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TO
BE THE LORD’S PRAYER Part
1 The
subject of prayer is one of universal interest. No one is able to answer
all the questions that might be asked concerning it, but the instinct of
prayer is so deep-seated in the human psyche that all men pray at one time
or another, consciously, sub-consciously, or un-consciously. Prayers
differ in scope and quality, according to the spiritual experience of
those who pray. During World War II reports circulated from the front
lines indicated that there were no atheists in the foxholes. Passengers on
a hijacked plane, campers whose camp is invaded at night by plundering and
pillaging bears, office workers stranded on an elevator by a power
failure, parents pacing the hospital corridor outside the operating room,
business men eager for an important contract to be theirs—all these
people resort to prayer. When we come to the end of ourselves, when life
piles up problems beyond our ability to cope, when crisis strikes our
hearts with fear and terror’ we do not hesitate to pray. After all, what
else can we do?
There’s a story about a rancher who wanted nothing to do with
God. He disliked churches and Christians, he despised preachers, and he
made sure that his sons, Tom, Dick, and Harry, felt the same way. One day,
though, the local minister was called out to the ranch. A rattlesnake had
bitten Tom, and the doctor had done all he could. “Please, will you pray
for Tom?” the rancher pleaded. So the preacher prayed: “Lord, we thank
you for sending this rattlesnake to bite Tom, for it is the first time
that he has ever admitted that he needs you. And Lord, we pray for two
more rattlesnakes to bite Dick and Harry, so that they ‘too’ may
receive this blessing. And, Lord, we pray for an especially big and ornery
rattlesnake to come and bite the old man so that he, too, will know what
it means to need you.”
Someone has said that prayer “is helplessness casting itself upon
power; it is misery seeking peace; it is unholiness embracing purity; it
is hatred desiring love. Prayer is corruption panting for immortality; it
is the eagle soaring heavenward; it is the dove returning home; it is the
prisoner pleading for release; it is the mariner steering for the haven
amid the dangerous storm; it is the soul, oppressed by the world, escaping
to the empyrean, and bathing its ruffled plumes in the ethereal and the
divine.”
Prayer has sometimes been considered as either a mark of
superstition or as something mysterious. It is neither! Prayer is a
dynamic reality and fundamental principle in our universe, and is no more
superstitious or mysterious than life itself, the atmosphere, the law of
gravity, or the beating of your heart. It is amazing how science is
discovering the fact that the realm of the unseen is the realm of power.
When electricity was discovered no one saw it; they only saw the effects
of it. When the atom was discovered and the ability to split it, no one
saw it; they only saw the effects of it. And what an awesome effect it
was! Today the scientists are talking about splitting an electron, one of
the infinitesimal parts of the atom, which they say will release even
greater power. One wonders just how much farther the research must go
until, in the realm of the unseen, science at last breaks through the
invisible barrier between the natural and the realm of the spirit, the
very presence and power of God, the source of all the cosmic powers of the
universe. One thing we already know - the realm of the unseen is the realm
of power. “Prayer has divided seas and rolled back flowing rivers, it
has made flinty rocks gush into fountains, it has quenched flames of fire,
it has muzzled lions, disarmed vipers, neutralized poisons, it has
marshaled the stars against the wicked, it has stopped the course of the
moon and arrested the sun in its race, it has burst open iron gates and
recalled men from the grave, it has conquered the strongest devils and
commanded legions of angels down from heaven. Prayer has bridled and
chained the raging passions of men and destroyed vast armies of proud,
daring, blustering atheists. Prayer has brought one man from the bottom of
the sea and carried another in a chariot of fire to heaven.” That is not
mere conjecture or exaggeration, that is historical fact. Prayer has done
many other things as well. It is an awesome, mighty force in the world of
men. THE CREATIVE POWER OF PRAYER
Many times through my early Christian life I wondered about prayer.
What is prayer, and why should we pray? God is omniscient—He knows all
things. He knows the end from the beginning; in fact, He ordained both the
end and the beginning and all that transpires between. He is conscious of
all our needs and problems at all times. Jesus said, “Your heavenly
Father knows that you have need of all these things.” You cannot tell
God anything new. Do you, precious friend of mine, really believe that God
knows what is best for you, or must you try to “figure out” what is
best and then tell God about it? Do you know something about yourself that
God does not know and must be informed of? Is it possible that God, having
created you and ordained all your steps, does not know how to care for the
works of His hands without a request from you? As I meditated upon these
questions I also understood that God “worketh all things after the
counsel of His own will” and that I couldn’t change His will no matter
how hard I prayed. The only prayers that God can answer are those
according to His will, He cannot act contrary to His own will nor can He
deny Himself; so if I wasn’t telling God something that He didn’t
already know, and I wasn’t going to make Him change His mind about any
matter, what was the object and purpose in praying? I knew God wasn’t
going to move contrary to His will and plan just to satisfy my desires and
indulge my wishes—so why pray? This puzzled me for some time until He
gave me an understanding of what true prayer is.
