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  PRAYER CHANGES THINGS
  by Samuel Dickey Gordon
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Gordon's encouragement to the transformative power of prayer, using illustrative
stories showing how prayer affects situations at distance, changes
circumstances, and exercises spiritual authority through Christ's name,
promoting persistent prayer for spiritual transformation.

  Chapters: 18

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. "What Then?"
    2. Chapter 1: Prayer Changes Things
    3. Regrets In Heaven
    4. Six Statements On Prayer
    5. Chapter 2: New Spelling For The Word "Ask"
    6. A New Spelling
    7. "Ask."
    8. Reaching The New Spelling
    9. Jesus As Our Substitute
   10. Winning Back What Was Lost
   11. Exercising New Authority
   12. Using The Name
   13. Chapter 3: Pitching Tent On Olivet
   14. Hearing The Last Word
   15. The Arrangement
   16. A Serious Question
   17. Three Resources
   18. A Long Time Coming

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  CHAPTER 1: "WHAT THEN?"
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"What Then?" Bessie Porter Head.

"He is counting on you." He has need of your life In the thick of the strife;
For that weak one may fall If you fail at His call. He is counting on you, If
you fail Him — What then?

"He is counting on you." On your silver and gold, On that treasure you hold; On
that treasure still kept, Though the doubt o'er you swept. "Is this gold not all
mine?" "Lord, I knew it was Thine." He is counting on you, If you fail Him —
What then?

"He is counting on you." On a love that will share In His burden of prayer; For
the souls He has bought With His life-blood; and sought Through His sorrow and
pain To win "Home" yet again. He is counting on you, If you fail Him — What
then?

"He is counting on you." On life, money and prayer; And "the day shall declare"
If you let Him have all In response to His call; Or if He in that day, To your
sorrow must say, "I had counted on you, But you failed Me" — What then?

"He is counting on you." Oh! the wonder and grace, To look Christ in the face
And not be ashamed; For you gave what He claimed, And you laid down your all For
His sake — at His call. He had counted on you, And you failed not — What then?”

These three Addresses were given at the Annual Meeting of the South African
General Mission April l0th 1910, in King's Hall, Halborn, London.


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  CHAPTER 2: CHAPTER 1: PRAYER CHANGES THINGS
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Chapter 1: Prayer Changes Things I met in England, a lady who told this of bit
of a story. In a book that came into her hand the statement was made that one
might pray here in London, for example, for someone two thousand miles away, and
that something would happen at the other end; that always when one prays
something is happening at the other end, and is changing because of the prayer.
This lady had a brother in India, a long distance away, who was not a Christian,
and she at once thought, " Now, if I pray especially for him, will something
happen? Is this statement of the book true!" She felt led to pray especially for
that brother, that he might come to Christ. She went on praying, day by day,
saying to herself, half wondering as she said it, "Is something happening at the
other end?" and, in her heart, saying, "Something is happening; but I wish I
knew!" By-and-by, in the course of the usual family correspondence, she put this
sentence in the letter to her brother: "Has anything unusual happened to you
lately? "That was the only reference she made to her special praying. Back, in
the course of the mails from India, came a letter from him, saying this: "Yes,
something has happened. Two months ago my thought was turned to God; I do not
know why. It was not any book that I was reading; it was not any sermon that I
heard; I did not go where I would hear sermons; but I do know that my thought
was turned to think about God." He had been trained in a Christian home, he knew
the whole Gospel story, and he now said, "I was led to give my heart to the Lord
Jesus Christ, and as I write to you I am a Christian man." She ran her mind
quickly back over the calendar. The letter said, "Two months ago," and she found
that two months carried the story back to the time when she began her special
praying for her brother. That is, something had happened at the other end. And,
I have no doubt, that as one prays and centers all the power of one's thought
upon, say, South Africa, upon those whom you may name here and there, upon this
station and that, for my part, I am very clear about this: something is
happening in South Africa. And, if it be true that you and I can join in prayer,
or can go aside singly, or in twos, or threes, and pray that something may
happen, something be changed through our prayer, then surely we will get more
time alone with the Master to change things. And if things are not changed that
ought to be, it will be a bit of reproach upon us that it is not so. One's
personal service must always seem very great. It is great. Wherever the Spirit
of the Lord Jesus sways the heart, there is a passion to serve. You speak a word
here, you do a kindly deed there, you conduct a meeting in this place, and you
teach a class yonder. There is a passion to serve, wherever the Master's plan
sways the heart. You must spend and be spent out. And yet, I think, the more we
come in touch with our Lord Jesus Christ, and the more time we spend alone with
His Word, the more we realize this: that we are doing most for man when we go
away from man into the secret place with God. When we are serving — I mean by
that word "serving," direct personal service — it touches just the one place
where we are of course. There is always a limitation in service. But prayer is
peculiar in this: the limitations are gone. I may touch, in my spirit, by my
prayer, different nations. When I go alone to pray, all the limitations of voice
and bodily presence are gone. And I can loosen out the power of God that will
touch a continent, and then a second continent, and more. If we realize that to
be true, as without question it is true, we surely will get more time alone;
time when the mind is fresh and clear, and the spirit is unhurried, time often,
alone with the Master over His Word; and then we will ask, and then He will do.
Although this will always remain true, there will be far more done than we know
about. If we gauge our praying by what we know of the results, we will not do as
much praying as we should. But if we gauge our praying by what the Master says
is happening; and we walk in the dark as far as seeing is concerned, though not
in the dark when we have the light of His face; if we go wholly by His Word, we
will keep on asking and asking for bigger and bigger things.


