The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1894-01-15

topray God to send me to that church. On
Sunday morning her sister came home and
said, "Who do you think preached for US
this morningl" She guessed number of
ministers that had been in the habit of
exchanging with the pastor, and finally
gave 1t up. The sister said, "It is Mr..
Moody, from America" The poor woman
turned pale and said, 81 know what that
means, that Is In answer to prayer. There
Is going to be great work here" The
servants brought up her dinner, but she
said, "No, no dinner for me today, spend
this day in prayer" And that night
while was preaching she was praying,
and In answer to her prayers the power Of
God just fell upon the audience.
My dear friends, believe that when
Gods books are opened there will be some
hidden one that will be much nearer the
throne than you and are.
And now at the beginning of this week
OF prayer, let US pray God to give US the
spirit OF prayer. Let us expect great
things, and we will not be disappointed il
our expectations are from God. Let our
expectations be from Him, not from man.
IL you look to man you are going to be
disappointed; but God will never disap-
point you. Bring your burden here and
pray 1t out before God, and ask Him to do
SrcdI anu I1lBnty tnlngs.
Now today and tomorro w want TO call
your attention to ten elements to all true
prayer. You know Christ never taught
His disciples how to preach. When
Christ got His theological students
around Him, He taught them how to
pray. And i think we often ought to
make that prayer, "Lord, teach us how to
pray" won't have time to go through
all of them this afternoon, but / will take
them up again.
First, there Is contrition. am some-
times ashamed of myself to think how
fluent am when go into the presence Of
God. AS II God was on an equal footing
with me, or rather as il was on an equal
footing with God, as il there was no diff
erence between us. Let us bear in mind
that God is holy. The nearer we get to
Him the more we will think of His holi-
ness and abhor ourselves. We will grow
smaller and He larger. One of the truest
signs that man is growing great is that
God increases and he decreases. Why,
some people will talk about themselves by
the yard. 81, ], /, l." There will be 40 rs
in a speech Of five minutes long. That is
a sign that you are not growing in grace,
but 'you are growing in conceit
But when we get near to God, how shall
we look, and how great God seemsl And
you remember when Isaiah saw God he
cried" "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of
Hosts" And then what did he cry? That
he was unclean and dwelt with unclean
people, and he wanted the coal to be taken
from off the alter and put upon his lips
that his iniquity might be purged away.
Now, ii is one thing to hear God, but
when we see Him it will be another thing,
and let us keep it in mind that contrition
is the first thing. You rer.iember that
Christ taught His disciples to pray, He
said, "Our Father"
Then the next thing that follows is the
confession of our sins. There is no true
prayers without confession. As long as
we have unconfessed sin in our soul we
are not going to have power with God in
prayer. He says II we regard iniquity in
| our hearts He will not hear us, much less
answer. As long as we are living in any
| known sin we have no power in prayer.
God is not going to hear it. 1t is
| prayerless prayer and an abomination to
| God and man. What God wants is reality.
| Now IL there is some sin we have hidden
| in our hearts that we are not willing to
| confess, then of course we cannot pray.
| Put the question to yourself, can you
pray? don't mean to go through form,
| but have you power with God in prayer?
How many times do you hear people get
| up in prayer meeting to pray, but tGere is
no power in it? II a man doesn't treat his
wife right he needn't pray. 1t is all
farce, you know. He says the sacrifice of
| the wicked is an abomination to God. IL
sacrifice is an abomination to God. do you
| tell me that the prayers of q man or
woman who is not living right is not an
abomnation to God? Now you must
bear in mind that there must be true con-
fession before we are going to have an
answer to prayer. Not to confess and then
go and do the same thing over again, but
| just turn from the sin.
NV dear friend, IL there isanything In
your life that is wrong, make up your mind
that you are not going to let the sun go
down before you confess it. Let me read
you few verses from the 32nd Psalm
Blessed Is he whose transgression is
| forgiven" "There Is no confession
up to this time. He didn't prosper because
he would not confess" (First to the fifth
yerse) But now notice, 81 acknowledge
my sin unto thee, and my iniquity have
not hid. / said, will confess my trans
gressions unto the Lord; and thou for
| gavest the iniquity of my sim" See just
the moment he confessed, the Lord for
gave, and then it was that he had power
with God in prayer.
Now the next true element to prayer is
restitution. 1t is folly for US to ask God
to do something for us that we can do for
ourselves. don't believe that we preach
restitution enough. IL have five dollars
in my pocket that belongs to some one else
and / try to cheat him out of it, can
pray? You will find men who are chea.-
ing their neighbors, and they cannot pray,
it won't work at all. What we' want
today is revival Of righteousness, a re-
vival Of uprightness. / sometimes hear
man say, "Hallelujah," and it is like file
right across my nerves. look into his
face and know that it is not real.
Now, "Hallelujah" comes in oil
right IL 1t proceeds from the heart.
don't object to thing of that kind once
in while, just a little OF It; but TO have
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