CMCA Methodist News 241 (Eng)

THEME TOPIC
E4
SPIRIT OF METHODISM:
PIETY IN PRAYER,
GOD’S DIVINE PRESENCE
Rev Dr King Tai Tie
President, SCAC
A few years ago, I was leading a devotion in a joint meeting of
principals and deans of various seminaries in Malaysia. I led
everyone in a song previously written for a prayer meeting in
a Methodist church. After we sang, a non-Methodist seminary
principal remarked, “The Methodist Church is a church of
prayer!” This comment is positive encouragement in praise
of the Methodist Church. After all, prayer was one of the
unique features of the Methodist revival movement led by
the Wesley brothers. Piety in prayer is a spirit of Methodism.
A decade or two ago, I was conducting a revival meeting at
a Methodist church. The title was “Kneel until the floor caves
in”. The message was on the prayer of the prophet Daniel,
on how he persisted in prayer despite what he faced in the
lions’ den, and how he had since set the example of prayer
for many generations to follow. I emphasised that prayer is
speaking to God while also listening to God’s words; prayer
is to enter into the divine presence of God, to express our
love and need to him in faith. In the message, I used the
prayer of John Wesley as a practical illustration, as John
Wesley prayed at 4am every morning, followed by open air
evangelism at 5am. His wooden kneeling mat in his prayer
room even had dents in them from his knees.
When I preached the message, the Holy Spirit not only
used me, but also touched me to continue speaking of other
prayers such as that of Daniel and John Wesley, which
involved costly prayer lives. I declared to the audience,
“Brothers and sisters, I don’t really care how this message
will help you or what action you will take after hearing it, but
I can tell you, I’ve decided, from tomorrow onwards, I will
wake up at 5am to pray!”
Thanks be to God! Since that day, a morning prayer at 5am
has become my spiritual habit. Slowly, I realised that the
5am morning prayer is practised in every part of the world;
the Korean church, for example, has maintained morning
prayers at 5am for over a hundred years; mainland Chinese
church also has a “5am of China” (whether they have
persisted with this 5am prayer is another matter), and even
the Malaysian native people of Sarawak and Sabah, after
the spiritual revival, would rise at 5am to pray, young and
all. Thank God for his leading and for the unity among coworkers
and students of the seminary; my personal discipline
in prayer later influenced the Methodist Theological School
to perform morning prayers at 5:15am. At the same time, the
Holy Spirit also led some church pastors to practise daily
morning prayer.
Previously, I thought some older people or spiritual giants
who shared how they woke up in the morning to pray for
1 or 2 hours were able to do so because they were getting
older and didn’t sleep as much, hence they woke up to pray.
But the 30- to 40-year-old great evangelist and revivalist of
China, Dr Sung, woke up early every morning to pray. He
often wrote in his diary: “The morning has broken, I wake
up to pray watchfully and earnestly.” He said, “In the past, I
viewed evangelistic work as important, but now I see prayer
as more important than anything else.” Dr Sung was a man
of prayer. He actively collected and wrote down prayer
requests, and spent many hours praying for the saints. His
definition of faith was: kneeling to see God working. He
emphasised: “Only united prayer can bring real revival to a
church; united prayer is the priority for the church’s revival.
Prayer is the strength to work for God. When prayer stops,
work stops. If the church doesn’t pray, it will die, and when
they face the Lord in the future, many people will regret that
they didn’t pray enough on earth.”
The founder of the Methodist Church, John Wesley,
developed a life of discipleship, especially the habits of
devotion and prayer, because of his mother, and he inherited
the long lasting tradition of the puritans. His diary shows that
for his whole life, he woke up at 4 or 4.30am almost everyday
to pray consistently. Prayer was embedded in all his daily
activities. During his afternoon rest and after afternoon tea,
Wesley often had another devotion and prayer session.
Prayer before sleep was also another routine for him. His
teaching and words on prayer might not be as numerous
or as detailed compared with his teaching on salvation, but
his diary shows that he prayed unceasingly; his prayer life
features more prominently than his teaching on prayer. He
was a Christian who truly practised prayer.
John Wesley said, “When we think of God or speak to him,
when we work or suffer for him, everything is prayer; beside
his love, we don’t long for anyone nor any desire, but to
please him. … Everything a Christian must do, even during
his meal or sleep time, is to pray.”
John Wesley emphasised the five means of grace, which are
prayer, bible study, fasting, fellowship and the Lord’s Supper.
Among them, two are closely linked to prayer, i.e. prayer and
fasting.
From John Wesley till today, for over two hundred years,
many Methodist pastors and members have stressed the