The immense attention of god - Chambers, Oswald
June 24, 1917, Zeitoun ,Sunday mornings Service & devotional hut
And when he opened the seventh seal, there followed a silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. Revelation 8:1 (RV )
If we are ever going to understand the book of the revelation we have to remember that it gives the programme of god, not the guess of a man. Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter. The apostle is writing what the spirit revealed to him that is the origin of the book. Apocalyptic literature is never easy to understand, its language is either a revelation or fantastic nonsense. We study it and worry over it and never begin to make head or tail of it, while obedience will put us on the line of understanding. Spiritual truth is never discerned by intellect, only by moral obedience. God brings his marvels to pass in lives by means of prayer, and the prayers of the saints are part of gods programme.
The presentation of Christianity which is not based on the new testament produces an abortion that a mans main aim is to get saved and put right for heaven; new testament Christianity produces a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ and a mans notions are not centred on himself. The great aim of the holy spirit is to get us abandoned to god. God allows the prayers of the saints, those who have entered into an understanding of his mind and purpose, to be brought to him. We are busy praying that our particular phase of things may succeed, that mens souls may be saved; but what is meant by a saved soul is frequently determined by our doctrine of salvation and not by a personal relationship to Jesus Christ. We are devotees of one tiny phase of what Jesus Christ came to do: he came not only to save mens souls, but to bring many sons unto glory. We have lost out on that line altogether, we who are the saved souls where has been the production of disciples? That is not our line, it has no success, it cannot be tabulated. There has been no silence in heaven over our prayers, they have not entered into the programme of god, they have not been based on the redemption; we have had no concern for the revelation of Jesus Christ, only for a particular phase of our own.
The whole idea of the prayers of the saints is that gods holiness, gods purpose and gods wise ways may be brought about irrespective of who comes or goes. The notion has grown almost imperceptibly that god is simply a blessing machine for men if i link myself on to god he will see me through; instead, the human race is meant to be the servant of god, a different thing altogether. If some of us are ever going to see god we shall have to go one step outside our particular relationship to things, religious or otherwise, and step into the revelation that Jesus Christ is our lord and master as well as our saviour.
God is using us in his own purposes, we have to remain true to his honour. Though he slay me, yet will i wait for him ( job 13:15 RV)that is the true nobility of the saint. Are we praying on the authority of the redemption or on the ground of a preconceived notion of our own? Do we really believe that the basis of human life is redemption? If we do, we shall no longer look for logical results, we shall look for god to work his own results, and his results work within certain moral frontiers (e. G. , john 5:44). If we are outside those frontiers, we cannot see god; inside the frontiers we see him at once. The prayers of the saints either enable or disable god in the performance of his wonders. The majority of us in praying for the will of god to be done say, in gods good time, meaning in my bad time; consequently there is no silence in heaven produced by our prayers, no results, no performance.
Have our prayers demanded the immense attention of god? Have they been linked on to the basis of redemption, or are we praying, for instance, on the line that god must bless the allies in this war because they are in the right?
The result of the war will not be simply a national result. Men have not enlisted for king and country, but for a deeper reason, and in the final issue our prayer should be that the British empire may be gods servant as well as his instrument.
Are we adding to the prayers of the saints or becoming sulky with god if he does not give us what we want, so taken up with the nobility of man that we forget what our calling is as saints? As saints we are called to go through the heroism of what we believe, not of stating what we believe, but of standing by it when the facts are dead against god. It is easy to say god is love when all is going well, but face a woman who has gone through bereavement and see if you find it easy to say it. There is suffering which staggers your mind as you watch it, and yet those who go through it are sustained in a way we do not understand. Every day lives are passing by us, how much of the silence of heaven have we broken up by our prayers for them? How much of our praying is from the empty spaces round our own hearts and how much from the basis of the redemption, so that we give no thought for ourselves or for others, but only for Jesus Christ? Inarticulate prayer, the impulsive prayer that looks so futile, is the great thing god heeds more than anything else because it is along the line of his programme. A prayer offered by the humblest and most obscure saint on the ground of the redemption of Jesus Christ demands the complete attention of god and the performance of his programme.