As we are taken through this process of transformation into the
image of God we begin to realize that God really does know what is best
for us and HE WILL DO THAT. We begin to know God really does know all
about us and we have nothing to tell Him. We begin to learn that God does
care for us in the most abundant way and we need say nothing to Him about
it. We find out that God’s judgment concerning us lacks nothing and we
can add nothing to it. The God I worship and love and obey must be the God
who does know everything, who needs no counselors, who has all power and
has complete control over my life and everything in the whole vast
universe. I do not care to worship a God who has to depend upon me to
advise Him what to do in any situation, or suggest the solution to any
problem. If God does not know what is to be done in any and all
circumstances, I am certain no mere mortal can enlighten Him.
Let me give you an illustration. In John 6:5-13 we find the story
of Jesus feeding the multitude. Before the miracle Jesus asked Philip,
“Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” It appears that Jesus
needed help to find a solution. But in verse six we see the principle I am
talking about, for it says, “And this He asked TO
Once when the Lord was walking this earthly sod there came unto Him
a Roman centurion whose servant was sick. “And when Jesus was entered
into Capernaum, there came unto Him a centurion, beseeching Him, and
saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously
tormented. And Jesus said unto him, I will come and heal him. The
centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldest
come under my roof: but SPEAK THE WORD ONLY, and my servant will be
healed” (Mat. 8:5-8). Jesus spoke the word and the servant was healed
that same moment. The Lord wasn’t near the place, but He spoke and a
healing took place. How did this happen? When He spoke His Spirit went
forth and did the work. God speaks, His Spirit goes forth and things are
created. The Christ speaks, His Spirit goes forth and people are healed,
the dead are raised, the blind see, the lame walk, lives are transformed,
and great and mighty things are accomplished for the DOMINION THROUGH PRAYER
When God placed the world and all things under the dominion of man,
made in His own image, it was God’s plan that man should do nothing but
with God and by God, and God Himself would do all His work in the world in
and through man. In that long ago beginning Adam was in very deed the
owner, master, and ruler of the earth and all creation.
In this connection Andrew Murray has penned some powerful and
instructive words. “‘Then saith He unto His disciples, The harvest
truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord
of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest’
(Mat.
“Prayer is no form or show. The Lord Jesus was Himself the truth;
everything He spake was the deepest truth. It was when ‘He saw the
multitude, and was moved with compassion on them, because they were
scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd,’ that He called on the
disciples to pray for laborers to be sent among them. He did so because He
really believed that their prayer was needed, and would help. The veil
which so hides the invisible world from us was wonderfully transparent to
the holy human soul of Jesus. He had looked long and deep and far into the
hidden connection of cause and effect in the spirit world.
“Man’s destiny appears clearly from God’s language at
creation. It was to fill, to subdue, to have dominion over the earth and
all in it. All the three expressions show us that man was meant, as
God’s representative, to hold rule here on earth. As God’s viceroy he
was to fill God’s place: himself subject to God, he was to keep all else
in subjection to Him. It was the will of God that all that was to be done
on earth should be done through him: the history of the earth was to be
entirely in his hands. In accordance with such a destiny was the position
he was to occupy, and the power at his disposal. When an earthly sovereign
sends a viceroy to a distant province, it is understood that he advises as
to the policy to be adopted, and that that advice is acted on: that he is
at liberty to apply for troops and the other means needed for carrying out
the policy of maintaining the dignity of the empire. If his policy is not
approved of, he is recalled to make way for some one who better
understands his sovereign’s desires; as long as he is trusted, his
advice is carried out. As God’s representative man was to have ruled;
all was to have been done under his will and rule; on his advice and at
his request heaven was to have bestowed its blessing on the earth. His
prayer was to have been the wonderful, though simple and most natural
channel, in which the intercourse between the King in heaven and His
faithful servant, man, as Lord of this world, was to have been maintained.
