Prayer cannot be based on man's rights.
The prayer of a being who had kept his rights can be. We are able to conceive that the prayers of the Lord Jesus Christ were acceptable to God when presented on the ground of his own right to be heard. He never prayed in any other name than his own.
I. MAN HAS, IN A SENSE, LOST HIS RIGHTS. It is necessary to deal with this point carefully. Things are virtually lost when they are undervalued, put aside, and unused. They remain, but are as treasures left in the lumber-room, while the house is filled with other interests. Man has rights in God, rights of prayer, by virtue of his very being and primary relations with God. And these he can never absolutely lose. They are part of him—part of his necessary being. But he may undervalue them, and put them out of consideration, so that they may be virtually lost. He has, therefore, as a practical fact, no rights to plead in prayer. He cannot plead his creation; for he has come to neglect or defy his Creator. He cannot plead his sonship; for he is not offering the obedience of a son. He cannot plead the Divine promises; for he is not meeting the conditions on which the promises depend.
II. MAN HAS, IN FACT, PUT HIS WRONGS IN PLACE OF HIS RIGHTS. And man's wrong is his willfulness. The dependent being has tried to force himself into independence. The son has become a self-willed prodigal. And now, if man wants to pray, he cannot do it without carrying his wrong into the presence of God; and, whether he knows it or not, that wrong is the pica which alone God can hear. The thoughtful man feels this; it is the fact for every man. "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." God would hear a man's prayers if the man had his rights. He cannot hear when a man only brings his wrongs.
III. MAN MUST, IN ORDER TO PRAY ACCEPTABLY, HAVE HIS RIGHTS RESTORED TO HIM. That is, restored to active power and use. It is an important and suggestive aspect of the redemptive work of Christ, that it is the mastery of man's self-willed wrong, and the recovery, into active power, of man's natural rights. Christ is making men what God meant them to be, and what he is; and such men may base prayer on their rights.—R.T.