“Ye also helping together by prayer for us … “ (2 Corinthians 1:11)
The prayer to which the apostle here refers was concerning a collection which had been taken, doubtless for the apostle’s support. It is called “… the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons …” and for that Paul desired that ” … thanks may be given by many on our behalf (2 Corinthians 1: 11 ).
There are some of us who count the great prayer fraternity, who hold us constantly before God’s throne, as our fortune. We believe that intercessory prayer is a power; and while we do not attempt to explain it, we bear witness to this fact of experience, namely, that when our burdens have been heaviest, our danger most imminent, when the adversary seemed most determined against us, we have discovered that somehow the Spirit of God, anticipating all of that, had stirred many people to pray; and more than once we have been compelled to assign victory to intercessory prayers.
Some years ago, I was passing through a great trial, and I believed at that time that it was the greatest of my life. In the very midst of it, when I was utterly unfitted for any duty, I had to keep an engagement of long standing in Chicago.
On reaching that city, I found an old-time friend eager for me to come out to Morgan Park and dine at his home. In answer to his urgent invitation, I went.
His wife and mother were marvelously godly women – women who walked in the Spirit. At the dinner table, imagine my amazement to have the wife say to me, “Dr. Riley, two nights ago Mother and I were led to spend the whole night in prayer for you. We did not know why, but we found it impossible to do else.”
The speech astonished me immeasurably, but it also lent me hope in an hour that was otherwise dark, for I knew prayers so prompted by the Spirit would prevail.
It was like a sunburst from behind the blackest cloud; but better yet is another thought, namely, that the Brother of all brothers, even our Elder Brother Christ, does not forget us.
You remember how that night when He was about to leave the upper room and go to the garden for His agony and betrayal, Jesus first prayed for His disciples, committing them to the keeping power of God, and pleading that they might be sanctified in the truth, made one in the faith, effective in service, and received at last into glory. To be sure, in their weakness they slept when He needed them; but even that failure did not keep them from the Father’s blessing, for Christ had prayed for them.
We sometimes forget that Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The Christ of Peter is your Christ and my Christ; and that even as He said to Peter, “… Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not …” (Luke 22:31-32), so He speaks to us and pleads on our behalf, that we, when we recover, might strengthen our brethren. Yea, that we in response might, like Peter, be ready to say, “… Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death” (Luke 22:33).