THE possibilities of prayer are seen in its results in temporal matters. Prayer reaches to everything which
concerns man, whether it be his body, his mind or his soul. Prayer embraces the very smallest things of life.
Prayer takes in the wants of the body, food, raiment, business, finances, in fact everything which belongs to
this life, as well as those things which have to do with the eternal interests of the soul. Its achievements are
seen not only in the large things of earth, but more especially in what might be called the little things of life. It
brings to pass not only large things, speaking after the manner of men, but also the small things.
Temporal matters are of a lower order than the spiritual, but they concern us greatly. Our temporal interests
make up a great part of our lives. They are the main source of our cares and worries. They have much to do
with our religion. We have bodies, with their wants, their pains, their disabilities and their limitations. That
which concerns our bodies necessarily engages our minds. These are subjects of prayer, and prayer takes in all
of them, and large are the accomplishments of prayer in this realm of our king.
Our temporal matters have much to do with our health and happiness. They form our relations. They are tests
of honesty and belong to the sphere of justice and righteousness. Not to pray about temporal matters is to
leave God out of the largest sphere of our being. He who cannot pray in everything, as we are charged to do
by Paul in Philippians, fourth chapter, has never learned in any true sense the nature and worth of prayer. To
leave business and time out of prayer is to leave religion and eternity out of it. He who does not pray about
temporal matters cannot pray with confidence about spiritual matters. He who does not put God by prayer in
his struggling toil for daily bread will never put Him in his struggle for heaven. He who does not cover and
supply the wants of the body by prayer will never cover and supply the wants of his soul. Both body and soul
are dependent on God, and prayer is but the crying expression of that dependence.
The Syrophenician woman prayed for the health things. In fact the Old Testament is but the record of God in
dealing with His people through the Divine appointment of prayer. Abraham prayed that Sodom might be
saved from destruction. Abraham’s servant prayed and received God’s direction in choosing a wife for Isaac.
Hannah prayed, and Samuel was given unto her. Elijah prayed, and no rain came for three years. And he
prayed again, and the clouds gave rain. Hezekiah was saved from a mortal sickness by his praying. Jacob’s
praying saved him from Esau’s revenge. The Old Bible is the history of prayer for temporal blessings as well
as for spiritual blessings.
In the New Testament we have the same principles illustrated and enforced. Prayer in this section of God’s
Word covers the whole realm of good, both temporal and spiritual. Our Lord, in His universal prayer, the
prayer for humanity, in every clime, in every age and for every condition, puts in it the petition, “Give us this
day our daily bread.” This embraces all necessary earthly good.
In the Sermon on the Mount, a whole paragraph is taken up by our Lord about food and raiment, where He is
cautioned against undue care or anxiety for these things, and at the same time encouraging to a faith which
takes in and claims all these necessary bodily comforts and necessaries. And this teaching stands in close
connection with His teachings about prayer. Food and raiment are taught as subjects of prayer. Not for one
moment is it even hinted that they are things beneath the notice of a great God, nor too material and earthly
for such a spiritual exercise as prayer.
The Syrophenician woman prayed for the health of her daughter. Peter prayed for Dorcas to be brought back
to life. Paul prayed for the father of Publius on his way to Rome, when cast on the island by a shipwreck, and
God healed the man who was sick with a fever. He urged the Christians at Rome to strive with him together in
prayer that he might be delivered from bad men. When Peter was put in prison by Herod, the Church was
instant in prayer that Peter might be delivered from the prison, and God honoured the praying of these early
Christians. John prayed that Gaius might “prosper and be in health, even as his soul prospered.”
The Divine directory in James, fifth chapter, says: “Is any among you afflicted, let him pray. Is any sick
among you? Let him call for the elders of the Church, and let them pray over him.”
Paul, in writing to the Philippians, fourth chapter, says: “Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer
and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” This provides for all kinds of
cares business cares, home cares, body cares, and soul cares. All are to be brought to God by prayer, and at
the mercy seat our minds and souls are to be disburdened of all that affects us or causes anxiety or uneasiness.
These words of Paul stand in close connection with what he says about temporal matters specially: “But now I
rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again: wherein ye were also
careful, but ye lacked opportunity. Not that I speak in respect to want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I
am, therewith to be content.”
And Paul closes his Epistle to these Christians with the words, which embrace all temporal needs as well as
spiritual wants:
“But my God shall supply all your need, according to his riches in glory, by Christ Jesus.”
Unbelief in the doctrine that prayer covers all things which have to do with the body and business affairs,
breeds undue anxiety about earth’s affairs, causes unnecessary worry, and creates very unhappy states of
mind. How much needless care would we save ourselves if we but believed in prayer as the means of relieving
those cares, and would learn the happy art of casting all our cares in prayer upon God, “who careth for us!”
Unbelief in God as one who is concerned about even the smallest affairs which affect our happiness and
comfort limits the Holy One of Israel, and makes our lives altogether devoid of real happiness and sweet
contentment.
We have in the instance of the failure of the disciples to cast the devil out of the lunatic son, brought to them
by his father, while Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration, a suggestive lesson of the union of faith,
prayer and fasting, and the failure to reach the possibilities and obligations of an occasion. The disciples
ought to have cast the devil out of the boy. They had been sent out to do this very work, and had been
empowered by their Lord and Master to do it. And yet they signally failed. Christ reproved them with sharp
upbraidings for not doing it. They had been sent out on this very specific mission. This one thing was
specified by our Lord when He sent them out. Their failure brought shame and confession on them, and
discounted their Lord and Master and His cause. They brought Him into disrepute, and reflected very seriously
upon the cause which they represented. Their faith to cast out the devil had signally failed, simply because it
had not been nurtured by prayer and fasting. Failure to pray broke the ability of faith, and failure came
because they had not the energy of a strong authoritative faith.
The promise reads, and we cannot too often refer to it, for it is the very basis of our faith and the ground on
which we stand when we pray: “All things whatsoever ye ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” What
enumeration table can tabulate, itemize, and aggregate “all things whatsoever”? The possibilities of prayer and
faith go to the length of the endless chain, and cover the unmeasurable area.
In Hebrews, eleventh chapter, the sacred penman, wearied with trying to specify the examples of faith, and to
recite the wonderful exploits of faith, pauses a moment, and then cries out, giving us almost unheard-of
achievements of prayer and faith as exemplified by the saints of the olden times. Here is what he says:
“And what shall I say more? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, of Barak, of Samson, of
Jephtha, of David also; and-Samuel, and the prophets; who through faith, 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, turned to flight the
armies of the aliens; women received their dead raised to life again, and others were tortured, not
accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection.”