The destinies of the world were given into the power of the wishes, the
will, the prayer of man.
“This had been man’s destiny from the first. Scripture not only
tells us this, but also teaches us how it was that God could entrust man
with such a high calling. That was because He had created him in His own
image and likeness. The external rule was not committed to him without the
inner fitness: the bearing of God’s image in having dominion, in being
lord of all, had its root in the inner likeness, in his nature. There was
an inner agreement and harmony between God and man, an incipient
Godlikeness, which gave man a real fitness for being the mediator between
God and His world, for he was to be a prophet, priest, and king, to
interpret God’s will, to represent nature’s needs, to receive and
dispense God’s bounty. It was his bearing God’s image that he could
bear God’s rule; he was indeed so like God, so capable of entering into
God’s purposes, and carrying out His plans, that God could trust him
with the wonderful privilege of asking and obtaining what the world might
need. Prayer still remains what it would have been if man had never
fallen: the proof of man’s Godlikeness, the vehicle of his intercourse
with the Infinite Unseen One, the power that is allowed to hold the hand
that holds the destinies of the universe. Prayer is not merely the cry of
the suppliant for mercy; it is the highest forth-putting of his will by
man, knowing himself to be of divine origin, created for and capable of
being, in king-like liberty, the executor of the counsels of the Eternal.
“What sin destroyed, grace has restored. What the first Adam
lost, the second has won back. What Adam failed in, Jesus Christ has
demonstrated for us. In Christ man regains his original position, and the
saint, abiding in Christ, inherits the promise: ‘Ask what ye will, and
it shall be done unto you.’ Those who walk in this power understand how
the New Creation has brought them back to their original destiny, has
restored God’s image and likeness, and with it the power to have
dominion. Such have indeed the power, each in their own realm, to obtain
and dispense the power of heaven here on earth. With holy boldness they
make known what they will: they live as priests in God’s presence; as
kings the powers of the world to come begin to be at their disposal.
Church of the living God! Thy calling is higher and holier than thou
knowest. Through thy members, as kings and priests unto God, would God
rule the world. God would prove how wonderful man’s original destiny
was. As the image-bearer of God on earth, the earth was indeed given into
his hand. When he fell, all fell with him: the whole creation groaneth and
travaileth in pain together. But now he is redeemed; the restoration of
the original dignity has begun. It is in very deed God’s purpose that
the fulfillment of His eternal purpose, and the coming of His Kingdom,
should depend on those of His people who, abiding in Christ, are ready to
take up their position in Him their Head, the great Priest-King after the
order of Melchizedek, and in their prayers are bold enough to say through
His mind what they will that their God should do. An Image-bearer and
representative of God on earth, redeemed man has by his prayers to
determine the history of this earth. Man was created, and has now again
been redeemed, to pray, and by his prayer to have dominion”—end quote.
Prayer in no way involves a denial of God’s omnipotence,
omniscience, or changelessness. God’s mind does not change and is not
affected by any outside influence, either of saint or devil. We do not
pray with the idea that we are going to alter what God has decided to
perform, or coerce God into doing what He is reluctant to do. We pray in
union with the precious mind that was in Christ Jesus and we pray that we
may obtain what the Father has decided shall come to pass precisely
through our prayers! Prayer is a divine and spiritual activity, a function
of the GOD WILL HAVE ALL MEN TO BE SAVED—THROUGH PRAYER!
There is a beautiful and most meaningful passage of scripture in I
Timothy 2:1-6. “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications,
prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for
kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and
peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and
acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will have all men to be
saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God,
and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave
Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”
It is not our purpose to address at this time the differences
between supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks—but
would point out that there is a double purpose for all these. First, for
our own welfare in this present world, so that “we may lead a quiet and
peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” Second, that the will of
God shall be wrought out in the salvation of ALL MEN. God will have all
men to be saved— delivered, set free, restored, redeemed from the
tyranny of sin and death—and to come to the knowledge of the truth—to
the full experiential knowing of all that is reality in Christ,
transformed into His image, filled with His fullness, that God may be
All-in-all. THIS IS HIS WILL, and for us to pray on any level beneath this
is to pray out of harmony with His purpose. How narrow sometimes our
prayers can be! “Bless me, bless my wife, my son John, my daughter
Susan, we four, no more.” We should pray broadly for everyone to be
saved—we have God’s Word for it! We are not to pray just for the
narrow confines of our own interests, but for ALL MEN. I think this is
tremendous. When we come before the throne of grace there must be a
universality about our prayers—on behalf of all creation. We stand
before God as representatives of a needy creation. It takes the enablement
of the indwelling Spirit of God for us to identify ourselves with such
heartbreak and sorrow, and then to bear that need before the throne of
grace. Not to tell God how to order His purpose, but in faith in His
mercies and grace, to present ourselves, and all creation, in surrender to
Him for His will to be wrought in us all, unto salvation. This is the
ministry of the sons of God, the priesthood after the order of
Melchizedek. We care, we have compassion, not with carnal sympathy, but
with that divine love that ultimately will see a total restoration of all
to God.
