And whatsoever we ask we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
1 John 3:22
God Answers Prayers of Those Who Do the Things That Are Pleasing in His Sight
But it is not enough that we keep His commandments. There is something further than that in the verse that we are studying. Let me read it to you again. 1 John 3:22 — “And whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and [please notice that and; “and” is a little word but a very important word] do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” It is not enough that we do the things that God specifically commands us to do; in addition to that, we must “do the things that are pleasing in his sight,” even though He has not commanded us to do them. There are many things that it would please God for us to do that He does not specifically command us to do.
The idea that many people have of God’s government is this: that God is a great moral Governor, and that He lays down a lot of laws for us to obey: thou shalt do this, and thou shalt do this, and thou shalt do this, and thou shalt not do this, and thou shalt not do this, and thou shalt not do this; and that the whole of Christian duty lies in our doing the things that God specifically tells us to do, and leaving undone the things that God specifically tells us not to do. What a strange idea of God’s government! God is not a mere moral governor. He is that, but He is far more than that; something infinitely better than that. God is our Father. That is the thought that lies at the very foundation of the Bible doctrine of prayer—the thought of the Fatherhood of God. And all these apparently philosophical and learned arguments that men bring against the doctrine of God’s answering prayer, from “the uniformity of law,” and from “the established course of things in nature and in providence,” are all utterly foolish, and really unphilosophical (for all their ostentatious parade of being profoundly scientific and philosophical), because they lose sight of the great fundamental truth about God that lies at the very foundation of the Bible doctrine that God answers prayer—the truth that God is not merely a Creator and the Governor of the physical universe and the moral universe, but that God is our Father.
Now, how does a father govern his children? Does he lay down a lot of laws—thou shalt do this, and thou shalt do this, and thou shalt do this, and thou shalt not do this, and thou shalt not do this, and thou shalt not do this? Does he rest content when his children do the things that he specifically tells them to do, and leave undone the things he specifically tells them not to do? No, not if he is a wise father. If he is a wise father he will lay down some rules for the conduct of his children, which he, because of superior knowledge, knows to be wise. But those rules will not be so very many, and certainly he will not be content if his children simply obey those rules. No, the wise father expects his children to get thoroughly acquainted with him, so that they know what pleases him instinctively and, when they know what pleases him, do it without waiting to be told.
Take my own government of my children, and my wife’s government of our children. Did we lay down a lot of laws for our children to follow, as to what they should do and what they should not do? No, certainly not. We did lay down a few principles of action, which we, in our superior wisdom, knew to be best for our children, and we did not always explain to our children why we laid down these laws for we wished our children to learn obedience to authority. In much of the home life of America today, and in much of the school life, and in much of our national life, we have entirely lost sight of the great and wholesome principle of authority, and some of our modern would-be educators tell us that we ought to explain everything that we command our children to do, in the home or in the school, and that we ought to let our children “follow out their own individuality,” and “not enslave them by parental or school authority.”
That is one of the most dangerous principles in modern teaching. By it we are training a lot of rebels—rebels in the home, rebels in the schools, and afterwards rebels in society and in civil government. If there is anything the present generation needs to learn, and that we, who are in authority of one kind or another, need to teach our children, it is the principle of rightful authority: the authority of the parent in the home, the authority of teachers in schools, and the authority of civil rulers in our government. So our children were taught to obey when they were told to do anything, without asking “why.” And if either their mother or their father had told our children to do anything, and they had not done it, we would not have known what to make of it; or if we had told them not to do anything and they had done it, we would not have known what to make of that. I cannot recall an instance in many years in which our children disobeyed us in a single matter.
But we were not satisfied with that. Over and above the few rules we laid down for the guidance of our children, we expected our children to become thoroughly acquainted with us, so that they would know instinctively what would please their father or their mother, and, when they knew it, do it without waiting to be told. We should have been much grieved if our children had only done the things that pleased us when they were specifically told to do them.