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  CHAPTER 3: REGRETS IN HEAVEN
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Regrets In Heaven If there be any regrets in heaven — heaven is not supposed to
have any regrets, we think of heaven as having all the regrets turned out and
kept out, — and yet, if there could creep in regrets, I think there would be at
least two, as we look back to the earth-life from the hills of God. One regret
would be this: that we did not do more quiet praying, more claiming. I do not
mean more simple repetition of religious language on our knees, but more
insistent claiming, that the power of the Lord Jesus Christ shall apply here,
and there, over the earth. That will be one regret, if there be regrets: that we
did not ask enough, and did not ask big enough. We will say to ourselves, "What
beggarly askers we were down on the earth!" The second regret, I think, if there
be regrets, will be this: that we did not trust enough, that we did not trust
God enough. We did not step out, when we could not see where to put the foot
down, when He said, "Step out." And if we might rule our lives here by what we
shall think of them when we get yonder, then, I believe, we shall surely wear
down the doorsills into our prayer-rooms. I suggest that we make a very careful
examination of the doorsills going into our prayer-rooms. Some folks' doorsills
into their prayer-rooms are very nicely rounded, as the carpenter made the sill.
And that is a very good sill for the carpenter to make, but not a good doorsill
for a good Christian to retain. The only decent doorsill into the prayer-room of
the Christian man is one that has been flattened down, very very flat, worn
through. I suggest that we make a rather careful examination of that door-sill,
and if it is too big, just proceed to wear it down quietly, faithfully,
day-by-day; and if we wear it down we will find a great wearing up in the lives
of men, wherever our prayers may be turned in and out. I have thought of a word
or two from the Master's lips about prayer. It is very striking that, as the
opposition to our Lord Jesus increased, the intensity of His teaching about
prayer increased. As it became more plain to Him that He was to suffer death, as
the opposition to Himself by the Jerusalem leaders grew more acute and
pronounced than before, He taught more about prayer to His inner circle, and He
said the keenest and the most intense things about its power.


