WATCHING UNTO PRAYER
“…the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.” — I Peter 4:7
Our nugget today begins with an alert; a disclosure: “The end of all things is at hand.” Some years ago a woman asked, “Do you think the Lord is coming soon?” My response was, “I don’t know. But, I know this; Scripture teaches that He was coming soon then, and His return is two thousand years nearer today than it was then!” It is a matter of perspective, and from God’s perspective, He is coming soon, and we are to be ready for His return all the time.
That leads to a directive on the part of the Holy Spirit through the apostle: “Be sober.” This is not a call to be joyless or depressed, for such counsel would contradict many other scriptures; it is rather instruction to take life seriously, not frivolously and superficially. It is an exhortation in agreement with the teaching of the Lord Himself who instructs us, “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh [Matt. 25:13].” There are many such warnings in the word of God. Life, especially viewed from an eternal perspective, is serious business.
The directive is followed by what amounts to the Christian’s duty in light of the above: “Watch unto prayer.” Or, if you will, be serious about prayer. The two greatest weapons in the believer’s arsenal are the word of God and prayer. The word of God gives us direction and prayer provides dynamic. When the early church was distracted by partisan “murmuring” over the daily dole for widows, the apostles initiated deacons to handle that mundane matter and declared, “we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word [Cf. Acts 6:1-4].”
Here, faced with the prospect that “the end…is at hand,” the whole church is called to prayer as its great resource for victory. Sadly, many professing Christians seldom pray. That is like a marriage in which husband and wife rarely communicate. Or, like an army that fails to wait on the instruction of its commander before going out to battle. Sadder still, many who do pray often “pray amiss.” It is the apostle James who charges, “…ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts [James 4:2-3].” That is as true today as it was when it was written. Prayer in our churches, corporate prayer at least, is more likely to be address temporal and material concerns than spiritual issues. We are far more likely to pray for the healing of physical cancer than for the ills that make the church weak and powerless, or the appropriation of that which will make it “strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might [Eph. 6:10].”
Certainly scripture gives us the right to pray for the sick (See James 5:14, 15,) but even this in the context of spiritual well being. Search the rest of the New Testament for instruction and examples of prayer and you will find little that addresses physical and material well being. The emphasis is nearly always on spiritual considerations.
When the Savior prayed for Peter, it was that his “faith fail not.” Many a Christian needs prayer to that end. When He prayed for “His own,” (John 17) it was for their preservation and unity with one another (v.11, 21-23), for the manifestation of the joy of the Lord (v.13), for their preservation from evil (v.15), for their spiritual health and well being (”sanctification” - v.17), the effective impact of their testimony on the unbelieving world (v.23), their successful journey to glory (v.24) and the infusion of the love of God in their lives (v.26).
Studying the prayers and prayer requests of the apostle Paul will yield a similar emphasis.
Unlike Paul, Peter records few prayers or prayer requests as such, but a consideration of his concerns for those to whom he is writing will give at least a hint of how he must have prayed for them. It was a suffering community of believers, as just the chapter at hand will indicate (v.4, 12-16), yet there is no suggestion of seeking relief or redress. Instead believers are again admonished to live transformed lives, even when it brings mockery (v.1-4, 15), to love one another (v.8), to exercise spiritual gifts to the glory of God (v. 9-11), to exhibit joy and spiritual integrity in the face of opposition (v. 12-16) and to find their resources in God alone (v.19). Their survival and prosperity was not the issue; the triumph of their testimony was the real concern, and must have been the substance of his and their “watching unto prayer.”
Thus should it be with us, and so much the more as we “see the day approaching.”
For a divine perspective in prayer,
"Pastor" Frasier
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