Power of Prayer

THE POWER OF PRAYER.
BY REV. E. N. KIRK, D. D.
BOSTON: NICHOLS AND NOYES. 1866. Entered according to Act of Congress,- in the year 1866 , by NICHOLS AND NOYES, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. CAM BRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SONS.
Number 9. Published by direction of tin- Congregational Churches of Boston.
IN nothing is the world more opposed to Christ than in His revelation of mysteries to be believed and acted in daily life. And when a worldly person embraces His religion in name merely, as is frequently done, the very first step is to strip it of mysteries and reduce it to a philosophy or a science, to something that can be seen by the eyes, or demonstrated to the understanding, and thus relieve him of the inconvenience of appearing unreasonable to other worldly persons. Faith, or the belief of that which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man" by invention or discovery, the world utterly discards.
Prominent among the mysteries of the Gospel is Prayer; not so much when considered as adoration, confession, thanksgiving, or even supplication; not at all, when considered as a direct means of refining our own hearts; but as a POWER, a power over God; that is the mystery in which faith believes.
Considered as a privilege, prayer is wonderful; but as a force, it transcends all our earthly wisdom, and can be recognized by Faith alone. We see, for instance, the man Moses staying the arm of Omnipotence just uplifted to strike down a guilty race, as described in Numbers xiv. 11. Was it science, or statesmanship, or military prowess, poetic talent or eloquence, that saved that people? No, it was the power of prayer. “And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word"
We see Abraham pleading for the people of Sodom, and reducing, step by step, the conditions of their salvation to narrower and easier terms.
We see Elijah, a man like ourselves, shutting the windows of heaven for more than three years; then, bowed on Carmel, controlling the forces of nature simply by the power of prayer, and bringing down the rain that saved a nation from destruction.
Read the record of David's experience, in his Psalms. Hearken to that voice of pleading which comes down to us from the early ages, and observe the soul putting forth the energy of faith successfully; "Make haste to help me: innumerable evils have compassed me: be pleased,
Lord! to deliver me; Be not silent to me, lest
I become like them that go down to the pit." Indeed, the Psalms very frequently are a record of prayer for personal deliverance; almost uniformly ending with a grateful record of the answer given to each petition. They are monuments of the power of prayer. Nay, it is remarkable that there is scarcely one definite prayer recorded, the answer to which is not equally registered.
Esther, Daniel, Gideon, Samuel, Nehemiah, Hezekiah, and many others, are described as having, like Jacob, “power with God."
This view of prayer was frequently presented by our Saviour in His instructions. Notice these words in Luke 11:9, “Ask," " seek," " knock," in their connection, and you see that they are climactic; indicating increasing earnestness and importunity. The hour is late: the family are in bed. The man does not rise for a simple request from his friend. He even presents reasons against rising. But, at length, the Lord says, it is "importunity" that makes him yield. The same object He had in view in the parable of the widow; the judge yielded to nothing but her importunity: " He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not faint." And what is it makes them tend to faint, but God's long delay, and that resistance by which He tests their faith? Jacob was resisted. The woman of Syrophenicia was resisted: the widow before the judge was resisted: the friend was at first refused, and reasons were given for not granting his request. The faithful student of Scripture cannot fail to mark that these are illustrations of one kind or degree of prayer.
The immediate measure introducing the Christian dispensation was, by the Lord's direct orders, a protracted prayer-meeting.
Peter was released from prison by the prayers of the Church. James declared that the prayer of faith should save the sick.
These instances are sufficient to show that the Scriptures reveal the power of prayer; declaring that man by believing prayer has power over the weather, over the angels, over diseases, over God Himself, within defined limits.
But many refuse to believe this principle on either of the two grounds, God's testimony or man's experience. They require what is to them more authoritative and conclusive, a philosophical explanation why and how God is moved by prayer. This, however, is to abandon the sphere of faith and the supernatural. Semi-rationalists admit that prayer benefits the suppliant directly, but its power over God they deny. Supposing themselves to be believers, they have only the faith of science; not that of either ordinary life or religion. They adopt the false principle in this matter, of believing only what they can explain; which should make them atheists, for they do not know how or why God exists. We may perplex our minds with a host of objections and difficulties about an unoriginated, infinite life and personality; still, faith believes there is such a life and personality. Pure rationalism must be atheistic.