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  CHAPTER 4: SIX STATEMENTS ON PRAYER
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Six Statements On Prayer There are, in the last six months of His life, six
statements about prayer. I think I may take the time to speak just a bit, in
grouping up those six things, because if we could get them afresh in our minds,
and live by them, there would be a new South Africa, there would be a new Japan
— new, in spite of opposition, not the opposition wholly gone, but the victory
rising up through the opposition. Because we would find that prayer gives
victory through opposition. Wherever God goes, Satan goes. Satan always travels
on God's roads; Satan is not a road-builder; he never makes roads; he is always
a thief; he always steals God's pathway. Where the missionary goes with the
message of the Cross, you will always find the evil one stealing along behind
him, hard on his heels, using the road he made. There will be opposition, and
oftentimes the more we pray, the keener the opposition; but in spite of it the
brighter the shining of the sun through the darkening and gathering clouds, and
the greater the victory in the midst of the opposition. "If Two Of You Shall
Agree" The first of these six promises is in Matthew 28:19. It is a word spoken
about six months before the end came. The Master said: "Again I say unto you, —
notice the words as we go along — "that if two of you." There is peculiar power
in corporate prayer. There is marvelous power in individual prayer: but there is
an intensified power when a group of people come together to pray. Two here
means at least two, any number above one. The Divine unit is three; the human
unit is two. The unit of humanity is not a man or a woman, but a man and a
woman. We can understand the Trinity better if we think of our humanity. Just as
it takes two to make the perfect human unit, it takes three to make the perfect
divine unit. Now the Master says there is peculiar power when at least two or
more — the number is indefinitely above one — gather to pray. There is peculiar
power in that corporate prayer. "If two of you shall agree." "Agree" is a music
word. If you symphonize, if the wish of your heart and of the heart by your side
joining with you, if these two perfectly harmonize — no jar, but perfect music
in the two — if two of you make music in the longing of your heart. "If two of
you agree on earth." "On earth" is the place of prayer, because it is the place
of conflict. There is peculiar power in being on the earth. Have you sometimes
wished that the earth-journey was over, and you were in the Master's presence?
Have you said, "How glad I will be when all this fighting and conflict is past,
and I am up around the throne with the redeemed"? Well, it will be wonderful
there with the Master. But, remember this: when we are on the earth, we are in
the place of peculiar, power, because we are in the place of conflict. It is not
the easiest place to live; it is not the most enjoyable place to live. There
will be far more joy yonder, when we see His face, and a wondrous peace; but
this is the place of conflict, and therefore the place of power. We are on the
battlefield here, and every prayer uttered on the battlefield has peculiar
power, because it directly interferes with and hinders the power of the Evil
One. Let us rejoice that we are on the earth, and stay here by His grace just as
long as we can, for this is the place of power in prayer, because it is the
place of conflict. "If two of you make music in your praying down on the
battlefield as touching anything that they shall ask." "Anything!" That does not
quite mean anything, does it? It does not exactly mean any thing, does it? You
put a fence on this side and say, "Of course, these things are left out on that
side." Somebody else puts a fence on this side and says, "Of course certain
things are excluded here." We are very fond of putting a fence around that word
and shutting something out. "It means a great many things, but not exactly
anything," we say; and thus we contradict the Master, and under-cut the power of
His Word by the limitation of our faith. He said, "anything," and He meant
anything. "If two of you agree on earth as touching anything." Mark this, the
Master's meaning was just this: that where two make music with their prayer, and
their music makes music with His heart, where there is perfect agreement upward
and crossward, where there is music with His heart, and within our hearts in the
perfect agreement of our thought and purpose in prayer; there the Master says:
"There is no limit to the things that you may ask for." That is what He is
saying here. "As touching anything that they shall ask" — money things, men
things. The changing of a man's will is the most difficult thing of all. The
loosing out of gold is the most difficult of all, I sometimes think, because it
involves the human will. The last thing a man gives is his pocket-book, or his
cheque-book — that is the last bondage to be freed. He is a wonderfully freed
man who gets freedom from that, and yet even that is included. There is no
slavery like the slavery of gold. "As touching anything that ye shall ask, it
shall" — listen! use your pencil, please, under the word "shall" underscore
"shall" till all your sense of doubt goes. "It shall be done for them of My
Father who is in heaven." Then the reason is given. Why? Because we pray
earnestly? Because we believe? Because we have faith? Those things all count,
but they are not the thing. For where two or three, that is, any number above
one, are gathered together, drawn together, drawn together by the Holy Spirit
moving in their hearts — "Where two or three are gathered together in My name,
there am I in the midst of them." If you want to know how much the word
"anything" means, find out how much that word "I" means. "There am I." If there
be any limitation on the "I," that is a limitation on the "anything." "There am
I in the midst." That is to say, if there are two, there are three; if three
people meet to pray, there are four there. There is at least One more than you
and I can see, and He is taking our prayer and making it His. That is the first
of these six statements on prayer. Removing Mountains Of Difficulty The second
is in the Gospel of Mark. Mark 11:22. It is a word spoken within the last ten
days. It is in connection with the story of the fig tree. The Master spoke to
it, and it withered away at His word, and they marveled. Of course, there is a
meaning in that fig-tree incident, quite apart from the prayer teaching. That
fig-tree incident was practically an acted-out parable for the Israel nation. We
do not get the real meaning of why He should smite the fig tree with death,
except, as we understand that the fig tree stood for the nation of Israel. Their
rejection of the Life brought them death. It is a parable in action. The
disciples marveled at the quickness of the result. The tree withers away —
spoken to in the morning, gone in the evening — as quickly as that. And as they
marvel, the Master says, "Have faith in God." And, please, remember that the
chief factor in prayer is not faith, though that is so essential. The chief
thing is God. The thing to look at is not your faith, but God. Have faith in
Him. Of course, you can have faith in Him! Have faith in God. "Verily I say unto
you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain" — picking out the most
difficult thing in all the world, that a mountain should move off into the sea!
— "Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea." If you live in a mountain
country, or if you can call to your mind a mountain country, you cannot think of
a mountain moving off, of its own accord, into the sea, can you? I can't. I
can't conceive of Mount Washington, or Mount Blanc moving off. I can imagine men
trying to spade and shovel them down. But to see the thing move off! — that is
His illustration. You say it is impossible for that man to be changed, for that
opposition to be turned back, for this thing to change, and that thing to
change. Well, the Master knew how we would be tempted in just that way, and so
He gave this illustration: "Shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and
cast into the sea." Will you notice rather keenly, please, that the prayer
influences the mountain. The mountain is the difficulty, it is the hindrance.
The whole purpose of the prayer is to move the obstacle. The prayer does not
work upward, it works from upward outward; it works from God downward into a
human heart, and outward against the difficulty. "And shall not doubt in his
heart." That is the best definition of faith in the English language. That is
the Master's own definition of faith — shall not doubt in his underneath
thinking. As he kneels to pray and talks very earnestly, he won't find a
sneaking, creeping-in question: "Will this thing come? It is really too much to
expect it to come the way I am asking; I hope it will." "Shall not doubt in his
heart," means shall not laugh behind the flap of the tent, like Sarah of old.
God said, "I will return to this woman of ninety years, and the order of nature
shall be changed, and a son will gladden this tent." And somebody laughed. Sarah
said, "I know that cannot come!" The Master says — shall not laugh behind the
flap of the tent, shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what He
saith cometh to pass, he shall have it — "Therefore I say unto you, all things."
Notice how sweeping that is. All the fencing is gone. "All things whatsoever ye
pray and ask for, or, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."
That Thing In Your Life Then I think we should always read the next verse. It
speaks about forgiveness, but it speaks about more. "Whensoever ye stand praying
forgive, if ye have aught against anyone, Forgive him, that your Father in
heaven may also forgive you." That is to say, as you are bowed in prayer and you
are conscious of anything in your life that is not God-like, it goes out. Prayer
is a great searcher. There is no looking-glass like the knees to reveal the
heart — most folks do not want to see into the heart, for they see too much in
it. But the Master says, " If you find, as you quietly bow in prayer, that thing
there which is not pleasing to Him, it has to go out. If, as you quietly bow in
prayer, the soft Spirit-voice says, "I want you to make this change in your
life," it is made; it is not discussed; you do not argue the matter, but you
make the change. If that quiet Voice says to you, for example, "There is that
bit of property you have, it yields you a very nice income; I want you to put
that on the market and let Me have it, please. I will take care of you, I will
see about your income. Just now the thing I am concerned about," the Voice says,
"is not the income, but the outcome. If you will attend to the outcome, I will
attend to the income." If that quiet Voice says, "You take that bit that you
control, and change it into gold, and use it yonder," you will say, "Yes,
Master, guide me in the best way to get the most for it." You will do as the
Voice says. This is what the Master means here; this is the full touch with Him.
It is far more than forgiveness if we quietly follow Him here. This is the
secret of the "all-things," and the "anythings," and of the "it-shall-be-done."
After Judas Has Gone Out The other "done" statements are in the last long quiet
talk the Master had with those eleven men, after Judas had gone out. That talk
is preserved for us in Chapters 13-17 of John. It begins in John 13 near the end
of the chapter in Joohn 13:31. It says, "After Judas had gone out." Mark that,
the Master does not open His heart, He does not say the most intimate things, He
does not give the freest power for prayer, until Judas has gone out. And there
is a lesson of great force for us there. The Master cannot open His heart fully,
He cannot open His power freely, to us, until any remnant of the Judas thing has
been put forcibly out, and the door is shut against him. And oftentimes if you
find that the answer to prayer is not coming, you would better just light a
lantern, clean the glass of the lantern, and light it, and go hunting around for
bits of Judas, at the time when he may be hanging around the table of the
Master's prayer plan. After Judas has gone out, then the Master seems free, and
He gives those wonderful words that run from John 13:31, to the close of John
16. Greater Things If We Obey In the midst of that talk, in those marvelous
words preserved for us by John, there are just two things that stand out as the
objective, as the driving point of all. The first is this: "You shall do greater
things than I have done." The second is how we will do them: we will do them
through praying. The rest of those chapters lead up to these, that is, I mean,
they are the underlying basis of these. He says: "If ye abide." He says there
must be the most perfect union, He says there must be obedience; and these words
all mean simply this: there must be the most perfect touch of purpose between
Him and me. I abide in Him; that means I obey Him, I obey that quiet inner Voice
which may touch and call for the thing I prize most. I will obey. That is the
underneath current of the whole talk — abide, obey, live in Him, do what He
asks. Now then, as the result of this, we are to ask and He is to do. I will
simply repeat those four great promises. But remember, as I do, that these four
are the peaks of this long talk that runs through John 13-17, including the
prayer, and that all the rest leads up to this. In John 14:13-14, "Whatsoever ye
shall ask in My Name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the
Son. If ye shall ask anything in My name, that will I do." John 15:7 : "If ye
abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will and it shall be
done unto you." John 15:16 : Notice keenly, "Ye did not choose Me." He is not
talking about salvation here, that is settled. It is not a salvation verse, it
is a service verse. He has chosen us for a certain important service. That is
what He is talking about. "Ye did not choose Me. I chose you" for a certain
great purpose of service, "and appointed you that ye should go and bear fruit,
and that your fruit should abide; that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in
My Name, He may give it you." Asking In Jesus' Name The fourth of these four is
found in John 16:23 : "In that day ye shall ask Me no question." They were
asking many questions. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, if ye shall ask anything
of the Father, He will give it you in My Name. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in
My Name." They had asked, they were praying men; but they had not been given the
privilege of asking in that great Name. This is a new step up. "He will give it
you in My Name." "Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My Name. Now ask in that
Name and ye shall receive, and your joy" — how would you feel if all the things
you are asking for, the biggest things, were all to be done? Would there be
singing? If everything that your heart is asking for — for some loved one, for
difficulties in certain personal problems that you have been working on for a
long time — if the whole answer came in a flash now, do you think the roof could
hold the volume of your singing! That is what the Master is saying here — that
your joy may not simply be full, but bubbling over full. The emphasis of that
verse is in John 16:26 : "In that day ye shall ask in My Name; and I do not say
unto you that I would need to ask the Father to listen to you, because the
Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved Me." He now is especially
loving you — "and ye have believed that I come forth from Him." That is, the
Master asks for us — on our behalf, but the Father listens; The Father says,
"What will you have?" and He gives it for the Son's sake.


