James T. Cleland - "Let Us Pray" (February 16, 1958)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(choir singing) | 0:03 | |
♪ Amen ♪ | 0:04 | |
- | Heavenly Father as we present these offerings | 0:18 |
onto thee for thy work, | 0:21 | |
help us in our hearts to understand why | 0:23 | |
it is more blessed to give than it is to receive, | 0:26 | |
in Jesus name we pray this, amen. | 0:31 | |
(organ music) | 0:35 | |
- | Let us pray, | 1:10 |
let the words of my mouth, | 1:14 | |
and that the meditation of our thoughts | 1:17 | |
be acceptable in thy sight, | 1:19 | |
O Lord our strength and our Redeemer, amen. | 1:23 | |
A prevailing habit | 1:37 | |
of our secular and religious culture, | 1:39 | |
is the setting aside of a season | 1:44 | |
or a day each year, | 1:48 | |
to record a particular emphasis, | 1:51 | |
or enthusiasm, | 1:54 | |
thus in addition to Independence Day, | 1:58 | |
and Labor Day, | 2:01 | |
there are Boy Scout Week, | 2:05 | |
National Pickle Week, | 2:09 | |
and the like. | 2:12 | |
Someone is bound to come up with the idea of | 2:15 | |
a be kind to your mother-in-law day, | 2:18 | |
though it will probably last only an afternoon. | 2:23 | |
Now, the church early caught onto this idea | 2:29 | |
of such periods for concentrated interest, | 2:32 | |
Advent, | 2:37 | |
Epiphany, | 2:39 | |
Lent, | 2:40 | |
Christmas, | 2:42 | |
Palm Sunday, | 2:43 | |
Easter, | 2:45 | |
and most of us appreciate the value | 2:47 | |
of such regulated and, | 2:50 | |
recurring accentuation's, | 2:53 | |
they renew our remembrance of the high seasons, | 2:57 | |
in our religious faith. | 3:01 | |
Now in our university community, | 3:06 | |
it is wisely inevitable that certain days | 3:09 | |
in the academic year, | 3:13 | |
also receive a special religious underlining. | 3:16 | |
Freshman Sunday, | 3:22 | |
Homecoming, | 3:25 | |
Founder's Day, | 3:27 | |
Dad's Day, | 3:30 | |
Mother-Daughter Weekend, | 3:32 | |
though a Father-Daughter weekend | 3:37 | |
has even more enthusiastic jollity, | 3:40 | |
as the girls prep schools have discovered | 3:44 | |
to their advantage. | 3:46 | |
Edgemont Sunday in our own community, | 3:50 | |
and Baccalaureate Sunday, | 3:52 | |
now today at the request of the denominational chaplains, | 3:56 | |
we recognize a unique | 4:01 | |
academic religious interest. | 4:04 | |
On this Lord's day, the One Student Christian Federation, | 4:08 | |
has once again | 4:13 | |
called upon the church everywhere, | 4:14 | |
to make intercession | 4:19 | |
for the universities of the world. | 4:21 | |
This is the universal day | 4:25 | |
of prayer for students. | 4:28 | |
The call has been given in the words of St Paul, | 4:32 | |
which were read as our Scripture lesson: | 4:37 | |
"Rejoice always," | 4:41 | |
"pray constantly," | 4:44 | |
"Give thanks in all circumstances," | 4:47 | |
"for this is the will of God," | 4:52 | |
"in Christ Jesus for you." | 4:55 | |
Now to symbolize the student aspect of this day, | 5:00 | |
two students have shared | 5:04 | |
in the Ministry of Worship, | 5:07 | |
a Hungarian and an American, | 5:10 | |
this service is interdenominational | 5:14 | |
and international, | 5:17 | |
it has some of the marks of universality. | 5:20 | |
Now as we look at this matter of a Student Day of prayer, | 5:25 | |
there are two assumptions to be kept in mind, | 5:31 | |
the first is that we do pray, | 5:36 | |
that we believe in prayer, | 5:40 | |
that we have faith in a God who hears and answers prayer, | 5:44 | |
