XI. Answered Prayer (Continued)
Constrained at the darkest hour to confess humbly that without
God's help I was helpless, I vowed a vow in the forest solitude that I would
confess His aid before men. A silence as a death was around me; it was
midnight, I was weakened by illness, prostrated with fatigue and worn with
anxiety for my white and black companions, whose fate was a mystery. In this
physical and mental distress I besought God to give me back my people. Nine
hours later we were exulting with rapturous joy. In full view of all was the
crimson flag with the crescent and beneath its waving folds was the long-lost
rear column. -- HENRY M. STANLEY
GOD has committed Himself to us by His Word in our praying. The Word of God is
the basis and the inspiration and the heart of prayer. Jesus Christ stands as
the illustration of God's Word, its illimitable good in promise as well as in
realization. God takes nothing by halves. He gives nothing by halves. We can
have the whole of Him when He has the whole of us. His words of promise are so
far-reaching, and so all-comprehending, that they seem to have deadened our
comprehension and have paralyzed our praying. This appears when we consider
those large words, when He almost exhausts human language in promises, as in
"whatever," "anything," and in the all-inclusive "whatsoever," and "all
things." These oft-repeated promises, so very great, seem to daze us, and
instead of allowing them to move us to asking, testing, and receiving, we turn
away full of wonder, but empty handed and with empty hearts.
We quote another passage from our Lord's
teaching about prayer. By the most solemn verification, He declares as
follows:
"And in that day ye shall ask me nothing; Verily,
Verily, I say unto you: Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will
give it to you.
"Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name. Ask,
and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full."
Twice in this passage He declares the answer, and
pledging His Father, "He will give it to you," and declaring with impressive
and most suggestive iteration, "Ask, and ye shall receive." So strong and so
often did Jesus declare and repeat the answer as an inducement to pray, and as
an inevitable result of prayer, the Apostles held it as so fully and invincibly
established, that prayer would be answered, they held it to be their main duty
to urge and command men to pray. So firmly were they established as to the
truth of the law of prayer as laid down by our Lord, that they were led to
affirm that the answer to prayer was involved in and necessarily bound up with
all right praying. God the Father and Jesus Christ, His Son, are both strongly
committed by all the truth of their word and by the fidelity of their
character, to answer prayer.
Not only do these and all the promises pledge
Almighty God to answer prayer, but they assure us that the answer will be
specific, and that the very thing for which we pray will be given.
Our Lord's invariable teaching was that we
receive that for which we ask, and obtain that for which we seek, and have that
door opened at which we knock. This is according to our Heavenly Father's
direction to us, and His giving to us for our asking. He will not disappoint us
by not answering, neither will He deny us by giving us some other thing for
which we have not asked, or by letting us find some other thing for which we
have not sought, or by opening to us the wrong door, at which we were not
knocking. If we ask bread, He will give us bread. If we ask an egg, He will
give us an egg. If we ask a fish, He will give us a fish. Not something like
bread, but bread itself will be given unto us. Not something like a fish, but a
fish will be given. Not evil will be given us in answer to prayer, but good.
Earthly parents, though evil in nature, give for
the asking, and answer to the crying of their children. The encouragement to
prayer is transferred from our earthly father to our Heavenly Father, from the
evil to the good, to the supremely good; from the weak to the omnipotent, our
Heavenly Father, centering in Himself all the highest conceptions of
Fatherhood, abler, readier, and much more than the best, and much more than the
ablest earthly father. "How much more," who can tell? Much more than our
earthly father, will He supply all our needs, give us all good things, and
enable us to meet every difficult duty and fulfill every law, though hard to
flesh and blood, but made easy under the full supply of our Father's beneficent
and exhaustless help.
Here we have in symbol and as initial, more than
an intimation of the necessity, not only of perseverance in prayer, but of the
progressive stages of intentness and effort in the outlay of increasing
spiritual force. Asking, seeking, and knocking. Here is an ascending scale from
the mere words of asking, to a settled attitude of seeking, resulting in a
determined, clamorous and vigorous direct effort of praying.
Just as God has commanded us to pray always, to
pray everywhere, and to pray in everything, so He will answer always,
everywhere and in everything.
God has plainly and with directness committed
Himself to answer prayer. If we fulfill the conditions of prayer, the answer is
bound to come. The laws of nature are not so invariable and so inexorable as
the promised answer to pray. The ordinances of nature might fail, but the
ordinances of grace can never fail. There are no limitations, no adverse
conditions, no weakness, no inability, which can or will hinder the answer to
prayer. God's doing for us when we pray has no limitations, is not hedged
about, by provisos in Himself, or in the peculiar circumstances of any
particular case. If we really pray, God masters and defies all things and is
above all conditions.
God explicitly says, "Call unto me, and I will
answer." There are no limitations, no hedges, no hindrances in the way of God
fulfilling the promise. His word is at stake. His word is involved. God
solemnly engages to answer prayer. Man is to look for the answer, be inspired
by the expectation of the answer, and may with humble boldness demand the
answer. God, who cannot lie, is bound to answer. He has voluntarily placed
Himself under obligation to answer the prayer of him who truly prays.
"To God your every
want
In
instant prayer display;
Pray always; pray,
and never faint;
Pray,
without ceasing, pray.
"In fellowship, alone,
To
God with faith draw near;
Approach His
courts, beseech His throne,
With
all the power of prayer."
The prophets and the men of God of Old Testament
times were unshaken in their faith in the absolute certainty of God fulfilling
His promises to them. They rested in security on the word of God, and had no
doubt whatever either as to the fidelity of God in answering prayer or of His
willingness or ability. So that their history is marked by repeated asking and
receiving at the hands of God,
The same is true of the early Church. They
received without question the doctrine their Lord and Master had so often
affirmed that the answer to prayer was sure. The certainty of the answer to
prayer was as fixed as God's Word was true. The Holy Ghost dispensation was
ushered in by the disciples carrying this faith into practice. When Jesus told
them to "Tarry at Jerusalem till they were endued with power from on high,"
they received it as a sure promise that if they obeyed the command, they would
certainly receive the Divine power. So in prayer for ten days they tarried in
the upper room, and the promise was fulfilled. The answer came just as Jesus
said.
So when Peter and John were arrested for healing
the man who sat at the beautiful gate of the temple, after being threatened by
the rulers in Jerusalem, they were released. "And being let go, they went to
their own company," they went to those with whom they were in affinity, those
of like minds, and not to men of the world. Still believing in prayer and its
efficacy, they gave themselves to prayer, the prayer itself being recorded in
Acts, chapter four. They recited some things to the Lord, and "when they had
prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together, and they were
filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness."
Here they were refilled for this special occasion
with the Holy Ghost. The answer to prayer responded to their faith and prayer.
The fullness of the Spirit always brings boldness. The cure for fear in the
face of threatenings of the enemies of the Lord is being filled with the
Spirit. This gives power to speak the word of the Lord with boldness. This
gives courage and drives away fear.