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  CHAPTER 5: CHAPTER 2: NEW SPELLING FOR THE WORD "ASK"
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Chapter 2: New Spelling For The Word "Ask"


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  CHAPTER 6: A NEW SPELLING
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A New Spelling I want to bring to you a new spelling of the word ask. The old
spelling is A-S-K— ask, but there is a new spelling of that word that is given
to us by our Lord Jesus Christ. If you will notice in the long talk the Master
had with His disciples, on the night in which He was betrayed, He used that word
ask five times; and during those five times that single word becomes the pivot
of the talk in John 13-17. In John 14:13, He says: "Whatsoever ye shall ask in
My Name, that I will do"; John 14:14, "If ye shall ask anything"; John 15:7, "If
ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask"; John 15:16, "Ye have not chosen
Me, but I have chosen you and appointed you that ye should go and bear fruit,
and that your fruit should abide; that whatsoever ye shall ask"; and again in
John 16:23 and John 16:26, the word is


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  CHAPTER 7: "ASK."
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"Ask." I want to couple that with the other "ask," regarding the Son, in Psalms
2:8, which perfectly fits in with these "asks" of John's Gospel: "Ask of Me and
I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of
the earth for thy possession." If we can get the better spelling of that word
ask, I think we may quicken the results in all the foreign fields — in South
Africa, in North Africa, and all the rest of the world, including Britain and
London.


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  CHAPTER 8: REACHING THE NEW SPELLING
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Reaching The New Spelling The new spelling is T-A-K-E — take! The Master's
spelling and our spelling of the word "ask" is T-A-K-E; that is also the
spelling of Calvary and of the Third Morning. Shall I tell you how to reach that
spelling? Three or four or five simple things will make it, I think, quite
clear. When God made man in His image, He gave him mastery of the earth. Man was
the under-master of the earth and all its forces; Genesis 1 and Psalms 8 will
make that quite clear. Man is a master, made in the image of God, to be master
over all this earth; that is the Father's plan in His marvelous love. But the
title to the territory given by God can be held only through obedience; that is
the one law of title-holding in God's Kingdom. Disobedience demits the title;
obedience holds the title. The second thing to note is that man lost his mastery
through disobedience. The tempter's whole thought was this: get man to disobey.
He knows about the title standing in obedience; and so the temptation was simply
this: to disobey the Father's will. Man disobeyed and he not only lost the
dominion but he also became a slave on a practical basis. Third thing: He lost
the dominion to the one whom he obeyed, who is called by our Lord Jesus Christ,
"the prince of this world. " He is not the rightful master, he is not the
rightful prince of the world, because he has been a traitor to God. He is a
traitor-prince, he has stolen the mastery, he is a thief, he is prince of this
world, usurping the power that belongs to us. Fact number four: The Lord Jesus
Christ came, or as I love to put it, God came down Himself in the person of His
Son; because that Man who walked around on the old Palestine soil was without a
doubt God Himself treading in man's shoes. He was given the mastery of the
earth, all afresh by the Father. God gave all things into His hands. "All things
have been delivered unto Me of My Father," the Master plainly says, and that
same fact is repeated four times over in John's Gospel. All things were given
into the Lord Jesus Christ's hands. He was the new Master. Yet He could only
hold His mastery by obedience. Thus the one touchstone of His life was this: He
obeyed; even unto death, aye, the death of the Cross. And I think the great
thing the pretender-prince, the cunning traitor-prince, was aiming to do those
thirtythree and a half years, was to make obedience by our Lord Jesus just as
hard as he could. But Jesus remained true. He held His title by obedience; first
in His life, then in His death; and onward through His resurrection. And when He
went back home — if you run through Ephesians and Colossians and the other
epistles — the title to the earth was confirmed to Him when He returned to His
Father's presence. It was given to Him by the Father; it was held by Him through
His obedience; and now He gives us the right to take what rightly belongs to us,
on the basis of His victory.