otherwise, why are we | 5:49 | |
in the Lord's house? | 5:53 | |
The second assumption is that we pray as Christians, | 5:56 | |
we seek to pray the kind of prayer on which | 6:02 | |
our Lord would put his approval. | 6:06 | |
There is one implication of the phrase | 6:11 | |
through Jesus Christ our Lord. | 6:16 | |
Assuming then that we do pray as Christians, | 6:22 | |
what form should our prayers take | 6:26 | |
in an academic community? | 6:30 | |
For each one of us alone in his or her solitariness | 6:33 | |
and for us together in the corporate | 6:39 | |
university service of worship. | 6:43 | |
Let us look at the whole gamut of prayer, | 6:47 | |
from the moment when we enter consciously | 6:53 | |
into God's presence, | 6:56 | |
until we whisper "Amen" | 6:59 | |
as we receive his benediction. | 7:03 | |
The mood of the worshiper as he comes into | 7:09 | |
the presence of God | 7:12 | |
should be one of adoration. | 7:14 | |
He may not take the shoes from off his feet, | 7:19 | |
but he does take the hat from off his head, | 7:23 | |
in adoration we praise God for what he is, | 7:27 | |
for what is he? | 7:32 | |
God, | 7:36 | |
he is God with all the content that these | 7:38 | |
three letters can carry, | 7:42 | |
he's great, | 7:45 | |
the all-great, | 7:47 | |
the omnipotent, | 7:49 | |
he's also all knowing and all present, | 7:51 | |
the omniscient, | 7:56 | |
and the omnipresent, | 7:58 | |
he is the creator and sustainer of the universe, | 8:01 | |
he is truth, the author of truth, | 8:07 | |
the end of truth, | 8:12 | |
that we must always remember as students. | 8:15 | |
He is holy, | 8:19 | |
morally perfect, | 8:22 | |
spiritually complete, | 8:23 | |
when men of religious sensitivity try to express | 8:27 | |
all this they pen in such phrases as | 8:31 | |
"before the brightness of whose presence" | 8:35 | |
"the angels fail their faces," | 8:39 | |
or "whose majesty is unspeakable," | 8:44 | |
"whose power is incomparable," | 8:48 | |
"whose goodness is inestimable," | 8:52 | |
therefore, it behooves one | 8:57 | |
to come into his presence, | 8:59 | |
with dignity, | 9:03 | |
and quietness, | 9:06 | |
on the tiptoe of expectation, | 9:09 | |
and yet very humbling. | 9:12 | |
That is the spirit and much to offer this prayer from | 9:16 | |
the liturgy of Saint James which goes back | 9:21 | |
to the fourth century, | 9:23 | |
"Almighty God whose glory," | 9:26 | |
"the heavens are telling," | 9:31 | |
"the Earth thy power," | 9:33 | |
"and the sea thy light," | 9:36 | |
"and whose greatness all feeling" | 9:39 | |
"and thinking creatures everywhere proclaim," | 9:41 | |
"to thee belongeth glory and honor" | 9:46 | |
"might, greatness," | 9:49 | |
"and magnificence," | 9:54 | |
"now and forever and onto ages and ages." | 9:57 | |
One doesn't, if he is wise, | 10:03 | |
immediately chat to such a God, | 10:05 | |
or treat him as a friendly second cousin. | 10:10 | |
I know that Jesus taught his disciples to say our father, | 10:15 | |
but do you remember what comes after it, | 10:19 | |
our Father who art in heaven, | 10:21 | |
hallowed be thy name, | 10:26 | |
majesty and holiness inseparably united, | 10:31 | |
call for reverence, | 10:36 | |
the odd reverence, | 10:40 | |
which is at the heart of adoration. | 10:43 | |
However almost as soon as one | 10:48 | |
begins to approach such a God, | 10:53 | |
we hesitate, | 10:56 | |
and start to withdraw, | 10:59 | |
how dare we stand | 11:03 | |
