PURPOSE IN PRAYER

By
E. M. BOUNDS
Author of “Power through Prayer”

Edited by Nathan Zipfel – 2023

New York, Chicago, Toronto

Fleming H. Revell Company

Copyright, 1920, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street

1|Page
This edition has been edited to update archaic words and improve
readability without losing the original text’s flow.
This “Purpose in Prayer” calls for revival in the Church.
Rev. Nathan Zipfel, MA, MSW

2|Page
Contents
INTRODUCTION .................................................. 4
Chapter 1 ................................................................. 7
Chapter 2 ............................................................... 11
Chapter 3 ............................................................... 17
Chapter 4 ............................................................... 25
Chapter 5 ............................................................... 34
Chapter 6 ............................................................... 40
Chapter 7 ............................................................... 47
Chapter 8 ............................................................... 55
Chapter 9 ............................................................... 68
Chapter 10 ............................................................. 75
Chapter 11 ............................................................. 87
Chapter 12 ........................................................... 102
Chapter 13 ........................................................... 111

3|Page
INTRODUCTION
Edward McKendree Bounds was born in Shelby County, Mo., on
August 15, 1835, and died on August 24, 1813, in Washington, Ga.
He received a common school education at Shelbyville and was
admitted to the bar soon after reaching his majority. He practiced
law until he was called to preach the Gospel at twenty-four. His
first pastorate was Monticello, Mo., Circuit. While serving as
pastor of Brunswick, Mo., that war was declared. The young
minister was made a prisoner of war because he would not take the
oath of allegiance to the Federal Government. He was sent to St.
Louis and later transferred to Memphis, Tenn. Finally securing his
release, he traveled on foot nearly one hundred miles to join
General Pierce's command in Mississippi and was soon after made
chaplain of the Fifth Missouri Regiment, a position he held until
near the close of the war when he was captured and held as a
prisoner at Nashville, Tenn.
After the war, Rev. E. M. Bounds was the pastor of churches in
Tennessee and Alabama. In 1875, he was assigned to St. Paul
Methodist Church in St. Louis and served there for four years. In
1876, he married Miss Emmie Barnette at Eufaula, Ala., who died
ten years later. In 1887, he was married to Miss Hattie Barnette,
who, with five children, survived him.
After serving several pastorates, he was sent to the First Methodist
Church in St. Louis, Mo., for one year and to St. Paul Methodist
Church for three years. At the end of his pastorate, he became the
editor of St. Louis "Christian Advocate."
He was a forceful writer and a profound thinker. He spent the last
seventeen years of his life with his family in Washington, Ga.
Most of the time, he was reading, writing, and praying. He rose at
four a. m. each day for many years and was indefatigable in his
study of the Bible. His writings were read by thousands of people

4|Page
and were in demand by the church people of every Protestant
denomination.
Bounds embodied humility with a seraphic devotion to Jesus
Christ. He reached that high place where the self is forgotten, and
the love of God and humanity was the all-absorbing thought and
purpose. At seventy-six years of age, he came to me in Brooklyn,
N. Y., and so intense was he that he awoke us at 3 a.m., praying
and weeping over the loss of earth. During the day, he would go
into the church next door and be found on his knees until he called
for his meals. This is what he called the "business of praying."
Infused with this heavenly ozone, he wrote "Preacher and Prayer,"
a classic in its line that has now been translated into several foreign
languages and is read by men and women worldwide. In 1909,
while Rev. A. C. Dixon was preaching in Dr. Broughton's
Tabernacle, Atlanta, Ga., I sent him a copy of "Preacher and
Prayer" by Bounds. Hear what he says:
"This little book was given to me by a friend. I received another
copy at Christmas from another friend. There must be something
worthwhile in the little book, or two of my friends would not have
selected the same present for me. So, I read the first page until I
came to the words, "Man is looking for better methods." God is
looking for better men. Man is God's method. That was enough for
me, and my appetite demanded more until the book was finished
with pleasure."
This present volume is a companion work and reflects the true
spirit of a man whose business was to live the Gospel he preached.
He was not a luminary but a SUN and took his place with Brainerd
and Bramwell as untiring intercessors with God.
H. W. Hodge

5|Page
My Creed leads me to believe that prayer is efficacious, and
indeed, a day spent asking God to overrule all events for good is
not lost. Still, there is a great feeling that when a man is praying,
he is doing nothing. This feeling makes us give due importance to
work, sometimes even to hurrying over or neglecting prayer.
Do we not rest too much on the arm of flesh in our day? Cannot
the same wonders be done now as of old? Do not the eyes of the
Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself
strong on behalf of those who trust Him? Oh, that God would give
me more practical faith in Him! Where is now the Lord God of
Elijah? He is waiting for Elijah to call on him.
— James Gilmour of Mongolia.

6|Page
Chapter 1
The more praying there is in the world, the better the world will be
and the mightier the forces against evil everywhere. In one phase
of its operation, prayer is disinfectant and preventive. It purifies the
air; it destroys the contagion of sin. Prayer is no fitful, short-lived
thing. It is no voice crying unheard and unheeded in the silence. It
is a voice that goes into God's ear and lives if God's ear is open to
holy pleas and if God's heart is open to holy things.
God shapes the world through prayer. Prayers are deathless. The
lips that uttered them might be closed in death, and the heart that
felt them may have ceased to beat. Still, the prayers live before
God, and God's heart is set on them, and prayers outlive the lives
of those who uttered them; they outlive a generation; they outlive
an age; they outlive a world.
That man is immortal and has done the most and the best praying.
They are God's heroes, God's saints, God's servants, and God's
vicegerents. A man can pray better because of his past prayers; a
man can live holier because of his past prayers. The man of many
acceptable prayers has done the most genuine and outstanding
service to the incoming generation. The prayers of God's saints
strengthen the unborn generation against the desolating waves of
sin and evil. Woe to the generation of sons who find their censers
empty of the rich incense of prayer, whose fathers have been too
busy or too unbelieving to pray, and whose perils inexpressible and
consequences untold are their unhappy heritage. Fortunate are they
whose fathers and mothers have left them a rich inheritance of
prayer.
The prayers of God's saints are the capital stock in heaven by
which Christ carries on His great work upon the earth. The great
throes and mighty convulsions on earth result from these prayers.
Earth is changed and revolutionized, angels move on more

7|Page
powerful, more rapid wings, and God's policy is shaped as the
prayers are more numerous and more efficient.
The mightiest successes that come to God's cause are created and
carried on by prayer. God's day of power, the angelic days of
activity and power is when God's Church comes into its mightiest
inheritance of mightiest faith and prayer. God's conquering days
are when the saints have given themselves to the most powerful
prayer. When God's house on earth is a house of prayer, God's
house in heaven is busy. All potent in its plans and movements,
His earthly armies are clothed with the triumphs and spoils of
victory and His enemies defeated on every hand.
In prayer, God conditions the very life and prosperity of His cause.
The condition was built into the very existence of God's cause in
this world. Ask of Me is the one condition God puts in the same
advance and triumph of His cause.
Men are to pray—to pray for the advancement of God's cause.
Prayer puts God in full force in the world. To a prayerful man, God
is present in realized 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 hatred. The Lord will laugh, and 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.

8|Page
Ask of Me is the condition—a praying people willing and
obedient. "And men shall pray for Him continually." Under this
universal and straightforward promise, men and women of old laid
themselves out for God. They prayed, and God answered their
prayers, and the cause of God was kept alive in the world by the
flame of their praying.
Prayer became a settled and only condition to move His Son's
Kingdom. "Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened." The strongest one in Christ's
kingdom is he, who is the best knocker. The secret to success in
Christ's Kingdom is the ability to pray. The one who can wield the
power of prayer is the strong one, the holy one in Christ's
Kingdom. The most important lesson we can learn is how to pray.
Prayer is the keynote of the most sanctified life and the holiest
ministry. He does the most for God, who is most skilled in prayer.
Jesus Christ exercised His ministry after this order.
We ought to give ourselves to God concerning things, both
temporal and spiritual, and seek our satisfaction only in fulfilling
His will, whether He leads us by suffering or consolation, for all
would be equal to a soul truly resigned. Prayer is nothing else but a
sense of God's presence. — Brother Lawrence
Be sure you look out for your secret duty; keep that up whatever
you do. The soul cannot prosper in the neglect of it. Apostasy
begins at the closet door. Be very much in secret fellowship with
God. It is secret trading that enriches Christians.
Pray alone. Let prayer be the key of the morning and the bolt at
night. The best way to fight against sin is to fight it on our knees.
— Philip Henry
The prayer of faith is the only power in the universe to which the
Great Jehovah yields. Prayer is the sovereign remedy. — Robert
Hall
9|Page
An hour of solitude passed in sincere and earnest prayer, or the
conflict with and conquest over a single passion or subtle bosom
sin will teach us more about thought, more effectively awaken the
faculty, and better form the habit of reflection than a year's study in
the schools without them. — Coleridge.
A man may pray night and day and deceive himself, but no man
can be assured of his sincerity who does not pray. Prayer is faith
passing into act. A union of the will and intellect is realized in an
intellectual act. It is the whole man that prays. Less than this is
wishing or lip work, a sham or a mummery.
If God should restore me to health again, I have determined to
study nothing but the Bible. Literature is inimical to spirituality if
it is not kept under a firm hand. — Richard Cecil
Our sanctification does not depend upon changing our works but
on doing that for God's sake, which we commonly do for our own.
The time of business does not, with me, differ from the time of
prayer. Prayer is nothing else but a sense of God's presence. —
Brother Lawrence
Let me burn out for God. After all, whatever God may appoint,
prayer is a great thing. Oh, that I may be a man of prayer. — Henry
Martyn

10 | P a g e
Chapter 2
The possibilities and necessity of prayer, its power, and its results
manifest in arresting and changing God's purposes and relieving
the stroke of His power. Abimelech was smitten by God.
So Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife,
and his maidservants; they bore children.
For the Lord had quickly closed up all the wombs of the house of
Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife.
God was angry with Job's miserable, wrong-headed comforters
because they had acted so badly in their fight with Job. “My
servant Job shall pray for you," God said, "and I will accept him."
"And the Lord turned the captivity of Job around when he prayed
for his friends."
Jonah was in dire condition when "the Lord sent out a great wind
into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest." When lots were cast,
"the lot fell upon Jonah." He was thrown overboard into the sea,
but "the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah... Then
Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and the
Lord spoke unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry
land.
God heard and sent deliverance when the disobedient prophet
lifted his voice in prayer.
Pharaoh was a firm believer in the possibilities of prayer and its
ability to relieve. When staggering under the woeful curses of God,
he pleaded with Moses to intercede for him. "Intreat the Lord for
me," he begged the Lord four times while the plagues ravaged
Egypt. These urgent appeals were made to Moses four times.
Prayer lifted the dread curse from the brutal king and his doomed
land.

11 | P a g e
The blasphemy and idolatry of Israel in making the golden calf and
declaring their devotion to it were a fearful crime. The anger of
God waxed hot, and He declared that He would destroy the
offending people. The Lord was very wroth with Aaron, and to
Moses, He said, "Let Me alone that I may destroy them." But
Moses prayed and kept on praying; day and night, he prayed for
forty days. He keeps a record of his prayer struggles. "I fell down
before the Lord during the first forty days and nights; I did not eat
bread or drink water because of your sins, which you sinned in
doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger,"
he says. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with
which the Lord was angry against you to destroy you. But the Lord
listened to me at this time also. And the Lord was very angry with
Aaron for having destroyed him, and I prayed for him also at the
same time.
"Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." God's purpose
was to destroy that great and wicked city. But Nineveh prayed,
covered with sackcloth; sitting in ashes, she cried "mightily to
God," and "God repented of the evil that He had said He would do
unto them, and He did not do it."
The message of God to Hezekiah was: "Set your house in order;
for you shall die and not live." Hezekiah turned his face toward the
wall, prayed to the Lord, and said: "Remember now, Lord, I
beseech Thee, how I have walked before Thee in truth and with a
perfect heart, and have done that which is good in Thy sight." And
Hezekiah wept bitterly. "Go, tell Hezekiah, I have heard your
prayer; I have seen your tears; behold, I will add fifteen years to
your days," God said to Isaiah.
These men knew how to pray and how to prevail in prayer. Their
faith in prayer was no passing attitude that changed with the wind
or with their own feelings and circumstances; it was a fact that God
heard and answered, that His ear was ever open to the cry of His

12 | P a g e
children, and that the power to do what was asked of Him was
commensurate with His willingness. And thus these men, strong in
faith and in prayer, "subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness,
obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the
power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were
made strong, waxed mighty in war, and turned to flight the armies
of the aliens."
Everything then, as now, was possible for the people who knew
how to pray. Prayer opened a limitless storehouse, and God's hand
withheld nothing. Prayer introduced those who practiced it into a
world of privilege and brought the strength and wealth of heaven
to the aid of finite man. What a rich and extraordinary power they
possessed because they had discovered the secret of a victorious
approach to God! With Moses, it saved a nation; with Ezra, it
saved a church.
And yet, strange as it seems when we contemplate the wonders of
which God's people had been witnesses, there came a slackness in
prayer. The mighty hold upon God, which had so often struck awe
and terror into the hearts of their enemies, lost its grip. The
backslidden and apostate people had stopped praying—if most had
ever prayed. The Pharisee's cold and lifeless praying was
substituted for any genuine approach to God. The entire worship
became a parody of its true purpose due to that formal prayer
method. A glorious dispensation was gloriously executed by
Moses, Ezra, Daniel, Elijah, Hannah, and Samuel. However, the
circle seemed limited and short-lived; the praying ones were
scarce. They had no survivors—none to imitate their devotion to
God, none to preserve the role of the elect.
In vain had the decree established the Divine order, the Divine call.
Ask Me. They turned to paganism after years of earnest and
fruitful prayer to God, hoping for answers that would never come.
And so, they sank into that godless and pitiful state that has lost its

13 | P a g e
object in life when the link with the eternal has been broken. Their
favored dispensation of prayer was forgotten; they did not know
how to pray.
What a contrast to the achievements that brighten up other pages of
the Bible! The power working through Elijah and Elisha in answer
to prayer reached even to the grave. In each case, a child was
raised from the dead, and the powers of famine were broken. "The
supplications of a righteous man avail much." Elijah was a man of
like passions with us. He prayed fervently that it might not rain,
and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. And
he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought
forth her fruit. Jonah prayed while imprisoned in the great fish, and
he came to dry land, saved from storm and sea and monsters of the
deep by the powerful energy of his praying.
How wide the gracious provision of the grace of praying as
administered in that marvelous dispensation. They prayed
wondrously. Why couldn't their prayers save the dispensation from
decay and death? Was it not because they lost the fire, without
which all praying degenerates into a lifeless form? It takes effort,
toil, and care to prepare the incense. Prayer is no laggard's work.
When all the rich, spiced graces from the body of prayer have, by
labor and beating, been blended, refined, and intermixed, the fire is
needed to unloose the incense and make its fragrance rise to the
throne of God. The fire that consumes it creates the spirit and life
of the incense. Without fire, prayer has no spirit; it is, like dead
spices, a breeding ground for corruption and worms.
The casual, intermittent prayer is never bathed in this Divine fire.
The man who prays like that is lacking in the earnestness that lays
hold of God, determined not to let Him go until the blessing
comes. "Pray without ceasing," counseled the great Apostle. That
habit drives prayer into the mortar that holds the building stones
together. "You can do more than pray after you have prayed," said

14 | P a g e
the godly Dr. A. J. Gordon, "but you cannot do more than pray
until you have prayed." The story of every outstanding Christian
achievement is the history of answered prayer.
"The greatest and the best talent that God gives to any man or
woman in this world is the talent of prayer," writes Principal
Alexander Whyte. "And the best usury that any man or woman
brings back to God when He comes to reckon with them at the end
of this world is a life of prayer." "And those servants best put their
Lord's money "to the exchangers" who rise early and sit late, as
long as they are in this world, ever finding out and ever following
after better and better methods of prayer, and ever forming more
secret, more steadfast, and more spiritually fruitful habits of
prayer, till they literally "pray without ceasing," and till they
continually strike out into new enterprises in prayer, and new
achievements, and new enrichments."
When asked about his plans for the following day, Martin Luther
answered, "Work, work, from early until late." "In fact, I have so
much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer."
Cromwell, too, believed in being on his knees a lot. Looking on
one occasion at the statues of famous men, he turned to a friend
and said: "Make mine kneeling, for thus I came to glory."
Only when the whole heart is gripped with the passion of prayer
does the life-giving fire descend, for none but the earnest man gets
access to the ear of God.
When thou art most disposed to pray, do not yield to it; instead,
strive and endeavor to pray even when you think you cannot. —
Hilversum.
It was the custom among the Parthians that no one was to give
their children any meat in the morning before they saw the sweat
on their faces. You will discover that this is God's usual course—

15 | P a g e
not to give His children a taste of His delights until they begin to
sweat in their pursuit of them.— Richard Baxter
Of all the duties enjoined by Christianity, none is more essential
and yet more neglected than prayer. Most people consider the
exercise a fatiguing ceremony, which they are justified in avoiding
as much as possible. Even those whose professions or fears cause
them to pray with such languor and wanderings of mind that their
prayers, rather than drawing down blessings, only increase their
condemnation. — Fenelon

16 | P a g e
Chapter 3
The secret to success is to pray more and pray better. More time
for prayer, more anticipation and preparation for meeting God, and
communing with God through Christ—this is the crux of the
matter. Our prayer style and content reflect poorly on us. The
attitude and relationship of God and the Son are the eternal
relationship of Father and Son, of asking and giving—the Son
always asking, the Father always giving.
"You will break them with an iron rod; you will smash them like a
potter's vessel," says the Lord. "Then I will give you the nations as
your inheritance and the ends of the earth as your land."
Jesus must always pray through His followers. "And men shall
pray to Him continually." "For My house shall be called a house of
prayer for My people." We must prepare to pray; we must be like
Christ and pray like Christ.
Man's access to God through prayer opens everything and
transforms his poverty into wealth. All things are his through
prayer. The wealth and the glory—all things are Christ's. As the
light grows brighter and prophets take in the nature of the
restoration, the Divine record seems to be enlarged.
"Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and His Maker:
inquire of Me concerning the things to come, concerning My sons,
and concerning the work of My hands, and I will command you."
"I created the earth and mankind on it; I stretched out My hands
and created the heavens, and I commanded all their hosts."
In order to meet the demands of God's earthly kingdom, man is
given the authority and power to command God. Heaven, with all
it has, is under tribute to carry out the ultimate, final, and glorious
purposes of God. So why is it taking so long to carry out these
wise benedictions for men? So, why has sin reigned for so long?