He that waits to pray until he can discover reasons and explanations full and satisfactory why and how man has power with his Creator will probably never exercise that power. He that counts for nothing the teachings, testimony, and promises of God's word cannot pray in faith or “in the Holy Ghost." (Jude 1:20)
This is a vital point in the Christian religion. If the strong men of prayer, like Moses, Elijah, David, Daniel, and Paul, especially if the woman of Syrophenicia, had withheld their belief in the efficacy of prayer until they had made a logical argument proving it, we should never have had the history of their glorious achievements. The roll of honor, in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, had never been written, if the illustrious men it commends had been rationalists.
If any one insists that God is unchangeable in such a sense that our suffering and supplication do not affect both His sensibilities and His will, we refer them to the earthly life of Him who, as Son of man, took our places and undertook our cause.
There they may discover in His redemptive work the most conclusive and most impressive exhibition of importunity and its power with God, the most complete overthrowing of the objections to importunate prayer. Two branches of it had "power with God" even more than with men, the Atonement and Prayer. Why could not God forgive us, as a kind Father, without the intervention of the humiliating incarnation of His Son; the life of the “Man of sorrows; " the scenes of the garden, and the hill of Golgotha? Proud Reason, take off thy shoes here, for the ground is holy. The sacrifice of Jesus is the indispensable medium of our salvation. Why did the Father exact it? Whether we can answer it or not, the fact remains, "He spared not His Son," even for His " crying."
Then turn to His praying. He surely found it necessary to be importunate. Sweating as it were great drops of blood, thrice He fell upon His face, crying for release from the cup of anguish. “He offered up prayer and supplication with strong crying and tears." “And, being in an agony, He prayed more earnestly. ' Why may not the same necessity be laid on them who are made one with Him, called to bear His cross, and drink His cup, and follow Him, "filling up what is behind of the sufferings of Christ"?
Why may not there be in the Divine nature a demand for more than mere desire on the part of him who would secure the exercise of Divine mercy toward sinners? No one can intelligently affirm that there is not.
Brethren, believe the word of God when it declares, "Ask, and ye shall receive." If you can discover why you shall receive, it is very well. But do not wait for that. “Believe; for all things are possible to him that believeth."
Guard against that spirit which saturates the very atmosphere of this metropolis, the spirit that demands stronger reasons for believing any proposition than that it is founded upon the testimony of the Bible. The moment you yield to it, you have crossed over the line that separates the kingdom of Christ from the world. Take your position either as an unbeliever, and say, “I believe only what I can prove; ' or as a believer, and say, “I believe the words of Christ as recorded in the Scriptures."
If any one affirms that prayer, and especially importunate prayer, is dictating to God, tell him it is no more so than planting grain; for He has ordained both to be the immediate means of securing certain desired results. If any one asks you whether any person can obtain any thing he wants by praying for it, reply to him, that this is not implied in the Scriptural view of prayer, or any Scriptural promise. There are limitations and conditions and relations of prevailing prayer which guard it against such an absurdity.
If any one inquires how we can reconcile the promises of answer to the prayer of faith, with the fact that the children of believing parents have died in impenitence, we certainly have a right to reply, You do not know that those parents ever prayed according to God's requirements.
“But," it may then be replied, "this makes it always uncertain to any person, because he is not sure he has complied with all the conditions of the promises." To this we answer, The case is exactly parallel with that of salvation itself. To low degrees of faith, uncertainty of the result is always attached. Faith, in its higher exercise, alone can bring certainty.
Others have asked, if the warnings against using “vain repetitions' 1 do not meet this case. By no means. Vain repetitions are words used as charms, of which so many specimens may be found in the various superstitions of the world.