What an illustrious record is this! What marvellous accomplishments, wrought not by armies, or by man’s
superhuman strength, nor by magic, but all accomplished simply by men and women noted alone for their
faith and prayer! Hand in hand with these records of faith’s illimitable range are the illustrious records of
prayer, for they are all one. Faith has never won a victory nor gained a crown where prayer was not the
weapon of the victory, and where prayer did not jewel the crown. If “all things are possible to him that
believeth,” then all things are possible to him that prayeth.
“Depend on him; thou canst not fail;
Make all thy wants and wishes known:
Fear not; his merits must prevail;
Ask but in faith, it shall be done.”
VII.  PRAYER—ITS WIDE RANGE
“Nothing so pleases God in connection with our prayer as our praise... and nothing so
blesses the man who prays as the praise which he offers. I got a great blessing once in
China in this connection. I had received bad and sad news from home, and deep shadows
had covered my soul. I prayed, but the darkness did not vanish. I summoned myself to
endure, but the darkness only deepened. Just then I went to an inland station and saw on
the wall of the mission home these words: ‘Try Thanksgiving.’ I did, and in a moment
every shadow was gone, not to return. Yes, the Psalmist was right, ‘It is a good thing to
give thanks unto the Lord.’”
* Henry W. Frost
THE possibilities of prayer are gauged by faith in God’s ability to do. Faith is the one prime condition by
which God works. Faith is the one prime condition by which man prays. Faith draws on God to its full extent.
Faith gives character to prayer. A feeble faith has always brought forth feeble praying. Vigorous faith creates
vigorous praying. At the close of a parable, “And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men always
ought to pray, and not to faint,” in which He stressed the necessity of vigorous praying, Christ asks this
pointed question, “When the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”
In the case of the lunatic child which the father brought first to the disciples, who could not cure him, and then
to the Lord Jesus Christ, the father cried out with all the pathos of a declining faith and of a great sorrow, “If
thou canst do anything for us, have compassion on us and help us.” And Jesus said unto him, “If thou canst
believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” The healing turned on the faith in the ability of Christ to
heal the boy. The ability to do was in Christ essentially and eternally, but the doing of the thing turned on the
ability of the faith. Great faith enables Christ to do great things.
We need a quickening faith in God’s power. We have hedged God in till we have little faith in His power. We
have conditioned the exercise of His power till we have a little God, and a little faith in a little God.
The only condition which restrains God’s power, and which disables Him to act, is unfaith. He is not limited
in action nor restrained by the conditions which limit men.
The conditions of time, place, nearness, ability and all others which could possibly be named, upon which the
actions of men hinge, have no bearing on God. If men will look to God and cry to Him with true prayer, He
will hear and can deliver, no matter how dire soever may be the state, how remediless their conditions may be.
Strange how God has to school His people in His ability to do! He made a promise to Abraham and Sarah that
Isaac would be born. Abraham was then nearly one hundred years old, and Sarah was barren by natural
defect, and had passed into a barren, wombless age. She laughed at the thought of having a child as
preposterous. God asked, “Why did Sarah laugh? Is anything too hard for the Lord?” And God fulfilled His
promise to these old people to the letter.
Moses hesitated to undertake God’s purpose to liberate Israel from Egyptian bondage, because of his inability
to talk well. God checks him at once by an inquiry:
“And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast
spoken unto thy servant; but I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue. And the Lord said unto him,
Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I
the Lord? Now, therefore, go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.”
When God said He would feed the children of Israel a whole month with meat, Moses questioned His ability
to do it. The Lord said unto Moses, “Is the Lord’s hand waxed short? Thou shalt see now whether my word
shall come to pass unto thee or not.”
Nothing is too hard for the Lord to do. As Paul declared, “He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that
we can ask or think.” Prayer has to do with God, with His ability to do. The possibility of prayer is the
measure of God’s ability to do.
The “all things,” the “all things whatsoever,” and the “anything,” are all covered by the ability of God. The
urgent entreaty reads, “Ask whatsoever ye will,” because God is able to do anything and all things that my
desires may crave, and that He has promised. In God’s ability to do, He goes far beyond man’s ability to ask.
Human thoughts, human words, human imaginations, human desires and human needs, cannot in any way
measure God’s ability to do.
Prayer in its legitimate possibilities goes out on God Himself. Prayer goes out with faith not only in the
promise of God, but faith in God Himself, and in God’s ability to do. Prayer goes out not on the promise
merely, but “obtains promises,” and creates promises.
Elijah had the promise that God would send the rain, but no promise that He would send the fire. But by faith
and prayer he obtained the fire, as well as the rain, but the fire came first.
Daniel had no specific promise that God would make known to him the dream of the king, but he and his
associates joined in united prayer, and God revealed to Daniel the king’s dream and the interpretation, and
their lives were spared thereby.
Hezekiah had no promise that God would cure him of his desperate sickness which threatened his life. On the
contrary the word of the Lord came to him by the mouth of the prophet, that he should die. However, he
prayed against this decree of Almighty God, with faith, and he succeeded in obtaining a reversal of God’s
word and lived.
God makes it marvellous when He says by the mouth of His prophet: “Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of
Israel and his Maker: Ask me of things to come, concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands,
command ye me.” And in this strong promise in which He commits Himself into the hands of His praying
people, He appeals in it to His great creative power: “I have created the earth and made man upon it. I, even
my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their hosts have I commanded.”
The majesty and power of God in making man and man’s world, and constantly upholding all things, are ever
kept before us as the basis of our faith in God, and as an assurance and urgency to prayer. Then God calls us
away from what He Himself has done, and turns our minds to Himself personally. The infinite glory and
power of His Person are set before our contemplation: “Remember ye not the former things neither consider
the things of old?” He declares that He will do a “new thing,” that He does not have to repeat Himself, that all
He has done neither limits His doing nor the manner of His doing, and that if we have prayer and faith, He will
so answer our prayers and so work for us, that His former work shall not be remembered nor come into mind.
If men would pray as they ought to pray, the marvels of the past would be more than reproduced. The Gospel
would advance with a facility and power it has never known. Doors would be thrown open to the Gospel, and
the Word of God would have a conquering force rarely if ever known before.
If Christians prayed as Christians ought, with strong commanding faith, with earnestness and sincerity, men,
God-called men, God-empowered men everywhere, would be all burning to go and spread the Gospel
world-wide. The Word of the Lord would run and be glorified as never known heretofore. The
God-influenced men, the God-inspired men, the God-commissioned men, would go and kindle the flame of
sacred fire for Christ, salvation and heaven, everywhere in all nations, and soon all men would hear the glad
tidings of salvation and have an opportunity to receive Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour. Let us read
another one of those large illimitable statements in God’s Word, which are a direct challenge to prayer and
faith:
“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give
us all things?”
