Jesus On Prayer
By Martyn-Lloyd Jones
IN MATTHEW 6:5-8, we come to an example taken by our Lord to illustrate His teaching concerning piety or the conduct of the religious life. This is the theme which He considers in the first eighteen verses of this chapter. "Take heed," He says in general, "that ye do not your righteousness before men, to be seen of them: else ye have no reward with your Father which is in heaven." Here is His second illustration of this. Following the question of almsgiving comes the whole question of praying to God, our communion and our fellowship with God. Here, again, we shall find that the same general characteristic which our Lord has already described is, alas, far too much in evidence. This portion of Scripture, I sometimes think, is one of the most searching and humbling in the entire realm of Scripture.
But we can read these verses in such a way as really to miss their entire point and teaching, and certainly without coming under conviction. The tendency always when reading this is just to regard it as an exposure of the Pharisees, a denunciation of the obvious hypocrite. We read, and we think of the kind of ostentatious person who obviously is calling attention to himself, as the Pharisees did in this matter. We therefore regard it as just an exposure of this blatant hypocrisy without any relevance to ourselves. But that is to miss the whole point of the teaching here, which is our Lord's devastating exposure of the terrible effects of sin upon the human soul, and especially sin in the form of self and of pride.
Sinful Attitudes
Sin, He shows us here, is something which follows us all the way, even into the very presence of God. Sin is not merely something that tends to assail and afflict us when we are far away from God, in the far country as it were. Sin is something so terrible, according to our Lord's exposure of it, that it will not only follow us to the gates of heaven, but-if it were possible-into heaven itself. Indeed, is not that the Scripture teaching with regard to the origin of sin? Sin is not something which began on earth. Before man fell there had been a previous Fall. Satan was a perfect, bright, angelic being dwelling in the heavenlies; and he had fallen before ever man fell. That is the essence of the teaching of our Lord in these verses. It is a terrible exposure of the horrible nature of sin.
Nothing is quite so fallacious as to think of sin only in terms of actions; and as long as we think of sin only in terms of things actually done, we fail to understand it. The essence of the biblical teaching on sin is that it is essentially a disposition. It is a state of heart. I suppose we can sum it up by saying that sin is ultimately self-worship and self-adulation, and our Lord shows (what to me is an alarming and terrifying thing) that this tendency on our part to self-adulation is something that follows us even into the very presence of God. It sometimes produces the result that even when we try to persuade ourselves that we are worshiping God, we are actually worshiping ourselves and doing nothing more.
That is the terrible nature of His teaching at this point. This thing that has entered into our very nature and constitution as human beings is something that is so polluting our whole being that when people are engaged in their highest form of activity they still have a battle to wage with it. It has always been agreed, I think, that the highest picture that you can ever have of a person is to look at him on his knees waiting upon God. That is the highest achievement of man; it is his noblest activity. Man is never greater than when he is there in communion and contact with God. Now, according to our Lord, sin is something which affects us so profoundly that even at that point it is with us and assailing us. Indeed, we must surely agree on the basis of New Testament teaching that it is only there we really begin to understand sin.
We tend to think of sin as we see it in its rags and in the gutters of life. We look at a drunkard, poor fellow, and we say: There is sin; that is sin. But that is not the essence of sin. To have a real picture and a true understanding of it, you must look at some great saint, some unusually devout and devoted man. Look at him there upon his knees in the very presence of God. Even there, self is intruding itself, and the temptation is for him to think about himself, to think pleasantly and pleasurably about himself, and really to be worshipping himself rather than God. That, not the other, is the true picture of sin. The other is sin, of course, but there you do not see it at its acme; you do not see it in its essence. Or, to put it in another form, if you really want to understand something about the nature of Satan and his activities, think of that wilderness where our Lord spent forty days and forty nights. That is the true picture of Satan where you see him tempting the very Son of God.
All that comes out in this statement. Sin is something that follows us even into the very presence of God.
Necessary Rebirth
Before we come to our analysis of this, I would make one other preliminary observation which seems to me to be quite inevitable. If this picture does not persuade us of our own utter sinfulness, of our hopelessness as well as our helplessness, if it does not make us see our need of the grace of God in the matter of salvation, and the necessity of forgiveness, rebirth, and a new nature, than I know of nothing that ever can persuade us of it. Here we see a mighty argument for the New Testament doctrine about the absolute necessity of being born again, because sin is a matter of disposition, something that is so profound and so vitally a part of us that it even accompanies us into the presence of God.