17 | P a g e
Why are the oath-bound covenant promises so slow in coming to
their gracious end? Sin reigns, Satan reigns, and sighing marks the
lives of many; all tears are fresh and full.
Why is this the case? We have not prayed to bring the evil to an
end; we have not prayed as we must pray. We have not met the
conditions for prayer.
Inquire of me; ask of God. We have not rested on prayer. We have
not made prayer the only condition. There has been a violation of
the primary requirement of prayer. We have not prayed correctly.
We have not prayed at all. God is willing to give, but we are slow
to ask. The Son, through His saints, is ever praying, and God the
Father is ever answering.
Inquire of Me. In the invitation is conveyed the assurance of an
answer; the shout of victory is there and may be heard by the
listening ear. The Father holds the authority and power in His
hands. How simple is the condition, and yet how long do we take
to fulfill it? Nations are in bondage, and the uttermost parts of the
earth are still unpossessed. The earth groans: the world is still in
bondage; Satan and evil hold sway.
The Father holds Himself in the "Giver, Ask of Me" attitude, and
that petition to God the Father empowers all agencies and inspires
all movements. The Gospel is divinely inspired. All its inspirations
are based on prayer. All movements are motivated by a request
from Me. Standing as the endowment of the enthroned Christ is the
oath-bound covenant of the Father: "Ask of Me, and I will give
thee the nations for your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the
earth for thy possession." "And men shall pray to Him
continually."
The prayers of holy men are always as fragrant as the most
expensive incense. And God in many ways is speaking to us,

18 | P a g e
declaring His wealth and our impoverishment. "I am the Creator of
everything; wealth and glory are Mine; command me."
We can do all things by God's aid, and we can have all of His aid
by asking. The Gospel, in its success and power, depends on our
ability to pray. The dispensations of God depend on man's ability
to pray. We can have all that God has. Command me, please. This
is no figment of the imagination, no idle dream, no vain fancy. The
life of the church is the highest life. Its office is to pray. Its prayer
life is the highest, the most odorous, and the most conspicuous.
The Book of Revelation says nothing about prayer as a great duty
or a holy service. Still, it says a lot about prayer regarding its
aggregated force and energies. It is the prayer force ever living and
ever praying; it is all the saints' prayers going out as a powerful,
living energy while the lips that uttered the words are stilled and
sealed in death. In contrast, the living church has the power of faith
to inherit the forces of all the past praying and make it deathless.
The statement by the Baptist philosopher, John Foster, contains the
purest philosophy and the simple truth of God, for God has no
force and demands no conditions but prayer. "More and better
praying will bring God's cause the most certain and quick victory;
feeble, formal, listless praying will bring decay and death." "The
church has its anchor in the closet; its magazine stores are there."
"I am convinced," Foster continues, "that every man who, amidst
his serious projects, is aware of his dependence upon God as
entirely as that dependence is a fact will be compelled to pray and
anxious to induce his serious friends to pray almost every hour. He
will not, without it, promise himself any noble success any more
than a mariner would expect to reach a distant coast by having his
sails spread in stagnant air.
"I have intimated my fear that it is visionary to expect an unusual
success in the human administration of religion unless there are

19 | P a g e
unusual omens." A most emphatic spirit of prayer would be such
an omen, and the individual who should decide to try its last
efficacy might probably find himself becoming a much more
prevailing agent in his little sphere. "And if the whole, or the
greater number, of Christian disciples, united with the earnest and
unwavering determination of each that heaven should not withhold
one single influence which the very utmost effort of conspiring and
persevering supplication would obtain, it would be a sign that a
world revolution was at hand."
Edward Payson, one of God's own, says of this statement of Foster,
"Very few missionaries since the apostles have probably tried the
experiment." I believe that whoever conducts the first trial will
perform miracles. Nothing I could write or an angel could say
could prepare him for this trial.
"One of the principal results of the little experience that I have had
as a Christian minister is a conviction that religion consists very
much in giving God that place in our views and feelings that He
actually fills in the universe." We know that He is everything in the
universe. So far as He is constantly all in all to us, so far as we
comply with the Psalmist's charge to his soul, "My soul, wait thou
only upon God," so far, I apprehend, have we advanced towards
perfection. It is relatively easy to wait upon God; but to wait upon
Him only —to feel, so far as our strength, happiness, and
usefulness are concerned, as if all creatures and second causes
were annihilated and we were alone in the universe with God—is, I
suspect, a difficult and rare attainment. At least, I am sure it is one
that I am very far from having made. We will find everything
easier as we achieve this goal because we will be absolutely men
of prayer, and we will be able to say of prayer, as Solomon says of
money, that it answers all things.
This same John Foster said, when approaching death, "I never
prayed more earnestly nor probably with such faithful frequency."

20 | P a g e
"Pray without ceasing" has been the sentence repeating itself in
silent thought, and I am sure it must be my practice till the last
conscious hour of life. Oh, why not throughout that long, indolent,
inanimate half-century past?
And yet this is how we all act about prayer. Even though we are
aware of its importance, even its vital importance, we let the hours
pass as a blank and can only lament the irreparable loss in death.
When we calmly reflect upon the fact that the progress of our
Lord's Kingdom is dependent upon prayer, it is sad to think that we
give so little time to the holy exercise. Everything depends upon
prayer, and yet we neglect it, not only to our own spiritual hurt but
also to the delay and injury of our Lord's cause on earth. The
forces of good and evil are contending for the world. If we would,
we could add to the conquering power of the army of
righteousness, and yet our lips are sealed, our hands hang listlessly
by our sides, and we jeopardize the very cause in which we profess
to be deeply interested by holding back from the prayer chamber.
Prayer is the one prime, eternal condition by which the Father is
pledged to put the Son in possession of the world. Christ prays
through His people. Had there been importunate, universal, and
continuous prayer by God's people, long before this, the earth
would have been possessed for Christ. The delay is not due to
persistent obstacles but rather to a lack of appropriate inquiry. We
do a lot of things other than pray. As poor as our giving is, our
contributions of money exceed our offerings of prayer. Perhaps in
the average congregation, fifty people aid in paying, while one
saintly, ardent soul shuts itself up with God and wrestles for the
deliverance of the heathen world. Officials praying on set or state
occasions count for nothing in this estimate. We emphasize other
things more than we do the necessity of prayer.
We are praying in a systematic manner, but we have not yet
grasped the world with the grasp of our faith. We are not praying
21 | P a g e
in such a way that God is moved and all divine influences come to
our aid. The world needs more true prayer to save it from the
reigning evil of Satan.
We do not pray as Elijah prayed. John Foster brings the whole
matter to a practical point. "A revolution will take place when the
Church of God is awakened to its obligations and duties and has
the right faith to claim what Christ has promised—"all things
whatsoever," he says.
But not all praying is prayer. In God's cause, God is the driving
force and the conquering force. "Call upon Me, and I will answer
thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knows not"
is God's challenge to prayer. Prayer brings God's absolute power
into God's work. "Ask of Me concerning My sons, and concerning
the work of My hands, command ye Me," God says. When faith is
on its knees, and its outstretched hands take hold of God, it draws
to the utmost of God's ability; for only a praying faith can obtain
God's "all things whatsoever." The Syrophoenician woman, the
importunate widow, and the friend at midnight are beautiful
examples of what fearless prayer can do in mastering or defying
conditions, turning defeat into victory, and triumphing amid
despair. Oneness with Christ, the acme of spiritual attainment, is
glorious in all things, most glorious in that we can then "ask what
we will, and it shall be done unto us." Prayer in Jesus' name puts
the crowning crown on God because it glorifies Him through the
Son and pledges the Son to give to men "whatever and anything"
they shall ask.
In the New Testament, the marvelous prayer of the Old Testament
is put forward so that it may provoke and stimulate our praying,
and it is preceded by a declaration, the dynamic energy of which
we can scarcely translate. "The supplication of a righteous man
avails much." "Elijah was a man of like passions with us, and he
prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it did not rain on the

22 | P a g e
earth for the space of three years and six months. And he prayed
again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her
fruit."
Our paucity in results, the cause of all leanness, is solved by the
Apostle James: "Ye have not, because you ask not." "You ask and
do not receive because you ask in vain to spend it on your
pleasures."
That is the whole truth in a nutshell.
The potency of prayer has subdued the strength of fire; it has
bridled the rage of lions, hushed anarchy to rest, extinguished
wars, appeased the elements, expelled demons, burst the chains of
death, expanded the gates of heaven, assuaged diseases, repelled
frauds, rescued cities from destruction, stayed the sun in its course,
and arrested the progress of the thunderbolt. Prayer is an all-
efficient panacea, a treasure undiminished, a mine that is never
exhausted, a sky unobscured by clouds, a heaven unruffled by the
storm. It is the root, the fountain, and the mother of a thousand
blessings.
— Chrysostom.
The prayers of holy men appease God's wrath, drive away
temptations, resist and overcome the devil, procure the ministry
and service of angels, and rescind the decrees of God. Prayer heals
sickness and gets forgiveness; it stops the sun's path and stops the
wheels of the moon's chariot; it rules over all gods and opens and
closes the stores of rain; it opens the cabinet of the womb and puts
out the violence of fire; it stops the mouths of lions and makes
peace between our suffering and weak faculties and the violence of
torment and persecution; it pleases God and gives us everything we
need;
More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. As a
result, let your voice rise like a fountain for me at all hours of the
23 | P a g e
day and night. What makes men superior to sheep or goats is that
they nourish a blind life within the brain. If, knowing God, they do
not lift their hands in prayer for themselves and those they call
friends, as a result, the entire globe is bound in every way by gold
chains around God's feet.
— Tennyson.
Perfect prayer is only another name for love. — Fenelon.

24 | P a g e
Chapter 4
It was said of the late C. H. Spurgeon that he glided from laughter
to prayer with the naturalness of one who lived in both elements.
With him, the habit of prayer was free and unfettered. His life was
not divided into compartments, the one shut off from the other with
a rigid exclusivity that barred all intercommunication. He lived in
constant fellowship with his Father in Heaven. He was always in
touch with God; thus, it was as natural for him to pray as it was for
him to breathe.
"What a fine time we have had; let us thank God for it," he said to
a friend on one occasion, when, out under the blue sky and
wrapped in glorious sunshine, they had enjoyed a holiday with the
unfettered enthusiasm of schoolchildren. Prayer came to him as
naturally as ordinary speech, and there was never a hint of
incongruity in his approach to the Divine Throne straight from any
scene in which he might be taking part.
That is the attitude regarding prayer that ought to mark every child
of God. There are and there ought to be stated seasons of
communion with God when with everything else shut out, we
come into His presence to talk to Him and to let Him speak to us,
and out of such seasons springs that beautiful habit of prayer that
weaves a golden bond between earth and heaven. Without such
stated seasons, the practice of prayer can never be formed; without
them, there is no nourishment for spiritual life. Utilizing them, the
soul is lifted into a new atmosphere — the atmosphere of the
heavenly city, in which it is easy to open the heart to God and to
speak with Him as a friend speaks with a friend.
Thus, prayer is the most natural outpouring of the soul in every
circumstance of life, the unhindered turning to God for communion
and direction. Whether in sorrow or in joy, in defeat or in victory,
in health or in weakness, in calamity or in success, the heart leaps

25 | P a g e
to meet with God just as a child runs to his mother's arms, ever
sure that with her is the sympathy that meets every need.
Dr. Adam Clarke, in his autobiography, records that when Mr.
Wesley was returning to England by ship, the considerable delay
was caused by contrary winds. Wesley was reading when he
became aware of some confusion on board. After asking what the
matter was, he was informed that the wind was contrary. "Then,"
he replied, "let us go to prayer."
After Dr. Clarke had prayed, Wesley broke out into fervent
supplication, which seemed to be more of an offering of faith than
a mere desire. "Almighty and everlasting God," he prayed, "Thou
hast sway everywhere, and all things serve the purpose of Thy will;
thou holds the winds in Thy fists and sittest upon the waters of
floods, and reigns a King forever." "Command these winds and
these waves to obey Thee, and carry us quickly and safely to the
haven where we wish to go."
The power of this petition was felt by all. Wesley rose from his
knees, made no remark, but took up his book and continued
reading. Dr. Clarke went on deck, and to his surprise, he found the
vessel under sail, standing on her right course. Nor did she change
till she was safely at anchor. On the sudden and favorable change
of wind, Wesley made no remark, so entirely did he expect to be
heard that he took it for granted that he was.
That was a prayer with a purpose. Someone who was aware that
God could hear him and was ready and able to respond to his
request made a clear, direct statement.
Major D. W. Whittle, in an introduction to the wonders of prayer,
says of George Muller of Bristol: "I met Mr. Muller in the express
the morning of our sailing from Quebec to Liverpool. About half
an hour before the tender was to take the passengers to the ship, he
asked the agent if a deck chair had arrived for him from New York.

26 | P a g e
He was answered, "No," and told it could not come in time for the
steamer. I had with me a chair I had just bought and told Mr.
Muller of the place nearby and suggested, as only a few moments
remained, that he had better go buy one at once. His reply was,
"No, my brother." Our Heavenly Father will send the chair from
New York. It is one used by Mrs. Muller. I wrote ten days ago to a
brother, who promised to see it forwarded here last week. He has
not been as prompt as I would have desired, but I am sure our
Heavenly Father will send the chair. Mrs. Muller is very sick on
the ship and wants to have this same chair. Despite not finding it
here yesterday, we have prayed that our Heavenly Father would be
pleased to provide it for us, and we will trust Him to do so. As this
dear man of God went peacefully on board, running the risk of
Mrs. Muller making the trip without a chair when, for a couple of
dollars, she could have been provided for, I confess I feared Mr.
Muller was carrying his faith principles too far and not acting
wisely. I was kept at the express office for ten minutes after Mr.
Muller left. Just as I started to hurry to the wharf, a team drove up
the street, and on top of a load that had just arrived from New York
was Mr. Muller's chair. It was sent at once to the tender and placed
in my hands to take to Mr. Muller just as the boat was leaving the
dock (the Lord having a lesson for me). Mr. Miiller took it with the
happy, pleased expression of a child who has just received a
kindness deeply appreciated. He reverently removed his hat and
folded his hands over it. He thanked the Heavenly Father for
sending the chair.
One of Melanchthon’s correspondents writes of Luther's praying:
"I cannot enough admire the extraordinary cheerfulness, constancy,
faith, and hope of the man in these trying and vexatious times." He
constantly feeds these gracious affections through a very diligent
study of the Word of God. Then not a day passes in which he does
not employ prayer for at least three of his very best hours. Once, I
happened to hear him at prayer. Gracious God! What spirit and

27 | P a g e
what faith are there in his expressions? He petitions God with the
same reverence he would have if he were in the divine presence,
but with the same firm hope and confidence he would express to a
father or a friend. "I know you are our Father and God, and I am
confident that you will bring Thy children's persecutors to
nothing," he said. Because if you don't, your own cause, which is
linked to ours, will be jeopardized. It is entirely your own concern.
We, by Thy providence, have been compelled to take part. As a
result, you will serve as our defense." "Whilst I was listening to
Luther praying in this manner, at a distance, my soul seemed to
resonate within me, to hear the man address God so like a friend,
yet with so much gravity and reverence; and also to hear him, in
the course of his prayer, insisting on the promises contained in the
Psalms, as if he were sure his petitions would be granted."
Of William Bramwell, a noted Methodist preacher in England,
remarkable for his zeal and prayer, the following is related by a
sergeant major: "In July 1811, our regiment was ordered for Spain,
then the seat of a protracted and sanguinary war." My mind was
painfully exercised with the thoughts of leaving my dear wife and
four helpless children in a strange country, unprotected and
unprovided for. Mr. Bramwell felt a lively interest in our situation,
and his sympathetic spirit seemed to drink in all the agonized
feelings of my tender wife. He supplicated the throne of grace day
and night on our behalf. My wife and I spent the evening before
our march at a friend's house in company with Mr. Bramwell, who
sat in a very reflective mood and appeared to be in a spiritual
struggle all the time. After supper, he suddenly pulled his hand out
of his bosom, laid it on my knee, and said, "Brother Riley, mark
what I am about to say!" You are not permitted to travel to Spain.
Remember, I told you, you are not; for I have been wrestling with
God on your behalf, and when my Heavenly Father condescends in
mercy to bless me with power to lay hold on Himself, I do not
easily let Him go; no, not until I am favored with an answer.

28 | P a g e
Therefore, you may depend on it that the next time I hear from
you, you will be settled in quarters. This came to pass exactly as he
said. The following day, the order to travel to Spain was revoked.
These men prayed with a purpose. To them, God was not far away,
in some inaccessible region, but near at hand, ever ready to hear
the call of His children. There was no barrier between them. They
were in perfect intimacy, if one may use such a phrase concerning
man and his Maker. No cloud obscured the face of the Father from
His trusting child, who could look up into the Divine countenance
and pour out the longings of his heart. And that is the type of
prayer that God never fails to hear. He knows that it comes from a
heart at one with His own, from one who has entirely yielded to the
heavenly plan. So He bends His ear and gives the pleading child
the assurance that his petition has been heard and answered.
Have we not all had some such experience when, with set and
undeviating purpose, we have approached the face of our Father?
In an agony of the soul, we have sought refuge from the oppression
of the world in the anteroom of heaven; the waves of despair
seemed to threaten destruction, and as no way of escape was
visible anywhere, we fell back, like the disciples of old, upon the
power of our Lord, crying to Him to save us lest we perish. And
then, in the twinkling of an eye, the thing was done. The billows
sank into a calm; the howling wind died down at the Divine
command; the agony of the soul passed into a restful peace as over
the whole being there crept the consciousness of the Divine
presence, bringing with it the assurance of answered prayer and
sweet deliverance.
"I tell the Lord my troubles and difficulties and wait for Him to
answer them," says one man of God. "And it is wonderful how a
matter that looked very dark will, in prayer, become clear as
crystal with the help of God's Spirit." I think Christians fail so
often to get answers to their prayers because they do not wait long

29 | P a g e
enough on God. They drop down and say a few words, jump up,
forget it, and expect God to answer them. Such praying always
reminds me of the small boy ringing his neighbor's doorbell and
then running away as fast as he can.
When we acquire the habit of prayer, we enter into a new
atmosphere. "Do you expect to go to heaven?" asked a devout
Scotsman. "Why, man, I live there," was the quaint and unexpected
reply. It was a pithy statement of a great truth, for all the way to
heaven is heaven begun for the Christian who walks near enough
to God to hear the secrets He has to impart.
This attitude is beautifully illustrated in the story of Horace
Bushnell, told by Dr. Parkes Cadman. Bushnell was found to be
suffering from an incurable disease. One evening the Rev. Joseph
Twitchell visited him, and, as they sat together under the starry
sky, Bushnell said, "One of us ought to pray." Twitchell asked
Bushnell to do so, and Bushnell began his prayer, burying his face
in the earth and pouring out his heart until, said Twitchell, in
recalling the incident, "I was afraid to stretch out my hand in the
darkness lest I should touch God."
To have God thus near is to enter the holy of holies—to breathe the
fragrance of the heavenly air, to walk in Eden's delightful gardens.
Nothing but prayer can bring God and man into this happy
communion. That was the experience of Samuel Rutherford, just as
it is the experience of everyone who passes through the same
gateway. When this saint of God was confined in jail at one time
for conscience's sake, he enjoyed in a rare degree the Divine
companionship, recording in his diary that Jesus entered his cell
and that at His coming "every stone flashed like a ruby."
Many others have borne witness to the same sweet fellowship
when prayer had become the one habit of life that meant more than
anything else to them. David Livingstone lived in the realm of
prayer and knew its gracious influence. Every birthday, he wrote a
30 | P a g e
prayer, and on the next-to-last birthday of all, he wrote: "O Divine
One, I have not loved Thee earnestly, deeply, and sincerely
enough." Grant, I beseech Thee that I may complete my task
before the end of the school year. Only on the eve of the following
year, as his faithful men looked into Ilala's but while the rain
dripped from the eaves, did they see their master on his knees
beside his bed in a prayerful posture. He had died on his knees in
prayer.
Stonewall Jackson was a man of prayer. Said he: "I have so fixed
the habit in my mind that I never raise a glass of water to my lips
without asking God's blessing, never seal a letter without putting a
word of prayer under the seal, never take a letter from the post
without a brief sending of my thoughts heavenward, and never
change my classes in the lecture room without a minute's petition
for the cadets who go out and for those who come in."
James Gilmour, the pioneer missionary to Mongolia, was a man of
prayer. He had a habit in his writing of never using a blotter. He
made it a rule that when he got to the bottom of any page, he
would wait until the ink dried and spend the time in prayer.
In this way, their whole being was saturated with the Divine. They
became reflectors of its heavenly fragrance and glory. Walking
with God down the avenues of prayer, we acquire something of
His likeness, and unconsciously we become witnesses to others of
His beauty and grace. In his famous work, "Varieties of Religious
Experience," Professor James tells of a man of forty-nine who said:
"God is more real to me than any thought, thing, or person." I feel
His presence positively and more as I live in closer harmony with
His laws as they are written in my body and mind. I feel Him
whether it's sunny or raining, and this, along with a sweet sense of
restfulness, is the best way to describe how I feel. I talk to Him as
a companion in prayer and praise, and our communion is
delightful. He answers me repeatedly, often in words so clearly

31 | P a g e
spoken that it seems my outer ear must have carried the tone, but
generally in strong mental impressions. Usually, a text of Scripture
unfolds some new view of Him and His love for me and care for
my safety—that He is mine and I am his—never leaves me; it is an
abiding joy. "Without it, life would be a blank, a desert, a
shoreless, trackless waste."
Equally amazing is the testimony of Sir Thomas Browne. This
beloved physician lived in Norwich in 1605 and was the author of
a very remarkable book of wide circulation, "Religion Medici."
Even though England was passing through a period of national
convulsion and political excitement, he found comfort and strength
in prayer. "I have resolved," he wrote in a journal found among his
private papers after his death, "to pray more and always pray, to
pray in all places where quietness reigns, in the house, on the
highway, and on the street, and to know no street or passage in this
city that may not witness that I have not forgotten God." "I intend
to take the occasion of praying upon the sight of any church which
I may pass, that God may be worshipped there in spirit, and that
souls may be saved there; to pray daily for my sick patients and for
the patients of other physicians; to say, "May the peace of God
abide here" at my entrance into any home; after hearing a sermon,
to pray for a blessing on God's truth and upon the messenger; upon
the sight of a beautiful person to bless God for His creation."
What an illustration of the praying spirit! Such an attitude
represents prayer without ceasing and reveals the habit of prayer in
its unceasing supplication, its uninterrupted communion, and its
constant intercession. What an illustration, too, of purpose in
prayer! Of how many of us can it be said that as we pass people in
the street, we pray for them, or that as we enter a home or a church,
we remember the inmates or the congregation in prayer to God?