What a basis have we here for prayer and faith, illimitable, measureless in breadth, in depth and in height! The
promise to give us all things is backed up by the calling to our remembrance of the fact that God freely gave
His only Begotten Son for our redemption. His giving His Son is the assurance and guarantee that He will
freely give all things to him who believes and prays.
What confidence have we in this Divine statement for inspired asking! What holy boldness we have here for
the largest asking! No commonplace tameness should restrain our largest asking. Large, larger, and largest
asking magnifies grace and adds to God’s glory. Feeble asking impoverishes the asker, and restrains God’s
purposes for the greatest good and obscures His glory.
How enthroned, magnificent and royal the intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ at His Father’s right hand in
heaven! The benefits of His intercession flow to us through our intercessions. Our intercession ought to catch
by contagion, and by necessity the inspiration and largeness of Christ’s great work at His Father’s right hand.
His business and His life are to pray. Our business and our lives ought to be to pray, and to pray without
ceasing. Failure in our intercession affects the fruits His intercession. Lazy, heartless, feeble, and indifferent
praying by us mars and hinders the effects of Christ’s praying.
VIII. PRAYER—FACTS AND HISTORY
“The particular value of private prayer consists in being able to approach God with more
freedom, and unbosom ourselves more fully than in any other way. Between us and God
there are private and personal interests, sins to confess and wants to be supplied, which it
would be improper to disclose to the world. This duty is enforced by the example of good
men in all ages.”
* Amos Binney
THE possibilities of prayer are established by the facts and the history of prayer. Facts are stubborn things.
Facts are the true things. Theories may be but speculations. Opinions may be wholly at fault. But facts must
be deferred to. They cannot be ignored. What are the possibilities of prayer judged by the facts? What is the
history of prayer? What does it reveal to us? Prayer has a history, written in God’s Word and recorded in the
experiences and lives of God’s saints. History is truth teaching by example. We may miss the truth by
perverting the history, but the truth is in the facts of history.
“He spake with Abraham at the oak,
He called Elisha from the plough;
David he from the sheepfolds took,
Thy day, thine hour of grace, is now.”
God reveals the truth by the facts. God reveals Himself by the facts of religious history. God teaches us His
will by the facts and examples of Bible history. God’s facts, God’s Word and God’s history are all in perfect
harmony, and have much of God in them all. God has ruled the world by prayer; and God still rules the world
by the same divinely ordained means.
The possibilities of prayer cover not only individuals but reach to cities and nations. They take in classes and
peoples. The praying of Moses was the one thing which stood between the wrath of God against the Israelites
and His declared purpose to destroy them and the execution of that Divine purpose, and the Hebrew nation
still survived. Notwithstanding Sodom was not spared, because ten righteous men could not be found inside its
limits, yet the little city of Zoar was spared because Lot prayed for it as he fled from the storm of fire and
brimstone which burned up Sodom. Nineveh was saved because the king and its people repented of their evil
ways and gave themselves to prayer and fasting.
Paul in his remarkable prayer in Ephesians, chapter three, honours the illimitable possibilities of prayer and
glorifies the ability of God to answer prayer. Closing that memorable prayer, so far-reaching in its petitions,
and setting forth the very deepest religious experience, he declares that “God is able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that we can ask or think.” He makes prayer all-inclusive, comprehending all things, great
and small. Where is no time nor place which prayer does not cover and sanctify. All things in earth and in
heaven, everything for time and for eternity, all are embraced in prayer. Nothing is too great and nothing is too
small to be subject of prayer. Prayer reaches down to the least things of life and includes the greatest things
which concern us.
“If pain afflict or wrongs oppress,
If cares distract, or fears dismay;
If guilt deject, or sin distress,
In every case still watch and pray.”
One of the most important, far-reaching, peace-giving, necessary and practical prayer possibilities we have in
Paul’s words in Philippians, chapter four, dealing with prayer as a cure for undue care:
“Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your
requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep
your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
“Cares” are the epidemic evil of mankind. They are universal in their reach. They belong to man in his fallen
condition. The predisposition to undue anxiety is the natural result of sin. Care comes in all shapes, at all
times, and from all sources. It comes to all of every age and station. There are the cares of the home circle,
from which there is no escape save in prayer. There are the cares of business, the cares of poverty, and the
cares of riches. Ours is an anxious world, and ours is an anxious race. The caution of Paul is well addressed,
“In nothing be anxious.” This is the Divine injunction, and that we might be able to live above anxiety and
freed from undue care, “In everything, by prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known unto
God.” This is the divinely prescribed remedy for all anxious cares, for all worry, for all inward fretting.
The word, “careful,” means to be drawn in different directions, distraction, anxious, disturbed, annoyed in
spirit. Jesus had warned against this very thing in the Sermon on the Mount, where He had earnestly urged His
disciples, “Take no thought for the morrow,” in things concerning the needs of the body. He was
endeavouring to show them the true secret of a quiet mind, freed from anxiety and unnecessary care about
food and raiment. To-morrow’s evils were not to be considered. He was simply teaching the same lesson
found in Psalm 37: 3, “Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be
fed.” In cautioning against the fears of to-morrow’s prospective evils, and the material wants of the body, our
Lord was teaching the great lesson of an implicit and childlike confidence in God. “Commit thy way unto the
Lord: trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.”
“’Day by day,’ the promise reads,
Daily strength for daily needs
Cast foreboding fears away;
Take the manna of to-day.”
Paul’s direction is very specific, “Be careful for nothing.” Be careful for not one thing. Be careful for not
anything, for any condition, chance or happening. Be troubled about not anything which creates one
disturbing anxiety. Have a mind freed from all anxieties, all cares, all fretting, and all worries. Cares divide,
distract, bewilder, and destroy unity, forces and quietness of mind. Cares are fatal to weak piety and are
enfeebling to strong piety. What great need to guard against them and learn the one secret of their cure, even
prayer!
What boundless possibilities there are in prayer to remedy the situation of mind of which Paul is speaking!
Prayer over everything can quiet every distraction, hush every anxiety, and lift every care from care-enslaved
lives and from care-bewildered hearts. The prayer specific is the perfect cure for all ills of this character which
belong to anxieties, cares and worries. Only prayer in everything can drive dull care away, relieve of
unnecessary heart burdens, and save from the besetting sin of worrying over things which we cannot help.
Only prayer can bring into the heart and mind the “peace which passeth all understanding,” and keep mind
and heart at ease, free from carking care.
Oh, the needless heart burdens borne by fretting Christians! How few know the real secret of a happy
Christian life, filled with perfect peace, hid from the storms and billows of a fretting careworn life! Prayer has
a possibility of saving us from “carefulness,” the bane of human lives. Paul in writing to the Corinthians says,
“I would have you without carefulness,” and this is the will of God. Prayer has the ability to do this very
thing. “Casting all your care on him, for he careth for you,” is the way Peter puts it, while the Psalmist says,
“Fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.” Oh, the blessedness of a heart at ease from all inward care, exempt
from undue anxiety, in the enjoyment of the peace of God which passeth all understanding!
