Prayer Meeting

 One of the first uses of the prayer-meeting was to encourage a discouraged people.
The first meeting for prayer which we find after our Lord’s ascension into heaven is the one mentioned in the text, and we are led from it to remark that united prayer is the comfort of a sorrowful church. Can you imagine the sorrow which filled the hearts of the disciples when their Lord had departed from them? They were an army without a leader, a flock without a shepherd, a family without a head. Exposed to innumerable trials, the strong, bold wall of Jesus’ presence, which had been around about them, was now withdrawn. In the deep desolation of their spirits they resorted to prayer. They were like a flock of sheep that will huddle together in a storm, or come closer to each other when they hear the sound of the wolf. Poor defenseless creatures as they were, yet they loved to come together, and would die together if need be. They felt that nothing made them so happy, nothing so encourage them, nothing so strengthened them to bear their daily difficulties, as to draw near to God in common prayer.

Beloved, let every church learn the value of its prayer-meetings in its darkest hour. When the pastor is gone, and when it has been difficult to find a suitable successor; when, it may be, there are splits and divisions; when death falls upon honored members, when poverty comes in, when there is a spiritual famine, and when the Holy Spirit appears to have withdrawn himself — then there is but one remedy for these and a thousand other evils, and that one remedy is contained in this short sentence, “Let us pray.”

Those churches which are now writing “Ichabod” (i.e., “The glory has departed”) on their walls, and who sorrowfully confess that the congregation is slowly dwindling, might soon restore their numbers if they only knew how to pray. These Brothers and Sisters, though they are presently discouraged, would soon change defeat into success, and their spirits would be revived simply by drawing near to God.

And if any of you are personally afflicted and troubled in your lives, you will find that, after meeting God in His throne room, your own private prayer closet will be especially comforting to you, and after that, come and unite with the saints of God, who have all most likely experienced the same struggles and assaults like yours, and as you hear them pouring out their hearts and making requests such as you would make, but scarcely know how to word them, you will clearly see the footsteps of the flock, and in time you will see the Shepherd himself. One of the first uses of the prayer-meeting, then, is to encourage a discouraged people.