A PLEA TO PRAY FOR PASTORS
Excerpted (with
minimum editing) from Gardiner Spring, The Power of the Pulpit [BOT, 1986], 222–6
Such is the importance of the Christian ministry, that we are constrained to
solicit for it one particular favour. It is a request in which we feel a very
deep personal concern. Pray for us! “Pray for us” (1 Thes 5:25), says Paul;
“pray for us” is the hearty response from every Christian pulpit in the land,
and in the wide world. If the prayers of good men were solicited by such a man
as Paul; and if, with his giant intellect, his eminent spirituality, and his
intimate communion with God and things unseen, this holy man needed this
encouragement and impulse in his work, who will not say: “Brethren, pray for
us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified” (2 Thes
3:1)!
It is a delightful thought to a young man entering upon the ministry of
reconciliation that, unworthy as he is, the prayers of thousands of God’s
people are continually going up, on his behalf, to his Father and their Father,
to his God and their God. He seems to hear the church of God
saying to him, We cannot go to this sacred work, but we will follow you with
our prayers! He seems to hear many a Christian parent say to him, We have no
son to send to this hallowed vocation; but go you to it, and
you shall not lack an interest in our prayers! Not a few of the churches of
this land have enjoyed the high privilege of sending forth into the spiritual
harvest a considerable number of beloved youths from their own more immediate
families. And it has been the usage of such churches, to an extent that is
ungratefully remembered, to assemble for the more special service of commending
their young brethren to the care and faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God.
How fitting, in every way, is such a service! How full of encouragement to the
heart that trembles under a view of the responsibilities of the sacred office!
How delightful this spiritual impetus to a mind almost ready to sink under its
own conscious infirmities! And how unspeakably precious the thought to all who
labour in this great work, whether in youthful or riper years, that they are
thus habitually remembered in the prayers of the churches! Let the thought sink
deep into the heart of every church, that their minister will be very much such
a minister as their prayers may make him. If nothing short of Omnipotent grace
can make a Christian, nothing less than this can make a faithful and successful
minister of the Gospel!
We entreat the churches to regard with a more deliberate and devout mind the
great work itself to which their ministries are devoted. To explain the
doctrines and enforce the duties of genuine Christianity; to defend the truth
against all the subtlety and versatility of error; to sustain within their own
minds that sense of God’s presence, and of those moral sanctions, which are
revealed in His Word. And to experience that deep and tender impression of the
things that are unseen and eternal, that are necessary to give earnestness to their
preaching, as well as that consistent life and deportment that are necessary to
give power to their preaching; to do this in a way that shall adapt itself to
different times, places, occasions and characters, and without being
disheartened by difficulties, appalled by enemies, and weary of the yoke which
they have taken upon themselves, is no ordinary work! If a people are looking
for rich discourses from their minister, their prayers must supply him with the
matter; if they seek for faithful discourses, their prayers must urge him, by a
full and uncompromising manifestation of the truth, to commend himself to every
man’s conscience in the sight of God (see 2 Corinthians 4:2); if for powerful
and successful discourses, their prayers must make him a blessing to the souls
of men. Would they have him come to them in the fullness of the blessings of
the Gospel of peace, with a heaving heart, a kindled eye, and a glowing tongue,
and with discourses bathed in tears and elaborate with prayer? If so, their
prayers must urge him to pray, and their tears inspire his thrilling heart with
the strong yearnings of Christian affection. It is in their own closets that
the people of God most effectually charge upon the soul of their beloved
ministers, to take heed to the ministry they have received from the Lord Jesus
(see Acts 20:24).
And who and what are ministers themselves? Frail men, fallible, sinning men,
exposed to every snare, to temptation in every form; and, from the very post of
observation they occupy, the fairer mark for the fiery darts of the foe. They
are no mean victims the great Adversary is seeking, when he would wound and
cripple Christ’s ministers. One such victim is worth more to the kingdom of
darkness than a score of common men; and for this very account their
temptations are probably more subtle and severe than those encountered by
ordinary Christians. If this subtle Deceiver fails to destroy them, he artfully
aims at neutralising their influence by quenching the fervour of their piety,
lulling them into negligence, and doing all in his power to render their work
irksome. How perilous the condition of that minister then, whose heart is not
encouraged, whose hands are not strengthened, and who is not upheld by the
prayers of his people! It is not in his own closet and on his own knees alone,
that he finds security and comfort, and ennobling, humbling, and purifying
thoughts and joys; but it is when they also seek them in his behalf, that he
becomes a better and happier man, and a more useful minister of the everlasting
Gospel!