Paul’s injunction which includes both God’s promise and His purpose, and which immediately precedes his
entreaty to be “careful for nothing,” reads on this wise:
“Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation be made known to all men.
The Lord is at hand.”
In a world filled with cares of every kind, where temptation is the rule, where there are so many things to try
us, how is it possible to rejoice always? We look at the naked, dry command, and we accept it and reverence it
as the Word of God, but no joy comes. How are we to let our moderation, our mildness, and our gentleness be
universally and always known? We resolve to be benign and gentle. We remember the nearness of the Lord,
but still we are hasty, quick, hard and salty. We listen to the Divine charge, “Be careful for nothing,” yet still
we are anxious, care-worn, care-eaten, and care-tossed. How can we fulfill the Divine word, so sweet and so
large in promise, so beautiful in the eye, and yet so far from being realized? How can we enter upon the rich
patrimony of being true, honest, just, pure, and possess lovely things? The recipe is infallible, the remedy is
universal, and the cure is unfailing. It is found in the words which we have so often herein referred to of Paul:
“Be careful for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your
requests be made known unto God.”
This joyous, care-free, peaceful experience bringing the believer into a joyousness, living simply by faith day
by day, is the will of God. Writing to the Thessalonians, Paul tells them: “Rejoice evermore; pray without
ceasing, and in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” So that not
only is it God’s will that we should find full deliverance from all care and undue anxiety, but He has ordained
prayer as the means by which we can reach that happy state of heart.
The Revised Version makes some changes in the passage of Paul, about which we have been speaking. The
reading there is” In nothing be anxious,” and “the peace of God shall guard your hearts and your minds.” And
Paul puts the antecedent in the air of prayer, which is “Rejoice in the Lord always.” That is, be always glad in
the Lord, and be happy with Him. And that you may thus be happy, “Be careful for nothing.” This rejoicing is
the doorway for prayer, and its pathway too. The sunshine and buoyancy of joy in the Lord are the strength
and boldness of prayer, the peans of its victory. “Moderation” makes the rainbow of prayer. The word means
mildness, fairness, gentleness, sweet reasonableness. The Revised Version changes it to “forbearance,” with
the margin reading “gentleness.” What rare ingredients and beautiful colourings! These are colourings and
ingredients which make a strong and beautiful character and a wide and positive reputation. A rejoicing, gentle
spirit, positive in reputation, is well fitted for prayer, rid of the distractions and unrest of care.
IX.   PRAYER—FACTS AND HISTORY (Continued)
“The neglect of prayer is a grand hindrance to holiness. ‘We have not because we ask not.’
Oh, how meek and gentle, how lowly in heart, how full of love both to God and to man,
might you have been at this day, if you had only asked! If you had continued instant in
prayer! Ask, that you may thoroughly experience and perfectly practice the whole of that
religion which our Lord has so beautifully described in the Sermon on the Mount.”
* John Wesley
IT is to the closet Paul directs us to go. The unfailing remedy for all carking, distressing care is prayer. The
place where the Lord is at hand is the closet of prayer. There He is always found, and there He is at hand to
bless, to deliver and to help. The one place where the Lord’s presence and power will be more fully realized
than any other place is the closet of prayer.
Paul gives the various terms of prayer, supplication and giving of thanks as the complement of true praying.
The soul must be in all of these spiritual exercises. There must be no half-hearted praying, no abridging its
nature, and no abating its force, if we would be freed from this undue anxiety which causes friction and
internal distress, and if we would receive the rich fruit of that peace which passeth all understanding. He who
prays must be an earnest soul, all round in spiritual attributes.
“In everything, let your requests be made known unto God,” says Paul. Nothing is too great to be handled in
prayer, or to be sought in prayer. Nothing is too small to be weighed in the secret councils of the closet, and
nothing is too little for its final arbitrament. As care comes from every source, so prayer goes to every source.
As there are no small things in prayer, so there are no small things with God. He who counts the hairs of our
head, and who is not too lofty and high to notice the little sparrow which falls to the ground, is not too great
and high to note everything which concerns the happiness, the needs and the safety of His children. Prayer
brings God into what men are pleased to term the little affairs of life. The lives of people are made up of these
small matters, and yet how often do great consequences come from small beginnings?
“There is no sorrow, Lord, too light
To bring in prayer to Thee;
There is no anxious care too slight
To wake Thy sympathy.
“There is no secret sigh we breathe,
But meets Thine ear Divine,
And every cross grows light beneath
The shadow, Lord, of Thine.”
As everything by prayer is to be brought to the notice of Almighty God, so we are assured that whatever
affects us concerns Him. How comprehensive is this direction about prayer! “In everything by prayer.” There
is no distinction here between temporal and spiritual things. Such a distinction is against faith, wisdom and
reverence. God rules everything in nature and in grace. Man is affected for time and eternity by things secular
as well as by things spiritual. Man’s salvation hangs on his business as well as on his prayers. A man’s
business hangs on his prayers just as it hangs on his diligence.
The chief hindrances to piety, the wiliest and the deadliest temptations of the devil, are in business, and lie
alongside the things of time. The heaviest, the most confusing and the most stupefying cares lie beside secular
and worldly matters. So in everything which comes to us and which concerns us, in everything which we want
to come to us, and in everything which we do not want to come to us, prayer is to be made for all. Prayer
blesses all things, brings all things, relieves all things and prevents all things. Everything as well as every
place and every hour is to be ordered by prayer. Prayer has in it the possibility to affect everything which
affects us. Here are the vast possibilities of prayer.
How much is the bitter of life sweetened by prayer! How are the feeble made strong by prayer! Sickness flees
before the health of prayer. Doubts, misgivings, and trembling fears retire before prayer. Wisdom, knowledge,
holiness and heaven are at the command of prayer. Nothing is outside of prayer. It has the power to gain all
things in the provision of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul covers all departments and sweeps the entire field of
human concernment, conditions, and happenings by saying, “In everything by prayer.”
Supplications and thanksgiving are to be joined with prayer. It is not the dignity of worship, the gorgeousness
of ceremonials, the magnificence of its ritual, nor the plainness of its sacraments, which avail. It is not simply
the soul’s hallowed and lowly abasement before God, neither the speechless awe, which benefits in this prayer
service, but the intensity of supplication, the looking and the lifting of the soul in ardent plea to God for the
things desired and for which request is made.
The radiance and gratitude and utterance of thanksgiving must be there. This is not simply the poetry of
praise, but the deep-toned words and the prose of thanks. There must be hearty thanks, which remembers the
past, sees God in it, and voices that recognition in sincere thanksgiving. The hidden depths within must have
utterance. The lips must speak the music of the soul. A heart enthused of God, a heart illumined by His
presence, a life guided by His right hand, must have something to say for God in gratitude. Such is to
recognize God in the events of past life, to exalt God for His goodness, and to honour God who has honoured
it.