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  CHAPTER 9: JESUS AS OUR SUBSTITUTE
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Jesus As Our Substitute We love to talk of our Lord Jesus Christ as our
Substitute. We rightly say that He was acting in our place when He climbed the
hill of the Cross and poured out His life even unto death. He was our Saviour
and bore the brunt of our sins, He acted as our Substitute when He was standing
in our place, and through Him and His precious blood we are free. But we do not
use that word Substitute as much as we should. He was a three-fold Substitute.
First, in His life, by His perfect obedience — in Nazareth, in His narrow
white-washed cottage, in the daily round in the carpenter's shop, making chairs
and yokes and tables, pushing a plane, driving nails, for customers hard to
suit, always obedient to His Father's will in the common humdrum Nazareth life —
our Substitute there. We failed in obedience; He obeyed perfectly in our place
as our Substitute. Then on the Cross He was our Substitute, obeying perfectly,
and perfectly satisfying God's righteousness in view of the awfulness of our
sin. And then on the resurrection morning He rose up because He was obedient; He
held the title by His obedience in the place of the man who had failed, and in
His obedience to death, aye, the shameful, the painful, death of the Cross; not
shrinking, even at that, though it meant far more to Him than any human heart
could ever take in. When He had gained the victory, He held the title to this
earth.


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  CHAPTER 10: WINNING BACK WHAT WAS LOST
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Winning Back What Was Lost I used to wonder, in my ignorance, why the Master,
when He achieved the victory over sin, over Satan, over death, why He didn't
clean the whole thing up, why the old devil should be free these two thousand
years? If Christ were Victor, why not make the victory instantaneous everywhere?
Well, there is a very simple reason. I said He was our Substitute. We were given
the mastery of the earth, but lost our mastery; He came down to win back what we
had lost. We had lost our life; He gave it back through His own life. We lost
our mastery of ourselves; it comes back through Him and His marvelous Holy
Spirit; in the fruit of the Spirit — you remember, the ninth item is
self-mastery— He came down to win back for us our mastery of the earth, the
place where we were made under-masters for God. He is our Substitute. He has won
the dominion of the earth back. "All authority has been given unto Me in Heaven
and over the earth." "Now," He says, "take what I have won for you." When our
missionary friends go back into a village in South Africa where a man sits
possessed by a demon, remember this — and it serves as an illustration for every
other place of the sort in varying degrees — remember this: that bit of ground
belongs to man on behalf of God, to be held for Him. It was lost through
disobedience; it was stolen away by the traitor-prince. But the Lord Jesus
Christ is Victor, and anyone going in Christ's Name has the right to step over
on that ground and say, "I take, in the Name of Jesus Christ, my Substitute, my
Saviour and my Master, I take this bit of the earth, by the authority given unto
me over all the earth; I take this bit of the earth, that my Master has won,
back, in His Name; and I take the lives of these precious men and women and
children, whom my Master has given His own life's blood for." But the taking
must be as deep as your life; it must be as intense as the opposition. Satan is
a stiff fighter; he doesn't give except what he must; the taking must be
definite. Prayer must always be definite. Satan does not give until he must. He
is a mighty stiff fighter. Prayer must be persistent. The taking must be as
insistent as the enemy is persistent, and just a bit more; and that's where the
fight comes. The man whom you are tying to win for God— maybe in London, maybe
your loved one, maybe in North Africa, in South Africa, wherever he is — that
man whom you would have come to Jesus Christ belongs to Him through His victory.
You take him in Jesus Christ the Victor's Name, and insist on taking, and the
rest will always come. The new spelling, the Calvary spelling, of ask, is
T-A-K-E, in Jesus Christ the Victor's Name.


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  CHAPTER 11: EXERCISING NEW AUTHORITY
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Exercising New Authority There is a marvelous bit of verse in Luke 10 that we
ought to mark in our Bibles in gold or any other way that will make it stand
out. Luke 10:19 runs like this, and it is tremendous, "I have given you
authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the
enemy." In my Master's Name I want to speak to every reader personally, and ask
you to think of the field where you are serving, and ask you to think of the
loved ones you would win for Jesus Christ. And, in His Name, I repeat His words
to you: "I, Jesus, have given you authority over all the power of the enemy."
Now use your authority. Have you been doing it? Step in where He leads you.
"Every place where the sole of you foot shall tread upon that have I given you."
Let us take what the Master has won. Ask means taking; it doesn't mean pleading
with God. He is far more eager than we are. It means that in the Name of Jesus
Christ, the bloodstained, the sin-scarred, the Calvary-torn Jesus Christ, in His
Name taking what He has won back. He gave us the right to use His Name, and we
ought to appropriate and take in His Name, house after house, and square foot of
ground after square foot of ground, and man after man, to take these from the
enemy in Christ's great Name. Do you remember, that in the Lord's prayer, the
Master taught us to say "deliver us from evil" — this is the old King James
Version. The better reading makes that personal — not "from evil," but, as in
the revisions, "from the evil one." And that word "deliver" — the word
underneath our English word "deliver," is a picture word. The word "rescue"
would be a perfectly accurate translation. "Rescue us from the evil one." That
is what we are to do in Christ Is Name.