in the presence of such a deity, | 11:05 | |
his Majesty overwhelms us, | 11:10 | |
his glory blinds us, | 11:12 | |
this is the creator, | 11:15 | |
and we over against him are but | 11:17 | |
small and puny creatures, | 11:20 | |
it is well to remember that, | 11:24 | |
it keeps us in our proper place. | 11:26 | |
I well recall an old Baptist minister | 11:31 | |
from London, in his eighties, | 11:34 | |
Doctor S B Meyer, | 11:38 | |
telling a congregation of Glasgow Presbyterians but | 11:41 | |
it wasn't wise for them to desire | 11:46 | |
to see God face to face. | 11:49 | |
He commented, | 11:52 | |
"In two minutes, | 11:54 | |
"you will be crying to get out," | 11:57 | |
"you couldn't stand his glory." | 12:01 | |
Now that didn't sit well with | 12:05 | |
an elect Calvinistic congregation, | 12:07 | |
but after 40 years, | 12:12 | |
I still remember it, | 12:15 | |
the greatness of the creator overwhelms | 12:18 | |
the littleness of the creature. | 12:21 | |
I think it's the realization of that caused | 12:23 | |
the Breton fishermen to write and to use this prayer: | 12:25 | |
"Dear God, be good to me," | 12:30 | |
"thy sea is so wide," | 12:35 | |
"and my boat is so small," | 12:39 | |
"thy sea is so wide," | 12:44 | |
"and my boat is so small." | 12:47 | |
If only the creator God will be involved | 12:51 | |
it would be reason enough for hesitation to approach him, | 12:54 | |
but add to that his holiness, | 12:58 | |
his complete spiritual perfection, | 13:02 | |
he's the all good, | 13:06 | |
and in the white radiance of such purity, | 13:08 | |
our spiritual imperfections, | 13:13 | |
infirmities and inanities, | 13:17 | |
embarrass us, frighten us, | 13:21 | |
and cover us with guilty confusion. | 13:25 | |
To put it simply, | 13:28 | |
we discover that we are | 13:29 | |
miserable sinners. | 13:32 | |
Oh maybe not miserable in the sense that | 13:36 | |
we go around in a droopy sort of way, | 13:39 | |
but with the connotation that when | 13:45 | |
we compare the perfect holiness of God, | 13:47 | |
with our shreds and patches of righteousness, | 13:53 | |
then we are miserable, | 13:57 | |
in the sense of worthy of pity. | 14:00 | |
That's the meaning of miserable in | 14:06 | |
the phrase miserable sinners, | 14:08 | |
sinners who are worthy of pity, | 14:10 | |
that's why in any understandable | 14:14 | |
worship private or corporate, | 14:17 | |
confession follows on the heels of adoration, | 14:19 | |
in fact the very act of adoration causes confession, | 14:23 | |
the prayer of penitence, | 14:28 | |
here are a few lines from such a prayer, | 14:32 | |
written between 150 and 50 BC, | 14:36 | |
one in which Jesus would have given his information, | 14:42 | |
it's known as the prayer of Manasseh, | 14:47 | |
you'll find it in the Apocrypha, | 14:52 | |
here are four lines from it: | 14:54 | |
"My sins are more numerous | 14:57 | |
"than the sands of the sea," | 15:01 | |
"my transgressions are multiplied," | 15:04 | |
"Lord they are multiplied," | 15:07 | |
"I am unworthy to look up and see the height of heaven," | 15:11 | |
"now therefore," | 15:15 | |
"I bend the knee of my heart," | 15:18 | |
"begging you for kindness." | 15:23 | |
"I bend the knee of my heart," | 15:27 | |
that is the fitting portion | 15:34 | |
of the anatomy to bend, | 15:36 | |
and yet, once again, | 15:42 | |
something unexpected happens, | 15:44 | |
just as our approach in adoration was halted | 15:48 | |
by the remembrance of our sin, | 15:52 | |