“Make known your requests unto God.” The “requests” must be made known unto God. Silence is not prayer.
Prayer is asking God for something which we have not, which we desire, and which He has promised to give
in answer to prayer. Prayer is really verbal asking. Words are in prayer. Strong words and true words are
found in prayer. Desires in prayer are put in words. The praying one is a pleader. He urges his prayer by
arguments, promises, and needs.
Sometimes loud words are in prayer. The Psalmist said, “Evening, morning and at noon will I pray, and cry
aloud.” The praying one wants something which he has not got. He wants something which God has in His
possession, and which he can get by praying. He is beggared, bewildered, oppressed and confused. He is
before God in supplication, in prayer, and in thanksgiving. These are the attitudes, the incense, the
paraphernalia, and the fashion of this hour, the court attendance of his soul before God.
“Requests” mean to ask for one’s self. The man is in a strait. He needs something, and he needs it badly. Other
help has failed. It means a plea for something to be given which has not been done. The request is for the
Giver, -- not alone His gifts but Himself. The requests of the praying one are to be made known unto God.
The requests are to be brought to the knowledge of God. It is then that cares fly away, anxieties disappear,
worries depart, and the soul gets at ease. Then it is there steals into the heart “the peace of God that passeth all
understanding.”
“Peace! doubting heart, my God’s I am,
Who formed me man, forbids my fear;
The Lord hath called me by my name;
The Lord protects, forever near;
His blood for me did once atone,
And still He loves and guards His own.”
In James, chapter five, we have another marvellous description of prayer and its possibilities. It has to do with
sickness and health, sin and forgiveness, and rain and drouth. Here we have James’ directory for praying:
“Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you?
Let him call for the elders of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name
of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick; and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have
committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another,
that ye may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man
subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the
earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and
the earth brought forth her fruit.”
Here is prayer for one’s own needs and intercessory prayer for others; prayer for physical needs and prayer for
spiritual needs; prayer for drouth and prayer for rain; prayer for temporal matters and prayer for spiritual
things. How vast the reach of prayer! How wonderful under these words its possibilities!
Here is the remedy for affliction and depression of every sort, and here we find the remedy for sickness and
for rain in the time of drouth. Here is the way to obtain forgiveness of sins. A stroke of prayer paralyzes the
energies of nature, stays its clouds, rain and dew, and blasts field and farm like the simoon. Prayer brings
clouds, and rain and fertility to the famished and wasted earth.
The general statement, “The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,” is a statement of
prayer as an energetic force. Two words are used. One signifies power in exercise, operative power, while the
other is power as an endowment. Prayer is power and strength, a power and strength which influences God,
and is most salutary, widespread and marvellous in its gracious benefits to man. Prayer influences God. The
ability of God to do for man is the measure of the possibility of prayer.
“Thou art coming to a king,
Large petitions with thee bring;
For His grace and power are such
None can ever ask too much.”
X.    ANSWERED PRAYER
“In his ‘Soldier’s Pocket Book,’ Lord Wolseley says if a young officer wishes to get on, he
must volunteer for the most hazardous duties and take every possible chance of risking
his life. It was a spirit and courage like that which was shown in the service of God by a
good soldier of Jesus Christ named John McKenzie who died a few years ago. One
evening when he was a lad and eager for work in the Foreign Mission field he knelt
down at the foot of a tree in the Ladies’ Walk on the banks of the Lossie at Elgin and
offered up this prayer: ‘O Lord send me to the darkest spot on earth.’ And God heard him
and sent him to South Africa where he laboured many years first under the London
Missionary Society and then under the British Government as the first Resident Commissioner among the natives of Bechuanaland.”
* J. O. Struthers
IT is answered prayer which brings praying out of the realm of dry, dead things, and makes praying a thing of
life and power. It is the answer to prayer which brings things to pass, changes the natural trend of things, and
orders all things according to the will of God. It is the answer to prayer which takes praying out of the regions
of fanaticism, and saves it from being Eutopian, or from being merely fanciful. It is the answer to prayer
which makes praying a power for God and for man, and makes praying real and divine. Unanswered prayers
are training schools for unbelief, an imposition and a nuisance, an impertinence to God and to man.
Answers to prayer are the only surety that we have prayed aright. What marvellous power there is in prayer!
What untold miracles it works in this world! What untold benefits to men does it secure to those who pray!
Why is it that the average prayer by the million goes a begging for an answer?
The millions of unanswered prayers are not to be solved by the mystery of God’s will. We are not the sport of
His sovereign power. He is not playing at “make-believe” in His marvellous promises to answer prayer. The
whole explanation is found in our wrong praying. “We ask and receive not because we ask amiss.” If all
unanswered prayers were dumped into the ocean, they would come very near filling it. Child of God, can you
pray? Are your prayers answered? If not, why not? Answered prayer is the proof of your real praying.
The efficacy of prayer from a Bible standpoint lies solely in the answer to prayer. The benefit of prayer has
been well and popularly maximized by the saying, “It moves the arm which moves the universe.” To get
unquestioned answers to prayer is not only important as to the satisfying of our desires, but is the evidence of
our abiding in Christ. It becomes more important still. The mere act of praying is no test of our relation to
God. The act of praying may be a real dead performance. It may be the routine of habit. But to pray and
receive clear answers, not once or twice, but daily, this is the sure test, and is the gracious point of our vital
connection with Jesus Christ. Read our Lord’s words in this connection:
“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”
To God and to man, the answer to prayer is the all-important part of our praying. The answer to prayer, direct
and unmistakable, is the evidence of God’s being. It proves that God lives, that there is a God, an intelligent
being, who is interested in His creatures, and who listens to them when they approach Him in prayer. There is
no proof so clear and demonstrative that God exists than prayer and its answer. This was Elijah’s plea: “Hear
me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God.”
The answer to prayer is the part of prayer which glorifies God. Unanswered prayers are dumb oracles which
leave the praying ones in darkness, doubt and bewilderment, and which carry no conviction to the unbeliever.
It is not the act or the attitude of praying which gives efficacy to prayer. It is not abject prostration of the body
before God, the vehement or quiet utterance to God, the exquisite beauty and poetry of the diction of our
prayers, which do the deed. It is not the marvellous array of argument and eloquence in praying which makes
prayer effectual. Not one or all of these are the things which glorify God. It is the answer which brings glory to
His Name.