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  CHAPTER 12: USING THE NAME
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Using The Name And, if you will take notice of it, the marvel of that long talk,
that Thursday night talk, recorded in John 13, 14, 15, 16, is that the Master
gave us the right to use His Name, that is, stepping out as He. To use His Name
is to be as Himself, going where He goes! But there are two things that run
through that long talk in John. Everybody cannot use the Master's Name. We find
in chapter 19 of Acts, that some of the Ephesian men tried to use that Name.
They reckoned without their host. The evil spirits knew who had a right to use
that Name; and the evil spirits jumped upon them and tore them and left them
bleeding. They didn't have the right to use that Name. The demon world knows
full well who may use that Name. If you run through that long talk again, you
will find these words — "Abide," "Obey," "If ye love ye will obey," "if ye obey
ye are abiding," "The Father in Me, and I in the Father, you in Me, and I in
you." These words indicate obedience is the one touchstone of using His Name. He
held His mastery through obedience; He won our salvation on the Cross by His
perfect obedience. Now He says, "Follow Me." Obey, simply, quietly, sanely, as a
child obeys. Abide, — obey means abide; abide means obey. Hold the whole life
quietly, simply, fully, subject to His touch; and then you can ask what you
will, you may take what you choose, and the evil one must go. And mark you this,
— obedience is always paired with the word "faith." But I think it helps us to
remember that faith is this: it is knowing that Jesus is the Victor. Have you
any doubt about that? It is not about what He will do, so much as what He has
done. Now I have no doubt in my mind that the Lord Jesus Christ is Victor in His
life, in His death, on the Third Morning, over all the powers of evil. Faith
means that. It is not working my feelings up and saying, "I must believe." It is
just thinking of Jesus. There He is, on the throne — the scars on His face tell
the perfectness of His obedience. That scarred Jesus, that crowned Jesus, I have
feelings no doubt about Him. As I step quietly on where He leads, I may take
what I will, in His Name, life after life, purse after purse, gold after gold
for the need, mules for the wagon for that missionary in South Africa, anything,
and everything, I take in Jesus the Victor's Name. And, because He is Victor,
every hindrance must go before the man that presses forward in His Name.
Recently I was in Sweden. Sitting across the table from me was a missionary from
Tunis. One day she told us this story. She had a friend, a sister missionary in
Algiers. And this sister missionary told her of an Arab woman whom she had been
used to win to Christ. The Arab woman was a Mohammedan, with all the fanaticism,
ignorance and superstition that marks that strange Mohammedan belief or
superstition. This woman was won for Christ, and her family members did their
best to sway her from her new faith. They coaxed, pleaded, argued, and
threatened — made her life miserable, but she showed the quality of her faith by
quietly standing firm for what she knew was right. Then they did what is
characteristic of that people. They concocted a poison, very simple, very
deadly, and put it into her food — of course, secretly. When she had eaten the
meal into which the poison had been introduced, she quickly realized what had
taken place for she felt the poison. She knew full well about the poison, was
aware of the habit of her people to use the poison, and realized how deadly it
was. As she felt the thing in her blood she knew instantly what had happened.
And she knew this: through the poison she was doomed to die. She knew it. You
can easily imagine her feelings as she felt the poison working. It would, first
make the person very irritable and mean in spirit, then very dull, then it would
affect the mind still more, and then the body, until death would come. That was
the course it usually ran. And she was greatly startled, and greatly distressed,
and didn't know what to do. As she sat at the table, I think without planning
it, she commenced to repeat the Name, that great Name. She could not repeat it
aloud, for that would mean persecution by those around her in the house and in
the family. And so to herself, with all the intensity of one who felt the
sentence of death in her body, she commenced to repeat that marvelous Name,
above every name, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus." And for two days or three — my friend
was not sure which — the struggle with the poison continued. But it gradually
receded from her body and blood, the family watching her with strange and
apprehensive eyes. This was something new. The poison had never failed before,
but it was failing this time. As she herself told the story to the missionary,
she said, "I felt as though each time I said that Name, there was something like
a wave of life that swept through me, but in between a wave like death." And the
conflict continued between life and death for those days, but the death becoming
less and the life more, until at the end of the second day, or the third, she
was free, to her family's utter astonishment and to her own great joy. That was
a victory in the body, a possible thing as the Holy Spirit guides, but only a
small bit of the larger possibility. We have the right, as we are simply
obedient, to use that Name. As we use it under the marvelous Holy Spirit's
guidance, going step by step as He leads, we may take out of the hand of the
evil one, men, and women, and property, and gold, and all that we need, because
the Lord Jesus has said, "All authority hath been given unto Me over all the
earth." Shall we take, in Jesus' Name, what belongs to us by the right of His
death and resurrection?