Others find a difficulty in this passage, “Your heavenly Father knoweth of what things ye have need before ye ask." "Why, then, pray and importune?” they say. Our first reply is, that whether we can answer this inquiry or not, we can safely affirm, that it was not designed to discourage, but to encourage prayer. Our second reply is, in the language of another, “Superstition places the reason of the hearing of prayer not in the grace of God, but in its own godless work. Unbelief deduces the uselessness of prayer from the omniscience of God, in Whom it does not itself believe. Faith rests its poor prayer precisely on this holy, gracious, Divine knowledge. Thus our Lord teaches us to pray in faith because God knows, before the petition, what we need; and, consequently, can Himself prompt the acceptable prayer, and fulfil it accordingly. These words of the Saviour are to be taken as the reason which prevents the Christian from praying after the heathen manner." (Olshausen in loc.) If God were not acquainted with all our wants, He could not command our adoration or confidence.
What, then, are
THE ELEMENTS OF PREVAILING PRAYER?
1. Faith. “He that cometh to God must believe " two propositions: ".that God is, and that He is the Rewarder of them who diligently seek Him."
In other words, he must believe in the power of prayer; that if he diligently and properly seeks of God a certain blessing, he will get it, so far as that blessing lies within the scope of express promise. Look at the Syrophenician woman's wonderful prayer: she definitely expected to be answered. Nothing daunted or discouraged her, though her faith was put to the severest tests. Yet this woman had nothing but the promise furnished by the Saviour's character and disposition, for it was understood in her day that His personal mission was to the Jews alone.
We have what she knew nothing of, the name of Christ as our plea. We know that 'He has removed every barrier from our way to the mercyseat. And we know that the promises of God to us are all "in Him, yea and amen," promises covering every point of human necessity. Some of these are unconditional and general. We say “unconditional," and yet not one of them will be fulfilled but in answer to prayer, not even that which declares that Christ will subdue the world to Himself. There are other promises directly and wholly conditioned on prayer. When, therefore, we have prayed for the objects they contain, we must expect them. Some are limited by other conditions. Expectation of their fulfilment, in cases where such conditions are not complied with, is not faith, but presumption; like the expectations of those who look for heaven without meeting the requirements of the Gospel. Then again, we must not fix a time or a mode of answering a prayer where God has not; but “hope against hope," and place promises against providences.
But God is honored by a faith that expects His actions ultimately, whatever He may be doing at present, to be as good and gracious as His word, and a fulfilment of them; a faith which believes He is able, willing, and desirous to do all He has promised to do.
2. Intense desire is an element of the higher grade of prayer. This the Saviour indicated when He remarked concerning demons, that His disciples had not faith to exorcise them, "this kind goeth not out but by fasting and prayer." Ordinary desire is here not sufficiently strong. Ordinary prayer is here unavailing. That woman of Canaan had probably endured a long trial with her daughter. Night and day, the child's agony had racked her spirit. And now she comes to pour out the grief of months, perhaps of years, in one gushing prayer. And she could afford to spend that precious moment on nothing else, "Lord, my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil."
Some good men have been averse to the representation of prayer as an expression of intense desire, even to agony. But they surely have overlooked the history of Jacob, of Hannah, of Mordecai, of Hezekiah, of Paul, nay, of the Lord Himself, who offered up prayer “with strong crying and tears." Do these brethren deny that we are permitted in this very matter to “fill up what is behind of the sufferings of Christ"? If He is not our pattern in praying, in what respects are we to imitate Him?
And, if we come down from this height, we shall find that, in every subsequent age, the most eminent of His servants have been distinguished for intense desires for His glory, and for their own spiritual good, and the salvation of others.
This importunate prayer makes the crisis in the history of almost every converted soul. To cite thousands of instances would be easy. Augustine, Brainerd, Whitfield, came into the kingdom of God in the agony of prayer. Then, every great revival of religion that has blessed our world, every great stage in the advance of the kingdom of Christ, has been preceded, not by gentle requests merely, but by what has properly been called the agony of prayer. Such was the case when the captive Church was released and returned to Palestine, in answer to the prayer of Daniel and Nehemiah. It was so in the Reformation that blessed our world in the sixteenth century.