Elijah might have prayed on Carmel’s heights till this good day with all the fire and energy of his soul, and if
no answer had been given, no glory would have come to God. Peter might have shut himself up with Dorcas’
dead body till he himself died on his knees, and if no answer had come, no glory to God nor good to man
would have followed, but only doubt, blight and dismay. Answer to prayer is the convincing proof of our right
relations to God. Jesus said at the grave of Lazarus:
“Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. “And I knew that thou hearest me always, but because of
the people that stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.”
The answer of His prayer was the proof of His mission from God, as the answer to Elijah’s prayer was made
to the woman whose son he raised to life. She said, “Now by this I know that thou art a man of God.” He is
highest in the favour of God who has the readiest access and the greatest number of answers to prayer from
Almighty God.
Prayer ascends to God by an invariable law, even by more than law, by the will, the promise and the presence
of a personal God. The answer comes back to earth by all the promise, the truth, the power and the love of
God.
Not to be concerned about the answer to prayer is not to pray. What a world of waste there is in praying. What
myriads of prayers have been offered for which no answer is returned, no answer longed for, and no answer is
expected! We have been nurturing a false faith and hiding the shame of our loss and inability to pray, by the
false, comforting plea that God does not answer directly or objectively, but indirectly and subjectively. We
have persuaded ourselves that by some kind of hocus pocus of which we are wholly unconscious in its process
and its results, we have been made better. Conscious that God has not answered us directly, we have solaced
ourselves with the delusive unction that God has in some impalpable way, and with unknown results, given us
something better. Or we have comforted and nurtured our spiritual sloth by saying that it is not God’s will to
give it to us. Faith teaches God’s praying ones that it is God’s will to answer prayer. God answers all prayers
and every prayer of His true children who truly pray.
“Prayer makes the darkened cloud withdraw, Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw;
Gives exercise to faith and love,
Brings every blessing from above.”
The emphasis in the Scriptures is always given to the answer to prayer. All things from God are given in
answer to prayer. God Himself, His presence, His gifts and His grace, one and all, are secured by prayer. The
medium by which God communicates with men is prayer. The most real thing in prayer, its very essential end,
is the answer it secures. The mere repetition of words in prayer, the counting of beads, the multiplying mere
words of prayer, as works of supererogation, as if there was virtue in the number of prayers to avail, is a vain
delusion, an empty thing, a useless service. Prayer looks directly to securing an answer. This is its design. It
has no other end in view.
Communion with God of course is in prayer. There is sweet fellowship there with our God through His Holy
Spirit. Enjoyment of God there is in praying, sweet, rich and strong. The graces of the Spirit in the inner soul
are nurtured by prayer, kept alive and promoted in their growth by this spiritual exercise. But not one nor all of
these benefits of prayer have in them the essential end of prayer. The divinely appointed channel through
which all good and all grace flows to our souls and bodies is prayer.
“Prayer is appointed to convey
The blessings God designs to give.”
Prayer is divinely ordained as the means by which all temporal and spiritual good are gained to us. Prayer is
not an end in itself. It is not something done to be rested in, something we have done, about which we are to
congratulate ourselves. It is a means to an end. It is something we do which brings us something in return,
without which the praying is valueless. Prayer always aims at securing an answer.
We are rich and strong, good and holy, beneficent and benignant, by answered prayer. It is not the mere
performance, the attitude, nor the words of prayer, which bring benefit to us, but it is the answer sent direct
from heaven. Conscious, real answers to prayer bring real good to us. This is not praying merely for self, or
simply for selfish ends. The selfish character cannot exist when the prayer conditions are fulfilled.
It is by these answered prayers that human nature is enriched. The answered prayer brings us into constant
and conscious communion with God, awakens and enlarges gratitude, and excites the melody and lofty
inspiration of praise. Answered prayer is the mark of God in our praying. It is the exchange with heaven, and
it establishes and realizes a relationship with the unseen. We give our prayers in exchange for the Divine
blessing. God accepts our prayers through the atoning blood and gives Himself, His presence and His grace in
return.
All holy affections are affected by answered prayers. By the answers to prayer all holy principles are matured,
and faith, love and hope have their enrichment by answered prayer. The answer is found in all true praying.
The answer is in prayer strongly as an aim, a desire expressed, and its expectation and realization give
importunity and realization to prayer. It is the fact of the answer which makes the prayer, and which enters into
its very being. To seek no answer to prayer takes the desire, the aim, and the heart out of prayer. It makes
praying a dead, stockish thing, fit only for dumb idols. It is the answer which brings praying into Bible
regions, and makes it a desire realized, a pursuit, an interest, that clothes it with flesh and blood, and makes it
a prayer, throbbing with all the true life of prayer, affluent with all the paternal relations of giving and
receiving, of asking and answering.
God holds all good in His own hands. That good comes to us through our Lord Jesus Christ because of His all
atoning merits, by asking it in His name. The only and the sole command in which all the others of its class
belong, is “Ask, seek, knock.” And the one and sole promise is its counterpart, its necessary equivalent and
results: “It shall be given—ye shall find—it shall be opened unto you.”
God is so much involved in prayer and its hearing and answering, that all of His attributes and His whole
being are centered in that great fact. It distinguishes Him as peculiarly beneficent, wonderfully good, and
powerfully attractive in His nature. “O thou that hearest prayer! To thee shall all flesh come.”
“Faithful, O Lord, Thy mercies are
A rock that cannot move;
A thousand promises declare
Thy constancy of love.”
Not only does the Word of God stand surety for the answer to prayer, but all the attributes of God conspire to
the same end. God’s veracity is at stake in the engagements to answer prayer. His wisdom, His truthfulness
and His goodness are involved. God’s infinite and inflexible rectitude is pledged to the great end of answering
the prayers of those who call upon Him in time of need. Justice and mercy blend into oneness to secure the
answer to prayer. It is significant that the very justice of God comes into play and stands hard by God’s
faithfulness in the strong promise God makes of the pardon of sins and of cleansing from sin’s pollutions:
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.”
God’s kingly relation to man, with all of its authority, unites with the fatherly relation and with all of its
tenderness to secure the answer to prayer.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is most fully committed to the answer of prayer. “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name,
that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” How well assured the answer to prayer is, when
that answer is to glorify God the Father! And how eager Jesus Christ is to glorify His Father in heaven! So
eager is He to answer prayer which always and everywhere brings glory to the Father, that no prayer offered
in His name is denied or overlooked by Him. Says our Lord Jesus Christ again, giving fresh assurance to our
faith, “If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.” So says He once more, “Ask what ye will, and it shall
be done unto you.”
“Come, my soul, thy suit prepare,
Jesus loves to answer prayer;
He Himself has bid thee pray,
Therefore will not say thee nay.”
XI.   ANSWERED PRAYER (Continued)
“Constrained at the darkest hour to confess humbly that without God’s help I was
helpless, I vowed a vow in the forest solitude that I would confess His aid before men. A
silence as a death was around me; it was midnight, I was weakened by illness, prostrated
with fatigue and worn with anxiety for my white and black companions, whose fate was a
mystery. In this physical and mental distress I besought God to give me back my people.
