06.11. Brothers, Beware of Sacred Substitutes
Ministry is its own worst enemy.
It is not destroyed by the big, bad wolf of the world.
It destroys itself.
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Those incessant knocks at our door, and perpetual visits from idle persons, are so many buckets of cold water thrown upon our devout zeal. We must by some means secure uninterrupted meditation, or we shall lose power.
Charles Spurgeon ✦ ✦ ✦ The great threat to our prayer and our meditation on the Word of God is good ministry activity.
11 Brothers, Beware of Sacred Substitutes
Ministry is its own worst enemy. It is not destroyed by the big, bad wolf of the world. It destroys itself. One survey of pas-tors asked, “What are the most common obstacles to spiritual growth?” The top three were busyness (83 percent), lack of discipline (73 percent), and interruptions (47 percent). Most of these interruptions and most of our busyness are ministry related, not “worldly.” The great threat to our prayer and our meditation on the Word of God is good ministry activity. Charles Spurgeon put it like this: “Those incessant knocks at our door, and perpetual visits from idle persons, are so many buckets of cold water thrown upon our devout zeal. We must by some means secure uninterrupted medita-tion, or we shall lose power.”1 That is the point of Acts 6:2-4 : And the twelve summoned the full number of the disci-ples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
Without extended and consecrated prayer, the ministry of the Word withers up and bears no fruit. The 120 were devoting them-selves to prayer (Acts 1:14) when the Spirit fell and gave them utter-ance with three thousand converts (Acts 2:41). These converts were also devoting themselves to prayer (Acts 2:42) when signs and wonders were done and people were added to the church daily (Acts 2:43; Acts 2:47). Peter and his friends were engaged in prayer when the place was shaken and they were filled with the Spirit and spoke the Word boldly (Acts 4:31). Paul relied on prayer that he might be given utterance to open his mouth and proclaim the mystery of the gospel (Ephesians 6:19).
Without extended, concentrated prayer, the ministry of the Word withers. And when the ministry of the Word declines, faith (Romans 10:17; Galatians 3:2; Galatians 3:5) and holiness (John 17:17) decline. Activity may continue, but life and power and fruitfulness fade away. Therefore, whatever opposes prayer opposes the whole work of ministry. And what opposes the pastor’s life of prayer more than anything? The ministry. It is not shopping or car repairs or sickness or yard work that squeezes our prayers into hurried corners of the day. It is budget development and staff meetings and visitation and counseling and answering mail and writing reports and reading journals and answer-ing the phone and preparing messages. The effort to meet needs is, ironically, often the enemy of prayer. Literally, Acts 6:3 says, “Brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this need.” The care of the widows was a real need. And it was precisely this need which threatened apostolic prayer. But the apostles would not yield to the temptation. This must mean that prayer demanded a large part of their uninterrupted time. If they had thought of prayer as something you do while washing dishes or cooking (or driving a car between hospitals), they would not have seen table-serving as a threat to prayer. Prayer was a time-consuming labor during which other duties had to be set aside.
They had learned from Jacob and from Jesus that whole nights may have to be spent in prayer (Genesis 32:24; Luke 6:12). Under the drain of ministry, we must “withdraw to desolate places and pray” (Luke 5:16). Before significant pastoral encounters we must pray alone (Luke 9:18). For Jesus and the apostles the work of prayer demanded significant amounts of solitude: “In the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35). The apostles said, “We will devote ourselves to prayer” (Acts 6:4). The word translated “devote ourselves” (proskartereō) emphasizes the unbending commitment of the apostles to preserve time for prayer. It means “to persist at” and “remain with.” It is used in Acts 10:7 to refer to the loyalty with which some soldiers served Cornelius. The idea is to be strong and persistent and unwavering in one’s assignment. So the apostles were saying: No matter how urgent the pressures upon us to spend our time doing good deeds, we will not forsake our chief work. We will persist in it. We will not waver or turn aside from the work of prayer. This word (proskartereō) becomes firmly attached to the ministry of prayer in the early church. In Acts 1:14 the disciples were “devoting them-selves to prayer,” and in Acts 2:42 they “devoted themselves” to “prayers.” Then in the epistles of Paul, this practice becomes a command: “Be con-stant in prayer” (Romans 12:12). “Continue steadfastly in prayer” (Colossians 4:2). “Keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints” (Ephesians 6:18). The more heavily engaged one is in battling the powers of darkness, the greater will be one’s sense of need to spend time in prayer. Therefore, the apostles combine “prayer” and “the ministry of the Word” and free themselves from time-consuming good deeds. The importance of prayer rises in proportion to the importance of the things we should give up in order to pray. If the work we are to give up is a work which requires great spiritual depth and power, then how much more crucial and demanding must be the work of prayer? And this is just the case in Acts 6:3. The text does not say, “Apostles should do the spiritual work of prayer and get some practical folks to serve tables.” It says, “Pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom.” (Deacons and trustees ought not to be worldly financiers. They ought to be full of the Spirit and of wisdom.) It is not just the daily, routine demands of the pastorate that threaten our life of prayer. Prayer is also menaced by opportunities for ministry which demand fullness of the Spirit and wisdom. Even this we must forsake in order to devote ourselves to prayer.
Martin Luther was once asked by his barber, “Dr. Luther, how do you pray?” Astonishingly, one of the busiest men of the Reformation wrote a forty-page response for his barber, Peter Beskendorf. His words are a great inspiration for us to beware of sacred substitutes. A good clever barber must have his thoughts, mind and eyes concentrated upon the razor and the beard and not for-get where he is in his stroke and shave. If he keeps talking or looking around or thinking of something else, he is likely to cut a man’s mouth or nose—or even his throat. So anything that is to be done well ought to occupy the whole man with all his faculties and members. As the saying goes: he who thinks of many things thinks of nothing and accomplishes no good. How much more must prayer possess the heart exclu-sively and completely if it is to be a good prayer!2
Luther knew well the struggle to get down to praying when a dozen good things press for our time. So he exhorted himself and his barber:
It is a good thing to let prayer be the first business in the morning and the last in the evening. Guard yourself against such false and deceitful thoughts that keep whispering: Wait a while. In an hour or so I will pray. I must first finish this or that. Thinking such thoughts we get away from prayer into other things that will hold us and involve us till the prayer of the day comes to naught.3
Oh, how we need to hear the earnest exhortations of our brothers. I preach to myself here. I long to know God in prayer better than I do. I hear the plea of A. A. Bonar, and I am prompted to get up from my desk and go to my prayer bench and linger for a while with the Lord in prayer:
O brother, pray; in spite of Satan, pray; spend hours in prayer; rather neglect friends than not pray; rather fast, and lose breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper—and sleep too—than not pray. And we must not talk about prayer, we must pray in right earnest. The Lord is near. He comes softly while the virgins slumber.4 Brothers, beware of sacred substitutes. Devote yourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.
Notes 1.Charles H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1972), 309.
2.Quoted from Walter Trobisch, Martin Luther’s Quiet Time (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1975), 4.
3.Ibid., 5.
4.Quoted in Free Grace Broadcaster (Pensacola, FL: Mount Zion Bible Church) no. 153, Summer 1995, 25.