Of the many modern specimens of the power of prayer, I present one instance in which the challenge was made by scepticism to faith. The Rev. A. B. Earle was preaching in Oneonta, N. Y., about the year 1850. He had insisted strongly in his discourse, one day, on the efficacy of earnest, determined, persevering prayer in securing the conversion of men. At the close of the sermon, Mr. Otis a lawyer, a notorious sceptic, who had confirmed many in his own views arose, and addressed the preacher with this remark, "Mr. Earle, I do not believe a word of the doctrine you have been asserting. Now, if you wish to try it on a hard case, try it on me." The preacher replied, “Mr. Otis, come forward here, and present yourself as asking the prayers of God's people." He refused to come.
The preacher then requested all the Church to retire to their closets at a specified hour, and begged him to remember the hour, in which they should pray specially for his conversion. In the course of the third day from that, he arose in the midst of the congregation, and said, " I may as well break the ice now as at any time; I wish somebody to pray for me." Mr. Earle then said, “Will you come to this front seat that we may pray for you?” He replied, “Any where, if some one will pray for me." He came forward: and, kneeling, he filled the house with his sobs. To-day he is preaching, in the ranks of the Methodist ministry, that Gospel he once despised.
If the full history of the recent Rebellion could be written, we cannot entertain a doubt, that the world would see that, even more gloriously than the patriotism and skill and material resources of the government and people, the power of prayer is set forth by it. If ever a President was remembered in prayer, Mr. Lincoln was. If ever earnest, intense prayer ascended to heaven, it was from April 1861, to April 1865, for the life of this nation.
3. Patient importunity is another characteristic of powerful or prevailing prayer. It is remarkable that a man of such gigantic intellect as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, misled by the speculations of German philosophers, should yet have had such views of the grandeur, solemnity, "and power of earnest prayer as at once bringing the greatest blessings to the earth, and most profoundly taxing the sensibilities of the heart. He once made this remark to De Quincey: “Prayer with the whole soul is the highest energy of which the human heart is capable; and therefore the great mass of worldly men are absolutely incapable of prayer."
Long afterward he said to his nephew: " I have no difficulty in [believing in] forgiveness. Neither do I find or reckon most solemn faith in God, as a real object, the most arduous act of reason and will. Oh no! it is to pray, to pray as God would have us: this is what at times makes me turn cold to my soul. Believe me, to pray with all your heart and strength, with the reason and the will; to believe vividly that God will listen to your voice through Christ, and verily do the thing He pleaseth thereupon, this is the last, the greatest achievement of a Christian's warfare on earth." And then, bursting into tears, he begged his nephew to pray for him.
Yes, brethren, this is the great truth the Church needs now to comprehend to achieve her final victory. “This kind goeth not out but by fasting and prayer;" there are demons commanding the strongholds of the world that can be cast out only by the highest kind of prayer.
We have not outlived the Old Testament. There we have, among others, this striking exhibition of the power of importunate prayer. There we see that God sometimes offers resistance to the suppliant, and yet yields to importunity, as in the case of Abraham's grandson whose birth-name was Jacob, afterward changed to Israel. There certainly has been too little made of his remarkable experience, and of that name by which he was finally known, by which the ancient people of God were known, and which has been transferred to the Church of the new dispensation.
Let us recall the meaning of that new title; and the circumstances in view of which it was conferred. Israel is a Heaven-chosen, Heaven imparted name. The man who bore it was at his birth called Jacob, from the prophetic action he then performed of seizing his twin-brother by the heel; and the name in the Hebrew tongue is equivalent to Supplanter.
Out of his basely supplanting Esau came the miseries of his youth and early manhood. But out of the wonderful faith he manifested when those miseries were culminating at the ford Jabbok, came the new name Israel.
Returning from the north with his large family, his flocks and herds, he was informed, as he approached the Jordan, that the outraged Esau was coming to meet him.
Weak, from the sense of his own unfairness toward his brother, aware of his inability to make a military defence, he adopted the only two measures left to him: a judicious attempt to appease his brother, and an appeal to the God of Abraham. Of the first we need not now speak, as our attention is here turned to the most mysterious feature of prayer; that is, its power as exhibited in this man.