Nothing gives a people so much interest in their minister, and interest of the
best kind, as to pray for him. They will love him more, respect him more,
attend more cheerfully and gain more profit from his ministry, the more they commend
him to God in their prayers. They feel a deeper interest in his work the more
they pray for him; and their children feel a deeper interest both in him and in
his preaching, when they regularly listen to supplications that affectionately
commend him to the throne of the heavenly grace.
The results of a preached Gospel are associated with the most interesting
realities in the universe. Nay, they form no small part in affecting the
realities themselves. There are no such bright and radiant exhibitions of the
ever-blessed and adorable Godhead, as are made where a preached Gospel has free
course and is glorified. That wondrous exhibition of the Divine nature, that
progressive development which is in itself so desirable, and in its
consequences so endeared to every holy mind, never shines forth with such
impressive distinctness and subduing lustre, as when the hearers of His truth
and grace, proclaimed from lips of clay, indicate that appearing of His great
glory. Had the people of God on the earth minds as pure as the angelic
intellect around the throne, with what deep concern, solicitude and prayer,
would they watch the progress and follow the labours of the humble and faithful
ambassadors of the cross, as they proclaim this glorious Gospel, and as the effects
of their preaching reveal new and lasting exhibitions of the manifested Deity!
The effects of their preaching upon the souls of men are nothing less than the
savour of life unto life in them that are saved, and in them that perish of
death unto death (2 Cor 2:15–16). The same light and motives that are the means
of fitting some for heaven, when abused and perverted, only fit others for
hell.
O it is at a fearful expense that ministers are ever allowed to enter the
pulpit without being preceded, accompanied, and followed by the earnest prayers
of the churches. It is no marvel that the pulpit is so powerless, and ministers
so often disheartened when there are so few to hold up their hands. The
consequence of neglecting this duty is seen and felt in the spiritual
declension of the churches, and it will be seen and felt in the everlasting
perdition of men; while the consequence of regarding it would be the
ingathering of multitudes into the kingdom of God, and new glories to the Lamb
that was slain!
On his behalf therefore, and on the behalf of his beloved and respected
brethren in the ministry, the writer would crave an interest in the prayers of
all who love the Saviour and the souls of men. We are the dispensers of God’s
truth and at best fall far below our mighty theme. The duties of our calling
return upon us with every returning week and day. They often come upon us with
many and conflicting demands. They sometimes put a demand upon all our
thoughts, and at the very time when we have lost the power of thinking; and
sometimes they call for all the ardour and strength of our affections, just at
the time we are the least susceptible of them. There is also associated with
these demands that pressing solicitude, and corroding anxiety, which exhausts
our vigour, prostrates our courage, and drinks up our spirits. And then, in
addition to all this, there are so many disappointments in our work, that we
need the sympathy of prayer.
Our spirit is sometimes stirred within us, and we go forth to our people
flushed with the hope of rescuing them from everlasting burnings; and in some
hapless hour of self-sufficiency, we vainly imagine the work and triumph are
our own. We are instant in season, and out of season (2 Tim 4:2); we make a
business of preparing for the conflict, sometimes polishing our arrows and
sometimes leaving them rough and barbed. We put on our armour, and enter the
field with the determination to lay out all our strength, and with the
confident assurance that we must do execution. But what a lesson of
self-abasement! We cannot convert a single soul. “We have piped unto [them],
and [they] have not danced; we have mourned unto [them], and [they] have not
lamented” (Mt 11:17). We urge the Divine commands, and they trample upon His
authority; we urge His threatenings, and they despise His justice; we speak of
His promises, they heed not His faithfulness; of His Son, and they tread Him
under their feet; of His patience and long-suffering, but their impenitence and
obduracy are proof against them all. We reason and expostulate with them, until
the obstacles to their conversion seem to us to rise higher by every effort to
surmount them; until, finally, we sink in despondency, and cry out, “What
mighty power can break these adamantine hearts? What omnipotent grasp can
rescue these perishing men from everlasting burnings?” O you blood-bought
churches, your ministers need your prayers, for the exceeding greatness of that
power which God worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead (Eph
1:19–20).
