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Let us pray.
#3.
"Do as Thou hast said" (I Chron. 17: 23).
pp. 21 - 23
If prayer is the highest spiritual transaction open to believer to-day, if it has to do most
essentially with access into the presence of God, and if it is used by the Lord as a means
of leading His children ardently to desire the very thing that He most surely wills to grant
(see articles Volume XXI, pp. 159 and 198), then it appears very evident that true prayer
will always seek the accomplishment of the will of God, and inasmuch as the will of God
is expressed in His Word, true prayer will ever be associated with the Scriptures.
In our second article we chose for illustration the passage in Ezek. 36: 36, 37,
where the restoration of Israel is in view. When that blessed day comes, repentant Israel
will find, ready to their hand, true prayers with which to ask, to seek and to knock:--
"Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto Him, Take away all iniquity,
and receive us graciously . . . . . for in Thee the fatherless findeth mercy" (Hos. 14: 2, 3).
Isa. 53: 3-6 will be the very confession of Israel when they do at last look upon Him
whom they have pierced, and mourn for Him.
This principle that places the Word of God and the believer's prayer in such proximity
is well illustrated by two statements made by David. The first occurs in I Chron. 17: 1
where we read that David entertained the very commendable purpose of building a house
for God; saying: "Lo, I dwell in a house of cedars, but the ark of the covenant of the
Lord remaineth under curtains." This project, however, was not allowed to go forward at
that time, and David had to listen to the overwhelming grace of God that spoke to him,
not of a house for the worship and service of the Lord, but of the ultimate blessing and
establishment of his, David's, house "according to the law of the Man (Adam) who is
from on high--Jehovah God" (I Chron. 17: 17; I Cor. 15: 47).
David is left with little to say: "What can David speak more to Thee?" (verse 18).
And so he gathers up the meaning of all true prayer in the pregnant words, "Do as Thou
hast said."
"Therefore now, Lord, let the thing that Thou hast spoken concerning Thy servant and
concerning his house be established for ever, AND DO AS THOU HAST SAID"
(I Chron. 17: 23).
In the presence of his God, flooded as his soul was with overwhelming grace, David
finds no petition of heart or lip, except that the will of the Lord be done.
Surely there can be nothing more pleasing to God than the sight of one of His children
so led along the path of understanding and fellowship, that his prayers grow smaller, his
words fewer, his petitions less, and his one consuming desire becomes a desire that