The text quoted above is one of rare beauty. It is indeed like a
precious diamond, the effulgence of whose radiance dazzles the mind. It is
a drop of pure distilled essence, whose fragrance fills the rooms of the
heart. It is a joy forevermore and a challenge to everyone who reads it
with an understanding heart. It should be engraved upon the heart of every
saint of God. There is so much depth to that text that I am afraid that we
often do not even perceive it. It is like beautiful sky of deep rich blue
and one cannot even begin to grasp the vast depth above us. So it is with
this passage!
When we think of and seek the will of God we should not limit
ourselves to concern about our individual lives and needs, but rather
learn His will for all men and use this as a guideline for our behavior
and feelings toward them. Reread I Timothy 2:1-6 and note what we are
taught—God wills “all men to be saved.” He wills “that all men
should come to the knowledge of the truth.” What effect should this will
of God have on us? And how must we become participators with Him in the
fulfilling of His will? First, accept what His Word teaches; believe in
His love; and leave it to God to someday fulfill all that He means. Your
task is to prayerfully accept God’s will and to receive it into your
heart. Believe what is written: GOD WILLS that all men be saved. Let faith
in those beautiful words take possession of your heart; allow God’s will
to BECOME YOUR WILL and inspire your life. If we accept this will of God,
taking it into our hearts and making it truly ours, how will our lives be
affected? The first result will be just what Paul commands—prayers and
intercessions FOR ALL MEN. We will learn to see each man be the proper
light, not the light of who he is, what he does, or what he deserves, but
in the light of God’s love and God’s will for him. If God so loved
miserable and unworthy creatures and so desired to help them that He sent
His Son to die for them, and if our will is one with His, we will be
inspired to love them and pray earnestly for them.
You will note that the command to pray for all men is rooted in the
fact that God WILL HAVE ALL MEN TO BE SAVED. We must ever distinguish
between the fact of the salvation of all and the manner in which God
brings it to pass. He condescends to work through human instrumentality.
Since God purposes to save all men, He has a PLAN, a PROCESS, and an
INSTRUMENTALITY by which to accomplish this! Part of the process is the
intercessory prayers of the saints. The men who are to be saved are held
under the power of the devil. The saints are called as God’s INSTRUMENT
of salvation. On behalf of lost men they engage in spiritual warfare,
claiming these men for God and His Kingdom, binding the enemy that
enslaves them, bringing deliverance to the captives. That all men be saved
is God’s purpose. Intercessory prayer is part of the process. “I
exhort therefore, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving
of thanks be made for all men…..” To say that since God will save all
men we need not pray for them, is to say that God has a purpose to save
them, but NO MEANS BY WHICH TO ACCOMPLISH IT. That would be like saying
that a contractor is going to build a skyscraper and, since he is going to
build it, there is no need for nails, hammers, saws, heavy equipment,
plumbers, electricians, carpenters, brick masons, etc. How ridiculous! All
those things are the necessary instruments and means of accomplishing his
will and plans. I meet some who call themselves sons of God who have no
compassion or concern for lost and sorrowing humanity. They leave it all
to fate or to God’s sovereignty in some future time. Every thing and
every one are “all right.” There is nothing further to do, God will
take care of it all. Yes He will! And He will take care of it through us,
the body of the Christ who so loved and died, the Royal Priesthood after
God’s own heart.
