Scripture: "And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the Gospel, that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak."— EPH. vi. 19, 20
And for me"—what light these words cast on the deep reality of Paul's faith in the absolute necessity and the won¬derful power of prayer. Just listen for what he asks that they should pray. "That utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak." Paul had now been a minister of the Gospel for more than twenty years. One would say that he had such experience of preaching and utterance that it would come naturally to him to speak boldly as he ought to speak. But so deep is his conviction of his own insufficiency and weakness, so absolute is his dependence on Divine teaching and power, that he feels that without the direct help of God he cannot do the work as it ought to be done. The sense of his total and unalterable dependence upon God, Who was with him, teaching him what and how to speak, is the ground of all his confidence, and the keynote of his whole life.
But there is more. He had in all these twenty years, times without number, been in circumstances where he had to throw himself upon God alone, with no one to help him in prayer. And yet, such is his deep spiritual insight into the unity of the body of Christ, and of his own actual dependence on the prayers of others, that he pleads for their praying with all prayer and sup¬plication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all prayer and perseverance, and asks that they shall not forget to pray for him. As little as a wrestler can afford to dispense with the help of the weakest members of his body in the struggle in which he is en¬gaged, so little could Paul do without the prayers of the believers.
What a call to us in this twentieth century, to awake to the consciousness that Christ our Intercessor in heaven, and all saints here upon earth, are engaged in one mighty contest, and that it is our duty to call out and to cultivate the gift of unceasing supplication for the power of God's Spirit in all His servants, that all may have divine utterance given them, and that all may speak boldly and as they ought to speak.