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  CHAPTER 13: CHAPTER 3: PITCHING TENT ON OLIVET
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Chapter 3: Pitching Tent On Olivet Do you remember the last time that the Master
was with His disciples? I don't know what time of the day it was. It may have
been in the early morning when the dew was fresh on all the flowers and the
grass. It may have been in the evening time in the twilight. They have been down
in the city together. The Master said, "Let us take a walk," and they walk down
the narrow city street, and out the gate, and up the hill, and now they are on
Olivet's top. There the Master says the last word that He spoke; and there I
want you, for a moment, to take your stand with the Master on Olivet's top. A
man should live with his tent pitched on Olivet, the place with the ringing cry
of "All power." You cannot stand on Olivet without seeing, down yonder, a bunch
of trees in a depression of the ground; and you know that is Gethsemane, where
the touch of sin, in anticipation, came so strong as almost to bear the Master
down; where the strain of spirit was so great, as He thought of coming into
touch with sin — aye, of becoming sin for us — that the thread of life almost
snapped, and special prayer had to be made that the life might be held till the
great service was done. Olivet always includes in its perspective yonder
Gethsemane, the place of the lone soul struggle, because of the sin of the
world. Then beyond is the old grey wall of the city, you can see it a bit, and
there just outside is Calvary, where the Man of the race, who was more than man,
climbed the hill of the Cross, and took our place, acted as our Substitute, in
our stead, and with the keenest pain of body, and yet keener pain of spirit,
until His heart broke, poured out His life-blood for all men, and for us and for
our sin. And over on the other side is Bethany, the place that had the prophetic
glimpse of the marvelous resurrection power of the Lord Jesus Christ.


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  CHAPTER 14: HEARING THE LAST WORD
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Hearing The Last Word We want to step, just a moment, to Olivet and hear the
Master's last word. But remember this: you cannot stand on Olivet without seeing
Gethsemane, and seeing Calvary, — suffering spelled out twice to the deepest
degree; and seeing Bethany, — power spelled out prophetically beyond what mere
man has ever known. It is the last time they are together. He's going away — but
coming back pretty soon, they understand. They don't know just how soon; but
they do know this, that while He is gone they are to be as He, they are to take
His place. And so they stand, eagerly looking into His face, and listening for
His words, and wondering what the last word will be. There's Peter, the man of
rock, who slipped so badly, but who came back and was forgiven. There are John
and James, the sons of thunder and of fire, who are to burn their lives out now
for their Master. Here is the guileless man, and the others, grouped around the
Master. But you hardly notice them, if you notice them at all. Your face quickly
turns to Him, the Man in the midst, with a face torn by the thorns and cut by
the thorns, scarred and marred by suffering for sin — other men's sin, but with
a wondrous glory-light shining out of eyes and face. And, as they listen, the
Master says this — it is His last word, it contains the whole pent-up passion of
His heart, it should be the first word with every follower of His. Simply it is,
"Go ye." "All power hath been given unto Me, therefore go ye, and make disciples
of all the nations." While that word is ringing in their ears, they are startled
to notice that His feet are off the ground, and He keeps moving up, and up, and
up, by a new law of gravitation upward, until by and by a cloud — not a rain
cloud — a glory cloud, sweeps down out of the blue and conceals His form. And,
as He goes away, the one word that rings and burns in ear and heart is this, "Go
ye. All of you go. Go to all. Go with all you have. Go all the time there is.
Because I have the power, you go, in My power, out to the farthest reach of the
earth."


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  CHAPTER 15: THE ARRANGEMENT
========================================================================

The Arrangement A friend in my country has supposed the scene that he thinks
might have taken place when the Master went back. The last you and I see is the
glory cloud that sweeps down out of the blue and conceals His form. And the old
earth has not seen Him since, though the Book does say this: that some day He's
coming back in just the same way as He went. Some of us are very strongly
inclined to believe it will be exactly as the Master said, in that regard, and
the time may be not so far off as some think. But have you thought of what took
place on the other, the upper side, the glory side of the cloud? He's been down
there a long time, over thirty years away from home; and they're fairly hungry
for or a look at the blessed face of the Master again. Talking in human
language, I have imagined them coming down to where they might catch the first
glimpse of face and form. The friend I speak of has imagined this: that after
the first flush of feeling has spent itself, — this is the way we would talk
about such things on earth — and the master is walking down the golden street,
with Gabriel, talking earnestly, quietly, Gabriel says, "Master, you died for
the whole world, did you not?" "Yes." "You must have suffered very much." "Aye,
Gabriel, I cannot talk about that even to you; it goes too deep." "And do they
all know about it down there?" "Oh, no; just a little handful in Syria know
about it thus far." "Well, Master, what is your plan? What plan have you made to
tell the world that you have died for them? What arrangements have you made?"
And the Master is supposed to reply, "Well, I asked Peter, and James, and John,
and some more of them down there, just to go and make it the business of their
lives to tell the others. And the others are to tell others, and the others yet
others, and still others beyond, till the last man in the farthest reach has
heard the story, and has been caught, thrilled and thralled by the power of it."


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  CHAPTER 16: A SERIOUS QUESTION
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A Serious Question And you know, Gabriel knows us folks pretty well. We are no
strangers to him. He has made more than one journey to the earth, and knows the
kind of stuff that is in us folk down here. His brow knits a bit, and he looks a
bit troubled, as if he could see difficulty in the Master's plan. And he says,
"Yes, but, Master, suppose, after a while, Peter forgets. Suppose John, after a
bit, loses his enthusiasm, and simply doesn't tell the others. Suppose their
successors away down there in the twentieth century get so busy with things —
some of them good things: church things maybe; some of them may not be quite so
proper things — suppose they get so busy that they do not tell the others, what
then?" And his eyes are big with their eagerness, for he is thinking of the
suffering; and he is thinking, too, of the difference to the man who doesn't
know about the suffering and the dying. "What then?" And back comes that quiet
voice of the Lord Jesus. Nobody ever talked so quietly as He. He says, "Gabriel,
I haven't made any other plans. I am counting on them. That is a bit of this
friend's imagination, it is quite true; but it is the Gospel story, page after
page. The Master has made that plan; He has not made any other plan; He's
counting on us. I think if I could emphasize one sentence more than another, it
would be that sentence, He's counting on us, each in his own sphere, in his own
place, as comes best to you. Simply that, but all of that. And as you listen
with your hearts — if you fail Him, if someone fails the Lord Jesus in making
the one dominant purpose of his life telling the others, if you fail — just that
far, you make the Lord Jesus Christ's dying a failure practically, so far as
concerns those whom you touch, or whom you can touch. Yes, I know that sounds
serious. I'd rather not be saying it. But I am sure; by the Book it is true; and
I know only what I find in the Book. And so the Master is counting on us.


