The Sin of Prayerlessness

Moreover as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you. 1 SAMUEL 12:23

In the 1890s Murray travelled widely among the churches of South Africa, speaking at conventions and ministers’ meetings. Everywhere, he tells us in The Ministry of Intercession, the same confession came up: We pray too little! Ministers said it, missionaries said it, earnest lay people said it. And with the confession came something that troubled him even more — a kind of hopelessness, a sense that with the pressure of duty and the force of habit, no real change could be expected. He wrote The Ministry of Intercession, subtitled A Plea for More Prayer, partly to answer that despair. Years later, in The Prayer Life, he returned to the same burden with even greater force.

We pray too little

Murray gathered a series of honest testimonies at the start of the book. He tells of a well-known Edinburgh minister, Dr Whyte, who had confessed to his fellow ministers that as a young man he had given his spare hours to study, and had since learned that prayer was of more importance. He tells of a London minister who protested that with a morning post of ten or twelve letters and a day of committee meetings, he could not see how more time could be given to prayer. And he tells of a district superintendent who described a devout routine — half an hour with God in the morning, prayers breathed through the day, evening devotions — and then admitted that of the intense, definite, importunate prayer of which Scripture speaks, he knew little.

Ye have not, because ye ask not. JAMES 4:2

Murray’s answer to the busy London minister was simple. It was a question of whether God’s call on our time was of more importance than man’s. If God was waiting to meet us and give us power for His work, it was short-sighted to put other work in the place that belonged to Him.

Restraining prayer as sin

The most searching chapter in the book is titled Restraining Prayer — Is It Sin? Murray takes his title from a hard word spoken to Job: thou restrainest prayer before God. And he takes as his main text the story of Achan, whose hidden sin brought defeat on all Israel at Ai.

Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they were accursed: neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you. JOSHUA 7:12

From this story Murray drew a sequence of lessons. The presence of God is the great privilege of His people and their only power. Defeat is always a sign that His presence has been lost. The loss of His presence is always owing to some hidden sin. God Himself must uncover the sin. And his conclusion was sobering: the lack of prayer is itself such a sin. It is not merely a weakness or a regrettable habit. It is unfaithfulness to our consecration to God.

What does prayerlessness reveal? Murray lists it plainly. It shows that we have little taste for fellowship with God; that our faith rests more on our own efforts than on His power; that we have little sense of the blessing He waits to give; that we are unwilling to sacrifice our ease; and that our abiding in Christ is too feeble to prevail. When the pressure of Christian work becomes our excuse for not seeking God’s presence, he says, it proves that we have no right sense of our absolute dependence on Him.

The first step

Why call it sin? Not to add guilt, Murray insisted, but to open the way to deliverance. “To see that our prayer-sins are indeed sins,” he wrote, “is the first step to a true and Divine deliverance from them.” As long as we treat prayerlessness as an unfortunate circumstance — a busy season, a temperament, a lack of discipline — we will try to fix it by resolutions and schedules, and we will fail. When we see it as sin, we bring it to the cross, where sin is dealt with.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 JOHN 1:9

Law and grace

The next chapter, Who Shall Deliver?, is where the book turns from diagnosis to cure, and it is some of the best pastoral writing Murray ever did. He tells of an earnest man who came to him in distress. He had no relish for the Word, his prayers felt heartless, and the more he sought the Spirit the farther away He seemed. Murray told him that the whole matter was simple: he was living under law and not under grace.

Then he spelled out the difference in a passage worth reading slowly. “Law demands; grace bestows.” Law commands but gives no strength; grace promises and performs. Law burdens, casts down and condemns; grace comforts and makes strong and glad. Law appeals to self to do its utmost; grace points to Christ to do all.

For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. ROMANS 6:14

The man’s first step, Murray said, was not to strive harder against his failure but to accept it — to confess his helplessness and sink down before God, and let grace do what effort never could. This applies directly to prayer. The person who resolves to pray more, and fails, and resolves again, is living under law. The cure is not a stronger resolution but a turning to Christ, who will teach and enable us to pray.

Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. HEBREWS 7:25

Where care is needed

Calling prayerlessness sin is strong language, and it can land badly on the weary. A mother with small children, a man working two jobs, a believer struggling with depression, may hear it as one more condemnation. Murray was speaking chiefly to ministers and Christian workers, who had chosen to fill their days with religious business and then complained they had no time for God. The charge fits them precisely. For others, the principle still applies, but it must be applied with the gentleness of the grace Murray himself preached. God knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust.

Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. PSALM 103:13–14

The point is not to be crushed. The point is to be honest, to confess, and to come.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Say the confession plainly to God, if it is true of you: I pray too little.

2. Ask what your prayerlessness reveals — about your trust, your priorities, your sense of dependence. Write down the answer.

3. If Christian work is your excuse for not praying, reduce the work before you reduce the prayer.

4. Instead of making another resolution to pray more, confess your helplessness and ask Christ to teach and enable you.

5. If you are weary rather than careless, receive Psalm 103:14 as God’s word to you, and offer Him what you can.

A PRAYER

Lord, I confess that I pray too little, and that I have called it busyness when it is sin.

My prayerlessness shows how little I depend on You, and how much I trust my own efforts. Forgive me.

I cannot mend it by resolutions. I bring it to You. Take me out from under law and set me under grace.

Teach me to pray, and give me the desire I do not have, for You ever live to intercede for me. Amen.