so our confessional withdrawal | 15:55 | |
is brought up short | 15:59 | |
by the remembrance that he is a God, | 16:02 | |
who forgives sin, | 16:06 | |
who has always kept the sinner in his love. | 16:10 | |
This is the good news of many of the Psalms, | 16:14 | |
of Hosea, | 16:18 | |
of second Isaiah, | 16:20 | |
of the parables of the lost sheep | 16:23 | |
and the lost boy. | 16:26 | |
We hear anew these comfortable words, | 16:29 | |
comfortable in the sense that they make | 16:33 | |
us spiritually strong again, | 16:36 | |
Christ Jesus came into the world | 16:38 | |
to save sinners. | 16:45 | |
He didn't come to save those who thought | 16:50 | |
they were righteous, | 16:54 | |
he knew he couldn't, | 16:55 | |
you can't save that kind of a person, | 16:56 | |
he didn't come primarily to damn sinners, | 17:02 | |
he knew he shouldn't, | 17:06 | |
he came to save, | 17:09 | |
salvation, | 17:14 | |
salvos, | 17:15 | |
it's the Latin word for health, | 17:17 | |
he came to give spiritual help | 17:20 | |
to those who were in bad shape, | 17:25 | |
and knew it and were sorry and troubled about it, | 17:28 | |
that is the gospel. | 17:33 | |
This Almighty all holy God | 17:36 | |
is actually a God of goodwill, | 17:40 | |
he has no desire to blast us, | 17:45 | |
or to give us an inferiority complex, | 17:49 | |
but wishes to adopt us, | 17:54 | |
adopt us as his sons | 17:58 | |
and daughters. | 18:02 | |
And if one believes they know the reaction to it, | 18:05 | |
a prayer of thanksgiving, | 18:09 | |
thanksgiving for his mercy and his mercies, | 18:14 | |
for his great goodness, | 18:19 | |
and his good greatness, | 18:20 | |
for his willingness to be interested | 18:24 | |
literally, | 18:26 | |
vitally interested in us. | 18:28 | |
Forgiving us minds to know him, | 18:32 | |
and hearts to love him, | 18:38 | |
and wills to serve him. | 18:43 | |
This is what we are thankful for as Christian students, | 18:46 | |
but God has given us minds | 18:49 | |
to seek after him | 18:52 | |
until we know him. | 18:55 | |
And hearts to | 18:59 | |
feel after him until we love him, | 19:02 | |
and then when we have done that, | 19:06 | |
with joy we devote our self to his service, | 19:08 | |
as engineers and nurses, | 19:13 | |
as foresters and teachers, | 19:18 | |
as doctors and librarians, | 19:23 | |
and lawyers, | 19:27 | |
and dieticians. | 19:29 | |
If adoration leads to confession, | 19:34 | |
then the remembrance that he is faithfully | 19:38 | |
at work to forgive us our sins, | 19:42 | |
leads to thanksgiving. | 19:47 | |
Now, having recognized God worthily, | 19:51 | |
withdrawn from him awkwardly, | 19:55 | |
and return to him gratefully, | 20:00 | |
we are ready for what? next? | 20:04 | |
In appreciation for all God has done for us, | 20:10 | |
it's time for us to remember others before him, | 20:15 | |
in intercession. | 20:20 | |
This prayer of intercession will tell | 20:24 | |
what kind of Christians we are, | 20:27 | |
do we pray only | 20:32 | |
for folk like ourselves? | 20:35 | |
to the effective exclusion of all others? | 20:39 | |
oh Lord, | 20:45 | |
bless me and my wife, | 20:47 | |
brother John and his wife, | 20:50 | |
us four, no more. | 20:52 | |
Or do we pray for folk | 20:59 | |
who neither love nor like us? | 21:01 | |
because we remember, | 21:07 | |
it can't always be easy for God to love | 21:09 | |
or to like us, | 21:13 | |
whom should we pray for in the University? | 21:16 | |
the trustees? | 21:21 | |
