X. Answered Prayer
In his "Soldier's Pocket Book," Lord Wolseley says if a young
officer wishes to get on, he must volunteer for the most hazardous duties and
take every possible chance of risking his life. It was a spirit and courage
like that which was shown in the service of God by a good soldier of Jesus
Christ named John McKenzie who died a few years ago. One evening when he was a
lad and eager for work in the Foreign Mission field he knelt down at the foot
of a tree in the Ladies' Walk on the banks of the Lossie at Elgin and offered
up this prayer: "O Lord send me to the darkest spot on earth." And God heard
him and sent him to South Africa where he laboured many years first under the
London Missionary Society and then under the British Government as the first
Resident Commissioner among the natives of Bechuanaland. -- J.O.
STRUTHERS
IT is answered prayer which brings praying out of the realm of dry, dead
things, and makes praying a thing of life and power. It is the answer to prayer
which brings things to pass, changes the natural trend of things, and orders
all things according to the will of God. It is the answer to prayer which takes
praying out of the regions of fanaticism, and saves it from being Eutopian, or
from being merely fanciful. It is the answer to prayer which makes praying a
power for God and for man, and makes praying real and divine. Unanswered
prayers are training schools for unbelief, an imposition and a nuisance, an
impertinence to God and to man.
Answers to prayer are the only surety that we
have prayed aright. What marvellous power there is in prayer! What untold
miracles it works in this world! What untold benefits to men does it secure to
those who pray! Why is it that the average prayer by the million goes a begging
for an answer?
The millions of unanswered prayers are not to be
solved by the mystery of God's will. We are not the sport of His sovereign
power. He is not playing at "make-believe" in His marvellous promises to answer
prayer. The whole explanation is found in our wrong praying. "We ask and
receive not because we ask amiss." If all unanswered prayers were dumped into
the ocean, they would come very near filling it. Child of God, can you pray?
Are your prayers answered? If not, why not? Answered prayer is the proof of
your real praying.
The efficacy of prayer from a Bible standpoint
lies solely in the answer to prayer. The benefit of prayer has been well and
popularly maximized by the saying, "It moves the arm which moves the universe."
To get unquestioned answers to prayer is not only important as to the
satisfying of our desires, but is the evidence of our abiding in Christ. It
becomes more important still. The mere act of praying is no test of our
relation to God. The act of praying may be a real dead performance. It may be
the routine of habit. But to pray and receive clear answers, not once or twice,
but daily, this is the sure test, and is the gracious point of our vital
connection with Jesus Christ.
Read our Lord's words in this connection:
"If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye
shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."
To God and to man, the answer to prayer is the
all-important part of our praying. The answer to prayer, direct and
unmistakable, is the evidence of God's being. It proves that God lives, that
there is a God, an intelligent being, who is interested in His creatures, and
who listens to them when they approach Him in prayer. There is no proof so
clear and demonstrative that God exists than prayer and its answer. This was
Elijah's plea: "Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou
art the Lord God."
The answer to prayer is the part of prayer which
glorifies God. Unanswered prayers are dumb oracles which leave the praying ones
in darkness, doubt and bewilderment, and which carry no conviction to the
unbeliever. It is not the act or the attitude of praying which gives efficacy
to prayer. It is not abject prostration of the body before God, the vehement or
quiet utterance to God, the exquisite beauty and poetry of the diction of our
prayers, which do the deed. It is not the marvellous array of argument and
eloquence in praying which makes prayer effectual. Not one or all of these are
the things which glorify God. It is the answer which brings glory to His
Name.
Elijah might have prayed on Carmel's heights till
this good day with all the fire and energy of his soul, and if no answer had
been given, no glory would have come to God. Peter might have shut himself up
with Dorcas' dead body till he himself died on his knees, and if no answer had
come, no glory to God nor good to man would have followed, but only doubt,
blight and dismay.
Answer to prayer is the convincing proof of our
right relations to God. Jesus said at the grave of Lazarus:
"Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
"And I knew that thou hearest me always, but
because of the people that stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou
hast sent me."
The answer of His prayer was the proof of His
mission from God, as the answer to Elijah's prayer was made to the woman whose
son he raised to life. She said, "Now by this I know that thou art a man of
God." He is highest in the favour of God who has the readiest access and the
greatest number of answers to prayer from Almighty God.
Prayer ascends to God by an invariable law, even
by more than law, by the will, the promise and the presence of a personal God.
The answer comes back to earth by all the promise, the truth, the power and the
love of God.
Not to be concerned about the answer to prayer is
not to pray. What a world of waste there is in praying. What myriads of prayers
have been offered for which no answer is returned, no answer longed for, and no
answer is expected! We have been nurturing a false faith and hiding the shame
of our loss and inability to pray, by the false, comforting plea that God does
not answer directly or objectively, but indirectly and subjectively. We have
persuaded ourselves that by some kind of hocus pocus of which we are wholly
unconscious in its process and its results, we have been made better. Conscious
that God has not answered us directly, we have solaced ourselves with the
delusive unction that God has in some impalpable way, and with unknown results,
given us something better. Or we have comforted and nurtured our spiritual
sloth by saying that it is not God's will to give it to us. Faith teaches God's
praying ones that it is God's will to answer prayer. God answers all prayers
and every prayer of His true children who truly pray.