The prayers of the saints! Prayer is not a useless exercise, it is
part of God’s cosmic purpose. I don’t pretend to understand it all,
but when Jesus was going away He said, Hitherto have ye asked nothing in
my name, from now on you will ask the Father in my name, and whatever you
ask the Father I will do it.” Ah, we have missed the importance of
prayer in the redemptive and reconstructive and restorational purposes of
God! Our prayers ARE important! Don’t ask me to explain the mystery of
the apparatus, but they are important. You’ll find yourself praying,
you’ll find yourself desiring to pray, and that’s the Holy Spirit
urging you to do what is necessary to enable things to happen the way they
are supposed to happen. There is a relationship between the decrees of God
and the response of God’s people! God created all things by a Word. God
SAID, “Let there be...and it was so.” That’s a CREATIVE WORD! Prayer
is a participation in the creative Word of God, speaking the new creation
into existence. It’s a mystery I don’t fully understand, but there are
times when I have to pray, there are times when the altar of my soul is
full of clouds of holy incense as I send up to God petitions, as I decree
a Word, not for myself, not for mundane things, but for others, and when I
can’t articulate them in English I send them up in an unknown tongue.
And there is that deep inner consciousness that somehow I am participating
in a great tableau and drama of history.
Through many years the spirit of intercessory prayer has stirred
within my spirit and I have been compelled to pray not only for my loved
ones, but also for some of the most wicked, unbelieving, and treacherous
men and women upon the face of God’s earth. I speak not of an occasional
weak, insipid little table-prayer, but of deep travail and intense
spiritual warfare on behalf of the souls of these individuals. Among those
for whom I have been moved to intercede have been world leaders such as
Golda Meir, Nikita Khruchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Mickhail Gorbachev, and
Fidel Castro. Must I now believe that my prayers shall never be answered
because some of these persons have passed away with no evidence of
conversion in their lives, and that the omniscient and omnipotent Holy
Spirit who wrought so mightily in these supplications, failed? Not by any
means! For I have seen dramatic results in the lives of some I have
unceasingly prayed for, and there is no limitation of either time or space
in prayer.
My heart is emboldened by the testimony of that great man of God,
George Muller. George Muller was literally the “man God made,” and
whom God used to house, feed, clothe, educate and save thousands of
orphans in
When George Muller arrived at the twilight of his life, God, he
estimated, had answered over fifty thousand of his prayers, many thousands
of which were answered on the day he made them and often before he arose
from his knees. Some of his petitions, however, lingered across the
decades. Here is a sample of such asking: “In November, 1844, I began to
pray for the conversion of five individuals. I prayed every day without a
single intermission, whether sick or in health, on the land or on the sea,
and whatever the pressure of my engagements might be. Eighteen months
elapsed before the first of the five was converted. I thanked God and
prayed on for the others. Five years elapsed, and then the second was
converted. I thanked God for the second, and prayed on for the other
three. Day by day I continued to pray for them, and six years passed
before the third was converted. I thanked God for the three, and went on
praying for the other two. These two remain unconverted. The man to whom
God in the riches of His grace has given tens of thousands of answers to
prayer in the self-same hour of the day in which they were offered has
been praying day by day for nearly thirty-six years for the conversion of
these individuals, and yet they remain unconverted. But I hope in God, I
pray on, and look yet for the answer. They are not converted yet, but they
will be”—end quote. This was the faith that carried him through every
straitened place. He met emergencies by asking and in due time God
supplied whatever the need might be. Those prayers? you ask. In 1897,
those two men, sons of a friend of Mr. Muller’s youth, were not
converted after he had entreated God on their behalf for fifty-two years
daily. But after his death God brought them into the fold! Such was this
man’s triumphant faith, whatever the difficulty.
And I would add—would God that he might have prayed for the
salvation of ALL MEN! He prayed for five—and they were all saved. Praise
God for that! But we are commanded to pray, supplicate, intercede, and
give thanks for all men... “For God will have all men to be saved, and
to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” “Whatsoever ye ask in my
name, I will do it.” What awesome power! Ah, we know it works for needs,
money, jobs, healing, problems,—carnal things. But does it work for the
SOULS OF MEN? Dare we ask for the salvation of men with the same
confidence that God will grant our request as when we ask for a new pair
of shoes? The Holy Spirit answers, “Yes!” “For God will have all men
to be saved.” And I answer, “Yes!” For I have personally seen:
God-moves sovereignly and powerfully in men’s lives in response to my
prayers. As with George Muller, it sometimes took years but I never
fainted and God never failed.