32 | P a g e
The explanation for our thoughtlessness or forgetfulness lies in the
fact that prayer for so many of us is a form of selfishness; it means
asking for something for ourselves and nothing more.
And with such an attitude, we need to pray to be delivered.
The prayer of faith is the only power in the universe to which the
great Jehovah yields. Prayer is the sovereign remedy. — Robert
Hall
The Church, intent on the acquisition of temporal power, had
abandoned its spiritual duties, and its empire, which rested on
spiritual foundations, was crumbling with their decay and
threatened to pass away like an unsubstantial vision. — Lea's
Inquisition.

33 | P a g e
Chapter 5
Are we praying as Christ did? Do we abide in Him? Are our pleas
and spirit the overflow of His spirit and pleas? Does perfect love
rule the spirit?
These questions must be considered proper and pertinent at a time
like the present. We are concerned that we are doing things other
than praying. This is not a praying age; it is an age of great activity
and great movements, but one in which the tendency is powerful to
stress the seen and the material and to neglect and discount the
unseen and the spiritual. Prayer is the most powerful force because
it honors God and calls Him to action.
There can be no substitute, no rival, for prayer; it stands alone as
the great spiritual force, and this force must be imminent and
acting. It cannot be dispensed with during one generation or held in
abeyance for the advance of any significant movement—it must be
continuous and, always, everywhere and in everything. We cannot
run our spiritual operations on the prayers of the past generation.
Many people believe in the power of prayer, but few practice it.
Prayer is the easiest and hardest of all things, the simplest and the
sublimest, the weakest and the most powerful; its results lie outside
the range of human possibilities—they are limited only by the
omnipotence of God.
Few Christians have anything but a vague idea of the power of
prayer; even fewer have any experience with that power. The
Church seems wholly unaware of the power God puts into her
hands; this spiritual carte blanche on the infinite resources of God's
wisdom and power is rarely, if ever, used—never used to the full
measure of honoring God. It is astounding how poor the use, how
little the benefits. Prayer is our most formidable weapon, but it is
also the one in which we are the least skilled and the most averse
to its use. We do everything else for the heathen except the thing

34 | P a g e
God wants us to do; the only thing that does any good makes all
else we do efficient.
To graduate from the school of prayer is to master the whole
course of religious life. The first and last stages of holy living are
crowned with prayer. It is a life trade. Obstacles to prayer are
obstacles to living a holy life. The conditions of praying are the
conditions of righteousness, holiness, and salvation. A cobbler in
the trade of praying is a bungler in the work of salvation.
Prayer is a trade to be learned. We must be apprentices and serve
our time in this capacity. Painstaking care, much thought, practice,
and labor are required to be a skilled tradesman in praying.
Practice in this, as well as in all other trades, makes perfect.
Working hands and hearts produce experts in this heavenly trade.
In spite of the benefits and blessings that flow from communion
with God, the sad confession must be made that we are not praying
much. At the meetings, a very small number of people lead in
prayer. Fewer still pray in their families. Fewer still are in the habit
of praying regularly in their closets. Meetings specifically for
prayer are as rare as frost in June. In many churches, there is
neither the name nor the semblance of a prayer meeting. In town
and city churches, the prayer meeting in name is not a prayer
meeting in fact. A sermon or a lecture is the main feature. Prayer is
the nominal attachment.
Our people are not a praying people. That is clear from their lives.
Prayer and the holy life are one. They mutually act and react.
Neither can survive alone. The absence of one is the absence of the
other. The monk corrupted prayer, substituting superstition for
prayer, and mummies and routine for a holy life. We are in danger
of substituting churchly work and a ceaseless round of showy
activities for prayer and holy living. A holy life does not live in the
closet, but it cannot exist without the closet. If, by any chance, a
35 | P a g e
prayer chamber was to be established without a holy life, it would
be a chamber without the presence of God in it.
Put the saints everywhere to work praying; that is the burden of the
apostolic effort and the key to apostolic success. Jesus Christ had
striven to do this in the days of His personal ministry. He was
moved by infinite compassion at the ripened fields of earth
perishing for lack of laborers, and pausing in His own praying, He
tried to awaken the sleeping sensibilities of His disciples to the
duty of prayer as He charged them: "Pray ye the Lord of the
harvest that He will send forth laborers into His harvest." And He
spoke a parable to them to this end, saying that men ought always
to pray.
Before Pentecost, the apostles could only catch glimpses of the
importance of prayer. But the Spirit's coming and filling on
Pentecost elevated prayer to its vital and all-commanding position
in the Gospel of Christ. The call now to prayer for every saint is
the Spirit's loudest and most exigent call. Sainthood's piety is
made, refined, and perfected by prayer. When the saints are not at
their prayers early, late, and long, the Gospel moves at a slow and
timid pace.
Where are the Christlike leaders who can teach the modern saints
how to pray and then put them to it? Do our leaders know we are
raising up a prayerless set of saints? Where are the apostolic
leaders who can get God's people praying? Let them come to the
front and do the work, and it will be the most incredible work that
can be done.
An increase in educational facilities and a significant increase in
financial resources will be the direst curse to religion if they are
not sanctified by more and better praying than we are doing.
More praying will not come as a matter of course. If we are not
careful, the campaign for the twentieth or twenty-first centuries

36 | P a g e
will not help but hinder our prayer. Nothing but a specific effort
from a praying leadership will avail. Only praying leaders can have
praying followers. Praying apostles will beget praying saints. A
praying pulpit will beget praying pews. We do need somebody
who can set the saints to this business of praying. We are a
generation of non-praying saints. Non-praying saints are a
beggarly gang of saints who have neither the ardor, beauty, nor
power of saints. Who will restore this branch? The most significant
will be reformers and apostles who can inspire the church to pray.
Through prayer, holy men have changed the entire force of affairs
and revolutionized character and country in the past. And such
achievements are still possible for us. The power only wants to be
used. Faith is expressed through prayer.
Prayer has done so many great things that it would take too long to
list them all. The holy people have "subdued kingdoms, worked
righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, put
out the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, become
strong when they were weak, become brave in battle, sent the
armies of the aliens running, and women have seen their dead
come back to life."
Prayer honors God, but it dishonors oneself. It is man's cry of
helplessness, ignorance, and want. A plea that heaven cannot
disregard. God delights in having us pray.
Prayer is not the enemy of work; it does not paralyze activity. It
works mightily; prayer itself is the greatest work. It promotes
activity and increases desire and effort. Prayer is not an opiate but
a tonic; it does not put you to sleep but instead awakens you to
action. The lazy man does not, will not, or cannot pray, for prayer
demands energy. Paul describes it as a struggle, an agony. With
Jacob, it was a wrestling match; with the Syrophoenician woman,
it was a struggle that called into play all the higher qualities of the
soul and demanded great force to meet.
37 | P a g e
The closet is not an asylum for indolent and worthless Christians.
It is not a nursery where only babies belong. It is the church's
battlefield, citadel, and scene of heroic and unearthly conflicts. The
closet serves as a supply depot for Christians and the Church. Cut
off from it. There is nothing left but retreat and disaster. Prayer
greatly accelerates the energy for work, mastery over oneself,
deliverance from fear, and all spiritual results and graces. The
difference between Christians' strength, experience, and holiness is
found in contrast in their praying.
Few, short, feeble prayers always betray a low spiritual condition.
Men should pray a lot and put in much effort and perseverance.
Eminent Christians have been prominent in prayer. The deep
things of God are learned nowhere else. Great prayers accomplish
remarkable things for God. He who prays much, studies much,
loves much, works much, and does much for God and humanity.
The execution of the Gospel, the vigor of faith, and the maturity
and excellence of spiritual graces wait on prayer.
"Nothing is impossible for industry," said one of the seven sages of
Greece. Let us change the word industry to persevering prayer, and
the motto will be more Christian and more worthy of universal
adoption. I am persuaded that we are all more deficient in a spirit
of prayer than in any other grace. God loves importunate prayer so
much that He will not give us much blessing without it. And the
reason that He loves such prayer is that He loves us and knows that
it is a necessary preparation for our receiving the richest blessings
that He is waiting and longing to bestow.
I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything. Still, it came at
some point—no matter how distant a day, somehow, in some
shape, the last I would have devised, it came. Adeniran Judson
It is good, I find, to persevere in attempts to pray. If I cannot pray
with perseverance or continue long in my addresses to the Divine
Being, I have discovered that the more I do in secret prayer, the
38 | P a g e
more I delight to do so and have enjoyed more of the spirit of
prayer; and frequently I have discovered the contrary when I have
been deprived of retirement by journeying or otherwise. — David
Brainerd

39 | P a g e
Chapter 6
Christ cites persistence as a distinguishing characteristic of true
prayer. We must not only pray but also with great urgency,
intentness, and repetition. We must not only pray, but we must
pray repeatedly. We must not get tired of praying. We must be
profoundly earnest and concerned about the things we ask for, for
Jesus Christ made it clear that the secret of prayer and its success
lies in its urgency. We must be persistent in our prayers to God.
In a story that was both moving and simple, Our Lord taught men
not only that they should pray but also that they should pray with
all their hearts and fight for what they believe in.
"And He told them a parable so they might always pray and not
faint." There was in a city a judge who feared not God and
regarded no man. A widow in that city often came to him, saying,
"Avenge me of my adversary." And he would not for a while, but
afterward, he said within himself, "Though I fear neither God nor
regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her,
lest she wears me out by her continual coming." And the Lord said,
"Hear what the unrighteous judge says." Will God not avenge His
elect, who call out to Him at all hours of the day and night, and He
is patient with them? I assure you that He will swiftly avenge
them. "However, will the Son of Man find faith on earth when He
comes?"
This poor woman's case was a very hopeless one, but persistence
brings hope from the realms of despair and creates success where
neither success nor its conditions existed. There could be no
stronger case to show how unwearied and dauntless persistence
gains its ends where everything else fails. The preface to this
parable says: "He spoke a parable to this end, that men ought
always to pray and not to faint." He knew that men would soon get

40 | P a g e
fainthearted in praying, so to hearten us, he gives this picture of the
marvelous power of perseverance.
The widow, weak and helpless, personifies helplessness; devoid of
every hope and influence that could persuade an unjust judge, she
wins her case solely through her tireless and offensive persistence.
Could the necessity of perseverance, its power, and its tremendous
importance in prayer be pictured in a deeper or more impressive
color? It surmounts or removes all obstacles, overcomes every
resisting force, and gains its ends in the face of invincible
hindrances. We can do nothing without prayer. All things can be
done through persistent prayer.
That is the teaching of Jesus Christ. Another parable spoken by
Jesus reinforces the same great truth. A man at midnight goes to
his friend for a loan of bread. His pleas are strong, based on
friendship and the embarrassing and exacting demands of
necessity, but these all fail. He gets no bread, but he stays, presses,
waits, and gains. Sheer persistence succeeds where all other pleas
and influences have failed.
The case of the Syrophoenician woman is a parable in action. The
knowledge that he will not see anyone stops her from approaching
Christ. She is denied His presence, then treated with apparent
apathy, silence, and unconcern: she presses and approaches, but
both are repulsed by the firm and crushing declaration that He is
not sent to her kind, that she is barred from His mission and power.
She is humiliated by being called a dog. Despite this, she accepts
everything, overcomes everything, and wins everything through
her humble, fearless, and invincible persistence. The Son of God,
pleased, surprised, and overpowered by her unconquerable
perseverance, says to her: "O, woman, great is thy faith; be it unto
thee even as thou wilt." Jesus Christ surrenders Himself to the
persistence of great faith. "And shall not God avenge His own

41 | P a g e
elect, which cries day and night unto Him, though He bears long
with them?"
One of the elements of prayer and one of the main conditions of
prayer, according to Jesus Christ, is the ability to be persistent. The
prayer of the Syrophoenician woman shows the unbeatable power
of sticking with something, of a battle that was more real and
involved more vital energy, endurance, and all the higher things
than the battles of Isthmia or Olympia.
The first lessons of persistence are taught in the Sermon on the
Mount: "Ask, and it shall be given; seek, and ye shall find; knock,
and it shall be opened." These are steps in advance: "For every one
that asks, receives; and he that seeks, finds; and to him, that
knocks, it shall be opened."
Without continuation, the prayer may go unanswered. Persistence
is the ability to hold on, press on, and wait with an unrelaxed and
unrelaxable grasp, restless desire, and restful patience. Persistent
prayer is not an incident but the main thing, not a performance but
a passion, not a need but a necessity.
The highest and most beautiful form of prayer is like wrestling
with God. The contest, trial, and victory of faith—a victory not
secured from an enemy but from Him who tries our faith that He
may enlarge it—tests our strength to make us stronger. Few things
give the soul such quickened and permanent vigor as a long,
exhaustive season of persistent prayer. It creates an experience, an
epoch, a new spiritual calendar, a new religious life, and soldierly
training. The Bible never tires of emphasizing and illustrating that
the highest spiritual good is secured due to the highest form of
spiritual effort. There is neither encouragement nor room in Bible
religion for feeble desires, listless actions, or lazy attitudes; all
must be strenuous, urgent, and ardent. Inflamed passions and
impassioned, unwearied insistence delight heaven. God would
have His children be incorrigibly earnest and persistently bold in
42 | P a g e
their efforts. Heaven is too busy to hear half-hearted prayers or
respond to pop calls.
Our whole being must be in our praying; like John Knox, we must
say and feel, "Give me Scotland, or I die." Our experience and
revelations of God are products of our costly sacrifices, conflicts,
and praying. Jacob's wrestling and all-night praying brought God
to the rescue, changed Esau's attitude and behavior, changed
Jacob's character, saved and changed his life, and became a
nation's way of life.
When we go through hard times and pray for help, those times
leave marks on us that will never go away. They are the salient
periods of our lives! The memorial stones that endure and to which
we turn.
Persistence, it may be repeated, is a condition of prayer. We are to
press the matter, not with vain repetitions but with urgent
repetitions. We repeat not to count the number of times but to
obtain the prayer. We cannot quit praying because our hearts and
souls are in it. We pray "with all perseverance." We cling to our
prayers because they keep us alive. We press our pleas because we
must have them or die. Christ gives us two of his most expressive
parables to emphasize the necessity of impetus in praying. Perhaps
Abraham lost Sodom by failing to press his privilege of praying to
the utmost. Joash, as we know, lost because he kept smiting.
Perseverance is essential to both God and man. If Elijah had ceased
at his first petition, the heavens would have scarcely yielded their
rain to his feeble praying. Jacob would barely have survived the
next day's meeting with Esau if he had quit praying at a decent
bedtime. If the Syrophoenician woman had allowed her faith to
faint through silence, humiliation, repulse, or stopping mid-
struggle, her grief-stricken home would never have been
brightened by her daughter's healing.

43 | P a g e
Pray and never faint is the motto Christ gives us for praying. It is
the test of our faith, and the more severe the trial and the longer the
wait, the more glorious the results.
The benefits and necessity of persistence are taught by the Old
Testament saints. Praying men must be strong in hope, faith, and
prayer. They must understand how to wait and press, rely on God,
and be sincere in their approaches to Him.
Abraham has left us an example of persistent intercession in his
passionate pleading with God on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah.
If, as already indicated, he had not ceased asking, perhaps God
would not have stopped in His giving. Abraham left off asking
before God left off granting. Moses taught the power of persistence
when he interceded for Israel for forty days and forty nights
through fasting and prayer. And he was successful in his endeavor.
Jesus, in His teaching and example, illustrated and perfected this
principle of Old Testament pleading and waiting. How strange that
the only Son of God, who came on a direct mission from His
Father, whose only heaven was on earth, and whose only life and
law were to do His Father's will in that mission, should be subject
to the law of prayer, that the blessings that came to Him were
impregnated and purchased by prayer, and even stranger, that the
process by which He obtained His richest supplies from God was
persistence in prayer. No transfiguration would have occurred if
He had not prayed urgently; no mighty works would have made
His career divine. His all-night prayer was what filled his all-day
work with compassion and power. The triumph of His death was
crowned by His life's passionate praying. Before illustrating that
submission so sublimely on the cross, Jesus learned the high lesson
of submission to God's will in the struggles of imploring prayer.
"Whether we like it or not," Mr. Spurgeon declared, "asking is the
kingdom's rule; ask, and ye shall receive." It is a rule that will
never be changed in any circumstance. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the
44 | P a g e
elder brother of the family, but God has not relaxed the rule for
Him. Remember this text: "Ask of Me, and I will give the heathen
for Thy inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Thy possession,"
Jehovah says to His own Son. If the Royal and Divine Son of God
cannot be exempted from the rule of asking that He may have, you
and I cannot expect the rule to be relaxed in our favor. Why should
it be? What reason can be pleaded for why we should be exempted
from prayer? What argument can there be why we should be
deprived of the privilege and delivered from the necessity of
supplication? I can see none. Can you? God will bless Elijah and
send rain on Israel, but Elijah must pray for it. If the chosen nation
is to prosper, Samuel must plead for it. If the Jews are to be
delivered, Daniel must intercede. God will bless Paul, and the
nations shall be converted through him, but Paul must pray. Pray,
he did without ceasing; his epistles show that he expected nothing
except by asking for it. "If you may have everything by asking and
nothing without asking, I beg you to see how absolutely vital
prayer is, and I beseech you to abound in it."
Doubtless, much of our praying fails for a lack of persistence. It is
lacking in zeal and strength of perseverance. Persistence is the
essence of true prayer. It may not always be called into exercise,
but it must be there as the reserve force. Jesus taught that
perseverance is the essential element of prayer. Men must be in
earnest when they kneel at God's footstool.
Too often, we get faint-hearted and quit praying at the point where
we ought to begin. We let go precisely where we should have
gripped the most tightly. Our prayers are weak because they are
not impassioned by an unfailing and resistless will.
God loves the persistent pleader and sends him answers that would
never have been granted but for the persistency that refuses to let
go until the petition craved for is given.