"Prayer makes the
darkened cloud withdraw,
Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw;
Gives exercise to faith and love,
Brings every blessing from above."
The emphasis in the Scriptures is always given to
the answer to prayer. All things from God are given in answer to prayer. God
Himself, His presence, His gifts and His grace, one and all, are secured by
prayer. The medium by which God communicates with men is prayer. The most real
thing in prayer, its very essential end, is the answer it secures. The mere
repetition of words in prayer, the counting of beads, the multiplying mere
words of prayer, as works of supererogation, as if there was virtue in the
number of prayers to avail, is a vain delusion, an empty thing, a useless
service. Prayer looks directly to securing an answer. This is its design. It
has no other end in view.
Communion with God of course is in prayer. There
is sweet fellowship there with our God through His Holy Spirit. Enjoyment of
God there is in praying, sweet, rich and strong. The graces of the Spirit in
the inner soul are nurtured by prayer, kept alive and promoted in their growth
by this spiritual exercise. But not one nor all of these benefits of prayer
have in them the essential end of prayer. The divinely appointed channel
through which all good and all grace flows to our souls and bodies is
prayer.
"Prayer is
appointed to convey
The blessings God designs to give."
Prayer is divinely ordained as the means by which
all temporal and spiritual good are gained to us. Prayer is not an end in
itself. It is not something done to be rested in, something we have done, about
which we are to congratulate ourselves. It is a means to an end. It is
something we do which brings us something in return, without which the praying
is valueless. Prayer always aims at securing an answer.
We are rich and strong, good and holy, beneficent
and benignant, by answered prayer. It is not the mere performance, the
attitude, nor the words of prayer, which bring benefit to us, but it is the
answer sent direct from heaven. Conscious, real answers to prayer bring real
good to us. This is not praying merely for self, or simply for selfish ends.
The selfish character cannot exist when the prayer conditions are fulfilled.
It is by these answered prayers that human nature
is enriched. The answered prayer brings us into constant and conscious
communion with God, awakens and enlarges gratitude, and excites the melody and
lofty inspiration of praise. Answered prayer is the mark of God in our praying.
It is the exchange with heaven, and it establishes and realizes a relationship
with the unseen. We give our prayers in exchange for the Divine blessing. God
accepts our prayers through the atoning blood and gives Himself, His presence
and His grace in return.
All holy affections are affected by answered
prayers. By the answers to prayer all holy principles are matured, and faith,
love and hope have their enrichment by answered prayer. The answer is found in
all true praying. The answer is in prayer strongly as an aim, a desire
expressed, and its expectation and realization give importunity and realization
to prayer. It is the fact of the answer which makes the prayer, and which
enters into its very being. To seek no answer to prayer takes the desire, the
aim, and the heart out of prayer. It makes praying a dead, stockish thing, fit
only for dumb idols. It is the answer which brings praying into Bible regions,
and makes it a desire realized, a pursuit, an interest, that clothes it with
flesh and blood, and makes it a prayer, throbbing with all the true life of
prayer, affluent with all the paternal relations of giving and receiving, of
asking and answering.
God holds all good in His own hands. That good
comes to us through our Lord Jesus Christ because of His all atoning merits, by
asking it in His name. The only and the sole command in which all the others of
its class belong, is "Ask, seek, knock." And the one and sole promise is its
counterpart, its necessary equivalent and results: "It shall be given -- ye
shall find -- it shall be opened unto you."
God is so much involved in prayer and its hearing
and answering, that all of His attributes and His whole being are centered in
that great fact. It distinguishes Him as peculiarly beneficent, wonderfully
good, and powerfully attractive in His nature. "O thou that hearest prayer! To
thee shall all flesh come."
"Faithful, O Lord,
Thy mercies are
A
rock that cannot move;
A thousand promises
declare
Thy
constancy of love."
Not only does the Word of God stand surety for
the answer to prayer, but all the attributes of God conspire to the same end.
God's veracity is at stake in the engagements to answer prayer. His wisdom, His
truthfulness and His goodness are involved. God's infinite and inflexible
rectitude is pledged to the great end of answering the prayers of those who
call upon Him in time of need. Justice and mercy blend into oneness to secure
the answer to prayer. It is significant that the very justice of God comes into
play and stands hard by God's faithfulness in the strong promise God makes of
the pardon of sins and of cleansing from sin's pollutions:
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
God's kingly relation to man, with all of its
authority, unites with the fatherly relation and with all of its tenderness to
secure the answer to prayer.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is most fully committed to
the answer of prayer. "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that
the Father may be glorified in the Son." How well assured the answer to prayer
is, when that answer is to glorify God the Father! And how eager Jesus Christ
is to glorify His Father in heaven! So eager is He to answer prayer which
always and everywhere brings glory to the Father, that no prayer offered in His
name is denied or overlooked by Him. Says our Lord Jesus Christ again, giving
fresh assurance to our faith, "If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do
it." So says He once more, "Ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto
you."
"Come, my soul, thy
suit prepare,
Jesus loves to answer prayer;
He Himself has bid thee pray,
Therefore will not say thee nay."