Those foolish people who in their willful and petulant ignorance
dare to say, “If God is going to save every one, why need I bother?”
really do not deserve either recognition or an answer. Since my eyes have
caught a vision of the supernal glory of the will of God to save all men,
and my ears have heard the Word of the Spirit commanding, “I exhort
therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and
giving of thanks be made for ALL MEN,” my heart responds with the
greatest eagerness, for the greatness of His infinite love and purpose for
every man who has ever lived, sets aflame the love of God in my heart
until every breath I breathe is a fervent prayer, “THY WILL BE DONE! THY
WILL BE DONE!” This is the hope that consumes my life and all my waking
hours, and beside it all else is the grossest and lowest vanity. Stir
yourself in repentance and in prayer and in consecration, ye carnal
minded, blessing-seeking souls who think you shall enjoy the glories of
heaven while billions for whom the Christ died writhe in the tormenting
flames of hell, possessed by the devil forever.
Prayer is irreplaceable. Nothing can take its place. Substitutes
are readily available for almost everything else. A prosthesis is a good
replacement for a lost leg. A hearing aid is an excellent device for the
hearing impaired. Organs of the body can be replaced by man-made gadgets
and machines. If telephone communications break down, the fax machine,
overnight express mail, the automobile, or the airplane can serve in its
place. One could even carry the message on foot. A poor substitute is
better than none. Not so with prayer, however. It has no replacement.
There are no substitutes. Ask God to form afresh the Lord Jesus in all His
beauty and power in your innermost being, that you might think His
thoughts, desire what He desires, love as He loves’ and pray His
prayers. This is the secret of sonship prayer. Oh, that God would raise up
a mighty army of priests after the order of Melchizedek so able to
cooperate with Him, so willing to be yielded, that He might perform His
perfect will and work through them. He does and He shall, praise His name!
Prayer is not a little habit pinned on to us while we were tied to
our mother’s apron strings; neither is it a decent little fifteen-second
grace said over an hour’s dinner, but it is a most serious work in the
Unction of the Kingdom of God. The little estimate we put on prayer is
evident from the small amount of time we devote to it. How poor and
pitiful our petty, childish praying beside the example of the firstborn
Son of God—He who prayed in the mountains, symbolic of the high places
of the Spirit, and continued in prayer all night—until the New Day
dawned! To holy men of God who think praying their main business and
devote their energies to it according to this high estimate of its
importance does God commit the keys to His Kingdom, and by them does He
work His spiritual wonders in the world. Prayer is co-operation with God.
When we are moved to speak with God it is only because God is already
speaking with us. God’s promptings are the earnest of His answer. The
spirit of prayer is God-awakened, God-evoked, and God-propelled. Prayer is
supernatural. “The Lord worked with them” (Mk.
If you programmed a talking robot to pray, would God listen?
Suppose the robot prayed without ceasing, suppose he prayed earnestly,
suppose he prayed articulately and with a sob in his voice. Let’s say he
used all the available aspects of prayer—praise, supplication,
intercession, giving of thanks—would God pay any attention to the
robot’s prayers? Of course not! But wait a minute. If we say that God
will not hear or answer a robot’s prayers, we have accepted a startling
proposition—prayer is more than words! You see—it is not mere words
that cause things to happen, but the authority behind the words, the power
within the words. In the beginning God said, “Let there be light,” and
there was light. The Word issued out of divine BEING and
NATURE—therefore there was power in the words. Jesus said, “The words
that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life” (Jn. 6:63).
Paul wrote, “For the
The God of all grace, the God of love, the God of kindness and
tender mercies, seeks the welfare of His creation and His creatures
everywhere. His love is boundless, His power omnipotent, and His purpose
immutable. Nothing that we ever dreamed of good for any man or any race or
any nation has touched the garment’s hem of the good He purposes or the
blessing toward which He works. He is not like the pagan deities, who,
like Baal, must be awakened from his sleep and besought to do good deeds
for men. His great and eternal purpose sweeps unceasingly through
creation, comprehending every child of His and working toward the goal of
a world wherein sin, sorrow, pain, limitation, and death have forever been
banished from the minds and experience of men. When men go up to such a
God in prayer, their intercession must mean casting themselves in with the
eternal purpose of the Father, “laying hold upon God,” not to call Him
to action, as though He needed that, but to be carried along with Him in
His program for the redemption and restoration of all into harmony with
Him. God wants men to be made one in Him in prayer, aligning their desires
with His, until their intercession becomes the effective expression and
vehicle of His will. As in an irrigation system, with its vast network of
channels, the sluice-gate would not plead with the reservoir to remember
its forgotten power of blessing, but rather, feeling the urge of the
flowing water, would desire to be opened, that through it the waiting
stream might find an entrance into all fields and the will of the
reservoir be done—so should the sons of God respond to the love of God
in prayer. In prayer something creative is being done. Again, as in the
beginning, the voice of God sounds forth, piercing the darkness that hangs
like a shroud over the human soul, commanding, “Let there be light!”