Now, when we thus are carefully considering in all our actions and in all our decisions as to our conduct, what would please God and what would displease God, and do every time the things we think would please Him, and refuse to do, every time, the things we think would displease Him, even though He has not specifically told us to do the one, or leave undone the other, then God will listen to our prayers. If we always study to “do the things that are pleasing in His sight,” He will always study to do the things that please us, and, therefore, grant our requests. Are you always, in all your decisions, carefully considering what would please or displease God, and doing every time the things that you think would please Him, and leaving undone every time the things you think would displease Him, whether He has told you to do the one or not to do the other?
Here we find a very simple way of deciding the questions that are perplexing so many young Christians today, yes, and older Christians, too: for example, the question, “Shall Christians go to the theatre,” or “Shall Christians dance,” or “Shall Christians play cards,” or “Shall Christians go to the movies?” etc., etc. Now the way a great many people seek to decide those questions is this. They ask, “Does God anywhere say in His Word, ‘Thou shalt not go to the theatre’; ‘Thou shalt not dance’; ‘Thou shalt not play cards”?” That is not the question. If you were a real loyal child of God you would not ask that question. The question is, “Will it please my Father? Will it please God?”
Take, for example, the question of the theatre. If I thought it would please God for me to go to the theatre, more than for me to stay away, I would go, no matter what anyone else might think of it, or what anyone else might do. But if I thought it would please God for me to stay away more than for me to go, I would stay away no matter who else went.
When I lived in Chicago I frequently had sent to me complimentary tickets from different theatres, especially from one of the highest class theatres, and with the tickets oftentimes would come a note saying that the play was of a very high moral character, and that Bishop So and So, in some city, or Dr. So and So, highly approved of it and had gone to the play, and that they would be highly complimented if I would occupy a box at the play. Now, I could not be caught by any such chaff as that. It made no difference to me what Bishop or Doctor So and So had done. The only question with me was, will it please God better for me to go than for me to stay away? And had I thought that it would please God better for me to go than for me to stay away, I would have gone, whether Bishop So and So had gone or not. But if, on the other hand, I had thought it would please God better for me to stay away, I would have stayed away, even though every bishop and every minister in Chicago had gone.
Each one of us must decide these questions for ourselves. No one of us can be a conscience for someone else. But they are not at all difficult to decide if we decide them on this Bible basis of doing the things that would please our Father, and leaving undone the things that would not please Him.
Take, for example, the theatre. Does it please God for a child of His to attend the theatre? Now, there are certain things that we all know about the theatre, or that we may easily learn if we do not already know them. We all know there is a great difference between the plays that are put on the stage. Some of them are of a high moral character and the natural effect of them would be uplifting. Others are not morally so good, and others are as vile as the theatrical people dare make them. Then we know, too, that there is a great difference between actors and actors, and between actresses and actresses. We know that some actors and actresses try to maintain a high moral standard, and that others are among the most corrupt members of modern society. We know that some actresses go on the stage with lofty moral ideals, and that other actresses have no moral ideals at all. “Well, then,” someone may say, “the way to decide it is this: go to those plays, and only to those plays, where the play itself is of a high, elevating moral character, and where all the actors and actresses are men and women who are trying to maintain high moral ideals.”
Well, if you decided it in that way, you would not go to many plays. But the question is not quite that simple. The theatre is an institution, and we must judge it as an institution, judge it as it really exists today. It is possible to imagine a stage of the purest and loftiest character, and to imagine plays that would be among the most elevating of all the influences in society; but the question is not of the stage, and the plays, as we can imagine them, but of the stage as it actually exists today.
Now, there are certain things that all of us who have studied the problem at all thoroughly, know about the stage as it exists today. We know that the influence of the stage upon the men and women who perform upon it is of a most demoralizing character. We know that many a woman has gone on the stage with a determination to maintain the highest moral ideals, and that they have all found out, after they have been on the stage a while, that they must do one of two things—they must either lower their flag, or else quit the stage. Some have quit the stage. Others have lowered their flag.
Clement Scott, who was the leading dramatic critic of his day in England, and whose whole life was given to dramatic criticism, said some years ago in a leading London paper, over his own name, that it was practically impossible for any woman to remain on the stage and retain her womanly modesty. This statement of his naturally aroused great excitement among theatrical people, and great indignation, and by threats of one kind and another they compelled Clement Scott to say that he was sorry that he made the statement, but they could never make him say that it was not true.