45 | P a g e
I suspect I have been allotting habitually too little time to religious
exercises such as private devotion and holy meditation. Scripture
reading, etc. Hence, I am lean, cold, and hard. God would prosper
me more spiritually if I were to be more diligent in using the
means of grace. I had better allot more time, say two hours or an
hour and a half, to religious exercises daily, and try whether, by so
doing, I cannot preserve a frame of spirit more habitually
devotional, a more lively sense of unseen things, a closer love to
God, and a greater degree of hunger and thirst after righteousness,
a heart less prone to be soiled with worldly cares, designs,
passions, and apprehension, and a real genuine longing for heaven,
its pleasures, and its purity.

46 | P a g e
Chapter 7
"Men ought always to pray and not to faint." The words are the
words of our Lord, who sought to impress upon His followers the
urgency and importance of prayer and set them an example that
they have been far too slow to copy.
The always speaks for itself. Prayer is not a meaningless function
or duty to be crammed into the busy or weary ends of the day. We
are not obeying our Lord's command when we content ourselves
with a few minutes on our knees in the morning rush or late at
night when the faculties, tired with the tasks of the day, call out for
rest. God is always within calling distance, it is true; His ear is
attentive to His child's cry, but we can never get to know Him if
we use the vehicle of prayer as we use the telephone—for a few
words of hurried conversation. Intimacy requires development. We
can never know God, as it is our privilege to know Him through
brief, incomplete, and unconsidered repetitions of intercessions
that are requests for personal favors and nothing more.
That is not how we can come into communication with heaven's
King. The goal of prayer is "the ear of God," a goal that can only
be reached by a patient, continued, and constant waiting upon Him,
pouring out our hearts to Him, and permitting Him to speak to us.
Only by so doing can we expect to know Him. As we come to
know Him better, we shall spend more time in His presence and
find that presence a constant and ever-increasing delight.
Always does not mean that we are to neglect the ordinary duties of
life; what it means is that the soul, which has come into intimate
contact with God in the silence of the prayer chamber, is never out
of conscious touch with the Father, that the heart is always going
out to Him in loving communion, and that the moment the mind is
released from the task upon which it is engaged, it returns as
naturally to God as the bird does to its nest. We get a lovely picture

47 | P a g e
of prayer when we see it in this light—as a constant fellowship, an
unbroken audience with the King! Then, prayer loses any fear it
might have had before. We no longer see it as a duty we have to
do, but as a privilege, we get to enjoy, a rare pleasure that always
shows us something new and beautiful.
Thus, when we open our eyes in the morning, our thoughts
instantly turn heavenward. To many Christians, the morning hours
are the most precious portion of the day because they provide the
opportunity for the holy fellowship that gives the keynote to the
day's program. And what better introduction can there be to the
never-ceasing glory and wonder of a new day than to spend it
alone with God? It is said that Mr. Moody, at a time when no other
place was available, kept his morning watch in the coal shed,
pouring out his heart to God and finding in his precious Bible a
true "feast of fat things."
George Miiller also combined Bible study with prayer in the quiet
morning hours. At one time, his practice was to give himself to
prayer after getting dressed in the morning. Then his plan
underwent a change. As he put it, "I saw the most important thing I
had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God
and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted,
encouraged, warned, reproved, and instructed; and that thus,
through the Word of God, while meditating on it, my heart might
be brought into experimental communion with the Lord."
Therefore, I began meditating on the New Testament early in the
morning. The first thing I did, after asking in a few words for the
Lord's blessing upon his precious Word, was to begin to meditate
on the Word of God, searching, as it were, into every verse to get a
blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the
Word, not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated on,
but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I
have found to be almost invariably thus: that after a very few
minutes, my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or
48 | P a g e
to intercession, or to supplication; so that, though I did not, as it
were, give myself to prayer but to meditation, yet it turned almost
immediately more or less into prayer.
The study of the Word and prayer go together, and where we find
the one indeed practiced, the other is sure to be seen in close
alliance.
But we do not pray. That is the trouble with so many of us. We
need to pray much more and much longer than we do.
Robert Murray McCheyne, gifted and saintly, of whom it was said,
"Whether viewed as a son, a brother, a friend, or a pastor, he was
the most faultless and attractive exhibition of the true Christian
they had ever seen embodied in a living form," knew what it was
to spend much time upon his knees. He never wearied in urging
upon others the joy and the value of holy intercession. "God's
children should pray," he said. "They should cry day and night
unto Him; God hears every one of your cries in the busy hours of
the daytime and in the lonely watches of the night." In every way,
by preaching, by exhortation when present, and by letters when
absent, McCheyne emphasized the vital duty of prayer,
importunate and unceasing prayer.
In his diary, we find this: "In the morning, I was engaged in
preparing the head, then the heart." This has been a frequent error,
and I have always felt the evil of it, especially in prayer. Reform it
then, O Lord." While on his trip to the Holy Land, he wrote: "For
much of our safety, I feel indebted to the prayers of my people." If
the veil of the world's machinery were lifted, how much would we
find done in answer to the prayers of God's children? In an
ordination sermon, he said to the preacher: "Give yourself to
prayers and the ministry of the Word." If you do not pray, God will
probably lay you aside from your ministry, as He did with me, to
teach you to pray. Remember Luther's maxim, "To have prayed
well is to have studied well." Get your texts from God—your
49 | P a g e
thoughts, your words. Carry the names of the little flock like the
High Priest on your breast. Wrestle for the unconverted. Luther
spent his last three hours in prayer; John Welch prayed seven or
eight hours a day. He used to keep a plaid on his bed that he might
wrap himself in when he rose during the night. His wife would
occasionally find him on the ground, sobbing. When she
complained, he would say, "O, woman, I have the souls of three
thousand to answer for, and I know not how it is with many of
them." "Pray for your pastor," he implored his audience. Pray for
his body to be kept strong and spared many years. Pray for his
soul, that he may be kept humble and holy, a burning and shining
light. Pray for his ministry—that it be abundantly blessed and that
he be anointed to preach good news; no secret prayer without
naming him before God; no family prayer without carrying your
pastor to God in your hearts.
"He seems never to have stopped cultivating personal holiness and
making the most anxious efforts to win souls," his biographer
writes. The two are inseparable companions in the ministry of
prayer. Prayer fails when the desire and effort for personal holiness
fail. No person is a soul winner who is not adept in prayer
ministry. "It is the duty of ministers," says this holy man, "to begin
the reformation of religion and manner with themselves, their
families, etc., with confession of past sin, earnest prayer for
direction, grace, and full purpose of heart." He begins with himself
under the heading "Reformation in Secret Prayer," and he resolves:
"I ought not to omit prayer parts: confession, adoration,
thanksgiving, petition, and intercession." There is a fearful
tendency to omit confession, proceeding from low views of God
and His law, slight thoughts of my heart, and the sins of my past
life. This must be resisted. There is a constant tendency to omit
adoration when I need to remember to whom I am speaking when I
rush heedlessly into the presence of Jehovah without thought of
His awful name or character. When I have little eyesight for his
50 | P a g e
glory and little admiration for his wonders, I have the natural
tendency of the heart to omit giving thanks, yet it is expressly
commanded. I often overlook intercession when my heart is dead
for the salvation of others. Still, it is primarily the spirit of the great
advocate, Who has the name of Israel on His heart. I ought to pray
before seeing anyone. Often, when I sleep long or meet with others
early and have family prayer and breakfast and forenoon callers, it
is eleven or twelve o'clock before I begin secret prayer. This is a
wretched system; it is unscriptural. Christ rose before daybreak and
went into a solitary place. David says, "Early will I seek thee; thou
shalt early hear my voice." Mary Magdalene came to the grave
while it was still dark. Family prayer loses much of its power and
sweetness, and I can do no good to those who come to seek me out.
The conscience feels guilty, the soul is unfed, and the lamp is not
trimmed. I think it is far better to begin with God, to see His face
first, and to get my soul near Him before it is near another. ""When
I awake, I am still with Thee." If I have slept too long, or I am
going on an early journey, or my time is shortened, it is best to
dress hurriedly and have a few minutes alone with God than to
give it all up for the loss. But in general, it is best to have at least
one hour alone with God before engaging in anything else. I should
spend the best hours of the day in communion with God. "When I
wake up in the middle of the night, I should get up and pray like
David and John Welch."
McCheyne believed in being constantly in prayer, and his fruitful
life, short though it was, affords an illustration of the power that
comes from long and frequent visits to the secret place where we
keep tryst with our Lord.
Men of McCheyne's stamp are needed today—praying men who
know how to give themselves to the most significant task
demanding their time and attention; men who can give their whole
hearts to the holy task of intercession; men who can pray through.
God's cause is committed to men; God commits Himself to men.
51 | P a g e
Praying men are the vicegerents of God; they do His work and
carry out His plans.
We are obliged to pray if we are citizens of God's Kingdom.
Prayerlessness is banishment, or worse, from God's Kingdom. It is
outlawry, a high crime, and a constitutional breach. The Christian
who relegates prayer to a subordinate place in his life soon loses
whatever spiritual zeal he may have once possessed. The Church
that makes little of prayer cannot maintain vital piety and is
powerless to advance the Gospel. Without constant, instant, and
ardent prayer, the Gospel cannot live, fight, or conquer.
A little prayer signifies a backslidden age and a backslidden
church. Spiritual bankruptcy is imminent and inevitable whenever
there is little praying in the pulpit or in the pews.
God's cause has no commercial, cultural, educational, or financial
age. But it has one golden age, the age of prayer. God's cause will
triumph when its leaders are men of prayer. Prayer is the dominant
element of worship, like incense providing constant fragrance to its
service.
Better praying and more of it are what we need. We need holier
men, and more of them, and holier women, and more of them, to
pray—women like Hannah, who brewed their greatest prayers out
of their greatest griefs and temptations. Through prayer, Hannah
found relief. Everywhere the Church was backslidden and apostate,
her foes were victorious. Hannah gave herself to prayer, and in
sorrow, she multiplied her praying. She saw a great revival come
from her praying. When the whole nation was oppressed, including
prophets and priests, Samuel was born to establish a new line of
the priesthood, and her praying warmed into a new life for God.
Everywhere, religion revived and flourished. God, faithful to His
promise, "Ask of Me," even though the prayer came from a
woman's broken heart, heard and answered, sending a new day of
holy gladness to revive His people.
52 | P a g e
So once more, let us apply the emphasis and repeat that the great
need of the Church in this and all ages are men of such
commanding faith, of such unsullied holiness, of such marked
spiritual vigor and consuming zeal, that they will work spiritual
revolutions through their mighty praying. Natural ability and
educational advantages do not figure as factors in this matter, but a
capacity for faith, the ability to pray, the power of a thorough
consecration, the ability of self-littleness, a total loss of one's self
in God's glory, and an ever-present and insatiable yearning and
seeking after all the fulness of God. "Men who can set the Church
ablaze for God, not in a noisy, showy way, but with an intense and
quiet heat that melts and moves everything for God,"
To return to the main point, secret prayer is the litmus test, the
gauge, and the protector of man's relationship with God. The
prayer chamber, while it is the test of the sincerity of our devotion
to God, also becomes the measure of that devotion. Self-denial,
sacrifices for our prayer chambers, frequency of visits to that
hallowed place of meeting with the Lord, lingering to stay,
loathing to leave—these are the values we place on communion
alone with God, the price we pay for the Spirit's trying hours of
heavenly love.
The prayer chamber conserves our relationship with God. It hems
every raw edge; it tucks up every flowing and entangling garment;
it girds up every fainting loin. The sheet anchor holds the ship no
more surely and safely than the prayer chamber holds God. Satan
has to break our hold on him and close our way to the prayer
chambers before he can break our hold on God or close our way to
heaven.
"Be not afraid to pray; to pray is right;
Pray if you can with hope, but always pray.
Though hope be weak or sick with long delay;
Pray in the darkness if there be no light;
And if for any wish thou dare not pray
53 | P a g e
Then pray to God to cast that wish away."
In God's name, I urge you to let prayer nourish your soul as your
meals nourish your body. Allow your regular prayer times to keep
you in God's presence throughout the day, and let His presence be
a constant source of inspiration. Such a brief, loving recollection of
God renews a man's entire being, calms his passions, supplies light
and counsel in difficulty, gradually subdues the temper, and causes
him to possess his soul in patience or rather to give it up to God's
possession. — Fenelon.
Devoted too much time and attention to the outward and public
duties of the ministry. But this is a mistaken attitude because I've
learned that neglecting frequent and fervent communion with God
in meditation and prayer is not the way to redeem time or prepare
for public ministry.
I rightly attribute my present deadness to a want of sufficient time
and tranquility for private devotion. I want more reading,
retirement, and private devotion, but I need more mastery over my
temper. A sad day for me due to a lack of solitude and prayer. If I
do anything, if I leave anything undone, let me be perfect in
prayer.
After all, whatever God may appoint, prayer is a great thing. Oh,
that I may be a man of prayer!—Henry Martyn

54 | P a g e
Chapter 8
We cannot be sure that the men stopped praying during Paul's
time. They have, for the most part, quit praying now. They are too
busy to pray. Time, strength, and every faculty are laid out in
tribute to money, business, and world affairs. Few men lay
themselves out in great prayer. The great business of praying is a
hurried, petty, starving, beggarly business with most men.
St. Paul calls a halt and lays a levy on men for prayer. Paul's
unfailing remedy for major evils in the church, state, politics,
business, and home is to get men to pray. Put the men to praying,
politics will be cleansed, the business will be thriftier, the church
will be holier, and the home will be sweeter.
"I, therefore, urge, first of all, that supplications, prayers,
intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men; for kings and
all in high places; that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all
godliness and gravity. This is acceptable in the eyes of God, our
Savior... I, therefore, desire that men pray everywhere, lifting up
holy hands without wrath or disputation (1 Timothy 2:1–3, 8).
Praying women and children are invaluable to God. Still, suppose
their praying is not supplemented by praying men. In that case,
there will be a significant loss in the power of prayer—a great
breach and depreciation in the value of prayer, a significant
paralysis in the energy of the Gospel. Jesus Christ spoke a parable
to the people, telling them that men ought always to pray and not
faint. Men who are strong in everything else ought to be strong in
prayer and never yield to discouragement, weakness, or
depression. Men who are brave, persistent, and redoubtable in
other pursuits ought to be courageous, unfailing, and strong-
hearted in prayer.
Men are to pray; all men are to pray. Men are distinguished from
women by their strength and their wisdom. There is an absolute,
55 | P a g e
specific command that the men pray; it is an absolute necessity that
they pray. The first of all beings, man, should also be first in
prayer.
The men are to pray for men. The direction is specific and
classified. Just underneath, we have a particular order concerning
women. Concerning prayer, its significance, breadth, and practice,
the Bible here contrasts and distinguishes men from women. The
men are commanded, seriously charged, and warmly urged to pray.
Perhaps it was that men were opposed to prayer or indifferent to it;
it may be that they deemed it a small thing and gave it neither time
nor value nor significance. But God would have all men pray, and
so the great Apostle brings the subject to prominence and
emphasizes its importance.
Prayer is of transcendent importance. Prayer is the mightiest agent
to advance God's work. Praying hearts and hands only can do
God's work. Prayer succeeds when all else fails. Prayer has won
significant victories and rescued, with notable triumph, God's
saints when every other hope was gone. Men who know how to
pray are the most tremendous boon God can give to earth—they
are the richest gift earth can offer heaven. Men who know how to
use this weapon of prayer are God's best soldiers and His mightiest
leaders.
Praying men are God's chosen leaders. The distinction between the
leaders that God brings to the front to lead and bless His people
and those who owe their leadership position to a worldly, selfish,
unsanctified selection is that God's leaders are preeminently men
of prayer. This marks them out as simple. Divine attestation of
their call, the seal of their separation by God. Whatever other
graces or gifts they may have, the gift and grace of prayer tower
above them all. In whatever else they may share or differ, in the
gift of prayer, they are one.

56 | P a g e
What would God's leaders be without prayer? Strip Moses of his
power in prayer, a gift that made him eminent in pagan estimation,
and the crown is taken from his head; the food and fire of his faith
are gone. Elijah, without his praying, would have neither a record
nor a place in the Divine legation, his life would be insipid and
cowardly, its energy, defiance, and fire gone. Without Elijah's
praying, the Jordan would never have yielded to the stroke of his
mantle, nor would the stern angel of death have honored him with
the chariot and horses of fire. The argument that God used to quiet
the fears and convince Ananias of Paul's condition and sincerity is
the epitome of his history and the solution of his life and work—
"Behold, he prays."
Paul, Luther, Wesley—what would these chosen ones of God be
without the distinguishing and controlling element of prayer? They
were God's leaders because they were powerful in prayer. They
were leaders not because of their brilliance in thought, exhaustion
in resources, magnificent culture, or native endowment, but
because they could command the power of God through the power
of prayer. Praying men are more than just men who say prayers;
they are more than just men who pray out of habit. It means men
for whom prayer is a mighty force, an energy that moves heaven
and pours untold treasures of goodness on earth.
Praying men protect the church from materialism, which affects all
of its plans and policies and hardens its lifeblood. The insinuation
circulates as a secret, deadly poison: that the Church is not so
dependent on purely spiritual forces as it used to be, that changed
times and changed conditions have brought it out of its spiritual
straits and dependencies and put it where other forces can carry it
to its climax. A fatal snare of this kind has allured the Church into
worldly embraces, dazzled her leaders, weakened her foundations,
and shorn her of much of her beauty and strength. Praying men are
the saviors of the Church from this material tendency. They pour
the original spiritual forces into it, lift it off the sandbars of
57 | P a g e
materialism, and press it out into the ocean depths of spiritual
power. Praying men keep God in full force in the Church, keeping
His hand on the helm and training the Church in its lessons of
strength and trust.
The number and efficiency of the laborers in God's vineyard in all
lands are dependent on the men of prayer. The mightiness of these
men of prayer increases the number and success of consecrated
labors through a divinely orchestrated process. Prayer opens wide
their doors of access, gives holy aptness to enter, and holy
boldness, firmness, and fruitage. Praying men are needed in all
fields of spiritual labor. There is no position in the Church of God,
high or low, that can be well filled without instant prayer. There is
no position where Christians are found that does not demand the
full play of a faith that always prays and never faints. Praying men
are needed in the house of business as well as in the house of God,
that they may order and direct trade, not according to the maxims
of this world but according to Bible precepts and the maxims of the
heavenly life.
Men of prayer are needed, especially in positions of Church
influence, honor, and power. These leaders of Church thought,
Church work, and Church life should be men of strong power in
prayer. The praying heart sanctifies the labor and skill of the hands
and the labor and wisdom of the head. Prayer keeps work in line
with God's will and thoughts in line with God's Word. The solemn
responsibilities of leadership, in a large or limited sphere, in God's
Church should be so hedged about with prayer that between it and
the world, there should be an impassable gulf, so elevated and
purified by prayer that neither cloud nor night should stain the
radiance nor dim the sight of a constant meridian view of God.
Many Church leaders seem to think that if they can be prominent
as men of business, of money, of influence, of thought, of plans, of
scholarly attainments, of eloquent gifts, of conspicuous activities,
these are enough and will atone for the absence of the higher
58 | P a g e
spiritual power that much praying can only give. But how vain and
paltry are these in the serious work of bringing glory to God,
controlling the Church for Him, and bringing it into full accord
with its Divine mission.
Praying men are the men who have done so much for God in the
past. They are the ones who have won victories for God and ruined
His adversaries. They are the ones who have set up His Kingdom
in the very camps of His enemies. There are no other conditions
for success in this day. The twentieth century has no relief statute
to suspend the necessity or force of prayer—no substitute by which
its gracious ends can be secured. To this extent, we are hemmed in;
only the work of prayerful hands can construct God's kingdom.
They are God's mighty ones on earth, His master builders. They
may be destitute of all else, but with the wrestling and victories of
a simple-hearted faith, they are mighty, the mightiest for God.
Church leaders may be gifted in all else, but without this greatest
of gifts, they are as Samson shorn of his locks or as the Temple
without the Divine presence or the Divine glory, and on whose
altars the heavenly flame has died.
The only protection and rescue from worldliness lie in our intense
and radical spirituality, and our only hope for the existence and
maintenance of this high, saving spirituality under God is in the
purest and most aggressive leadership—a leadership that knows
the secret power of prayer, the sign by which the Church has
conquered, and that has conscience, conviction, and courage to
hold her true to her symbols, true to her traditions, and true to the
hidings of her power. We need this kind of prayerful leadership,
and we must have it, so that by the perfection and beauty of its
holiness, by the strength and height of its faith, by the power and
pressure of its prayers, by the authority and purity of its example,
by the fire and contagiousness of its zeal, and by the uniqueness,
transcendence, and otherworldliness of its piety, it can move God
and hold and shape the Church to its heavenly model.
59 | P a g e
Such leaders, how mightily they are felt. How their flame arouses
the Church! How they stir it with the force of their Pentecostal
presence! How they embattle and give victory by the conflicts and
triumphs of their own faith ! How they shape it through the
strength and urgency of their prayers! How they inoculate it with
the contagion and fire of their holiness! How they lead the march
in great spiritual revolutions! How the Church is raised from the
dead by the resurrection call of their sermons! Holiness springs up
in their wake as flowers at the voice of spring, and where they
tread the desert, it blooms as the garden of the Lord. God's cause
demands such leaders along the whole line of official positions,
from subaltern to superior. How feeble, aimless, or worldly are our
efforts! How demoralized and vain for God's work without them!
The gift of these leaders is not within the range of ecclesiastical
power. They are God's gifts. Their being, their presence, their
number, and their ability are the tokens of His favor; their lack is
the sure sign of His disfavor, the presage of His withdrawal. Let
the Church of God be on her knees before the Lord of Hosts, that
He mightily endow the leaders we already have, put others in rank,
and lead all along the line of our embattled front.
The world is coming into the Church at many points and in many
ways. It oozes in; it pours in; it comes in with a bold front or a soft,
insinuating disguise; it comes in at the top and bottom; and
percolates through many a hidden way.
We are looking for praying men and holy men whose presence in
the Church will make it like a censer of holy incense flaming up to
God. With God, a man counts for everything. Rituals, forms, and
organizations are of little moment; unless they are backed by the
holiness of the man, they are offensive in His sight. "Incense is an
abomination to Me. "The new moons and sabbaths, the calling of
assemblies, I cannot tolerate; even the solemn meeting is iniquity."