Nine hours later we were exulting with rapturous joy. In full view of all was the crimson
flag with the crescent and beneath its waving folds was the long-lost rear column.”
* Henry M. Stanley
GOD has committed Himself to us by His Word in our praying. The Word of God is the basis and the
inspiration and the heart of prayer. Jesus Christ stands as the illustration of God’s Word, its illimitable good in
promise as well as in realization. God takes nothing by halves. He gives nothing by halves. We can have the
whole of Him when He has the whole of us. His words of promise are so far-reaching, and so
all-comprehending, that they seem to have deadened our comprehension and have paralyzed our praying. This
appears when we consider those large words, when He almost exhausts human language in promises, as in
“whatever,” “anything,” and in the all-inclusive “whatsoever,” and “all things.” These oft-repeated promises,
so very great, seem to daze us, and instead of allowing them to move us to asking, testing, and receiving, we
turn away full of wonder, but empty handed and with empty hearts.
We quote another passage from our Lord’s teaching about prayer. By the most solemn verification, He
declares as follows:
“And in that day ye shall ask me nothing; Verily, Verily, I say unto you: Whatsoever ye shall ask the
Father in my name, he will give it to you. “Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and ye
shall receive, that your joy may be full.”
Twice in this passage He declares the answer, and pledging His Father, “He will give it to you,” and declaring
with impressive and most suggestive iteration, “Ask, and ye shall receive.” So strong and so often did Jesus
declare and repeat the answer as an inducement to pray, and as an inevitable result of prayer, the Apostles held
it as so fully and invincibly established, that prayer would be answered, they held it to be their main duty to
urge and command men to pray. So firmly were they established as to the truth of the law of prayer as laid
down by our Lord, that they were led to affirm that the answer to prayer was involved in and necessarily
bound up with all right praying. God the Father and Jesus Christ, His Son, are both strongly committed by all
the truth of their word and by the fidelity of their character, to answer prayer.
Not only do these and all the promises pledge Almighty God to answer prayer, but they assure us that the
answer will be specific, and that the very thing for which we pray will be given.
Our Lord’s invariable teaching was that we receive that for which we ask, and obtain that for which we seek,
and have that door opened at which we knock. This is according to our Heavenly Father’s direction to us, and
His giving to us for our asking. He will not disappoint us by not answering, neither will He deny us by giving
us some other thing for which we have not asked, or by letting us find some other thing for which we have not
sought, or by opening to us the wrong door, at which we were not knocking. If we ask bread, He will give us
bread. If we ask an egg, He will give us an egg. If we ask a fish, He will give us a fish. Not something like
bread, but bread itself will be given unto us. Not something like a fish, but a fish will be given. Not evil will be
given us in answer to prayer, but good.
Earthly parents, though evil in nature, give for the asking, and answer to the crying of their children. The
encouragement to prayer is transferred from our earthly father to our Heavenly Father, from the evil to the
good, to the supremely good; from the weak to the omnipotent, our Heavenly Father, centering in Himself all
the highest conceptions of Fatherhood, abler, readier, and much more than the best, and much more than the
ablest earthly father. “How much more,” who can tell? Much more than our earthly father, will He supply all
our needs, give us all good things, and enable us to meet every difficult duty and fulfill every law, though hard
to flesh and blood, but made easy under the full supply of our Father’s beneficent and exhaustless help.
Here we have in symbol and as initial, more than an intimation of the necessity, not only of perseverance in
prayer, but of the progressive stages of intentness and effort in the outlay of increasing spiritual force. Asking,
seeking, and knocking. Here is an ascending scale from the mere words of asking, to a settled attitude of
seeking, resulting in a determined, clamorous and vigorous direct effort of praying.
Just as God has commanded us to pray always, to pray everywhere, and to pray in everything, so He will
answer always, everywhere and in everything. God has plainly and with directness committed Himself to
answer prayer. If we fulfill the conditions of prayer, the answer is bound to come. The laws of nature are not
so invariable and so inexorable as the promised answer to pray. The ordinances of nature might fail, but the
ordinances of grace can never fail. There are no limitations, no adverse conditions, no weakness, no inability,
which can or will hinder the answer to prayer. God’s doing for us when we pray has no limitations, is not
hedged about, by provisos in Himself, or in the peculiar circumstances of any particular case. If we really
pray, God masters and defies all things and is above all conditions. God explicitly says, “Call unto me, and I
will answer.” There are no limitations, no hedges, no hindrances in the way of God fulfilling the promise. His
word is at stake. His word is involved. God solemnly engages to answer prayer. Man is to look for the
answer, be inspired by the expectation of the answer, and may with humble boldness demand the answer.
God, who cannot lie, is bound to answer. He has voluntarily placed Himself under obligation to answer the
prayer of him who truly prays.
“To God your every want
In instant prayer display;
Pray always; pray, and never faint;
Pray, without ceasing, pray.
“In fellowship, alone,
To God with faith draw near;
Approach His courts, beseech His throne,
With all the power of prayer.”
The prophets and the men of God of Old Testament times were unshaken in their faith in the absolute certainty
of God fulfilling His promises to them. They rested in security on the word of God, and had no doubt
whatever either as to the fidelity of God in answering prayer or of His willingness or ability. So that their
history is marked by repeated asking and receiving at the hands of God.
The same is true of the early Church. They received without question the doctrine their Lord and Master had
so often affirmed that the answer to prayer was sure. The certainty of the answer to prayer was as fixed as
God’s Word was true. The Holy Ghost dispensation was ushered in by the disciples carrying this faith into
practice. When Jesus told them to “Tarry at Jerusalem till they were endued with power from on high,” they
received it as a sure promise that if they obeyed the command, they would certainly receive the Divine power.
So in prayer for ten days they tarried in the upper room, and the promise was fulfilled. The answer came just
as Jesus said. So when Peter and John were arrested for healing the man who sat at the beautiful gate of the
temple, after being threatened by the rulers in Jerusalem, they were released. “And being let go, they went to
their own company,” they went to those with whom they were in affinity, those of like minds, and not to men
of the world. Still believing in prayer and its efficacy, they gave themselves to prayer, the prayer itself being
recorded in Acts, chapter four. They recited some things to the Lord, and “when they had prayed, the place
was shaken where they were assembled together, and they were filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the
word of God with boldness.”
Here they were refilled for this special occasion with the Holy Ghost. The answer to prayer responded to their
faith and prayer. The fullness of the Spirit always brings boldness. The cure for fear in the face of threatenings
of the enemies of the Lord is being filled with the Spirit. This gives power to speak the word of the Lord with
boldness. This gives courage and drives away fear.
