130. Prayer Of The Man That Had Been Possessed With A Devil.
Prayer Of The Man That Had Been Possessed With A Devil. The Prayer as recorded.—Mark 5:18.
TheLord’sAnswer.—Mark 5:19.
Quieted and calmed by the power of Jesus, the once diseased but now healed person comes to our Lord with a prayer. Like too many, he would mark out a line of duty for himself, or live quietly on in the presence of the Savior, without spreading the good news of his remarkable cure. He earnestly asks to be admitted into the ship where our Savior was; but there was work for this healed man to do. “He was born to wrestle not to reign.” He was to lead others to the great physician who had restored him, and spread abroad the wisdom and the power of Jesus. Tell, O Christian, those who are going on in carelessness, what God hath done for you; if you are the subjects of his grace. This is not your place of rest; labor, labor still, labor on for God. You have a work to do while life lasts; that night is coming when you can work no longer.
Never grow weary in well doing, but “sow beside all waters;” let not an aching wearied heart deter you, for in sickness you can work; your sweet and patient example, your smile of submission, may lead some disturbed and forsaken soul to trust in the “God of your love.” In health, when the arm is strong and the intellect vigorous, you can work mightily to “the pulling down the strongholds of sin and Satan,” prayer will strengthen your arm for the battle, your fingers for the fight. Then too there is a field in which every Christian must serve a severe warfare, in the silent, secret world within him, that others may see the kingdom of God that cometh not with observation is indeed set up there. Is it not labor to struggle and strive against the rebellious thoughts, the sinful desires, the wicked impulses, which make their way in every breast, and yet this is your labor, which is indeed in vain, if your prayer for strength goes not up with it. He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city, and it is only he that can work for God who can govern himself—a government which can only be accomplished by much and earnest prayer.
Let God guide you in your requests, place yourself in his hands, commend yourselves to him, that you may show to others, as well as feel yourself, the good he hath done for your soul. Oh, we fear there are many who are entering the ship where Christ is, thinking to rest in the light of his presence, without working for the advancement of his cause and kingdom in the world. Such have forgotten to pray—
“Father above, in tender mercy look On us thy children. Through the o’ershadowing cloud Of sorrow and mortality send aid.
Save, or we perish. We would pour our lives Forth, as a joyous offering to thy truth; But we are weak. We, the bruised reeds of earth, Are swayed by every gust.” But prayer will make us strong; prayer will fill our hearts with an energy which God alone can give, and which he requires of every created being. There is a nice distinction, and one which God makes, between the religion of action and the religion of sentiment. There are many who love the beautiful in religion, whose tears flow freely at the tale of woe, whose hearts are trained to the emotions of benevolence, but the sympathy of such a one is quicker to be spoken of than acted upon. His sensibilities are easily disgusted, and he is careful his field of action shall never lead him beyond what is refined and of good report. We speak of this class at present because the world is full of just such persons; there are so few who have professed to be the followers of Christ who are living religiously, according to the rules laid down in the inspired volume.
Religion is not in word and in tongue only, but in deed and in truth; not mere feeling, but principle; not some mysterious change, which at some time may have raised you to the seventh heaven of rapture, to let you fall deeper into the depths of sloth and inactivity: no, the “change of heart, the new birth,” wakens every nerve into activity in the service of God. You must, in the language of Chalmers, “go to the poor man’s cottage, though no verdure flourish around it, and no rivulet be nigh to delight you with the gentleness of its murmurs.”
There is a feeling in the hearts of many, which steals upon them under the semblance of virtue; it is supported by the delusive coloring of imagination and poetry; it has all the graces of literature to recommend it; yet by it vanity is soothed, and conscience lulled to repose. Oh, beware! It is nothing else but a “dream of feeling.” “Go home to thy friends,” every human being, the poor, the blind, the wretched, the loathsome; the black and the white are all included in the class, and maybe as these words came from the Savior’s lips, in answer to the healed man’s prayer, there was a depth of meaning, which should fill our hearts with love to every human soul, which would lead us in very truth to tell all and every one how great compassion the Lord hath shown to us.