02.02. Chapter 02. When to Pray
When to Pray The circumstances in which prayer is the saint’s resource, as indicated by James, are five.
(1) "Is any suffering? let him pray." The word covers an immense variety of painful conditions, being applied, for instance, to the manifold afflictions endured by Old Testament prophets1 and New Testament preachers.2 it thus includes persecutions. Under such conditions it is easy to doubt our Father’s goodness, and to murmur; and this we shall do unless we pray. Hence our Lord, picturing His people as a defenseless and oppressed Eastern widow, "spake a parable to the end that we ought always to pray, and not to faint. "3 One or the other it will surely be: either we pray or we faint. The disciples in Gethsemane did not watch and pray, and so they succumbed to temptation, and forsook their beloved Master. But Paul and Silas, though bruised and bleeding, and painfully cramped in the stocks in a miserable dungeon, and with the uncertainty of the morrow to weigh down the spirit, prayed when they could not sleep, and soon were singing praises.4 Ah! whither could we flee for aid When tempted, desolate, dismayed, Or how the hosts of hell defeat, Had suffering saints no mercy seat? But prayer not only supports the heart while under trial; it is an appointed means of deliverance therefrom, in such cases and times as deliverance is the will of God. Herod may imprison Peter within double doors, one being of iron; and detail sixteen soldiers to keep him; and they make escape impossible by chaining him to two of their number; "but prayer was made earnestly of the church unto God for him" 5 and on that occasion also prayer set in motion the hosts above, and Peter was delivered.
Some years ago a court in a heathen land ordered a missionary to hand back to heathen relatives a small child who had, by consent, been entrusted to her care, and who had truly turned to Christ as her Saviour and Lord. The long legal struggle involved ended thus in seeming defeat. But for her, as for Peter, prayer was made earnestly and perseveringly; and by a marvellous series of miraculous interpositions deliverance was effected.6