When Mr. Alexander and I were holding meetings in London, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who stood at the top of the dramatic profession of that day, and who was afterwards knighted by the king because of his prominence and rare gifts, came down to see me at my lodgings, with one of the leading newspaper men of London, to convince me that I was wrong in my attitude toward the stage. We had a long conversation. I invited Mr. Alexander in to listen to the conversation and he took part in it. In that conversation both Mr. Alexander and myself put some very direct questions to Beerbohm Tree, and he answered them frankly; and the admissions that he made (not, of course, regarding any matter in his own moral conduct, but regarding what was necessary to be done in the conduct of the stage), made me think worse of the theatre than I ever had before.
When I was holding meetings in the big armory in Cleveland, Ohio, a theatrical manager called upon me at my hotel and he said, “I demand the right to defend the stage from your platform.”
I asked, “Why?”
He said, “Because you are doing a great profession a great wrong. I was in Philadelphia when you held your meetings there, and we theatrical managers got together while you were there, and we agreed together that your meetings cost the theatres of Philadelphia fifty thousand dollars.”
I replied, “That is one of the best things I have ever heard about our meetings in Philadelphia. Now,” I said, “what do you want to say?”
He said, “I want to defend the stage.”
“Well,” I said, “the Paris Figaro has said that it is wrong to judge actresses by the same moral canons that we judge other women; for what would be wrong in other women would be right in actresses, for it is a part of their art.”
“Well,” he said, “that is just what I believe.”
“Well,” I said, “that is worse than anything I have ever said about the theatre.”
While I was in that same city of Cleveland, one of the most highly respected actors was performing with his troupe in the city at that time. It was a famous troupe, known on both sides of the water, and of high repute. One of the leading ladies in the troupe came under the influence of our meetings, and in conversation with my private secretary, another woman told her what was practically required of any woman who hoped to become a star. When it was reported to me, I could not help but feel that I would rather see a daughter of my own in her coffin than to see her on the stage. Is God pleased when a child of His patronizes an institution like that, which has such an influence upon the women who perform on the stage?
When Mr. Alexander and I were holding meetings in London, and I had said some pretty plain things about the stage in our meetings in the Royal Albert Hall, I received a letter from a man who was managing at that time more than thirty theatres in London. He wrote me saying, “I am the manager of more than thirty theatres in London at the present time, but I want to write you that every word you have said about the stage is true. I wish I were not in the business, but I am. Nevertheless, what you say is true.” A number of people quite prominently connected with the stage gave up that work during our meetings in London.
How about the dance? Ought a Christian to dance? The answer to that question is found in the other question, Will it please God? Is God better pleased when a child of His dances, or when His child refuses to dance? Now, there are certain things that we all know about the dance. First of all, we know that a familiarity of contact is permitted between the sexes in the modern dance that is nowhere else permitted in decent society. How is it any better in the dance than it is elsewhere?
When I was in Balarat, Australia, I said some pretty plain things about the dance, which led to a good many of the dancers giving up the dance, and to the breaking up of a prominent dancing club in the city. Some months afterward I was crossing over from Tasmania to Australia, and a fellow passenger on the boat was a lawyer from Balarat. This lawyer came to me and said, “Are you not Dr. Torrey?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I do not think you were fair to the dancers of Balarat.”
“What did I say that was not true?”
He replied, “I simply think you were not fair.” “Yes, but will you state one single thing that was not true?”
He said, “I simply think you were not fair.” “Now, see here,” I said, “do you dance?” “Yes.”
“Are you a married man?” “Yes.”
“Does your wife dance?”
“Yes.”
“Well, tell me, if you should see your wife in the same attitude toward some other man than yourself, at any other place than the ballroom, that she takes in the ballroom, what would you do?”
He replied, “There would be trouble.”
I said, “Will you please tell me how it is any better in the ballroom, to the strains of seductive music, than anywhere else? Now, tell me another thing. Do you not know that in every class of society, even the most select, there are some men who are moral lepers?”
