Page:Purpose in prayer.djvu/17

 God conditions the very life and prosperity of His cause on prayer. The condition was put in the very existence of God's cause in this world. ''Ask of Me'' is the one condition God puts in the very advance and triumph of His cause.

Men are to pray—to pray for the advance of God's cause. Prayer puts God in full force in the world. To a prayerful man God is present in realised force; to a prayerful Church God is present in glorious power, and the Second Psalm is the Divine description of the establishment of God's cause through Jesus Christ. All inferior dispensations have merged in the enthronement of Jesus Christ. God declares the enthronement of His Son. The nations are incensed with bitter hatred against His cause. God is described as laughing at their enfeebled hate. The Lord will laugh; The Lord will have them in derision. "Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion." The decree has passed immutable and eternal:

I will tell of the decree: The Lord said unto Me, Thou art My Son; This day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance, And the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

Ask of Me is the condition—a praying people willing and obedient. "And men shall pray for