| sites it may have. ''If Thou wilt forgive
| heir sins-and II not, blot me, pray Thee.
put of Thy book" God did neither As the
| following verses show, He punished their
| sins, but am sure did not blot out one let
| Ter of the name of Moses from the Book of
| Life.
There Is only one kind of prayer in which
you need to put the ''if," and that is the
prayer for temporal blessings. Pray for
riches, and they may engulf US f; or for fame,
and 1t may bewitch us; or for worldly sue
cess, and it may destroy US. Better say, "If
it be best, ;" "If can make proper use of ii ~
''If Thou seest need it," wife praying for
the recovery of her husband from illness,
stamped her foot and said with frightfui
emphasis ~ will not have him die. God
shall not take him." Her prayer was an
swered. but in few years after the cc-"'-"
nifty was shocked BY the fact that he had
moment of anger slain her.
A mother, praying for a sons recover from
Illness, told the Lord he had no right to take
him, and the boy recovered, but plunged in
to all denominations and died a renegade
Better in all such prayers and all prayers
pertaining to our temporal welfare to put an
| ''n, saying, "If it be Thy will. D." But in pray
ing for spiritual good and the salvation of
our soul we need never insert an ''If" Our
spiritual welfare is sure to be for the best,
and away with the "ifs.''
Abraham's prayer for the rescue of Sodom
was grand prayer in some respects but
there were six "ifs" in it, or "peradven-
lures, " which mean the same thing per
adventure there may be fifty righteous in the
city, peradventure forty-aye, peradventure
forty, peradventure thirty, peradventure
twenty, peradventure ten" Those six per-
adventures, those six ''if's" killed the prayer
and Sodom went down and went under.
Nearly all the prayers that were answered
had no Ifs in them-the prayer of Elijah
that changed dry weather to wet weather,
the prayer that changed Hezekiah from a
sick man TO well man, the prayer that
halted sun and moon without shaking the
universe TO pieces.
Ou, TdliF your sOul lOr prayer Win no
offs" in II Say in substance: Lord Thou
hast promised pardon, and 1 take it. Here
are my wounds; heal them. Here is my
blindness irradiate it. Here are my chains
OF bondage; by the gospel hammer strike
them of. / am fleeing tothe City of Refuge,
and am sure this is the right way. Thanks
be to God, am free!'
Once. by the law. my hopes were slain,
Bat now, in Christ. l live again.
With the Mosaic earnestness of my text
and without its Mosaic ''ifs," let US cry out
for God. Aye, if words fail us let Us take
the suggestion of that printers dash ofthe
text, and with wOrdless silence implors
pardon and comfort and lie and heaven.
For this assemblage, all of whom l shall
meet in the last judgment, dare not offer
the prayer Of my text, and so | change it and
say, Lord God, forgive our sins and write
our names in the book OF Thy loving remam-
brance, from which they shall never be blot
ted ont -