od refers to the intercessors for Israel.
Have you ever taken hold of God? Thank God, some of us have; but oh,
friends, representatives of the church of Christ in the United States,
if God were to show us how much there is of intense prayer for a revival
through the church, how much of sincere confession of the sins of the
church, how much of pleading with God and giving Him no rest till He make
Jerusalem a glory in the earth, I think we should all be ashamed. We need
to give up our hearts to the Holy Spirit, that He may pray for us and in us
with groanings that can not be uttered.
What am I to do if I am to have this Holy Spirit within me? The Spirit
wants time and room in the heart; He wants the whole being. He wants all
my interest and influence going out for the honor and the glory of God; He
wants me to give myself up. Beloved friend, you do not know what you could
do if you would give yourself up to intercession. It is a work that a sick
one lying on a bed year by year may do in power. It is a work that a poor
one who has hardly a penny to give to a missionary society can do day by
day. It is a work that a young girl who is in her father's house and has to
help in the housekeeping can do by the Holy Spirit. People often ask: What
does the Church of our day do to reach the masses? They ask, though they
ask it tremblingly, for they feel so helpless: What can we do against the
materialism and infidelity in places like London and Berlin and New York
and Paris? We have given it up as hopeless. Ah, if men and women could be
called out to band themselves together to take hold upon God! I am not
speaking of any prayer union or any prayer time statedly set apart, but if
the Spirit could find men and women who would give up their lives to cry to
God, the Spirit would most surely come. It is not selfishness and it is not
mere happiness that we seek when we talk about the peace and the rest and
the blessing Christ can give. God wants us, Christ wants us, because He has
to do a work; the work of Calvary is to be done in our hearts, we are
to sacrifice our lives to pleading with God for men. Oh, let us yield
ourselves day by day and ask God that it may please Him to let His Holy
Spirit work in us.
Then comes the last thought, that God Himself comes to look with
complacency upon the attitude of His child. Perhaps that poor man does not
know that he is praying; perhaps he is ashamed of his prayers. So much
the better. Perhaps h
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