60 | P a g e
Why does God speak so strongly against His own ordinances?
Personal purity had failed. The impure man tainted all the sacred
institutions of God and defiled them. God regards man in such a
significant way as to put a kind of discount on all else. Men have
built Him glorious temples and have striven and exhausted
themselves trying to please God with all manner of gifts. Still, in
lofty strains, He has rebuked these proud worshippers and rejected
their princely gifts.
"Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool; where is your
house that you have built for Me?" And where is my resting place?
"For all those things have been made by My hand, and all those
things have been," says the Lord. "He that killed an ox is as if he
slew a man; he that sacrifices a lamb is as if he cut off a dog's
neck; he that offered an oblation is as if he offered swine's blood;
he that burns incense is as if he blessed an idol." Turning away in
disgust from these costly and profane offerings. He declares: "But
to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite
spirit, and trembles at My word."
This truth is that God regards the personal purity of man as
fundamental. This truth suffers when ordinances are made
abundant, and forms of worship multiply. The man and his
spiritual character depreciate as Church ceremonials increase. The
simplicity of prayer is lost in religious aesthetics or the gaudiness
of religious forms.
This truth, that the personal purity of the individual is the only
thing God cares for, is lost sight of when the Church begins to
estimate men for what they have. When the Church eyes a man's
money, Social standing, or belongings in any way, then spiritual
values are at a fearful discount, and the tears of penitence and the
heaviness of guilt are never seen at her portals. Worldly bribes
have opened and stained its pearly gates by the entrance of the
impure.

61 | P a g e
When the church is greedy for numbers, the truth that God is
concerned with personal purity is swallowed up. "Not numbers but
personal purity is our aim," said the fathers of Methodism. The
parading of Church statistics is mightily against the grain of
spiritual religion. Eyeing numbers greatly hinders the pursuit of
personal purity. An increase in quantity is accompanied by a
decrease in quality. Bulk erodes preciousness.
The age of Church organization and Church machinery is not an
age noted for elevated and strong personal piety. Machinery looks
to engineers and organizations for generals, not saints, to run them.
The simplest organization may aid purity as well as strength, but
beyond that narrow "limit," organization swallows up the
individual and is careless of personal purity; push, activity,
enthusiasm, and zeal for an organization come in as the vicious
substitutes for spiritual character. Holiness and all the spiritual
graces of hardy culture and slow growth are discarded as too slow
and too costly for the progress and rush of the age. By dint of
machinery, new organizations, and spiritual weakness, results are
vainly expected to be secured, which can only be secured by faith,
prayer, and waiting on God.
The man and his spiritual character are what God is looking for. If
men—holy men—can be turned out by the easy processes of
Church machinery that are better and better than the old-time
processes, we would gladly invest in every new and improved
patent; but we do not believe it. We adhere to the old way—the
way the holy prophets went, the king's highway of holiness.
An example of this is afforded by the case of William Wilberforce.
He was a member of Parliament and a friend of Pitt, the famous
statesman, and he was not called by God to give up his high social
position or quit Parliament, but he was called to order his life
according to the pattern set by Jesus Christ and to devote himself
to prayer. To read the story of his life is to be impressed with its

62 | P a g e
holiness and its devotion to the claims of the quiet hours alone with
God. His conversion was announced to his friends—to Pitt and
others—by letter.
In the beginning of his religious career, he records: "My chief
reasons for a day of secret prayer are: (1) that the state of public
affairs is very critical and calls for earnest deprecation of the
Divine displeasure." (2) My station in life is a very difficult one,
wherein I am at a loss for knowing how to act. Direction, therefore,
should be specially sought from time to time. (3) I have been
graciously supported in difficult situations of a public nature. I
have gone out and returned home in safety, and I found a kind
reception had attended me. I would humbly hope, too, that what I
am now doing is a proof that God has not withdrawn His Holy
Spirit from me. "I am covered with mercies."
His birthday recurrence led him to review his situation and
employment again. "I find," he wrote, "that books alienate my
heart from God as much as anything." "I have been framing a plan
of study for myself, but let me remember that one thing is
necessary: if my heart cannot be kept in a spiritual state without so
much prayer and meditation, Scripture reading, etc., as they are
incompatible with study, I must seek first the righteousness of
God." All were to be surrendered for spiritual advancement. "I
fear," we find him saying, "that I have not studied the Scriptures
enough." Indeed, in the summer recess, I ought to read the
Scriptures for an hour or two every day, besides prayer, devotional
reading, and meditation. God will prosper me more if I wait on
Him. The experience of all good men shows that without constant
prayer and watchfulness, the life of God in the soul stagnates.
Doddridge's morning and evening devotions were serious matters.
Colonel Gardiner always spent hours in prayer in the morning
before he went forth. Bonnell practiced private devotions mainly in
the morning and evening and repeated Psalms while dressing and
undressing to raise his mind to heavenly things. I would look to
63 | P a g e
God to make the means effective. I fear that my devotions are too
hurried and that I do not read Scripture enough. I must grow in
grace and love God more; I must feel the power of Divine things
more. It makes no difference whether I am more or less educated.
Whether I even execute the work that I deem useful is
comparatively unimportant. But beware my soul of
lukewarmness."
The New Year began with Holy Communion and the taking of new
vows. "I will press forward," he wrote, "and labor to know God
better and love Him more." Assuredly I may, because God will
give His Holy Spirit to those who ask Him, and the Holy Spirit will
shed abroad the love of God in the heart. "O, then, pray, pray; be
earnest, press forward, and follow on to know the Lord." "Without
watchfulness, humiliation, and prayer, the sense of Divine things
must languish." To prepare for the future, he said he found nothing
more effective than private prayer and a serious perusal of the New
Testament.
And again, "I must say that I have lately had too little time for
private devotions." I can sadly confirm Doddridge's observation
that when we get sick in the closet, we usually get sick everywhere
else. I must mend here. I am afraid of getting into what Owen calls
the trade of sinning and repenting. Lord, help me. The shortening
of private devotions starves the soul; it grows lean and faint. This
must not be. I must redeem more time. "I see how lean in spirit I
become without full allowance of time for private devotions; I
must be careful to be watching unto prayer."
At another time, he puts it on record: "I must try what I long ago
heard was the rule of the great upholsterer, who, when he came
from Bond Street to his little villa, always first retired to his
closet." I have been keeping too late hours, and hence have had
only a hurried half hour to myself. "Surely, the experience of all

64 | P a g e
good men confirms the proposition that the soul will grow lean
without the proper measure of private devotions."
"Let me conjure you not to be seduced into neglecting, curtailing,
or hurrying over your morning prayers," he wrote to his son. Of all
things, guard against neglecting God in "the closet." There is
nothing more fatal to the life and power of religion. "More solitude
and earlier hours—prayer three times a day at least." "How much
better might I serve if I cultivated a closer communion with God?"
Wilberforce knew the secret of a holy life. Is that not where most
of us fail? We are so busy with other things, so immersed even in
doing good and carrying on the Lord's work, that we neglect the
quiet seasons of prayer with God. Before we are aware of it, our
soul is lean and impoverished.
"One night alone in prayer," says Spurgeon, "might make us new
men, changed from poverty of soul to spiritual wealth, from
trembling to triumphing." We have an example of it in the life of
Jacob. Before the crafty shuffler, always bargaining and
calculating were unlovely in almost every respect. Yet, one night
in prayer, God turned the supplanter into a prevailing prince and
robed him with celestial grandeur. From that night on, he lives on
the sacred page as one of the nobility of heaven. Could not we, at
least now and then, in these weary earthbound years, hedge about a
single night for such enriching traffic in the skies? What, have we
no sacred ambition? Are we deaf to the yearnings of Divine love?
Yet, my brethren, for wealth and for science, men will cheerfully
quit their warm couches, and cannot we do it now and again for the
love of God and the good of souls? Where are our zeal, our
gratitude, and our sincerity? I am ashamed while I thus upbraid
both myself and you. May we often linger at Jabbok and weep with
Jacob as he grasped the angel, saying, "With thee all night I intend
to stay, And wrestle till the break of day."

65 | P a g e
Surely, brethren, if we have given whole days to folly, we can
afford a space for heavenly wisdom. We did not tire when we gave
whole nights to chambering and wantonness, dancing, and the
world's revelry; we were cursing the sun for rising so early and
wishing the hours would lag a while so that we could delight in
wilder merriment and perhaps deeper sin. OH, why should we tire
in our heavenly labors? Why grow weary when asked to watch
with our Lord? "I rise and go forth to meet the Heavenly Friend in
the place where He manifests Himself," Jesus says to the sluggish
heart.
We can never expect to grow in the likeness of our Lord unless we
follow His example and give more time to communion with the
Father. A revival of real prayer would produce a spiritual
revolution.
Bear up the hands that hang down, by faith and prayer; support the
tottering knees. Have you had any days of fasting and prayer?
Storm the throne of grace and persevere, and mercy will
descend.— John Wesley
We must remember that the goal of prayer is the ear of God.
Unless that is gained, the prayer has utterly failed. The uttering of
it may have kindled a devotional feeling in our minds. Hearing it
may have comforted and strengthened the hearts of those with
whom we have prayed, but if the prayer has not gained the heart of
God, it has failed in its essential purpose.
A mere formalist can always pray to please himself. What has he
to do but open his book and read the prescribed words or bow his
knee and repeat such phrases as suggest themselves to his memory
or his fancy? Like the Tartarian Praying Machine, give, but the
wind, the wheel, and the business are thoroughly arranged. So
much knee-bending and talking, and the prayer is done. The
formalist's prayers are always good or, rather, always bad. But the
living child of God never offers a prayer that pleases himself; his
66 | P a g e
standard is above his attainments; he wonders that God listens to
him, and though he knows he will be heard for Christ's sake, yet he
accounts it a remarkable instance of condescending mercy that
such poor prayers as he should ever reach the ears of the Lord God
of Sabaoth. —C. H. Spurgeon

67 | P a g e
Chapter 9
It may be said with emphasis that no lazy saint prays. Can there be
a lazy saint? Can there be a prayerless saint? Does slack praying
not shorten the crown and kingdom of sainthood? Can there be a
cowardly soldier? Can there be a saintly hypocrite? Can there be a
virtuous vice? It is only when these impossibilities are brought into
being that we can find a prayerless saint.
To go through the motions of praying is a dull business, though not
a hard one. To say prayers in a decent, delicate way is not heavy
work. Prayer is hard work, but it is God's work and man's best
labor. To pray truly is to pray until hell feels the ponderous stroke,
until the iron gates of difficulty are opened, until the mountains of
obstacles are removed, until the mists are exhaled, the clouds are
lifted, and the sunshine of a cloudless day brightens. Never was the
toil of hand, head, and heart less spent in vain than when praying.
It is hard to wait and press and pray and hear no voice, but stay till
God answers. The joy of an answered prayer is like the joy of a
travailing mother when a male child is born into the world or the
joy of a slave whose chains have been burst asunder and to whom
new life and liberty have just come.
A bird's-eye view of what has been accomplished by prayer shows
what we lost when the dispensation of real prayer was substituted
by Pharisaical pretense and sham; it also shows how imperative the
need is for holy men and women who will give themselves to
earnest, Christlike praying.
It is not an easy thing to pray. All of the conditions of prayer must
be present behind praying. These conditions are possible, but they
are not to be seized on in a moment by the prayerless. They are
always present to the faithful and holy. Still, they cannot exist or
be met by a frivolous, negligent, or sluggish spirit. Prayer does not
stand alone. It is not a solo performance. Prayer is closely

68 | P a g e
connected to all the duties of ardent piety. The issuance of a
character is made up of the elements of a vigorous and
commanding faith. Prayer honors God, acknowledges His being,
exalts His power, adores His providence, and secures His aid. A
sneering half-rationalism cries out against devotion, saying it does
nothing but pray. But praying well entails doing everything well. If
it is true that devotion does nothing but pray, then it does nothing
at all. To do nothing but pray fails to do the praying, for the
antecedent, coincident, and subsequent conditions of prayer are but
the sum of all the energizing forces of practical, working piety.
The possibilities of prayer run parallel with the promises of God.
Prayer opens an outlet for the promises, removes the hindrances in
the way of their execution, puts them into working order, and
secures their gracious ends. More than this, prayerlike faith obtains
promises, enlarges their operation, and adds to the measure of their
results. God's promises were to Abraham and to his seed, but many
a barren womb, and many a minor obstacle stood in the way of the
fulfilment of these promises; but prayer removed them all, made a
highway for the promises, added to the facility and speediness of
their realization, and by prayer the promise shone bright and
perfect in its execution.
The possibilities of prayer are found in its allying itself with God's
purposes; for God's purposes and man's praying are the
combination of all potent and omnipotent forces. More than this,
the possibilities of prayer are seen in the fact that it changes the
purposes of God. It is in the very nature of prayer to plead and give
directions. Prayer is not a negation. It is a positive force. It never
rebels against the will of God and never comes into conflict with
that will, but it does seek to change God's purpose is evident.
Christ said, "The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not
drink it?" And yet He had prayed that very night, "If it is possible,
let this cup pass from Me." Paul sought to change the purposes of
God regarding the thorn in his flesh. God's purpose was fixed to
69 | P a g e
destroy Israel, and the prayer of Moses changed the purpose of
God and saved Israel. In the time of the Judges, Israel was apostate
and greatly oppressed. They repented and cried unto God, and He
said: "Ye have forsaken Me and served other gods, wherefore I
will deliver you no more: " but they humbled themselves, put away
their strange gods, and God's " soul was grieved for the misery of
Israel," and he sent them deliverance by Jephthah.
"Set your house in order, for thou shalt die and not live," God told
Hezekiah through Isaiah. Hezekiah prayed, and God sent Isaiah to
say, "I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears; behold, I
will add fifteen years to your days." "Yet forty days and Nineveh
shall be overthrown," was God's message by Jonah. But Nineveh
cried mightily to God, and "God repented of the evil that He had
said He would do unto them, and He did not do it."
The possibilities of prayer are seen in the diverse conditions it
reaches and the diverse ends it secures. Elijah prayed over a dead
child, and it returned to life; Elisha did the same; Christ prayed at
Lazarus' grave, and Lazarus arose. Peter kneeled down and prayed
beside dead Dorcas, and she opened her eyes and sat up. Peter
presented her alive to the distressed company. Paul prayed for
Publius and healed him. Jacob's praying changed Esau's murderous
hate into the kisses of the tenderest brotherly embrace. God gave to
Rebecca, Jacob, and Esau because Isaac prayed for her. Joseph was
the child of Rachel's prayers. Hannah's praying gave Samuel to
Israel. John the Baptist was given to Elizabeth, barren and past
childbearing age as she was, in answer to the prayer of Zacharias.
Elisha's praying brought famine or harvest to Israel; as he prayed,
so it was. Ezra's prayer carried the Spirit of God in heartbreaking
conviction to the entire city of Jerusalem. It brought them tears of
repentance back to God. Isaiah's prayer carried the sun's shadow
back ten degrees on the dial of Ahaz.

70 | P a g e
In answer to Hezekiah's prayer, an angel slew one hundred and
eighty-five thousand of Sennacherib's army in one night. Daniel's
praying opened to him the vision of prophecy, helped him
administer the affairs of a mighty kingdom, and sent an angel to
shut the lions' mouths. The angel was sent to Cornelius, and the
Gospel opened through him to the Gentile world because his
"prayers and alms had come up as a memorial before God." "And
what else can I say?" For time would run out if I told you about
Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah; of David and Samuel
and the prophets; of Paul and Peter and John and the Apostles; and
the holy company of saints, reformers, and martyrs who, through
prayer, "subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained
promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of
fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made
strong, waxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight the armies of the
aliens."
Prayer puts God in the matter with commanding force: "Ask of Me
things to come concerning My sons," says God, "and concerning
the work of My hands, command ye Me." In God's Word, we are
commanded to "always pray," "in everything by prayer," "continue
instantly in prayer," and "pray everywhere." The promise is as
limitless as the command is comprehensive. "All things
whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive,"
"whatever ye shall ask," "if ye shall ask anything." "Ye shall ask
what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." "Whatever you ask of
the Father, He will give you." If there is anything not involved in
"all things whatsoever" or not found in the phrase "ask anything,"
then these things may be left out of prayer. Language could not
cover a broader range or include every detail. These statements are
but samples of the all-encompassing possibilities of prayer under
the promises of God to those who meet the conditions of right
praying.

71 | P a g e
These passages, though, give only a general outline of the immense
regions over which prayer extends its sway. Beyond these, prayer
has effects and brings good to places that cannot be reached
through language or thought.
Paul exhausted language and thought in praying, but conscious of
necessities not covered and realms of good not reached, he covers
these impenetrable and undiscovered regions with this general
plea: "unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all
that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us."
The promise is, "Call upon Me, and I will answer thee and show
thee great and mighty things, which thou knows not."
James declares that "the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous
man availed much." How much he could not tell, but he illustrates
it by the power of Old Testament praying to stir up New Testament
saints to imitate the fervor and influence of their praying and
duplicate and surpass the power of the holy men of old. Elijah, he
says, was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed
earnestly that it might not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for
the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and
the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
In the Revelation of John, the whole lower order of God's creation
and His providential government, the Church and the angelic
world, are in the attitude of waiting on the efficiency of the prayers
of the saintly ones on earth to carry on the various interests of earth
and heaven. The angel takes the fire kindled by prayer and casts it
earthward; "and there were voices, and thundering, and lightnings,
and an earthquake." Prayer is the force that creates all these alarms,
stirs, and throes. "Ask of Me," says God to His Son and to the
Church of His Son, "and I shall give thee the heathen for Thine
inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy
possessions."

