Covenanter Witness Vol. 54 - Rparchives.org

earth."
exploits."
again.'
much"
words."
rain"
are;"
teries: but the people that do know their God shall
be strong, and do
We confess our love to be too cold. In the words
of the Confession of 1871 : "We have shown criminal
apathy and unfaithfulness in that we have not cher
ished love for all men, and especially for the faithful
in Christ Jesus." God must be grieved with the in
different attitude we display toward men about us.
We act as though we simply do not care whether they
know Jesus Christ or not. God is saying to us
through his prophet Ezekiel, "When I say unto the
wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him
not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from
his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked
man shall die in his iniquity ; but his blood will I re
quire at thine hand."
It is a manifestation of Christian love to warn,
with compassion, your ungodly neighbor, or relative,
or fellow-workman, or associate in any relationship
of life. There is blood on our hands, for complacently
we have let them go their way to hell.
And how much more ready should we be to love
our brethren in Christ. "Hereby perceive we the love
of God, because He laid down his life for us : and we
ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." But
how many of us, with utter self-denial, are living our
lives entirely for others
So it is that we must confess that knowing the
right, we have too often done wrong. Except we re
pent in humility and sincerity God will not be here
to renew the covenant with us.
It is utter folly for anyone of us to pray tonight,
"God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men
when our prayer should rather be, "God be merciful
sinner!"
to me a
Prepare your heart this night to seek the Lord.
Make sure that your heart is right with Him. God
will make it right if you ask Him in a sincere prayer
of confession and repentance. Turn to the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, "in Whom is re
demption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins,
grace."
according to the riches of his
In the midst of his great prayer of confession
Daniel exclaimed, "To the Lord our God belong mer
cies and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against
Him."
And it was after making that confession that
an angel appeared to Daniel and said, "Fear not,
Daniel; for from the first day that thou didst set
thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself be
fore thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come
for thy Would that God might come for our
words tomorrow. And He will, if we set our hearts to
understand, and chasten ourselves before Him.
God's Plan of Salvation
NATURE AND POWER OF PRAYER EXEMPLIFIED IN ELIJAH'S LIFE
By R. E. Robb
Against the background of the miracle that
came in answer to Elijah's prayers, R. E. Robb
writes on the meaning and power of prayer.
He describes the various phases of prayer and an
swers the question, "Does prayer influence God "
Faith is a necessary prerequisite to the type of pre
vailing prayer he is describing, the Columbia trav
eling man says. This is the 141st in a series of Bible
studies presented in The State every Monday morn
ing. The lessons are also given to a men's Bible class
at the Lutheran Church of the Incarnation and now
are being repeated on Sabbath evenings at a worship
service in the sanctuary of Incarnation church.
"Elijah was a man of like nature with ourselves
and he prayed fervently that it might not rain and
for three years and six months it did not rain on the
(James 5:17).
"And (Elijah cried to the Lord) '0 Lord my God,
let this child's soul come into him And the
Lord hearkened unto the voice of Elijah, and the
soul of the child came into him again and he re
vived."
I Kings 17:21-22).
'Answer Me, 0 Lord'
"Elijah. . "O Lord God of Israel. . . Answer
.said,
me, 0 Lord, answer me. Then the fire of the Lord
fell and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood,
and the stones." (First Kings 18:36-38).
"And Elijah went up to Carmel and he bowed
himself down upon the earth and put his face be-
March 23, 1955
tween his knees. .
.And in
a little while the heavens
grew black with clouds and wind and there was a
great (Verses 42-45).
Four times Elijah prayed and the immutable
forces of nature were moved his prayers stopped
and then started the seasonal rains, his prayer
brought down a searing blast from the cloudless sky,
his prayer restored a dead boy to life.
What Is Prayer
What is this thing called prayer, which Elijah
used with such telling effect and which is available
to all true followers of Christ, for He says, "The ef
fectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth
(The prayer of a righteous man has great
power in its RSV) (James 5:16). Why
effects"
should we pray How shall we pray
Perhaps the most understandable yet comprehen
sive definition of prayer is found in the shorter cate
chism, No. 98: "Prayer is an offering up of our de
sires unto God, for things agreeable to His will, in
the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and
mercies."
thankful acknowledgement of His
The Black Sheep
This world, among all the planets, is the black
sheep, the prodigal. Perhaps on this planet only has
sin found a foothold. Perhaps this is the only battle
field where the forces of good and evil are engaged
in a fight to the finish, where Satan is making his
last stand although he knows that he is already
de-
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