We have a concert of prayer for the heathen, another for Sabbath Schools, and
yet another for the blessing of God upon the distribution of religious tracts.
Why should we overlook the great means of God’s own appointment for the
salvation of men? May there not be something in the form of a concert of prayer
for the ministers of the Gospel? If nothing better can be suggested, why may
there not be a general understanding among Christian men, and Christian
families, to set apart the morning of every Lord’s Day, for this great and
special object? This was the practice in the family of my venerable father, and
it has long been my own as well. And it is a most precious privilege. The time
is a very fitting one; and such a service would not fail to exert a delightful
influence on the privileges of the sanctuary. “Before they call I will answer;
and while they are yet speaking, I will hear” (Isa 65:24). Should God be
pleased to give to the churches the spirit of prayer for their ministers, it
would be with the purpose of answering it. “He will regard the prayer of the
destitute, and not despise their prayer” (Ps 102:17; cf. Neh 1:5–6). It is
written, that “the LORD will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion,
and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming
fire by night” (Isa 4:5); nor will the altar be profaned, nor the incense less
fragrant, if those words of hope are more often upon the lips of those who
offer it, “Clothe Thy priests with salvation: that Thy saints may shout aloud
for joy!” (cf. Ps 132:16). Nor is this all! Let the ministers of the Gospel
have an habitual remembrance at the domestic altar every day.
“It is no small thing,” says a modern writer of our own city, “for any
congregation to have daily cries for God’s blessing ascending from a hundred
firesides. What a spring of refreshment to a pastor! The family devotions of
praying Kidderminster, no doubt, made Richard
Baxter a better minister, and a happier man; and it is possible we are reaping
the fruits of them in his books, The Saints Everlasting Rest and Dying
Thoughts” [see Thoughts on Family Worship, by J. W. Alexander.
No family should lack this most valuable, seasonable, and beautiful volume].
Ye then, who make mention of the Lord, do not keep silent, and give Him no rest
(Isa 62:6–7). When the churches cease to pray for ministers, ministers will no
longer be a blessing to the churches. Brethren, pray for us, that
we may be kept from sin; that we may walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as
wise, redeeming the time (Eph 5:15–16); that our hearts may be more devoted to
God, and our lives a more impressive exemplification of the Gospel we preach;
that we may be more completely girded for our work and our conflicts, and put
on the whole armour of God; that we may be more faithful and wise to win souls,
and that we may keep under our body, and bring it into subjection, lest after
having preached to others, we ourselves be castaway (1 Cor 9:27). When we turn
our thoughts toward barren ordinances and a fruitless ministry, our hearts sink
within us, and we would fain throw ourselves at the feet of the churches and
implore a remembrance in their prayers. If you ever enter into the “secret
place” of the Most High, and get near the heart of Him whom your souls love,
plead earnestly that His own power may attend the stated ministrations of His
Gospel. If you ever lie on Jesus’ bosom, please remember us! Open
your desires; tell your Immanuel of His costly sacrifice and wonderful love;
tell Him of His power and our weakness; speak to Him of the unutterable glory,
and the interminable anguish beyond the grave. With tears of solicitude urge
you suit, and tell Him that He has committed the treasure of the glorious
Gospel to earthen vessels, in order that the excellency of the power may be all
of God!
[Editor’s note: A concerned brother recommended the printing of this
article as a remedy to the sad neglect in local churches. I cannot agree more
to having it printed, for I can surely identify with the struggles and burdens
of the ministry that Mr. Spring brings out so graphically and poignantly. Oh,
may the Lord move us to pray not only for your pastor, but for all ministers of
the Gospel, who labour faithfully in the Word, especially those known unto us.
Brethren, pray for us!
—J.J.
Lim