72 | P a g e
The men who have done mighty things for God have always been
powerful in prayer, have understood the possibilities of prayer, and
have made the most of these possibilities. The Son of God, the first
and the mightiest of all, has shown us prayer's all-potent and far-
reaching potential. Paul was powerful for God because he knew
how to use and get others to use the powerful spiritual forces of
prayer.
The seraphim, burning, sleepless, and adoring, are the figures of
prayer. It is resistless in its ardor, devoted, and tireless. There are
hindrances to prayer that nothing but a pure, intense flame can
surmount. There are toils, outlays, and endurance that only the
most fervent flame can withstand. Prayer may be low-tongued, but
it cannot be cold-tongued. Its words may be few, but they must be
on fire. Its feelings may not be impetuous, but they must be white
with heat. It is effective, fervent prayer that influences God.
God's house is the house of prayer, and God's work is the work of
prayer. God's house and God's work are made glorious by zeal for
God's house and zeal for God's work.
When the saints' prayer chambers are closed or entered casually or
coldly, the Church rulers are secular, fleshly, and worldly; their
spiritual character sinks to a low level, and the ministry becomes
restrained and enfeebled.
When prayer fails, the world prevails. When prayer fails, the
Church loses its Divine characteristics and its Divine power; the
Church is swallowed up by a proud ecclesiasticism, and the world
scoffs at its apparent impotence.
I look upon all the four Gospels as thoroughly genuine, for there is
in them the reflection of a greatness that emanated from the person
of Jesus and which is of as Divine a kind as ever was seen on earth.
— Goethe.

73 | P a g e
There are no possibilities, no necessity for prayerless praying, a
heartless performance, a senseless routine, a dead habit, a hasty,
careless performance—it justifies nothing. Prayerless praying has
no life, gives no life, is dead, and breathes out death. Not a battle
axe but a child's toy, for play, not for service. Prayerless praying
does not come up to the importance and aims of recreation. In the
hour of struggle, of intense conflict, a call to retreat in the moment
of battle or victory, prayerless praying is only a burden, an
impediment.

74 | P a g e
Chapter 10
Why do we not pray? What are the hindrances to prayer? This is
not a curious or trivial question. It goes not only to the whole
matter of our praying but to the whole matter of our religion.
Religion is bound to decline when praying is hindered. That which
hinders prayer inhibits religion. He who is too busy to pray will be
too busy to live a holy life.
Other duties become pressing and absorbing and crowd out prayer.
Choked to death would be the coroner's verdict in many cases of
dead praying if an inquest could be secured on this dire spiritual
calamity. This way of hindering prayer becomes so natural, easy,
and innocent that it comes to us all unaware. It will always be done
if we allow our praying to be crowded out. Satan would rather we
let the grass grow on the path to our prayer chamber than do
anything else. A closed chamber of prayer means going out of
business religiously or, worse, making an assignment and carrying
on our religion in some other name than God's and to somebody
else's glory. God's glory is only secured in the business of religion
by carrying that religion on with a significant capital of prayer. The
apostles understood this when they declared that their time should
not be spent on even the sacred duties of alms-giving; instead, they
should devote themselves "constantly to prayer and to the ministry
of the Word," with prayer coming first. The ministry of the Word
draws its efficiency and life from prayer.
The process of crowding out prayer is simple and progresses in
stages. First, prayer is hurried through. Unrest and agitation, fatal
to all devout exercises, come in. Then the time is shortened, and
you relish for the exercise palls. Then it is crammed into a chamber
and forced to exercise in short bursts of time. Its value depreciates.
The duty has lost its importance. It no longer commands respect
nor brings benefit. It has fallen out of favor, out of the heart, out of

75 | P a g e
the habits, and out of the life. We cease to pray and cease to live
spiritually.
Prayer is the only way to stop the desolating floods of worldliness,
business, and caring. Christ meant this when He charged us to
watch and pray. There is no pioneering corps for the Gospel other
than prayer. Paul knew that when he declared that "night and day
he prayed exceedingly that we might see your face and might
perfect that which is lacking in your faith." There is no arrival at a
high state of grace without much praying and no staying in those
high altitudes without extraordinary praying. Epaphras knew this
when he "labored fervently in prayers" for the Colossian Church,
"that they might stand perfect and complete in all the will of God."
The only way to keep our praying from being hindered is to
estimate prayer at its true and great value. Estimate it as Daniel
did, who, when he "knew that the writing was signed, he went into
his house, and his windows being opened to Jerusalem, he kneeled
upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks
before his God as he did aforetime." "Put praying among the high
values, as Daniel did, above place, honor, ease, wealth, and life."
Put praying into the habits, as Daniel did. "As he did aforetime"
has much in it to give firmness and fidelity in the hour of trial;
much in it to remove hindrances and master opposing
circumstances.
One of Satan's wiliest tricks is to destroy the best with the good.
Business and other duties are good, but we are so filled with them
that they crowd out and destroy the best. Prayer holds the citadel
for God, and if Satan can weaken prayer, he is a winner. When
prayer is dead, the citadel is taken. We must keep praying as the
faithful sentinel keeps guard with sleepless vigilance. We must not
keep it half-starved and feeble as a baby, but we must keep it in
tremendous strength. Our prayer chamber should have our freshest

76 | P a g e
power and our calmest time. Its hours should be unfettered,
without obtrusion or haste.
"To kneel upon our knees three times a day and pray and give
thanks before God as we did aforetime" is the very heart and soul
of religion, and it makes men like Daniel "men of an excellent
spirit" and "greatly beloved in heaven."
The greatness of prayer, involving as it does the whole man in its
most intense form, is not realized without spiritual discipline. This
makes it hard work, and before this exacting and consuming effort,
our spiritual sloth or feebleness stands abashed.
The simplicity of prayer and its child-like elements form a
significant obstacle to faithful praying. Intellect gets in the way of
the heart. The child spirit is only the spirit of prayer. It is no
holiday occupation to make a man a child again. In song, poetry,
and memory, he may wish himself a child again, but in prayer, he
must be a child again in reality. At his mother's knee, artless,
sweet, intense, direct, and trustful With no shade of doubt and no
temper to be denied, a desire that burns and consumes can only be
voiced by a cry. It is no easy work to have this childlike spirit of
prayer.
If praying were only an hour in the closet, difficulties would face
and hinder even that hour, but praying is the whole life spent
preparing for the closet. How difficult it is to cover home and
business, all the sweetness and all the bitterness of life, with the
holy atmosphere of the closet! A holy life is the only preparation
for prayer. It is just as difficult to pray as it is to live a holy life. In
this, we find a wall of exclusion built around our closets: men do
not love holy praying because they do not love and will not do
holy living. Montgomery sets forth the difficulties of faithful
praying when he declares the sublimity and simplicity of prayer.

77 | P a g e
Prayer is the simplest form of speech. That infant lips can try.
Prayer is the sublime strains that reach The Majesty on high.
This is not only good poetry but a profound truth as to the loftiness
and simplicity of prayer. There are great difficulties in reaching the
exalted, angelic strains of prayer. The difficulty of coming down to
the simplicity of infant lips is not much less.
Prayer in the Old Testament is called wrestling. Conflict, skill, and
strenuous, exhaustive effort are involved. In the New Testament,
we have the terms striving, laboring fervently, fervent, effectual,
and agony, all indicating intense effort put forth and difficulties
overcome. We, in our praises, sing out, "What various hindrances
we meet in coming to a mercy seat."
We have also learned that the good things that happen when we
pray are usually proportional to the effort we put into getting rid of
the things that get in the way of our soul's high communion with
God.
Christ spoke a parable to this end, saying that men ought always to
pray and not to faint. The parable of the importunate widow
teaches the difficulties in praying, how they are to be surmounted,
and the happy results that follow from valiant praying. As long as
it is true that "Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint on his
knees," difficulties will always obstruct the path to the closet.
Courageous faith is made stronger and purer by mastering
difficulties. These difficulties but couch the eye of faith on the
glorious prize that is to be won by the successful wrestler in
prayer. Men must not faint in the contest of prayer, but to this high
and holy work they must give themselves, despite the difficulties
in the way, and experience more than an angel's happiness in the
results. Luther said: "To have prayed well is to have studied well."
More than that, to have prayed well is to have fought well. "To

78 | P a g e
have prayed well is to have lived well." "To pray well is to die
well."
Prayer is a rare gift, not a popular, ready gift. Prayer is not the fruit
of natural talents; it is the product of faith, holiness, and
profoundly spiritual character. Men learn to pray as they learn to
love. Perfection in simplicity, in humility, and in faith—these are
its chief ingredients. Novices in these graces are not adepts in
prayer. It cannot be seized upon by untrained hands; only
graduates of heaven's highest school of art can touch its finest keys
and raise its sweetest, highest notes. Fine material and finish are
requisites. Master workers are required, for mere journeymen
cannot execute the work of prayer.
The spirit of prayer should rule our spirits and our conduct. The
prayer chamber's spirit must rule our lives, or the next hour will be
dull and sapless. Always praying in the spirit and acting in the
spirit of praying make our praying strong. The spirit of each
moment is what gives the closet communion its strength. It is what
we bring out of the closet that provides victory or brings defeat to
the closet. If the spirit of the world prevails in our non-closet
hours, the spirit of the world will succeed in our closet hours,
which will be a vain and idle farce.
If we are to meet God in the closet, we must live for God outside
of the closet. We must bless God by praying lives if we would
have God's blessing in the closet. We must do God's will in our
lives if we want to have God's ear in the closet. We must listen to
God's voice in public if we want God to listen to our voice in
private. God must have our hearts out of the closet if we are to
have God's presence in the closet. If we would have God in the
closet, God must have us out of the closet. There is no other way to
pray to God other than by living for him. Simply put, the closet is a
place of holy communion and high and sweet intercession—
intense intercession.

79 | P a g e
Men would pray better if they lived better. They would receive
more from God if they lived more obedient and pleasing lives. We
would have more strength and time for the Divine work of
intercession if we did not have to expend so much strength and
time settling up old scores and paying our delinquent taxes. Our
spiritual liabilities outnumber our spiritual assets to the point
where our closet time is spent negotiating a bankruptcy decree
rather than being a time of great spiritual wealth for us and others.
Our closets are too much like the sign, "Closed for Repairs."
John said of primitive Christian praying, "Whatsoever we ask, we
receive of Him because we keep His commandments and do those
things which are pleasing in His sight." We should note what
illimitable grounds were covered and what illimitable gifts were
received by their intense praying: "Whatsoever"—how
comprehensive the range and reception of mighty praying; how
suggestive the reasons for the ability to pray and to have prayers
answered—obedience—but more than that, doing things that
please God well. They went to their closets, made strong by their
strict obedience and loving fidelity to God in their conduct. Their
lives were not only faithful and obedient, but they were thinking
about things above obedience, searching for and doing something
to make God glad. These people can meet their Father in the closet
with eager steps and a bright face, not just to be forgiven but to be
approved and to receive.
It makes a big difference whether we come to God as a criminal or
as a child, to be forgiven or approved, to settle scores or to be
accepted, for punishment or for favor. For our praying to be strong,
it must be buttressed by holy living. The name of Christ must be
honored by our lives before it will honor our intercessions. The life
of faith perfects the prayer of faith.
Our lives not only give color to our praying, but they give body to
it as well. Bad living makes for bad praying. We pray feebly

80 | P a g e
because we live feebly. The stream of prayer cannot rise higher
than the fountain of living. The closet force is made up of the
energy that flows from life's intersecting streams. The feebleness
of living confines it to closet homes. We cannot speak strongly to
God if we have not lived strongly for him. The closet cannot be
made holy to God if the life has not been made holy to God. The
Word of God emphasizes our conduct as giving value to our
praying. "Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou
shalt cry, and He shall say." Here I am. If thou take away the yoke,
extending the finger, and speaking vanity from within thee,
Men are to pray by "lifting up holy hands without wrath and
doubting." We are to pass the time of our sojourning here in fear if
we would call on the Father. We cannot separate prayer from
behavior. "Whatever we ask, we receive from Him because we
keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in
His sight." "Ye ask and do not receive because you ask incorrectly,
in order to consume it on your lusts. “The injunction of Christ,
"Watch and pray," is to cover and guard our conduct so that we
may come to our closets with all the force secured by a vigilant
guard over our lives.
Our religion manifests itself most often and tragically in our
behavior. "Beautiful theories are marred by ugly lives." The most
difficult, as well as the most impressive, point of piety is to live it.
Our praying suffers as much as our religion from bad living.
Preachers were charged in primitive times to preach with their
lives or not at all. So Christians everywhere ought to be charged to
pray with their lives or not at all. Of course, the prayer of
repentance is acceptable. However, repentance means ceasing to
do wrong and learning to do right. A repentance that does not
produce a change in behavior is a sham. Praying that does not
result in pure conduct is a delusion. We have missed the entire
office and the virtue of praying if it does not correct behavior. It is

81 | P a g e
in the nature of things for us to stop praying or engaging in bad
behavior.
Cold, dead praying may exist with bad conduct, but cold, dead
praying is not praying in God's esteem. Our prayer gains strength
as it corrects our lives. A life growing in purity and devotion will
be a more prayerful one.
The pity is that so much of our praying is without object or aim. It
is without purpose. How much praying there is by people who
never abide in Christ—hurried praying, sweet praying full of
sentiment, pleasing praying, but not backed by a life wedded to
Christ. Popular praying! How much of this praying is from
unsanctified hearts and unhallowed lips! Prayers spring into life
under the influence of some great excitement, some pressing
emergencies, some popular clamor, and some great peril. But the
conditions for prayer are not there. We rush into God's presence
and try to link Him to our cause, inflame Him with our passions,
and move Him at our peril. All things are to be prayed for—but
with clean hands, with absolute deference to God's will, and
abiding in Christ. Prayerless praying is characterized by untrained
lips and hearts, as well as lives that are out of sync with Jesus
Christ; prayerless praying, which has the form and motion of
prayer but lacks the sincere heart of prayer, never moves God to
respond. It is of such praying that James says: "Ye have not
because you ask not; you ask and receive not because you ask
amiss."
The two greatest evils are asking incorrectly and not asking
correctly. Perhaps the greater evil is wrong asking because it has
the appearance of duty done, of praying when no praying has
occurred—a deception, a fraud, a sham. The times of the most
prayer are not really the times of the best prayer. The Pharisees
prayed much, but they were actuated by vanity; their praying
symbolized their hypocrisy, by which they made God's house of

82 | P a g e
prayer a den of robbers. Theirs was praying on state occasions—
mechanical, perfunctory, professional, beautiful in words, fragrant
in sentiment, well ordered, well received by the ears that heard, but
utterly devoid of every element of genuine prayer.
The conditions of prayer are well ordered and clear: abiding in
Christ and in His name. One of the first necessities, if we are to
grasp the infinite possibilities of prayer, is to get rid of prayerless
praying. It is often beautiful in words and in execution; it has the
drapery of prayer in a rich and costly form, but it lacks the soul of
praying. It's so easy for us to get into the habit of serving without
praying and just going through the motions.
If men only prayed on all occasions and in every place where they
went through the motions! If there were only holy, inflamed hearts
behind all these beautiful words and gracious forms! If there were
always uplifted hearts in these erect men who are uttering flawless
but vain words before God! If there were always reverent, bent
hearts when bended knees are uttering words before God to please
men's ears!
There is nothing that will preserve the life of prayer—its vigor,
sweetness, obligations, seriousness, and value—so much as a deep
conviction that prayer is an approach to God, a pleading with God,
an asking of God. Reality will then be in it; reverence will then be
in the attitude, in the place, and in the air. Faith will draw, kindle,
and open. Formality and deadness cannot live in this high and all-
serious home of the soul.
Prayerless praying lacks the essential elements of true prayer; it is
not based on desire and is devoid of earnestness and faith. Desire
burdens the chariot of prayer, and faith drives its wheels. There is
no burden in prayerless praying because there is no sense of need;
there is no ardency because there is no vision, strength, or glow of
faith. There was no tremendous pressure to pray, no deathless,
despairing grip on God: "I will not let Thee go unless Thou bless
83 | P a g e
me." No utter self-abandon, lost in the throes of a desperate,
pertinacious, and consuming plea: "Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive
their sin—if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of Thy book;" or, "Give
me Scotland, or I die." Prayerless prayer has no stake in the issue
because it has nothing to lose. It comes with empty hands, indeed,
but they are listless hands as well. They have never learned the
lesson of empty hands clutching the cross; it has no form or beauty
for them.
Prayerless prayer has no heart in its praying. The lack of
compassion deprives praying of its reality and makes it an empty
and unfit vessel. Heart, soul, and life must be in our praying; the
heavens must feel the force of our crying and be brought into
oppressed sympathy for our bitter and needy state. A need that
oppresses us and has no other solution but to cry out to God must
be expressed in our prayers.
Insincere prayer is prayerless prayer. It has no honesty at heart. We
name in words what we do not want in our hearts. Our prayers give
formal utterance to the things for which our hearts are not only not
hungry, but for which they really have no taste. We once heard an
eminent and saintly preacher, now in heaven, come abruptly and
sharply on a congregation that had just risen from prayer with the
question and statement, "What did you pray for?" If God grabbed
you and shook you, demanding what you prayed for, you couldn't
tell Him to save your life what the prayer that had just died from
your lips was. Prayerless prayer has no memory or heart.
Prayerless praying is a mere form, a heterogeneous mass, an
insipid compound, a mixture thrown together for sound and to fill
up, but with no heart or aim. This prayerless praying is a dry
routine, a dreary drudge, and a dull and heavy task.
Prayerless praying, on the other hand, is far worse than either task
or drudge; it separates praying from living; it speaks against the
world while confronting it with heart and life. It prays for humility

84 | P a g e
but nurtures pride; it prays for self-denial while indulging the flesh.
Nothing outperforms true prayer in terms of gracious results, but it
is better not to pray at all than to pray prayerless prayers, for they
are sinning, and the worst kind of sinning is sin on our knees.
The prayer habit is a good habit, but praying by dint of habit only
is an awfully bad habit. This kind of praying is neither conditioned
by God's order nor generated by God's power. It is not only a
waste, a perversion, and a delusion, but it is a prolific source of
unbelief. Prayerless praying gets no results. God is not reached,
and the self is not helped. It is better not to pray at all than to
secure no results from praying. Better for the pray-er, better for
others. Men hear of the prodigious results that are to be secured by
prayer—the matchless good promised in God's Word to prayer.
These keen-eyed worldlings or timid little believers notice the
large disparity between the results promised and the results
realized and are forced to question the truth and worth of that
which is so grand in promise but so meager in results. Religion and
God are disgraced, and doubt and unbelief are strengthened by
much asking and no getting.
In contrast, what a powerful force prayerful prayer is! Real prayer
helps God and man. It advances God’s Kingdom. The greatest
good comes to man by it. Prayer can do anything that God can do.
The pity is that we do not believe this as we ought and do not put it
to the test.
The Church's most important thing right now is not physical or
external; the most crucial need is spiritual. Work done without
prayer will never bring the kingdom of God closer. We do not pray
in the manner that is expected of us. Infrequently, we go into the
anteroom, close the door, and spend some time praying. The
kingdom's concerns are putting a lot of pressure on us, and we
need to pray about it. Giving that does not include prayer will
never evangelize the globe. — Dr. A. J. Gordon

85 | P a g e
The great subject of prayer, that comprehensive need of the
Christian's life, is intimately wrapped up in the personal fulness of
the Holy Spirit. We have "access unto the Father by the one Spirit"
[Eph. ii. i8], and by the same Spirit, having entered the audience
chamber through the "new and living way", we are able to pray in
God's will [Rom. via. 15, 26, 27; Eph. vi. 18; Jude 20–21].
Here is the secret of prevailing prayer: to pray under the direct
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, whose petitions for us and through
us are always according to the Divine purpose and hence sure of an
answer. "Praying in the Holy Spirit" simply cooperates with God's
will, and such prayer is always successful. How many Christians
cannot pray and seek, by effort, resolve, joining prayer circles, etc.,
to cultivate in themselves the "holy art of intercession," all to no
purpose. Here for them and all is the only secret of a real prayer
life: "Be filled with the Spirit," who is " the Spirit of grace and
supplication." — Reverend J. Stuart Holden, M.A.