those unseen controllers of our destiny, | 21:24 | |
who needs must be moribund stagnant and petrifying, | 21:29 | |
because they pay little or no attention | 21:35 | |
to our wishes for desegregation or longer | 21:37 | |
vacations or bigger and better parking lots, | 21:41 | |
yet we are supposed to pray for them, | 21:47 | |
and love. | 21:50 | |
And then there is the administration, | 21:54 | |
that multitude of Deans, | 21:56 | |
unpredictable, | 22:01 | |
yet shrewder than we are, | 22:03 | |
tough when we least expect it, | 22:07 | |
and sometimes generous | 22:11 | |
when we don't deserve it. | 22:13 | |
The professors ought to be in our prayers, | 22:18 | |
as well as in our implications, | 22:21 | |
the dour stodgy ones, | 22:27 | |
as well as the ones who never call the role, | 22:31 | |
and occasionally let us out early. | 22:35 | |
And let us remember the help, | 22:40 | |
in the dorms, | 22:43 | |
and the dining halls, | 22:45 | |
from the campus who make this place livable, | 22:47 | |
despite what so many of us do to abuse it | 22:52 | |
and then, | 22:56 | |
you know better about your fellow students than I, | 23:00 | |
not only your fraternity brothers in Row Dammit Row, | 23:05 | |
and the sisters in Triple Zeta, | 23:11 | |
but those night owls who stage Song fests | 23:16 | |
in the quadrangle at 3:30 AM and awaken | 23:21 | |
the patients in the hospital, | 23:25 | |
those who treat Myrtle Drive as if | 23:29 | |
it were a 16 lane throughway, | 23:32 | |
those who cannot understand East campus | 23:38 | |
and so become literary misogynists, | 23:41 | |
those who claim to be grown up, | 23:48 | |
and cannot distinguish duties from rights | 23:51 | |
in an honor system. | 23:55 | |
They may not be the sons and daughters of God, | 23:59 | |
but they are his creatures, | 24:03 | |
and with understanding and humor, | 24:06 | |
especially with humor, | 24:11 | |
we remember them before God. | 24:13 | |
And let us remember also, | 24:18 | |
our fellow students, | 24:20 | |
overseas, | 24:23 | |
in Russia, | 24:26 | |
and in China, | 24:28 | |
in Poland, | 24:32 | |
and in Hungary, | 24:34 | |
in East and West Germany, | 24:37 | |
in France, | 24:42 | |
in Britain, | 24:44 | |
in Africa and Asia and Australia, | 24:47 | |
and in the Americas. | 24:52 | |
Our families too deserve a place in our prayers | 24:57 | |
The wealthy families who can afford | 25:03 | |
to send us here but who strangely enough | 25:05 | |
still miss us, | 25:08 | |
and the poor families, | 25:12 | |
who must do without so that we may have | 25:15 | |
the privilege of a college education, | 25:19 | |
let our prayers rise for them, | 25:24 | |
for all of them, | 25:27 | |
night and day. | 25:29 | |
Well, when we have prayed for others, | 25:32 | |
we have a right to pray for ourselves, | 25:36 | |
we have the privilege of asking | 25:40 | |
for anything which Jesus would put his okay upon: | 25:44 | |
health, studies, | 25:49 | |
dates, hopes, | 25:53 | |
careers. | 25:55 | |
There's one beautiful prayer of supplication | 25:57 | |
often sung in this chapel: | 26:01 | |
"God be in my head," | 26:05 | |
"and in my understanding," | 26:10 | |
"God be in mine eyes," | 26:14 | |
"and in my looking," | 26:19 | |
"God be in my mouth," | 26:22 | |
"and in my speaking," | 26:27 | |
"God be in my heart," | 26:30 | |
"and in my thinking," | 26:35 | |
"God be at mine end," | 26:38 | |
"and at my departing." | 26:43 | |
That's a 15th century English prayer worthy | 26:46 | |
