'Do you see yonder wicket Gate?' Evangelist pointing Christian in Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress to the way of salvation Pray one for Another
The Pastor's Letter


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The prayers of the believers for one another is an agent with the grace of God in the delivery, or the sustaining of a Christian in a time of trouble, when the "rivers of grief" have flowed or where there is illness and worry and the loss of loved ones. So surely the circumstances of our fellowship for week to week should teach us the great obligation that we are under to "pray for one another". If we are sustained and comforted, and delivered through the prayers of our believing friends, then how great is our responsibility to remember one another's burdens before God.

And what should we pray for? "Obviously", someone may say, "we should pray that our friend should be delivered from his or her trouble". And, of course we should. But, we must never forget that there is every possibility that God is using this particular time in the life of that person to refine, or to teach some particular lesson, and so, we must be careful that we are not praying at cross purposes with God's plan for each of His children's lives. Underlying all our prayers for one another - as well as our prayers for our own personal Christian live - should be the earnest request that all of God's people learn to recognise that "all things work together for their good". If the truth of this great statement or belief became really alive to us, then how much more confidently could we face every trial.

Daniel Rowland was one of the great leaders of the Welsh revival of the 18th century, and it is not hard to see how his preaching brought a revival of true heart religion as he pointed the people of God to this great central truth of our faith … that God is working in us and for us all things for our own good.

Listen here to him preaching on the text Romans 8-28 … "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God".

It is not said that all things SHALL, but that all things DO work together. All the seeming accidents of life subserve to the same end, and centre in the same point. All tend to promote the glory of the Father and the salvation of the children. Every reproach you suffer, every loss you sustain, every scorn that makes you blush, and every grief that makes you sad; every pain that tears your hear, and every shame that bows your head - your days of joy and your days of sorrow - your plenty and your want - your health and sickness, your life and death - all combine to work together for your good. The text is a harvest of blessedness. The seed is sown. The Lord is at work. The whole creation is employed - men and angels, friends and foes, are all engaged promoting its growth, fencing its bounds, and ripening its produce. O God, how amazing is Thy love!

It's not an easy thing to "trace the rainbow through the rain;" to know that all things are in the hands of God. But such knowledge is the greatest comforter in time of trial. Let us pray that it will belong to each of us as we have need.

Sincerely,

W.J. Seaton




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This Page Title – Pray one for Another – The Pastor's Letter
The Wicket Gate Magazine "A Continuing Witness".
Internet Edition number 38 – placed on line September 2002
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