86 | P a g e
Chapter 11
The preceding chapter closed with the statement that prayer can do
anything that God can do. It is a tremendous statement to make,
but it is a statement borne out by history and experience. If we are
abiding in Christ — and if we abide in Him, we are living in
obedience to His holy will — and approach God in His name, then
there lie open before us the infinite resources of the Divine treasure
house.
The man who truly prays receives from God many things that the
prayerless man does not. The goal of all genuine prayer is to obtain
the object prayed for, just as a child's cry for bread has as its goal
the acquisition of bread. This view removes prayer cleanly from
the sphere of religious performances. Prayer is not acting out a part
or going through religious motions. Prayer is neither officious,
formal, nor ceremonial but direct, hearty, and intense. Prayer is not
religious work that must be done; it is effective because it is done
well. Prayer is the helpless and needy child crying out to the
Father's compassion and the bounty and power of his hand. The
answer is as sure to come as the Father's heart can be touched and
the Father's hand moved.
The object of asking is to receive. The aim of seeking is to find.
The purpose of knocking is to arouse attention and get in. This is
Christ's iterated and re-iterated assertion that the prayer will,
without doubt, be answered. Its end was secured, not in some
roundabout way, but by getting the things asked for.
The value of prayer is found not in the number or length of prayers
but in the great truth that we are privileged by our relationships
with God to unburden our desires and make our requests known to
God. He will relieve us by granting our petitions. The child asks
because the parent is in the habit of granting the child's requests.
As God's children, we are in desperate need of something, and we

87 | P a g e
turn to God for help. Neither the Bible nor the child of God knows
anything of that half-infidel declaration that we are to answer our
prayers. God answers prayer. The faithful Christian does not pray
to stir himself up, but his prayer is the stirring up of himself to take
hold of God. The heart of faith knows nothing of that specious
skepticism, which stays the steps of prayer and chills its ardor by
whispering that prayer does not affect God.
D. L. Moody used to tell a story of a little child whose father and
mother had died and who was taken in by another family. The first
night, she asked if she could pray like she used to. They said, "Oh,
yes!" So she kneeled down and prayed as her mother had taught
her, and when that was ended, she added a little prayer of her own:
"O God, make these people as kind to me as my father and mother
were." Then she paused and looked up, as if expecting the answer,
and then added: "Of course you will." That little one's faith was so
sweetly simple! She expected God to answer and "do," and "of
course" she got her request, and that is the spirit in which God
invites us to approach Him.
In contrast to that incident is the story told of the quaint Yorkshire
class leader, Daniel Quorm, who was visiting a friend. One
afternoon, he came to the friend and said, "I am sorry you have met
with such a great disappointment."
"Why, no," said the man, "I have not met with any
disappointment."
"Yes," said Daniel, "you were expecting something remarkable
today."
"What do you mean?" said the friend.
"Why did you pray that you might be kept sweet and gentle all day
long?" "And, by the way things have been going, I see you have
been greatly disappointed."

88 | P a g e
"Oh," said the man, "I thought you meant something particular."
Prayer is mighty in its operations, and God never disappoints those
who put their trust and confidence in Him. They may have to wait
long for the answer and not live to see it, but the prayer of faith
never misses its object.
"A friend of mine in Cincinnati had preached his sermon and sunk
back into his chair when he felt impelled to make another appeal,"
says Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman. "A boy at the back of the church
lifted his hand. My friend left the pulpit and went down to him and
said, "Tell me about yourself." The boy said, "I live in New York."
I am a prodigal. I have disgraced my father's name and broken my
mother's heart. I ran away and told them I would never come back
until I became a Christian or they brought me home dead. That
night, there came from Cincinnati a letter telling his father and
mother that their son had turned to God.
"Seven days later, in a black-bordered envelope, a reply came that
read: "My dear boy, when I got the news that you had received
Jesus Christ, the sky was overcast; your father was dead." Then the
letter went on to tell how the father had prayed for his prodigal son
with his last breath and concluded, "You are a Christian to-night
because your old father would not let you go."
A fourteen-year-old boy was given a task by his father. It so
happened that a group of boys came along just then and stole the
boy away, so the work went undone. But the father came home that
evening and said, "Frank, did you do the work I gave you?" "Yes,
sir," said Frank. He told an untruth, and his father knew it but said
nothing. It troubled the boy, but he went to bed as usual. The
following day, his mother said to him, "Your father did not sleep
all last night."
"Why didn't he sleep?" asked Frank.
His mother said, "He spent the whole night praying for you."
89 | P a g e
This sent the arrow into his heart. He was deeply convicted of his
sin and knew no rest until he had made peace with God. Long
afterward, when the boy became Bishop Wayne, he said that his
decision for Christ came from his father's prayer that night. He saw
his father keeping his lonely and sorrowful vigil, praying for his
son, and it broke his heart. He said, "I can never be sufficiently
grateful to him for that prayer."
An evangelist, much used by God, has put on record that he
commenced a series of meetings in a little church of about twenty
members who were very cold, dead, and much divided. A little
prayer meeting was kept up by two or three women. "I preached
and closed at eight o'clock," he says. "There was no one to speak
or pray." The next evening, one man spoke.
"The next morning I rode six miles to a minister's study and
kneeled in prayer. I went back and said to the little church, "If you
can make me out enough to board me, I will stay until God opens
the windows of heaven."
God has promised to bless these means, and I believe He will.
Within ten days, there were so many anxious souls that I met one
hundred and fifty of them at a time in an inquiry meeting, while
Christians were praying in another house of worship. Several
hundred, I think, were converted. "It is safe to believe in God."
A mother asked the late John B. Gough to visit her son to win him
to Christ. Gough found the young man's mind full of skepticism
and impervious to argument. Finally, the young man was asked to
pray, just once, for light. He replied, "I do not know anything
perfect for whom or for what I could pray." "How about your
mother's love?" said the orator. "Isn't that perfect?" Hasn't she
always stood by you and been ready to take you in and care for
you, even when your father kicked you out? The young man
choked with emotion and said, "Yes, sir; that is so." Then pray to

90 | P a g e
Love—it will help you. "Will you promise?" He promised. That
night, the young man prayed in the privacy of his room. He
kneeled, closed his eyes, and, struggling for a moment, uttered the
words, "O love." The old Bible verse, "God is love," struck him
like lightning. He cried in agony, "O God!" Then there was another
flash of divine truth. A voice said, "God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son," and he exclaimed instantly, "O
Christ, Thou incarnation of divine love, show me light and truth."
It was all over. He was in the light of the most perfect peace. He
ran downstairs, added the narrator of this incident, and told his
mother he was saved. That young man is now an eloquent minister
of Jesus Christ.
A water famine was threatened in Hakodate, Japan. Miss
Dickerson, of the Methodist Episcopal Girls' School, saw the water
supply decreasing daily and, in one of the fall months, appealed to
the Board in New York for help. There was no money on hand,
and nothing was done. Miss Dickerson inquired about the cost of
putting down an artesian well but found the expense too great to be
undertaken. On the evening of December 31, when the water was
almost exhausted, the teachers and the older pupils met to pray for
water, though they had no idea how their prayer was to be
answered. A couple of days later, a letter was received in the New
York office, which read something like this: "Philadelphia, January
1st. It is six o'clock in the morning of New Year's Day. All the
other members of the family are asleep, but I was awakened with
the strange impression that someone, somewhere, is in need of
money, which the Lord wants me to supply. Enclosed was a check
for an amount that just covered the cost of the artesian well and the
piping of the water into the school buildings.
"I have seen God's hand stretched out to heal among the heathen
with as much mighty wonder-working power as in apostolic
times," once said a well-known minister to the writer. "I was
preaching to two thousand famine orphan girls at Kedgaum, India,
91 | P a g e
at Ramabai's Mukti (salvation) Mission. A swarm of serpents as
venomous and deadly as the reptile that smote Paul suddenly
raided the walled grounds, "sent of Satan," Ramabai said, and
several of her most beautiful and faithful Christian girls were
smitten by them, two of them bitten twice. I saw four of the
flowers in her flock writhing and shaking at the same time. They
seemed to be unconscious and in a lot of pain.
"Ramabai has an implicit and obedient faith in the Bible. There
were three of us missionaries there. She said: "We will do just
what the Bible says, I want you to minister for their healing
according to James v. 14–18." She led the way into the dormitory
where her girls were lying in spasms, and we laid our hands upon
their heads and prayed, and we anointed them with oil in the name
of the Lord. Each of them was healed as soon as she was anointed,
and they sat up and sang with their faces shining. "That miracle
and marvel among the heathen mightily confirmed the word of the
Lord and was a profound and overpowering proclamation of God."
Some years ago, the record of a beautiful work of grace in
connection with one of the stations of the China Inland Mission
attracted a good deal of attention. The number and spiritual
character of the converts had been far more significant than at
other stations, where the consecration of the missionaries had been
just as great as at the more fruitful place.
This rich harvest of souls remained a mystery until Hudson Taylor,
on a visit to England, discovered the secret. At the close of one of
his addresses, a gentleman came forward to make his acquaintance.
In the conversation that followed, Mr. Taylor was surprised at the
exact knowledge the man possessed concerning this inland China
station. "But how is it," Mr. Taylor asked, "that you are so
conversant with the conditions of that work?" "Oh, the missionary
there and I are old college friends; for years we have regularly

92 | P a g e
corresponded; he has sent me names of inquirers and converts, and
these I have taken daily to God in prayer," he replied.
At last, the secret was found. A praying man at home, praying
fervently and daily for specific cases among the heathen. That is
the intercessory missionary.
Hudson Taylor himself, as all the world knows, was a man who
knew how to pray and whose praying was blessed with fruitful
answers. In the story of his life, told by Dr. and Mrs. Howard
Taylor, we find page after page aglow with answered prayer. On
his way out to China for the first time, in 1853, when he was only
twenty-one years of age, he had a definite answer to prayer that
was a great encouragement to his faith. "They had just come
through the Dampier Strait but were not yet out of sight of the
islands. Usually, a breeze would spring up after sunset and last
until about dawn. The utmost use was made of it, but during the
day they lay still with flapping sails, often drifting back, and losing
a good deal of the advantage gained at night. The story continues
in Hudson Taylor's own words:
"This happened notably on one occasion when we were in
dangerous proximity to the north of New Guinea. Saturday night
had brought us to a point some thirty miles off the land, and during
the Sunday morning service, which was held on deck, I could not
fail to notice that the Captain looked troubled and often went over
to the side of the ship. When the service was ended, I learned the
reason from him. A four-knot current was carrying us toward some
sunken reefs, and we were already so near that it seemed
improbable that we should get through the afternoon in safety.
After dinner, the long boat was put out, and all hands endeavored,
without success, to turn the ship's head from the shore.
"After standing together on the deck for some time in silence, the
Captain said to me:

93 | P a g e
"Well, we have done everything that can be done." We can only
await the result.
"A thought occurred to me, and I replied, "No, there is one thing
we have not done yet."
"What is that?" he queried.
"Four of us on board are Christians. Let us each retire to our own
cabin and, in unison, ask the Lord for a breeze. He can send it as
easily now as at sunset.
The Captain followed this proposal. I went and spoke to the other
two men, and after prayer with the carpenter, we all four retired to
wait upon God. I had a good but very brief season in prayer, and
then I felt so satisfied that our request was granted that I could not
continue asking, and very soon I went up again on deck. The first
officer, a godless man, was in charge. I went over and asked him to
let down the clews, or corners, of the mainsail, which had been
drawn up in order to lessen the useless flapping of the sail against
the rigging.
"What would be the good of that?" he answered roughly.
"I told him we had been asking for a wind from God and that it
was coming immediately, and we were so near the reef by this time
that there was not a minute to lose.
"With an oath and a look of contempt, he said he would rather see
a wind than hear of it."
"But while he was speaking, I watched his eye, following it up to
the royal, and there, sure enough, the corner of the topmost sail
was beginning to tremble in the breeze.
"Don't you see the wind is coming?" Look at the royals! I
exclaimed.
"No, it is only a cat's paw," he rejoined (a mere puff of wind).
94 | P a g e
"Cat's paw or no cat's paw," I pleaded, "please let down the
mainsail and give us the benefit."
"This he was not slow to do." In another minute, the heavy tread of
the men on deck brought up the Captain from his cabin to see what
was the matter. The breeze had indeed come! We were plowing
through the water at six or seven knots per hour in a matter of
minutes, and while the wind was occasionally unsteady, we didn't
completely lose it until we passed the Peelew Islands.
"So God told me," says this praying saint, "before I set foot on
China's shores, to pray to Him about every kind of need and expect
that He would honor the name of the Lord Jesus by giving the help
each emergency needed."
In an address at Cambridge some time ago (reported in "The Life
of Faith," April 3rd, 1912), Mr. S. D. Gordon told in his own
inimitable way the story of a man in his own country to illustrate
from real life the fact of the reality of prayer and that it is not mere
talking.
"This man," said Mr. Gordon, "came of an old New England
family, a bit farther back than an English family." He was a giant
in size, a keen man mentally, and a university-trained man. He had
gone out west to live and represented a prominent district in our
House of Congress, answering to your House of Commons. He
was a prominent leader there. He was raised in a Christian family,
but he was a skeptic and used to lecture against Christianity. He
told me he was fond, in his lectures, of proving, as he thought,
conclusively that there was no God. That was the type of his
infidelity.
"One day he told me he was sitting in the Lower House of
Congress." It was at the time of a presidential election, and party
spirit was high. One would have thought that was the last place
where a man would be likely to think about spiritual things. He

95 | P a g e
said: "I was sitting in my seat in that crowded House and in that
heated atmosphere when a feeling came to me that the God, whose
existence I thought I could successfully disprove, was just there
above me, looking down on me, and that He was displeased with
me and with the way I was doing. I said to myself, "This is
ridiculous; I guess I've been working too hard." I'll get a good
meal, take a long walk, and shake myself, and see if that will take
this feeling away. He got his extra meal, took a walk, and came
back to his seat, but the impression would not be shaken off that
God was there and was displeased with him. He went for walks
day after day but could never shake the feeling off. Then he went
back to his constituency in his state, he said, to arrange matters
there. He had the ambition to be the governor of his state, and his
party was the dominant party in the state, so, as far as such things
could be judged, he was in the running to become governor there,
in one of the most dominant states of our Central West. He said, "I
went home to fix that thing up as far as I could and to get ready for
it." But I had hardly reached home and exchanged greetings when
my wife, who was an earnest Christian woman, said to me that a
few of them had made a little covenant of prayer that I might
become a Christian. He did not want her to know the experience
that he had just been going through, and so he said as carelessly as
he could, "When did this thing begin, this praying of yours?" She
named the date. Then he did some very quick thinking, and he
knew, as he thought back, that it was the day on the calendar when
that strange impression came to him for the first time.
He said to me, "I was tremendously shaken." I wanted to be
honest. I was perfectly honest in not believing in God and thought
I was right. But if what she said was true, then merely as a lawyer
sifting his evidence in a case, it would be good evidence that there
was really something in their prayer. I was terrifically shaken,
wanted to be honest, and did not know what to do. That night I

96 | P a g e
went to a little Methodist chapel, and if somebody had learned to
talk with me, I think I should have accepted Christ that night.
Then he said that the next night he went back again to that chapel,
where meetings were being held each night, and there he kneeled
at the altar and yielded his great, strong will to the will of God.
Then he said, "I knew I was to preach," and he is preaching still in
a western state. That is half the story. I also talked with his wife—I
wanted to put the two halves together to get a bit of teaching out of
it—and she told me this. She had been a Christian—"what you call
a nominal Christian"—a strange confusion of terms. Then there
came a time when she was led into a full surrender of her life to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Then she said, "At once there was a great
intensification of desire that my husband might be a Christian, and
we made that little compact to pray for him each day until he
became a Christian." That night I was kneeling at my bedside
before going to rest, praying for my husband, praying very
earnestly, and then a voice said to me, "Are you willing for the
results that will come if your husband is converted?" The little
message was so distinct that she said she was frightened; she had
never had such an experience. But she went on praying still more
earnestly, and again there came the quiet voice, "Are you willing
for the consequences?" And there was that startled, terrified feeling
again. But she still went on praying and wondering what this
meant, and a third time the quiet voice came more quietly than
ever as she described it: "Are you willing for the consequences?"
Then she told me she said with great earnestness, "O God, I am
willing for anything Thou dost think good, if only my husband
may know Thee and become a true Christian man." She said that
instantly, when that prayer came from her lips, there came into her
heart a wonderful sense of peace, a great peace that she could not
explain, a "peace that passes understanding," and from that
moment—it was the very night of the covenant, the night when her
husband had that first strange experience—the assurance never left
97 | P a g e
her that he would accept Christ. But she prayed for weeks with the
firm assurance that the result would come. What were the
consequences? They were of a kind that I think no one would
consider small. She was the wife of a man in a very prominent
political position; she was the wife of a man who was in line to
become the first official of his state, and she was officially the first
lady socially of that state, with all the honor that that social
standing would imply. Now she is the wife of a Methodist
preacher, with her home changing every two or three years, going
from this place to that, having a very different social position, and
having a very different income than she would otherwise have had.
"Yet I never met a woman who had more of the wonderful peace
of God in her heart and of the light of God in her face than that
woman."
And Mr. Gordon's comment on that incident is this: "Now, you can
see at once that there was no change in the purpose of God through
that prayer." The prayer worked out His purpose; it did not change
it. But the woman's surrender gave her the opportunity to work out
the will that God wanted to work out. If we might give ourselves to
Him and learn His will and use all our strength in learning it and
bending to it, then we would begin to pray, and there is simply
nothing that could resist the tremendous power of the prayer. Oh,
for more men who will be simple enough to get in touch with God,
give Him the mastery of their whole lives, learn His will, and then
give themselves, as Jesus gave Himself, to the sacred service of
intercession!
To the man or woman who is acquainted with God and who knows
how to pray, there is nothing remarkable in the answers that come.
They are sure of being heard since they ask in accordance with
what they know to be the mind and will of God. Dr. William Burt,
Bishop of Europe in the Methodist Episcopal Church, says that a
few years ago, when he visited the Boys' School in Vienna, he
found that, although the school year was not over, all available
98 | P a g e
funds had been spent. He hesitated to make a special appeal to his
friends in America. He counseled with the teachers. They took the
matter to God in earnest and continued to pray, believing that He
would grant their request. Ten days later Bishop Burt was in
Rome, and there came to him a letter from a friend in New York,
which read substantially thus: "As I went to my office on
Broadway one morning [and the date was the very one on which
the teachers were praying], a voice seemed to tell me that you were
in need of funds for the Boys' School in Vienna." "I very gladly
enclose a check for the work." The check was for the amount
needed. There had been no human communication between Vienna
and New York. But while they were yet speaking, God answered
them.
Some time ago, there appeared in an English Religious weekly the
report of an incident narrated by a well-known preacher during an
address to children. For the truth of the story, he was able to vouch.
A child lay sick in a country cottage, and her younger sister heard
the doctor say, as he left the house, "Nothing but a miracle can
save her." The little girl went to her money box, took out the few
coins it held, and in perfect simplicity of heart went to shop after
shop in the village street, asking, "Please, I want to buy a miracle."
From each, she came away disappointed. Even the local chemist
had to say, "My dear, we don't sell miracles here." But outside his
door, two men were talking and had overheard the child's request.
One was a great doctor from a London hospital, and he asked her
to explain what she wanted. When he understood the need, he
hurried with her to the cottage, examined the sick girl, and said to
the mother: "It is true—only a miracle can save her, and it must be
performed at once." He got his instruments, performed the
operation, and the patient's life was saved.
D. L. Moody gives this illustration of the power of prayer: "While
in Edinburgh, a man was pointed out to me by a friend, who said:
"That man is chairman of the Edinburgh Infidel Club." I went and
99 | P a g e
sat beside him and said, "My friend, I am glad to see you in our
meeting." "Are you concerned about your welfare?"
"I do not believe in any hereafter."
"Well, just get down on your knees and let me pray for you."
"No, I do not believe in prayer."
I kneeled beside him as he sat and prayed. He made a great deal of
sport of it. A year later, I met him again. I took him by the hand
and said, "Hasn't God answered my prayer yet?"
"There is no God." If you believe in one who answers prayer, try
your hand on me.
"Well, a great many are now praying for you, and God's time will
come, and I believe you will be saved yet."
Sometime afterwards, I got a letter from a leading barrister in
Edinburgh telling me that my infidel friend had come to Christ and
that seventeen of his clubmen had followed his example.
"I did not know how God would answer prayer, but I knew He
would answer." "Let us come boldly to God."
Robert Louis Stevenson tells a vivid story of a storm at sea. The
passengers below were alarmed as the waves dashed over the
vessel. At last one of them, against orders, crept to the deck and
came to the pilot, who was lashed to the wheel, which he was
turning without flinching. The pilot caught sight of the terror-
stricken man and gave him a reassuring smile. Below went the
passenger, who comforted the others by saying, "I have seen the
face of the pilot, and he smiled." "All is well."
That is how we feel when we find our way into the Father's
presence through the gateway of prayer. We see His face and know
that all is well since His hand is on the helm of events, and "even
the winds and the waves obey Him." When we live in fellowship
100 | P a g e
with Him, we can go into His presence confidently, knowing that if
we ask, we will get an answer that proves our faith.
Let your hearts be set on religious revivals. Never forget that
churches have existed and prospered through revivals in the past. If
they are to live and flourish in the future, it must be through the
same cause that has been their glory and defense from the
beginning. Joel Hawes
Any minister who can be satisfied without conversions will have
no conversions. —C. H. Spurgeon
I do not believe that my desires for a revival were ever half as
strong as they ought to be, nor do I see how a minister can help to
be in a "constant fever" when his Master is dishonored and souls
are destroyed in so many ways. — Edward Payson,
An aged saint once came to the pastor at night and said, "We are
about to have a revival." He was asked why he knew. His answer
was, "I went into the stable to take care of my cattle two hours ago,
and there the Lord has kept me in prayer until just now." And we
are going to be revived. It was the beginning of a revival. —H. C.
Fish.

