Dear reader, do you pray? I do not ask if you say your prayers or if you have uttered your prayer of the day to God, but I ask do you pray? In my own experience, and I think you too would testify to this too, that prayer is often taken for granted by my soul. I would speak of praying and promising to pray for people, but in the end they reveal what they really are, vain and repetitious. No heart, no desire, no anguish for sin. Communion with God has become a dry ritual for religious boasting.

O dear professor in Christ, I bid you, examine your heart, examine your soul! Perhaps the reason you scarcely pray and do not even really desire to pray is that you are not right with God, you are still in the bonds of iniquity, dead in sin, in enmity with God through your wicked works? If that is the case Repent and believe the Gospel! And then, dear reader, Pray!

And if perhaps you simply are uneducated in the school of prayer. You want to pray but don’t know how. Worry not, dear reader. Prayer is not a burdensome task that requires the scholar types to accomplish it. Rather it is a Spirit born privilege inherently given to the sons of God! Cast yourself before the throne of grace and pray with all humility and reverence! Immerse yourself in the prayer language of the Psalms. Seek, thirst and hunger dear Reader!—And you will find, He will give you water to drink and bread to eat! Pray!

“…Men ought always to Pray.”—Jesus, Luke 18:1
“I will that men pray everywhere.”—Paul, 1 Timothy 2:8

I have a question to offer you. It is contained in three words,

DO YOU PRAY?

The question is one that none but you can answer. Whether you attend public worship or not, your minister knows. Whether you have family prayers or not your relations know. But whether you pray in private or not, is a matter between yourself and God.

I beseech you in all affections to attend to the subject I bring before you. Do not say that my question is too close. If your heart is right in the sight of God, there is nothing in it to make you afraid.

Do not turn off my question by replying that you say your prayers. It is one thing to say your prayers and another to pray. Do not tell me that my question is unnecessary. Listen to me for a few minutes, and I will show you good reason for asking it.

I. I ask whether you pray, because prayer is absolutely needful to a person’s salvation.

II. I ask again whether you pray, because a habit of prayer is one of the surest marks of a true Christian.

III. I ask whether you pray, because there is no duty in religion so neglected as private prayer.

We live in days of abounding religious profession. There are more places of public worship than there ever was before. There are more persons attending them than there ever was before. And yet in spite of all this public religion, I believe there is a vast neglect of private prayer. It is one of those private transcripts between God and our souls which no eye sees, and therefore one which people are tempted to pass over and leave undone.

I believe that hundreds of thousands never utter a word of prayer at all. They eat. They drink. They sleep. They rise. They go forth to their work. They return to their homes. They breathe God’s air. They travel on God’s earth. They enjoy God’s mercies. They have dying bodies. They have judgment and eternity before them. But they never speak to God.

They live like the animals that perish. They behave like creatures without souls. They have not one word to say to Him in whose hand are their life and breath, and all things, and from whose mouth they must one day receive their everlasting sentence. How dreadful this seems; but if the secrets of people, were daily known, how common.

I believe there are hundreds of thousands whose prayers are nothing but mere form, a set of words repeated by rote, without a thought about their meaning. Some say over a few hasty sentences picked up in the nursery when they were children. Some content themselves with repeating the Creed, forgetting that there is not a request in it. Some add the Lord’s Prayer, but without the slightest desire that its solemn petitions may be granted.

Many, even those who use good forms, mutter their prayers over after they have got to bed, or while they wash or dress in the morning. People may think what they please, but they may depend upon it that in the sight of God this is not praying. Words said without heart are as utterly useless to our souls as the drum beating of savages before their idols. Where there is no heart, there may be lip-work and tongue-work, but there is no prayer. Saul, I have no doubt, said many a long prayer before the Lord met him on the way to Damascus. But it was not till his heart was broken that the Lord said.: “He prayeth.”

Does this surprise you? Listen to me, and I will show you that I am not speaking as I do without reason. Do you think that my assertions are extravagant and unwarrantable? Give me your attention, and I will soon show you that I am only telling you the truth.

Have you forgotten that it is not natural to any one to pray? “The carnal mind is enmity against God.” The desire of a person’s heart is to get far away from God, and have nothing to do with him. Their feelings towards him is not but fear.

Why then should a person pray when they have no real sense of sin , no real feeling of spiritual needs, no thorough belief in unseen things, no desire after holiness and heaven? Of all these things the vast majority of people know and feel nothing. The multitudes walk in the broad way. I cannot forget this. Therefore I say boldly, I believe that few pray.

Have you forgotten that it is not fashionable to pray? It is one of those things that many would be rather ashamed to admit. There are hundreds who would rather storm a breach, or lead a forlorn hope then confess publicly that they make a habit of prayer.

There are thousands who, if obliged to sleep in the same room with a stranger, would lie down in bed without a prayer. To dress well, to go to theaters, to be thought clever and agreeable, all this is fashionable, but not to pray. I cannot forget this. I cannot think a habit is common which so many seem ashamed to admit. Thus I believe that few pray.

Have you forgotten the lives that many live? Can we really believe that people are praying against sin night and day, when we see them plunging into it? Can we suppose they pray against the world, when they are entirely absorbed and taken up with its pursuits? Can we think they really ask God for grace to serve him, when they do not show the slightest interest to serve him at all?

Oh, no, it is plain as daylight that the great majority of people either ask nothing of God or do not mean what they say when they do ask, which is just the same thing. Praying and sinning will never live together in the same heart. Prayer will consume sin, or sin will choke prayer. I cannot forget this. I look at people’s lives. I believe that few pray.

Have you forgotten the deaths that many die? How many, when they draw near death, seem entirely strangers to God. Not only are they sadly ignorant of his gospel, but sadly lacking in the power of speaking to him. There is a terrible awkwardness and shyness in their endeavors to approach him. They seem to be taking up a fresh thing. They appear as if they want an introduction to God, and as if they have never talked with him before.

I remember having heard of person who was anxious to have a minister to visit them in their last illness. They desired that he would pray for them. He asked her what he should pray for. They did not know, and could not tell. They were utterly unable to name any one thing which they wished to ask God for their soul. All they seemed to want was the form of a minister’s prayers. I can quite understand this. Death-beds are great revealers of secrets. I cannot forget what I have seen of sick and dying people. This also leads me to believe that few people pray.

I cannot see your heart. I do not know your private history in spiritual things. But from what I see in the Bible and in the world I am certain I cannot ask you a more necessary question than that before you—

DO YOU PRAY?

—J. C. Ryle, A Call To Prayer

To read more of “A Call to Prayer” click here.