He replied, “Of course we all know, Dr. Torrey, that in every class of society there are men who are corrupt.”
“And your wife dances with those men?”
“Well,” he said, “she does not know their character.” “You are willing,” I said, “that your wife should be in the embrace of some other man who is a moral leper, simply because she does not know his character?”
He made no reply. What reply could be made?
Now, I do not believe for one single moment that every woman who dances has evil thoughts. I think that some of the girls who dance are sweet, innocent, pure-minded girls; but, if they knew the thoughts that were in the minds of the men with whom they dance, they would never go on the floor again. Three young men came to me in an eastern college town and said to me. “Dr. Torrey, what have you got against the dance?”
I replied, “Do you dance?” “Yes.”
“Are you Christians?”
“Yes.”
“Will you please tell me what your thoughts are when you dance?”
They said, “Our thoughts are all right if we dance with a pure girl.”
I said, “Do you dance with any other kind?”
“Well,” they said, “you know, Dr. Torrey, that there are some girls that are not what they ought to be.” “And,” I said, “you dance with them?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you have answered your own question.”
It is a well-known fact, proven by many a test, that the select dance is the greatest feeder of, and auxiliary to, the most awful institution that exists in civilized society today. Oh! if pure women could only know where many of the young men who dance with them go immediately after the dance is over, if I could only tell you things that I know personally, not that I have read in books but that have come under my own personal observation, regarding the effect of the select dance, among what are called the better classes of society, there is not a self-respecting woman who would go on the floor again.
But what about cards? Ought a Christian to play cards? Now, I frankly admit that I do not think the case against the cards is as clear as is the case against the theatre or the dance; but it is clear enough. Everyone who has studied the matter knows that cards are the gambler’s darling weapon. We know, also, that pretty much every gambler took the first lessons that led him to the gaming table, at the quiet family card table. I have never known a single reformed gambler in my life (and I have known many of them) who did not hate the cards as he hated poison. Why? Because he knew that the cards were the secret of his own downfall.
When we were holding meetings in Nashville, Tennessee, my wife went out to one of the penal institutions near Nashville, and there she learned of a man who was serving a life sentence for murder, because he had shot a man at the gaming table. He said that he took his first step in that direction by tallying for his mother as she played cards with her friends.
Some years ago a Y.M.C.A. secretary in Ohio was going to the State penitentiary to make a visit upon some of the prisoners. Before he left, a lady came to him and asked, “Are you going to visit the prisoners?” He said, “Yes.”
She said, “I have a son in that prison. Will you take him this Bible for me, and say that his mother sent it to him?”
The Y.M.C.A. secretary consented. When he reached the prison he asked for this young man. The young man was brought in. He started to hand him the Bible saying, “Your mother sent you this Bible.”
The prisoner looked at him and said, “Did my mother send me that Bible?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” he said, “you can take it right back to my mother. I do not want my mother’s Bible. If my mother had not taught me to play cards, I would not be here today. I do not want my mother’s Bible. Take it back to her.”
I knew of a family where the father and mother tried to make home so pleasant for their three sons that they would not wish to go anywhere else of a night; and they did make their home pleasant—the pleasantest place in the whole community, and the sons were perfectly contented to spend their nights at home. Among other things, to amuse their children, this father and mother played cards with them. Of the three sons, one did not have a taste for the cards. He was not better than the other two. His tastes simply ran in another direction. The other two played cards at home. Now this theory of making home so pleasant would have been all right, if young men were always to stay at home, but the time comes for young men to leave home. These three young men left home, and the two who had learned to play cards at home, with their Christian father and mother, both became gamblers.