101 | P a g e
Chapter 12
It has been said that the history of revivals is the history of
religion, and no one can study their history without being
impressed with their mighty influence upon the destiny of the race.
To look back over the progress of the Divine Kingdom upon earth
is to review revival periods that had come like refreshing showers
upon the dry and thirsty ground, making the desert blossom as the
rose and bringing new eras of spiritual life and activity just when
the Church had fallen under the influence of the apathy of the
times and needed to be aroused to a new sense of her duty and
responsibility. "From one point of view, and this is not the least
important," writes Principal Lindsay in "The Church and the
Ministry in the Early Centuries," "the history of the Church flows
from one time of revival to another, and whether we take the
awakenings in the old Catholic, the medieval, or the modern
Church, these have always been the work of men who were
specially gifted with the ability to see and speak the secrets of the
deepest Christian life, and the effect of their work."
As God, from the beginning, has wrought prominently through
revivals, there can be no denial of the fact that revivals are a part of
the Divine plan. The Kingdom of our Lord has been advanced in
considerable measure by special seasons of gracious and rapid
accomplishment of the work of conversion. It may be inferred,
therefore, that the means through which God has worked in other
times will be employed in our time to produce similar results. "The
quiet conversion of one sinner after another, under the ordinary
ministry of the Gospel," says one writer on the subject, "must
always be regarded with feelings of satisfaction and gratitude by
the ministers and disciples of Christ; but a periodical manifestation
of the simultaneous conversion of thousands is also to be desired,
because of its adaptation to afford a visible and impressive
demonstration that God has made that same Jesus, who was

102 | P a g e
rejected and crucified, both Lord and Christ; and that, in virtue of
His Divine Mediatorship, He has assumed the royal scepter of
universal supremacy and "must reign till all His enemies are made
His footstool." It is, therefore, reasonable to expect that, from time
to time, He will repeat that which, on the day of Pentecost, formed
the conclusive and crowning evidence of His Messiahship and
Sovereignty; and, by so doing, startle the slumbering souls of
careless worldlings, gain the attentive ear of the unconverted, and,
remarkably, break in upon those brilliant dreams of earthly glory,
grandeur, wealth, power, and happiness, which the rebellious and
God-forgetting multitude so fondly cherish. Such an outpouring of
the Holy Spirit is both demonstrative proofs of His once offering
Himself as a sacrifice for sin and a prophetic "earnest" of the
certainty that He "shall appear the second time without sin unto
salvation" to judge the world in righteousness.
And that revivals are to be expected, proceeding as they do from
the correct use of the appropriate means, is a fact that needs not a
minor emphasis in these days when the material is exalted at the
expense of the spiritual and when ethical standards are supposed to
be supreme. That a revival is not Charles G. Finney powerfully
taught a miracle. There might, he said, be a miracle among its
antecedent causes, or there might not be. The Apostles used
miracles to draw attention to their message and establish its Divine
authority. But the miracle was not the revival. The miracle was one
thing; the revival followed it was quite another. The revivals in the
Apostles' days were connected with miracles, but they were not
miracles. All revivals depend upon God, but in revivals, as in other
things, He invites and requires man's aid. The total result is
obtained when there is cooperation between the Divine and the
human. In other words, to employ a familiar phrase, God alone can
save the world, but God cannot save the world alone. God and man
collaborate on the task, with the divine being's response always
proportional to the human's desire and effort.

103 | P a g e
This cooperation, then, being necessary, what is the duty which
we, as co-workers with God, must undertake? First and foremost,
and most importantly, we must give ourselves to prayer. This is
something we want to stress. "Revivals," as Dr. J. Wilbur
Chapman reminds us, "are born in prayer." When Wesley prayed,
England was revived; when Knox prayed, Scotland was refreshed;
and when the Sunday School teachers of Tannybrook prayed,
11,000 young people were added to the Church in a year. "Whole
nights of prayer have always been succeeded by whole days of
soul-winning."
When D. L. Moody's Church in Chicago lay in ashes, he went to
England in 1872, not to preach but to listen to others preach while
his new church was being built. One Sunday morning, he was
prevailed upon to preach in a London pulpit. But somehow, the
spiritual atmosphere was lacking. He confessed afterward that he
had never had such a challenging time preaching. Everything was
perfectly dead, and as he vainly tried to preach, he said to himself,
"What a fool I was to consent to preach! "I came here to listen, and
here I am preaching." Then the awful thought came to him that he
had to preach again at night, and only the fact that he had promised
to do so kept him faithful to the engagement. But when Mr. Moody
entered the pulpit at night and faced the crowded congregation, he
was conscious of a new atmosphere. "The powers of an unseen
world seemed to have fallen upon the audience." As he drew
towards the close of his sermon, he became encouraged to give out
an invitation. As he concluded, he said, "If there is a man or
woman here who will tonight accept Jesus Christ, please stand up."
At once, about five hundred people rose to their feet. Thinking
there must be some mistake, he asked the people to be seated.
Then, to avoid misunderstanding, he repeated the invitation,
couching it in even more definite and difficult terms. Again, the
same number rose. Still thinking that something must be wrong,
Mr. Moody, for the second time, asked the standing men and

104 | P a g e
women to be seated. Then he invited all who really meant to accept
Christ to pass into the vestry. Fully 500 people did as requested,
which was the beginning of a revival in that church and
neighborhood, which brought Mr. Moody back from Dublin a few
days later so that he might assist the incredible work of God.
But we have to tell what happened next, or the point of telling the
story will be lost.
When Mr. Moody preached at the morning service, a woman in the
congregation had an invalid sister. On her return home, she told the
invalid that the preacher had been a Mr. Moody from Chicago, and
on hearing this, she turned pale. "What," she said, "is Mr. Moody
from Chicago?" I read about him some time ago in an American
paper, and I have been praying to God to send him to London and
our church. I would not have eaten breakfast if I had known he was
going to preach this morning. I would have spent the whole time in
prayer. Now, sister, leave the room, lock the door, and don't let
anyone see me; no matter who comes, don't let them see me. "I will
spend the whole afternoon and evening in prayer." And so, while
Mr. Moody stood in the pulpit that had been like an ice chamber in
the morning, the bedridden saint was holding him up before God.
God, who delights to answer prayer, poured out His Spirit in
mighty power.
The God of revivals, who answered the prayer of His child for Mr.
Moody, is willing to hear and to answer the faithful, believing
prayers of His people today. The revival will occur wherever God's
conditions are met. Professor Thos. Nicholson, of Cornell College,
U.S.A., relates an experience on his first circuit that impresses
anew the old lesson of the place of prayer in the work of God.
There had not been a revival on that circuit in years, and things
were not spiritually hopeful.

105 | P a g e
During more than four weeks, the pastor had preached faithfully,
visited from house to house, in stores, shops, and out-of-the-way
places, and done everything he could. The fifth Monday night saw
many of the official members at lodges but only a corporal's guard
at the church.
From that meeting, the pastor went home, cast down but not in
despair. He resolved to spend that night in prayer. Locking the
door, he took the Bible and hymn book and began to inquire more
diligently of the Lord, though the meetings had been the subject of
hours of earnest prayer. Only God knows the anxiety and the
faithful, prayerful study of that night. Near the dawn, a great peace
and a full assurance came that God would surely bless the plan that
had been decided upon, and a text was chosen that he felt sure was
of the Lord. Dropping upon the bed, the pastor slept for about two
hours, then rose, hastily breakfasted, and went nine miles to the far
side of the circuit to visit some sick people. All day, the assurance
increased.
"Toward night, a pouring rain set in, the roads were heavy, and we
reached home, wet, supperless, and a little late, only to find no fire
in the church, the lights unlit, and no signs of service. The janitor
had concluded that the rain would prevent the service. We changed
the order, rang the bell, and prepared for war. Three young men
formed the congregation, but in that "full assurance," the pastor
delivered the message that had been prayed out on a preceding
night as earnestly and thoroughly as if the house had been
crowded, then made a personal appeal to each young man in turn.
Two yielded and testified before the meeting closed.
"The tired pastor went to sweet rest. The following day, rising a
little later than usual, he learned that one of the young men was
going from store to store throughout the town, telling of his
wonderful deliverance and urging the people to salvation. Night
after night, conversions occurred until we heard 144 people testify

106 | P a g e
in forty-five minutes in two weeks. All three points of that circuit
saw a blaze of revival that winter. Family after family came into
the church until the membership more than tripled.
"Out of that meeting, one convert is a successful pastor in the
Michigan Conference, another is the wife of one of the choicest of
our pastors, and a third was in the ministry for several years and
then went to another denomination, where he is faithful unto this
day. Probably none of the members ever knew of the pastor's night
of prayer. Still, he certainly believes that God somehow does for
the man who thus prays what He does not do for the man who does
not pray, and he is certain that "more things are accomplished by
prayer than this world dreams of."
All the true revivals have been born in prayer.
When God's people become so concerned about the state of
religion that they lie on their faces day and night in earnest
supplication, the blessing will surely fall.
It has always been the same. Every revival of which we have any
record has been bathed in prayer. Take, for example, the
remarkable revival in Shotts (Scotland) in 1630. The fact that
several then-persecuted ministers would participate in the solemn
gathering, having become generally known, attracted a vast
concourse of godly persons on this occasion from all quarters of
the country. Several days were spent in social prayer preparatory to
the service. In the evening, instead of retiring to rest, the multitude
divided themselves into little bands and spent the whole night in
supplication and praise. The Monday was consecrated to
Thanksgiving, a practice not then common, and proved to be one
of the great days of the feast. After much entreaty, John
Livingston, chaplain to the Countess of Wigtown, a young man
who was not ordained, agreed to preach. He had spent the night in
prayer and conference, but as the hour of assembly approached, his
heart quailed at the thought of addressing many aged and
107 | P a g e
experienced saints. He actually fled from the duty he had
undertaken. But, as the kirk of Shotts faded from his sight, those
words, "Was I ever a barren wilderness or a land of darkness?"
struck him so hard that he was forced to return to work. He took
for his text Ezekiel 36:25–26 and discoursed with great power for
about two hours. Five hundred conversions were believed to have
occurred under that one sermon, which was thus prefaced by
prayer. "It was the sowing of a seed through Clydesdale so that
many of the most eminent Christians of that country could date
their conversion, or some remarkable confirmation of their case,
from that day."
Of Richard Baxter, it has been said that "he stained his study walls
with praying breath; and after becoming thus anointed with the
unction of the Holy Ghost, he sent a river of living water over
Kidderminster." Whitfield once thus prayed, "O Lord, give me
souls or take my soul." After much closet pleading, "he once went
to the Devil's fair and took more than a thousand souls out of the
paw of the lion in a single day."
Mr. Finney says, "I once knew a minister who had a revival for
fourteen winters in a row. I did not know how to account for it till I
saw one of his members get up in a prayer meeting and make a
confession. "Brethren," he said, "I have been long in the habit of
praying every Saturday night till after midnight for the descent of
the Holy Ghost among us." And now, brethren (and he began to
weep), I confess that I have neglected it for two or three weeks.
The secret was out. That minister had a praying church.
And so we might go on multiplying illustration upon illustration to
show the place of prayer in revival and to demonstrate that every
mighty movement of the Spirit of God has had its source in the
prayer chamber. The lesson of it all is this: as workers together
with God, we must regard ourselves as being in no small measure
responsible for the conditions that prevail around us today. Are we

108 | P a g e
concerned about the coldness of the Church? Do we grieve over
the lack of conversions? Does our soul go out to God in midnight
cries for the outpouring of His Spirit?
If not, part of the blame lies at our door. If we do our part, God
will do His. Around us is a world lost in sin; above us is a God
willing and able to save; it is ours to build the bridge that links
heaven and earth, and prayer is the mighty instrument that does the
work.
And the old cry comes to us with an insistent voice, "Pray,
brethren, pray."
Lord Jesus, make me aware of the glory and sweetness of Thy
name in my daily life and then teach me how to use it in prayer so
that I may be like Israel, a prince who prevails with God. Your
name is my passport and secures my access; your name is my plea
and ensures my answer; your name is my honor and secures my
glory. Blessed be Thy Name, Thou art honey in my mouth, music
in my ear, heaven in my heart, and everything in between to every
fiber of my being!—C. H. Spurgeon
I do not mean that every prayer we offer is answered exactly as we
desire it to be. Were this the case, it would mean that we would be
dictating to God, and prayer would degenerate into a mere system
of begging. Just as an earthly father knows what is best for his
children's welfare, so does God consider the particular needs of His
human family and meet them out of His incredible storehouse. If
our petitions are in accordance with His will and if we seek His
glory in the asking, the answers will come in ways that will
astonish us and fill our hearts with songs of thanksgiving. God is a
rich and bountiful Father, and He does not forget His children nor
withhold from them anything that would be to their advantage to
receive. — J. Kennedy Maclean

109 | P a g e
110 | P a g e
Chapter 13
The example of our Lord in the matter of prayer is one that His
followers might well copy. Christ prayed much, and He taught
much about prayer. His life, works, and teaching all demonstrate
the nature and significance of prayer. He lived and labored to
answer prayers. However, the importance of impetus in prayer was
emphasized in His prayer teaching. He taught not only that men
must pray but that they must persevere in prayer.
He taught in command and precept the idea of energy and
earnestness in praying. He provides gradation and climax to our
efforts. We are to ask, but to the asking, we must add seeking, and
seeking must pass into the full force of action in knocking. The
pleading soul must be aroused to the effort by God's silence.
Denial, rather than suppressing, must reawaken its latent energies
and rekindle its highest ardor.
In the Sermon on the Mount, in which He lays down the cardinal
duties of His religion, He not only gives prominence to prayer in
general and secret prayer in particular, but He sets apart a distinct
and different section to give weight to importunate prayer. To
prevent any discouragement in praying, He lays out as a
fundamental principle the fact of God's great fatherly willingness
— that God's desire to answer our prayers exceeds our willingness
to give good and necessary things to our children, just as God's
ability, goodness, and perfection exceed our infirmities and evil.
Christ provides the most positive and iterated assurance of an
answer to prayers as a further assurance and stimulant to prayer.
He declares: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall
find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." "To everyone that
asks, it shall be given; and to him, that seeks, he shall find; and to
him, that knocks, it shall be opened," he adds.

111 | P a g e
Why does He reveal to us the Father's loving readiness to answer
the prayers of His children? Why does He insist so strongly that
prayer will be answered? Why does he say that positive affirmation
six times in a row? Why does Christ, on two distinct occasions,
make the same strong promises, iterations, and reiterations
regarding the certainty of prayer being answered? Because He
knew that there would be delays in many an answer, which would
call for importunate pressing, and that if our faith did not have the
strongest assurance of God's willingness to answer, a delay would
break it down. And that our spiritual sloth would enter the picture
under the guise of submission, claiming that it is not God's will to
grant us our requests, so we should stop praying and lose our case.
After Christ had put God's willingness to answer prayer in a clear
and strong light, he urged importunity, saying that every
unanswered prayer should only increase intensity and energy
instead of decreasing our pressure. If asking does not get you
anything, let asking pass into the settled attitude and spirit of
seeking. If seeking does not secure the answer, let seeking pass on
to the more energetic and boisterous plea of knocking. We must
persevere until we get it. There is no failure here if our faith does
not break down.
Our Lord, as our great example in prayer, makes love the primary
condition—love that has purified the heart of all elements of
hatred, revenge, and ill will. Love is the supreme condition of
prayer; a life inspired by love The 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians
is the law of prayer as well as the law of love. The law of love is
the law of prayer, and to master this chapter from the epistle of St.
Paul, one must learn the first and fullest condition of prayer.
Christ taught us to approach the Father in His name. That is our
passport. It is in His name that we are to make our petitions
known. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me,
the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these
shall he do; because I go unto the Father." And whatever you ask
112 | P a g e
in My name, I will do in order for the Father to be glorified in the
Son. “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it."
How wide and comprehensive is that "whatever?" There is no limit
to the power of that name. "Whatever ye may ask. “That is the
Divine declaration, and it opens to every praying child a vista of
infinite resource and possibility.
And that is our heritage. All that Christ has may become ours if we
obey the conditions. One secret is prayer. The place of revelation
and equipment, of grace and power, is the prayer chamber, and as
we meet there with God, we shall not only win our triumphs but
also grow in the likeness of our Lord and become His living
witnesses to men.
Without prayer, the Christian life, robbed of its sweetness and
beauty, becomes cold, formal, and dead. Still, rooted in the secret
place where God meets and walks and talks with His own, it grows
into such a testimony of Divine power that all men will feel its
influence and be touched by the warmth of its love. Thus,
resembling our Lord and Master, we shall be used for God's glory
and our fellow men's salvation.
And that is the purpose of all real prayer and the end of all faithful
service.

113 | P a g e