But follow that argument beyond this life and world, beyond death and the grave, and contemplate yourself in the presence of God in eternity for ever and ever. Is not the rebirth something which is a bare essential? Here, then, in these instructions about piety and the conduct of the religious life, we have implicit in almost every statement this ultimate New Testament doctrine of regeneration and the nature of the new man in Christ Jesus.
Indeed we can go on even beyond that and say that even if we are born again, and even if we have received a new life and a new nature, we still need these instructions. This is our Lord's instruction to Christian people. It is His warning to those who have been born again; even they have to be careful lest in their prayers and devotions they become guilty of this hypocrisy of the Pharisees.
Two Ways of Praying
First, then, let us take this subject in general before coming to a consideration of what is commonly called "the Lord's Prayer." We are looking merely at what we might call an introduction to prayer as our Lord teaches it in these verses, and I think that once more the best way of approaching the subject is to divide it into two sections. There is a false way of praying and there is a true way of praying. Our Lord deals with them both.
False Way
The trouble with the false way is that its very approach is wrong. Its essential fault is that it is concentrating on itself. It is the concentrating of attention on the one who is praying rather than on the One to whom the prayer is offered. That is the trouble, and our Lord shows that here in a very graphic and striking way. He says: "When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men." They stand in the synagogue in a prominent position; they stand forward.
You remember our Lord's parable of the Pharisee and the publican who went into the temple to pray. He makes exactly the same point there. He tells us that the Pharisee stood as far forward as he could in the most prominent place, and there he prayed. The publican, on the other hand, was so ashamed and full of contrition that "standing afar off" he could not even so much as lift up his face to heaven, but just cried out, "God be merciful to me a sinner." In the same way our Lord says here that the Pharisees stand in the synagogues and in the corners of the street, in the most prominent position, and pray in order that they may be seen of men. "Verily I say unto you, They have their reward." ,
According to our Lord, the reason for their praying in the street corners is something like this. A man on his way to the temple to pray is anxious to give the impression that he is such a devout soul that he cannot even wait until he gets to the temple. So he stands and prays at the street corner. For the same reason, when he reaches the temple, he goes forward to the most prominent position possible. Now what is important for us is to extract the principle, so I put that as the first picture.
The second is put in the words: "When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." If we take these two pictures together, we shall find that there are two main errors underlying this whole approach to God in prayer. The first is that my interest, if I am like the Pharisee, is in myself as the one who is praying. The second is that I feel that the efficacy of my prayer depends upon my much praying or upon my particular manner of prayer. Let us look at these separately.
First Error - Showing Off
The first trouble, then, is this danger of being interested in myself as one who prays. This can show itself in many different ways. The first and the basic trouble is that such a person is anxious to be known among others as one who prays. That is the very beginning of it. He is anxious to have a reputation as a man of prayer, anxious and ambitions is that respect. That in itself is wrong.
The next step in this process is that it becomes a positive and actual desire to be seen praying by others. That, in turn, leads to things which will ensure that others do see us. This is a most subtle matter that is not always blatant and obvious. There is a type of person who parades himself and puts himself in a prominent position and is always calling attention to himself. But there are also subtle ways of doing this self-same thing.
The biographer, who was anxious to show the saintliness of an author, illustrated it like this. "Nothing was quite so characteristic of him," he said, "as the way in which, when he was walking from one room to another, he would suddenly in the corridor fall down on his knees and pray. Then he would get up and go on his way again." That, to the biographer, was proof of the saintliness and devoutness of this particular man.
I do not think I need explain what I mean. The trouble with the Pharisees was that they tried to give the impression that they could not wait until they got to the temple; they had to stand where they were at the street corners to pray, at once both blatant and obvious. Yes, but if you fall down on your knees in a corridor in a house, it is rather wonderful! I want to show on the basis of our Lord's teaching that that man would have been a greater saint if he had not dropped on to his knees, but rather had offered up his prayer to God as he was walking along that corridor. It would have been an equally sincere prayer, and nobody would have seen it. How subtle this is!
"Enter into thy closet, and ... shut thy door." My prayer is always going to be the secret prayer. Yes, but it is possible for a man to pray in secret in such a way that everybody knows he is praying in secret, because he gives the impression that by spending so much time there he is a great man of prayer.
