Everyman’s Hut

Camp News, Volume 2, Issue 88, 5 September 1941, Page 8

Everyman’s Hut

Pray as if on that above, Hangs the issue of the day; Pray that help may be sent down; Watch and pray. The call of His Majesty, King George V. to observe Sunday the 7th as a national day of prayer draws attention once again to this greatly neglected weapon. Some people believe in prayer and some don’t, but in the Holy Scriptures we read that “the

effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” The reason why so much prayer remains unanswered is because we do not ask aright. Prayer is not a form of magic by which we can bring God on our side to give us victory.-. So long as we neglect God in our moral and spiritual lives, we cannot successfully claim His help in our physical lives. Elijah knew how his people had gone away from God in heart and his prayer for a drought was -intended to bring his people back to acknowledge their sin and look to God in repentance. It took three and a half years’ drought to do this, but in the end the people turned from their idols to God. The following extract is from a

striking booklet, “Prayer will bring Peace.”

“There are those who like Elijah, realise that Britain’s first and deep-

est need is not deliverance from Hitlerism so much as deliverance from Godlessness; not victory over Nazism as much as victory over our own national sins. Before victory and peace are going to be much use to Britain she needs to be brought back to God. Before she can stand the exhaltation

|of triumph she needs the humiliation of repentance.” Are we praying for this ? Hitler has claimed that he will bring Britain to her knees. Are we praying that our beloved country may be brought to her knees in repentance and humiliation for her Sabbath desecration, her .neglect of the House of God, -her rejection of the Bible, her worship of the gods of drink, gambling, pleasure, sport and riches? ' Single days of prayer are not enough. Mere formal acknowledgment of God by an odd Sunday morning in Church will have no effect what-

ever. God is not to be patronised: God waits for the nation to forsake

its sin, to set itself to walk in the ways of His commandments, to obey His voice in righteous loving and sincere honouring of His Name.

To make prayer effective for peace,

these must be our aims. We cannot but pray for the ending of this terrible slaughter for the triumph of democracy; for the preservation of liberty to worship, speak and write as God and our conscience dictates; but those great ideals are dependent upon a spiritual condition of the peoples and that condition must be the fundamental burden of our prayer.

If prayer, more prayer, united prayer, persistent prayer, sacrificial prayer is made to God on these lines, PRAYER WILL BRING PEACE. It’s up to me and you.