Major Cole, the evangelist, was once holding meetings in an Arkansas city. At one of the meetings, in the Presbyterian church, a disreputable looking man came in and took a seat over on the right-hand side of the church. When the meeting was opened for testimonies, this moral derelict arose in his place, looked around the church, and said, “All this looks very familiar to me. When I was a boy I attended this church. My father was an elder in this church. This is our old pew, where I am standing. There were seven of us boys who were in a Sunday school class. Our teacher was a very kind lady. She not only taught us the Bible on Sundays, but invited us to her house on Saturday afternoons to teach us the Bible, and to play games with us. One day after we had been going there a while, she brought out a pack of cards and showed us tricks with the cards. Later we played games with the cards. We soon wanted more cards, and asked the teacher if she would not give us less Bible and more cards. But we did not get enough cards there, so we left Sunday school and spent our Sunday afternoons in a cotton press, playing cards.
“There were seven members in the class. Two of those members have already been hanged; two are in state prisons at the present time; I have lost track of one; the sixth member of the class is at present a fugitive from justice, and if the authorities knew where he was he would be under arrest; and I am the seventh member of that class, and if the authorities knew where I was I would be under arrest.” Just then a lady dressed in black, in the back of the church, sprang to her feet, came running down the aisle with her hands flung in the air, and crying, “Oh, my God, and I am that teacher,” she fell at his feet as though she were dead. They thought for a while that she was dead. I would not like to have been that teacher. Oh! fathers and mothers, happy is the young man or young woman who goes out into the world not knowing one card from another, and fully instructed in the peril there is in the cards. And if any of you parents have a pack of cards in your home, I advise you to burn it up as soon as you get home.
Well, how about the movies? I do not need to dwell upon that. The movies are worse than the theatre ever dreamed of being, immeasurably worse. The stage, at its worst, was never so occupied with the most open depiction of degrading sin as are the movies today, and the character of movie actors and actresses is notorious. I do not mean to say for one single moment that every movie actress is immoral. I know better. One of the most modest, and sweetest Christian young women I ever knew, who is now a minister’s wife, and a beautiful Christian mother, was, when I first became acquainted with her, a movie actress. And I do not question that there are others like her. But the lives of movie actors and actresses, taken as a whole, are full of the most terrible temptations, and many have yielded to those temptations. Movie plays as they exist today (I am not talking about educational movies, although some that are paraded as educational are among the vilest plays there are) are, for the most part, one of the greatest menaces that exist to the young life of our country, and also to pure family life. Is God pleased when a child of His patronizes a movie, when it is what we all know it is today?
There are many other things which I might mention, but this is enough to illustrate the principle. But some one will ask, “Dr. Torrey, do you mean to say that dancing, theatre-going, card-playing, and going to the movies, is a sin, in the sense that stealing is a sin, and adultery is a sin, and murder is a sin, and gossiping is a sin, and slandering your neighbors is a sin?” No, I do not say that. “Then,” you ask, “Wherein is the harm in it?” Right here: our indulging in these things does not please God, and therefore they rob prayer of power; and I want every ounce of power in prayer that I can have, and if there is anything, no matter how innocent it may be in itself, or however much can be said in defense of it, that robs prayer of power, I am going to give it up.
Remember, in all that I am saying I am not legislating for the world. If it were in my power to pass a law that there should be no more dancing, no more card-playing, no more theatres, no more movies, I would not pass it. I would not believe in it. No, I am not legislating at all for the unsaved about these matters, or other matters. I am simply trying to tell men and women who profess to be Christians how to get the most out of your Christian life, and, in particular at this time, how to have power in prayer. And, beyond an honest question, these things rob prayer of power. The Christian who dances, or goes to the theatre, or plays cards, or attends the movies, or does many other things which are not pleasing to God, cannot be a man or woman of power in prayer.
To sum up all we have said: the ones who can pray so that God will hear their prayers, and give them whatever they ask, are those who study the Word of God every day of their lives to find out what the will of God is, and do it every time they find it, and who further than that, make it their study to get thoroughly acquainted with God, so that they know instinctively what will please God and what will displease God, and in every action of their lives seek to do the thing that pleases God, whether it please men or not, and not to do the thing that displeases God, no matter who else may do it. Oh! that we all might enter into the wonderful place of privilege described in our text: “Whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do the things that are pleasing in his sight.”
R. A. (Reuben Archer) Torrey, 1856-1928. The Power of Prayer and the Prayer of Power.
