The Influence of Family Worship on a Nation (2)

We have still to consider the great and crowning favor which family worship confers on a nation: It brings down heavenly blessings from the prayer-hearing God.

Take out of a nation its praying souls and you leave it defenseless and accursed. Cities and kingdoms have been spared for the sake of Christ’s people who were in them. Jehovah would have withheld his destroying vengeance from Sodom and the cities of the plain, “for ten’s sake” (Gen. 18:32). The cries of the poor, who fear God, “enter into the ears of the Lord of saba-oth” (Jas. 5:4). Politicians attribute no potency to the prayers of believers, but they are heard in heaven. They have, before now, averted great evils and procured great deliverances. Israel was about to be utterly consumed at Taberah, but “when Moses prayed unto the Lord, the fire was quenched” (Num. 11:2). The agonizing prayer of Daniel for his people was mighty before God. When the Most High is about to return to a guilty people, He does it in answer to prayer, and summons those who fear Him to humiliation: “Let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet: let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord” (Joel 2:16,17). The angel who stands with a drawn sword over a country is no doubt often recalled by reason of those prayers which are forgotten by sinful rulers and a profane people.

True Christians feel it to be their bounden duty to pray for the government. Though we have no prescribed liturgical form for this in our public service, we hold it to be an important part of intercession. We have known ministers to be charged with partisanship in politics because they publicly prayed for the chief magistrate. No patriot and no Christian can consistently refuse so to pray, with fulness and earnestness. It would be dreadful, indeed, if the devotions of God’s house were to take their direction from the gusts of political opinion. It is no human rubric, but an inspired oracle, which enjoins that “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty” (1 Tim. 2:1,2). Such prayers go up from the devout household also and the more they are multiplied, the more reason is there to hope for national prosperity.

Dr. James W. Alexander (1804–1859), eldest son of the renowned Archibald Alexander, wrote many volumes on practical Christian themes, including Plain Words to a Young Communicant (1854) and Thoughts on Preaching (1864). This article is drawn from his Thoughts on Family Worship (1847).

Men who love their country will delight to take their households with them to the throne of grace, in beseeching God’s favor in any great national emergency. When questions of vast moment are in suspense, when divisions are threatened, especially when the country is at war, the prayers of Christian families in every church throughout the land are exerting an unseen agency, outweighing perhaps, the deliberations of senates, cabinets, and councils of war. And the youth who are trained to such prayers, are growing up in the best school of patriotism. No man will be less likely to love his country for having been taught to pray for it every day.

A land covered by praying families may be well-called a Christian land. That it would be happy in proportion, even in civil affairs, can be denied only by those who reject all religion. Were every town in America, in this respect, what Kidderminster was in the days of Baxter, we should indeed be the glory of all lands. It is all that we need for our exaltation, and the method by which it is to be sought is not remote or recondite, not the method of association or agitation, nor waiting for others to concur—it is simply for every man in his place to set up the worship of God. The true way to bring health to a diseased nation is to carry the cure to every house. The aggregate energy of a multitude of zealous families united in prayer for the country is beyond all computation; it is this which “exalteth a nation.” Patriotism could confer nothing better on the land she loves than to kindle this fire on every hearth. The voice of thanksgiving and joy would burst over the domestic and national walls and reach the most distant lands. Who will not pray for such a consummation? “Let the people praise Thee, O God; let all the people praise Thee. Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us. God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him” (Ps. 67:5–7).

Testing Times

I did Thee wrong, my God,
I wronged Thy truth and love,
I fretted at the rod,
Against Thy power I strove.

I said, My God, at length,
This stony heart remove,
Deny all other strength,
But give me strength to love.

Come nearer, nearer still,
Let not Thy light depart;
Break, break this stubborn will,
Dissolve this iron heart.

Less wayward let me be,
More pliable and mild;
In glad simplicity
More like a trusting child.

Less of the flesh each day,
Less of the world and sin;
More of Thy Son, I pray,
More of Thyself within.

Leave nought that is unmeet,
Of all that is Thine own;
Strip me; and so complete
My training for the throne.

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