Jesus uncovered and rebuked sin before He cast it out.  Of a sick woman He said that Satan had bound her; and to Peter He said, “Thou art an offense unto me.”  He came teaching and showing men how to destroy sin, sickness, and death.  He said of the fruitless tree, “It is hewn down.”

It is believed by many that a certain magistrate, who lived in the time of Jesus, left this record:  “His rebuke is fearful.”  The strong language of our Master confirms this description.

The only civil sentence which He had for error was, “Get thee behind Me, Satan.”  Still stronger evidence that Jesus’ reproof was pointed and pungent is in His own words—­showing the necessity for such forcible utterance, when He cast out devils and healed the sick and sinful.  The relinquishment of error deprives material sense of its false claims.

Audible prayer is impressive; it gives momentary solemnity and elevation to thought; but does it produce any lasting benefit?  Looking deeply into these things, we find that “a zeal . . . not according to knowledge,” gives occasion for reaction unfavorable to spiritual growth, sober resolve, and wholesome perception of God’s requirements.  The motives for verbal prayer may embrace too much love of applause to induce or encourage Christian sentiment.

Physical sensation, not Soul, produces material ecstasy, and emotions.  If spiritual sense always guided men at such times, there would grow out of those ecstatic moments a higher experience and a better life, with more devout self-abnegation, and purity.  A self-satisfied ventilation of fervent sentiments never makes a Christian.  God is not influenced by man.  The “divine ear” is not an auditorial nerve.  It is the all-hearing and all-knowing Mind, to whom each want of man is always known, and by whom it will be supplied.

The danger from audible prayer is, that it may lead us into temptation.  By it we may become involuntary hypocrites, uttering desires which are not real, and consoling ourselves in the midst of sin, with the recollection that we have prayed over it—­or mean to ask forgiveness at some later day.  Hypocrisy is fatal to religion.

A wordy prayer may afford a quiet sense of self-justification, though it makes the sinner a hypocrite.  We never need despair of an honest heart, but there is little hope for those who only come spasmodically face to face with their wickedness, and then seek to hide it.  Their prayers are indexes which do not correspond with their character.  They hold secret fellowship with sin; and such externals are spoken of by Jesus as “like unto whited sepulchres . . . full of all uncleanness.”