of committing to memory and using daily. | 26:50 | |
Well there is only one prayer left in the gamut of prayer, | 26:55 | |
an act of dedication | 26:59 | |
or re-dedication, | 27:01 | |
it's the giving of ourselves to God as his willing servants, | 27:05 | |
here we often present unto the oh lord, | 27:10 | |
ourselves, | 27:15 | |
our souls and bodies | 27:18 | |
to be reasonable holy | 27:21 | |
and lively sacrifice unto thee. | 27:25 | |
We do it here in the University in | 27:28 | |
our studies and in our leisure, | 27:31 | |
in our eating and in our sleeping, | 27:34 | |
in our down sitting and in our rising, | 27:37 | |
in our coming in and our going out. | 27:40 | |
He has made us for himself, | 27:45 | |
he has a right to us, | 27:50 | |
we give him his due, | 27:53 | |
ourselves, | 27:57 | |
and in return, | 28:00 | |
he gives us himself, | 28:02 | |
in the benediction, | 28:06 | |
and the love of God, | 28:10 | |
in Jesus Christ will be with us ever more. | 28:12 | |
Adoration, confession, | 28:18 | |
Thanksgiving, | 28:22 | |
intercession, | 28:23 | |
supplication, | 28:25 | |
dedication, | 28:27 | |
that is the gamut of prayer in private devotion | 28:28 | |
or in corporate worship | 28:34 | |
for our students and for all men. | 28:36 | |
Well, what are we going to do with all this? | 28:42 | |
here are two suggestions: | 28:45 | |
try it privately, | 28:49 | |
in the first instance, | 28:53 | |
next time we pray, | 28:55 | |
let us take enough time | 28:58 | |
and give enough thought | 29:02 | |
to working our way through | 29:05 | |
from adoration to re-dedication, | 29:07 | |
with the period of quiet at the end, | 29:13 | |
while we await God's blessing, | 29:17 | |
which is his answer. | 29:19 | |
In addition, | 29:22 | |
pray at all times, | 29:25 | |
short arrow prayers: | 29:26 | |
at breakfast, | 29:30 | |
thanks for eggs and butter toast, | 29:31 | |
Father, Son and Holy Ghost, | 29:35 | |
simple as that, | 29:38 | |
at the striking of the clock, | 29:40 | |
Lord grant that my last hour | 29:43 | |
may be my best hour. | 29:48 | |
On entering the hospital, | 29:51 | |
Lord help me to remember | 29:54 | |
that there are no diseases, | 29:59 | |
but only sick people. | 30:02 | |
In the second place, | 30:08 | |
demand this comprehensive grasp of prayer | 30:11 | |
at all corporate services of worship, | 30:16 | |
some of the edifices mentioned here are found | 30:21 | |
in other forms in the University service of worship, | 30:23 | |
the first hymn is normally | 30:27 | |
one of adoration, | 30:29 | |
the words of assurance remind us | 30:33 | |
of the God who forgives, | 30:36 | |
the offering should be | 30:39 | |
symbolic re-dedication, | 30:41 | |
but we have a right to expect at the great service | 30:44 | |
that all those aspects will be recognized, | 30:49 | |
on our behalf. | 30:54 | |
In our introduction we talked about the value of | 30:58 | |
the setting aside of a given day | 31:01 | |
to record a particular emphasis, | 31:03 | |
yet such a day is but a reminder of some truth | 31:07 | |
that should be ever before us, | 31:11 | |
as students, | 31:14 | |
we ought to pray daily, | 31:16 | |
as we need to be prayed for daily. | 31:19 | |
There are various books of prayers which will | 31:23 | |
help us in our private devotions, | 31:25 | |
A S T Fisher's, | 31:29 | |
An Anthology of Prayers for Use in School and Home, | 31:31 | |
Student Prayer, | 31:37 | |
published by the Student Christian Movement Press, | 31:38 | |