Prayer is the heart of God expressed, His creative fiat through His body
by which the New Creation is called into existence.
Speaking of this wonderful and divine principle in prayer, Harry
Emerson Fosdick wrote: “When a mother prays for her wayward son, no
words can make clear the vivid reality of her supplications. Her love
pours itself out in insistent demand that her boy must not be lost. She is
sure of his value, with which no outward thing is worthy to be compared,
and of his possibilities which no sin of his can ever make her doubt. She
will not give him up. She follows him through his abandonment down to the
gates of death; and if she loses him through death into the mystery
beyond, she still prays on in secret, with intercessions she may not dare
to utter, that wherever in the conscious universe he may be, God will
reclaim him. As one considers such an experience of vicarious praying, he
sees that it is not merely resignation to the will of God; it an urgent
assertion of a great desire. She does not really think that she is
persuading God to be good to her son, for the courage in her prayer is due
to her certain faith that God also must wish that boy to be recovered from
his way. She rather is taking on her heart the same burden that God has on
His; is joining her demand with the divine desire. In this system of
personal life that makes up the moral universe, she is taking her place
alongside God in an urgent, Creative outpouring of sacrificial love. Her
intercession is the utterance of her life; it is love on its
knees”—end quote. DIVINE TRANSMISSION
When we enter into the ministry of prayer in earnest, two questions
confront us. First, How can I, with all my weakness, imperfection and
limitation, influence God through my words? How does prayer work? Why is
it needed? And second, How can I bless others by prayer? We do not need to
understand just how prayer works in order to use it, any more than we have
to understand electricity before we can use it, but it may at times help
us at our task if we understand. Someone has given the following
comparison: “You have a piece of meat which you want to preserve until
the next week. You take it to the refrigerator where there is a freezing
unit. When the meat is placed within its sphere of influence, or within
the radius of its power, it takes on some of the quality of the low
temperature: extreme coldness. As long as it remains there it retains
these ice qualities and is preserved from decay.”
There is some person who you are moved to help. The compassion of
Christ in you reaches out to him to bring the blessings and benefits of
the
If a person is, in their consciousness, wholly of the earth,
earthy, and bound up by the outward world of appearances, he is
unconscious of God’s reality and power. As prayer flows out on behalf of
this person, and the will of God is decreed toward him, the energy of God
is channeled like a laser beam, the Spirit breaks through the carnal,
material wall and God penetrates man. If you, by faith and love, catch a
man up with your spirit and bear him to God, he is brought within the
influence of the Spirit, and is transformed. God’s love is pouring out
all the time: it is man who is estranged, alienated, and dead
(unresponsive) to God. It is our ministry as sons of God to respond for
man, to make that upward and outward reach which man cannot make for
himself, to complete the circuit, releasing the transfiguring life-flow of
God.
It is wholly a secret service. There are people today who are doing
the most in the
Some dear soul objects, “If you were there bodily you could
influence men more by your personal contact, your living words.” So you
could. If you were in
Many examples of this power of prayer are to be found in the great
revivals and moves of God throughout history. Dick Eastman records:
“Finney’s revival rocked America’s Eastern states in the first half
of the nineteenth century. One man, known as Father Nash, would precede
Finney to cities scheduled for crusades. Three or four weeks in advance of
meetings Father Nash humbly journeyed to town. No great crowds waited to
welcome him and no bands played fanfares of greeting. Father Nash would
quietly find a place of prayer. During the revivals countless souls were
won and lives changed. Finney’s name soon gained acclaim, and his
sermons pierced the hearts of multitudes. Somewhere alone, however, knelt
humble Father Nash. After revival came, he quietly left town for another
crusade, there to labor on bended knees. He knew the meaning of
intercession. Father Nash concerned himself with others, often sacrificing
the finer things of life. He had no home, no church support, and often
missed the taste of home-cooked meals. Nights were spent without a bed,
and clothes became frayed. What did Nash receive for this? Little in this
life, perhaps, but much in the
E. F. Hallock has written: “David Brainerd prayed in the
wilderness of
There is a saying of
Prayer is work. There is struggle involved in praying. Paul speaks
of this in Colossians 4:17-13. “Epaphras, who is one of yourselves, a
servant of Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. He is always striving for
you earnestly in his prayers, pleading that you may—as persons of ripe
character and clear conviction—stand firm and mature, convinced and
fully assured in everything willed by God. For I bear him testimony that
he has labored hard in your behalf.” This kind of laboring in prayer has
often been misunderstood. People have thought of it as a wrestling in
prayer with God, the thought that it takes mighty fervor and persistence
to persuade God to move in a situation. His gifts and graces must be wrung
from him by great effort. Prayer is conceived of as a means by which God
can be made to relent, and be moved to give us an answer to our prayers.