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  CHAPTER 17: THREE RESOURCES
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Three Resources He has given to us three things, at least, to use in carrying
out His plan. He has given us, first, the life — what we are. The greatest thing
any man has is his life. And, even though you stay here, your life is the
greatest thing you have in reaching both the world you touch directly, and the
whole world you cannot touch directly. First, the life; what we are, simply, in
a pure, clean, sweet, unselfish Christ-controlled life. He has given us a second
thing — gold, what we possess, the power to earn. It is a marvelous trust. Gold
has a strange power of transmutation. By the golden finger a man can reach
around the whole world. It is a strange power; and I think the Church of Christ
has never begun to realize the power there is in gold. It is almost omnipotent
today. When you get beyond the line of this life, it is utterly worthless —
simply to be cast out like the saltless salt, and no more. But now it is almost
omnipotent. He has given us a third thing, and that is prayer, which I want to
define anew in this way, — the power to take, in the Lord Jesus' Name, what He
has won. And the Master is counting on us to use the life, and the gold
committed to our trust, and the power of prayer, to go out and take! to the very
end of the earth. I remember my heart catching fire, one time, as a friend told
me a very simple tale of one of our southern American cities. It was during a
time before our civil war, when the sanitary conditions in the south were very
poor. A plague came to a city, a plague of disease, and wrought great havoc. The
city's death-cart was rolling in the streets almost all the time; and hardly a
home but had the tear, and the sorrow, and the vacant room and the empty chair.
Into one very poor home the disease came and did very rapid work. They were all
carried out, one after another, until there remained a mother — the mother and
her baby boy, of five years, it may be, or so. The story says that he crept up
on his mother's knee, with his baby face very close to hers, and he said,
"Mother, father's dead, and brothers and sister are dead. Suppose you die! What
will I do?" What could she say, with the face so close to hers? She must keep
brave. Her heart had thought of it. What could she say? She was a Christian
woman, and as she swallowed hard, she said, as quietly as she could, "My boy, if
I should die, the Lord Jesus will come for you." And that was quite satisfactory
to him. He had been trained from the earliest months, to know about this
Saviour, how good He was. The boy went about his playing on the floor, thinking,
"It is all fixed. If mother should die, Jesus will come, and that will be all
right." And his question proved all too prophetic. The disease did quick work;
they were carrying her away; he followed and saw where she was laid. He came
back to the house, and in the excitement of the time he was forgotten, and was
left alone in the poor humble home. He tried to sleep that night, but couldn't,
so rose and dressed himself as best he could. He found his way down the street
and out upon the road to where they had laid her. Finding the spot, he threw
himself down upon the freshly thrown-up earth, and wept until nature kindly
stole away his consciousness in sleep. Early the next morning, just at the break
of day, a Christian gentleman was coming down the road from some errand of mercy
that had kept him out all the night. As he came along the road, past the
graveyard, he saw the boy and quickly guessed the heart-breaking story. He
called him and said, "My boy, what are you doing here?" The boy raised himself,
rubbed his eyes, and said, "Well, father is dead, and brothers and sister dead,
and now mother's dead! and she said that if she did die, Jesus would come for
me. And He hasn't come, and I'm tired waiting." And the man swallowed hard; and
then said very quietly, as he tried to control his voice, "Well, my boy, I've
come for you." And the boy looked up with his baby eyes big, and said, "You've
been a long time coming!"


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  CHAPTER 18: A LONG TIME COMING
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A Long Time Coming When I listen to my missionary friends, there comes before my
eyes a vision that keeps coming all the while, and I cannot get rid of it, day
and night — I don't want to — a great sea of faces from South Africa, and North
Africa, from Japan, and China, and India, and the Levant, and South America, and
the Isles of the Sea; a great crowd of brothers, with their eyes big, and their
faces gaunt, from the hunger of their lives, and their hands outstretched. And
they say, "You are a long time coming!" Over against that vision, there is the
other of the Man with the scarred face, on Olivet. And the two are answering
each other: "Go ye" — "You are a long time coming!" I wish we might quietly bow
in prayer and say, "Master, all anew we will give ourselves to Thee, to send, to
give, to obey as Thou shalt lead, that this cry of hungering nations may be
stopped, and they may have the wondrous Jesus Christ." As we quietly pray shall
we just continue those two visions before our face — the Master, who is our
Master, with His ringing cry, "Go ye"; and then the other cry coming up from our
blood-brothers of the far-away lands, "You are a long time coming." And I
suggest that we might make this prayer just in secret, "Lord Jesus, I will obey
Thy voice with my life. Teach me what 'obey' means. I'll obey with life, and
gold, and all the power Thou dost give. Lord Jesus, I will plan to put prayer
first, and to take what Thou hast won, as Thy Spirit guides, day by day. First,
to obey; and, second, to pray. I will hold everything I am, and everything I
have, subject to Thy call, as Thy Spirit shall guide. Nearer my God to Thee,
Nearer to Thee; E'en though it be a cross, That raiseth me."


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/prayer-changes-things/
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