but the one we ought to own, | 31:43 | |
is John Bailey, | 31:47 | |
a diary of private prayer, | 31:51 | |
over 300,000 copies | 31:56 | |
have been sold, | 31:59 | |
each year I give away at least a dozen of them, | 32:02 | |
it's a compilation of prayers for | 32:08 | |
the morning and the evening, | 32:10 | |
to cover one month of 31 days plus | 32:13 | |
two prayers for Sunday. | 32:18 | |
When John Bailey preached here at Duke two years ago, | 32:22 | |
he met a group of 35 Duke folk | 32:27 | |
in the afternoon, | 32:31 | |
and of the 35, | 32:33 | |
20 brought copies of a Diary of Private Prayer | 32:36 | |
for John Bailey's autograph. | 32:41 | |
After signing, | 32:44 | |
he shyly inquired, | 32:46 | |
would you like to know | 32:49 | |
how I came to write this book? | 32:51 | |
And he told us, | 32:55 | |
when John Bailey was professor of divinity | 32:57 | |
in the University of Edinburgh, | 32:59 | |
his son Ian, | 33:02 | |
to whom the book is dedicated, | 33:03 | |
had gone to Oxford for his undergraduate studies, | 33:06 | |
he wrote his father that while he was well supplied | 33:12 | |
with the resources for corporate worship, | 33:16 | |
he did need some help | 33:20 | |
in his own private periods | 33:24 | |
of prayer. | 33:28 | |
And his father began | 33:30 | |
writing prayers for his son, | 33:31 | |
dealing with the whole round of | 33:37 | |
a man's relationship to his God and to his fellows, | 33:39 | |
but praising the prayers especially for | 33:43 | |
a student within an academic environment. | 33:48 | |
His son saved those prayers | 33:53 | |
during his four years at Oxford, | 33:56 | |
and brought them back to his father, | 33:59 | |
his father re-edited them, | 34:02 | |
selected 64, | 34:06 | |
and published them in this little volume, | 34:10 | |
A Diary of Private Prayer. | 34:13 | |
It was first published in 1936, | 34:18 | |
and in Great Britain in 1956, | 34:23 | |
it was in its 21st impression, | 34:27 | |
that's not counting the American | 34:32 | |
edition published by Scribner's, | 34:34 | |
let me commend it to you, | 34:37 | |
it will discipline our praying, | 34:43 | |
pinpointing our confessions, | 34:47 | |
nothing general about the confessions in here, | 34:50 | |
they are particular, | 34:52 | |
pinpointing our confessions, | 34:55 | |
widening our intercessions, | 34:58 | |
and deepening our supplications. | 35:01 | |
People have told me that time after time | 35:05 | |
this little book says what they want to say, | 35:09 | |
but can't find the words to say, | 35:14 | |
and they are so grateful for it, | 35:16 | |
it vocalizes their desires. | 35:18 | |
I think there's more than that to it. | 35:22 | |
It suggests to us | 35:25 | |
what we ought to pray | 35:28 | |
and don't have the courage to pray. | 35:31 | |
The right use of this little volume will | 35:36 | |
make every day | 35:41 | |
a day of prayer for students. | 35:44 | |
And now Miss Sable | 35:51 | |
will lead us in a prayer | 35:55 | |
of dedication for students, | 35:58 | |
and then you will receive the blessing of God, | 36:01 | |
let us stand. | 36:07 | |
- | Oh God our heavenly Father, | 36:14 |
we commit ourselves into thy hands, | 36:16 | |
commit ourselves to do what thou will | 36:20 | |
and to desire thy desires, | 36:23 | |
to serve when thou shalt stand up, | 36:26 | |
and to be ready for thy call, | 36:29 | |
through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. | 36:32 |
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