And we must first be assured that this mysterious wrestling with the angel was prayer; of which we are made sure by several statements in the Scriptures. The first is, that Jacob was seeking a blessing. His language, “Deliver me, I pray Thee, from my brother," "I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me," expresses his object in struggling. And again, “The angel," it is said, " blessed him there." And then again, the prophet Hosea (Hosea 12:3-4) distinctly states that " he made supplication unto " God.
The question then arises, Was the angel the Son of God, the Jehovah of the Old Testament? This is equally determined by the Word of God.
Jacob would not have asked a mere angel to change Esau's- vengeful heart; for that was manifestly the blessing he sought and obtained. Again, he is said to have had " power with God' in this contest. And he declares he had seen God face to face in it. Then Hosea makes the angel and God identical: “He had power with God; yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed."
The next point of interest in this wonderful story is, that God resisted Jacob. That was the intention of His assuming the attitude of a wrestler, holding Jacob all night in the contest, laming his thigh, and at length asking to be released from his grasp.
On this point we must dwell a moment, for the sake of those who are averse to this view of prayer.
Their reasoning, like much other, contradicts the Scriptures, and the experience of the most eminent children of God. It contradicts the word of God. Jacob did not get the blessing for simply asking: he wrestled all night. And God, so far from censuring him for it, gave him the blessing because of his importunity; He removed the old name " Supplanter," and gave him a new name, Prince of God. And that name Israel has now become the permanent title of the Church of God. We are not Jacobites, but Israelites; not supplanters, but a race having “power with God and men ' by the importunity of believing prayer. The prayer of Hannah was a long-continued, weeping prayer. The prayer of the prophet Jonah was a prayer of anguish uttered, as he expressed it, out of " the belly of hell:” "I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me."
4. Humility. As we see it illustrated in the woman of Syrophenicia. At first the Lord appeared to neglect her. Then He reasoned with the disciples against her petitions. Then He reasoned more directly to her against it, and added to this a wound through her national feelings. But all the time her soul was poised and collected in the strength of meekness. She manifested none of the impatience, the sensitiveness, or the exacting spirit, of pride. She recognized herself to be purely a suppliant, and the Saviour to be the Master of His own power and possessions. He might choose His own time and way of bestowing His gifts. This agrees with intense earnestness, and is indispensable to prevailing with God.
5. Obedience. The spirit of entire submission to God's will; the determination to do whatever He makes it manifest He would have us do. If we ask for a revival of religion, and have not given up our choice and determination of the way in which it shall come, and the kind and amount of labor we are to perform, we cannot reasonably expect to prevail with God. “Obedience is better than sacrifice “in His sight. We may omit the words in importunate prayer, but we must never omit the sentiment and purpose they express: “Thy will be done."
If you are seeking the conversion of your children, you must give up your will about their worldly interests, and the way in which God shall convert them, saying, “Not my will, but Thine be done."
Brethren, our work is before us; the most important portion of which is prayer. If we want power with God like Jacob, we must pray like him. If we want spiritual power with men, we must pray like him. The language of our hearts must be, “I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me." There are tithes of importunate prayer yet to be brought into the Lord's storehouse, before He will “open the windows of heaven, and pour out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it."
Who are Israel's descendants? They are the Princes of God, who have " power with God and with man," and have " prevailed ' in prayer. As such they will be known in heaven.
And for what have we come to such a time as this, if not to call forth that mightiest of human agencies, to exert the power of prayer to its utmost extent? Our city calls for it. Our country calls for it. Prayer can reconstruct this country; not without statesmanship, but by making it wise and efficient, by subduing passion and prejudice, and attaching the hearts of the entire people to the government, and to one another.
The Church demands it: perishing souls demand it. Let us pray “the prayer of faith," “the fervent, effectual prayer of a righteous man, that availeth much," that has power with God and with men. For our own sakes let us covet the blessedness of partaking with our blessed Lord, in so far as it be assigned to us, of those sufferings " which are behind." Surely they must live the nearest to Him who most fully share the sympathy that brought Him to this earth, and the burden-bearing that culminated on the cross.
Let us pray the prayer of faith for the immediate coming of the Lord, not in His body, but by His Holy Spirit, to raise the human race to a higher level, and to bring to pass the saying that is written: “Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them."