And if we are successful in this endeavor, it is because we have fought
with God, stormed heaven with our demands, convinced God by our crying
needs, and, on the whole, persevered until He has yielded. I do not
hesitate to tell you that such a crude and unscriptural notion is a wicked
blasphemy against the God who so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son, and the Christ who so loved the church that He gave Himself
for it. Our labor is not to convince or persuade God, but to bring
ourselves into union with His mind and penetrate the walls of resistance
that oppose the rule of God. Prayer is work, and if we are to work with
God we must know what God is doing and how He does it. History is full of
pathetic instances of men and movements who supposed they could work for
God by using carnal methods. But no one can work for God—we must work
with God, yea, God must work in and through us. What is important is not
what we are doing, but what God is doing.
I will tell you what God is doing. He is BRINGING MANY
The day of revivals is over. The hour has arrived when God’s
Kingdom shall triumph in all realms. The end game is here. The conclusion
of the age, the grand consummation of God’s purpose among the nations is
at hand. The story is told of a little boy who couldn’t play outside
because it was raining. His father, who was trying to take an afternoon
nap on the sofa, became annoyed. “Go to the other room, son; Daddy wants
to sleep. Find something in there to play with.” “Like what?”
“Anything,” snapped the father. “There isn’t anything,’’
replied the lad. Grabbing the newspaper, the man tore out a page with a
large map of the world printed on it. With the scissors he cut it into
dozens of odd-shaped pieces like a puzzle. “There, see if you can put
that together, and don’t bother me till you’re done.” The father
settled down on the sofa thinking his problem was solved, but ten minutes
later there was a tug on his shirt. “You can’t be done yet! But there
on the floor was the neatly constructed world. “How did you do it?” he
asked. “Easy,” said his son. “A man’s picture was on the back, and
when I got the man together right, the world was right.” Ah, yes—when
God gets HIS MAN put together in the fullness of Christ all the problems
of the world will simply fall into place! Let us not expend our energies
at this late hour trying to get the world straightened out and ordered
aright. Let us give ourselves to apprehending that for which Jesus Christ
has apprehended us—to grow up unto a
It’s harvest time. “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest,
that He may send forth laborers into His harvest.” That is what I am
praying for in these days. I am praying for the sons of God. I am praying
for you, my beloved. I am praying for the nations. I am praying for the
New World Order brought by the
Who shall banish cruel oppression? Who shall drive savage war with
all its horrors, from the face of the earth? Who shall stay the ravages of
famine, pestilence, and disease? Who shall free the sad world from murder,
suicide, hatred, and crime? Who shall release the prisoners of sin and
death, and wipe all tears from off all faces, that there be no more
crying, neither sorrow, nor pain anywhere in God’s beautiful earth? The
moan of the world’s agony comes to me as the surge of the sea upon a
rocky shore. Alas, Lord! for the sorrow, bondage, sin, suffering and death
which all our efforts cannot undo, and all our sympathy cannot banish.
What cans’t Thou do for these, O Lord? And I hear the Lord’s whisper
loom within my deepest spirit. “The sons of God are arising to set
creation free. As the sons arise in the power of my peace—fear, hatred,
and violence shall cease. As the sons arise in the authority of my
victory—oppression and tyranny shall end. As the sons arise in the power
of my righteousness—the bondage of sin shall be broken and mankind
released into my holiness. As the sons arise in the intelligence of my
mind—ignorance and superstition shall surrender to my wisdom. As the
sons arise in the quickening of my life— death’s hold shall be broken
and the way of life opened to all mankind. As the sons arise in the
splendor of my light—the darkness shall flee away, the sorrowing shall
be comforted, the meek exalted to reign, the broken-hearted healed, and
the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
“ Let us pray! |
Other Writings in This Series:
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