Life On The Highest Plane
An Upper Room - Responsive Cooperation
Luke 6:12-13, "And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples; and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles."
Oh! what a momentous night that was in the world's history! What a stupendous decision confronted the Lord Jesus! A choice was to be made on the following day of those who would become linked with the God-man in the carrying out of that eternal purpose which God purposed in Christ for the salvation of mankind. Humanly speaking everything in the earthward side of God's wondrous plan of redemption hung upon that choice.
"He went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God." For Himself? No, this time that mountain top was not an inner room where He looked in upon Himself and His needs and then up to God for their satisfaction and supply, but it was an upper room where He looked out upon the world and its need and then up to God for the fulfillment of His purpose.
That night prayer was intercession. Throughout its hours the Son waited to receive the revelation of His Father's will and then responded through intercession to bring that will to pass in the lives of men. That night through intercession Jesus Christ linked Heaven with earth; He brought God in touch with man. Through intercession the choice of those twelve men, who were to become the very seed of the Church, was made and they were set apart individually as apostles. Oh! what a night's work was that! Perhaps you and I are thousands of miles in space from that "upper room" on that Palestinian slope, and we are separated nineteen centuries in time from that night of intercession, yet the blessing that flowed from those hours will enrich our lives through time and through eternity.
To the God-man prayer was work; in fact, intercession was the most important work that He did. Greater in power than His preaching, His teaching or His healing was His praying. He commenced, continued and consummated everything in prayer. In the upper room He laid hold upon the supernatural forces of the unseen and brought them to bear upon the world in which men lived. Intercession was the most potential means of responsive cooperation with His Father in accomplishing the task He was sent to do.
Acts 1:13-14, "And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with the brethren."
Acts 2: 1, 4, "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place ... And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost."
Acts 2:41, "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day they were added unto them about three thousand souls."
"An upper room," "these all in prayer and supplication," "filled with the Holy Spirit," "added unto them about three thousand souls." A place of prayer, corporate intercession, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and three thousand souls saved through one sermon. Is there any reason why such a miracle of grace should not be wrought in the twentieth century as well as in the first?
I would speak a word to pastors. Has your church "an upper room" where men and women gather no to talk or to be talked to but to pray? Where, with all quarrels, divisions, jealousies put away, they with one accord wait upon God for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit not only upon themselves but upon the body of Christ the world over? Is the power of your preaching on Sunday generated in the prayer-meeting on Wednesday? Does every activity of the church reap fruitage that will abide through time and stand the test by fire in eternity (1 Corinthians 3:13) because it is begotten in prayer?"
I know the prayer meeting is considered old fashioned and that it is now either becoming obsolete or so decrepit through lack of virility as to be almost valueless in many churches. Just this week I heard a pastor in a large city full of churches say that he thought that church was perhaps the only one in the city which would observe the "World's Week of Prayer." But I know too, that the Church is losing its power; it is finding it difficult to even hold its own and in some places is resorting to all sorts of entertainments in an attempt to compete with the attractions of the world. Do you desire to see a manifestation of first century power in your church? If so, are you willing to return to first century methods which will mean the revival of corporate intercession in your church?
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 21)
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