XII.  ANSWERED PRAYER (Continued)
“A young man had been called to the foreign field. He had not been in the habit of
preaching, but he knew one thing, how to prevail with God; and going one day to a friend
he said: ‘I don’t see how God can use me on the field. I have no special talent.’ His friend
said: ‘My brother, God wants men on the field who can pray. There are too many
preachers now and too few prayers.’ He went. In his own room in the early dawn a voice
was heard weeping and pleading for souls. All through the day, the shut door and the
hush that prevailed made you feel like walking softly, for a soul was wrestling with God.
Yet to this home, hungry souls would flock, drawn by some irresistible power. Ah, the
mystery was unlocked. In the secret chamber lost souls were pleaded for and claimed. The
Holy Ghost knew just where they were and sent them along.”
* J. Hudson Taylor
WE put it to the front. We unfold it on a banner never to be lowered or folded, that God does hear and answer
prayer. God has always heard and answered prayer. God will forever hear and answer prayer. He is the same
yesterday, to-day and forever, ever blessed, ever to be adored. Amen. He changes not. As He has always
answered prayer, so will He ever continue to do so.
To answer prayer is God’s universal rule. It is His unchangeable and irrepealable law to answer prayer. It is
His invariable, specific and inviolate promise to answer prayer. The few denials to prayer in the Scriptures are
the exceptions to the general rule, suggestive and startling by their fewness, exception and emphasis.
The possibilities of prayer, then, lie in the great truth, illimitable in its broadness, fathomless in its depths,
exhaustless in its fullness, that God answers every prayer from every true soul who truly prays. God’s Word
does not say, “Call unto me, and you will thereby be trained into the happy art of knowing how to be denied.
Ask, and you will learn sweet patience by getting nothing.” Far from it. But it is definite, clear and positive:
“Ask, and it shall be given unto you.”
We have this case among many in the Old Testament:
“Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, O that thou wouldst bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast,
and that thy hand might be with me, and that thou wouldst keep me from evil, that it may not grieve
me.”
And God readily granted him the things which he had requested. Hannah, distressed in soul because she was
childless, and desiring a man child, repaired to the house of prayer, and prayed, and this is the record she
makes of the direct answer she received: “For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath given me the petition
which I asked of him.”
God’s promises and purposes go direct to the fact of giving for the asking. The answer to our prayers is the
motive constantly presented in the Scriptures to encourage us to pray and to quicken us in this spiritual
exercise. Take such strong, clear passages as these:
“Call unto me, and I will answer thee. He shall call unto me, and I will answer. Ask; and it shall be given
you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”
This is Jesus Christ’s law of prayer. He does not say, “Ask, and something shall be given you.” Nor does He
say, “Ask, and you will be trained into piety.” But it is that when you ask, the very thing asked for will be
given. Jesus does not say, “Knock, and some door will be opened.” But the very door at which you are
knocking will be opened. To make this doubly sure, Jesus Christ duplicates and reiterates the promise of the
answer: “For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall
be opened.”
Answered prayer is the spring of love, and is the direct encouragement to pray. “I love the Lord because he
hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call
upon him as long as I live.”
The certainty of the Father’s giving is assured by the Father’s relation, and by the ability and goodness of the
Father. Earthly parents, frail, infirm, and limited in goodness and ability, give when the child asks and seeks.
The parental heart responds most readily to the cry for bread. The hunger of the child touches and wins the
father’s heart. So God, our Heavenly Father, is as easily and strongly moved by our prayers as the earthly
parent. “If ye being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father in
heaven give good gifts unto them that ask him?” “Much more,” just as much more does God’s goodness,
tenderness and ability exceed that of man’s.
Just as the asking is specific, so also is the answer specific. The child does not ask for one thing and get
another. He does not cry for bread, and get a stone. He does not ask for an egg, and receive a scorpion. He
does not ask for a fish, and get a serpent. Christ demands specific asking. He responds to specific praying by
specific giving.
To give the very thing prayed for, and not something else, is fundamental to Christ’s law of praying. No
prayer for the cure of blind eyes did He ever answer by curing deaf ears. The very thing prayed for is the very
thing which He gives. The exceptions to this are confirmatory of this great law of prayer. He who asks for
bread gets bread, and not a stone. If he asks for a fish, he receives a fish, and not a serpent. No cry is so
pleading and so powerful as the child’s cry for bread. The cravings of hunger, the appetite felt, and the need
realized, all create and propel the crying of the child. Our prayers must be as earnest, as needy, and as hungry
as the hungry child’s cry for bread. Simple, artless and direct and specific must be our praying, according to
Christ’s law of prayer and His teaching of God’s Fatherhood. The illustration and enforcement of the law of
prayer are found in the specific answers given to prayer. Gethsemane is the only seeming exception. The
prayer of Jesus Christ in that awful hour of darkness and hell was conditioned on these words, “If it be
possible, let this cup pass from me.” But beyond these utterances of our Lord was the soul and life prayer of
the willing, suffering Divine victim, “Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” The prayer was answered,
the angel came, strength was imparted, and the meek sufferer in silence drank the bitter cup.
Two cases of unanswered prayer are recorded in the Scriptures in addition to the Gethsemane prayer of our
Lord. The first was that of David for the life of his baby child, but for good reasons to Almighty God the
request was not granted. The second was that of Paul for the removal of the thorn in the flesh, which was
denied. But we are constrained to believe these must have been notable as exceptions to God’s rule, as
illustrated in the history of prophet, priest, apostle and saint, as recorded in the Divine Word. There must have
been unrevealed reasons which moved God to veer from His settled and fixed rule to answer prayer by giving
the specific thing prayed for.
Our Lord did not hold the Syrophenician woman in the school of unanswered prayer in order to test and
mature her faith, neither did He answer her prayer by healing or saving her husband. She asks for the healing
of her daughter, and Christ healed the daughter. She received the very thing for which she asked the Lord
Jesus Christ. It was in the school of answered prayer our Lord disciplined and perfected her faith, and it was by
giving her a specific answer to her prayer. Her prayer centered on her daughter. She prayed for the one thing,
the healing of her child. And the answer of our Lord centered likewise on the daughter.
We tread altogether too gingerly upon the great and precious promises of God, and too often we ignore them
wholly. The promise is the ground on which faith stands in asking of God. This is the one basis of prayer. We
limit God’s ability. We measure God’s ability and willingness to answer by prayer by the standard of men. We
limit the Holy One of Israel. How full of benefaction and remedy to suffering mankind are the promises as
given us by James in his Epistle, fifth chapter! How personal and mediate do they make God in prayer! They
are a direct challenge to our faith. They are encouraging to large expectations in all the requests we make of
God. Prayer affects God in a direct manner, and has its aim and end in affecting Him. Prayer takes hold of
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